I finally got copies of the Booz Allen Hamilton proposals from last summer regarding L.A. County transportation funding. Guess what one of their proposed strategies was? MTA dumping ("restructuring") 8 to 35 of its routes onto the munis. Unsurprisingly this evidently turned out to be a nonstarter….

As someone who has endured many a bumpy ride on the stretch of Wilshire through Hancock Park I am happy to note Los Angeles has allocated $10 million to repave Wilshire's curb lanes between Western and La Brea or Fairfax within the next 24 months. Hooray!

The Southern California Leadership Council is a group of key business and community leaders and the four former California Governors dedicated to providing a single public policy voice for regional solutions recently formed with the aid of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). Maybe this is just the kind of group of heavy hitters we need to get things moving!

Get a load of the map on the back page of the MTA 2006 Long Range Plan performance measure report presented to several Board Committees in November ("Other Projects for Possible Consideration") -- the numerous possible rail lines make it look like a plate of spaghetti. Or the map in the infamous 1992 plan.

Quote of the month: "The Sierra Club is an organization that has rules, policies and guidelines galore. Nobody teaches you that. You make a mistake, then you get a call, then you go, oh, where do I find that?" (activist Susana Reyes on the complicated internal politics of the Sierra Club in the Dec. issue of the Southern Sierran, newsletter of the Angeles Chapter).

On December 8 L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made some bold comments, especially before an audience in the San Fernando Valley: "We need to have smart growth, but we also have to change our way of thinking. A lot of us grew up with the idea of a threebedroom house with large backyards and front lots. We have to recognize that is not going to be possible. We have to look at other cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston. We need to have more mixed-use development along transit corridors. We are going to start this in downtown, but we want to work with you to bring it throughout the city. I think North Hollywood can become a model for the city, for the nation, on smart growth.

Had a chance at the local Sierra Club Transportation Committee meeting to hear Mayor Villaraigosa's point person on LAX Jim Bickhart discuss the recent settlement that allows the so called "green light" projects to go forward. This evoked memories of a conversation I had a few days before with member Perias Pillay in which he related his experiences riding the new people mover at Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, dubbed Skylink [http://www.dfwairport.com/cdp/skylink/]. DFW states "Skylink's average wait time is 2 minutes and average passenger ride time is 5 minutes." Maybe this technology could link whatever LAX station the Green Line eventually serves with the terminals (so we avoid the awkwardness of the BART SFO connection)?

Why is the Advanced Transit Vehicle Consortium paying Dr. Arieli $230 per hour (for a maximum of $200,000 a year?) Credibility, if I read the report praising how he has been able to elicit responses from the industry to MTA solicitations (ATVC Nov. 21 meeting, agenda item #4).

Salarywatch: Metrolink CEO David Solow $204,970 retroactive to July 1, 2005; San Bernardino Associated Government Executive Director $175,000 for new Director Mark Anthony Grasso.

Burbank Transportation Commissioner thinks extending the Orange Line to Bob Hope Airport is a great idea. I had a letter in the Dec. 27 Daily News ("Just Shelve It") pointing out problems with the concept, including whether 60 foot buses could negotiate the constrained street grid surrounding the airport. In retrospect I see a glimmer of a useable idea--a "flyaway" like dedicated express service (bi-directional every 30 minutes?) for folks in the western Valley to be transported via the Orange Line to the airport. That makes sense versus operating 60 foot vehicles 18 hours a day, 7 days a week on a frequent headway from Warner Center to the airport.

In the interest of fostering discussion we have posted on the front page of our website the letter Tom Rubin submitted to Sierra Magazine in response to the interview with Jaime Lerner (the father of the Curitiba BRT system) in its Jan./Feb. issue. By no means adversarial, Rubin points out aspects of the Curitiba success story that often are glossed over.

In the January Wheel Clicks, newsletter of the Pacific Railroad Society, longtime advocate Tom Nelson ponders whether the OCTA proposed enhanced Orange County Metrolink service makes sense, in terms of demand or operationally (given capacity constraints). He also expresses doubts about the proposed commuter train linking Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. I appreciate that Nelson, while pro-rail, is willing to question whether a particular proposal makes sense.

Question of the month: why is the chief credential for MTA to hire consultant firm Gayland Moffat for upcoming labor negotiations their involvement in the 2000 negotiations? Those resulted in a standoff that only the intervention of Jesse Jackson averted from lasting indefinitely. For expertise like this we want to hire them for a half-million dollars?

Speaking of MTA labor relations, the three representatives of Amalgamated Transit Union local 1277 (representing MTA mechanics and service attendants plus all employees at RTA and Sunline) who spoke at the Dec. 14 MTA Citizens' Advisory Council made clear their displeasure at how they are treated by MTA management. Not reassuring with contract talks to commence in the next few months...

I'll conclude by noting Mr. Ken Saks of Santa Barbara recently lodged a complaint with the Federal Transit Administration Office of Civil Rights asserting he had been denied access to public transportation by MTD in violation of ADA. Turns out Sakstried to board at a stop (in use by MTD prior to 1990) that isn't accessible to wheelchairs due to physical constraints of the location. Saks was told by the MTD driver he could board at an accessible stop approximately one block away. Mr. Saks responded by holding onto the bus to prevent its departure. Saks finally released his hold and left the scene following the arrival of another MTD bus at the stop. Unsurprisingly FTA ruled that MTD had acted properly and didn't violate the ADA.