Comments on: As Pedestrian Crashes and Fatalities Mount, What is L.A.’s Plan?

By: Stats Dude

Stats Dude — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:01:20 +0000

Alek, LA experimented with underpasses many many years ago, and it was a failure. Overpasses (ADA compliant) can be done, but is expensive and takes up significant sidewalk space (some areas have no sidewalk space to give up).

In addition, the city hadn’t funded their sidewalk maintenance program in decades. Now (IIRC) it is up to the building owner to take care of it, or fund it when they sell the house/business.
.

By: Yikes

Yikes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:53:26 +0000

Geez…I am considering moving from Philly to take a job offer in LA, but hearing this kind of thing makes me think twice. Its not so much the number of fatalities, but the fact that its getting worse and and that so little is being done about it.

You guys have great weather…I’ll give you that. But I don’t think good weather is worth the risks of living there.

By: Alek F

Alek F — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:06:10 +0000

We need pedestrian underpasses and overpasses, not street-level crosswalks!!
Look how greatly the pedestrian environment is organized in Las Vegas! – they have pedestrian overpasses in numerous places!! It’s much safer for people, and more efficient for traffic flow.
But… LA for some reasons doesn’t want to invest in such improvements, because… the City is too busy with providing conditions only to its precious cars and roads… LA has neglected pedestrian and cycling (and mass transit) conditions, while only concentrating on roads & cars. This is pathetic… We need new management, new city planners, new approach; new everything!
As long as LA continues its “car-only” mentality, nothing will change as far as improving life for pedestrians, alas.

By: Umberto Brayj

Umberto Brayj — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:51:04 +0000

Nope nope and nope CalWatch!

No need to propose it as deferred maintenance! A significant build-out of the sidewalks in LA would have some very beneficial impact on the City. It would be up to the MTA staff (Ahem! Mayor V. wassup?!) to determine that this is “deferred maintenance”. This would be a massive system expansion of an under-served mode. I think that the only thing standing in the way of a total sidewalk upgrade in L.A. is the imagination of the staff writing the proposal and the will of the electeds to get it done (over doing b.s. like multi-$100 million freeway resurfacing).

I’m trying to be contrarian, but I do think that a little open-minded project planning could reap big rewards for L.A. in the CFP.

By: calwatch

calwatch — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:50:49 +0000

Because you can’t use CFP to do deferred maintenance. It has to be a significant upgrade to an existing facility, or a brand new facility. The other thing is that bridge widening money comes from gas tax, and traditionally gas tax has always been returned to the drivers that use it. Note that this is not a hard and fast rule… some agencies are using gas tax for bikeways, against the protests of the engineers that work there, who complain, and rightly so, that money is taken away from routine repaving jobs for this.

By: Umberto Brayj

Umberto Brayj — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:30:54 +0000

You want questions:

How many pedestrians are killed or injured by cars in Los Angeles every year?
Why is there no cumulative, annual, report on these sorts of incidents that is delivered to the full council and mayor, with highlighted intersections that have been the site of killed or maimed Angelenos?
Now that the MTA has revised their Call For Projects funding guidelines to allow bicycles and pedestrian projects to replace automobile capacity on roads – why is the city’s list of projects so short on sidewalk improvements and maintenance and so heavy on bridge and road widenings? Is there no quarterly survey of economic activity tied to a modal survey on our streets?
When one bridge widening could fund an upgrade to the entire city’s backlog of broken and sub-standard sidewalks and intersection crossings – why has no political leader taken this issue up? Is it that hard to prepare an application for a project that will reduce fatalities, improve air quality, help local business, and beautify our city? Are your elected positions that safe?

p.s. Sorry for any typos or grammar errors.

By: Stats Dude

Stats Dude — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:29:31 +0000

According to SCAG’s safety chapter of their long range transportation plan,
in 2005, in Los Angeles County (doesn’t break down by city), 204 pedestrians were killed, and 5,225 were injured.

The pedestrian fatality rate represents 27% of all traffic fatalities in the county for that year.

http://www.scag.ca.gov/rtp2008/pdfs/finalrtp/reports/fSafety.pdf

By: David

David — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:11:03 +0000

Yet another failure of the current mayor and city council…