Photo by toastycakes via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr In an attempt to avoid the voter confusion rampant in the state during this year's Super Tuesday balloting, LA County officials are doing their best to educate the public about the InkaVote Plus system, including the audio options for disabled and multilingual voters. It seems "fire season" in the Southland is now a year-round thing. After yesterday's Griffith Park fire comes news of another......

Photo by Stephen Box/LAist The Bike to Work Week celebration came to an abrupt end as Enci rode north on Western, turned left onto Hollywood Boulevard and then had a bus accelerate from behind, crossing her line and pulling to the right, forcing her to the curb as he pulled in to his last scheduled stop of the day. He then opened the door and screamed "Get the F@%& off the road!" and then......

Earlier this afternoon, boingboing highlighted an incident that occurred involving Keith Garsee last night at a Metro Red Line station. He was taking photos when he was stopped by a Metro employee: "Hey! It's against the 9-11 Law to take pictures down here man!" It led to a little back and forth, then the loudspeaker came on: "Attention to the gentleman in the plaid shirt: You are not allowed to take photographs in the Subway.......

It looks very smooth in real life, doesn't transfer to video well If you weren't sleeping on the northbound Metro Red Line between Hollywood/Highland and Universal last week, then you may have noticed a Speed Racer movie trailer all of the sudden playing inside the tunnel. Officially announced today, the high-tech subway tunnel advertising tool is a first in North America for this type of digital advertising. It is "an LED system composed of......

In honor of Bike to Work Week, this video and graphic is for those newbies out there. If you still need more instruction, here is a thorough walk through.......

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......

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......

Metro is looking into connecting the three light rail lines that hit downtown -- Gold, Blue and the soon-to-be Expo -- so that one day, a commuter may be able to travel from Long Beach to Pasadena or from East LA to Culver City -- all without transferring. Eric Richardon from blogdowntown reports that the two alternatives that Metro is currently looking into differ in cost by only $150 million. That's surprising considering one is......

There are two more meetings left (one tonight, one on Monday) for the third round of public meetings with Metro regarding the Westside Extension, often noted as the "subway to the sea." At the last set of meetings, 17 alternatives were proposed which have been honed down to five alternatives being presented this week. What survived was underground heavy rail and one robust rapid bus system. What didn't was at grade trains and aerial transit.......

Probably not the best marketing for public transit in Los Angeles, but it's quite a sight anyway. LAist Featured Photos contributor Fire Monkey Fish was riding a Metro bus last week in Hollywood when she saw this man. "I guess you can't look too happy riding the bus with your pet spider," she wrote below the photo. We can't imagine anyone else being too happy either! To join LAist Featured Photos, visit Flickr......

You just finished filling up your tank at the gas station, but the next thing you do is not grab your keys to leave, it's to take an extra twenty seconds to note some statistics by inputting into Twitter the miles since your last fill up, the price per gallon and how many gallons you put in. Welcome to FuelFrog, a new application designed by three guys who embarked on a mission of launching a......

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......

Photo submitted by LAist reader Tom Godfrey Here's an interesting tidbit from Sherman Oaks. At the Valley's busiest intersection, Sepulveda and Ventura, you need to cross 17 lanes of traffic to get from one corner to its catty corner. Oy vey! Would this be one of those intersections slated for a diagonal crosswalk the Mayor spoke about last week? And for those who use public transportation and end up walking many of these large......

It's Earth Day. And as mentioned yesterday, there are plenty of events today and in the upcoming weeks to celebrate it. For the record, one event left out of yesterday's listings for today is Metro's noontime concert at Union Station featuring Latin singer/songwriter Carina Ricco who replaces Canon (the lead singer is sick). As for the event that will close Wilshire Blvd. all day, buses are being rerouted to 8th Street between Western and Vermont.......

Photo by delera-photos via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr There were a lot of earthy things to do this weekend, but the true Earth Day is tomorrow. And after that, Earth Day-like events continue through May 10th with one of the best Earth Day festivals around -- WorldFest in Encino. Tomorrow and as previously mentioned, Wilshire Blvd. is being closed down between Western and Harvard. Since it's also Car Free Day, the event abut......

Here's some food for thought. Last Fall, TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis told a group at a Farmlab Salon that "the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) send a request to the Governor and President to declare a state of emergency regarding the 5400 environmental/pollution related deaths a year. That equals out to be one and half 9/11's a year."...

Photo by alistairmcmillan via Flickr In response to a comment in yesterday's piece, Train to LAX Getting Closer, Metro Doesn't Want It, Kymberliegh Richards writes a good history of what happened and why. Richards runs a website called the San Fernando Valley Transit Insider as well as a Metro San Fernando Valley Governance Council member and a board of directors member at the Southern California Transit Advocates. I always love seeing people who say......

A fire on a service truck near the NoHo Metro Red Line Station will cause a minimum of 10 minute delays this morning. Earlier today, the truck came in contact with electrical rails about 100 yards inside the tunnel, prompting it to catch fire. Difficult for Los Angeles Firefighters to extinguish the fire with high voltage running through the rails, Metro shut down the train system for safety reasons and prepared buses in case the......

Photo by alistairmcmillan via Flickr To connect the Metro Green Line light rail to LAX, simply put, it would take about two miles of track and some money. This week, the Senate Transportation Committee passed SB 1722 by Sen. Jenny Oropeza, a bill that would allow a separate construction authority the single-focused job of connecting rail to the airport. The bill will now make its way to the Senate floor. Metro opposes the idea,......

Photo by kpeII via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The elderly women known as the 'Black Widows' have been found guilty of murder conspiracy. Partial verdicts were read today against 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt for their roles in two murders. A 27-year-old man from Sherman Oaks jumped to his death this morning from an overpass on the 210 Freeway at Sierra Avenue in Fontana. He had left his car......

Photo by hinducow via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Looks like the Hollywood sex tape predates YouTube and Betamax by a landslide. A sex tape featuring late film icon Marilyn Monroe--on 16mm film--sold for $1.5 million to a NY businessman. Did you check out the Songkran fest yesterday in Thai Town? Did you ride the Red Line? Did you wonder why the hell the MTA only put in two ticket vending machines......

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......

Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DID U C OPRAH 2DAY? OMG SO GR8! OOPS G2G, PPL R B-TING SUM GUY UP TTYL! Pasadena ain't your ashtray. So tonight their city council meets to vote on a massive smoking ban that will prohibit puffers to indulge in their habit in almost any public place. Hey, what's the latest on the upcoming SAG/AFTRA contract talks? Deadline Hollywood Daily has an......

Whoa now. If a Metro Blue Line vs. pedestrian incident early this morning downtown at Grand Avenue and Washington Boulevard leaving a 19-year-old man in critical condition was not enough, then hear this. A few hours later at 1:00 p.m., a Blue Line train was involved in a crash with a vehicle at Third Street and Long Beach Boulevard in the harbor city. "Investigators said the woman, who was driving a Ford Focus, turned in......

Red marks the NoHo Streetcar path. Blue marks an idea for a Moorpark Streetcar idea. After a September 2007 LAist post about an idea of putting a streetcar in the NoHo Arts District, it grabbed first-year UCLA student Nguyen Doan's attention. "It really got me to thinking about how useful a streetcar system would be and motivated me to do research on the subject." When Doan was presented with a class assignment instructing students......

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been taking public transportation more often lately, including the bus down Wilshire Blvd. Now, amid concerns pointed out by constituents at yesterday's Metro Board meeting about service cuts that could happen this June, the Mayor said he wasn't ready to vote yet, point out the hypocrisy of the situation. "We are encouraging people to take the bus," he said in a Daily News quote. "There is some contradiction at the same......

Photo by tobo via Flickr Which side of the Gold Line tracks do you live on? Southsiders (below the 10) better be representing because Northsiders are fighting hard for their piece of the cake too. Metro's Gold Line currently goes from Union Station in downtown to Sierra Madre, east of Pasadena. Metro is currently extending the Gold Line from Union Station southeast through Little Tokyo into East LA and is slated to open in......

One politician won't give up on his mission to get the Green Line moving directly to LAX. And Metro won't give up on saying "no" to that idea. It's not that Metro is trying to destroy any hopes of public transportation in Los Angeles, it's just the conservative and realistic tones they put out there when it comes future projects and funding. They say they want a connection to LAX and that possibility comes via......