Two Metro Board of Director committees voted on Thursday to add the study of an underground station in Little Tokyo to the draft environmental impact report for the regional downtown connector project. To be clear: this doesn’t mean it’s getting built. Just that it will be studied. The issue in [continue reading]
We finally have some hard numbers, although I caution to take this with a grain of salt since it’s never over until it’s over when it comes to the state budget in California. That said, here are the numbers that Metro government relations staff presented to the Board of Directors’ [continue reading]
The Board of Director’s Measure R committee delayed voting until next month on an agreement with the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority over how to transfer funds between Metro and the Authority. The Authority is a separate agency set up to build the first phase of the Foothill Extension [continue reading]
Joel Epstein at the Huffington Post says that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s plan to build 30 years of Measure R projects in the next 10 years is a fine idea — but a number of funding reforms will be needed to make it happen. I, too, think it’s a [continue reading]
The budget proposed last month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is slowly working its way through the Legislature and is being closely watched by Metro. Schwarzenegger’s budget has been criticized by agencies and transit advocates for steering too much money away from transit. The State Senate has fixed that, to some [continue reading]
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $1.5 billion in so-called “tiger” grants to 51 transportation projects around the country today. One local project scored big — the Colton Crossing plan in San Bernardino was awarded $33.8 million. What is Colton Crossing? You’ve probably driven past it and not realized it. [continue reading]
And the top five rude behaviors on Metro buses and trains are….well, if you want to know read the Plus Metro blog post. Spoiler alert: one of them involves people who insist on barging onto the train or bus before letting passengers exit. This is one of my pet peeves [continue reading]
Work is scheduled to continue at night this week on the 405 Sepulveda Pass widening project — a carpool lane is being added on the northbound freeway between the Santa Monica and Ventura freeways. The contractor will be placing K-rails along the right shoulder to isolate the work zone. All [continue reading]
The extension of the Orange Line busway from Canoga Park to Chatsworth is scheduled to open in 2012. On Thursday, Metro awarded a contract for much of the work that needs to be completed. Here’s the memo from Metro CEO Art Leahy’s daily email to staff: Yesterday, we issued Brutoco [continue reading]
The American Public Transportation Assn. helped organize a practicum – that is, discussion – on high-speed rail in Los Angeles on Thursday. The idea was to bring together some experts and state officials to discuss the challenges of building high-speed rail both here in California and other states now that [continue reading]
