I'm told the 15th anniversary of the San Jose Mercury News Mr. Roadshow column was front page news. Amazing that, while Southern California is the capital of traffic as a topic of conversation, the only columnist on the subject is Dick Hutchins. His Transit Topics appears in the Fullerton Observer, a free community newspaper [in Orange County.] The Orange County Register has Honk, a column that answers transportation questions.

Meanwhile the L.A. Times has at best spotty coverage of transportation. They at one point did try to do a sort of transportation column or some such but it wasn't sustained (or done by a single dedicated reporter). I think this is indicative of the sort of faults that are the subtext of the current fight over the Times. Many of us think the local coverage has long been mediocre and at the thought of the Times cutting staff and likely being even less relevant end up just shaking our head in resignation.

Dana Gabbard