Transportation headlines, Monday, June 28

Here’s a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog.

Hitting the streets of L.A. on bikes on Sept. 12 (CicLAvia)

The cycling group says that it has nearly all the permits to shut down about seven miles of streets in Los Angeles for five hours on Sunday, Sept. 12, so that citizens can enjoy Los Angeles from their saddles or on foot. The route goes from East Hollywood to Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights, via downtown Los Angeles. Crazy, you say? Not really. Many, many other large cities — including New York and Mexico City — occasionally give their streets over to cyclists and pedestrians as a way to promote other forms of travel, x exercise and removing the pane of glass that often lays between motorists and city. Check out the CicLAvia website for maps of the planned route.

Metrolink Board of Directors approves fare increase (Metrolink)

Directors on Friday voted on fare hikes that will see an average six percent increase for commuter rail customers. The increase is based on driving miles — the idea being that farther commutes should cost more. The cost of 10-pack tickets and fares for seniors, disabled and Medicare recipients will also go up because, the agency says, they were among some of the steepest discounts in the country and were “unsustainable.” Also, on Saturday, Amtrak employees began running Metrolink’s trains, taking over from Connex, the company in charge when a Metrolink train collided head-on with a freight train in Sept. 2008, killing 25. That included the Metrolink train engineer, who was text messaging prior to the accident.

Why high-speed rail should remain high-speed rail (California High-Speed Rail Blog)

The blog takes issue with recent suggestion in an opinion piece in the Ventura County Star that the bullet train be scaled back in order to make it more affordable and allow it to be built. The blog says running trains slower in certain segments, truncating the line and bypassing key cities such as San Jose would eliminate many of its selling points that make it worth building — its speed and connectivity to key destinations.