Santa Monica's wish list

Cleaner burning buses, fancy high-tech parking signs and a "bike transit depot" are a few of the items on Santa Monica's transit funding wish list, the Lookout reports:

The most expensive -- a $4.26 million grant matched with local funds totaling $1.58 million -- would replace ten diesel spewing Big Blue buses with vehicles that run on environmentally friendly Liquefied Natural Gas by 2011.... Other local projects would also include real-time parking signs for the beach ($250,000 grant and a $287,000 local match) and signal system upgrades on Ocean Park Boulevard, Main Street and Neilson Way ($933,000 grant and a $234,000 local match) There may also be an emphasis on bike projects. A bike transit station Downtown would require a grant of $1.67 million and local match of $900,000, while school-based bike training would be covered by an $84,000 grant, along with $45,000 in local funds.

Comments

[Richard H]

To quote:

"The most expensive -- a $4.26 million grant matched with local funds totaling $1.58 million -- would replace ten diesel spewing Big Blue buses with vehicles that run on environmentally friendly Liquefied Natural Gas by 2011.

"If all ten buses are replaced, it will leave 88 diesel buses in the City’s fleet, or nearly fifty percent of the buses in the system. The City is hoping to replace the entire fleet with alternative fuel vehicles by 2014."

The public transportation of the People's Republic of Santa Monica, supposedly the most environmentally conscious and progressive metropolis in the world,
STILL runs diesel buses? And will for years to come?

For shame on those rich hypocrites. For all its faults, MTA has managed to convert virtually its entire bus fleet to Compressed Natural Gas.