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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa just announced (although Streetsblog had it first earlier today) the appointment of long-time transportation aide Jaime De La Vega as his nominee for General Manager of the Department of Transportation.  De La Vega first appeared at City Hall as a member of then-Mayor Richard Riordan's transportation team over a decade ago.  He has been the head of Villaraigosa's transportation team since the beginning and is credited for advancing Measure R, the 30/10 and America Fast Forward initiatives, and saving the bike/ped set aside from the city's Measure R funds when some City Councilmen wanted to remove it.

Yesterday, The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released an outline of some its core principles for a federal transportation reauthorization bill.  One of the main planks of their proposed program would be expanding the TIFIA loan program from a $110 million program to a $1 billion program and re-branding the program "America Fast Forward."  The policy statement was signed by committee leadership from the Republican and Democrat side of the aisle, including California Senator Barbara Boxer.

Last Thursday, Los Angeles Comptroller Wendy Greuel released the findings of an audit of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation's parking program to address shortcomings in revenue collection.  Greuel's report identified a couple of areas that needed addressing to maximize revenue, but the item that caught the media's attention was the so-called "Gold Card Desk" (GCD) where City Council Members could "fix" parking tickets brought to their attention by constituents with a simple phone call.

At times in this whole reauthorization process, it’s been hard to see the way forward. House Republicans refuse to deficit-spend their way out of the funding conundrum, and Democrats haven’t gotten behind a coherent plan to come up with more revenues, though they’re still arguing for a bigger bill. Still, I’ve been reporting on the bill as if it’s bound to happen, one way or another. Secretary Ray LaHood has been unflinching in his optimism that a bill will pass this year. But the more I talk to experts, I realize: this thing probably isn't going to happen.

Originally Stephen Villavaso of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition was scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Southern California Transit Advocates May 14th meeting, only to have a conflict force him to request to be rescheduled to our June meeting. As I scrambled to seek a replacement Nick Matonak who handles the Facebook page for SO.CA.TA suggested we have Stephen Box as a speaker. And upon being contacted Box with great enthusiasm said yes.

A motion by County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas would grade-separate the planned Crenshaw Light Rail Line for twelve blocks from 48th Street to 59th Street along the Crenshaw Corridor and would require the construction of a station at Leimert Park.  Both grade-separating the Crenshaw Line and the Leimert Park Station are listed as "optional" in Metro's most recent corridor studies.  To pay for the grade-separation and new station, Ridley-Thomas asks Metro to identify funding sources "including but not limited to" Measure R funds for the Expo Line and for the Green Line to LAX, the Arbor-Vitae interchange project and sales of "surplus property" along the right-of-way that won't be used.  The Crenshaw Line will run below-grade for the rest of the route along Crenshaw Boulevard.

What a difference a few years makes.  For the fourth time since Streetsblog has been publishing in Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave a "state of the city" address to talk about where the city is and where he hopes to lead it in the coming years.  When we first covered this annual speech in 2008, the Mayor barely mentioned transportation other than a promise to ask the MTA Board to work on ways to build out the transit system.  He didn't even call the agency Metro.

President Obama just finished his speech at George Washington University. He drew a sharp line between the Republican budget proposal and his own vision for reducing the deficit while preserving the social safety net.