Mass transit ridership was down across the United States in the past year, but there’s one place that has seen record numbers of passengers of late: Vancouver, home to the Winter Olympics, according to the Sun. A new train line was built in preparation for the Games and lines were [continue reading]
A pedestrian was hit and killed by a southbound Blue Line light rail train about 4 p.m. Friday afternoon at the Century Boulevard crossing, according to Metro officials. The incident is under investigation. Trains are single-tracking around the accident site and Blue Line passengers should expect 20-minute delays. UPDATE: Regular [continue reading]
The town hall meeting at Metro headquarters with Sen. Barbara Boxer and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrapped up a little while ago. The topic: what should be in the massive federal transportation bill that Congress will soon begin debating. The 90-minute meeting featured short introductory remarks from Boxer and [continue reading]
It’s a big day at Metro HQ in downtown, with Sen. Barbara Boxer and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood here for a town hall meeting on the next federal transportation bill. That is set to start in a few minutes and I’ll post about it this afternoon. In the [continue reading]
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]
