Month: February 2010

As soon as today's Expo Board Hearing begins, which should be in a couple of moments, Streetsblog will begin "tweeting" the coverage live at http://twitter.com/lastreetsblog.  Once the Board votes on the Final Environmental Impact Statement on Phase II of the Expo Line, we'll post the results at this link.  Tomorrow morning a post with more complete coverage of the meeting will come tomorrow morning.

Earlier this week, Streetsblog Capitol Hill's Elana Schor wrote about the transit agencies across the country that received federal "New Starts" funding.  As is common knowledge now, Los Angeles was shut out, receiving $0 in federal funds in this round of funding from the federal government for the two projects for which they applied, the Regional Connector and the Subway to the Sea.  Yesterday at The Source, Steve Hymon explained why Los Angeles was shut out, but also made the case that the most populous county in the country deserves a share of federal dollars.

LAist and the Times both report that the Los Angeles City Council Budget and Finance Committee approved a plan to partially privatize city-owned parking garages, but not meters, for the next fifty years to help fill a massive budget hole in the short term.  The city is hoping to raise $189 million from the transaction which would basically be a 50-year outsourcing of the garages’ management and profits. Some of the management and profits would remain with the city, and some experts are pointing to other aspects of the plan which could lower the city's $189 million asking price and hamper efforts to bring major reform to our city's already wasteful parking strategies.

Senate Democratic leaders appeared this morning to tout their commitment to passing a job-creation bill by the end of next week -- but the substance of their jobs measure, including the fate of pivotal transportation provisions, remains up in the air.

Cities and counties across the country are struggling with the funding of their transit systems in these hard times. In New York City, the payroll tax solution touted in Albany last year has failed to meet projections. In Lorain County, Ohio, the rejection of a sales tax by voters resulted in crippling cutbacks to that … Continued

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Tomorrow's meeting of the Expo Construction Authority Board of Directors promises to be one of the best-attended, most controversial and longest meeting of the body. The Board is scheduled to vote on approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Phase II of the Expo Line, and there are still many issues that are controversial with various constituencies. The meeting begins at 2:00 P.M. at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration at 500 West Temple Street. For those of you that plan on listening in at home, you can call in at (213) 974-4700 or (877) 873-8017. Spanish language call information and more details at the meeting can be found at the Expo Construction Authority's website.

Amid the good vibes yesterday over new federal funding agreements for transit projects in New York City, Oakland, Hartford, and other metro areas, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) also offered a spell of bad news to a few local proposals that are still working to meet the agency's standards for aid.

As news continues to spread about Senate Bill 518, Senator Alan Lowenthal's legislation that passed the State Senate last week and would encourage municipalities to curb their addiction to free parking or lose out on state planning and transit grants; the reaction from the press has been almost uniformly bad.  And it's not just the conservative outlets such as Fox News that are piling on.  As we detailed yesterday, the Times is almost gleefully promoting the most inflammatory comments from their article.  Yesterday, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Lowenthal's local paper, took an editorial stand against the legislation.