A local — and very diverse — range of community groups sent a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein this week, asking her to continue to fight for federal New Starts funding for the Westside Subway Extension and the Regional Connector. New Starts is the federal program that helps local transit agencies [continue reading]
Below is an early analysis from Metro’s government affairs staff of the debt-ceiling compromise before Congress. Not surprisingly, it includes cuts in federal transportation spending: The House and Senate are set to vote today on legislation that reduces our national deficit, raises the debt ceiling and avoids a technical default [continue reading]
It doesn’t take a genius to realize the haggling — a nice term — in Congress over raising the U.S. debt ceiling and huge federal budget cuts probably doesn’t bode well for many programs, such as transportation. That’s a bad thing, because transit agencies across the U.S. — including Metro [continue reading]
Damien Newton at L.A. Streetsblog just posted an interesting interview with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that touches on the America Fast Forward (AFF) plan to speed up construction of Metro transit projects. AFF seeks to change federal law to allow for more federal loans and federally-backed bonds to build transit [continue reading]
For all the hype and talk about this weekend’s upcoming 405 closure — aka Carmageddon — I’ve also been a little surprised there hasn’t been more discussion of a pretty basic question: is the 405 project really worth the hassle of closing the freeway? I think so. The I-405 Sepulveda [continue reading]
If friends ever try that to claim you can’t have a successful transit system without rails in the ground, just nod politely and tell them to visit Seattle. The Emerald City didn’t have an inch of modern rail transit until a starter streetcar line opened in 2007 and a light [continue reading]
Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog. Angeleno apocalypse: Carmageddon (Time) The weekly magazine muses about the impact of next weekend’s 405 shutdown on our collective psyches and trots [continue reading]
As I’ve said many times before, the world of transportation finance is truly understood by roughly six people on the entire planet. The rest of us — on most days — would rather be spared the details. That said, everyone does understand this: paying for big transit projects is challenging [continue reading]
Below is the news release from Metro on the news earlier today that the Westside Subway Extension is about to secure a $640.8-million federal TIFIA loan. As the release states, Metro staff will be working in the next several weeks to determine the exact impact the loan will have on [continue reading]
Intelligent Source readers already know that no good can come from trying to guess the outcome of the California budget process. Who knows what will happen? Nonetheless, some possible good news burped out of Sacramento yesterday when Gov. Brown released his revised budget for the coming fiscal year. The budget [continue reading]
