Have a transportation-related article you think should be included in headlines? Drop me an email! And don’t forget, Metro is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

ART OF TRANSIT 1: The view of Half Dome and the peaks south of Tenaya Canyon in Yosemite this morning. For those of you wondering. The contrail at top left is the transportationy part of the photo. Webcam: Yosemite Conservancy and National Park Service.

Good tweet from the LAT’s transpo reporter Laura Nelson, who is attending a t-conference in Germany this week:

https://twitter.com/laura_nelson/status/604192117091651584

“Dudefest” isn’t the word I would have used. Which reminds me…I need to stop by the grocery on the way home and pick up some food items for the grill this weekend.

ART OF TRANSIT 2: I’m still trying to figure out who invited the mime to the CicLAvia in the SFV earlier this spring — and why the mime looks so darn sad at an event that was really fun. If you’re a mime and going to CicLAvia in Pasadena on Sunday, cheer up or mime yourself into an invisible box or something. Photo: Steve Hymon/Metro.

Opponents of 710 freeway extension offer alternatives to tunneling (L.A. Times)

Anti-710 freeway tunnel group presents new traffic-fixing plan (San Gabriel Valley Tribune)

The new Beyond the 710 Coalition held a news conference outside Metro HQ on Thursday to reinforce its opposition to the freeway tunnel alternative in Metro’s SR-710 North Study and to offer its own suggestions for improving traffic, transit, biking and walking in the area around the 710 Gap. The coalition includes five cities (Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena) and has the backing of Rep. Adam Schiff and Metro Board Member and Glendale Councilmember Ara Najarian.

Perhaps most interesting was a suggestion to build a new road north from the 710 terminus at Valley Boulevard to Mission Street in Alhambra as a way to help better distribute traffic trying to enter and exit the freeway — a proposal not in the Metro draft study released in March. Alhambra officials, however, continue to back the freeway tunnel alternative in Metro’s study. The Beyond the 710 Coalition also opposes the light rail alternative as presented in the Metro study and instead wants a surface route between Pasadena and East L.A. in the project’s first phase.

The Metro Board will ultimately have to choose a preferred alternative for the project — something which likely won’t happen until 2016.

The comment period for the draft study closes July 6; you can submit a comment online. There is also one more public hearing for the study at D.W. Griffith Middle School, D.W. Griffith Middle School Auditorium, 4765 E. 4th Street, in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Apple Maps is finally getting public transit directions (Business Insider)

This rumor has been swirling for some time. The latest prediction is that transit directions — like the ones you find on Google Maps — will be part of ios9 to be announced over the summer. We’ll see. Apple can be famously stubborn about things and it’s not like the market has punished them for not including something many of their customers would probably appreciate and use.

Cops arrest subway riders for manspreading (Gothamist) 

The blog post is a little shaky and is based on activist visits to arraignment courts around San Francisco East (i.e. the Big Apple). If the tale is true, two men were arrested for Wide Sitting after midnight and, perhaps not a coincidence, they had outstanding warrants for other public misdeeds including breaking windows and public weeweeing. Apparently, the judge expressed skepticism over the charges saying the subway couldn’t have been that crowded at that hour, although I certainly recall some very crowded D trains to Brooklyn in the 2 a.m. hour back when I was a young and thirsty sprout who could manage to stay up that late.

Less than four percent of Americans walk or bike to walk. Here’s how to change that (Vox) 

A summary of a lot of ideas that transportation-inclined readers have almost certainly heard about: more road diets, fewer cul de sacs, more density, more protected bike lanes, etc. For some idiotic reason, building and/or improving transit systems is not on the list. Good transit helps those who want to walk or bike make long trips they may not be able to fully make on foot or in the saddle.

California was calling my name (Zocalo Public Square)

Gregory Cosio. Photo: Zocalo Public Square.

The latest in Zocalo’s ongoing series of Metro rider profiles.

This map shows what causes most fatal car crashes in each state (Business Insider) 

If the data was correctly crunched, the data shows that improper turns were the number one reason for fatal vehicle accidents in California. In most of the rest of the country, failure to keep in the proper lane was the top reason. Perhaps — key word ‘perhaps’ — this suggests that improper turns are especially problematic in California, which is the most populous state in the U.S. and has some very traffic-challenged cities and metro areas.

Meet the Verdugo Mountains’ very own mountain lion, P-41 (L.A. Times)

No secret that cougars are occasionally seen in the Verdugos, the north-south range that runs between Glendale and Burbank (among other communities). But there’s some nice detail here about the National Park Service’s ongoing study of a male lion that has been using the Verdugos.

The outstanding question is where the lion goes when not in the Verdugos. One idea that seems likely is the southern San Gabriel Mountains, which sit just across the 210 freeway. Which raises another question: how often is the mountain lion crossing the freeway and how is he crossing it? There are certainly overpasses and underpasses of the 210 but no one knows. At least not yet.

***

•No disrespect to our Chicago-raised riders, but it would be fun to see the Stanley Cup Finals in Southern California for the third time in four years. I say “Go Ducks” with trepidation and want to make clear that is not in any way an endorsement of Corey Perry. He’s a punk.

•Things to listen to on transit: Marc Maron interviews Fresh Air’s Terry Gross on his WTF podcast. It’s fun to see the tables turned on Gross, who is clearly uncomfortable at times having to be the one answering the questions.

Feel free to follow my mostly non-transportationy thoughts and photos on Twitter and Instagram.