Category Archives: Transportation Headlines

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Transportation headlines, Monday, March 4

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: workers in the Chicago subway. Photo by Chicago Transit Authority, via Flickr creative commons.

ART OF TRANSIT: workers in the Chicago subway. Photo by Chicago Transit Authority, via Flickr creative commons.

L.A.’s broken civic promise (L.A. Times) 

With elections in the city of Los Angeles on Tuesday, the Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looks at five urban planning issues in the city that represent failures or issues that need to be addressed by the next mayor. They are: LAX (with an emphasis on transit to LAX), Pershing Square, Grand Avenue, the Westside Subway Extension and the Los Angeles River. This is a outstanding article.

Excerpt on LAX:

But the truth is that the airport’s biggest liability is not simply architectural. Somehow Los Angeles built a major rail route, the Green Line, past LAX 20 years ago without adding a stop at the airport.

And guess what? We are about to build another light-rail route — this time the $1.7-billion Crenshaw Line — near the airport and make precisely the same mistake again.

Why? In part it’s because squeezing a station beneath the existing airport complex would be expensive and complicated. And in part because the operator of LAX, Los Angeles World Airports, has not always seen eye to eye with transit planners at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Plans are underway to build a “people mover” automated train that would take passengers to the airport from a Crenshaw Line station at Century and Aviation boulevards, a mile east of the terminals.

The people mover would be a sadly inefficient compromise. The worst-case scenario, which can typically be counted on at LAX, is that passengers on the Crenshaw Line would have to drag their suitcases over a pedestrian bridge before getting on the people mover.

Hawthorne believes a rail station needs to actually be located at the airport.

Excerpt on the Westside Subway Extension:

As the backbone of a thriving new mass-transit system, the subway is worth its admittedly sky-high cost. The subway we build now will be a bargain compared with the one we try to build several decades from now.

And the truth is that opposition in places such as Beverly Hills is not just about safety. (Tunneling of this kind has become routine for subway builders around the world.) It is also driven by fears of the changes a subway line through the city might bring.

The same anxieties kept Bay Area’s BART system out of Marin County and the Washington, D.C., Metro out of Georgetown decades ago. (And the subway out of Beverly Hills in the 1980s, for that matter.) If they were patently offensive then, they are indefensible now.

Hawthorne’s point: get the subway built ASAP. Read the entire article please. Los Angeles has long struggled to create vital public spaces commonly found in other cities. These ideas haven’t generated much conversation in the mayoral campaign thus far, thanks in part to an endless series of debates seemingly designed to generate little more than scripted sound bites.

In the most recent poll reported on by the Times, voters’ top priority was the city budget, job creation and schools. Interesting. I tend to associate local government most with public safety and land use decisions — while voters (at least in this poll) go for broader subjects.

Working from home vs. working from the office (New York Times)

This editorial comes on the heels of Yahoo’s CEO ordering the troops back to the office in hopes of greater creativity and productivity. The Times tepidly suggests that such decisions shouldn’t be made so quick as there are benefits to work-at-home — one of those being that it helps traffic congestion. In Los Angeles County, 4.7 percent of workers work at home — imagine putting 72 percent of time alone in cars and sending them on the freeways at rush hour! Some parts of the county have even higher percentages: in Santa Monica, home of the screenwriter-who-sits-at-Coffee-Bean-all-day, about 10 percent of the workforce does their job from home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hands across America (The New Yorker, March 4 edition) 

A very entertaining recent history of the hand sanitizer industry, which may interest those who sped a lot of time in public spaces. The article begins with a long anecdote about Purell, which took 10 years of losses on its sanitizer product until public appetite exploded, catching on first with health-care workers and then with the masses. The article is behind the New Yorker’s pay wall, but an abstract is available for free.

Transportation headlines, Friday, March 1: high-speed rail wins a lawsuit, more evidence millennials ♥ their cell phones more than cars

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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.

High-speed rail wins lawsuit over Peninsula route (San Jose Mercury News)

After five years of legal wrangling — five years! — a judge dismissed a lawsuit trying to block the California High-Speed Rail Authority from building the line along existing tracks between San Jose and San Francisco. Opponents wanted the train to reach San Francisco via a route in the East Bay that was far from their cities.

Amtrak ridership up, but Amtrak facing cuts (Sacramento Bee) 

The number of riders has increased 55 percent since 1997 with a record 31 million last year. “The increases were especially pronounced in states that subsidize short-distance trains between major cities,” reported the Bee. But sequestration cuts could squeeze the railroad. The article is based on a new study of Amtrak by the Brookings Institution.

Millennial and cars: an evolving relationship (Zipcar) 

The car sharing firm’s third annual survey shows that for a lot of reasons those aged 18 to 34 are driving less and having a computer and cell phone is seen by many as more critical than having a car. If anyone out there is working on an “American Graffiti” remake, please take note. If anyone out there has no idea what “American Graffiti” is, don’t sweat it.

TOD for Expo Line Sepulveda station approved by L.A. Planning Commission (Curbed LA)

The complex with 638 apartments will include more bike parking, public restrooms for transit users and some parking for those riding the Expo Line. I think the new residences will give businesses along the Pico Boulevard corridor a lift, not to mention it being an easy ride on the Expo Line to either Santa Monica, Culver City or downtown Los Angeles.

Council candidate proposes new rail lines for Hollywood (Curbed LA)

With a few days to go before the primary election, Matt Szabo sent out an email blast proposing a subway connection between Hollywood and Century City, a rail line along Sunset Boulevard between downtown L.A. and Hollywood and a streetcar connecting Atwater Village and downtown L.A. with a route along the L.A. River corridor. It’s always refreshing to see candidates talking about public transit, but it’s also my job as government mouthpiece to remind voters that none of these projects are presently funded in Metro’s long-range plan, meaning there’s an enormous amount of work to get them studied, paid for and built anytime soon.


Transportation headlines, Thursday, Feb. 28; subway attendants video, Americans driving less

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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.


Subway attendants (Improv in Toronto)

Check out the video of the neat little stunt undertaken recently in Toronto. As government mouthpiece, I have to tell you snack carts are prohibited on Metro :)

For eighth year in row, Americans drove fewer miles (DC Streetsblog)

Well, 37 fewer miles to be precise. But it's interesting that the trend is holding.

Stranding of passengers shows difference between Washington Metro's goals and reality (Washington Post)

The paper's Dr. Gridlock says that two recent power outages on the Green Line — in which passengers actually walked away from trains — shows Metro has a ways to go to live up to its safety and customer satisfaction plans.

 


Transportation headlines, Wednesday, Feb. 27

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: A full moon hovers over the Gold Line's Lake Avenue Station in the middle of the 210 freeway in Pasadena. No, I didn't add the moon in Photoshop -- it was there and it was orange-ish. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: A full moon hovers over the Gold Line’s Lake Avenue Station in the middle of the 210 freeway in Pasadena. No, I didn’t add the moon in Photoshop — it was there and it was orange-ish. I’ll try to get a shot next month of the moon closer to the horizon; my timing was off last night. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Check out the progress on the 405 project at Wilshire (LA Observed) 

Nice gallery of photos of work on the Wilshire flyover ramps that should make it easier and safer to exit and enter the 405 at Wilshire. The ramps will also hopefully ease some of the congestion at the Wilshire underpass of the 405. Carmageddon I and II — the freeway closures to demolish the Mulholland Bridge — got a lot of the media attention, but I suspect that the Wilshire ramps will be the improvement that most Westside motorists appreciate about the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project.

ExpressLanes in Southern California promise relief and opportunities for commuters and businesses (Welcome to the Fast Lane)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s blog has an entry on the opening of the ExpressLanes on the 10 freeway over this past weekend. Excerpt:

The Obama Administration believes that the key is to give people choices–better transit options, more buses and bus stops, incentives for carpooling and van pooling.

In this case, the HOT lanes that FHWA supported offer a choice of free or tolled lanes to motorists. As more drivers choose the option of avoiding congestion by choosing a tolled lane, it actually reduces congestion on the free lanes at the same time.

We think it’s a very interesting solution, and across the country state departments of transportation seem to agree as the move to add HOT lanes continues.

Cars and robust cities are fundamentally incompatible (The Atlantic Cities)

Good post from earlier this month on studies that show as the number of people who drive to a downtown area increases, the number of people actually working in downtown decreases. The problem: too many parking lots taking up space that could otherwise be used for offices and buildings that contribute to the critical mass that downtown areas thrive upon. This article, me thinks, applies directly to downtown Los Angeles — which has far more parking than is actually needed.

 

Transportation headlines, Tuesday, Feb. 26: art of transit, does light rail stop people from driving?, raising the gas tax?

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: A bus on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: A bus on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. There’s a color version after the jump — I like the photo but can’t decide which version I like better. You decide! Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Does light rail really stop people from driving (The Atlantic Cities) 

A new study in the UK showed little evidence that four different light rail lines (all in Britain) made much of any difference on car ownership rates or the amount of driving. Rail ridership in the light rail corridors did go up, but that mostly seemed to come at the expense of bus ridership. Excerpt:

With that in mind, the work still underscores some important lessons. For starters, it offers a sound piece of advice: cities considering a light rail system should strongly consider whether improving the local bus system would be cheaper and just as effective. It also provides yet another reminder of the irrational love people have for their cars; getting city residents to give up driving often requires more than just offering them a ride.

LA Observed: Traffic, bikes and the 405 (KCRW)

LA Observed Kevin Roderick’s weekly radio segment focuses on the lack of talk about traffic during the mayoral campaign. Voters seem interested, Roderick says, but it’s hard for any prospective mayor to credibly say they can fix traffic — thus the talk instead of providing alternatives to it, i.e. bikes and transit. Good segment.

The case for a higher gas tax (New York Times) 

Valerie J. Karplus, a research scientist in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at M.I.T., uses this op-ed piece to make the case that the only thing that will get Americans to drive less is more expensive gasoline. And by expensive she means a lot more than the current national average of $3.72. Excerpts:

But if our goal is to get Americans to drive less and use more fuel-efficient vehicles, and to reduce air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases, gas prices need to be even higher. The current federal gasoline tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, has been essentially stable since 1993; in inflation-adjusted terms, it’s fallen by 40 percent since then.

Politicians of both parties understandably fear that raising the gas tax would enrage voters. It certainly wouldn’t make lives easier for struggling families. But the gasoline tax is a tool of energy and transportation policy, not social policy, like the minimum wage.

She argues that President Obama took the easier path by greatly raising the fuel efficiency requirements of new vehicles — something that won’t reduce driving much or raise much money for infrastructure improvements. I do think the new standards, however, have a good chance of greatly reducing air pollution in our region. But if driving greatly increases, then those gains could be for naught.

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Transportation headlines, Monday, Feb. 25; looking for love on the bus, subway and Walmart

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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.

Source: Psychology Today.

Source: Psychology Today.

Missed connections: looking for love on the bus, train and Walmart (Psychology Today) 

The above graphic is one big slice of awesomeness. Psychology Today looked at the last 100 “missed connection” posts in Craigslist in each state to find the place where boy/girl didn’t quite connect with boy/girl. Transit got the top nod in five states in addition to the District of Columbia. That’s no match for Walmart, which lead 13 states — because, you know, love never looked better than under fluorescent lights. It’s also interesting that LA Fitness is apparently more of a meat market in Arizona than it is in California, where 24 Hour Fitness serves as the local candy shop.

And some special mentions….

Georgia: Wow, your traffic must really be pathetic if you have that much time to sit and ogle girl/boy from a vehicle.

Utah: very old school — meeting girl/boy at college!

Nevada: I wonder how many of those casino connections last more than a week?

Indiana: The state must lead the nation in shy people if you meet someone “at home” and still need to place a “missed connections” ad.

Maryland: Meeting someone in a park sounds nice.

Hat tip for this post: Human Transit, transportation planner Jarrett Walker’s most excellent blog.

Westside traffic: C’mon, council candidates, let’s fix it (L.A. Times) 

Editorial writer, Brentwood resident and car commuter Carla Hall recently attended a Streetsblog forum for 11th Council District candidates and didn’t come away impressed. She wanted to hear more about fixing car traffic in the congested Westside and doesn’t think transit or cycling offer much hope. Nor is she a fan of left-turn signals.

Of course, fixing traffic in many cities is notoriously difficult and the Westside is no exception. It’s also difficult when so many proposals — including one mentioned by Hall that would have turned Olympic and Pico boulevards into one-way streets — are shot down by Westside residents!

As for Brentwood, I think there are three Metro projects that would have been worth mentioning or debating their merits: the Wilshire/405 flyover ramps under construction, the new and wider Sunset Boulevard bridge and Metro’s decision to end the third phase of the Westside Subway Extension at the VA Hospital, meaning it doesn’t quite reach Brentwood. 

After M.T.A. setbacks, no-swipe fare cards are still stuck in the future (New York Times) 

The paper cards that are swiped to get patrons through turnstiles on the New York subway have been around since 1993 and are likely here to stay for some time. The agency’s efforts to adopt no contact smart cards — i.e. such as TAP cards — no longer seem to be a priority, even though many other large transit agencies have gone that route. The MetroCard used in New York costs too much and does too little, complain officials.

The mayoral candidate video series: Wendy Greuel (L.A. Streetsblog)

The fifth and final installment in the series that allowed each of the leading candidates for Los Angeles mayor to talk about their take on local transportation issues.

Letter to Mark Lacter (Examined Spoke)

A thorough take-down/dismemberment of Lacter’s recent post at LAObserved complaining about providing more space for cyclists on L.A. streets. It’s always fun to watch what someone armed with actual facts can accomplish!

Transportation headlines, Friday, Feb. 22

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Gold Line train bound for East Los Angeles crosses the 1st Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River on Wednesday afternoon. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Gold Line train bound for East Los Angeles crosses the 1st Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River on Wednesday afternoon. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Where the Los Angeles mayoral candidates stand: transportation (Los Angeles Times) 

Best breakdown I’ve seen yet on where the major candidates stand on a variety of issues, including project acceleration, lowering the voter threshold for transportation tax increases,  rail versus buses, the route for the Westside Subway Extension in Century City (i.e. should it tunnel under part of the Beverly Hills High School campus), a 710 tunnel, adding more toll lanes in Los Angeles County and moving the north runway at LAX, among other questions. While the candidates often agree, there are certainly differences. Put down your jelly donuts and read this, people and/or voters!!

Mapping the end of the road on the 405 (ZevWeb) 

Good piece on Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s website about the Sepulveda Pass project on the 405. The gist of it: many elements of the project will be finished this year but one challenging section around Montana Avenue and Church Lane will see work carry over into 2014. In that area, utility relocations have been particularly problematic.

Motor vehicle fatality estimates: 2012 sees five percent increase (National Safety Council) 

These are early estimates — usually the federal government takes about a year to compile all the information and come up with a firmer number. California fared worse than the nation with the state seeing an estimated seven percent increase in deaths from 2011 to 2012, with 2,994 fatalities. 

Five ways to make public transit awesome (Mother Nature Network) 

Writer Chris Turner says it’s no surprise transit often fails to capture the public’s imagination — too often bus stops and train stations are designed as little more than an afterthought. His suggestions include making the bus stop a sanctuary, a cafe and/or a community gathering place. Check out a very cool photo with the post of a transit line and green space in Germany.

The mayoral candidate video series: Eric Garcetti (L.A. Streetsblog) 

The fourth part of Streetsblog’s interviews with the five leading mayoral candidates is with Councilman Eric Garcetti, who discusses the Metro Board and busways.

 

Transportation headlines: toll lanes, bike lanes, bus lanes & art of transit

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Metro Rapid bus crosses the Broadway bridge over the Los Angeles River on Wednesday afternoon, the day after a storm greened the local hills and dumped snow in the San Gabriel Mountains. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Metro Rapid bus crosses the Broadway bridge over the Los Angeles River on Wednesday afternoon, the day after a storm greened the local hills and dumped snow in the San Gabriel Mountains. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

 

Readers respond to proposed bike lanes (LA Observed)

Mark Lacter wrote recently that he doesn't believe it's a good idea to add bike lanes to parts of Westwood and Sepulveda boulevards on the Westside at the expense of traffic lanes. Reactions run the gamut — fun read — and the question that swirls above the issue is this: how many cyclists are using the new bike lanes in the city?

More freeway toll plans? Slow down, Southern California (Daily News)

The editorial lightly punches Metro for proposing new toll lanes on 13.5 miles of the 5 freeway through the Santa Clarita area before the impact of the ExpressLanes on the 110 and 10 are known (the lanes on the 10 open Saturday). Metro, however, did send a letter to the Daily News saying there's a key difference: the toll lanes on the 5 are being proposed as a way to accelerate the project and have it built by 2019 instead of 2040 or after.

The mayoral candidate video interview series: Jan Perry (L.A. Streetsblog)

Councilwoman Jan Perry gets her turn in part three of the series; her interview takes place on an Expo Line platform.

 

CicLAvia unveils map for CicLAvia to the sea on April 21 (L.A. Streetsblog)

The map of the new route is out and the big to-do is that cyclists and pedestrians will be able to take Venice Boulevard from the ocean all the way into downtown L.A. The new course will also intersect with the Expo Line, Red Line, Purple Line, Blue Line and Gold Line.

 
 

 

Transportation headlines, Wed., Feb. 20; amazing bike grill, candidate ‘clarifies’ subway position, fare free transit spreading?

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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.

ART OF TRANSIT: The scene on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles last night. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: The scene on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles last night. Click above to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Millenium Hollywood plan clears first hurdle (L.A. Times) 

The city of L.A.’s planning department approved plans for two towers — a block from the Hollywood & Vine Red Line station — that would house apartments, offices and retails. Some residents are upset, saying the towers, which would be at least 485 and 585 feet tall, respectively, would block views and add to traffic in the area. I’ll offer up the opposing view: it’s nice to see Hollywood getting some much needed new development, homes, jobs and commerce — the things that make a city function like a city. The towers still must be approved by the Planning Commission and the City Council.

The mayoral interview candidate series: Kevin James (L.A. Streetsblog)

Part two of the five-part series includes a video interview with Kevin James.

Kevin James clarifies views on subway station (Century City News) 

“Clarifies” is not the word I would have chosen for the headline — James doesn’t say in this short piece whether he supports the location of the Century City station and whether it’s appropriate for the subway tunnels to go under part of the Beverly Hills High School campus. James, however, says that if Beverly Hills prevails in court and the approvals for the Westside Subway Extension are overturned, he would then sit down with both Beverly Hills and Metro and work through the issues.

Fare-free transit spreading in Europe? (Human Transit) 

The city of Tallin (pop. 425,000) in Estonia is, by Jarrett Walker’s reckoning, now the largest city in the world to offer free transit for its residents — although residents still need to purchase a fare card. Tourists and visitors still have to pay fares. Interestingness excerpt:

Indeed, smart farecards make it possible for anyone to subsidize fares without much complexity, opening up a huge range of subsidy possibilities for any entity that sees an advantage in doing so.  Yet another reason that city governments are not as helpless about transit as they often think, even if they don’t control their transit system.

Like to eat sausages while biking? Then this bike grill is for you (The Atlantic Cities) 

Check out this awesome invention — instead of a bike rack behind the seat there’s a grill capable of holding four large sausages. The inventor is from L.A. and says he will target German audiences because of their high per capita consumption of bratwurst.

Transportation headlines, Tuesday, Feb. 19; another Beverly Hills lawsuit against subway, Najarian and Metro Board,

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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.

City of Beverly Hills files lawsuit to block federal funding for Westside Subway Extension (City of Beverly Hills) 

The news release from the city is unclear whose decision it was to file a second lawsuit over the project. The only person quoted in the release is the city attorney. This suit names the Federal Transit Administration as the defendant and alleges that the environmental studies for the subway were flawed; the city doesn’t want the subway to tunnel under parts of its high school campus en route to Century City.

However, the news release notes that Mayor Willie Brien and the four members of the Beverly Hills City Council voted unanimously this month to set aside an extra $250,000 of city funds for legal bills related to fighting Metro’s plans.

The lawsuit comes less than three weeks before Council elections on March 5 and the subway is obviously an issue — well, at least for some. It’s worth noting that Beverly Hills Mayor Willie Brien attended and spoke at a Metro event for the beginning of utility relocations for the subway back in November and said then that he supports the project. Support or not, the city filed this suit against the FTA, the federal agency that approves environmental documents and oversees the flow of federal money to the project.

The city of Beverly Hills last June sued Metro, also alleging environmental studies were flawed. The Beverly Hills Unified School District last year also filed a pair of suits, one against Metro and one against the FTA.

Beverly Hills’ subway spat (Los Angeles Times) 

Excerpt from this editorial:

Beverly Hills’ embarrassing battle against the Westside subway extension, which emerged as a major political issue last year, is becoming one of the key issues in the March 5 city elections. With the lines hardening between those determined to take legal action to stop the construction of a tunnel under the local high school, which they fear will endanger students, and those who see that route as the safest alternative, we urge residents to consider the scientific and engineering reality rather than merely relying on emotion. In other words: Stop gumming up the rails, Beverly Hills, for your own sake and L.A.’s.

The editorial says that Mayor Brien has tried to avoid a costly legal fight. But, as noted above, it’s unclear exactly who on the City Council approved the new suit against the FTA. According to the Beverly Hills Courier — a sometimes accuracy-challenged newspaper — Brien has said he will support the project even if it tunnels under part of the campus.

Jim Newton: an MTA power play (L.A. Times) 

Editorial chief Jim Newton looks at Glendale Councilman Ara Najarian’s battle to keep his seat on the Metro Board of Directors. Some on the Board oppose him, some support him. At the root of the battle is Najarian’s opposition to a possible tunnel for the 710 freeway between Alhambra and Pasadena. That project is currently under study along with other alternatives including no-build, traffic signal and intersection improvements, bus rapid transit and light rail.

The mayoral candidate interview series (L.A. Streetsblog) 

Streetsblog on Monday debuted the first of five short video interviews with the five leading candidates for mayor of Los Angeles. The first is with Emanuel Pleitez. The mayor of Los Angeles has an automatic seat on the Metro Board and also gets to appoint members to three other seats.