People

In a recent interview with the Journal of Commerce, Transportation Chair John Mica (R-FL) indicated that he shares many transportation goals with the Obama administration.

In an odd quirk of L.A. City Council rules, a Committee can "meet" with just the chair present and move legislation along to the full Council for a vote.  Thus, with the majority of the City Council downstairs debating how to frame the outsourcing of political will to raise parking rates in a way that didn't make them look like a rubber stamp, Transportation Committee Chair Rosendahl served as a one man committee.  Rosendahl's office explained to me that if the Full Council Meeting was still happening, that the Chairman would not ask all the witnesses who trekked Downtown to come back later and would hold the hearing himself.

For the first time in three years, California public transit agencies could see a full dose of funding from the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund, thanks in large part to the passage of Proposition 22, which prevents legislators from raiding local government funds, and Governor Jerry Brown, who announced his "painful" budget plan yesterday.

Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters today that she had an "excellent", “wonderful” meeting with Rep. John Mica (R-FL), the new chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. She confirmed that they're working on a "longer-term" transportation bill and have come up with many points of agreement. We'll let you know more details about that meeting as we get them.

Earlier this week, Metro announced another set of proposed cuts to its bus system.  Following so soon on the cuts from just last month, Metro CEO Art Leahy took to The Source to defend the changes.  Oddly, rather than defend the good work being done by the bus division at Metro and push for the state to finally restore funds pledged to transit operations but spent on closing a gap in the general fund.  Instead, he tries to sell the cancellation of nine bus routes and reductions on dozens more.

Update: We just learned that Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) has been confirmed as the new Ranking Member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.

Following nearly an hour and fifteen minutes of public testimony, most of which overwhelmingly favored passage of the staff recommendation to complete the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes on all parts of Wilshire Boulevad controlled by the City of Los Angeles, the Metro Board of Directors unanimously backed transit expert Zev Yaroslavsky over their staff and LADOT staff and decided to remove the Comstock/Selby area of Wilshire in Westwood from the project.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) was confirmed today as the next Chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.

Now that the full agenda for this week's meeting of the Metro Board Meeting is finally online, we can focus on issues beyond the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes.