Month: November 2011

Anyone watching the drama unfold between Occupy L.A. and the LAPD last night couldn't help but notice the active involvement of Metro in the eviction of the Occupy protests.  News reports reported that between 27 and 30 Metro buses were used to bus police from Dodger Stadium to Downtown Los Angeles and any overhead shot of the LAPD's home away from home, the Dodger Stadium Parking Lot, showed rows of Orange Metro buses being loaded with police  in riot gear.

Oh boy. It's always sad when communities try to revitalize their downtowns and they resort to subsidizing the kinds of things that hollowed out the area in the first place -- namely parking.

"Bus Only Lanes"

UPDATE: Corrects the post to say that the map reflects all ongoing projects, not just those in the final engineering and construction stages.

This month’s bipartisan deal on the MAP-21 transportation bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hinged on a compromise to make major changes to the popular and successful Transportation Enhancements (TE) program, which primarily funds projects for biking and walking. The final deal eliminates dedicated funding for TE, instead making a smaller amount of money available for funding bike/ped -- and a host of other activities --under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program’s “Additional Activities” category (CMAQ-AA).

Featured Headline: The Southern California Association of Governments is meeting Thursday morning to announce their Long Range Transportation Plan that will guide the next 30 years of investment.  While the plan is a big improvement over past efforts, so was the one in San Diego and that didn’t stop environmental groups from suing.  For more … Continued

Earlier today, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors quickly and unanimously passed a motion by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky urging for progressive changes to the L.A. County Draft Bike Plan.  The L.A. County Bike Plan addresses the "unincorporated" parts of L.A. County (those without a municipal government) such as Marina del Rey.

Every year, the Metro Board combines its December and November meetings into one giant meeting in mid-December.  One item, passed by the Board's Safety and Operations Committee in November is already raising concern from bus advocates and riders who are worried that a change in bus' headway times could lead to more crowded conditions.

"Change comes hard, but things do change" -- those were the words of a Houston reporter almost 20 years ago, commenting on the stranglehold sprawl-oriented real estate interests had on the city.