Streetsblog Los Angeles

Zelzah Avenue had it's speed limits raised last month, despite an intense lobbying effort by the Neighborhood Council and cyclists. Photo: Daily News

Tomorrow, new rules governing how municipalities evaluate speed limits on local roads will go into effect.  Unfortunately, these rules allow municipalities even less room than before to resist speed limit changes.  The new rules maintain the backbone of the bad law, speed limits are set based on how fast the "eighty-fifth" percentile of drivers are speeding but still manage to make it harder for municipalities to resist faster streets for pesky reasons like pedestrians or cyclists want to use the street.

Why does Caltrans continue to push rules that sacrifice the safety and livability of communities to speeding cars?  In short, state law directs them to encourage roads efficient only when they are moving as many cars as possible.  A road with a slower than "necessary" speed limit is considered inefficient.  Those people walking or biking aren't considered at all in these engineering surveys, mistakenly referred to as science by car-loving politicians.

The new language requires that speed limits be set at the closest five mile interval to the "eighty-fifth percentile."  Thus, if fifteen percent of all drivers are speeding by 6 miles per hour over the speed limit, the new limit would be ten miles per hour higher than the current one.  Thus, unsafe driving is it's own reward.  The faster and more unsafe people drive, the higher the speed limit will be on their local streets. 

When the "eighty-fifth percentile" rule was first put in place in the 1996 Manual, the rule asked municipalities to set the limit at the first speed limit below the "eighty-fifth percentile."  Thus, even if a driver were going thirty-nine miles per hour, they could set the limit at thirty-five.  Today, that would not be the case.

There is still flexibility for local DOT's to repress the speed limit by five miles per hour off the new speed; but under the new rules there is a new series of hoops that local officials will have to jump through to keep the speed limits lower.  So if the LADOT is willing to do the work, these new rules will have little impact on our streets as speed limit raises roll through the city in the coming years.

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Photo: Big Mike Lakers/Flickr

Last week, community forums were held in Glendale and La Cañada Flintridge on the proposed project that would construct a tunnel connecting the I-710 and I-210 freeways in Pasadena.  The Glendale News Press reported, in two separate stories, that opposition to the project is as strong as ever and that Caltrans isn't happy that the opposition is speaking up now.

Joining residents in voicing his displeasure was Glendale Councilman Ara Najarian, who claims that the project would cause "tremendous damage" to his constituent's quality of life.  Najarian also sits on the Metro Board and is scheduled to Chair the Metro Board for the 2010 Fiscal year, beginning in 29 days.  Nearly 250 people attended the two hearings, and most of those in who spoke raised questions about the project's impacts on their lives or opposed it altogether.

The main concern voiced was that completing a connection between the two highways will not only increase traffic on the roads, but also push some of that traffic onto local streets.  In other words, while it may temporarily provide some relief on the highway, it would do so by permanently congesting their local streets.

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With news out of Washington that the Obama administration's federal stimulus plan isn't going to be passed anytime in the next couple of weeks, our state and local political leaders now have the time to re-think their stimulus lists while the political drama unfolds in Washington, D.C.

At the state level, CALPIRG took its shot at Caltrans' project wish list in a report released just before the new year.  CALPIRG notes that while California's list of projects awaiting federal stimulus money is better than those in many other states, a clear one-third of the requested funds go towards road capacity enhancement projects compared to 37% for transit projects.  CALPIRG urges Caltrans to revise its list to be more like Massachusetts which is only requesting highway funds for fix-it-first projects.

To read the full Caltrans' stimulus list, click here.

The city's list of projects for the stimulus has come under similar fire from local advocates who note that most of the local dollars would be spent on road repaving and very little on alternative transportation projects. 

To read the city's list, click here.

Caltrans executives have stressed that any project lists that are made public should be taken with a grain of salt, because they are drafts and not final.  With the politics in Washington threatening to delay the stimulus package for another month, both Caltrans and city officials still have time to check their lists twice.

Of course, just because the city or state submit a project list, it doesn't mean those projects will ultimately be funded.  That's why it's important to focus advocacy efforts on local, state and federal politicians.

Photo: Barack Obama/Flickr

As part of the Bike Unfriendly Place of the Week, one reader suggested I look at the Downtown governmental buildings that all of us, especially transportation reform advocates, visit somewhat regularly.  This week, we'll look at Los Angeles City Hall, the Caltrans building and Metro Headquarters.  All three buildings have bike racks, but as we know, not all bike racks are created equal.

First, City Hall does have bike racks for regular citizens to use.  Their not as nice as the bike lockers Council President Eric Garcetti had installed in the parking garage for city employees,  but they do exist.  After a conversation with a helpful member of the LAPD pointed me the way, I found the racks across Main Street from the entrance underneath an overhang from City Hall East.  In short, it's good that they don't require cyclists to change their bikes to the fence, but not good that the racks are so far away from the entrance.

It's not just the distance that is a problem.  While the overhang may protect the bikes the few days a year it rains, combined with its location it helps mask the racks' existence.  I've been to City Hall literally dozens of times and didn't know these racks existed until I scoped them out last week.

 
The City Hall Bike Racks


A View of the City Hall Entrance from the Bike Racks

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CALTRANS Needs to Figure Out if 101-405 Project Still Makes Sense

Fewer people are driving these days.  With gas prices continuing to rise with no end in site, fewer people are choosing to drive fewer miles on our roads and highways.  That less people are taking to the roads has had no impact on Southern California’s rush to build and expand our highway system.  From the press release announcing the passage of Metro’s FY 09 Annual Budget:

The budget earmarks $634 million or 18.8 percent for highway and other regional transportation programs such as construction of freeway carpool lanes, freeway sound walls, street widening, better traffic signal coordination, grade separations at railroad crossings, bikeways, ride-sharing incentives, shuttles, and other transportation programs. Funding also is included for the Metro Freeway Service Patrol to help stranded motorists.

Around the country, transportation advocates are noticing that with automobile VMT falling, many of the projections upon which road widening projects are based are faulty.  The assumption that traffic volume will continue to grow has been proven unsound.  So why doesn’t that mean anything for the speed with which we continue to pour concrete?

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While the New York Times is discovering a growing livable streets movement in Los Angeles, our Paper of Record’s transportation columnist, Steve Hymon, is ready to throw a party for a road widening project in Eastern Sierra. The widening will double road capacity from two to four lanes for 14 miles between Independence and Big Pine. It should be completed in 2009.

According to the article car traffic is light on the now two-lane stretch of road but that the road’s duel use as a truck route makes it more perilous. Hyman goes into detail about some of the horrific crashes that have taken the lives of motorists and passengers along the route, but in every example given, the fault of the accident lies on drivers who were driving recklessly not road conditions.

For example:

Take, for example, the crash near Olancha last August. A 23-year-old woman from Cerritos was driving a Toyota SUV on the 395.

Stuck behind an SUV pulling a trailer, she tried going around and rammed into a Mazda traveling in the other direction. A 14-year-old girl in her SUV died, as did a female passenger in the Mazda.

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Just a day after Democrats in New York decided that New York City traffic conditions are just fine and congestion pricing isn’t needed there, alert LA Streetsblog reader Radical Transportation Engineer sends news that CALTRANS is looking for consultants to help study how best to convert carpool lanes into High Occupancy Toll lanes.  CALTRANS’ request for bids can be read below.