October 23: This Date In Los Angeles Transportation History (Our world-famous Pacific Coast Highway is graded through Rancho Malibu, while two of the biggest movie stars in the world dedicate the Orange County portion in Laguna Beach)
Metro Transportation Library Primary Resources Blog
Amtrak Hits A Train Speed Milestone In The Midwest
StreetsBlog Network
Bosse Goes On The Record: Vote "No" On Measure J
Beverly Hills Courier
Bus Riders Make Plea To Block Fare Increases
Orange County Register
Chicago Designers Invite The Public To Design The Next Great App
Transit Wire
Decision On Proposed BNSF Railyard Expected Early 2013
Long Beach Business Journal
The End Of The Road: The Idea That Took A Toll On How We Travel ("Wachs nominates Article 19 of the California state constitution as a Law That Shaped L.A. Since 19's passage in the early 1920s, the Golden State has taken a dedicated "cents per gallon" amount from purchases of gasoline and used that money for, as the text of the Article reads, "The research, planning, construction, improvement, maintenance, and operation of public streets and highways...." Contains numerous historic images)
KCET
Freeing Up Freeways ("With our virtual vacuum of public finance for such projects going forward, we need to ask: What’s the prognosis for more such transformative, big-budget efforts? And what methods work best to integrate ribbons of concrete into our communities?")
Metropolis Magazine
Good News, Bad News: Federal Highway Administration Interprets Transportation Bill
League Of American Bicyclists
Handshake: IFC's Quarterly Journal On Public Private Partnerships (122p. PDF : "This issue of Handshake turns to public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the road and rail sectors. Authors and interviewees explain how PPP approaches have changed the direction of their countries’ highway systems and the future of freight rail. Looking forward, the Director of MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics makes the case that logistics clusters are permanently transforming the economy, thanks in part to the roads and railways feeding into those hubs. Ultimately, however, mobility makes possible more than a strong economy -- it promotes social and political integration. As Ethiopia’s former minister of transport once told Juhel, “Without roads,
there is no democracy.”)
World Bank
Highway Robbery: How Congress Put Politics Before Need In Federal Highway And Transit Funding (35p. PDF : "This paper lays out specific recommendations for reforming federal highway funding, helping the government direct money where it’s needed most. Specifically, we identify three inefficiencies in the current funding system: The equity bonus program, an overly complicated and remarkably inefficient formula that distributes billions of dollars without any consideration of need; Minimum set-aside rules, which guarantee that certain small states get funding regardless of their share of total needs; Imperfections in the funding formulas, which understate certain highway and transit costs relative to each state’s need.:")
Center For American Progress
L.A.'s Do-It-Yourself Urbanism Featured In International Architecture Exhibition
StreetsBlog LA
LA's Orange Line Shows The Way For Montgomery BRT ("Why does the Orange Line work? It goes where people want to go, it's frequent, and it connects to the subway, major bus routes, and commuter rail. But more importantly, it gives riders a fast, pleasant experience that rivals driving in a place known for its car culture....One rider told me, completely unprompted, how much he liked the Orange Line. "Thank God for Metro," he said. "I'm glad they have all these buses and trains now. Back in the day, we didn't have none of this and you had to have a car.")
Greater Greater Washington
LA's Planning Dept Challenges Accusations Of Secret Planning, Low Participation On Mobility Element
CityWatch
NFL Really Wants Football In Dodger Stadium's Chavez Ravine
Curbed LA
Nonlinear Road Pricing (82p. PDF)
University Of Florida Transportation Research Center
OCTA Votes To Add One Lane To 405, Reject Tolls
Los Alamitos-Seal Beach Patch
Officials: Halt To Expo Line Expansion Could Cost 4,000 Jobs
CBS Los Angeles
Phase Two Of Expo Line Construction Caught In Political Web
NBC Southern California
Port Of Long Beach Gets $1.34 Million EPA Grant
Transport Topics
Public Transportation Use Climbs With Gas Prices
Whittier Daily News
Ridership Up On Metro Blue Line To And From Long Beach, MTA Says
Los Angeles Daily News
Rules For U.S. Bus Investigations Tightened After Fatal Crash ("The U.S. Transportation Department is adopting a rule forbidding the kind of reprieve that regulators granted a bus company that was supposed to be closed for safety violations before a fatal crash last year.")
Business Week
Smart Phone Thefts On The Rise On Mass Transit
Transportation Nation
South Pasadena Council To Vote On Resolution To Support Measure J
Pasadena Star-News
Study: Protected Bike Lanes Reduce Injury Risk Up To 90%
StreetsBlog DC
Train Or Plane? More Travelers Choose Both
New York Times
Transit Agency Rejects Toll Lanes For I-405 ("After hours of debate, the OCTA board voted 12-4 in favor of a $1.3 billion plan that adds one lane in each direction between Euclid Avenue and the I-605.")
Orange County Register
Westsiders Could Shut Down Expo Line Work Starting This Week
Curbed LA
Will Transportation Investments Keep Up With The Way Americans Travel? ("Has America’s long increase in driving turned a corner or just taken a prolonged pause? The answer matters a lot. Consider four scenarios:...")
StreetsBlog DC
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.
