More on football and transit at the bottom. The Carson Chargers get to play the Patriots and Tom Brady in New England next season, btw.

Art of Transit: 

I have a lot of feels for this tiny autonomous bus. @transdev pic.twitter.com/94owoawU1k

— 𝒶𝓃𝓃𝒶 安 (@annanotation) February 6, 2017

Anna’s working on a separate post about her glimpse into the future. Or one possible future.

ICYMI, looks like 10 of the new federal ‘proving grounds’ for autonomous vehicles are in California.

SANDAG knew numbers were wrong, went to voters anyway (Voice of San Diego)

A cautionary tale. FWIW, the transportation sales tax increase failed anyway last November even with officials saying it would raise $18 billion despite internal numbers saying otherwise.

Damien Talks: Habib Balian and the next Gold Line Foothill Extension (Streetsblog LA)

Habib oversees the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, the independent agency that will build the Measure M-funded project that will extend the Gold Line from Azusa to Claremont and possibly Montclair (if San Bernardino pays for the Montclair part). Stations in L.A. County will be built in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont.

There is a shortfall on the project of $138 million and there are several potential funding sources, Balian says. He points out that San Bernardino has about half of the $70 million they will need to get the train from Claremont to Montclair.

Will L.A. County transit agency be taken for a ride again? (Daily News) 

The DN editorial board frets that Metro’s choice of Tutor Perini/O&G to build the second phase of the Purple Line Extension will lead to cost overruns (Tutor’s bid was a half-billion dollars lower than the next nearest competitor). Metro officials said at last month’s Board meeting that there are rigorous procedures in place to keep the budget in check.

Elon Musk speaks about Hyperloop and tunneling (Electrek)

Minecraft pic.twitter.com/lU1YzJjLOZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2017

Looks like my skepticism about Musk’s recent tunneling tweets was misplaced. Looks like Musk & Co. have built a tunnel boring machine and sounds like their goal is to speed up tunneling by a significant factor. What he’s aiming for exactly is a big source of speculation — underground roads, the hyperloop, who knows. But interesting.

Musk is also on an economic advisory council to President Trump. Musk’s Twitter feed has some interestingness on that front.

About the NFL: Before this past season, my colleague Joe Lemon and I made our predictions for the S.B. Joe thought New England would face Arizona, I foresaw a Cincinnati-Minnesota matchup. Credit to Joe for getting it half right. Here’s a good read, btw, from the 2015 season about why NFL coaches (read: Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan) make dumb decisions.

In other NFL news, there remains the chance that one day we’ll be writing “Go Metro to see your Los Angeles Chargers host the San Diego Raiders.” I kid you not.