Results tagged “stevehymon”

Former LA Times Writer, Local Blogger to Blog for Metro

It's very common for reporters to cross the line and become communicators for agencies they once reported on and investigated. Today comes the news that Metro is launching their blog (finally!) with two notable names behind it. From the LA Times is Steve Hymon, the paper's former transit reporter. And from the blogLAsphere is Fred Camino, the downtown resident who created the blog MetroRiderLA. It's called The Source and Metro says it "is your window into what's happening at" the agency. "We'll be writing about agency news, funding and policy issues, and how to get the most out of transit and Los Angeles."

Laid Off: LA Times Transit Reporter, Steve Hymon

It's a sad day for transportation news in Los Angeles. Veteran journalist Steve Hymon was one of the many laid off at the LA Times today, according to Kevin Roderick at LA Observed. Hymon, in our opinion, was one of the best writers at the paper. He's succinct, clear, creative, has an ear for bullshit coming out of city officials mouths and is happy to call them on it. Before covering transportation issues, he was on the city hall beat and on a team that was honored with a public service Pulitzer for covering the King-Drew medical center in 2005. More than 50 people are expected to be laid off today at the paper.

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.

An Urban & Environmental Planner friend of mine in New York City believes that when you build bigger and beefier streets, all you do is build increased traffic congestion. "Build it and they will come," he would say. Today, Steve Hymon in his weekly Road Sage column explores the subject by extension of the Pico/Olympic plan, where city officials are planning to begin adjusting the two busy arteries to act like one-way streets starting March 8.

I'm one of those paranoid, overly dramatic people who convince themselves that the entire world is out to get them. A lot of my paranoid delusions revolve around driving, of course: that dude slowed down just to piss me off! Every time I change lanes traffic gets worse! (Also known as the "Office Space" rule.) These lights are timed badly just to slow me down!

"You would think that something affecting millions of voting Americans would top the list of talking points for every one of the candidates. Yet most of those stumping for the nation's highest office have offered little more than platitudes: When it comes to transportation, they're basically for it."

  • A sales tax increase of a half penny would bring in $500 million a year towards transit projects. But we already have one of the highest sales tax percentages in California as it is.

  • Every Monday morning, Rick Orlov of the Daily News and Steve Hymon of the LA Times write their weekly "what's going on at city hall" columns. Orlov brings an interesting story about City Council Member Dennis Zine, who represents the 3rd District in the West Valley. Zine has been given a cease and desist order from Warner Bros. over a lapel pin he has used for years as a political token to supporters. It...

    Steve Hymon at the LA Times is asking if anyone out there has any ideas for funding the 'subway to the sea', which is estimated to cost around $5-billion. The scary thing about even just $1-billion is that it equals out to one thousand x one million. So to fund the Purple Line, you've got to dole out $1-million dollars five-thousand times over. Eek! So here is one crazy idea: Sure, simple math dictates...

    Via Steve Hymon's Monday LA Times column on all things local government, apartment dwellers are finally able to participate in the city recycling program:What can apartment dwellers in Los Angeles do this week that they couldn't do a couple of weeks ago? Recycle. For reasons difficult to explain, apartment and condo dwellers in Los Angeles have for decades had their trash picked up by private haulers instead of city crews. That, too, has meant...

    We didn't say it. Tony Bell said it to the LA Times' Steve Hymon. Who is Bell? Bell is the communications director for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. And to be fair, Bell thinks "light rail down one of the major east-west streets on the Westside might be the better solution." So trains are not totally out. Here's another Bell quote: "The supervisor understands — as do most county residents — that we...

    Office of the Mayor: It's a Private Matter Los Angeles Times: It's now a public matter Back in May of last year, LAT's Steve Hymon rounded up who drives Hummers at City Hall and found that the city's Transportation Deputy for the Mayor drives a Hummer H3 (link expired). Now Columnist Steve Lopez is pressing the issue in today's paper. It's easy to jump on Lopez's bandwagon because Hummer's are, like, evil and stuff,...

    It's going to be a long time before any of this happens. If it happens. LA Mayor Villaraigosa and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom might go head to head for Governor. Both deny it though. A little closer to home, two bloggers debate over annexation and other issues in the Santa Clarita Valley. Should Stevenson Ranch, which has the highest sales-tax-revenue-generating strip mall in all of the county's jurisdiction, annex into the city of...

    We know that as far as fashion goes, the '80s are back, but in webland it's 1996 all over again. Remember the coffee cam, which was fun to look at just because you could? You could use this newfangled internet to look at something as hysterically inane as a coffeepot in an office thousands of miles away; you could watch it get drained and refilled in blurry 10-second refresh updates. The internet was, like, magic.

    According to the Los Angeles Times, Representative Maxine Waters has been at the forefront of organizing the community's response to the proposed closure.

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