Photo credit: Ubertramp.com

If you have endured some scary drives in the mountains of the American West, then check out a post at Waze on the 19 most complex and dangerous roads in the world. There’s even a local entry — the 110/105 interchange made the list. But the photo that caught my eye is at right of Bolivia’s Road of Death, where there is seemingly no margin for error. Although it’s not as dramatic, the two California roads that have frightened me the most are the one-and-a-half lane Kaiser Pass Road in the western Sierra between Huntington Lake and Florence Lake and a stretch of Ninemile Road in the Eastern Sierra between U.S. 395 and Kennedy Meadows. Both roads are steep, narrow and feature some serious dropoffs.

Speaking of crazy roads, Joel Epstein at the Huffington Post isn’t very pleased to see all the time and expense going into widening the 405 over the Sepulveda Pass to add a carpool lane on the northbound side of the freeway. Epstein is cheesed that mass transit in the form of bus rapid transit isn’t part of the equation. It’s not — at least not yet. One of the projects on the list of Measure R projects is to build a mass transit line over the Pass between the Westside and the San Fernando Valley. It hasn’t been studied or defined yet and it’s not due to be complete until the 2030s — but it is due to receive more than $1 billion in taxpayer money. That said, the word “2030s” doesn’t exactly overwhelm me with excitement.

An excellent post at Streetsblog Los Angeles looks at the backbone bicycle network for the city of Los Angeles that is proposed by cycling activists. To make a long story short, activists are not happy with the city’s emerging bike plan that they believe pushes cycling off major thorofares in favor of segregrated routes on smaller roads. I think both sides raise good points and I suspect this fascinating debate will help shape what cycling looks like in this town in the long-term future.

The rest of today’s headlines, compiled by the Metro library, await you after the jump.

The 19 Most Complex And Dangerous Roads In The World (must-see photos)
Waze

Foothill Extension 101
I Will Ride

High-Speed Rail: Skipping Your Town
CNN

I’ll Have A BRT With The Sepulveda Pass
Huffington Post

LA Letter Hints At Private Operator For ONT
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

New Report Maps A High-Speed Rail Link for Every Major U.S. City
DC StreetsBlog

Projects And Paychecks: A One-Year Report On State Transportation Successes Under The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act
AASHTO

Railing Against This Costly Track
Fox & Hounds

Senate’s Proposed Jobs Bill: Merely An Extension Of Existing Legislation (Highway Trust Fund, including Mass Transit Account, will get infusion for 2010, but see no serious changes or expansion)
Transport Politic

Service Sector Governance Councils’ Quarterly Meet And Confer (Tuesday, Feb. 16)
LA StreetsBlog

Stimulus Transportation Under Scrutiny
Reuters

Three South Bay Streets Get Synchronized
LAist

What Is The Backbone Bikeway Network And Why Is It So Important?
LA StreetsBlog