Good morning from lovely downtown Monrovia in the San Gabriel Valley, where my bike is locked to a streetlamp because of lack of — hint, hint — bike racks. In other news, the Metro library is taking a summer break so we're compiling a few headlines on our own.

CTA: aisle-facing seats are here to stay (Chicago Tribune)

New rail cars in Chicago feature seats along the walls facing inward. Although some riders have complained to the Trib — one griped that the arrangement would promote peeking at cleavage (seriously) — the Chicago Transit Authority says that the new seats will remain because the rail cars were designed to accommodate them.

Cancer surgeon commandeers kid's bike to reach hospital (Grist)

Stuck in traffic behind a giant truck accident, a Baton Rouge surgeon drove to a friend's house and borrowed his eight-year-old daughter's bike in order to reach a scheduled surgery on time. Check out the photos.

Long Beach hires BikeNation to run bike share program (L.A. Streetsblog)

The City Council voted unanimously to allow the firm to run its new program which will include 2,500 bikes for rent at over 250 kiosks throughout town. The first kiosks are scheduled to be installed in February. BikeNation is paying for it and it will be interesting to see how much interest the program generates; Long Beach has been extremely progressive when it comes to installing bike infrastructure.

Destroying precious land for gas (New York Times)

In this opinion piece, musician Sean Lennon — son of John and Yoko — decries a natural gas industry he believes is intent to run rampant in rural New York state in order to recover natural gas through the controversial hydraulic fracturing method. It's a strong piece although, of course, there are some benefits to natural gas — it burns more cleanly than other fossil fuels.

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