digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/Cyclists_Illegally_Use_L_A_Freeway_Beat_Traffic'; Last Friday, Crimanimal Mass took their second bicycle ride on the freeway during drive-home rush hour (see a video of their first ride here). Whizzing by gridlocked cars, the demonstration, albeit illegal, raises questions. Good questions. One of the group's organizers, Morgan Strauss, 29, was quoted in the Santa Monica Daily Press (.pdf) this weekend saying that he “just wanted to raise questions about the transportation infrastructure. In a city ruled......

We're already home, are you? | Photo by Morgan Strauss, used with permission A follow up to the earlier story on freeway biking. The group of riders on Friday also put up this banner. "We hung a 20 X 6 foot banner on the 17th street overpass that read 'RIDE A BIKE: YOU'D BE HOME BY NOW,'" organizer Morgan Strauss explained. "It stayed up for over 48 hours." Tomorrow morning is the Blessing of......

Photo by Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA via Flickr Today's edition of Steve Hymon's weekly Road Sage column explores one Altadena man's story of de-caring for five years, but unwillingly giving back into car culture after Metro changed some lines, ultimately forcing his four hour daily roundtrip to be a little longer and more unpredictable. Cliff Moore, who is not fond of driving, lives in Altadena, works in Sun Valley and likes it that way.......

Photo by Thomas Hawk via Flickr Last Friday, Crimanimal Mass took their second bicycle ride on the freeway during drive-home rush hour. Whizzing by gridlocked cars, the demonstration, albeit illegal, raises questions. Good questions. One of the group's organizers, Morgan Strauss, 29, was quoted in the Santa Monica Daily Press (.pdf) this weekend saying that he “just wanted to raise questions about the transportation infrastructure. In a city ruled by cars, why is it......

"Sherman Way Beautification Project," by kpe II via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr. A Fresno sheriff will allow researchers to start digging for human remains under the former estate of Charles Manson, where Mr. Helter Skelter hid after a 1969 summer killing spree. A woman's partially decapitated body was found in a South L.A. alley. She may have been homeless and police said she suffered multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma. No......

The Westside Extension effort, commonly dubbed as the "Subway to the Sea," went social networking/Web 2.0 style a few weeks ago with a group on Facebook. This is the first time a specific project has done outreach like this and word on the transit street is that more project managers may be doing more of this in the future. Metro's Librarian, Matthew Barrett, has definitely been a leader in exploring blogging and other online tools......

Oil just keeps creeping up in price everyday it seems. This morning, headlines like this read "Oil Passes $120 A Barrel For First Time Ever." But don't expect today's record breaking numbers to be the cause of any immediate increases in local gas prices. According to Jeffrey Spring of AAA of Southern California, it takes three to six weeks to see the effect of oil prices at the pump. Any price increase or decrease on......

Reported earlier this week, Disney was set to begin service of its new Red Monorail, the Mark VII. Today, the OC Register's Disney blog says that mouse officials "decided to take a few extra days for test and adjust." In late March, LA Times' Daily Travel & Deal blog reported that Monorail Blue "is scheduled to arrive at Disneyland between mid-April and early May." Photo by Paul Hiffmeyer/Walt Disney Co.......

Photo by jslander via Flickr If one popular restaurant single handedly caused enough of a parking problem that the LA Times' Burbank Leader is writing a feature article on it and it became a city council election issue, then it's time for the city of Burbank to think a little more about their poor public transportation system and walkability of the suburban Magnolia Park area in the city's westside. Since the popular Porto's Bakery......

After the odd news that broke this morning about the verboten action of snapping photos in Disneyland parking lots, more news comes out of the House of Mouse today -- in the form of transportation. Ray Bradbury may want a monorail in Los Angeles, but Disney is the only place you'll actually get some one-on-one action with it. And beginning Friday, "the first new monorail car in two decades — called the Monorail Red or......

Taken near Olvera St. and Union Station | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist If all goes well, Assemblyman Mike Feuer's bill, AB 2321, will let Metro and local officials "go to the ballot in November to ask voters to consider a half-penny sales tax hike. That would raise at least $720 million annually in a county with a long, long list of needs," according to LA Times' Road Sage Steve Hymon wrote today. It would......

Photo by Peggy Archer via Flickr On Friday, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) launched their new website, which is a vast improvement to what they had before. And while the site is repackaged with a much nicer visual design and an easier to find live traffic conditions page (super useful, check it out), it's still missing two important components that should be built in the near future: A guide/FAQ to parking questions.......

Mayor Villaraigosa addressed his third State of the City at the LAPD's Parker Center last night, focusing in on gangs and the city budget, but also with some other talking points that were worth noting: On public transit: "Our national leaders must rethink the balance of our spending on highways vs. subways. It's time to recognize that the only true solution to long-term to gridlock in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the country is......

Anyone like Amtrak? Road trips? Private jets? Really long bicycle rides? Because the airline industry is just not fun these days, especially for American Airlines customers. After yesterday's blow to the travelscape, it was announced this morning that an additional 900 flights were cancelled. Locally, 15 of the 92 LAX departures were axed -- an improvement from yesterday's 25. Additionally, airports in Burbank, Ontario and San Diego all had a small number of cancellations according......

This photo was taken on April 6 on Alameda near Union Station by LAist Featured Photos contributor ~db~. This afternooon, The Guardian reports that "oil surged to a record high over $112 a barrel on Wednesday after a government report showed a sharp drop in U.S. inventories ahead of the summer driving season." LosAngelesGasPrices.com has a chart and if you take a look at this link you might go "whoa." The average Los Angeles gas......

Good news for those who come into and leave Los Angeles everyday via the 5 freeway from the north county: those carpool lanes that have been under construction for a while are opening Friday. The lanes are a first for the 5 freeway in Los Angeles County and is part of a larger scheme to go carpool lane crazy in that part of town. Future lanes will connect the project to the 118 and 170......

Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist A local state assemblyman has proposed a bill that could end up adding a fee to driver registrations or gas at the pumps in Los Angeles County. The West Hollywood based Mike Feuer, who sits on the state's Transportation committee, has put in AB2558 that would either add $90 to annual registrations or 9-cents per gallon of gas. It would raise $400 million a year for public transit projects. It's......

Photo via Aptera's website As we wait for the first Tesla dealership to open here in Los Angeles, many others are looking for a something a wee bit more affordable than $99,000. And while a nearly $30,000 car is not considered to be "on the cheap," you probably save in the end with this car. Meet the Aptera Typ 1 where gas costs you about a penny per mile (try 300 miles per gallon)......

With government budget's dwindling (so bad, the Mayor took a furlough day yesterday), Southern California leaders met yesterday to discuss transit funding for the 25 million residents in the area. And they expect millions more to move in over the next 30 years. So how to pay for it? Here are some their ideas as reported by the Daily News: State transportation bills, if passed, could allow for bonds to be passed on the......

Photo by Jay Dugger via Flickr Not a surprise, right? Not only do we have some of the worst freeway intersections, but we have the the highest percentage of urban pavement in poor condition according to a report released Tuesday by TRIP, a national transportation research group. Their report, “Keep Both Hands on the Wheel: Metro Areas With the Roughest Rides and Strategies to Make Our Roads Smoother,” found that 65% of Los Angeles......

You can download the full 26-page plan here Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), which was just released this morning, takes a look ahead about 20-25 years down the road to determine what the county’s residents will need in terms of transportation options to get around the county. It covers public transportation, some biking, highways and goods movement. The above map is the shows a basic highway and public transportation vision, funded and unfunded......

Why would Michael Smegal, 42, of Holliston, MA send hundreds of letters to various people around Los Angeles, including Van Nuys Airport informing them of his plans to blow up Van Nuys Airport? The Answer is simple: "The FBI said Smeagal targeted airports because he believed they were connected to the Screen Actors Guild, which he feels had been making disparaging remarks about Foster," according to KCBS. See, makes sense! Federal agents did a search......

Photo by Jonathan Alcom via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr This is last Friday as reported by LAist Featured Photos contributor Jonathan Alcom: "A gallon of regular gasoline priced at 3.99 at a Unocal gas station on Pico Bl and Barrington in West Los Angeles on Friday March 7, 2008 as surging oil prices jumped to a new record above $106 Friday. This gas station was about 40 cents higher than other......

The Hollywood Coalition of Neighborhood Councils is hosting a Town Hall on Thursday night to address "Parking, Planning and Transportation." In an effort to entice attendees, the Coalition promises "plenty of free parking," thereby demonstrating a commitment to an old, tired paradigm of transportation that will continue to result in the gridlock, congestion and frustration the Coalition purports to address in the Town Hall. The Coalition is missing a big opportunity to encourage the community......

Governor Schwarzenegger announced today where some of the Proposition 1B, the $20 billion infrastructure bond approved by us voters in 2006, will go... right here in Los Angeles: 12 miles of bus lane on Wilshire Blvd. ($5 million) Expo Line ($73.5 million unevenly split between Phase I and II) 95 new natural gas busses ($50 million) Bus rehab ($27.5 million)......

You might have to wait and be agonizingly teased for an additional three months until those LCD, screens telling you the arrival of the next train, start to work. Curbed LA reported it would be by May and now Streetsblog LA reports by the end of June the latest and tells us how they will work: Until the train is close to the station, the screens will update information based off the schedule. Once the......

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Speaking of that 14-car pile-up this morning on the 101 freeway, how about this fact via the Daily Breeze? There's a near $11-billion price "cost to society" due to car crashes according to a study called "Crashes: What's the Cost to Society?" According to the study -- conducted on behalf of the American Automobile Association by the transportation policy firm Cambridge Systematics --......

It's a new record for Los Angeles -- $3.49 a gallon, as of this morning reports KFWB 980 AM. The price of the barrel, also at an all time high, is $105.10. This comes as Metro is looking to cut bus service across the Los Angeles area. Last night, 12 of the threatened lines were voted upon by the San Fernando Valley Governance Council. "Some schedules and routes will be modified but none will be......

Photo by Andrew at Here in Van Nuys A couple weeks ago, Andrew Hurvitz at the Here in Van Nuys blog snapped this photo of the Sherman Way tunnel under the Van Nuys Airport and questioned the state of security. "Is it just my foolish and suspicious imagination that sees this tagged up tunnel as something which raises questions about security at Van Nuys Airport?" he asked. "This is evidence that security right on......

Photo of the 605 Freeway by billaday via Flickr It's about time. As of today, NYC Streets Renaissance's StreetsBlog has officially franchised out to our city, that is, you know, duhhhh, full of streets and the love and hate of them. NYC Blogger Aaron Naparstek welcomes the LA Editor and so do we! LA.Streetsblog is edited and run by Damien Newton, formerly the New Jersey Coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a recent......