The hottest trend among cartographers is grabbing data from NextBus and using it to create maps that help visualize just how long it takes to get around on public transportation in whatever city you choose. The digital cartographer Eric Fischer released a visualization of the Los Angeles Metro system. more ›

It's true: 8,400 people a day are expected to make use of the Downtown Streetcar. Also true: We used an older map of a proposed route in our story. Zoinks! Recently a new set of proposed routes--seven, to be precise--were published by Metro. And here are those maps. more ›

The advocacy coalition Transportation for America has analyzed and mapped almost ten years of pedestrian death data across the country and released a report, Dangerous By Design 2011, that ranks Los Angeles the 27th Most Dangerous metropolitan area for pedestrians. more ›

The Los Angeles Police Department, in partnership with CalTrans and Metro, have released a set of maps showing the closure route of the July 15-18 Mulholland Bridge demolition on the 405 Freeway, aka Carmageddon. more ›

On Saturday, hundreds of volunteers took part in an annual community effort to make the Los Angeles River and its adjacent green spaces cleaner and safer for residents and visitors. Now KCET has released their amazing and comprehensive Field Guide to the LA River, which includes over 90 maps (and growing) of things to do and see along the 52-mile waterway. more ›

Los Angeles County leads the nation with 1.7 million people struggling to afford to stay properly fed, according to the Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap study. While 50 million people nationwide struggle to put food on the table, L.A. is highest in food insecurity, according to the study, which is based on 2009 statistics collected by government agencies. more ›

View Los Angeles Outdoor Holiday Ice Skating Rinks in a larger map more ›

It looks like Big Blue Bus finally jumped on the Google train! Today transit activists were excited to find that Google Maps offered transit directions via Big Blue Bus, something that has been desired for awhile now, even prompting a petition last month. more ›

Metro has four fascinating maps in the appendices of its Regional Connector's draft environmental impact documents and posted them on their blog. "I posted them because they're kind of interesting and it's a chance to see both population and job density around some of Metro's current and future transit lines in the years 2005 and 2035," wrote Steve Hymon. more ›

This has to be the best thing since sliced bread. Los Angeles in Maps by L.A. City librarian Glen Creason will feature 70 "reproductions of seminal and historic documents," ranging from Spanish explorers' charts to the old streetcar system and beyond. more ›

Eric Fischer has put together another stunning set of maps using color-coded data. This time, using 2000 Census information about race and ethnicity, Fischer has created maps of urban areas showing where the color lines are drawn, or in some cases, overlapping. more ›

A new report from the National Academies of Science has concluded that the West Coast, particularly Northern California through Washington, is not prepared for tsunami activity. One main cause of concern is the Cascadia subduction zone, which is not located near Los Angeles. more ›

Just over a year ago, the LA Times launched their neighborhood mapping project, which used data from multiple sources and reader input in the hopes of settling debates about physical--and often psychological--boundaries. more ›

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people upload their images to Flickr. Vacation shots, daily diary-style documentations, events, candids, and more go into the massive Flickr collective, many with geo-tagged location information that photographer Eric Fischer has turned into some really remarkable maps showing where people take photos in cities all over the world. more ›

For Bike Week LA, Metro this afternoon announced new rules that are sure to make bicycling commuters happy. Current law bans bicycles from many Metro Rail trains during rush hour. This Summer, however, plans are afoot to life the restriction "once directional signs are installed to steer bikes to certain areas of the train cars where they can be safely accommodated," the transit agency announced. more ›

For the first time in 16 years, the California Geological Survey has released an updated state map showing all the surface fault lines, including 50 new ones. Available online, making it the first digital release of such a map, this fourth-ever collection of fault information is aimed to help "policymakers, planners, geologists, the mineral industry and even the insurance industry," according to the OC Register, and "will hopefully be used to enhance earthquake preparedness," notes the LA Times. more ›

Cyclist and advocate, Alex Thompson, of Bikeside LA, recently introduced the LA Bike Map (map). The interactive map allows users to track and report collisions, road hazards, stolen bikes, close calls, harassment and more. more ›

Now the recently released series of inundation maps covering the most vulnerable areas of California's coast (here are the L.A. maps) have been released in conjunction with Tsunami Awareness & Preparedness Week, thanks to the California Geological Survey along with California Emergency Management Agency and Tsunami Research Center at USC. more ›

MARCH 20, 2011: Looking for this year's route, street closures and transit changes? Check HERE. more ›

If you live in L.A.'s Council District 2 (we don't), you're in luck. The recently elected City Councilmember Paul Krekorian today released two useful Google maps for residents. One of them focuses on one of constituent's top complaints: street resurfacing. more ›

Big news from Google came this morning in the form of beta bicycle data on their popular Google Maps program. From routes that consider biking infrastructure and uphill/downhill slopes to marking where off-street, bike lanes and preferred routes are, this is a welcome tool. And, of course, they are welcoming your feedback because they know there's much room for improvement. more ›

Even creative street art appears on rural roads of Eastern California. Of course, the Lone Pine area seen here has its Los Angeles ties--the Owens Valley provides one-third of L.A.'s water. more ›

The massive early-morning quake off the coast of Chile has dozens of Pacific-bordering nations on alert as the shifting of plates are causing tsunami conditions in the water. The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued an advisory for the North American West Coast, though it is important to note that while the effects can be dangerous, they are not expected to be devastating here:

Tsunami Advisory means that a tsunami capable of producing strong currents or waves dangerous to persons in or very near the water is imminent or expected. Significant, widespread inundation is not expected for areas under an advisory. Currents may be hazardous to swimmers, boats, and coastal structures and may continue for several hours after the initial wave arrival.

New tsunami maps were released today by the state, but it appears there are only minor differences for Los Angeles neighborhoods in comparison to maps released by the city years ago. Nevertheless, if you live near the coast, it doesn't hurt to check the maps out just to be sure. more ›

ExperienceLA recently launched a new interactive map that lets you choose what kind of events--theatre, dance, music, etc, some combination thereof--it should display. It's in beta now (they're seeking input and hence the missing Gold Line Eastside Extension), but it's a fun way to look at your neighborhood to see what's going on. By no means it is complete (it's up to arts organizations to submit events), but it's great tool we'll be making use of more often than not. more ›

This week, the Metro Transportation Library debuted an impressive set of historical maps depicting transit lines and proposals for routes and systems. Among the multiple versions of our current subway system and systems long come and gone is a proposed monorail from 1960, the transit vision for LA in 1974, the map produced based on the Kelker-Deleuw study of 1925 (when the city's first subway was built), and a map from the time when the Red Line was called the Orange Line. more ›

You've seen the list, you've double-counted and confirmed you're not crazy--it is 105, not just 99, and now you're ready to tackle the task: Eat at all of the restaurants selected by the LA Weekly's Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold as LA's essentials. The annual list--err, event for the foodie set--is still fairly hot off the presses, and for many means that no matter how many hot spots they've settled in for a fork, hand, spoon, chopstick, or mouthful, there's still plenty left to try. more ›

Since June, Google has been playing with the idea of tourism itineraries within Google Maps. Basically, the service "helps you identify points of interest and plan multi-day trips to most major cities. You just specify the location of your hotel and the length of your trip and City Tours will map out an itinerary for you," explains Google. Still, it's a major work-in-progress. A search for "Hollywood, CA" doesn't show any local sights, but pushes you downtown. That may not be a bad thing because letting people know about more unknown places like The Grier Musser Museum might be a good idea. The first-day itinerary also tells us to check out the FIDM Museum Shop, The Musuem of Neon Art and MOCA. It also tells us to walk 141 minutes from Hollywood to downtown. Whoa, better get started... more ›

Yesterday was a big day for Los Angeles transportation. Metro, the county's behemoth transit agency, officially announced their partnership with Google. But the county is large and there are various partner agencies throughout. Here's a sampling, with more to come in later days, of where other city transit systems stand with Google Transit: more ›

After much pushing and prodding by the public and media, Metro finally succumbed, quietly launching Google Transit this past weekend. Go ahead and play, it's like we're in a real big city now, catching up with most other major ones. more ›