People

Every year on July 1, the Chairmanship of the Metro Board of Directors changes hands.  This year, Glendale City Councilman, and former Mayor, Ara Najarian takes the helm.  While outgoing Chair Villaraigosa is rightly proud of his steering of the Board during the Metro debate, he often seemed bored at meetings and liked to skip "open comment" and just show up to vote.

Things may have gotten a little more difficult for Governor Schwarzengger, who is already wrestling with the titanic task of trying to pass a balanced budget for the fiscal year starting today, when a California court of appeals ruled that the state needs to stop taking funds dedicated by voters towards transit projects and use it to try and close the gaping funding hole.

Tomorrow, new rules governing how municipalities evaluate speed limits on local roads will go into effect.  Unfortunately, these rules allow municipalities even less room than before to resist speed limit changes.  The new rules maintain the backbone of the bad law, speed limits are set based on how fast the "eighty-fifth" percentile of drivers are speeding but still manage to make it harder for municipalities to resist faster streets for pesky reasons like pedestrians or cyclists want to use the street.

In addition to witnessing LAPD fail a reality test, cyclists also got into a debate with the LADOT and City Planning over the Draft Bike Plan at yesterday's City Council Transportation Committee Hearing.  As regular readers already know, in late May a series of maps was released to the public, causing a round of jeers from many in the cycling community.  Last week the maps and outreach plan were presented to the City Council Transportation Committee, and over four dozen cyclists pedaled Downtown for the 8:00 A.M. meeting to lodge their protests.

The Mark Sanford scandal is a bit off topic for Streetsblog but Sean Roche at the Newton Streets & Sidewalks blog points us to this incredible passage from one of the e-mails between the South Carolina governor and his mistress in Argentina. Sanford writes:

(Update: We're getting word that these racks have also popped up on Flower Street and Ventura Boulevard.  One person was so excited he wants to know where to send a "thank you" note to LADOT.  If you're the first to send in a picture of meters in an area there's a Streetfilms T-Shirt in it for you.  We'll post a composite series on Friday)

Policy wonks across the capital are still poring over the 775-page bill released earlier today by Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. But searching the legislation for the key topics being debated by transportation reformers reveals new details and raises new questions. The most common phrase in the bill may well be three innocuous words: "to be supplied." This is in no small part thanks to the uncertain future of funding for Oberstar's $450 billion plan, a problem compounded by a White House preoccupied with health care and in no mood to raise the gas tax.

Senior members of the House transportation committee today fired a warning shot at those pushing an 18-month extension of existing federal law, putting the Obama administration and key senators on notice that their $450 billion proposal would move forward this year.

(editor's note: Elana Schor has done yeoman's work analyzing the newly released white paper from Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) which very well could end up being the framework for the next authorization of the Federal Transportation Trust Fund.  Oberstar's work on this issue really puts the "work" done by the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee Chair, Barbara Boxer, to shame.  You can read all of Elana's coverage, including a look at the highways-transit split and funding for metro areas proposed by Oberstar at Capitol Hill Streetsblog.)