Today's Headlines - more at Metro

4/17/2012

APA Los Angeles, Union Station, CicLAvia, CAHSR, LA Pedestrians, SoCal Sustainability & More

11 Transportation Officials Who Are Changing The Game
StreetsBlog DC

$16M Bike-Sharing Program Comes to Los Angeles
Blog Downtown

Aging Transit Systems Grapple With Repair Backlog
Business Week

Art And Politics About To Collide ("It's hardly where you'd expect to find such news, but an environmental impact statement just issued by the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the Purple Line subway contains an ominous report on the status of the arts in Los Angeles. According to the document, before the transportation agency begins digging tunnels through the tar-and-fossil-filled veins of San Pedro sand that lie beneath Wilshire Boulevard, it will aim an above-ground wrecker's ball at three of L.A.'s most vulnerable arts establishments, leveling the city's only architecture museum along with two other gallery spaces that are part of the city's Museum Row.")
CityWatch

"The Californians": SNL Skit Parodies Our Obsession With Side Streets & Beating Traffic
Huffington Post

Cargo Consensus ("Riverside needs relief from traffic congestion and air pollution caused by international trade — but so does the rest of Southern California. Riverside, however, cannot address the issue of goods movement by itself. Any city effort to get freight to help pay for local transportation improvements should come as part of a broad-based regional coalition, not as go-it-alone grandstanding.")
Riverside Press-Enterprise

CicLAvia: Reimagining The Streets Of Los Angeles ("Just in the last five years, such notable urban planning projects as the Metroʼs Expo Line and Gold Line extensions, the Los Angeles Streetcar, the Los Angeles Bicycle Plan, the Downtown Urban Design Guidelines, and the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan have pushed forward an agenda to make the city more sustainable -- with an emphasis on walkability, public transit, complete streets, vibrant neighborhoods and public spaces.")
The Design Observer Group Places

The Fantasy Solution Of An Infrastructure Bank
Transportation Issues Daily

Finding Quiet Moments In A Crush Of 100,000 CicLAvistas Is Easier Than You Think
StreetsBlog LA

Free Muni For S.F. Kids Could Hit A Few Bumps
San Francisco Chronicle

High-Speed Rail Authority Board Passes Revised 2012 Business Plan
Public CEO

House Likely To Vote Wednesday On Transport Bill Extension
Journal Of Commerce

Improving L.A.'s Multimodal Transit, One Passenger At A Time ("Our Los Angeles colleagues deserve our recognition of their achievements in contributing to the public realm. Not so much because we as their colleagues can see the value of their contribution as it relates to the public health, environmental, and economic sectors. The reason we should offer our congratulations is because the public sees the improvements.")
APA Reimagining Los Angeles Blog

L.A. Transit Advocate Has Some Advice For Toronto Politicians ("When Los Angeles transit advocate Richard Katz took a whirlwind tour of Toronto’s downtown transit network Monday, what caught his eye as he rode the Yonge line is a sight that most battle-weary Toronto commuters regard as routine.")
Globe And Mail (Canada)
California Dreaming Up New Ways To Fund Public Transit ("From turning off idling locomotives to asking China for the money, Richard Katz has some fresh ideas for funding transit.")
Torontoist

LA's 4 Most Dangerous Pedestrian Areas And The New Advocacy Group That's Tackling Them
Curbed LA

LA's CicLAvia: A Primer Of How Bicycling Can Boost Communities And The Economy
Triple Pundit

Latest Pew Study Gives Further Evidence That It Is A Mobile World ("63% of American adults access the internet through some kind of wireless/mobile device.")
Talking Transportation

New High-Speed Rail Biz Plan Crashes Into Reality
Fox & Hounds

New Map Points To The Next Ride In South LA At CicLAvia ("On Sunday, a team called RideSouthLA celebrated the launch of its new bicycle map to the Watts Towers, handing out copies at the southern tip of the massive CicLAvia festival.")
USC Annenberg Intersections South LA

The Next CicLAvia Event For 2012 Is On October 14th
CicLAvia

Opinion: Southern California Hailed As Model Of Sustainability
Los Angeles Times

Patent Troll Sues Transit Agencies For Releasing Real-Time Transit Info
StreetsBlog DC

Petition Supporting Westside Subway Has 1,000 Signatures ("We Do Our Part LA" wants Metro to build the Westside Subway Extension, regardless of whether it goes under Beverly Hills High School.")
Beverly Hills Patch

Proposed 10-Cent Gas Tax Derailed
San Francisco Chronicle

Putting The Pieces In Place: Seamless Regional Fare Payment Puts The "Super" In Southern California's "Super Region" (free webinar : April 26)
U.S. DOT Research And Innovative Technology Administration

SaMo Likes The Idea Of Two Expo-Adjacent Downtown Hotels
Curbed LA

Searching For CicLAvia's Slow Gear ("As the still-young event grows and changes, its identity is evolving as well -- with a large and vocal cycling population reveling in having its own five-hour, 10-mile stretch of nirvana in an otherwise car-dominated metropolis, while an equally passionate walking community stands eager to claim its place on the pavement, too. The challenge of striking a balance stands as the price of success as CicLAvia comes of age.")
Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County Supervisor, Third District

Surface Station: MTA Says "Only An Idea"
Beverly Hills Courier

Trains Increase Number Of Quiet Cars
USA Today

Traffic Explained, Then Fixed In 4 Entertaining Minutes (video)
Natural Resources Defense Council Switchboard Blog

Trial Delays Perris Valley Metrolink Line
Inland News Today

UCLA Grad Student Lends Hand In Planning Fourth Annual CicLAvia Event
UCLA Daily Bruin

Union Station Master Plan Vision Board Viewing Next Week
StreetsBlog LA

Vintage Video: A Ride On The Last Of L.A.'s Red Cars ("Filmed on March 31, 1961, this short film shows the regular journey of the Long Beach-bound Red Car rail line. Just a few days later, on April 9, 1961 -- 51 years ago! -- the Red Cars stopped running...forever.")
LAist

Which Cities Tend To Be The Greenest? The Answer May Surprise You
The Atlantic: Cities

What are transportation community leaders around the nation tweeting about today? Check out the Metro Library Twitter Daily, our online digest in newspaper format updated every day.

We invite you to visit Metro's The Source, your window to what's happening with agency news, funding and policy issues, and how to get the most out of transit and Los Angeles.