Month: November 2010

I got a couple of complaints via email after Wednesday's story that with all of the effort we put in to finding the perfect candidate for the new General Manager for LADOT, we overlooked candidates from our own back yard.  Even as I type these words, a comment came in on a previous story that said of the General Manager search, "Los Angeles has one the most complex highway and street systems in the country, and an outsider who is unfamiliar with the territory would be at a disadvantage."

The first phase of the lame duck ends today. Has Congress done the heavy lifting of finding consensus on extending tax cuts, or unemployment benefits, or Medicare physician payments, or the surface transportation authorization, or the federal budget?

In the Netherlands, 30 percent of trips under five miles are by bike.

Car sharing is growing in popularity, saving "car-lite" people the expense of vehicle ownership and taking cars off the road. As an additional benefit, some car sharing services have been making the transition to low-emissions vehicles.

(Editor's Note: I'm traveling all day on Friday, so I set today's stories to post throughout today.  Our syndication is playing catchup from some D.C. stories we missed.  To get today's national news go to Streetsblog.net or Capitol Hill Streetsblog.  If you miss me and don't know what to do with yourself, take a couple seconds to fill out our reader survey. - DN)

Westsiders like to complain that for years their part of the city has been left out when it comes to transit expansion.  Now that Metro is proposing three high-profile transit projects, a rampant strain of NIMBYism is endangering all three in one form or another.

Thanksgiving Day is only a week away and already I have been contemplating the many things I have to be thankful for.  Earlier this year, on January 6th, I was involved in a hit-and-run while cycling to work.  As I was being strapped to a stretcher and taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, I was unaware that the events of the morning were being shared rapidly through Twitter, email, phone calls, and later that day through blogs.  Thanks to these communications my wife and family were able to meet me at the hospital well before I would have been able to contact them myself.

Bicycle Advisory Committee Member.  Bike Working Group volunteer.  Midnight Rida.  Co-Founder of the Valley Bikery.  When it comes to advocacy Ayla Stern does it all.  Recently, she's been one of the leaders of the battle to preserve the Wilbur Avenue Road Diet and Bike Lane re-striping that has won praise from cyclists and residents but scorn from the motoring public and the local City Councilman.

When Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced that he was striking a deal to privatize his city's 36,000 parking meters, it was a golden opportunity for transportation reform. If all went well, the deal could have cleared a political path for higher peak-hour meter rates, curbing double-parking and congestion-causing cruising.