Over one hundred tenth graders from Esteban Torres High School’s Renaissance Academy had a chance to redesign the Gold Line Eastside Extension Station areas as part of a series of interactive modeling sessions designed to introduce them to urban planning.  Rather than introducing them to our modeling process through a presentation, we took the students to visit and take notes at three Gold Line Stations: Mission/Meridian, Lake and Del Mar Stations.

Photo: Latino Urban Forum/Flickr

Next, we had them examine the stations from a different perspective.  They participated in  a series of interactive workshops to help the students articulate their needs. We had them read maps of the station areas and create models from them using found objects.

The students presented their ideas through models of the Gold-Line Metro station areas and and explained how their proposed developments around the stations may increase ridership and attract people into East Los Angeles. They created three trains in their models; one, the newly christened Butterscotch Line, is made completely from candy (just in time for Valentine’s Day.)

The students designed these light rail station areas as neighborhood destinations to draw the community to the station and draw riders off the trains. They located services, and amenities lacking in today’s Eastside community such as parks, stores, housing, and offices within site of the stations.  The students were proud of their community and designed stations that welcomed people to the Eastside with “welcome” signs and decorative gateways.

Best of all, their stations and their Gold Line fit the community.  Before the workshops they investigated the physical form of the actual community.  The examined architecture and design that creates identity of place. They used that map of their community to create beautiful streetscapes designs that capture the artistic power of the community.

The candy Gold Line Train model is incredible. It’s a wedding cake of rich colors, shapes, textures that draws you in.  The candy model captures the vibrancy and sensual quality of East Los Angeles. The Gold line is created by a butterscotch candies while an Aztec Temple made of sugar cubes creates a canopy over the station.  There’s never been a  model quite like this one.

But most impressively were the students themselves.  They took ownership of the planning process. They were articulate and had conviction and passion for the transformation of East Los Angeles.   Just as the students of the Renaissance Academy learned a lot about planning from this process, there is a lot the professional planning community can learn from these students.

Claire Bowin

As you’ll see below, she also has some strong feelings on car parking minimums.

Read the first part of the interview by clicking here, and the second part by reading on.

A lot of planning and development decisions hinge on parking regulations, set by the Planning Department. Critics, including UCLA’s Donald Shoup, have shown these parking minimums to be inconsistent, unhelpful, and biased toward suburban auto-centric development. What’s in store for the future of parking in Los Angeles?

Ah, parking, one of my favorite topics. If you build it they will come- this has certainly been true with parking and cars. Communities, fearful of density and an influx of people and cars, are often the first to demand more parking- not realizing, of course, the self- fulfilling prophecy they’ve put in motion. But, now that we’ve got all these cars and parking lots how can we wean people off of them?

Fortunately, there’s a healthy number of Angelenos who have already reduced their driving habits and car addiction- 55.3% of households here own one or no cars! I love that statistic. It defies every assumption we have about ourselves. And it’s statistics like this that help us make the case to communities and politicians that perhaps we can reduce the amount of parking – especially in areas with high concentrations of land uses, transit, and low car ownership.

To further bolster the argument, we hope, we’re currently evaluating the parking utilization rates around six transit stations around the city. We don’t have the report back yet from the consultant but we know, from similar studies that were completed in recent years for the Downtown and Little Tokyo areas, that there is typically more than ample parking. There is often the perception that there is not enough parking because information about the location of public parking may not be easily visible, or people prefer to find on-street parking that is less plentiful but often cheaper. Too there may be plentiful parking available in private lots that are not available to the public. One strategy might be to work with property owners to make private spaces available to the public during the hours when demand for the private parking is light.

Once the parking research is completed this spring it should help us re-define parking standards in many of our TOD areas. Just as all TOD areas are not the same we don’t imagine that we’ll adopt a singular TOD parking policy.  Instead, we expect that we’ll establish standards that are tailored to each TOD and reflect the unique mix and intensity of its land uses as well as the frequency and density of transit and other modal options.

Does the city ever look at how much it costs to maintain all the streets, sewers, lighting, sidewalks, and other pieces of public property when making planning decisions? Do we try to plan city blocks that pay for themselves or are we dependent on outside funding, and let future generations deal with maintenance obligations?

I can’t admit that I’m well versed in all the intricacies of public works maintenance practices but given the much publicized deferred maintenance of our city streets, not to mention the number of street tree stumps that languish in our parkways (I’ve heard sometimes upward of 20 years!) that we have a funding problem. As I mentioned earlier I think identifying and implementing a capital and maintenance fund is critical in order for the city to fully implement the Mobility Plan. If you have ideas on how and/or where we should obtain the funding (increased gas taxes, property taxes, developer fees etc.) and what types of things we should spend the funding on, please visit ideas.la2b.org and/or attend the next Think Labs on February 25^th and March 3^rd.

LA has had it’s civic plaza and squares, and it’s quaint shopping streets of the 1890′s and early 20th century ruined by an overemphasis on moving cars. What is being done to give back the civic space that was taken? Is this a priority with anyone in City Hall? Do we measure, or even care, about the types of free interactions people have on the streets of LA – if not, why not?

Public space is most definitely a priority and it’s, as I highlighted in a previous answer, something that we’re definitely looking to facilitate as we develop and then implement the Mobility Element. In the meanwhile our Planning Commission President , Bill Roschen, and Simon Pastucha with our Urban Design Studio have been working with Streets for People to look at potential pocket parks that can be carved out of underutilized or remnant street width (similar to what was done in NYC).

How hard would it be to have noise from traffic become a major cause worth caring about in the Planning Department (or any department) in LA?

Traffic noise is certainly an unfortunate by-product of traffic. I was reminded of the impact of traffic noise when visiting NYC last spring. There was still plenty of traffic noise but the city was noticeably quieter thanks to a recent ordinance that banned non-emergency use of vehicle horns. And I can’t tell you how much nicer it was! Even the New Yorkers seemed happier than we typically give them credit for. But I digress, while I agree that walking or bicycling alongside of traffic, is far from pleasant I’d suggest that we focus our energies on providing safe and efficient alternatives to the automobile, which will them translate into less cars and less noise – well, that and perhaps we should also hope electric cars get cheaper and thus more prevalent so that whatever traffic does remain in our “Los Angeles of the Future” at least it will be quiet and won’t produce emissions. Then we’ll have clean air and quiet streets to boot!

Readers: Tell us about your background before coming to City Planning. You worked for Livable Places – you were once one of us – what was your proudest accomplishment there?

Bowin: While at Livable Places I had the wonderful opportunity of working on Olive Court, a 50+ unit affordable homeownership community located one block from the Pacific Coast Highway/Long Beach Boulevard Blue Line Station. The 1.5 acre site which is located directly on Long Beach Boulevard was not, at the time we purchased the property, zoned for housing. The community immediately behind the property was low-density residential and while I often argue that all development around a transit station doesn’t need to be housing it was a good solution here. I am pleased by many aspects of the project, particularly the outdoor community spaces that were designed as key features in the project. The architecture and landscape design teams, which were led by Eric Naslund and Walter Hood respectively, did a beautiful job creating a series of interlocking community spaces. Instead of allocating separate play areas and traditional climbing equipment for young children, the landscape was designed to encourage creative play, gardening, reading, and conversation.

Claire Bowin

Because Bowin wrote such detailed answers, we decided to split her question and answer into two parts.  Today’s question and answer covers the public outreach for the Mobility Plan that are underway, Transit Oriented Development and Affordable Housing.  The last question, on affordable housing, is almost literally a dissertation on the issue and a must read for anyone that cares about housing, equality, development and TOD.  The second part of the series will run tomorrow.

Readers: The city’s General Plan 1999 Transportation element has all sorts of great language about livability, walkability, transit – but this plan language didn’t really end up with much in the way of results on the ground. How can the Mobility Element update underway do better?

Bowin: It’s amazing how much has changed in the past 13 years- LA is such a different place now than it was in 1999 and I think we’re finally moving towards a community that is truly multi-modal. Measure R’s passage, in 2008, demonstrated again how much Los Angelenos truly support a regional transit system. Measure R is also a good example of how important local leadership and dedicated funding are in ensuring that physical improvements actually get done.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how important a strong implementation plan (read $$) is going to be if we really want to see the ideas in the Mobility Plan carried out. Without it we can have lots of lofty policies and goals but we won’t get the traction to actually make the many on-the-ground changes that are going to be needed to really attract Los Angelenos to try out new ways of getting around.

 How will the mobility plan assure that we are planning our streets as ‘places’ as well as mobility corridors for pedestrians, cyclists transit riders and drivers?

he mobility plan provides us a real opportunity to re-imagine and repurpose our cities streets. What we’re learning and hearing through the ideas.la2b.org website is that there is a tremendous interest in revitalizing our streets not only for pedestrians and bicyclists and transit, but as an integral part of our public realm. We’ve heard a lot from folks asking us to open some streets once a week, much like we do now for big events like Ciclavia or weekly farmers, and we hope that the plan can set the table for more frequent street openings.

We also want to redesign our streets so that we create permanent public gathering places. Our “main” streets or streets around transit are natural places for this. By widening sidewalks, creating plazas with active uses at the ground floor with concentrations of employment , educational institutions or residential uses nearby we’ll hopefully induce people to naturally spend more time outside, on the street, and not just during “events”. To do this we want to hear from the Los Angeles community about which streets they’d like to see transformed.

We’ve created all kinds of maps that tell us a lot about our city and we’re hoping that folks will come out to our Mobility Think Lab events on February 25th and March 3rd and give us feedback as to where they’d like to see more formal public places encouraged or established. Details about the Think Lab events can be found at our website at: la2b.org.

What flexibility does the City of LA have with regards to the incorporation of Complete Street standards in LA’s Mobility Plan? Can it enhance the standards, is there a minimum framework of Complete Streets standards that serve as a starting point? Is there a Statewide default Complete Streets standard? Can community advocates participate in enhancing LA’s Complete Streets standards?

The City has a lot of flexibility in terms of how we interpret and adapt the California Complete Street Act to our streets. As a complement to the Mobility Element we plan to develop new, Complete Street standards. A big problem today is that the street standards we have were adopted over 50 years ago when the car was truly king. Those standards have proved to be a huge impediment as we try to incorporate wider sidewalks and bicycle facilities into our rights-of-way.

While the state doesn’t establish specific street standards it does direct municipalities, when they update their transportation plans, to accommodate all modes and there’s certainly good examples of “complete streets” that have been implemented in communities around the country that we can look to for guidance.

We expect that many of your readers have lots of great suggestions as to what these new street cross-sections should look like and we certainly hope that we’ll be hearing from them over the next few months. At our first round of workshops coming up on February 25^th and March 3^rd we’ll be asking people to define for us what should be included in the new street standards. More specifically we’ll be asking folks to define for us what should be included in a street where we want to emphasize transit usage, or where we want to give priority for the bicycle.  We’ll also soon be using our ideas.la2b.org website as a place for people to give us ideas for the street sections.

 There’s often a buzz around Transit-Oriented Development, but TOD has happened minimally in the city of Los Angeles, and has often been hampered by L.A.’s car-centric planning codes. How can L.A. do more and better TOD?

The new Citywide Design Guidelines are a step in the right direction towards creating communities that are more supportive of pedestrian and bicycle activities. There are other TOD planning efforts that are currently underway in Warner Center, the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan and along the Exposition, Green, and Blue lines that include new development standards that will facilitate a greater range and density of land uses, require projects to build to the property line, prohibit parking in front of buildings, establish active ground floor uses, and require that all buildings have pedestrian entrances that face the street and utilize transparent materials for a large portion of their ground level, street facing facades.

These new land use and design strategies are expected, once the economy begins to recover, to play a large part in stimulating robust growth around transit stations. We’ve also recently been awarded a grant from Metro to develop ten TOD plans around the Crenshaw and Exposition Phase 2 Stations and we’ll be underway with these this Spring. Stay tuned! Our suburban parking standards have certainly been an impediment to good TODs and I’ll tackle that topic in question seven below.

What can Los Angeles’s Planning Department do to ensure adequate supplies of affordable housing? How can affordability be part of future TOD planning?

In order to be a successful, vibrant City in the 21^st Century we need to facilitate the development of quality, affordable housing options for all of our residents. And, locating affordable housing near transit stations does make a lot of sense. But, how we accomplish this is often the subject of much contentious debate.

In the first part of the 20^th Century, government, with mixed results, took the lead in developing housing projects to house many lower income households. During the latter part of the 20^th Century a variety of strategies, including rent control, Section 8 subsidies, and tax increment financing have been established to increase the supply of affordable housing. More recently, market rate developers have been asked to shoulder some of the affordable housing burden by providing a percentage of their units to lower income households in exchange for a variety of incentives that have ranged from increased density and height to reduced parking, open space, and yard requirements.

Before I discuss the various strategies that we can employ to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing at transit stations, let’s first define what is meant by “affordable housing,” who typically builds affordable housing, identify who affordable housing is for, and evaluate what factors influence the cost of housing.

For the purposes of this conversation let’s divide affordable housing into two categories. The first is Affordable housing with a capital “A” which is housing that is rent restricted for at least 30 years. The other is affordable housing with a small “a” which is any housing that is available to a particular income group where the rent does not exceed 30% of their gross income. The advantage of Affordable housing is that its rent levels are restricted and therefore the low (80% Area Median Income-AMI), very low (50% AMI), and very, very, very low (35% AMI) income families who Affordable housing developments are typically oriented towards can be confident that their rent will not increase beyond what they can reasonably afford. Inflation and an increase in market demand can spur the rent of affordable units to increase the rent to the point where it is no longer affordable. (Note: Median income in Los Angeles for a family of four is roughly $68,000.)

Who is affordable housing for?  Well, everyone really. Regardless of their income (I’m talking about the 99% here) most households can’t afford to spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Even median, moderate (100-120% AMI) and workforce (up to 150% AMI) households often struggle to find decent, affordable housing but its truly the most vulnerable members of our society who are most at risk when there isn’t an adequate supply of affordable or Affordable housing targeted for their income levels. This vulnerable population can include a wide range of family and household types from the student, to the part-time worker, to the low-wage earner, to the self-employed, to those with circumstances that may impair their ability to work at all.

Who builds and/or owns Affordable and affordable housing? Affordable housing is mostly built by developers (both non-profit and for-profit) who have decided that they want to be in the business of building Affordable housing, have learned to navigate the complex rules of local, State and Federal housing programs to obtain the necessary financing to provide Affordable units, and have implemented good, sound management practices to ensure that their developments provide a safe, clean, and quality housing option. A smaller number of Affordable units are developed by market rate developers who elect to pursue an increase in their allowable floor area ratio (FAR) in exchange for setting aside a proscribed number of units for low or very low income households.

On the other hand, affordable housing occurs largely by happenstance, an older building with few or minimal amenities may have rents that are lower than, and thus more affordable, than newer-built housing, or a new building may be built with modest amenities in a part of town where the land prices are a bit cheaper. In these cases the rents may be actually equivalent to the prevailing “market rate” for that area but still within reach of a low or median income household.

Why is housing so expensive and what can be done to control the cost of housing? There are several factors that influence the cost of housing.  One major factor is the cost of land. Land prices are influenced by a variety of factors including location, the permitted land uses and floor area ratio (FAR). Another related feature is the amount of supply relative to the demand. An area with little supply and high demand (Westside) will typically have higher rents than an area with abundant supply and less demand (Riverside).

The number of units that can be built on a given parcel also influences the cost of housing. A developer needs to pay back his investors and/or the lenders who provided him/her the financing to purchase the land and design and construct the building and therefore the developer is typically going to build as many units as he is allowed. Because many communities are adverse to increases in density they often lobby to limit the number of units that can be built on a particular site.

For example, if the FAR of a particular site allows a developer to build a building of 100,000 square feet but the density cap limits the number of units he can build to 100 he’s going to build 1,000 square feet units. And let’s say that each unit is going to rent for $2.00/square foot. That’s $2,000 per month. But, if the developer wasn’t limited in the number of units he could build and instead he builds 133 units that are 750 square feet each at the same $2.00 per square feet those units would rent for $1,500.  The amount of parking required by a jurisdiction also dramatically influences the cost of housing. Parking, especially underground parking, can run as high as $45,000 per parking space and the cost of constructing this parking needs to recovered somehow and is typically passed on to the tenant or new owner which increases the rental or purchase price of a unit. Even surface parking isn’t free – it takes up land area that the developer paid for but can’t develop on.

So, what are our options and how do we facilitate the development of both Affordable and affordable units, especially in TOD areas where land prices are expected to increase?

To help encourage the development of more Affordable units we’re working with the Los Angeles Housing Department to see how we might further increase the amount of funding in the City’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Unfortunately, due to the reductions in the State budget, funding for Affordable Housing continues to dwindle and of course the recent elimination of redevelopment agencies has put a huge dent in the Affordable funding pot.

Affordable units can also be realized at TODs through the use of the Density Bonus Ordinance which provides up to a 35% density increase for projects that set-aside a percentage of their units as Affordable. The majority of projects that utilize the density bonus are completed by developers who obtain public funding but some Affordable units are also achieved by market rate developers who elect to include Affordable units in exchange for the increased density.

Because limited funding continues to constrain the number of Affordable units that can be built we’re also pursuing strategies that would expand the number of affordable units that could get built in TOD areas. Unfortunately, much of the housing that is getting built today is luxury housing that is outside the affordability of not only low-income households, but often stretches the resources of moderate and workforce households.

So, what strategies can we use to facilitate the development of affordable housing around TODs? Because we are talking about TODs we have the opportunity to try some things that most likely would not be welcome in other parts of the City. One way to keep rents lower would be to eliminate the density cap so that developers’ would be encouraged to build more, smaller units within their allowable FAR. To protect against units getting too small we could establish minimum unit sizes for each bedroom type. For example, we could limit a two-bedroom unit to no less than 750 square feet. We could eliminate or dramatically reduce the parking requirement. We could also require that parking be unbundled from the cost of the unit so that a household only needs to absorb the cost of renting the parking that they need. What better incentive is there to give up the car?

Claire Bowin

You know how this works by now.  You leave your questions in the comments below, leave them at our Facebook Page or tweet them to @lastreetsblog by next Monday morning and we will compile the questions and send them to Bowin.  When she answers them, we will publish them in their entirety.

For those of you not familar with Bowin, last year at this time she was a hero to the bicycling advocacy community.  Her influence in the last rounds of negotiations on the Bike Plan were so criticial that none other than Bikeside President Alex Thompson took time to praise her work bringing all sides together  during the press event celebrating the plan’s signing.  Bowin is also involved in the less-popular environmental studies for bike plan projects as well as bike plan implementation, the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan, River Improvement Overlay and even the SCAG’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).

This year she’ll be working on a pair of new projects: an update to the City’s Housing Element and the development of a new Health and Wellness Chapter for the Framework Element.

If you’ve got questions for Bowin, fire away!

“Bike Lanes in Major Streets”

“Closing Streets for Events”

“More showers and bike rental/parking stations”

Click on the image to visit the LA/2B homepage.

Is this a Livable Streets wishlist for the City of Los Angeles?  Yes.  But it’s also the topics highlighted by LA/2B, the interactive online discussion program employed by the LADOT and City Planning to solicit feedback on the city’s effort to update its mobility plan.  In an email to media and those using the website, LA/2B routinely lists the hottest topics on its message boards.  All comments left at LA/2B will be part of the public record when determining what will, and won’t, be included in the city’s long-term plans.

Whenever I visit the LA/2B site, the hot topics are always related to livable streets, and that the comments are overwhelmingly positive.  For example, the “hottest topic” at the moment is “Prioritize Pedestrians Over Autos” and has received twenty
“seconds” and 16 comments.    By my count the comments run 2:1 in favor of the concept.

While support has been strong for pedestrian, bicycle and open streets proposals, the numbers on the website aren’t enough to persuade legislators addled with a car culture mentality so if you want to join the discussion, there’s no time like the present.

To learn more about the nuts and bolts of how the BPIT prioritization website works, visit the LADOT Bike Blog by clicking on the above image

Meanwhile, LADOT Bikeways is fulfilling a promise made to its Bicycle Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) and has launched an online survey for cyclists and interested parties to prioritize what projects in the Bike Plan should be implemented first.  LADOT has come under some fire for placing Sharrows on a seemingly random set of streets so that in can reach the Mayor’s stated goal of 40 miles of bike projects every year.  As we’ve noted before, the massive Sharrows implementation weekend from earlier this year was not included in the 2010 Bike Plan.

Allowing cyclists to make their case for projects directly in a mass way, as opposed to defaulting to the work of a handful of bike advocates with the time and means to attend meetings in Downtown Los Angeles, seems a good first step to insure better implementation of the plan praised by cyclists at its passage last March.

Of course, “knowing is half the battle.”  For this brave new world of interactive comment gathering to be effective, LADOT and City Planning have to make good use of the knowledge they gain.

Wildflowers in bloom at the cornfields. Note the proximity of industrial development. Photo: Creek Freak

Can a community plan claim to be progressive without a strong affordable housing component?

That questions has been at the heart of a debate about the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan (CASP) that promises to transform 660 acres located in the communities of Lincoln Heights, Cypress Park and Chinatown from mixed-use, mostly industrial, to a more residential area with industrial areas designed to attract green and other LEED certified (environmentally clean) businesses.  Back in March of 2009, Joe Linton described many of the benefits of the plan, including a decoupling or parking from rental or purchase fees of new apartments.

But what makes the plan so impressive to Livable Streets advocates makes it a nightmare for affordable housing ones.  Because the plan offers increased density and reduced parking requirements without requiring an affordable housing tradeoff, advocates are concerned that the end result of the CASP will be to force out existing residents by turning the area into one for those earning a higher income.

“The critical question about the Cornfields Arroyo Seco Specific Plan is this: Will the plan lead to luxury housing and market rate shops unaffordable to local residents? Or will it lead to a community where everyone can live?” asks Serena Lin, a staff attorney with Public Counsel. “Right now the plan prioritizes luxury housing developers over local residents, and we call on Councilman Ed Reyes to amend it.”

If CASP had a provision that offered extra density bonuses or reduced parking standards if a developer agrees to build a small percentage of affordable units, the Plan could be a real tool in our City’s toolkit argues Public Counsel. Instead of fighting with community groups, the city could proactively plan for communities where all residents, including people struggling with poverty, can afford to live. Instead, the Plan offers developers incentives to build market rate housing, without any provision for affordable housing. In an area with a median income of less than $25,000 per year, much of the current community would get priced out of a community where they.

“There’s been a lot of pressure to change the zoning for the plan are over the years,” explains Claire Bowen, the project manager with the Department of City Planning (Planning) for the project.

Bowen points to recent affordable housing developments that have already gone into the area, many of whom are getting exclusions from the existing zoning code.  This leads to “spot zoning” and haphazard mixed use planning that benefits few people.  Instead of pushing people out of the area, Bowen argues that the community will be improved to make life better for the people already living in the area.

But she also readily concedes that the CASP is about bringing in new people and new businesses into the area.

“This is an area we’re trying to attract people to,” Bowen supplies. “Cities that are successful in attracting new clean or green light industrial uses, they’re attracted to areas that have these types of amenities versus single zoned areas.”

At a public meeting held on Saturday, residents and community leaders expressed concern about bringing in too many new people without providing an affordable way to maintain housing for current residents and expanded affordable housing for their families.  Representatives from the East Los Angeles Community Corporation, Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance, Homeboy Industries and the Southeast Asian Community Alliance (SEACA) all voiced concern at the lack of affordable housing guarantees in the plan.  All in all, between 80-100 people attended the meeting, most of those who spoke were there to raise concerns about CASP’s impact on existing community residents.

“We fought hard to build the vibrant community that we have here,” claims Sissy Trinh, with SEACA.  ”Now the city is setting in motion a plan that risks destroying that in order to build luxury housing. All the while, the luxury housing that was built in the last few years sits empty while our families struggle to find affordable housing.”

SEACA has created a website outlining the pros and cons of the CASP from their point of view and offers ways the city could improve upon the existing plan.  SEACA notes there are many benefits to the plan as it exists including better streets, better bicycle infrastructure and the potential to bring more jobs, more affordable housing and more transit options to the area.  For each of their cons, City Planning has some sort of answer, although in many cases the answer wouldn’t be satisfactory to those pushing to protect the community.

For example, SEACA argues that while CASP would double the residents living in the area, there are no plans to improve the infrastructure to help move all of the new residents and deal with new traffic.  City Planning points to the impressive bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure planned for the area and the existing transit infrastructure.  The CASP area includes two Gold Line Stations, is adjacent to another one and if you add up all of the bus stops made in a given day, it averages roughly 1,000 stops per day.

But is that a realistic transportation plan when so many of the “market rate” units that will be encouraged will be filled by people with the means to own or lease automobiles?  If the city’s plan were to attract more affordable housing, then there would likely be a lower physical impact on road infrastructure as there would be less cars.  But the plan is to attract more middle-class, or “market rate” housing.   Will these new residents be as wiling to forego their cars?

To answer that question, Bowen and Planning point to the reduced car parking requirements in the CASP.  It’s undeniable that limiting the amount of space for personal vehicle storage is a proven way to reduce congestion and vehicle miles traveled while encouraging a more healthy lifestyle.  Bowen herself argues that there is way too much car parking in Los Angeles.  ”We waste so much space holding space just waiting for a car to show up.”

Special thanks to Allison Mannos who reported on this weekend’s community meeting.

When two Streetsblog sponsors get together, the world is our oyster. For more on the meeting, read this first hand review at g4do-g4do

Earlier this year, when the designs for South Figueroa’s My Figueroa project were released, Josef Bray-Ali wasn’t happy.  While many advocates celebrated designs that would, if implemented, result in segregated bike paths, transit-only lanes, pedestrian plazas (at a minimum), Bray-Ali saw another major investment in the Downtown and area around L.A. Live. Meanwhile, the portion of Figueroa where he worked and that he loved remained a traffic sewer, with five lanes of concrete and curbside parking blighting the area.

Now, with the city considering bike improvements for North Figueroa, Bray-Ali sees an opportunity to bring My Figueroa to North Figueroa.  Last week, a group of thirty community activists gathered in the Flying Pigeon Bike Shop to create an organization to do just that.  At the Flying Pigeon blog, Bray-Ali notes that the event expanded beyond the usual suspects with local businesses sponsoring the meeting by donating the chairs, tables, food, and other supplies.

“The city sees North Figueroa as a cut through for people that don’t want to drive on the 110,” Bray-Ali explains.  ”As a result, cars cut through the neighborhood without stopping, businesses suffer and the middle-class moves farther away.”

In other words, this is about more than a bike lane.

Bray-Ali’s vision includes bike lanes for certain, but also a road diet, wider sidewalks, better street crossings, all of would feed into the business areas and the transit network that already exists.  The Gold Line stops a few blocks from Bray-Ali’s shop, but the traffic it generates to North Figueroa businesses is scant.

Patch talked to a few people who attended last week’s meeting, and found enthusiasm high.

Bikeside is right, this "flow chart" explaining bike plan implementation needs to be retired.

Yesterday, the LADOT and City Planning made their quarterly update to the City Council on the progress of the implementation of the Bike Plan.  The Council’s Transportation Committee also moved a motion that would transfer $475,000 to LADOT’s overtime account.  Between the somewhat confounding report offered by the agencies and the revelation that bike projects have to be built on overtime, it’s no surprise that some advocates are anxious.

The funding motion addressed on Wednesday is a sort of good news/bad news motion.  The motion allows the transfer of $475,000 from LADOT project accounts to overtime accounts so that LADOT can install new bike lanes and Sharrows.  The good news is that these funds will see to the completion of eight bike lane projects totaling eight miles and nearly seventeen miles of Sharrowed Streets.

If implementation of these projects really does occur “in the next couple of weeks” it would be a great start for the city in the 2011 fiscal year.  The Mayor famously promised 40 miles of new bike infrastructure a year last March at the Bike Plan signing, a promise which has gotten off to a somewhat rocky start.  Knocking out 25 miles of that infrastructure in the first couple months of the year is a good sign.

But the “overtime” issue is a troubling one.

A couple of weeks ago I stood next to the Green Shared Lane in Long Beach talking with Long Beach’s Mobility Coordinator, Charlie Gandy.  I asked him how much it cost to paint a green lane on each side of a main drag through Downtown Los Angeles.  His answer?  ”$5,000.”  When pressed, he admitted that he didn’t know the labor costs, because “those are fixed costs with the city.”  In other words, painting bike infrastructure is just part of the job in Long Beach, and that saves the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in project costs.

As Bikeside Chris put it, “ As LADOT continues to bill the City for overtime, scarce Measure R, Transportation Enhancements, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality and Transportation Development Act bike improvement funds quickly become depleted.”  As the city over bills for bike projects now, it means less projects later.

The second major issue is that the LADOT and City Planning issued a report to update the Council on all the new bike plan projects underway and spent more time in the report talking about the public meetings they hold, open to the public but attended by insiders, known as the Bike Plan Implementation Meetings, which they just announced will be held quarterly rather than monthly.

But the update has drawn criticism more for what isn’t in the document than what is.

“We would have liked to see some updates on how they’re trying to fund the program.  What Safe Routes to School grants did the city apply for?  What about the Metro call for projects?” asked the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition’s Alexis Lantz.

Bikeside’s critique is quite a bit harsher, as they point out that nowhere in the update does it actually say when projects are going to be completed, how long the projects are, or how much they cost.  If you poke around the Internet a little, you can find more answers on the LADOT Bike Program website.  At least the documents on that website tell the reader how long the projects are.

No, really...what the heck is this?

So what should an update look like?  Lantz suggests something akin to the quarterly updates of PlaNYC, which not only gives much more detailed project updates, but also discusses the challenges the Apple faces as it tries to move towards sustainability.

But as we wait to see if the City can interpret its Bike Plan updates for the City Council and for the public in general, the bigger question is whether the city is failing to live up to the Mayor’s promise, or whether some shoddy updates are clouding a brighter picture.

We’ll stay tuned.

To read the full list of "Package 1" projects, click on the image.

Last Friday, the LADOT responded to criticism of the city’s plan to commit to environmental review many of the projects outlined in the Bike Plan.  However, their response, and release of the first batch of projects that will be stalled while a review is completed, have created more anger and confusion than anything else.  Despite the assertions from City Planner Jane Choi on the Bike Blog and Claire Bowen on Streetsblog, most cyclists see this review as a waste of time.

Of particular concern is the idea of grouping together packages of bicycle projects to be reviewed at once instead of letting every project  go through what could be a quick environmental review on its own.  Choi defends that decision by pointing to the EIR for the San Francisco Bike Plan, but her explanation is causing more criticism than not:

San Francisco’s Bicycle Plan EIR cleared 30 miles of new lane projects for implementation. Each package will be limited to a similar size in terms of mileage due to cost, funding and feasibility. The draft proposed Package 1 has about 45 miles of streets.

“This is exactly the battle we fought to keep a mandated-stricter-review-standard out of the bike plan.” responded Joe Linton.  “It’s like a zombie back from the dead.”  Linton is referring to the battle at the City Planning Commission to get language removed that required the grouping of bicycle projects together to be reviewed.  Back in November of last year, Linton wrote about the importance of this language change:

Removing the distinction between the plan’s “proposed” and “potential” bike lanes, and deleting references to “required” CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act.) review.  This is actually a very significant change. Instead of the plan dictating a requirement for time-consuming review on all 500+ bike lanes in the “potential” category, these projects can now be reviewed individually, with the easier ones now cheap and quick and the more difficult ones possibly necessitating additional expensive review. The amount of review will be dictated by project specifics, not by heavy-handed clumping.

Others see this not as a test of bike plan projects, but as a way to avoid working on projects that could prove controversial.  “This is how bureaucrats test to see who has the most pull and who is willing to fight them all the way with this stuff.” wrote Josef Bray-Ali, a former City Staffer, founder of the Bike Oven and proprietor of the Flying Pigeon Bike Shop.

But if sending bike projects is a political calculation, and not a project delivery one, then Planning Staff may be miscalculating.  One advocate, who asked for anonymity, wrote, “The whole time the bike plan was passing through council they (staff) were so nervous that it wouldn’t pass, and it went through unanimously.”

Pushing the environmental review may actually create more political problems for city agencies, reporting on the City’s Budget meetings, Stephen Box writes about an exchange between Budget Chair Bernard Parks and city staff. “LADOT got taken to task tonight (Thursday) by Parks in the Budget Hearings for using Measure R money for staffing instead of actual projects.  Knowing that the LADOT is having a hard time actually spending the money and that the City Council is asking the hard questions, it’s time to dispense with the financial limitations argument that LADOT always puts forward and to demand that the Measure R money actually get put to work.”

Meanwhile, groups such as the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and Bikeside are working behind the scenes to advocate for a streamlined environmental process for these projects, one that won’t take at least a year and begin in the fall. But their goal might be larger than just getting plans through the system.

Speaking if CEQA, Alexis Lantz from the LACBC writes, “We need to change the city’s threshold guidelines… and that goes beyond these projects and this issue – but I see it being the larger obstacle that must be challenged and changed in order to get these projects done easier and more cost effectively.”

As advocates jockey to change the city’s mind on sending bike projects through a review, it’s getting clearer and clearer that the Honeymoon between cyclists and the city might be coming to an end.

Photo: Timothy Felsrow/Flickr

As the city considers a proposal that would increase bicycle parking at new developments, a second progressive parking proposal is beginning to move through the public process.  This draft ordinance, available here, would allow for neighborhood parking districts to be created that would allow much greater flexibility for car parking requirements for new development.

The “Modified Parking Requirement District” (MPRD) ordinance creates tools that would allow neighborhoods to create custom parking districts.  To earn this designation, a district would have to be approved by an environmental review, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, assuming this draft ordinance even becomes law.  The first step to becoming law will be a hearing of the City Planning Commission in City Hall at 10:00 A.M. on April 28.  Traditionally, when Los Angeles tries to tinker with its parking policy the defenders of the status quo come out in full force.

Will Wright, the director of government affairs for the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles Chapter, sees value in the proposal.  “In effort to protect the diversity of our neighborhoods, additional planning tools are needed that will allow communities to have greater flexibility in determining the type of parking regulations they’d like to adopt.  In my opinion, the proposed MPRD ordinance will enable neighborhoods to select a parking typology that most effectively compliments their character and enhances their livability.”

Apparently the City Planning Department agrees.  In the draft ordinance’s F.A.Q., they criticize the “one size fits all” approach to parking requirements that the city currently has.  “A onesize- fits-all approach to parking and the City’s increasingly complex and location-specific parking problems necessitate that the City be able to regulate parking on a community basis. The MPR is intended to provide flexibility to address parking on a community basis by allowing one or more changes to the citywide parking standards within the district.”

If this ordinance passes, what changes could the city actually allow to local parking?  The draft ordinance lists some possibilities:

1. Decreased Parking Requirements: Recently expired CRA districts that had offered parking reductions to incentivize development can continue to provide reduced parking.
2. Increased Parking Requirements: Areas with an abundance of outdoor dining and limited street parking could benefit. Since the Zoning Code does not require parking for outdoor dining, this tool could exempt certain areas from that provision.
3. Off-site parking: Denser areas with ample public transit could benefit from allowing a use to provide parking across the street or down the block. Often projects cannot be built since smaller, irregularly shaped parcels cannot accommodate a building and its required parking.
4. Change of Use Parking Standards: Varying parking requirements for different uses can be an obstacle when one type of business is being replaced by another. Grandfathering in the existing parking for a new use would alleviate this problem.
5. Commercial Parking Credits: Areas with older buildings without off-street parking but ample on-street parking would benefit from the use of city-owned parking credits. Allowing business operators to use parking credits would allow new businesses to open more quickly.
6. Universal Valet: Popular nighttime destinations could benefit from regulated valet services.
7. Proximity to Municipal Garages: Areas that are located near public garages might require less parking for individual projects.
8. Parking Reduction Permit: Areas with ample transit could permit parking reductions for individual projects when they incorporate transportation alternatives.

As the ordinance moves forward, Streetsblog will continue to cover it and we’ll post a copy of the Planning Commission agenda when it is posted online.

By a 12-0 vote, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Bike Plan sending it to the Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s desk for a signature.  The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and Villaraigosa have already announced the signing will take place tomorrow on the steps of City Hall.

Too bad Council Members Alarcon, Parks and Smith weren't present. Especially Alarcon who helped push for progressive planning at the Transportation Committee when the plan was more controversial.

The only drama that remained was how to placate the representatives of the city’s equestrian community who were fighting to get any mention of mountain biking in city parks removed from the plan.  A motion by Councilman Tom LaBonge, which basically re-stated existing city law that any changes would have to go through the parks commission, seemed to mollify the group much to the relief of nearly everyone involved.  There’s already enough progressive transportation planning being held up by lawsuits in this town.

However, if you block out the testimony by the horse people, the meeting was pretty much a love fest.  Councilman Ed Reyes gave shout outs to the Bike Kitchen, Bike Oven and “Pigeon Bike Shop.”  Later, he complimented the LACBC and their City of Lights Program.  Councilman Bill Rosendahl recounted his first story visiting the “Bike<mumble>wave” and twice noted the hard work of Alex Thompson.

While not at today’s hearing, Villaraigosa tweeted his congratulations and released a statement to Streetsblog promising a bright, and well-funded, future for bike planning.

“The 2010 Bicycle Plan is another great example of Measure R funds at work–we are investing in bicycling as a viable transportation option and in the process encouraging Angelenos to lead healthy, active lifestyles. With the addition of 1,600 miles of bikeways, Los Angeles is on the path to becoming a world-class city for bicycling.”

To top it off, city officials were sounding like advocates, or at least adopting our terms.  LADOT Interim General Manager Amir Sedadi referred to the Backbone Bikeway Network and Councilman Paul Koretz talked about the “4th Street Bike Boulevard.”  These terms have been the turf of insiders for years.  But today, everyone was an insider.

As for the plan itself, there are many highlights.  Quoted text via a fact sheet from the Mayor’s Office.

The plan builds on the City’s past two plans (1977 and 1996) by more than doubling the number of bikeway miles to be developed.

The overall goal is to construct over 1600 miles of bikeways and create a continuous north-south/east-west bicycle network in the city.

In order to ensure that this plan does not just gather dust on a shelf, the Mayor’s office insisted on including an aggressive 5-year implementation strategy.

Original Member of Bike Advisory Committee, Alex Baum, motioned for final approval of plan on behalf of LaBonge,

“Unlike previous plans, this plan has an implementation plan,” commented Alexis Lantz of the LACBC.  Basically, this time parts of the plan are actually going to get built quickly.

The implementation strategy includes a commitment to build 40 miles of bikeways a year. This is a fourfold increase over the past average of 10 miles a year.

The implementation strategy focuses on projects that close existing gaps in the network, create new bikeways in lower income and underserved communities and build the foundation of the citywide network.

Staff for Paul Koretz noticed some gaps in the network of “Bicycle Friendly Streets” and successfully moved that these gaps, most noticeably at the end of the “4th Street Bike Boulevard” be bridged so that the final network provides safe and smooth transitions.

The City has created a Bicycle Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) to ensure public participation and transparency for implementing new bicycle facilities and programs.

The 2010 Plan is a joint effort of the Department of City Planning, the Department of Transportation, members of a multi-agency Technical Advisory Committee, and the City’s consultant team, Alta Planning + Design.

Of course, the battle for a safe Los Angeles doesn’t end with the Mayor’s pen stroke tomorrow morning.  Different projects will require outreach efforts and political pressure to go from paper to city streets and of course the plan will need to be modified from time to time.  “This is a work in progress,” Rosendahl reminded the speakers and Council Members, “I’m not going anywhere, at least for a couple of years.”

To see this plan through to the end, cyclists better not be going anywhere either.

This picture would be evidence of a crime in many Los Angeles parks. However, this picture is from the San Gabriel Mountains outside city limits. Photo:LoneWhackDotCom/Flickr#

(Note: We’re just covering yesterday’s hearing in this article.  For more on the actual content of the plan, click here.)

Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council held a joint hearing of the Transportation Committee and the Planning and Land Use (PLUM) Committee to discuss the city’s Draft Bike Plan.  By the end of the hearing, which lasted well over two hours, the Committees had sent the plan to the full Council for final approval along with a five-year work plan and a schedule for City Planning and LADOT to update the Council on the plan’s progress every three months.

But it wasn’t always easy.

Ed Reyes, pictured preparing for an interview at a City of Lights press conference, was credited by Mowery for kicking off this process with a motion for a new Bike Plan...in 2005.

Seven Councilmen sat in the main chambers, Richard Alarcon, Paul Koretz, Paul Krekorian, Tom LaBonge, Bernard Parks, Ed Reyes, and Bill Rosendahl.  All of the Councilmen were supportive of the plan in general terms.  After testimony from Alex Thompson wondering why Sepulveda, a critical North-South route with poor conditions for cyclists, wasn’t in the top ten projects to be completed, Rosendahl became the only Council Member to call for any specific changes in plans for his District.

Also present were LADOT Acting General Manager Amir Sedadi and Planning General Manager Michael LoGrande.  Sedadi didn’t mince words, calling the hearing a “Historic moment in the City of Los Angeles.”  With the exception of staff’s insistence that a plan to extend the Beach Bike Path through Venice not be included in the Final Bike Plan, it would be difficult to tell who was an advocate and who was a staffer.  Even LADOT Senior Bikeways Coordinator Michelle Mowery, who was once the spokesperson for those not wanting to see the Backbone Bikeway Network be a large part of the plan, referred to the Draft Plan, backbone and all, as “the most fabulous plan I could have dreamed of.”

The bulk of the testimony came from cyclists who were happy, if tired, after three years of meetings and public comment.  It seemed another kumbaya moment for the long fractured bike advocacy community as representatives from Bikeside, the LACBC, the BAC all sang from the same hymnal and another dozen unaffiliated cyclists praised the plan’s passage.

However, the bulk of the debate by the Councilmen was over a provision in Chapter 3 of the Draft Plan that calls for further study of a way for mountain bicycles and equestrians to coexist on the city’s mountain paths.  This is apparently cause for outrage amongst the city’s equestrian community, and reason for a lengthy debate that had little to do with the rest of the plan or with making life better for the city’s “transportation cyclists.”

Wearing a cowboy hat, Dale Gibson, the chair of the equine advisory committee, argued that mountain biking should be excluded from the plan because “it’s a recreation issue, not a transportation issue.”  Later, Mary Kaufman with the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council argued that excluding mountain biking from the plan was a public safety issue because of the mixed use nature of the trails.  However, that testimony supports staff’s position that the city has an obligation to figure out a way to provide safe mountain cycling because it doesn’t have the manpower to enforce a ban and cyclists are already unsafely using the trail.

Lynne Brown, of National Trails Incorporated, took the same information and argued the opposite angle.  If the city allows cyclists to use trails not designed for them, it opens the city to liability it doesn’t face while cyclists “poach” those trails today.

Most of the debate between the Council Members was about the Mountain Biking v Equestrian issue.  The most vocal defender of the equestrians was Councilman Alarcon who chastised Councilman Koretz for making a joke about “horsing around” because this is a very serious issue.  However, the Council seemed utterly unable to grasp that the solution that Planning seemed most comfortable with, separate trails for mountain bikers and equestrians, should address the concerns of those worried about bike access to our city’s parks and about safety issues involving bike/horse conflicts.

There was also a debate about extending the beach bicycle path through Venice as discussed on Streetsblog yesterday.  Despite an impassioned plea from Jim Kennedy, with more support added by Thompson, a motion by Councilman Alarcon to include the project  in the plan failed to get a second Councilman’s support so it didn’t even get to a vote.

Also not getting a “second” was a motion by Councilman LaBonge that would ban any plan to create mixed use trails for cyclists and equestrians to use.  For awhile the Councilman seemed to believe he could amend the plan himself.  When he was assured he could not, he seemed shocked that nobody else would second the motion.  Later, some face saving language was added to the plan asking City Planning to come up with a compromise solution that works for cyclists and equestrians.

In the end, the plan was moved and most two-wheeled advocates left the room happy.  However, there was one dark cloud on the horizon.  One equestrian noted that the horse riders have hired an attorney.  Thompson reports that their attorney is a CEQA specialist named Doug Carstens.

Some of the equestrians claim to be representing the local Sierra Club which could create an “only in Los Angeles” moment if a lawsuit actually came to fruition.  Only in L.A. could you see the Sierra Club sue the city over a popular bike plan…

Photo:Fernie 805

Currently, the City only requires bicycle parking for commercial and industrial buildings over 10,000 square foot at a rate.  For most commercial uses this results in one space being provided per 25,000 square feet.  For many cyclists, this requirement leads to chaining a bicycle to the closest parking meter while out and locking it on the balcony or backyard at home.

The City Planning Department is drafting an ordinance  which, if approved by the Planning Commission, City Council and Mayor’s Office, would change how developments create parking for bicycles.  Their proposal would raise the minimum parking requirement, require both short and long-term parking, and create standards for design, signage, lighting and access.  In addition, the requirement would also apply to residential developments, not just commercial and industrial.

At this point, cautious optimism is called for.  Planning is hesitant to release any hard numbers until running the ordinance by other departments, including Building and Safety and the LADOT.  Of course, either of those departments could also water down the ordinance or even kill it altogether.

If it survives inter-departmental review, the ordinance will be available for public comment in March as part of a CEQA review.  Planning will hold public hearings, and the ordinance would be heard by the Planning Commission, Planning and Land Use Committee of the City Council and Full Council.  In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions or concerns about the proposed ordinance, leave them in the comments section and I’ll pass them on to staff at City Planning.

Is LA Metro's $600 million transit-oriented development at Hollywood and Vine truly transit-oriented?. Photo: The Source

Yesterday, UEPI posted a petition at Change.org urging  LoGrande to “Do Good Planning” as head of City Planning and insure that the city grows in a way that creates more opportunities to walk, bike and take the bus and rail rather than drive, revitalizes neighborhoods without displacing current residents and builds affordable places to live near work, family, schools, and shops.

The petition also notes that now is the perfect time for the city to change the way it plans to grow and redevelop.  Between the so-called Great Recession and the new city transportation network that will emerge over the next thirty (or ten) years as a result of the Measure R transit tax, change is in the air.  If city planning doesn’t change too, then L.A. could miss some of the opportunity that Measure R creates.

UEPI has an attainable goal of two hundred signatures.  Since we have 183 signatures at the Livable Los Angeles petition asking for Mayor Villaraigosa to conduct a national search for the next LADOT General Manager, Streetsbloggers ought to be able to push this petition over the top.

Not a one trick pony, LANU has also been involved in city budget negotiations.

As a city, is Los Angeles ready to create communities that best integrate with the new transit system promised by Measure R and the 30/10 proposal?

According to a group of community activists calling themselves “LA Neighbors United” (LANU), the answer is “no.”  The coalition of neighborhood activists are incensed by changes to the city’s planning code that they claim will make it easier for projects to gain approval even if they do not meet the requirements of the local, city-approved, neighborhood plan.  As a result, LANU has written to the Federal Transit Administration urging them to halt funding of L.A.’s transit expansion projects until the city has the planning codes in place to support all of the planned transit expansion projects.

The changes to the code were passed on consent at Wednesday’s meeting of the City Council.   You can read the ordinance and committee reports here

In short, their point is that if we rush transit expansion before the proper planning codes and zones are in place; we’ll end up with sprawl development patterns around transit stations which would undermine transit ridership and the promise of a new Los Angeles.  And if the city is actually undermining those plans, then it shouldn’t be rewarded with an accelerated transit expansion plan.  Or, put less succinctly, from their letter to the FTA:

The proposed law makes no effort to target growth, including population and housing development, around transit corridors generally or Measure R funded transportation projects specifically.  Rather, the new system would perpetuate the City’s historically Wild West approach to anything-goes-anywhere planning, regardless of proximity to transit, and in clear violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Such an approach, which effectively decouples land use planning from transportation planning in the City of Los Angeles, is reckless, conflicting and incoherent.  It jeopardizes the ability of Measure R projects to perform as anticipated.  It also undermines Southern California’s ability to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets to be set under a new state law.

Proponents, most of whom happen to be in the construction and real estate industry, claim the new codes will simplify the project.  However, by “simplifying” they mean that it would enable the city  change zoning within Community Plan areas without a public outreach in the form of a formal Community Plan update.  Even if LANU and its allies are correct, there’s nothing in the ordinance that would prevent the city from rezoning to encourage dense, walkable, transit oriented developments.  But then we run in to the issue that Metro is still working on standards for their T.O.D.’s, and some of the constructed projects have already been found lacking when it comes to integrating with the existing community.  Former City Planner Dick Platkin explains what LANU wants at Ron Kaye L.A.:

What Los Angeles needs is real implementation of its existing and future adopted city plans, not misleading ordinances which claim to implement the General Plan and Community Plans, but which, at best,  do nothing of the sort.  Furthermore, at worst, they may actually sabotage the very plans they claim they are implementing.

Another article outlining objections to the changes can be read at today’s City Watch.

While its hard to argue with their argument that the city could be doing more, much more, to promote transit oriented communities, but is it worth risking 30/10 if the City won’t bend?

Meanwhile, transit expansion advocates are continuing to hope that the new Republican controlled House of Representatives is supportive of the Infrastructure Bank and other plans that would make 30/10 a reality.  But with another group joining the Bus Rider’s Union in formal opposition to the project, it appears that the backlash against 30/10 may be growing.

It's time to say it. Bike route signs are next to useless, and can cause more problems than they solve as this route in West Hollywood shows.

(This is the first of a two-part series on the Bike Plan before it’s heard by the Planning Commission.  Part II, by Joe Linton, is coming tomorrow. – DN)

This Thursday morning, at 8:30 A.M., the Los Angeles City Planning Commission will hold a hearing on the 2010 Draft Bike Plan and vote on whether to move the plan to the full City Council.  If they approve the plan, the plan could clear the Transportation and Planning and Land Use (PLUM) Committees by early December, and the full Council by the end of the year.

In other words, if there’s any chance to improve the Draft Bike Plan, the time to mobilize is now.  City Council Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl has vowed that the Plan will not leave his committee unless it is “fixed,” meaning that the bike community is happy with the plan.  While Streetsblog applauds the Councilman’s pledge, do we really want to wait for the last second to have politicians fix a planning document during a public meeting?  Or do we want get involved to make sure that their job is easy when the plan comes to City Council committees?

The answer is obvious.  We want the problems fixed before the plan gets to the City Council.

And there are still some serious problems with the Draft Bike Plan.  True, the most recent draft of the plan is a huge improvement from earlier drafts.  However, earlier drafts were so bad that pretty much anything would have been an improvement.  Whether the current draft is better than the Plan of Unfulfilled Promise (aka the 1996 Bike Plan) isn’t even clear.  What is clear is that the Draft Bike Plan, even if fully implemented, isn’t going to make Los Angeles a world class city for bicycling.

At Bikeside, Alex Thompson takes a look at the current draft of the plan and finds it extremely lacking.  Thompson lists nine major problems with the plan, and it’s hard to take issue with anything he writes.  You can read Thompson’s full article by clicking here, or read more Streetsblog after the jump.One of my main problems with the plan, and one shared by Thompson, is that a lot of the plan exists on paper.  At the LADOT Bike Blog, they opine that:

A bike plan that cannot be implemented is worth less than the paper it’s printed on.  At the end of the day, the new plan gives the LADOT Bike Program a broader toolkit and a stronger mandate to implement bicycle infrastructure throughout the city.

While that might be true, the Draft Bike Plan reads more like a wish list than a full plan.  The plan promises 1,600 miles of new bikeways.  Thompson explains the problem with that number:

Sure, the draft has hundreds of miles of bike lanes “designated”.  But when you get down in the details you find out 511 of those miles fall in the “further study” category – a category that has previously gone by the name “potential” and “infeasible”.  Only 56 miles of bike lane are left.

Another issue with that number of “1,600″?  It includes “Bike Routes.”  Since arriving in Los Angeles, I’ve been amazed that anyone would consider “Bike Routes” a safe place to bike on city streets.  Just slapping a little green sign on a poll and acting as though it makes a street bike-friendly is wildly ineffective.  I’m hardly alone in that view.  As a matter of fact, it’s shared by LADOT Senior Bike Coordinator Michelle Mowery.

The problem with bike lane and bike route designation is just one example of the issues that remain with the improved Draft Bike Plan.  If you have issues of your own, the best way to influence the final document at this point would be to make a showing at the Planning Commission this Thursday.

After all, if it gets past them, it’s in the hands of the politicians.  And for every ally cyclists have on the Council, there’s another member of the City Council that will want to rubber stamp the plan and move on to something else.

The subway might be full, but extending it to UCLA won't make a dent in the 26,000,000 car trips added to the Westside in the next 30 years. Photo: Spokker Jones/Flickr

Traditionally, the Friday before a holiday weekend is considered the time to release news that you don’t want to get traction in the public.  Sure, the story could get picked up, but there’s less people watching the news that night or reading the newspaper the next morning than any other time.

Both the City and Metro went for a Friday info dump, although I’m sure neither agency would admit it, last week.  Metro released the draft environmental documents for the Westside Extension of the Purple Line.  Meanwhile, the city released the dates for the public meetings for the most recent draft of its Bike Plan.

For Metro, the reason was obvious, the Draft Report showed that automobile congestion will not see a significant reduction after the Purple Line is extended from Wilshire/Western to Westwood.  While this seems like a somewhat obvious “revelation” to people who follow transit issues; after Metro and politicians have spent years promising that transit would unlock Southern California’s streets to smooth flowing traffic, it might come as a shock to everyone else.  Remember the “Yes on Measure R” ad campaign that talked about freeways more than anything else?  Let’s just say transit officials and boosters didn’t sell Measure R based on creating a twenty five minute trip between Union Station and Westwood.

Metro’s fears were probably well founded.  The Los Angeles Times’ coverage led with the “bad news” that the subway won’t be the savior for Westsiders trapped in their cars.  Unless, said westsiders are one of the thousands of people who will use the subway everyday that is.  If you go through the entire Times article, it repeatedly discusses the subways benefits for “transit riders” before sadly telling us those benefits won’t be there for everyone else.  It’s almost as though the Times believes train riders are an entitled group of people that commute in a private freeway under the ground and don’t even have to drive, while everyone else is forced into their sad little cars and won’t see any benefits of this billion dollar boondoggle.

As expected, most of the news reports that followed picked up the Times’ take, although Curbed did follow The Source and focus on the twenty five minute commute between Westwood and Union Station promised in the documents.  For the record, the public hearings for the DEIR are scheduled for later this month (check out our calendar for more information), and you can read the environmental documents themselves at http://metro.net/westside.

For City Planning, the issue was different.  This is the third time they’ve released dates for hearings on the Bike Plan, and the last two times the meeting schedule was met with outrage from the cycling community after only four meetings were scheduled for a city with four million people.  Because there were only four meetings scheduled again, Planning did the only thing they could and released the schedule not just on the Friday before a holiday weekend…they did it at 5:40 P.M.

You can see the full schedule at the official Bike Plan Website.

Via the LADOT Bike Blog comes the news cyclists and community activists have been waiting for: The Department of City Planning and LADOT will finally be releasing the final draft of the Bike Plan, a mere half a year behind schedule.  Sources at LADOT have told me to expect the new plan to appear at labikeplan.org later today.  The Bike Blog offers a preview of some of the differences we can expect between the much-panned draft released last summer and the new version:

In all, the plan calls for 200 miles of new bicycle infrastructure to be built over the next 5 years.  This 200 miles would be in addition to the current 383 miles of existing infrastructure and infrastructure that has been funded but not yet completed.  All existing projects that haven’t reached construction stage yet are considered separate from the 200 miles called for in the plan.  40 miles are projected for completion annually during this 5 year period, with the most direct and feasible projects coming first.

The Bike Blog also outlines some of the new types of infrastructure that could be put on the newly minted "bicycle friendly streets," "enhanced bike routes," and "transit bike lanes."  These new terms promise big things for the city, and make it sound as though big changes are coming.  Of course, they could have called the streets "bike boulevards," "bike routes" and "bus-only lane."  But hey, who's counting?

As you would expect, the Bike Blog is absolutely cheerful and optimistic about the plan, but naturally there's going to be a lot of things to look for when you sit down and try to pore through the plan this weekend and beyond.

The first thing many people will be looking for is whether or not the "Backbone Bikeway Network" is somehow included in the final plan.  The Backbone was a concept developed by grass roots Bike Working Group last fall as an alternative to the Draft Bike Plan.  While LADOT's Senior Bike Coordinator Michelle Mowery seemed opposed to the plan when it was first introduced, the presentation made in March at the Bike Summit by Mowery and City Planning's Jordan Turner included a lot of the Backbone's mapping.  Similarly, many cyclists will also be checking to see if the Cyclists Bill of Rights is included, as was instructed by Council Woman Wendy Greuel in 2008.

While it's great that the city is planning on completing fifty miles of bike infrastructure a year, the "what" and "where" are as important as the amount.  If the fifty miles are twelve miles of Wilshire Bus-Only lanes and a couple dozen "standard" bike routes, that would be a sad state of affairs.  If the fifty miles include an integrated plan to connect cyclists to the Gold Line Eastside Extension, that could be a community-changing event for a segment of the city.

A third issue is the public outreach before the plan is finalized.  Before the plan is set in stone, it has to go through another round of public hearings, the city planning commission, the city transportation commission, the City Council Transportation Committee, the City Council Planning Committee and the Full Council before being signed by Mayor Villaraigosa.  But before all that, the city will hold another round of public comment.  In both the initial outreach for the plan and the public comment on the draft plan, the city was sharply criticized for not allowing enough time and for changing the contents of the online plan without notice.  Extrapolating a schedule from the one outlined in March, when LADOT and Planning announced the plan would be finnished in April, we can expect something similar to this:

Revised draft to the public in June

Supporting environmental documents completed in July

Two-month public comment period, including two more workshops, June-August

City Planning Commission Hearing in September

In front of the City Council in the "Fall"

Streetsblog will have a full review of the plan, assuming that it is actually released today, on Monday.

DCP is responsible for the city's General Plan, which includes various components. The main part of the plan that codifies street specifics is the Transportation Element, most recently updated in 1999 and available on-line. The language in the transportation element is actually not bad. It plans for many features that Streetsblog readers favor, including "[making]  the street system accessible, safe, and convenient for bicycle, pedestrian, and school child travel" and a "comprehensive program of multi-modal strategies" and more.

Bicycle-unfriendly Streets from Los Angeles' Current Street Standards

Unfortunately quite a bit of transportation element ends up boiling down to a 1-page Standard Street Dimensions sheet - on which the words "transit" and "bicycle" do not appear. The street dimensions specifications show standard cross-sections for all the types of streets that L.A. designates: Major Highway, Collector Street, etc. Bike/Ped planning consultant Ryan Snyder calls these street specifications the "DNA" of our streets. Whenever there's a new school, new park, new building, etc. the city consults the 1-pager and then generally mandates that the street be widened to its specified capacity. Check out the link - it's one page and it's instructive of why L.A. streets look the way they do.

Under the leadership of General Manager Gail Goldberg, DCP has been starting to chip away at the city's sadly suburban street standards. DCP's Urban Design Studio created a great new street plan for Downtown Los Angeles, which keeps in place the existing road-widths and the existing character of our no-setback downtown buildings. On 7th Street, the downtown plan actually specifies a road diet (reducing car lanes) to create bike lanes. DCP has other promising multi-modal pilots in the works, including the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan.  But there's still the matter of those suburban street standards being applied throughout the city day in day out.

DCP hopes to update the Transportation Element of the General Plan in the next few years. Planner Claire Bowin speaks of renaming it the Mobility Element, and planning L.A.'s transportation systems into something truly multi-modal. Unfortunately, for the last few years, the new likely-multi-million-dollar Mobility Element has always been a few years off. With the city's current budget crisis, it's not in the workplan for this fiscal year. Doesn't appear likely next year either.

DCP's Bowin got the idea to get a jump on the Mobility Element by seeking funding for studies that would get portions of it done. One of the first of these is the Street Classification and Benchmarking Study. Through this study the city will review best practices from other municipalities, and come up with ideas for modifying L.A.'s street classification system.

Bowin anticipates including expanding the way L.A.'s streets' performance is measured. Currently the city evaluates its streets using a metric called Level of Service (LOS.) LOS just measures vehicles, with no accounting for pedestians, cyclists, or transit.

The street classification approach favored by DCP and their consultant is to come up with a "Layered Network" - what appears to be essentially a finer-grained version of the existing street standards, which would include not just the current single type of each street. For example, in addition to today's "Secondary Highway", the new plan would be to have various types: Transit-Priority Secondary Highway, Bike-Priority Secondary Highway, etc. This would generate a network of streets geared to each mode: a Transit-Priority Network, a Bike-Priority Network, a Pedestrian-Priority Network, and, yes, even an Auto-Priority Network. (Doesn't L.A. already have one of those?)

While the Layered Network approach is likely to be a step in the right direction, especially in the light of today's car-monoculture standards, it's not quite a complete streets approach. Shouldn't all of Los Angeles be safe for walking? Early drafts of the study includes grating descriptions like this one of a Major Highway Class I: "Bicycle travel is not typically on this roadway. Bicycle priority streets should be designated on parallel facilities." Is this the kind of designation that the current Department of Transportation regime is likely to favor?

A shortfall of this study as currently scoped is that it's just a study. DCP states that it will have no specific recommended ordinances to be adopted. Any changes in the streets DNA will have to wait a few years before they can be adopted. Even then, Bowin characterizes the new standards would be a "greater toolbox" that would be available "for use in Community Plans." The Community Plan process is an exceeding slow and labyrinthine tool for adopting new street standards. It sounds like it would be another at least 2-3 years for the new toolbox to be approved in the Mobility Element, then another 2-3 years before a specific new standard could get approved for a specific street in a new Community Plan. With this approach, a fast-tracked change would be around 2015, if we're lucky. WWJSKD?

At the study briefing that this author attended, Stephen Box, Glenn Bailey, Ryan Snyder and others called for specific policy recommendations that could be made in a study like this:

- Minimize lane widths: Most of the revised classifications still call for excessive 11-foot-wide travel lanes. For pedestrian-priority and bike-priority streets, lane width should be the minimum: just 10-foot-wide

- Suspend Road-Widening: When DCP reviewed its downtown street standards, it suspended the roadway-widening for the downtown area. While DCP is reviewing its standards that apply citywide, it should place a moratorium on road-widening citywide.

- Suspend Other Unsafe Practices: Similar to road-widening, the report could recommend a moratorium on other practices that create unsafe incomplete streets. End speed limit increases. End crosswalk removals and the city's current practice of incomplete crosswalks at interesections. Halt new bike- and pedestian-unfriendly peak-hour parking restrictions for increasing car capacity.

- Add New Place-based Classifications: The proposed layered approach is still car-centric. New street designations could include: Main Street, Shared Space, Promenade, etc. - safe places where Angelenos would really want to go to, not just go through.

- Add Sidewalk Standards: Safe walkable places start with well-designed sidewalks with clear functional zones. Even on the newly proposed "Pedestrian Priority Streets" the road has clearly designated lanes, and the sidewalks get what's left over. The new standards should be exactly the reverse.

- Learn From Others: Many other cities have adopted great, comprehensive, complete streets standards. Look to progressive examples, including New York City's Street Design Manual.

L.A.'s next generation is counting on the Department of City Planning to do real planning. It's a good sign that DCP is re-examining the DNA of Los Angeles' streets. This study is a great opportunity to step away from streets that are car-centric wastelands and step toward health safe livable places.

By the time the bike portion of the "Bike-Only" City Council Transportation Committee hearing began at 3:45, one hour and forty-five minutes late, it was clear that the bicycling-love-fest that we've seen at past "Bike-Only" meetings wasn't going to happen.  Not only did the meeting start late because of an over-run of the City Council meeting, but Councilman Richard Alarcon had already stormed out of the room because Councilman Bill Rosendahl had caused the full Council to lose quorum and Councilman LaBonge had already snapped at the audience for talking during public comment.

Because of time constraints, only three of the six items were heard and debated.  We'll have to wait until January to hear the excuses on why the city has yet to paint Sharrows on city streets and why Los Angeles isn't the best place to begin a bike sharing plan.  Rosendahl's motion that the city re-draft it's bicycle parking requirement for new development was moved to the full Council without a hearing.

So, that left an update on the Bike Plan, a report from the LAPD on its relationship with cyclists and Rosendahl's effort to create an anti-harassment law to protect cyclists.  We'll cover the issues in the order they were heard.

LADOT and Planning were on camera throughout the hearing.

First up, was an update on the Bike Plan.  The Committee was just scheduled to hear an update on the plan, not take any sort of action.  This was the only agenda item for which there was a quorum, as Councilman LaBonge had to leave.  With Alarcon having already stormed out and Parks on vacation, that left just Rosendahl and Paul Koretz to sit on the dais for the LAPD report and to move the anti-harassment ordinance.

The City of Los Angeles, mainly Jordan Turner from City Planning and Michelle Mowery from LADOT, came with a new presentation highlighting ideas that hadn't been highlighted in previous meetings.  Some of the new information was useful, such as a plan to create a cycling trust fund with developers fee, but some was just misinformation. For example, Turner claimed that the Draft Bike Plan calls for 529 miles of proposed and potential new bike lanes.  First, as C.I.C.L.E. points out, that number is horribly mis-leading as there are only 28 miles of lanes that are "feasible" in the Bike Plan, i.e. that the plan actually calls for the construction of.  The rest are lanes on roads that would "require" the removal of street parking or a "travel lane."  I guess that a bike lane isn't a "travel lane?"  Further mucking up the numerical issues, if you go through the plan and add up the mileage of each proposed and potential project you reach 431 miles of lanes, not 529.

During public comment, several readers slammed the "529" number and wondered why the city bothered to include the number of "potential" bike lanes, referred to as "infeasible" in the early draft of the plan, instead of the number of miles that could actually be implemented under current street conditions.

The most interesting part of the hearing was a "Question and Answer" session between Rosendahl and city staff.  The questions were given to the Councilman by activists Stephen Box and Alex Thompson and were an effort to get the city on the record on certain issues.  However, the city seemed adept at dodging the questions for reasons I'm not sure of.  For example, the first question had to do with who was in charge of the plan from the original writing of the Scope of Work to the plan's final presentation next year.  City staff answered correctly that Planning is the agency in charge and where the "buck stops," but the Councilman was unable to get a straight answer, on-the-record, that it was LADOT's senior Bike Coordinator Michelle Mowery who wrote the scope of work.  I'm not sure what the secret is there.

A second question that received a strange answer dealt with why the outreach for the plan was so lacking compared to the outreach done by Alta Planning for the City of Portland.  Thompson, at Westside BikeSIDE, has a transcript from the hearing.  Mowery's answer is, at best, puzzling.

With all due respect the City of Portland is 450,000 people.  It’s a homogeneous community that is very white, and very progressive with respect to transportation.  They have a trolley system that works very well, as well as their transit overall.  We are a very diverse, disjointed city of 4 million people.  They are 30 years ahead of us in the development of their, well, they’re not quite 30, they’re more like 20 years ahead of us in the development of their bikeway.  So we’re a step behind Portland in what we’re trying to do. Granted, several of us would like to see a lot of changes in the city happen very quickly, but again we have a very diverse city with a lot of needs.

If anyone can show me how this statement even tries to address the issue of outreach, there's a Streetfilms t-shirt in it for you.  Because honestly?  This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

A last dodged question was "how does this plan differ then the one submitted by Alta Planning."  After explaining that this is the plan submitted by Alta, staff went on to explain all the editing cycles Alta's original draft went through.  The question was clearly aimed at finding out what Alta's original draft looked like as compared to what the city eventually submitted as the Draft Plan, to the public.

Up next was an update from the LAPD on its relationship with cyclists.  Speaking on behalf of the police department was Commander Jeff Greer, who is heading an internal group on cycling issues within the department but is soon to move on to be chief of detectives.  Amazingly, Greer stated that a report on the April incident where a hummer side-swiped Andres Tena and the reporting officer claimed Tena ran into the hummer wasn't yet available.  However, there the LAPD is reviewing the report and the officer because of public and official complaints and the report could be available soon.  Rosendahl demanded the report at his next hearing and the LAPD agreed.  However, they made the same agreement at a May hearing of the full Council and a hearing of the Transportation Committee over the summer.

Greer also reported that Lt. Andre Dawson will not be heading up a Bicycle Working Group because there are already internal efforts occurring with the department to improve the relationship.  Specifically, the department is working on ways distribute a bicycling safety video, create an e-learning course for veteran officers and create the position of "bicycling liaison" to be a contact point for the cycling community and to distribute relevant information to different divisions.  After pressure from Rosendahl, Greer committed to making sure the bicycling liaison would be publicly available to the cycling community.

However, the most controversial issue from Greer's report was a statement that the LAPD was working on a policy to better police "mass cycling rides."  Ridazz and Massers are concerned that is code for "the LAPD working on a way to end the rides."  Greer brushed off those concerns claiming that a formal policy would prevent officers from having a panic reaction when they see hundreds of cyclists rapidly descending on a position.  Greer's statement comes less than two weeks after cyclists complained that riders were being drug off their bikes without adequate warning to stop during November's Critical Mass.  How this new policy is created and enforced remain to be seen, but this could become a flashpoint in the poor relationship between group rides and the LAPD if done controversially.  If it's done correctly, this could be a turning point in what has been a sour relationship.

However, the high point came when LADOT, cyclists, the City Attorney and the Council Members still present had a "kumbaya moment" and agreed that legislation protecting cyclists and pedestrians could be a watershed moment for the city and give Los Angeles a chance to be ahead-of-the-curve on bicycling planning.  Before an ordinance can actually be drafted, the motion must pass through the Public Safety Committee.  However, Deputy City Attorney Keith Pritzer seemed energized on the issue and pointed out to me in the elevator that before being hired by the city, thirty years ago, he was a "bike activist" himself.

So what constitutes "harassing a cyclist?" The resolution moved yesterday only called on the City Attorney to draft an anti-harassment ordinance, but public comment was about what could constitute harassment.  Some suggested that drivers shouldn't be allowed to threaten cyclists with their cars, others suggested that verbal abuse should be banned and still others discussed setting a safe distance between cars and cyclists when cars zoom past.

When the Bicycling Harassment ordinance moves on to the Public Safety Committee in January, check back here for all the details.