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......

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 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......

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......

The East Valley is finally getting its art house/indie movie theatre starting tomorrow -- at least the digging and construction part, that is. And unlike the two other Laemmle Theatres in the Valley, the new attraction in the NoHo Arts District will be more transit friendly with the confluence of the Metro Red and Orange lines nearby. The movie theater is the final phase of the NoHo Commons project, which includes the already-built HOWS Market,......

Video by Zach Behrens/LAist Just like the Los Angeles Pillow Fight, there was another event of "random" fun this weekend and that was Friday night's Mobile Clubbing in Hollywood. Here's a short video (with unexplained black at the end for two minutes) that shows Grauman's Chinese Theatre security escorting the clubbers off their property while having a good laugh, a Los Angeles Sheriff taking photos of the event, a few characters joining in and......

Photo by Dave Schumaker via SFist via Flickr Yes, as warned a couple weeks ago, the weekend of outlandish events that will turn heads all around have come. These events are no UCLA Undie Run, but you don't need to strip down half naked to have fun. Here's what's going on: Tonight, 10:00 p.m.: Mobile Clubbing @ Hollywood/Highland Red Line Station Grauman's Chinese Theater. Get ready to jam to your own iPod in a......

Update, 8:37 a.m.: The person was a male who apparently jumped or fell in front of a train. He was transported to USC Medical and police are investigating the incident.Update, 7:38 a.m.: The good news as of right now is that the person has been found awake and alert and is being assessed. At this point, the type of injuries are unknown and if they were actually hit by a train or not.If the Red......

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......

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......

UPDATE!!! The event has moved to in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Check Facebook for updated details.Coming on the heels of the announcement for Los Angeles' participation in World Pillow Fight Day scheduled for Saturday March 22 downtown, there's yet another spectacle of an event planned for the night before at Hollywood and Highland, sans bouncers and lines to wait in (h/t again to Bored-LA). According to the Facebook page, at 10:00 p.m. on Friday......

A clear, crisp early spring morning greeted the participants in this year's LA Marathon, and the runners are filling our city's streets. Local NBC affiliate KNBC has full coverage of today's big event, which is comprised of two wheelchair divisions, a bike race, a 5k run, and the full 26 mile marathon. With an 8:15 start, the "elite" groups of men and women lead the way in small sets, and they are hoping to finish......

Much to LA City Beat's dismay, the Metro board voted and passed a motion to "install barrier gates on the Metro Red Line, Metro Purple Line and selected light rail stations in efforts to prevent fare evasion, provide for seamless travel and improve transit station security," says a press release from the agency this afternoon. Expect to see the 379 fare gates within 18 to 24 months from now. The gates will integrate with those......

Photo by Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA via Flickr It was originally reported back in December that Metro was looking into gates and turnstyles for railways at the cost of $30 million. Today, in an opinion piece by LA City Beat, they say it's now $80 million and that there is no need to spend money on this project: This morning (Thursday, February 28), the Metro board is scheduled to give final approval to an......

This apartment complex next to the NoHo Metro Red Line was rumored to have many gang-related police calls when it opened | Photo by lavocado@sbcglobal.net via Flickr So that's why cops were all over the Valley this morning. The Daily News is reporting that around 200 cops raided 15 homes, arresting 16, in an early morning operation called "Wild Card" which is "the police department's effort to challenge a particularly active and violent clique......

Everest at The Echo | Photo by Shayna Peveler via their MySpace page Last night we checked out What Made Milwaukee Famous playing to a small crowd at Spaceland. Simply put, amazing. We're shocked that more people were not there. Lucky for us, luck for you, they have four more shows within the next nine days here in LA starting Thursday at the Silverlake Lounge. "Sultan" - What Made Milwaukee Famous &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/sultan.mp3"> "Resistance" -......

Now here's the quote of the day via the Daily News: ""I think if there were laws that required mayors to take transit, you'd see transit systems improve remarkably." That's Ted Balaker, a policy analyst for the Reason Foundation who spoke to transit beat writer Sue Doyle, who wrote a piece on Mayors across the country and their public transit use. Locally, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vowed to take public transit once a week last month......

'Santa Monica Subway: Alternative 4' is one of the 17 routes presented by Metro Last night, a packed room of community members at LACMA listened attentively to Metro present nineteen options to serve the Westside. This first in a series of three public input meetings (two more meetings next week) was exciting -- wheels are in motion to get Los Angeles moving, even if that reality be around ten years from now. One of......

The Los Angeles Fire Department is reporting a "water main rupture with pavement damage" on West Cahuenga Blvd. in the community of Cahuenga Pass. The street is passable, however, traffic is expected to be rerouted once the Department of Water & Power arrives on scene. For now, though, the DWP is stuck in traffic, so that won't happen right away. There will likely be delays this afternoon going over the pass in either direction, prepare......

17 potential route alternatives consolidated on this map will be presented starting tomorrow at Westside Transit Corridor meetings with the public | View larger image In an ideal world, one of the routes in solid black, pictured above, could be a reality in nine and a half years -- that would be the year 2017. Generally speaking, a project the size of a major public transportation extension to the Westside, towards the sea, could......

DineLA's Restaurant Week officially starts today! LAist was there for the kickoff event hosted by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Neal Fraser at Grace. LAist's Callie Miller let us in on her dirty little secret this week: she loves Pinkberry. GIANT KILLER CUPCAKE!!!! Okay, so it's not exactly 50 feet tall, but jumbo cupcakes from French pâtisserie La Provence in Beverly Hills still look massively good to us. Fresh & Easy has finally opened in......

No direct link, but ABC7 has a large red breaking news banner at the top reporting that "Fox Hills Mall in Culver City is locked down while police search for a stolen car suspect." The leaning tower of Pisa. Check. The leaning tower of Hollywood? Double check. The Sunset + Vine building appears to be leaning. Timber! Donda West, mother of Kanye, who passed away after plastic surgery at a local hospital died from......

Why is the Red Line running a little slow Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights? Probably because these orange-vested types are cleaning out the pipes under the tracks. Metro's repair guys and gals send a little camera snaking down the pipes to look for gunk – I'm not sure if "gunk" is the technical term for it, actually – and they follow it with what looks to me like a giant vacuum cleaner. "The water......

No, there was not a bank heist today in North Hollywood, as there was 11 years ago, the old bank building turned into restaurant/club on Lankershim Blvd., near the NoHo Red/Orange Line stops, is on fire. At 7:13 a.m. this morning, the fire was reported. One firefighter suffered smoke inhalation.The fire burned between floors and in the attic area, said Ron Myers of the Los Angeles Fire Department. After about 40 minutes, firefighters determined......

This week's Sunday Photoist pic features an unusual perspective of LA's subway, from the platform of the Red Line's terminus in North Hollywood. Don't forget, there will be ALL NIGHT Metro service on New Year's Eve, and rides are FREE between 9:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Photo by Puck90 via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr......

As reported earlier this week, on New Year's Eve, there will be all night Metro rail service. As one commenter pointed out, the news was actually broken in a press release where it was buried with not much detail given:“The Tournament of Roses parade and game is the biggest venue for Metro Gold Line service all year, with upwards of 60,000 train boardings on a single day,” said Pam O’Connor, Santa Monica City Council member......

Earlier this month, Metro announced the usual free rides on Christmas and New Year's Eve special that they do every year. Tonight, we received a short and brief, but extremely exciting e-mail: "On New Year's Eve Monday, December 31 (into Tuesday, January 1), all Metro Rail lines will run all night, every 20 minutes." Yes, that's all it said. No further details were mentioned (we're sure they are forthcoming, we are curious what "all night"......

There I was, minding my own on the Red Line, screeching along toward Hollywood and Western, reading the ad copy on the walls. I'd seen the cross-promotional Metro-Wicked ads before, but I noticed something different this time: the witch is reading a copy of the Los Angeles Tribune. (Hed: "Metro Named America's Best Transportation Agency.") Two questions: First, why isn't she reading the Times? It's probably because Metro's marketing department wanted badly to include......

A complete listing of street and parking closures for the Sunday, Nov. 25th Holiday Parade in Hollywood. ...