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 Transportation Headlines online newspaper, which you can also access via email subscription (visit the newspaper site) or RSS feed.

ART OF TRANSIT: Hmm, guess who just discovered the Wild Night with Ted app?

Study: cyclists gravitate toward streets with protected bike lanes (L.A. Streetsblog)

No surprise here. But it’s nice to see there’s a study verifying what we already know: cyclists are more apt to use a bike lane separated from car traffic either by a curb or a row of parked cars. Speaking of…the final environmental study has been released for the MyFigueroa plan that the city of Los Angeles wants to build. The plan would, in fact, install some protected bike lanes on Figueroa and other streets between the South Park neighborhood in downtown L.A. and Exposition Park and USC. Figueroa would also get a bus-only lane and some expanding boarding areas. Some details below.

MyFigueroa fact sheet

More bad news from Gardena after bike riders dies following late July collision (BikingInLA)

Three cyclists have now been killed in Gardena in the past year. As Ted Rogers notes, the city has a population of roughly 60,000 and this appears to be a high rate of bike fatalities for a city that size. Of course, every accident has its own particular circumstances. Still, there’s this, which suggests perhaps something bigger is going on: “This is the 59th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and 26th in Los Angeles County, which has already exceeded the county-wide total for each of the last two years.”

Some ideas to turn Grand Park into the urban oasis that we need (LAObserved)

Iris Schneider offers some suggestions to improve visitation to Grand Park, namely getting some food offerings into the park besides Starbucks as well as a little more security. Agree. She also wants there to be free parking. Disagree–the Red/Purple Line has a station under the park and there is plenty of bus service on all the streets that intersect the park.

I actually really like the park – I think the city and county did a splendid job. The biggest problem with it, however, is that it’s on the periphery of downtown in the Civic Center, an area that pretty much shuts down at 5 p.m. after workers from City Hall, the County Hall of Administration and the criminal and civil courthouses head for the ‘burbs.

The best way of fixing Grand Park would be to get some residential development in the area. The Grand Avenue development was supposed to do that — in fact, the park is technically part of that residential and commercial development — but it’s never happened. There are all sorts of opportunities in the area if you look at how the land is being presently used.

As cost of high-speed rail project grows in the U.K., so does the resistance (New York Times)

Britain’s only high-speed rail line runs from London across the English Channel to France. Plans to push it north of London in two stages have been developed and would cost $65.8 billion pounds. Sound familiar? The similarities to California’s bullet train program don’t end with the cost. Opponents are complaining about noise, impacts to private property and the cost, saying the money would be better spend upgrading regional rail lines that are overtaxed. Proponents say that the U.K.’s rail system has fallen far behind those found on the continent and better rail service would help the north recover in this post-industrial era.