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PASADENA, CALIF. — A fire official says 10 people were injured when a public transit bus collided with a car and rammed into obstacles on a Southern California street. The Pasadena Area Rapid Transit System bus struck the car, a traffic signal, a tree and a bus bench at an intersection Tuesday.

The cost of a 10-mile trip on the 91 Freeway Express Lanes will drop 50 cents during seven time slots through the day starting Wednesday. Officials hope to encourage drivers to use the lanes. In another reflection of the weakening economy and the growing unemployment rate, the price of an Express Lane commute between Orange and Riverside counties is being reduced in a bid to attract more paying customers. Orange County transportation officials Thursday announced reductions to the tolls to enter the 91 Freeway Express Lanes, citing less traffic due to unemployment and the soured economy. Starting Wednesday, the cost...

n 2005, I asked Angelenos to join me in re-imagining their city as a dynamic world capital defined by its flexibility and mobility, not by traffic and smog. I challenged them to imagine communities connected not by bigger, wider highways but by a real network of public transit options -- rapid buses, trains and subway lines -- connecting every neighborhood in our county's 88 cities. I asked them to imagine cleaner and greener neighborhoods where we each pitch in to combat global warming and create a more sustainable city. Today, when I take the helm as chairman of the Metropolitan...

California Proposes Sales Tax Hike To Fund Transport, Government Services July 18, 2008 11:32 a.m. ESTVittorio Hernandez - AHN News WriterSacramento, CA (AHN) - To close California's $17.2 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered on Thursday hiking the state sales tax and using funds intended for transportation and government services.State legislators proposed the two measures, which the governor initially described as bad ideas, but he did not rule out adopting the measures to avoid a cash crisis in California.The lawmakers plan to close the budget gap by collecting $5.6 billion income tax increase on the rich and borrowing $1.1...

SACRAMENTO – A record $19.9 billion transportation bond pitched to voters last fall as a way to “fast track” projects is hitting slowdowns in some areas. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signaled that the money is flowing with a groundbreaking at Solana Beach last month for the extension of car pool lanes on Interstates 5 and 805. The bond will cover part of the $168 million cost. But legislation to set guidelines for distributing $2 billion to improve the movement of freight was stalled in part because Republicans thought proposals by Democrats were skewed toward improving air quality. And legislative leaders are...

Transportation commission proposes levying 10 cents a gallon on fuel to help curb greenhouse gases - In a proposal that fell on deaf ears in Sacramento last year, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's staff is recommending legislation that would make a gas tax a "fee," and thus make it easier to prevail at the ballot box. Only this year, transportation officials say, the idea could be more palatable as but one arrow in a quiver aimed at reducing the Bay Area's contribution to global warming. Under legislation that went into effect in 1997, the MTC has the authority to put a...

Speech was given on October 12, 2007 in Newport Beach. You have extended me a very dangerous invitation tonight – to speak to a gathering of political conservatives on the day that Al Gore has received the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering that the earth’s climate is changing. I’ve heard that he’s going to contribute half of his prize money to environmental causes and use the other half to pay his electricity bill. And anything left over will come in handy to help pay for the fleet of private jets that allow him to travel around the world to tell...

Per LA County Fire....Northbound I-5 is collapsing at the scene of a major accident in the truck tunnel. Incident: 3700 Type: Location: info as of: 10/12/2007 11:17:15 PM ADDITIONAL DETAILS 11:16PM 1039 MEDIA 11:14PM PER LACO FD ** PLS HAVE UNITS CLOSE DOWN ALL LNS - NB 5 AT BALBOA - THE BRIDGE IS STARTING TO COLAPSE 11:13PM 1039 56-S9 ADVISED ROLL 406 OR OTHER AVAILABLE UNIT TO ASSIST - 56-108 ENRT 11:13PM PLS ISSUE SIGALERT FOR THE NB 5 TK LNS TO 14 AND THE SB 5 TK LNS TO 14 - UNK DURATION AT THIS TIME - THANKS...

"YES ON 1A STOPS OUR EXISTING GAS TAXES FROM BEING USED FOR OTHER PROJECTS." That, jarring capital letters and all, is a direct quote from Proposition 1A, which California voters approved last fall along with four infrastructure bonds. The argument for Proposition 1A also told us that the measure "closes the loophole in the law and ensures that the gas taxes you already pay are spent only on transportation projects benefiting California's 20 million drivers." That was the line. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's legislative leaders knew voters would be reluctant to approve $40 billion in bonds, for fear...

SB 375 requires all regional transportation planning decisions and all transportation funding to be limited to a “preferred growth scenario,” that requires a minimum housing density of 10 units per acre. It was adopted by the Senate on June 7, 2007. Here is Senator McClintock’s speech in opposition to the bill: Mr. President: This measure says that all transportation plans and transportation funding decisions must be made with the object of concentrating people in dense urban cores. In this bill, it is called a “Preferred Growth Scenario.” It says all transportation plans and funds must serve this “Preferred Growth Scenario,”...

With an exploding population and aging and inadequate infrastructure, California faces questions of how best to meet its transportation needs for its long-term economic survival. To accomplish this, multiple modes of transportation - not only highways, but also rail and air - must be considered in the long-term, Ken Secor told members of the Mojave Chamber of Commerce on Thursday afternoon. One option under consideration for the movement of people is a high-speed rail system linking the state's major population centers in Los Angeles and San Francisco through the burgeoning Central Valley. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has proposed a...

Governor aims to apply extra gas tax funds toward bridges, school buses Attempting to revamp a decades-old tax-control provision, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has drawn fire from public transportation advocates who like the idea of high gas prices automatically pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into buses, trains and ferries. Using an arcane formula that weighs gasoline sales tax revenue against sales tax on other goods, a 1971 law negotiated with then-Gov. Ronald Reagan diverts any additional tax receipts into a fund for public transportation. True to his reputation, Reagan demanded rigid controls on the 4.75-percent tax on gasoline feeding the...

The quick-paced television commercials for the infrastructure bond measures make promises that voters can't count on. Proponents of Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E are running 11 versions of the same ad, which feature different lists of transportation projects based on the region in which the commercials air. In the Bay Area ad, the announcer promises the bond measures will "expand the Caldecott Tunnel, improve 101 and 880, and extend BART and Caltrain." But representatives of Bay Area transportation agencies say that isn't necessarily how they'll spend the money. Projects meeting those broad descriptions are among the Bay Area's...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--California motorists are footing the bill as five of the state’s metropolitan regions rank in the Top Ten urban areas with the roughest pavements in the nation. In a report released today, TRIP, a national transportation research group, found that among large urban regions (500,000+ population), the areas with the greatest share of major roads and highways with pavements in poor condition are: San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, Kansas City, New Orleans (pre-Katrina), San Diego, Sacramento, St. Louis, Omaha and New York City. TRIP found that a quarter of the nation’s major metropolitan roads – interstates, freeways...

Environmental groups, lured by the prospect of more than $4 billion for public-transit projects, are backing away from opposing the massive transportation bond on the November ballot. The environmentalists also are daunted by the nearly $7 million in campaign funds amassed by the bond's supporters. Over the weekend, the 75-delegate board of the Sierra Club of California decided against opposing the $19.95 billion bond package, which includes the money for public transit and $14 billion for road construction, plus other projects. Bill Allayaud, the group's legislative director, said Northern California members pushed to fight the bond, while many Southern California...

SACRAMENTO - When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an ambitious transportation bond in January, he touted the plan as way to improve more than 1,000 miles of state roads and build hundreds of miles of carpool lanes on California's busiest freeways. Democrats later shrank that pavement-laying proposal and substituted billions for bus, rail and other urban transit projects, but supporters have stuck to their public message since the latest version was placed on the November ballot. The bond, they say, would largely build roads and ease the lives of California's legions of freeway commuters. On Web sites and in fliers soon...

Federal authorities could force Caltrans to kick hybrid vehicles out of congested carpool lanes or require drivers of non-hybrids to pick up an extra passenger to gain admission to overused lanes. And that could help unclog carpool lanes in the Bay Area, most of which have become commute-hour slogs, according to a Caltrans report compiled after more than 50,000 hybrids were given access to the lanes. The report found that carpool lanes on Interstates 80 and 880 and Highways 101, 4, 85 and 237 have gone from being relatively free-flowing routes in spring 2005 to stop-and-go congestion this past spring....

Stretching from mountain to ocean, threading through shipping ports that connect us to the world, our two dozen interstates form the spine and sinew of the California Dream. They helped make us who we are, fueled our love of freedom and passion for thinking big, then told our story to the world through cop shows and chase films. They've spawned a monster economy linking America to China, India and beyond. More changes are coming. . . . Planners are scrambling to steer the aging system around a crisis that threatens the economy and the lifestyle it spawned. Just as California...