Month: February 2010

Thank you for your continued support for the Arroyo Seco Bike Trail project.  This is to inform you that the first Arroyo Seco Bike Trail working group meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, February 18th.  The meeting details are as follows:

As environmental work continues for the Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 project, Metro will hold four community scoping meetings on February 22-27 in Pico Rivera, South El Monte, Montebello and Whittier to review two build alternatives: light rail transit via State Route 60 and on Washington Boulevard in addition to a transportation systems management (improving bus services), and a no-build alternative.

Phase 1 of the Exposition Light Rail Line (Expo Line) is currently under construction and will travel along the Exposition railroad right-of-way between downtown Los Angeles and Culver City.

Los Angeles Streetsblog will be taking Monday off to celebrate President's Day.  If you can't help yourself and need a fix of transportation headlines, some of the other Streetsblogs will be doing a "Today's Headlines" post.  I wish you all a safe and happy Valentine's Day and President's Day.  If nothing else, I hope you can avoid the former police chief from Riverside while you're on the road.

For months, Metro has been upgrading their online presence.  Between The Source, a twitter feed for service interruptions, and a Facebook page; you would think they hired a tech-savvy college student to upgrade their web presence.  Today, they belatedly launched the Beta version of their new website. Metro has high hopes that the new website is going to make project information and other information important to their riders and stakeholders more visible and easier to find.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers' first annual report under President Obama made headlines today for its gloomy job-creation outlook, but tucked inside its 462 pages is a tangible reflection of a changed outlook on transportation policy under the new administration.

As cycling grows more and more popular, both in Los Angeles and across the country, the problem with bike thieves also grows.  All of a sudden, those bicycles that were safe chained to a poll with a U-Lock are easy targets for thieves instead of safe.  In response to growing theft, many cyclists end up resorting to vigilante tactics in response.  There's been a strong debate in the bicycling community on this issue, I was part of a debate on Bike Talk back in December, and it's been a hot topic on blogs and message boards for a long-time before that.

Unfortunately, it's something I've seen even the most experienced cyclist do: wipe out while crossing a set of train tracks.  As many of you know, you need to maneuver your bike's angle of approach so that you hit the rails as perpendicular as possible. But even knowing that, some demon riders don't slow enough to sashay properly, and heck: poor newbies have no idea how the road's mathematics work until it's too late!

A couple of months ago, we wrote about Clevelanders protesting a $450 million rebuilding of the city's Innerbelt Bridge that fails to include bike and pedestrian access. Since then, the Ohio Department of Transportation has dug in its heels, saying that there is no time to make any amendments to the environmental impact statement on the project before a March 2 deadline.