Transportation

The nation's top hauler of container rail freight, BNSF Railway Co., is parking miles of rail cars in Montana and elsewhere because there isn't enough freight to keep them rolling. Cars that often carry 40-foot containers of goods shipped from Asia stand like an iron fence between the Missouri River and this Montana burg known for world-class fly fishing. They stretch as far as Sandee Cardinal can see when she stands outside her home on the river's west bank between Helena and Great Falls.

The modest Japanese sedan made its way down the gravel drive between the cow pasture and the dirt basketball court, kicking up a cloud of dust before coming to rest beside Roy Saulsberry Jr.'s ancient gas pumps. A passenger stepped out, clutching an old antifreeze jug. Outside Roy's Grocery & Package store, the regulars were hemming and hawing on a wooden bench, under the spell of the afternoon's slow rhythm.

While much of the world argues over whether biofuels made from corn are worsening world hunger, the debate in California is shifting to new state rules that could revolutionize the way fuels are judged. A gathering this week in Sacramento offered a glimpse of a complex "poly-fuel" future that promised substantial environmental benefits as well as wrenching change for California's transportation systems.

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.

A loaf of Love's Bakery bread is a slice of life in Hawaii, as familiar to residents and tourists as flip-flops and aloha shirts. So there was no way residents would be deprived of their daily staple even if it meant having to fly the loaves a circuitous 5,000 miles through Los Angeles. On Tuesday -- thanks to bankrupt Aloha Airlines -- residents on the islands of Hawaii and Kauai were in danger of being without their ration for the first time since Robert Love, a Scotsman waylaid in Honolulu, began baking the bread in 1851.

The undulating asphalt gave way to a sea of potholes and the bicycle shuddered with each curve and dip. Ahead, the Brooklyn Bridge rose in a long incline toward the camera-ready skyline of Manhattan. But the cinematic quality of the city was lost on an approaching bicyclist, who saw only a tight grid of streets with thin slices of available roadway -- spaces that momentarily widen, then narrow, in the anarchy of Manhattan traffic.

SCOOTERS are prone to many of the same safety issues as motorcycles. Their size makes them difficult for drivers to see, and on smaller-displacement models in particular, their low power makes mixing with fast-moving traffic more challenging. If you want to ride a scooter and aren't already a regular rider of two wheels, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a few recommendations.

With gasoline prices skyrocketing, key members of the Los Angeles business community are beginning to throw their political weight behind a sales tax increase to pay for more road and mass transit projects, including the beginning of the subway to the sea. David Fleming, chairman of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, told me Tuesday that as a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member he intends to vote to move the sales tax forward toward the November ballot.

Santa Maria, Calif. Ask Marv Hurley how many bones he's broken in rodeo and he'll rattle off a list that adds up to almost an entire skeleton: both ankles, both wrists, both feet, his collarbone, every one of his ribs. But out-of-control gas prices -- now that's a cowboy's nightmare. "They're killin' me," moaned Hurley, a 50-year-old bareback rider who manages to hang on to bucking broncs for a full eight seconds even with a partly metal pelvis that's held together by screws.

As commuters increasingly turn to bus and rail lines because of soaring gasoline prices, public transit, long the poor relation of American travel, is finally getting respect -- and money. In an effort to make riding bus and rail lines even more appealing, the House on Thursday moved to provide $1.7 billion to help transit agencies pay higher fuel costs, limit fare hikes and expand service. California would receive about $266 million. That's on top of a record $10 billion -- a $1-billion increase -- a congressional committee recently recommended for expanding transit nationwide in the next year.