Kings fans ride the Expo Line back towards La Cienega Station on Saturday. The mood was subdued after the Kings' failed to clinch a trip to the Stanly Cup Finals. They'll have another chance tonight at 6 p.m. Photo by Carter Rubin/Metro.

Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.

Ten to 20 percent jump in Metro riders to downtown over the weekend (L.A. Daily News)

I happy to see I wasn’t the only one who took Metro downtown this weekend to avoid the sports-induced traffic snarl. This Daily News piece quotes Metro staff estimating a 10 to 20 percent boost in ridership over the weekend, with particularly high boardings at 7th Street/Metro Center and Pico stations — the two closest to Staples Center and the finish of the Amgen Tour of California.

Price Points: Music, transit and revival (Spacing Vancouver)

Former Vancouver, B.C., City Councilman Gordon Price — an instrumental figure in that city’s transit-oriented renaissance — was recently on an urban planning tour of Los Angeles. He filed this report on Mariachi Plaza, home to a a Metro Gold Line station. Price highlights the cultural significance of the plaza — and how it encourages people to gather and linger — before deeming it the “the best new public space I saw on a study tour of L.A.”

Area around Santa Monica’s first Expo Stop begins taking shape (Santa Monica Lookout)

With Expo Phase 2 only a few years away, the city of Santa Monica is taking strides to add housing and jobs around Bergamot Station, the easternmost station within the city boundaries. It’s an intriguing case for urban planners, because the station’s environs include several old industrial buildings bounded by very long blocks — not necessarily conducive to vibrant pedestrian environment you’d want around a transit station. What’s a city to do? The Santa Monica Planning Commission, notes the Lookout, is considering a suite of zoning changes for the station area to facilitate certain new developments and proposing the implementation of more bike- and pedestrian-friendly street designs.

New parking meter system goes into effect (Downtown L.A. News)

The city of L.A. is undertaking an effort to free up more curbside parking spaces by varying the price of parking according to the demand for that given location and time of day. After all, we let the market dictate the price of most scarce goods — why not parking too? The eye-grabber is that parking fees could go up to $6 per hour, but that’s the whole point: encourage those who want long-term parking to use a parking lot, so that curb parking stays available for those who need to make short trips.

Here’s a video from the city explaining the parking program: