in the latest ambitious and costly assault on gridlock, Los Angeles has synchronized every one of its 4,500 traffic signals across 469 square miles — the first major metropolis in the world to do so, officials said..

Without synchronization, it takes an average of 20 minutes to drive five miles on Los Angeles streets; with synchronization, it has fallen to 17.2 minutes, the city says. And the average speed on the city’s streets is now 17.3 miles per hour, up from 15 m.p.h. without synchronized lights.

nytimes, 01.04.13.
via smartplanet, 02.04.13.

with synchronization, it takes me 20-25 mins to bike 5.5 miles from downtown berkeley to downtown oakland. (the lights go green on telegraph ave. toward oakland, and i bike moderately fast).

and yes, the bad part about synchronization is that drivers will drive faster because they no longer have to stop at reds. 

The defeat of Measure B1 has officials and activists talking about reforming the way the state raises and spends money on transportation.

The state’s two-thirds approval threshold for new taxes allowed a minority of voters to block Measure B1. Now transportation officials, community advocates, and city leaders from Berkeley to Fremont are wondering where the needed funds will come from to pay for bus services, new roads, bike lanes, smart growth projects, and more..

That comes out to 66.53 percent voter approval. B1 lost by an amazingly small margin of 721 votes. 

ACTC’s Dao is also looking for ways to reform the system. “[The] talk among transportation circles right now is how to lower the vote threshold below two-thirds, like school bonds,” he said. “We think 55 percent might be the right bar to set for future sales tax initiatives for transportation.” Dao said this will be one of ACTC’s top legislative priorities in 2013.

We really need to be reforming how we fund transportation, and what we fund at every level of government. At the federal level, 80 percent of gas tax goes into highways, rather than transit and pedestrian improvements,” noted Imai. “We need to flip that.”

ebx, 05.12.12.
(photo) 

Today, Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor ruled that the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) violated state law by failing to fully account for, and take steps to reduce, climate pollution in its environmental review of the region’s long-term transportation plan. The ruling is a major rebuke to regional planners in the San Diego region and a warning shot to other regional planning organizations that just passing a plan and calling it green is no longer enough.

“The court is setting an important example here for regional planning agencies throughout California,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. “We cannot wait another 40 years to adopt sensible transportation and land-use policies. Thanks to California laws requiring public agencies to be open about their plans, we were able to hold SANDAG accountable for its faulty planning practices.”

la.streetsblog, 04.12.12.

yeah! take that, SANDAG!

f— your bs 2050 plan! more of the same business as usual; San Diego would go deeper in transportation hell if this sh-t continued.

check out the much smarter and speedier 50/10 plan: build 50 years of transit projects in the first ten years, then freeway projects later. the proper order.

this picture makes me so mad! repaved road, but restriped the same stupidass way! wtf use is a middle turn lane if there’s nothing to turn into! should have added bike lanes on both sides instead! and widened the sidewalk while you’re at it! middle turn lanes are such a waste of space and these are all over san diego wtfhell let me rewrite the antiquated traffic engineering books and eliminate this bs

As of Thursday afternoon Measure B1 stands at 66.54%, just an eighth of a percent away from the 2/3rds super-majority needed to win. 

OMGWTF that is hella stupid. if you just take out the digits to the right of the decimal point and round it, it’s as close to 67% (above 66.7) as can get!

2/3 vote should be +/- 1% and B1 should have passed already!

stupid political process bs

now have to wait two years to put it up on the ballot again. spend more money and time trying to get people to vote. and it won’t even be a general election year so voter turnout will be significantly lower—hopefully get only the “yes” people to vote.

(B1 lost by 721 votes. and people don’t vote assuming it won’t matter. pshh)

London’s commuters have been warned to expect gridlock on the roads and paralysis on the subways. They have been advised to leave home well before rush hour; to travel by foot, bicycle or boat; and to forget about trying to drive anywhere even remotely connected with the Olympics.

And so John Horner, seasoned commuting veteran, has devised a simple personal transportation strategy for the Summer Games: go nowhere.

“I plan to stay at home for two weeks,” Mr. Horner, 52, a government worker, said the other morning as he rode the subway across London. “I have taken annual leave between July 27 and Aug. 12 so that I can sit at home and watch the Games on TV.”

Scaring residents off the streets is only one way London is preparing for the influx of athletes, officials, spectators and sponsors during the Olympics…

nytimes, 27.05.12.

sort of lol.

Webinar date: Thursday, May 31, 2012, 1:00 PM ET

This free, Transit GIS Clearinghouse webinar will tell the story of the Portland Regional Trip Planner, the first fully open-source, multimodal trip itinerary planning application to be released by a U.S. transit agency. Officially unveiled by TriMet in October 2011, the launch followed an unprecedented three-year partnership between the agency and the open-source software development community that established the OpenTripPlanner (OTP) project, an international effort to create a comprehensive multimodal trip planning platform. OTP leverages emerging open data standards and sources such as OpenStreetMap the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), and the Portland experience offers an excellent case study in how an agency can help drive open data innovation.

more info: transitgis.org.
(via jessicaroberts.) 

I fell in love with trimet before I even stepped onto a MAX light-rail/streetcar or bus. their interactive routes map is that good.