MetroRiderLA

• LA Weekly doesn’t mince words when it comes to the Westside vs. SGV transit funding debate.
• Goodbye Pam from Santa Monica, Hello Mayor Villaraigosa.
• Eric Garcetti wants to lift the rush hour ban of bikes on trains.
• Metro buses are late 40% of the time and the yellow shirts won’t let you forget it.
• We’ve heard this one before: Washington Post columnist George Will thinks the solution to America’s transportation woes is simple, build more roads!

• Is it bad public policy that a 72-mile commute takes just shy of 3 hours? Methinks it’s a bad personal policy.
• Is the American Dream changing? Methinks it’s just reorienting to the lifestyle that offers the most freedom.
• Is a trip to San Pedro to ride the Red Cars a good idea for a “staycation”?  Methinks Pam from Santa Monica would approve.
• Are the train arrival times gone for good because of mean bloggers? Methinks they are just being fixed because of mean bloggers.
• Rail Riders Union wants a 1-cent sales tax to fund the Subway to the Sea.  Methinks…

• Looks like I’m not the only person into pegging car-culture conservatives as closet socialists! Check out this great article exposing the “Soviet Style Social Engineering” of the American car culture.
• Amtrak funding to increase by 28%, let’s hope they use that money wisely.
• Metro Citizens Advisory Council to hold a presentation with Metro about the transportation sales tax measure.
• Solar-powered GPS-enabled signs with next bus information could make the bus experience a whole lot nicer.
• Transit returns to Dodger Stadium next month, with game-day shuttles linking the stadium with Union Station.
• Riverside residents are getting stoked for the new Metrolink extension to Perris Valley.
• The grass is always greener on the other side: a Chicagoan dreams of a Los Angeles caliber transit system for her city.

• The illusion of control: in a car you’ve got control, in a bus you don’t. Or is that really the case?
• Angelenos dump the pump with gusto. Not hard with gas prices over $4/gallon.
• In Orange County, 10,000 people downloaded a free transit pass offered by OCTA for Dump the Pump Day.
• Metrolink hits 50,000 riders on Tueday, its highest single day ridership EVAR.
• A freeway is completed and traffic increases.

Image courtesy of alburn.binkley.

• Giving up everything for gas: more and more people are cutting out “non-essential” items like coffee, dining out, and vacations so they can afford the cost of gasoline, an “essential” item. Me? I’m eating out more than ever.
• The shocking truth about exurbia in the age of $4/gallon gasoline: “My fuel costs are more than my mortgage is by a couple hundred bucks”
• The brilliance of our national transportation system exposed: as gas prices rise, people are driving a lot less, which means less gas taxes are collected, which means money for infrastructure improvements and alternate modes is scarce.  Brillz. Faulkers.
• Megabus alternative? California Shuttle Bus to offer rides from L.A. to San Fran starting at $5.
• Grade separate Malibu!  Apparently the idyllic beach city is #1 in traffic fatalities and injuries.

Image courtesy of mac steve.

• House passes $15 billion bill for Amtrak funding.
• New and improved Amtrak Coast Starlight beats major airlines in schedule reliability.
• Shocking. Conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation doesn’t like Amtrak subsidies, prefers oil subsidies.
• Wait, the ghettoized lowest-common denominator bus based mass transit systems in the U.S. can’t handle the surge of new car culture refugees? Really? Wait. Really?
• People in America’s heartland finding out that with rising gas prices making them forgo meat and church donations for gas money, the no-alternatives freedom of car culture is actually quite binding.
• There was a time where there was mass transit and pedestrian congestion in a lively and active downtown Los Angeles. Yuck!