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Delivering his climate-change message to Congress yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned that fuel-efficiency advances secured by the Obama administration would not be enough to reduce emissions from transportation -- not without encouraging Americans to drive less.

The Internet is abuzz with the news that Mayor Villaraigosa and his allies on the Metro Board are pushing for the acceleration of three transit projects that are partially funded with the now incoming Measure R funds.  LAist breaks down the new plans, outlined in a power point presentation for this Thursday's Measure R Committee Meeting at Metro Headquarters.

In closing his speech to a roundtable on urban and metropolitan issues, given yesterday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Barack Obama quoted Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, who famously urged men to "make no small plans."

The White House Office of Urban Affairs, which has drawn criticism for its inactivity at a rocky economic time for the nation's cities, capped a day-long summit today with a speech by President Obama.

Republicans on the House transportation panel held a press conference today to deem the economic stimulus law a failure, citing low infrastructure spending in the nation's highest-unemployment states.

That's the implication of a Roll Call story today that states: "Momentum Builds for Transportation Bill."

Last Friday, USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood visited Los Angeles and took a tour on the “soon to be opened to the public” Gold Line Eastside Extension and liked what he saw.  LaHood remarked on both the livability and potential of East L.A. commenting on the Fast Lane that Along the way, I saw wonderful housing … Continued

In case you've been living under a rock for the past week, you know that Michael Jackson has passed away and a memorial has been planned for the Staples Center tomorrow.  The city is bending over backwards to try and figure out what to do with all of the cars that will descend on the Downtown for the memorial, to the point that I even watched Council Woman Jan Perry give a five minute interview on the expected traffic crunch and how mourners can avoid the jam without once mentioning the words, "transit," or "bus," or "Blue Line," or "bicycle."

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.