Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

On the far eastern side of Pasadena, the Gold Line tracks run in the middle of the 210 Freeway and then, at Madre Street, they just stop. The old rail right of way continues up the middle of the freeway and extends across the width of the Valley, roughly paralleling the 210. Hardly any freight trains use the corridor, and it's been decades since passengers rode those rails. Public officials from across the San Gabriel Valley are hoping to change that soon.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials Thursday said that after looking at all the options, they would like to build a four-mile busway along Canoga Avenue in the San Fernando Valley to connect the Orange Line busway and the Chatsworth Metrolink station. Officials had been looking at options for mass transit along Canoga and decided that a busway, built atop an old rail right-of-way, was the best and most affordable option. The project would include an adjacent bike lane.

Declaring that it's time to try something new in the war on traffic, Los Angeles County transportation officials unanimously voted Thursday to make some motorists pay tolls to use carpool lanes on two local freeways. If all goes as planned, tolls for those lanes will take effect on the 10 and 210 freeways in the San Gabriel Valley by the end of 2010. On the 210, it is expected that tolls will be implemented between Pasadena and the 605 Freeway.

The federal government has offered Los Angeles County $213 million to convert carpool lanes to special, congestion-pricing toll lanes on three freeways, according to county government documents. The freeways involved first would be short stretches of Interstates 10 and 210 in the San Gabriel Valley, and then, if any money remained, part of the 110 south of downtown Los Angeles. The federal funding, however, would come to L.A.

The City Council this week unanimously approved construction of an unusual urban wetland park on an old Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintenance yard in South Los Angeles. The South Los Angeles Wetlands Park project will cost $19 million in proceeds from bond issues for parks and clean water and will take up to two years to build, city officials said. It will include a small lake, marshes with native plants, footpaths, a community center and a winding waterway.

Last week, I took a ride on the Green Line, the light-rail line along the 105 Freeway that connects Norwalk and Redondo Beach. Well, sort of connects them. First, the line starts a mile short of the Norwalk Metrolink station, then steers clear of LAX and ends on the edge of Redondo Beach at a station surrounded by the 405 Freeway, a Volkswagen dealership, a utility substation and a Northrop Grumman plant.

In an effort to stop fare beating, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted Thursday to install turnstiles at subway stops and some light rail stations. MTA trains operate on an honor system in which passengers are required to buy tickets but only have to show them if asked. Agency officials estimate that about 5% of all passengers aren't buying tickets and that the new gates could save the MTA as much as $7 million a year. The gating system will be installed over the next two years.

A battle is looming in the depths below downtown Los Angeles as transportation planners try to find a way to smooth out the commute for thousands who take rail into the city center each day. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is studying how to link the three major rail corridors that go into the city center: the Blue Line, the Gold Line and the upcoming Exposition Line.

Is the MTA going to build a rail line to nowhere? That's what some critics are asking after transportation officials unveiled long-awaited plans for a light-rail system that would run through Southwest L.A. and to the South Bay. The proposed $1-billion line would start on Crenshaw Boulevard at Exposition Boulevard and end at the 105 Freeway in El Segundo.

Local transportation officials have come up with a list of about a dozen potential subway routes on the Westside, with most of the corridors following either Wilshire Boulevard or Santa Monica Boulevard -- or both. All of the routes, along with other mass transit options for the congested Westside, will be discussed at a series of public meetings that begin tonight.