There’s a lot on the agenda for the monthly meeting of the Metro Board of Directors, the politicians and appointees who get final say on Metro policy.

A few highlights from the agenda:

•(Item 1) The Board is also set to consider adding a Leimert Park Village station to the Crenshaw/LAX Line, as requested in a motion by Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas. The motion also asks for the section of the line in Park Mesa Heights between 48th and 59th streets to be built underground. Here is correspondence between Metro CEO Art Leahy and Mark Ridley-Thomas about the many issues involved — including, most notably, finding the $400 million to make those changes.

•(Item 19) The Board will consider temporarily lowering the cost of the Metro Day Pass from $6 to $5 to help motorists cope with high gas prices and a lousy economy. Metro staff report.

•(Item 9) In addition, the Board will vote on changing weekly and monthly passes to “rolling” passes — they would be good for seven days and 30 days from the time customers buy the passes instead of being locked to a standard calendar week and month. Metro staff report.

•(Item 16) The Board is also set to consider approving Metro’s annual budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The coming year’s budget for the agency is $4.14 billion, $247.5 million higher than last year’s budget (mostly due to construction of Measure R projects). The budget also a reduction of 61,000 bus service hours in December – less than 1 percent of the annual total of 6,835,114 hours. Proposed FY2012 budget.

•(Item 13) The Board is set to approve a route for the Wilshire Boulevard bus lane project as part of approving its final environmental impact statement. The bus lanes would only be in the city of L.A. Metro staff have recommended 7.7 miles of peak hour bus lanes (in the curb lane) — 5.4 miles east of Beverly Hills and 2.3 miles in the Brentwood and Westwood areas. Metro staff report and previous Source post with maps/charts.

•(Item 2) The Board will consider a motion by Board Members Antonio Villaraigosa, Diane DuBois and Mel Wilson to study adding HOT lanes — i.e. toll lanes with changing prices to reflect traffic demand — on the 405 freeway north of the Orange County border. The OC is considering adding HOT lanes to its stretch of the 405 and the motion states that having those HOT lanes end at the junction with the 605 freeway could create an unintentional bottleneck. Motion.

•(Item 5) The Board will vote on a distribution and pricing plan for transponders needed to use the ExpressLanes that Metro will construct on parts of the 10 and 110 freeways. Metro staff report and previous Source post.