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ART OF TRANSIT: A lonely bus spot amid the skyscrapers on Grand Avenue. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Metro takes another step forward in effort to build affordable housing at transit hubs (Streetsblog LA)

A very in-depth look at ongoing efforts by the Metro Board of Directors to increase the number of affordable housing units built on Metro-owned land next to transit stations. The Board last month approved a motion directing Metro to amend its joint development policy so that 35 percent of units built on Metro-owned land qualify as affordable units (that number is currently about 33 percent) and to possibly devote $10 million to a fund to promote more affordable units.

As Sahra Sulaiman makes clear, cities in our region are having an increasingly difficult time finding money to help build affordable units. And clearly there’s a huge need — a very small percentage of people who apply for affordable units that are built usually get them.

In Uptown, bike traffic soars (BikeSD) 

Buffered bike lanes were installed on two streets in the Uptown part of San Diego and — shocker! — use of the bike lanes has increased 346 percent since 2012. Build a good bike lane and they will come, eh?

If 2024 Olympic bid is a hot potato, Boston has no appetite (New York Times) 

The Sports of the Times column by Julie Macur delivers a spanking to the U.S. Olympic Committee for selecting Boston to be the U.S. bid city — USOC picked Boston over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C. Excerpt:

The U.S.O.C. is probably blushing now, but it put itself into this position in the first place and should have known better, considering the recent spate of cities backing off Olympic bids because a majority of their citizens were against them. It should have looked for a city with overwhelming support from within, so it could possibly have avoided what it is facing right now in Boston: a statewide vote that would be held in November 2016, more than a year after the U.S.O.C. would have to submit its final bid to the International Olympic Committee.

[snip]

And then there was Los Angeles, sweet L.A., the city that could probably host the Summer Games tomorrow. To see the U.S.O.C. turn its back on Los Angeles was a surprise to many, including me.

Los Angeles, a two-time Olympic host, has made a career out of bidding for the Games and has a proven track record. It’s a city whose Summer Games in 1984 captivated an entire American generation, turning some Olympians, like Mary Lou Retton and Greg Louganis, into iconic sports figures. Those Games actually made a profit, too, a main reason Los Angeles is one of the few Olympic cities that made a positive impression on the people who call it home.