In his attempt to leverage legislators to come up with a budget solution pronto, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to abstain from signing any bills until a budget reached his desk. Today, he took that one back. AB 3034, a bill that would replace Prop 1, the high speed rail initiative, with Prop 1A, a slightly different high speed rail initiative, was signed into law today to ensure Secretary of State Debra Bowen has enough time to put it on the ballot. Good move, Governor. It was the responsible thing to do. Now it's time to put pressure on legislative Republicans to agree to new revenues, someway, somehow.

The High Speed Rail blog has more.

Los Angles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez today in Sacramento to discuss the Governor's slashing of state funds to public transit and their anti-gang proposals. The two met for nearly an hour to discuss the City's budget priorities. Here are Mayor Villaraigosa's remarks at a press conference after the meeting.

Los Angles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez today in Sacramento to discuss the Governor's slashing of state funds to public transit and their anti-gang proposals. The two met for nearly an hour to discuss the City's budget priorities. Here are Speaker Nunez's remarks at a press conference after the meeting. Mayor Villaraigosa's are forthcoming.

Editor's Note: This is the first installment of CMR's Ask the Expert. See here for more information. On Monday, a new expert will be available for questions. 

Any thoughts on what can we do about Schwarzenegger's "I say, pave it" auto-centric transit robbing transportation plans? Can we invite him to come ride the J Church and see if taking a billion dollars away from transit is really that hot of an idea, or something? What are the pressure points?

 
The problem with the Governor is that being from LA he doesn’t understand that transit isn’t just for poor people who don’t vote. Getting Mr. Schwarzenegger to ride an inbound J Church train at 8:30 am on a weekday with hundreds of other white collar workers would no doubt be eye-opening for him. Rush hour commutes on most Bay Area transit systems is a standing room only proposition; and in some cases like the K, L, or M trains at San Francisco’s Castro Station, commuters are left no choice but to elbow their way onto a packed train or be left standing on the platform at 9 am late for work.