Jim Mills was one of the great and original supporters of using Light Rail in CA. He was also a great supporter of LOSSAN, and of railroad workers, He truly changed the trajectory of transit thinking in California, and got the San Diego Trolley started... I first met him in 1974, at the birth of the San Diego Trolley. His vision and legislative skills made that possible... He inspired a generation LRT projects reusing existing underutiized ROW's which could be repurposed for transit, and lines to places like Pasadena and Santa Monica were influenced by this vision.

I also want to report that Dr. Martin Wach, of the UCLA Planning School has also passed away. He was a mentor to several generations of student and colleagues, and just a real nice person. I had the pleasure of working with Marty on a number of UCLA's Annual Transportation and Air Quality Public Policy Conferences with elected officials in the 90's and 2000's, and on a number of academic studies through UCLA's Planning Department.

UCLA Release on Marty Wachs