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.......

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......

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......

Today is a big day in Los Angeles. Hundreds of thousands of people will walk in four separate marches downtown and converge at one location near City Hall. Needless to say, whether one is participating or not, downtown will be quite a scene and something different to traverse. Yesterday, we published the May Day Logistics Guide: Marches, Rallies, Traffic, Transit to help understand what is going on. Rail public transit will probably be the best......

Now the predictions are really getting people's attention: "Surging crude prices, which could surpass $200 a barrel in four years on tight supplies, could push gasoline prices to as high as $7 a gallon, CIBC World Markets analysts said Thursday," MarketWatch said early this afternoon. Currently, U.S. oil is $116 a barrel, down $3.90 from Tuesday's "historic high." The national average is $3.56 and in Los Angeles, the upward trend pushes the local average to......

Via StreetsblogLA Bicycle riding on a road designated by Caltrans as a highway/freeway is illegal except when there is no reasonable or possible route for a cyclist to take (for example, you can ride your bike on Interstate 5 through Camp Pendelton). It's safe to say, there are plenty of alternative options in Los Angeles, but hey, why not? Organized by a bicycle writer at the blog Banned Bicycles, he and nine others took......

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 morning an MTA bus crashed into an SUV, sending the car off the road and both drivers to the nearest hospital. The accident took place on the eastbound 134 Freeway near the Figueroa exit, which is in Eagle Rock. Cecil Manresa of the LAFD explains: The vehicle flipped off the freeway at the Figueroa exit and the passenger was reportedly ejected approximately 20 feet. The bus driver an approximately 35 year old female and......

Photo by Tom Andrews via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr 45-year-old murder suspect Hovik "John" Mankyan, who engaged police in a lengthy standoff on Good Friday in Palmdale, is reportedly "clinging to life" in the hospital. Mankyan, who is wanted for a 2004 North Hollywood homicide "ingested poison and severed arteries" prior to surrendering. Honors on Ice: The Anaheim Ducks will honor SWAT officer Randal Simmons, who died in the line of duty,......

At 6 a.m. on January 26, 2005, a man sat his Jeep Grand Cherokee across Metrolink train tracks near Chevy Chase Drive in Glendale in an attempt to, what he and his family members claim, commit suicide. Juan Manuel Alvarez, then 26, abandoned his vehicle before a southbound train hit it, derailing and colliding with a northbound train. Glendale Police say his actions were "not consistent" with those of someone attempting suicide and a Glendale......

Students these days are so lazy...Instead of taking it to the streets like their parents' generation and brandishing signs and making noise they're opting to stay inside, chained to their computers. Except sometimes they discover that the medium is what makes the message, and in the SGV right now students who want the Gold Line extended to Montclair have found that their campaign is positively viral. Students have created a website called I Will Ride......

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)......

The city of Ventura has been taken off the map. Specifically, the Greyhound Bus Line service map. This week the company shut down the station in Ventura, and wiped it off their route, to the surprise of many who had been hoping to hop a bus out of town. So is busing it a relic of a bygone era? One possible reason behind the elimination of the stop is "Greyhound’s owners are trimming costs," according......

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......

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 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......

The Daily Breeze headed out to Wednesday's Crenshaw/Prairie Transit Corridor Study meeting (two more left) and found themselves in what we would consider a very disappointing night of transit development: The Crenshaw line would... pass within a mile of Los Angeles International Airport. This is starting to sound eerily familliar. However.........

Louis Allen as Christopher Walken and Amy Kelly as Robert DeNiro/Photo courtesy of Patrick O'Sullivan. COMEDY* All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken is back on a new night and new venue (running only on Thursdays until April 3). Conceived and directed by Patrick O’Sullivan, the comedy show has an entire multiracial cast playing the same guy (Chris Walken, duh) picking up his tics and cadences to a tee. Tickets go fast for......

The list of reasons for using public transportation just keeps growing: saving energy, protecting our environment, having fewer traffic jams. Now Bay Area commuters have an even bigger incentive to ride public transportation. The Contra Costa County Library has begun a partnership with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to provide an automated book “vending machine” for its patrons. The new “Library A Go Go” machines will appear first in county BART stations in April, then......

And then there was a train... There could be a day when you go from Wilshire Blvd. down Crenshaw Ave, crossing the path of the Expo Line (under construction right now), through Leimart Park, into Downtown Inglewood and eventually hit LAX before route ends, connecting to the Green Line. That's one option, at least, for Metro's North/South Crenshaw-Prairie Transit Corridor Study. Tonight is the first of four public meetings to get a status report of......

Life doesn't stop in LA because it's raining. / Photo by kristi.nicole via LAist's flickr pool FILM The American Cinematheque’s Outfest Wednesdays continue at the Egyptian. On the big screen tonight is With You! -- director Yaniv Dabach’s documentary on the formation of New York City’s first gay rugby club, the Gotham Knights. A discussion with Dabach follows the screening – plus there’s a reception hosted by Absolut. 7:30 pm // American Cinematheque at......

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" -......

A lawsuit filed yesterday by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) against multiple contractors, including Kiewit, Washington Infrastructure Services, Inc., Parsons Corp., and more, who worked on the design and building of the Gold Line alleges that the work done was substandard and did not meet the obligations stipulated in their contracts. According to KNBC.com, the lawsuit asks for "at least $25 million in damages and a court order requiring the contractors to fix the......

In yesterday's LAist interview with Hillary Clinton, we had to ask about public transportation. Clinton said she would increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year, link funding to local land use policies that encourage mixed-use and transit-oriented development (discouraging sprawl) and invest $1 billion into intercity passenger rail (think high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or more locally, the MagLev concept from Orange County to Las Vegas). Speaking......

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......

Metro's Westside Extension Transit Corridor Study Area covers approximately 38 square miles. Download a larger PDF of this map. Last October, Metro held early scoping meetings for a study to help guide the development of alternatives addressing the growing traffic and congestion in a 38 square mile study area (see lighter colored area above). Nearly 500 individuals attended these meetings and over 450 formal comments were submitted by the close of the comment period......

Pasadena ARTS Bus/Gold Line Map We are not all drivers, we are not all cyclists, we are not all transit riders, but we are all pedestrians. Every trip we take starts and ends with a walking trip. And no matter what part of the Los Angeles area you're in, walking can be, well, no walk in the park. There's always something: a bad sidewalk, ditzy drivers, driveways, the lack of a sidewalk, zero street......

Photo by Ryan Jesena in his Photo Essay of Burning Man 2007 2007 was a year of incredible growth for LAist. Us, the writers, you, the readers, found and discovered much of Los Angeles and we look forward to even more in 2008 with more hyperlocal coverage, more neighborhood explorations, more local news, more arts and events and more food (got suggestions? e-mail zach(@)laist.com). The most recommended story of the year was Malingering's CrossFit......

Dedicated bike paths, more bike lanes, and bike rental programs, oh my! KCBS2 is reporting today that City Councilman Ed Reyes put forth a motion during the City Council meeting to make his council district more bike friendly. He has asked city officials "to create a plan that includes bike-only roadways, more bike lanes on wide streets and sidewalks, and a public bicycle prgram that would allow Angelenos to rent bikes online or at Metro......