Today’s Headlines

U.S. Transportation Secretary Has Trouble Staying Awake in the Afternoon (NYT)
Happy 70th Birthday Union Station (LAist, Blogdowntown, ABC7)
Orange Line Extension Will Cause Some Business Relocation (Daily News)
Surf Santa Monica Reprints SM Press Release on League of American Cyclists Award
IL Sen. Wants to Boost Funding for Nation’s Biggest Transit Systems (Progressive Railroading)
Infrastructurist Maps Out the Return of the Streetcar (via Streetsblog.net)
Arizona Motorist Shoots and Kills Speed Cam Operator (Wheels)

Dan Wentzel

What surprised me about the Daily News article is just how balanced it is. I expected an article about poor business owners who are being put out by nasty public transportation projects that we shouldn’t have anyway because Los Angeles is an automobile town.

Instead, I got sympathy for business owners, but a recognition that they knew they were renting Metro owned land and that is upgrade would be eventually coming and that this upgrade is needed for the greater good of the Valley residents and businesses.

If you buy or rent land on or near what Metro owns, the risk you take is that Metro may start using it again.

Sort of like the Expo ROW. Just because you gambled that rail would never come back to use in Los Angeles and bought a home near a ROW doesn’t mean the rest of the region has to sacrifice for your gamble. You could have bought elsewhere.

Fortunately, since I am not running for office, I can say these unpleasant truths.
Dan Wentzel

I enjoyed that Streetcar article.

There are many places which are unlikely to see heavy or light rail any time soon, but for where a streetcar offers an interesting possibility.

The Broadway Streetcar project is well known.

I am curious about a Ventura Blvd. Streetcar and a Sunset Blvd. streetcar are other possibilities.

Let a thousand streetcars bloom. :)
Radical Transportation Engineer

My favorite comment from the NYT article…and by favorite, I mean sickens me the most:

“When asked if he could foresee disagreeing with the administration on anything, Mr. LaHood shrugged, and eventually shook his head. “I’ve never been passionate about any particular issue,” he said. “I’m not going to sit around agonizing. The answer is, probably not.”

Wow, these are really the people we want running our government…”I’ve never been passionate about any particular issue”, Are you kidding me? And of course he ends up as Transportation Secretary when there were other choices out there like Sadik-Khan. It just continues to show that Obama’s slightly enlightened transportation plan as a candidate was just more lip service.