City Councilman Jack Weiss and O'Melveny and Myers law firm partner, Carolyn Kubota, teamed up yesterday in a Daily News op-ed piece urging the need to explore funding public transportation in Los Angeles by private sources. Chicago did it with the Skyway and Denver with their transit plan. So why not us? They say everyone can agree on three things. One, a subway between downtown and the Westside is absolutely need; two, the subway......

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......

The LA Times is reporting today that Metro may be seriously looking at an extremely different route for half of the proposed Purple Line subway extension that would take commuters from Downtown to Santa Monica. However, the idea discussed here would take underground riders from the Hollywood/Highland station to Wilshire Blvd. along Santa Monica Blvd., traveling through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills hitting near the Beverly Center mall and Cedars-Sinai:The new concept is still......

As development wraps up on the first of two major redevelopments above subway stations on Wilshire, the reviews are begining to come in. The Wilshire/Vermont station is just about complete and tomorrow the LA Times will give the design of the complex a negative review, complaining, among other things that it just doesn't fit in with what else is going on with the legendary boulevard. During the many decades that architects enthusiastically celebrated the......

Maybe you want the 'Subway to the Sea' to go to WeHo instead of down Wilshire Blvd. through Beverly Hills. Perhaps you are evil and think nothing should be done at all letting traffic roll as it sort of doesn't do anyway. No matter what vision, now is the time to chime in like the backseat driver you are at some public meetings or via the written word. Wad at MetroRiderLA has the low-down:By......

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......

Today's LA City Beat's LA Sniper column focuses aim on 30th District Congressman Henry Waxman who led the banning of subway construction under Wilshire Blvd. in the mid 1980s. Could you imagine what LA would be like today? A Los Angeles with a subway down the god friggin' most congested city street in America? Instead we have the one of the nation's busiest rapid bus lines, the 720, which the Sniper suggest should be......

On a personal blog called ...yep by a guy named Glenn, the Los Angeles transit system is examined. Glenn has never taken the subway in L.A. before and he commutes one-hour by car everyday. He's not complaining though, "it’s just a way of life here in the city," he states pragmatically. He finds it to be "a fairly pleasant experience" and listening to podcasts on his iPod is a much better choice than some......

Guest Day Editor Zuma Dogg will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site as well as Mayor Sam where he contributes. He also wrote an article in the current edition of the LA Weekly The city and state are basing some of their major plans on the fact that you are going to vote to approve more bond money out of your......

Citing high costs, length of time to build and other basic realities of building the "subway to the sea," Michael Balter calls for Wilshire Blvd. to be car free today in the LA Times opinion section: First, ban all automobiles from the entire 15-mile length of the boulevard. Second, beginning at its Western Avenue station, bring the Metro Rail to street level and run it to and from the sea on two sets of......

An Antelope Valley resident once told me that the slogan of Palmdale was "Why throw it in the trash when you can throw it in the front yard?" It was so rude. I loved it. Palmdale and Lancaster always feels worlds away. Many of the thoroughfares have names like Avenue R-12 or Avenue P-8. Only a select few are lucky enough to live on Avenue Q (who doesn't like puppets singing about STDs and......

As Beverly HIlls gets ready for their meeting tonight, Boi from Troy ponders about the city of West Hollywood being the only Westside city without any purple tunnel love:Rather than shoot straight down Wilshire–an easy proposal–why not consider taking to subway to places people want to go? How about building the Subway to the Grove, then to Cedars Sinai/Beverly Center/West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, UCLA, Brentwood then Santa Monica, linking in with the new Exposition......

Via MetroRiderLA, the Southern California Transit Advocates (SO.CA.TA) is holding their second community outreach meeting on the proposed extension of the Purple Line in the Wilshire corridor. "This will provide a venue for interested corridor residents to learn about the status of the proposal and their role in its progress. Information will also be provided on how residents can engage in effective advocacy by contacting elected officials." Tuesday July 17, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. |......

- Wilshire Monorail? [LA Visions] - Growth spurt for prepubescent Purple Line? [MetroRiderLA] - Pro-rail advocacy is not a racist tactic [Green LA Girl] - Fighting transit racism: Building the environmental movement on the buses of L.A. [Grist] - We need a new plan [Bottleneck Blog] - Purple not Pants [Asymptotia] - A Major Subway Hater Sees the "Light" [L.A. Straphanger] - If I Had A Million Dollars... [Los Angeles Transit Riders] - NYC......

And this 'Subway to the Sea' is not just about funding at this point and time. Try planning studies, preliminary engineering, and environmental clearance according to Metro CEO Roger Snoble in the LA Times. But hey, all those steps take funding. Villaraigosa's office over the last year has been quietly gauging whether the public would agree to foot the bill. In one of the many private polls it has commissioned on a variety of......

After yesterday, when the House included language in the fiscal year 2008 transportation bill to undue a 22-year-old ban on subway digging along the Wilshire Corridor for the Purple Line extension to Santa Monica, the Senate followed suit today. "Repeal of this language represents a huge step for transit service in Los Angeles County as we begin planning for the future to improve the mobility of the region," Metro Chair Pam O'Connor said today in......