Today's Headlines - more at Metro

3/26/2012

Expo Line Opening, DesertXpress, Gas Prices, LA Traffic Lights, Positive Train Control & More

$275 Million I-5 Project Aims To Ease South O.C. Traffic
Orange County Register

$4.9 Billion Loan In The Works For Bullet Train From Victorville To Vegas
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Amtrak To More Than Triple The Number Of Track-Miles Equipped With Positive Train Control
(link to PDF)
Amtrak Press Release

Avoiding Logical Fallacies In Planning
Planetizen

Bid To Appease Bullet Train Critics May Violate Law
Los Angeles Times

Buses To Get Longer Yellow Lights Between Torrance And Long Beach
Daily Breeze

Capital Bikeshare Both Replaces And Promotes Transit Trips
StreetsBlog Network

Expo Line Opening Date Is April 28: Two Years Behind Schedule And $292 Million Over Budget
LA Weekly

Expo Line Opens Next Month; But Please, Metro, Change The Name
Franklin Avenue

Expo Line Opens To La Cienega April 28, Take A Ride With Us (numerous photos from press event Friday, March 23)
Curbed LA

Expo Line's Opening Date Finally Set
Los Angeles Times

Expo Opening Date Announced: Downtown To La Cienega On April 28
StreetsBlog LA

Federal Transportation Programs, Funding To Be Extended This Week
Transportation Issues Daily

Gas Price Debate Complicates Dems' Case Against Short-Term Highway Bill
The Hill

Gold Line Bridge Completes Major Phase Of Construction
Pasadena Star-News

GOP Budget Would Cut Transpo To The Bone
StreetsBlog DC

High Gas Prices Pinch CA College Students' Budgets ("Perhaps the hardest hit group of students, though, are the 2.5 million who attend California's 112 community colleges. Only 11 campuses have student housing, which means almost everyone commutes.On a recent day at Pasadena City College, the campus' multilevel garage was filled to capacity before noon, with a long line of cars, engines idling, waiting to get in.")
Silicon Valley Mercury News

House GOP Proposes 36% Cut To Transportation Funding
Transportation Issues Daily

In Long Beach, City Looks At Removing Terminal Island Freeway
StreetsBlog LA

Industry Seeks Relief For Valley Boulevard Gridlock ("The City Council Thursday morning voted to solicit bids for a $900,000 Advanced Traffic Management System that would be linked to LA County's.")
Walnut Patch

L.A. Traffic Signals Are Finally Getting In Sync ("Workers are finishing the final links in a network that will synchronize more than 4,000 traffic signals across the city to reduce drive time and pollution. The citywide system, which also includes video cameras along major transit corridors, dates back nearly three decades to the 1984 Olympics, when signals near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were synced to help with the traffic load.")
Los Angeles Daily News

L.A.'s Westside Subway Is Practically Ready For Construction, But Its Completion Could Be 25 Years Off
The Transport Politic

Mayor Villaraigosa Urges U.S. House To Fund Transportation For The Long Haul
San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Metro Rail Line To La Cienega Open April 28
KABC Los Angeles

Mica Calls Boxer His "Soul Mate" In Defense Of His Highway Bill Role
The Hill

New Report: Road Congestion Wastes 1.9 Billion Gallons Of Gas
USA Today
A New Economic Analysis Of Infrastructure Investment (36p. PDF : "Traffic congestion on our roads results in 1.9 billion gallons of gas wasted per year, and costs drivers over $100 billion in wasted fuel and lost time. More efficient air traffic control systems would save three billion gallons of jet fuel a year, translating into lower costs for consumers. Finally, new research indicates that Americans who were able to live in “location efficient” housing were able to save $200 per month in lower costs, including paying less at the pump, over the past decade.")
U.S. Department Of The Treasury / Council Of Economic Advisers

New WHO Tool Calculates The Health Savings Of Bike/Ped Infrastructure
StreetsBlog DC

Obama: "Common Sense" For House To Pass Senate Transportation Bill (includes video from weekly radio address)
The Hill

Obama Warns Of Economic Hit If Transport Bill Not Passed
Chicago Tribune

Op-Ed: A Wider View Of Area Transit Challenges
Pasadena Star-News

Opinion: Expo Line To Fill An L.A. Gap ("Geographic quibbling, of course, matters less than whether people will actually ride this $930-million train, and whether it will speed their trips. The answer: Yes, sort of.")
Los Angeles Times

Opinion: When A Parking Lot Is So Much More ("It’s estimated that there are three nonresidential parking spaces for every car in the United States. That adds up to almost 800 million parking spaces, covering about 4,360 square miles — an area larger than Puerto Rico. In some cities, like Orlando and Los Angeles, parking lots are estimated to cover at least one-third of the land area, making them one of the most salient landscape features of the built world...Since cars are immobile 95 percent of the time, you could plausibly argue that a Prius and a Hummer have much the same environmental impact: both occupy the same 9-by-18-foot rectangle of paved space.")
New York Times

S.F. Transit Agency's Plan To Speed Muni Service
San Francisco Chronicle

Should We Pay People To Drive Off-Peak?
The Atlantic: Cities

U.S. DOT Bus Safety App Is As Clear As A Blind Curve In A Fogbank
Transportation Nation

Vegas Rail: A Gamble Or A Good Thing? ("The vast park-and-ride project hinges on the untested idea that car-loving Californians will drive about 100 miles from the Los Angeles area, pull off busy Interstate 15 and board a train for the final leg to the famous Strip. Planners imagine that millions of travelers a year will one day flock to a station outside down-on-its-luck Victorville, a small city where shuttered storefronts pock the historic downtown.")
San Francisco Chronicle

Vegas Rail Plan Seeks $4.9 Billion Federal Loan: Idea Is For Los Angeles Visitors To Park In Calif. Town, Then Take Train In (extensive analysis of DesertXpress proposal)
MSNBC

Why Bicyclists Are Better Customers Than Drivers For Local Businesses
StreetsBlog DC

Why Community-Based Planning Works Better Than Anything Else
The Atlantic: Cities

Years Behind Schedule, Expo Line Sets Opening Date
KTLA

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