Today’s Headlines

Refuting Some Westsider Arguments Against Bike Lanes (Rancho Park Online)
Obama Endorses America Fast Forward Bond Program (The Source)
Fake Libertarians: America’s Infrastructure Is Fine (Reason)
James: I Never Said I Would Try to Move Subway Route (Century City Online)
Brown Act Snafu Causes Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council to Re-Vote on Wyvernwood (BHB via Curbed)
New Bill Would Let Single Passenger Vehicles in Carpool Lane Off-Peak (LAT)
Cell Phone Service on the Subway? Metro Board Votes Next Week (The Source)
Metro Lauded for Buying American (HuffPo)
Bike Lane Could Shape Future of Lankershim Boulevard (Patch)
Greuel Says She Backs Hollywood Plan (Daily News)
Bike Bridge Will Connect Cypress Park to Elysian Valley (Eastsider)
The Real Lesson from Rojas’ Modeling: It’s Time for Planners to Put Away the Power Point (Next City)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Erik Griswold

Let us be accurate about LA Metro’s “Buying American” for which they are being lauded by a poorly researched HuffPo article.

New Flyer Industries is a Canadian Company that is actually now 20% Brazilian-owned:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/brazilian-bus-firm-loads-up-stake-in-new-flyer-industries/article7716338/

Their manufacturing process is summarized here:

“St. Cloud is a finishing and full-production facility (full build,
from welding to final assembly) and all Inveros are built in this
facility. Winnipeg, besides being an administration facility,
manufactures bus shells and parts for St. Cloud or Crookston finishing.
Crookston is the final assembly plant for both the Winnipeg and St.
Cloud operations. The company’s headquarters is in Canada.”
http://rbo2.com/2012/01/30/another-stimulus-failure-new-flyer-bus-company-funds-delayed-because-of-obama-admins-debt-to-unions/

Rubber-tired motor vehicles and components/parts made in Canada are considered to be “Made in America” under the various automobile-industry treaties (now superseded by NAFTA) that have long effectively formed a Customs-union between the USA and Canada when it comes to motor vehicle production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_Automotive_Products_Agreement
Note that this, of course, does not apply to steel-wheel rail vehicles.

Please see this photo to see a sample of what gets shipped from Canada to the plants in the USA for final widget-tightening (The Green One is probably running in Culver City today):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyer_901/5864823429/in/photostream/

While they did not bid on this contract, it should be noted that two(or three depending on perspective) of the remaining six transit full-size transit buses manufactured in North America are located in California:

Gillig: http://www.gillig.com/
El Dorado National: http://www.enconline.com/caindex.cfm

and Alexander Dennis which assembles their Doule-Decker buses at El Dorado National’s plant:

http://www.busandcoach.com/newspage.aspx?id=2132&categoryid=0

I don’t know where the HuffPo authors get the impression that “Most bus manufacturing now occurs overseas,”, unless they are also arguing that most humans live overseas, which is correct.