Metro Board of Directors meeting underway
The monthly meeting of the Metro Board of Directors began a few minutes ago. The agenda is on the light side today, but we’ll post a roundup of actions taken later in the day.
More high-speed rail funding details
A few more notes on the announcement by President Obama today that California will receive $2.25 billion in federal funds for a high-speed rail line between Anaheim and San Francisco: *The state of California had applied for $4.7 billion in funds to help build four segments of the line, including [continue reading]
California to receive federal high-speed rail funds
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoqo1xSiBSc[/youtube] As of 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, three major media outlets — Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the San Jose Mercury News — were reporting that the Obama Administration will provide about $2.3 billion to California’s effort to build a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Anaheim. Obama [continue reading]
High-speed rail announcement may be imminent
Could the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim segment of the high-speed rail route between Anaheim and San Francisco receive some federal funding this week? Money to build high-speed infrastructure seems a possibility, according to media reports and this nugget that Metro CEO Art Leahy included in his daily email to staff yesterday: President [continue reading]
Feds — for now — delay providing money for subway and connector engineering
Federal officials have denied a request by Metro to provide $77.6 million in the coming year’s federal budget to be used for preliminary engineering on the Westside Subway Extension and Downtown Regional Connector projects. At the same time, federal officials say they are diligently working with Metro to advance planning [continue reading]
Cities, agency prepare for second federal stimulus bill
Metro CEO Art Leahy included this item in his daily email to staff on Friday: Proposed Second Federal Stimulus Bill On December 16, 2009, the House passed a second fiscal stimulus bill, H.R. 2847. The Senate will begin consideration of their version of a stimulus bill later this month and [continue reading]
Southern California Transit Forum at Chapman University aims to solve SoCal’s transit crisis
[youtube width=”560″ height=”340″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqN2pRBOwlk[/youtube] The above video from the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) serves as a nice primer for the upcoming Southern California Transit Forum being held at Chapman University on February 5th. This all day event aims to bring together transit officials, advocates, local business leaders and policy makers [continue reading]
One group’s ideas for getting trains moving
I had the chance to listen to a conference call on Wednesday that was organized by the American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA), a Washington D.C.-based group that promotes – as the name implies – mass transit. The group has also set up a website on high-speed rail efforts. The purpose [continue reading]
Leahy to LaHood: let’s talk New Starts!
This item led Metro CEO’s daily email memo to agency staffers on Wednesday: Today, I wrote to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to encourage him to hold a public listening session at our headquarters on the New Starts reforms he announced last week. On January 13, 2010 the U.S. [continue reading]
Metro distributes first round of Measure R funds to five cities
Ara Najarian, Chair of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors, on Tuesday presented installments of Measure R sale tax money to the cities of Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Malibu, Westlake Village and Hidden Hills for use in improving transportation systems within their cities. Measure R, a half-cent [continue reading]