Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Los Angeles

Alongside LaHood in L.A., Boxer Talks Timing for the Next Transport Bill

By Damien Newton | Feb 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), at podium, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at her right, joined Metro bus repair staff and transit officials on Friday. (Photo: LA Streetsblog via Flickr) Friday was billed as a day to discuss the next long-term federal transportation legislation, but the day turned in to a stirring defense […]

Boxer, LaHood Coming to L.A. to Discuss Federal Transportation Bill

By Damien Newton | Feb 10, 2010 | No Comments

As transportation reformers continue to wait for the Senate to join the House in offering a new federal transportation bill, Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will hold a town-hall meeting at the headquarters of L.A.’s Metro transit authority on Friday, February 19. Boxer and LaHood get on the […]

High-Speed Rail: Still a Good Idea

By Ryan Avent | Oct 22, 2009 | 4 Comments

You may remember, back in August, economist Ed Glaeser’s series on high-speed rail at the New York Times’ Economix blog. Glaeser put together a back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical Houston-Dallas line, which purported to show that rail was a poor investment. You may also remember me responding in detail, and generally pointing out how […]

Glaeser Takes an Unserious Look at High-Speed Rail

By Ryan Avent | Aug 5, 2009 | 8 Comments

Ed Glaeser is a very good economist, and his papers are indispensable reading for those interested in the workings of urban areas. But he is also a strident conservative, whose popular writings frequently challenge conventional progressive wisdom (and my own views). Harvard University economist Ed Glaeser (Photo: NPR) I was interested, then, to read that […]

Report: Nation’s Cities Not Getting Their Share of Stimulus Transpo Money

By Elana Schor | Jun 15, 2009 | No Comments

The nation’s largest metropolitan areas — which account for 63 percent of the U.S. population and 73 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) — have received less than half of the surface transportation money allocated so far underthe Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan, according to a new report compiled for the U.S. Conference of […]

What a Difference a Bench Makes

By Sarah Goodyear | Aug 27, 2007 | 1 Comment

Good magazine reports on how, with remarkable simplicity, this menacing, marginal streetscape in downtown LA was turned into a welcoming public space (click here for the after photo): Rather than fence off the trash-strewn lot beside its building — a stomping ground for drug-users and prostitutes — one downtown Los Angeles community center added, instead, […]

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