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 blog.

Oceanside a little darker than usual at dusk yesterday due to the blackout in the San Diego metro area. Photo by JoeinSouthernCA, via Flickr.

More on tar, oil, pipelines and Presidents (New York Times) 

At some point soon, President Obama will have to decide whether to approve a pipeline  to import oil from the massive tar sands in the Canadian forest to the United States. Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin solicits the views of a number of people and the answers are mixed. Some say it’s just a path to more and more greenhouse gas emissions while others say that oil from the tar sands will be burned somewhere, whether it’s the U.S. or somewhere else — until other energy sources are online. Want to reduce your own oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions? Give mass transit a whirl!

7th Street open for cycling (L.A. Streetsblog) 

Los Angeles Councilman Ed Reyes on Thursday put the finishing touches on the first stretch of bike lanes on 7th Street extending from Figueora in downtown L.A. to MacArthur Park. The lanes are among the first to be constructed as part of the city of Los Angeles’ ambitious master bike plan. And check out these pics of new bike lanes recently striped on 1st Street over at the LADOT Bike Blog.

L.A. traffic pain not so bad compared to… (New York Times)

A new IBM survey of commuter pain ranks L.A. as 12th in the world behind cities such as Buenos Aires, Singapore, Moscow, Johannesburg and Mexico City, which came in worst. The city with the least amount of cumulative angst over traffic: Montreal. It’s interesting that many statistics reveal traffic in L.A. to be bad — but rather ordinary for major cities. Yet, the media narrative for L.A., at least in the U.S., is that we’re all about traffic.

President’s jobs speech mostly gets transpo wonk seal of approval (Streetsblog Network) 

A nice roundup of reviews of President Obama’s jobs speech to Congress on Thursday. Most reviewers think the money aimed at transportation projects is a good idea, although there is some skepticism that Congress will actually fund it.

Perry takes hard line on environmental issues (NPR)

A good look at the ongoing battle between Texas Gov. Rick Perry — a candidate for President — and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Perry, of course, is a climate change skeptic and believes that the state of Texas knows better how to clean its air than the federal government. Depending on how you look at it, the air has either grown a lot cleaner under Perry or still ranks as some of the dirtiest air in the nation.