People

In a fiscal year 2011 budget that proposes to increase spending on several core transportation priorities, the White House also aims to eliminate a few infrastructure programs that may prove popular with lawmakers.

Later this morning, the Metro Board of Directors will meet for the first time in the 2010 calendar year, and is faced with its biggest challenge since the passage of Measure R...a quarter of a billion operating deficit.  While some issues on the undercard are interesting, such as the Board finally moving to find a contractor to construct rail cars ten months after their quixotic quest to hand the contract to AnsaldoBreda kicked off; the largest issues is going to be what to do about the budget.  After years of shifting budgets and tapping contingency funds, Metro has to make some hard choices to make.

The City Council met today and discussed two cycling related issues.  The first was the ongoing discussion of whether or not the city should have a bike sharing program.  Second, the Council debated how to create an ordinance that would better protect cyclists from harassment.

Former City Councilman Jack Weiss has not been what one would call progressive on most transportation issues.  While he backed the Mayor on transit issues, he also was his largest backer for the massively unpopular Pico-Olympic Plan which would have sped up rush hour automobile traffic at the expense of parking for businesses, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.  Weiss sounded a progressive tone on his candidate's survey for Streetsblog, but also backed an LADOT plan to remove traffic calming in Holmby-Westwood.

As mentioned in a post yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee will vote tomorrow at 2:00 P.M. in City Hall on whether or not to raise speed limits on three local streets Chandler Boulevard, Riverside Drive and Beverly Glen Boulevard. In the past day, three outraged pieces have attacked the limit increases and challenged the Council to defy state rules that require the increases for the LAPD to use radar to enforce the law.

In today's Los Angeles Times, the local paper of record follows up on this weekend's look at Metro's operational funding crisis with an editorial urging the Metro Board to increase fares to help close the agency's roughly quarter of a billion annual deficit for 2011.

Livable Streets advocates could have a full day in City Hall this Wednesday.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times took a look at the coming budget crisis at Metro.  The article just scratches the surface of the issue, correctly noting that there are a lot of reasons for the quarter of a billion dollar operating deficit including the state's budget grabs, lower than projected sales tax revenue and an 8% decline in ridership from Metro's record setting year in 2008.

As Governor Schwarzenegger presses forward with his newest scheme to rob funds dedicated to transit, he's receiving a frosty response from legislators and opinion makers that could spell doom for this plan to balance the budget.