Today's Headlines - more at Metro

8/23/2011

Gold Line Foothill Extension, CicLAvia, Freeway Murals, Montebello Buses, Long Beach Livability, Data Visualization, Infrastructure Jobs & More


Bikeways Planning Begins For North Figueroa
Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch

Los Angeles Times

CicLAvia Expands Downtown Borders
Los Angeles Downtown News

KCET

National League Of Cities

Data Visualization Student Challenge ("Do you have what it takes to apply data visualization for transportation investment or policy decisions? The United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) wants to see what you can do!")
Challenge.gov

Journal Of Commerce

Editorial: Water Trumps Rail ("A bullet train, by contrast, represents no essential public need, and Brown should rethink his advocacy of the project.")
Riverside Press-Enterprise
Failing The 21st Century (response to editorial)
California High Speed Rail Blog


Introducing GTFS-Realtime To Exchange Realtime Transit Updates (The General Transit Feed Specification was launched in June for Live Transit Updates. Now it is available to the public for app development -- including trip updates, service alerts and vehicle position)

Mapping The Urban Places Where No Transit Goes ("Living in a city can be easy without a car: Just take the bus or train. But there are people who aren't served by public transit, and who don't have a car, creating islands of stranded people in cities across the country.")
Fast Company

Mass Transit

Contra Costa Times

New Graffiti-Resistant Hollywood (101) Freeway Murals Not Theft-Resistant ("Just before Caltrans was to unveil the vandal-resistant replicas designed by four freeway artists on Monday, a drive-by burglar boosted two of them.")
Daily Breeze

Transportation Issues Daily

Washington Post

Reader Q & A: Deputy Mayor Borja Leon Responds (Questions include " If you could change one thing about transportation in Los Angeles with the wave of a magic wand, what would it be?")
StreetsBlog LA

Southern California Public Radio

USDOT Unveils Catalysts For The Future: The Digital Transportation Exchange ("The Digital Transportation Exchange (DTE) would connect citizens, businesses, state and local governments, industry, entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors though a public private partnership like never before—creating a thriving online marketplace for the agile creation of transportation solutions.")
Young Professionals In Transportation Blog

Reconnecting America

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.

8/22/2011

Metro's Freeway Murals, Santa Monica Expo Line, Bus Benches, Red Line Universal City, WeHo Cycles, Riverside Metrolink & More


Transportation Issues Daily

Silicon Valley Mercury News

Caltrans Replaces Decades-Old Freeway Murals, Unveiling Today ("Caltrans and L.A. Metro are teaming up to replace the old paint-on-concrete-wall artworks with new fabric versions of the murals, which can be quickly removed for cleaning or repairs.")
Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Times

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Engineer To Measure Vehicle Emissions On Highways: Study Will Focus On Particulate Matter Concentrations, Which Are Increasingly Implicated In Human Death And Illness ("A University of California, Riverside assistant professor of engineering, has received a $41,000 grant from theUC Transportation Center to build a portable device, install it on test vehicles and use it to map real-time particulate matter concentrations on Southern California highways.")
University Of California, Riverside Press Release

CityWatch

Los Angeles Times

Architect's Newspaper

MSNBC

Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Times

StreetsBlog LA

Urbanophile

CityWatch

The Most Dangerous Cities For Walking (outside of Florida, Southern California's Inland Empire is tops in the U.S.)
New York Times

Curbed LA

West Hollywood Patch

Opinion: The High Stakes Of High-Speed Rail ("Nearly three years after voters approved the project, along with $9.95 billion in bonds to finance the startup, and less than a year before they hope to break ground on the first segment, officials have not yet released what even they consider to be a serious business plan.")
San Diego Union-Tribune

Houston Chronicle

StreetsBlog LA

Riverside Press-Enterprise

Canyon News

San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Straight Outta Suburbia

Urbanology By The BMW Guggenheim Lab ("The BMW Guggenheim Lab released an online urban planning game, “Urbanology,” as a platform to explore urban issues.")
The City Fix

What Makes A Good "Planning Game?" ("You've probably played with online tools, often published by newspapers, that invite you to "balance the government budget yourself." Planning games drill down to a more detailed level than that, but they share the same spirit: They invite the citizen to express her views through grappling with the actual problem that government is facing.")
Human Transit

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.

8/19/2011

LA's Public Transit Tops List, Gold Line Art, Widening The 5, Beverly Hills Subway, Baldwin Park's Complete Streets,


Washington Post

MarketWire

Los Angeles Times

Westwood-Century City Patch

Beverly Hills Patch

Metropolitan Planning Council

Los Angeles Wave

Beverly Hills Patch

Do Line Numbers Matter At All?
Human Transit

Ventura County Star

Equity Of Evolving Transportation Finance Mechanisms (142p. PDF : Addresses the equity of alternatives to current transportation finance mechanisms, notably mechanisms based on tolling and road use metering, i.e. road pricing)
U.S. Transportation Research Board Special Report

Talking Points Memo

Beverly Hills Courier

Lighter Than Air: SoCal Ballooning In Photos ("The images that follow document a small part of aviation-ballooning history in the Los Angeles region throughout the last 100 years.")

Metro Magazine

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Put Your Money Where Your Miles Are ("Though no country appears to be ready to adopt a VMT tax on a nationwide level, all signs indicate that we'll be paying such a levy someday soon. With the gas tax (hopefully) on its way to obsolescence, we'll need a new way to repair our roads and bridges. When done right, a VMT tax scheme could not only give our infrastructure funding a boost, it could also get us out from behind the wheel a bit more.")
Grist

The Role Of Public Art, Part One and Part Two (video : the importance of, and rationale behind, public art along the Metro Gold Line. Includes overviews of individual art installations and interviews with the artists who created them.)
Goldlineblogger via YouTube

New York Times

Transportation Nation

CNET

StreetsBlog Network

Zev Zings Critics (p.6 of 20p. PDF)
Beverly Hills Weekly

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.

8/18/2011

LAX & Transit, Beverly Hills, Metrolink Bikes, LA Transportation Headlines, Sustainable Transpo, California Highway Grants & More

Metro Transportation Library Primary Resources Blog

Box: Metrolink Passes Bike Friendly Test
StreetsBlog LA

Scientific American

StreetsBlog LA

Commentary: Making Parking Pay
KCET

StreetsBlog DC
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program


Fresno Bee

LA Weekly

Long Beach Post

Long Before Freeways ("Four years in the works, [Wilmington's Banning Residence Museum's] new "Improbable Gateway: The Los Angeles Transportation Legacy" exhibit will open...The exhibit also chronicles the age of the railroad, L.A.'s Red Cars and the construction of the modern Port of Los Angeles.")
Daily Breeze

StreetsBlog LA

Examiner

Beverly Hills Patch

LAist

Los Angeles Times

Ventura County Star

Natural Resources Defense Council Switchboard Blog

Opinion: The End Of The Road For Motormania ("Something unexpected is happening to our car-crazy culture. What are the forces driving us out of motoring?")
New Scientist

Progressive Railroading

StreetsBlog DC
APTA

Illinois Center For Transportation

U.S. Transportation Research Board

Beverly Hills Chamber Of Commerce

U.S. Transporation Secretary Ray LaHood Announces $29.6 Million In Grants For California Highway Projects
Federal Highway Administration Press Release

Zimride Matches Drivers, Passengers (Start-up combines carpooling and social networking)
San Francisco Chronicle

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.



8/17/2011

CicLAvia's New Route, Metro's New Telenovela, Beverly Hills Tunnel, Green Line And LAX & More


AEG's Designs On Downtown L.A. Stadium ("The stadium is one of two mega-projects in the works downtown. The other is a redesigned Union Station, set to be enlarged to make room for the arrival of high-speed rail service. L.A. County'sMetropolitan Transportation Authority, which bought Union Station earlier this year for $75 million, is planning to release a short list of design teams for that project in October.")
Los Angeles Times

New York Post

BART: We Will Tell You When It's Your Turn To Speak ("San Francisco's mass-transit authority shuts down cellphone service to quell protests, only to incite a louder outcry.")
The Atlantic

Beverly Hills Courier

A Chance To Look Behind The Curtain Of The Division 6 Bus Facility
StreetsBlog LA

CicLAvia Announces Expanded Route For October Heading North And South Off Original Spur
StreetsBlog LA
Announcing The October 9 2011 Route!
CicLAvia

KABC-7

Southern California Public Radio

Is California's High-Speed Rail A Boondoggle? ("Is California’s project doomed? Not necessarily. Or — perhaps a better way of putting it — not just yet.")
Washington Post

U.S. Transportation Research Board

Progressive Railroading


Metrolink's New Bike Cars (One rider's experience with and photos from a trip on Metrolink using new bike racks aboard trains)
Trainweb

San Francisco Chronicle

Houston Chronicle

Public Health Scores In L.A. Councilmember Richard Alarcon Introduces A Motion To Ban Alcohol Ads From All City-Owned Property ("The Councilman is also supporting approval of a new 10-year bus bench contract that includes a provision to prohibit alcohol ads on bus benches.")
PR Newswire

Government Technology

Los Angeles Times

Telenovela "Los Americans" To Be Broadcast On Metro Bus Screens (""Los Americans," also funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, cost $600,000 to make and is being offered free to L.A. mass transit riders.")
Daily Breeze

Pasadena Star-News

Bloomberg
Stateline



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.

8/16/2011

Metro's Record Ridership, Century City Subway, Arcadia Gold Line, Green Line To LAX, HSR Boondoggle?, How We Travel & More


ICOET

Pasadena Star-News

Mother Jones

Chamber Needs To Dig Deeper For Subway Facts ("Advocates for a station at Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars never want to acknowledge or talk about the actual facts and findings contained in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Draft Environmental Impact Report. That’s because that document concludes that a station one block away at Santa Monica Boulevard – less than a three-minute walk from the Constellation stop – would cost at least $60 million less to build and serve about 5 percent more riders, all without having to take the unprecedented risk of tunneling under a high school!")
Los Angeles Business Journal

Civil Rights Group Demands End To Car-Centric Transportation Policies
StreetsBlog DC


Transportation Issues Daily

Infrastructurist

How We Travel: A Sustainable National Program For Travel Data
Metro Transportation Library Primary Resources Blog

Lessons On How To Compete For A USDOT TIGER Grant (22p. PDF : presentation from a webinar held last month)
U.S. DOT

KABC-7

Contra Costa Times

Name That Los Angeles Neighborhood! ("You’re standing at the intersection of Wilshire and Highland. What neighborhood are you in? The sign on the corner says you’re somewhere called Brookside. The sign on the other corner says you’re in Park Mile. The sign a block away, in full view of the other signs, says you’re in Sycamore Square. Google Maps doesn’t mention any of these. Google Maps calls this neighborhood Dockweiler....There's a neighborhood called West Los Angeles. West Los Angeles is not to be mixed up with the Westside of Los Angeles, which includes everything west of Hollywood, including West Hollywood, which isn’t part of Hollywood because Hollywood is part of Los Angeles and West Hollywood is its own city...")

Curbed LA

HNTB
America THINKS 2011 Corridors Of The Future Survey

KABC-7

Progressive Railroading

Southern California Public Radio

Los Angeles Times

Transportation Battle On The Congressional Horizon
Southern California Public Radio

The Economist

Progressive Railroading

Video Surveillance Uses By Rail Transit Agencies (91p. PDF)
U.S. Transit Cooperative Research Program Synthesis Report

Human Transit

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.

8/15/2011

Green Line To LAX, LA Bus Benches, Transit TV, L.A. Freedom Riders, LA Parking, Infrastructure Woes, BART Redesign & More


Business Insider

Los Angeles Wave

Analysis: Infrastructure Woes -- A Roadblock To Growth ("The United States has fallen sharply in the World Economic Forum's ranking of national infrastructure systems. In the forum's 2007-2008 report, American infrastructure was ranked 6th best in the world. The 2011-2012 report due in September will show America at No. 16.")
Reuters

Wired

Huffington Post

Santa Monica Lookout

Contra Costa Times

Children With Autism, Connecting Via Transit ("The [New York Transit] museum, and others like it, are moving beyond accommodating the enthusiasm for trains and buses among children with autism and trying to use it to teach them how to connect with other people — and the world.")
New York Times

USA Today

Architect's Newspaper

Metro Transportation Library Primary Resources Blog

StreetsBlog DC
Slate

Forbes

Contra Costa Times

Long Beach Press-Telegram

San Francisco Chronicle

U.S. Transportation Research Board

Beverly Hills Courier

U.S. DOT Fast Lane Blog

Los Angeles Times

San Francisco Chronicle

Opinion: The Test Of Our Generation (California High-Speed Rail)
San Francisco Chronicle

LA as Subject via KCET

Transportation Issues Daily

Greater Greater Washington

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Train "Flyover" Gets Conceptual Approval In Walnut ("The $68 million project is one of 10 grade separations planned for the heart of the San Gabriel Valley by the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority (ACE) to alleviate traffic congestion at train crossings.")
Whittier Daily News

EmailWire

Westwood-Century City Patch

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.