The passage of Metro's Long Range Transportation Plan last week has helped heat up a national conversation about Los Angeles, how it grows, how it moves and the future of our Metropolis.  Of course, Diane Meyer's "World Without a Car" exhibit has people locally thinking outside the auto; but others are picking up the conversation such as the Transport Politic and Think Progress' Matt Yglessias. However, that debate shows us one critical missing link in our transportation planning.

We still don't know how Angelenos move from place to place.  For the most part, we're still reliant on census figures that only ask about commuting trends, traditionally under-count people of lesser means and definately under-count immigrants.  Recently, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, in their most recent report on how the city is going to spend its Measure R funds, reported that combined, 3.6% of Angelenos commute by bicycle or by walking in Los Angeles based on figures provided by the Southern California Association of Governments.  Outside of major projects or reports that require them, the city does not do bicycle or pedestrian counts leaving planners reliant on bad statistics or guesswork based on personal observations and biases.

When commenting to the Council on the report, I wondered how 96.4% of people commute without walking at all; but of course I realize that they are referring to the dominant mode in the commute.  However, that number shouldn't be used as an excuse to under-fund pedestrian improvements.  After all, the city worker that drives from the Valley to the large parking lot to the West of City Hall is reliant on safe crossings to get from his car to the office, just as the dedicated pedestrian is reliant on a series of safe crossings to get from place to place.

But if the city is reliant on census figures that over-count the number of car-reliant transportation trips, then advocates for car alternatives are always going to be behind the game.  For example, my wife is a car commuter when she's not on maternity leave, but I would estimate that less than half of her total trips involve getting in her car.  Trips to the store, park, Farmer's Market, gym, and around the neighborhood are done on foot or on bike.  The census, the data source relied on by the city, completely discounts those trips because it only measures commuter trips.

What do you see? A city transportation study would see one van. Photo: aisipos/Flickr

The situation has become so dire that the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition has begun measuring its own bike counts, and news organizations have begun running their own polls to try and get a picture of what's actually happening on the street.  While a recent poll by the LA Downtown News' results were similar to those completed by City Planning, the unscientific method of asking one's readers how they commute, will certainly lead to those results being dismissed.

Speaking of City Planning, the process that created the new Downtown Street Standards included bicycle and pedestrian counts and those standards are amongst the most progressive ones in the county.  The standards promote bike lanes, sidewalk widenings and open space.  When an agency bothers to actually check what's happening, the results are planning documents that favor "non-motorized transportation."  For more on the street standards, listen to Streetsblog interview the Urban Design Studio's Emily Gabel-Luddy.

As the city moves forward with it's Bike Plan and other community plans, it's past time that it begins gathering data on it's own about the effected areas.  Relying on the census and the guesswork of engineers who have looked at their job as finding the best way to move cars is only going to lead to wider roads, unhealthy communities and a rising Car Culture, even as that way of planning wanes in the major cities around the United States.

The blogosphere has quite a few critiques of the plan including those by Stephen Box, Alex Thompson, Green LA Girl, and Dan Gutierrez. L.A. StreetsBlog has run various reviews (including one by this author) of the initial May 2009 maps, and last week featured Box's scathing article which declared that the plan "fails on three levels, based on content, based on process, and based on commitment."

The plan has a wide assortment of specifics - from mountain biking policy to signage specifications to commuting statistics, and much more. This article analyzes and enumerates problems with the bikeway facilities listed in the plan. The draft bikeway facilities are: non-committal in their language, sloppy, and perhaps illegal. Details follow after the jump.

Many Los Angeles bike advocacy successes in recent years have stemmed from facilities designated in the 1996 Bicycle Master Plan. These include bike lanes on Reseda Boulevard, Silver Lake Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, and others.

Many of the plan's technical specifics end up being fairly malleable. For example, the 1996 Bicycle Master Plan approved a "program for meter mounted bicycle parking" but when LADOT bikeways staff encountered resistance on this, they, without amending the bike plan, smartly shifted to the familiar inverted-U racks.

Hence the facilities are a very critical part of the plan.

Bike Facility Language is Non-Committal

When the initial May maps were released, bicyclists reacted strongly to the classification of "currently infeasible" for most of the bike-lane-designated streets from the city's 1996 plan. Bike activists responded that this "infeasible" wording was inappropriate. The new September maps, contained in chapter 4 of the draft plan, responded to bicyclist concerns by changing the wording from "infeasible" to "potential" bike lanes.

In comparing the 1996 plan to the 2009 draft, the city's language for all bikeways has been downgraded. The 1996 plan shows bikeway facilities as "designated" while the current draft update calls them "proposed." If the city is serious about completing these planned facilities, it should carry forward the designation language into the current plan.

Bike Facility Chapters Are Sloppy

There are actually two different versions of the city bike plan on-line, and they're different, depending on how one accesses them. One can download the entire plan in one fell swoop, or download it separately chapter by chapter.

Here's a detail of page C9 downloaded as part of the entire plan:

Page C9 detail

Here's the very same page C9 downloaded as part of just Appendix C:

The very same Page C9 detail, but looking different.

These look very different, no? Which of these is available for review at the city's libraries? Perhaps the public should be given 45 days to review each version - so 90 days in total? These two appear to possibly be the same document, just sorted differently... or maybe one sorted and one randomized... but the author didn't have time to verify if they're actually the same list. Perhaps one of them has more bikeways than the other... difficult to tell.

Page citations in this article are based on the 2nd version - the separately down-loadable version - the one sorted in no discernible order. Your results may vary if you download a different version than the author.

Has any bicyclist out there ridden on the city's Avenue 88? Probably not, because it turns out that there is no Avenue 88 in Los Angeles. That doesn't stop the draft (p. C-19) from designating... er... proposing that bike lanes should go on Avenue 88.

How about Chanlder Blvd? Wiill Rogers Street? Sanland Blvd? Tenesse Ave? Murfield Road? These are typos, of course, and this author will probably have a typo in this article. In addition to their role in serving to promote Will Campbell's bike blog [sic], the errors make it difficult to search the document electronically.

The list of existing bike routes (page C-6 to C-8) is especially riddled with errors. It's missing the mile lengths for all these facilities. Many of the facilities are just wrong: has anyone biked the existing bike route on 4th Street from Olympic Blvd to Boyle Av? Probably not, because 4th doesn't actually intersect Olympic in Los Angeles. How about Griffin Avenue (located in Highland Park) from Burbank Blvd to Hartsook Street (both in the Valley)? No wonder they lack mile lengths... because these and another dozen or so listed just don't make any sense.

Then there are the maps.

The maps lack portions of the western end of the San Fernando Valley. Perhaps it's an honest error - it's difficult to fit the whole Valley onto 6 pages... but it actually drops an existing bikeway from the plan - the bike lanes on Burbank Blvd from Valerie Avenue to Valley Circle Blvd. A portion of Pacific Palisades is similarly omitted, dropping part of the planned extension of the beach bike path.

Introducing the Metro Gray Line?

The existing bike paths shown in the Sepulveda Basin are incorrect. It shows a bike bridge over the LA River that doesn't exist.

The Valley and South L.A. maps include street names, but the West and Central L.A. maps don't.

It now appears that the city has changed the maps since the original files were posted; today West and Central have street names. See for yourself - the old version is shown at the top of this article. The new maps are in Chapter 4 here.

This alteration, presumably done with good intent (to fix an error) brings up some questions: shouldn't document changes trigger at least a new 45-day review period? Shouldn't the review period start after the city finishes making changes to the documents that it has released? How do cyclists know that the city didn't downgrade another bikeway facility while they were revising the maps? The city did these sorts of downgrades between the May and September map versions - for example York Blvd went from Bike Friendly Street to Potential Bike Lane. Did it do additional downgrades between the September and October maps? It would build trust if the city would openly and transparently announce these sorts of post-release changes. The city should also leave the old versions on-line, so that bicyclists could double-check them.

The maps are inconsistent with the bikeway listing in the appendix. For example, on page C-16, Woodman Ave from Sherman Way to Chanlder [sic] Blvd is listed as a "proposed" bikeway so it should be in green, but the map shows it in orange, the color for a "potential" bikeway. The same is true for Centinela Ave from Mitchell Ave to Venice Blvd (page C-20).

Is the Wholesale Downgrading of Bike Lanes Legal?

The city is attempting to update the bike plan without subjecting the new version to environmental review. LADOT representatives have repeatedly stressed the plan can't remove any street space from cars, because that would subject the plan to an EIR which the city hasn't budgeted for.

At the same time, the plan downgrades (or in some cases omits) more than 60 miles of streets already designated for bike lanes. On page 41, the plan states a net loss of 57 miles of designated bike lanes, but the overall total is probably closer to 100 miles based on this author's rough calculations.

In the absence of environmental review, it may well be no more legal to upgrade bike designation than it is to downgrade bike designation. If the city is going to trash its prior plan, then it opens itself up to lawsuits from bicycle advocates.

At the October 6th BAC meeting, the Planning Department committed to reviewing this issue with the City Attorney.

Where Does the Plan Go From Here?

One possible solution would be for the city to merely add the new facilities in the current draft update to the previously designated facilities in the prior plan. This will likely not please many of the plan's most vocal critics who are openly calling to "destroy this bike plan" and start over... but, it could allow the money spent on this plan to result in a small step forward for the city.

While the city does this revision, it could also proof-read the plan, fix errors and inconsistencies, and publish a new draft. At that point, it should give the public at least 60 days to review and comment on the new version.

Last night, during an email conversation between myself, Stephen Box, Dr. Alex Thompson, Ted Rogers and Joe Linton; we were discussing the updated Draft Bike Plan now available on the official Bike Plan website.  Linton commented that the original draft maps, the ones that caused such large debate back in June, were no longer available on the website, all that was available was the updated Draft Plan.

However, both Dr. Thompson and Rogers had copies of the maps available on their hard drives; which they emailed to the group and I've uploaded to the Streetsblog servers.  Linton noticed that some streets were downgraded from the maps released last June in the current Draft Plan.  However, with the originally released maps no longer available on the official site, it would be nigh impossible for a member of the public to be able to comment intelligently on the differences between the original maps and the ones in the current plan.  So we agreed to help fill that gap.

The updated maps for Draft Bike Plan can be found on pages 5-21 here.

The original map for the Harbor Area can be found on Streetsblog's servers here.

The original map for the Valley can be found on Streetsblog's servers here.

The original map for the Westside, Central, and Downtown can be found on Streetsblog's servers here.

Emily (on the right) with Eco-Village Founder Lois Arkin

The Studio has produced three visionary documents, the Walkability Checklist, the Downtown Design Guide, and the draft Urban Design Principles for 21st Century Los Angeles, (an earlier version can be found here. 

I recently had a chance to sit down with the Studio's director, Emily Gabel-Luddy about the Downtown Design Guide which, when implemented, will change the character of Downtown Los Angeles.  The plan widens sidewalks from 12-15 feet, caps road widenings and doubles the bicycle amenities in the Downtown.

There are plenty of highlights in this interview, which is available in its entirety via mpg files below, but my favorite fact is this.  Before this plan, there were only two street design standards that existed for every street in Downtown Los Angeles.  The new plan maps out a new design for every street  in the Downtown that will, when its realized, create a downtown that more closely resemble the great streets that we see in Europe than the ones we see in the Downtown today.

The Downtown Design Guide and the new Street Standards are available on-line through Planning and the City Engineer's websites.   Click here and query the address "426 S. Spring St." for a sample. Put your cursor over the centerline. The link will lead you to the Design Guide and new Standards.

Also, we're trying something new here in Los Angeles.  Instead of having you read through a wall of text for our interviews, I downloaded mp3's of the interview, broken into three parts, below.

In the first part of our interview, we discussed the new street standards, what that means for the Downtown, and how they are different than what we see on the ground right now.

Then we talked about the transportation mode split for the Downtown.  While it's more diverse than I thought, we still have a ways to go.

In the third piece, we talk about the process of creating these sorts of standards.  If nothing else, listen for the story about her favorite moment of the process.  We are starting to get through!

Last, we discuss how to take the new plans for the Downtown and spread them through the rest of the city.  It sounds like the city has exciting plans for Chatsworth Boulevard.

In addition to witnessing LAPD fail a reality test, cyclists also got into a debate with the LADOT and City Planning over the Draft Bike Plan at yesterday's City Council Transportation Committee Hearing.  As regular readers already know, in late May a series of maps was released to the public, causing a round of jeers from many in the cycling community.  Last week the maps and outreach plan were presented to the City Council Transportation Committee, and over four dozen cyclists pedaled Downtown for the 8:00 A.M. meeting to lodge their protests.

Yesterday, a smaller crowd was on-hand and Council Chair Wendy Greuel tried her best to keep the comments directed at the outreach plan and not the Bike Plan.  A few speakers got their objections to the plan on the record, but the bulk of the comments were on the outreach plan's deficiencies.

Unfortunately, so far there is no change to the outreach plan that was outlined back in May at a Bike Advisory Committee sub-committee meeting.  There are four public workshops planned as well as hearings at the Planning Commission, Transportation Committee and City Council.  The plan will also be presented at a special meeting of the Bike Advisory Committee and of course they will continue to collect comments at the website at labikeplan.org.

However, following testimony that the four locations for the workshops, Downtown, South LA, the Westside and San Pedro were insufficient and that it is downright strange not to have a hearing on the Eastside; a strange thing happened.  Councilman Rosendahl asked how much it would cost to have another workshop and guaranteed he would find the money for it.  Greuel followed up with a request that if there are other places that need workshops, people should submit them.  Feel free to use the comments section, I'll pass them on.

However, the complaints about the outreach also reached to the Internet outreach.  Roadblock continued to press for a more interactive website, picture combining the current bike plan site with Midnight Ridazz; but was brushed off by city staff.

While the lowlight of the meeting was clearly the LAPD report, a sub-lowlight was a virtual no-show by Alta Planning and Design.  Last week, Rosendahl demanded that the firm, which has gotten nearly half a million dollars in city funds, be at future Council hearings on the Bike Plan.  While it's true that local consultant Matt Benjamin was in the room, he was only identified at the end of the portion on the bike plan causing  Greuel to grump, "It would have been nice to know he was here earlier" and for Stephen Box to ask for everyone to get a "do-over" in testimony since we should get a chance to hear from them.

Benjamin was never called on to testify.

 That question has been on the minds of cyclists ever since public outreach meetings for the plan were announced in January of 2008.  The release last week of a series of low-resolution maps by the Department of City Planning actually made the confusion and frustration felt by cyclists even worse.  The low resolution pdf.'s were nigh impossible to read, contained incomplete information and occasionally were missing streets entirely.

Looking for more answers, I took a trip to the Parker Center for the June 2009 meeting of the city's official Bicycle Advisory Committee.  This Committee consists of people appointed by the City Council and Mayor's Office to advise policy makers how to make the city a safe and attractive place for cyclists.  Surely here I would be able to find out what was going on, when we would see the rest of the plan and what was up with the low resolution maps that were released last week.

What I got was disappointment and more confusion.

Representing the City was Michelle Mowery, the senior bicycle coordinator with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.  Mowery claimed to not have any details about why the maps were released at all, why Planning chose such a lousy format for the release, when new details would be released to the public or why there were so many errors on the maps that were released.  Basically, she was denying that the LADOT has anything to do with the plan, that it's a planning document.  Mowery even denied personally looking at the maps that were posted online.

Nobody from planning was at the meeting, neither were any of the consultants from Alta Planning or the group that is working on the mountain biking plan, or anyone who could answer any questions that had to do with the Bicycle Master Plan.  In other words, the only representatives of the city either weren't willing or weren't able to comment on the BMP beyond what we can ascertain by looking at the maps ourselves.

This latest public relations debacle continues what has been a disheartening process from the city in what is usually a time of empowerment and hope in other cities.  After all, if the city's official group of expert cyclists can't get the people responsible for the most important bicycle planning document in the city, what hope do the rest of us have? 

The next meeting of the full Bicycle Advisory Committee is set for early August.  Mowery said that she hopes that public outreach meetings would be held at some point in July.

The maps are available at a handful of libraries and city council offices.  Until the completed draft is released to the public, the only place to comment is to email Jordann Turner, the project manager for the plan, at jordann.turner@lacity.org.

While it's great that the Department of City Planning has finally released SOMETHING, I can't help but notice that copies of the announcement didn't go to the people that signed up at the outreach meetings last year but just to Neighborhood Councils.  If Joe Linton hadn't forwarded me his draft of the letter, I wouldn't know that it had been released.  Why did I sign that list indicating I was interested in more information in the winter of 2008?

As for Streetsblog's coverage, I want to take some time before commenting on whether or not the maps are the first sign of a vibrant Bike Master Plan or not worth the wait.  I'll post my thoughts and those of other cyclists on Monday.  In the meantime feel free to fill the comments section with your thoughts and reactions.

When I first read that the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation was holding public meetings this week on a revised Pico-Olympic Plan, I got nostalgic.  Covering the battle between the community and the city over the plan to remove rush-hour parking, restripe the roads and retime the signals was the signature story back at StreetHeat, the precursor blog to  LA Streetsblog.  As a matter of fact, most of the links below are to Street Heat stories that were brought over, which hopefully explains some of the issues with layout and image quality.

This morning, the LADOT released an outline for their "new" Pico East-Olympic West plan in advance of pulbic meetings this week.  There is one large change, instead of five lanes going in one direction and two in the other, the new plan has three going in each direction with extra room to create turn lanes.  Signal progression will still benefite people going in the "preferred" direction.  However, since a lot of the community was freaking out about the parking changes, I'm willing to predict the battle isn't over.

The "revised" plan for the boulevards would remove street parking at rush hour and convert the parking lanes into travel lanes.   After signals are re-timed there will also be greater priority given to vehicles traveling on one of the four lanes.  In typical fashion, the words "pedestrian" or "cyclist" don't appear anywhere in the summary.  Of course, it probably wouldn't aid their cause to mention that their plan would make the roads completely inhospitable to non-motorized transportation and a barrier for people foolish enough to try crossing the street on foot.

However, a lot of issues still remain with the new plan.  There's no mention of the lawsuit that forced the environmental review process of which these meetings are part, no mention of the impact the plan would have on traffic patterns on the local streets that connect or run parallel to Pico and Olympic Boulevards nor even a good explanation of any alternatives being considered.  Complete Streets?  Express Bus?  Anything?  And what about Councilman Rosendahl's demand that City Planning be involved in the creation and study of the plan?

As you may imagine, the history of this project is long and complicated.  To make it easy for new readers to follow and for veterans of the Pico-Olympic controversy to get caught back up, I've broken the story into six episodes.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

A long time ago, in a country far-far away, L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was on vacation and fell in love with the idea of turning Pico and Olympic Boulevards into one-way mini highways to alleviate congestion.  He brought the idea with him back to Los Angeles and suggested it for the Pico and Olympic and immediately created a panic in the community

Businesses feared that lost parking would hurt them, residents thought the plan would actually reduce automobile mobility for locals, environmentalists who understood the idea of induced demand argued the plan would bring more traffic and air pollution and pedestrians and cyclists viewed the seven-lane one-way streets as basically walls that would block them from traveling from one side of the street to the other.

The plan was sent back to the drawing board by Mayor Villaraigosa.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clone

After months of effort, the LADOT came out with a new plan in December of 2007 that embraced Yaroslavsky's belief that increasing thru-street capacity was the best way to alleviate congestion on these two boulevards.  Relying on a traffic study completed on a Jewish Holiday, the LADOT unveiled a plan that would not turn either street into a one way street but would create a "preference" for eastbound traffic on Pico Boulevard and westbound on Olympic Boulevard.  This way, the LADOT addressed the least important of the community concerns, making it possible for residents to go in either direction on their boulevard of choice.  All of the other issues remained unresolved.

In a show of the esteem in which they show community involvement, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the new plan via press conference flanked by Councilman Jack Weiss and transportation officials.  When his community basically freaked out, Weiss ducked every opportunity to explain his support for the plan or reconsider his support.

Following a packed, angry, house at a City Council Transportation Committee meeting, Villaraigosa sent the LADOT out to basically get yelled at for a couple of hours at a time.  From these meetings a consensus arose from the community that it had to do whatever it could to defeat the proposal.  Also, a new figure rose in opposition to the plan, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who did his best to hear both sides of the issue but ultimately sided with the community that would be directly impacted by this capacity enhancement-without-widening plan.

Farther South, Councilman Herb Wesson also expressed concern about the plan, so basically Weiss was opposed by Councilman to the east and west of his district.

Episode III: Revenge of the LADOT

With two of the three City Councilmen whose districts would be impacted by the plan opposing it, the LADOT struck a bargain with Wesson to cut the plan off at his district.  Thus, only Weiss and Rosendahl's districts remained in the plan before it went to the City Council.  With rumors floating that the plan was a "Done Deal" the Council actually rose up and tabled the plan until further study could be done.  An aggressive Rosendahl said he could support the plan only if the Department of City Planning was involved in the plan's creation.

Stung by the Council's rebuke, Villaraigosa basically ordered the plan forward anyway claiming the Council had no right to weigh-in on a restriping plan.  The Westside Chamber of Commerce and other community groups went to court after Rosendahl was shut-out of city negotiations.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Unsurprisingly, the courts ruled that the city needed to show some sort of plan and environmental review for a project that would add hundreds or thousands of new cars to the streets every hour.  The community celebrated the death of the "Done Deal."

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

However, the city wasn't done yet.  City officials surprised many people when they ordered the kind of study that was required by the court last summer.  The funding for the study swept through the Council, with even Rosendahl offering support since the plan would now embrace a "joined-at-the-hip" relationship between LADOT and City Planning.

Now the LADOT will hold hearings on their preliminary findings to garner community feedback.  Since the plan still has many issues as outlined above, there's still at least one chapter left to be written.

Episode VI: Return of the Public Meetings

The script is yet to be written but it will begin with these public meetings:

When Gail Goldberg took over the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, she promised that the city would help create better community plans, ones that took into account the charecter of the community and what the residents say that they want.

Well, the upcoming community plan for Boyle Heights, a largely Hispanic community located east of Downtown and the L.A. River.  will be a great test of that promise.

The city will hold two more public meetings next week to share its recommendations with the community on the future of their community plan based on comments received between November of 2006 and February of 2007.  If the city follows the recommendations of the community, Boyle Heights is in for the kind of new projects that can transform and upgrade a community.

While traffic congestion and truck traffic are listed as problems, the Boyle Heights community seemed more interested in making transportation more equitable for users of non motorized transportation.  The list of transportation improvements desired by the community doesn't mention one improvement for auto users:

• Sidewalks need repairs and better lighting along Boyle Avenue from 1st Street to 6th Street.
  Boyle Heights suffers from a lack of street trees.
• Alleys need to be paved, lit and otherwise improved to enhance mobility, safety and aesthetics.
• Highway underpasses need to be improved to enhance pedestrian mobility and sense of safety as well as aesthetics.
• Freeway guard rails, fences, retaining walls and guard walls need repair and upgrade (e.g. entrance ramp from State St onto I-10 Eastbound).

There's also some encouraging suggestions about increasing open space by creating parks along the shores of the river and converting some industrial areas, but the real issue is how ingrained will these suggestions be in the final plan?

I'll be at one of the presentations next week, but if someone was at one of the ones that already happened and want to fill us in, either drop a comment below or email me at damien@streetsblog.org.

Photo: Francisco Cendejas/Flickr

Mayor Villaraigosa Mugs for the Cameras at Opening of Dodger Trolley

Back when Metro was preparing its project list for the potential funds that would be generated by what now is known as Measure R, there was a grassroots effort to get the agency a small set aside of the billions that will be raised by the sales tax over the next 30 years for bicycle and pedestrian projects.  While the Metro Board ignored the 200 people that made the ask, unfortunately we don't have a high-powered lobbyist; they did go out of their way to repeatedly tell us that we would be able to lobby the individual municipalities for non-motorized transportation projects from the 15% of the budget set aside for "Local Return."

Mayor and Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa was particularly adamant that municipal governments would be lining up to paint bike lanes and widen sidewalks.

Well, now it's time to see if he meant it.

At tomorrow's City Council meeting, the Council will direct the LADOT and the Department of City Planning to put together a list of projects that would qualify for Measure R funds.  If the list looks anything like the city's proposed stimulus list, the Mayor's promise of programming Measure R funds for bicycle or pedestrian projects would be reveaked as a farce.

Despite the car-centricness of the transportation projects on the list, a close look of the city's list of "ready to go" projects that they hope to get funded by a federal stimulus package show there are a lot of projects that would enhance communities and provide a safe alternative for those who choose to travel without an automobile.  Some of these projects include streetscaping in Chinatown and along Pico Boulevard, an extension of the L.A. River Bike Trail, accelerating the schedule for the Expo Line, and  a city-wide grating replacement project.

As Board Chair, Villaraigosa promised the hundreds of signators to our sign-on letter that Measure R would be a boon for cyclists and pedestrians.  As Mayor, he'll now have a chance to prove just that.

Photo: Phil Schilaci Kropoth/Flickr

The City's Vision for the LA River in the Coming Decades

The Los Angeles Department of City Planning will be holding hearings this Friday and Monday  on an ordinance that would provide new guidelines for development on both public and private land adjacent to the river.  If approved, the new River Improvement Overlay District would include all of the neighborhoods within the City of Los Angeles that are adjacent to the Los Angeles River.  The exact boundries aren't set yet.

While it's encouraging to see the city embrace a more green development strategy, the RIO District restrictions don't tackle some of the largest concerns that most people have with developments.  For example, there is no restriction on size or parking.  Instead new developments in the RIO District will have to comply with certain green standards and comply with green transportation programs.

The RIO also provides guidelines for new “complete” streets and includes a mobility strategy to ensure that the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and vehicle drivers are considered when major projects or street improvements are undertaken.

I will say, any development plan that is going to create streets that feature the amenities pictured above, especially those pedestrian amenities, is a welcome site regardless of any shortcomings in the proposed ordinance.

For greater detail about what the RIO District will mean for the area, please read Joe Linton's post at Creek Freak from earlier this fall.  If you can't make the meetings and want to add your two cents, leave a note in the comments section and I'll forward it to City Planning.  If you are free either Friday or Monday morning, here is the meeting information.

Friday, December 12              Monday, December 15
12:00 pm                               8:00 am
Room 1B, Braude Building      Room 1020, City Hall
6262 Van Nuys Boulevard      200 N Spring Street
Van Nuys                                Los Angeles

Image: City of LA via Creek Freak

At tomorrow's City Council Joint Transportation and Public Works Committee, the city will begin it's quest to get bailout funds from the future Obama Administration.  For those of you not paying attention to national politics, the President-Elect seems to be heading towards an infrastructure investment plan, "the largest since the creation of the national highway system, to jumpstart the economy.  Metro is readying its list of projects that are ready to go except that they are lacking funding, and now the City of Los Angeles is getting ready to do the same.

The council resolution directing city agencies to prepare their "stimulus list" is pretty straightforward:

The package, aimed at ending the current economic crisis, may contain as much as $700 billion to create jobs and create economic growth. The goal is to use the money to jumpstart infrastructure projects to create jobs and fuel economic growth. The federal government has discussed direct funding for new roads, bridges, airports and ports to remain competitive in the global economy. Spending is likely to be focused on "shovel-ready" infrastructure to ensure the greatest job-creating potential. It is imperative that Los Angeles seek as much funding as possible for the City'S infrastructure needs.

If there were ever a time for the City to think outside the box to begin to change our transportation culture, this is it.   Let's hope the city seizes the opportunity to not just bring federal funds into the city, but to bring in funds for the kinds of projects that will do more than move more cars more quickly through our streets.

President-Elect Obama, and by extension his administration, has shown an unusual amount of interest in changing the way people travel in America and has said repeatedly that he wants to invest in inner-city rail, bike and pedestrian projects and other green technologies.  I would be willing to bet that if the city moved quickly to put together a laundry list of truly environmental alternative transportation projects they would see more funds than if they push forward with the traditional asphalt-themed transportation planning.

In a letter to Transportation for America, Obama laid out his transportation goals during his term.  The letter is dated before the election, but wasn't made public until afterwards:

I will build upon my efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks. And as president, I will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

Yes, updating our aging infrastructure is important.  Nobody would argue that.  But for a city that has just voted overwhelmingly that it's past time to build a modern transit system, now is the time to seize on that momentum, seize on Obama's willingness to invest in alternative transportation and ask for funding for green transportation projects.

The meeting will begin at 2:00 P.M. at City Hall tomorrow, Wednesday December 9.

Photo: Penn Live

Nearly a year after legislation was first introduced that would study the opportunities to create Transit Oriented Development near the transit stations that might exist if and when the Green Line is extended to LAX and beyond.  The resolution, introduced by Bill Rosendahl will be heard at the Transportation Committee tomorrow.

Specifically, Rosendahl wants TOD plans that explore all development options created by a Green Line extension including,

addressing parking, pedestrian access, LAX People Mover access, streetscape improvements, infrastructure development fees, congestion pricing, and joint development opportunities, and integrating these into a land-use/transportation planning strategy.

The motion, shows some transportation and development saavy.  For starters, every time it lists an action item to be studied it requires the "Department of Transportation with the Assistance of the Planning Department" clearly marrying the two when it comes to analyzing and developing plans for development at and near transit hubs.

While it's a great sign that the city is thinking ahead when it comes to transit-oriented planning, it's unlikely we'll see development that is truly transit oriented in Los Angeles until the city is willing to drop its parking space requirement for new development.

Funding for the Green Line extension to LAX is included in the Measure R ballot proposition.

Image: Metro

Seeking to preserve the historic and cultural feel of Little Tokyo, the city council has proposed changing the downtown zoning requirements to the point of removing Little Tokyo from the Downtown zoning area.  The Planning Department didn't like the idea of removing Little Tokyo as a whole, it would make tracking data for the downtown more difficult and isn't necessary, it did provide some suggestions for protecting Little Tokyo from what the City Council terms:

...concern that Little Tokyo will be overtaken by the development activity in the rest of Downtown - eventually losing its distinct characteristics and becoming lost as part of Downtown proper.

The City Council's Planning and Land Use Committee will hear the Planning Department's recommendations at a hearing later today.  Basically, the Department recommends changing the downtown's community plan to promote the goals of preserving the community through restrained development, streetscaping and creating an improved pedestrian development.

1. Maintain the existing boundaries of the Central City Community Plan which include the Little Tokyo Community as defined by the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Project Area,

2. Through the Central City Community Plan Program, consider the development of design guidelines, land uses changes, and other planning implementation tools to preserve and promote the community's unique character including possibly:

a. Establishing a Community Design Overlay District (CDO) to promote the distinctive character and visual quality of the Little Tokyo Community, to prevent the development of structures which are not of acceptable exterior design or appearance, and to provide for on-going community involvement in project design and the evolution of the Design Guidelines. The exact boundaries of the CDO would be refined through the public participation process.

b. Establishing a Streetscape Plan to reinforce the distinct identity of the Little Tokyo Community through consistent and appropriate, design of both public and private improvement projects within the public right-of-way.

c. Proposing land use changes and other planning tools in the context of the Central City Community Plan as a whole to address the community concerns regarding the types of uses and the intensity and density of development including the possible expansion or modification to an existing condition in order to create a pedestrian oriented environment or the development of Specific Plan to address design concerns, land use changes, and other land use regulations and incentives as appropriate .

Photo: Wad/Flickr

February's "Done Deal," that was later left for dead after a court ruled against the Mayor two months ago, is once again very much alive. 

Today the city council approved a resolution outlining how the city should conduct a full environmental review of the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative," the proposed plan to speed up traffic on Pico and Olympic Boulevards.  The plan has three components to achieve maximum car traffic flow: restrict parking at rush hour, synchronize lights to benefit vehicles traveling west on Olympic and east on Pico, and add traffic lanes at rush hour to aid cars going in the favored direction.

In response to a lawsuit by the communities along the corridors, a judge had ordered a complete environmental review of the plan before the city could begin to make any changes.  Interestingly, today's resolution  was put forward by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl, who has been one of the plan's chief critics, and Jack Weiss, who supports the project in the newspaper but rarely shows up to defend it in public.

Today's council meeting was different than every other meeting on the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative" that I've attended and not just because Councilman Weiss was present.  There were no angry crowds, no outbursts from the audience and no monologues by LADOT executive John Fisher.  Public comment took a total of three minutes.  Rosendahl, who for months had seemed pushed out of the picture by the Mayor's political muscle, was the only Councilmember to speak and he called the structure of a review a victory for the community because the Department of Planning will be involved in the review.  Rosendahl noted that "transportation and planning need to be joined at the hip," and seemed to believe that City Planning will do more to take care of local businesses than LADOT.

The public process for the review will provide more opportunities for the city to debate whether the goal of its transportation planning is to move as many cars as efficiently as possible.  While the fate of the the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative" may be uncertain, today's action adds credence to the theory that "the public process for road projects only ends when the project is built." 

Photo: Stewart James/Flickr 

The City of Los Angeles planning department is partnering with SCAG's Compass Blueprint to make the Sunset Junction Metro stop more community friendly by increasing bicycle and pedestrian access to the stop. The study will also look at the potential for transit oriented development for the area.

The first community meeting for this project is tonight, so if you have na idea to make Sunset Junction a better place for commuters make sure to stop by the Casa Laguna Community Room at the corner of Sunset and Myra, tonight at 6:30. 

Below are the goals and tactics for the study as taken from the Compass Blueprint website:

Goals:

• Create full streetscape design the that recognizes the multi-modal character of the intersection
• Develop designs for a potential transit plaza at the station
• Explore possibilities of better linking the Redline stations
• Investigate potential developments and neighborhood improvements in the area

Services Included in the Study:

• Public workshop and design ‘charrette' with local stakeholders to explore desires and needs of the community
• Interviews of individual stakeholders as well as developers to asses needs
• Property value impact analysis from projects associated with the transit stop
• Opportunities and Constraint analysis of existing land use and development types
• Develop building prototypes congruent with local character
• Tipping point/ROI analysis to estimate necessary rent and taxes on new mixed-use developments

Remember back in January when the City Council held an all-day hearing on transportation? Councilmembers waxed poetic about pet projects but usually stuck to the major topic of how to make Los Angeles a safe and more efficient place to travel.

After the meeting, the Chief Legislative Analyst went to work compiling all of the Councilmember's suggestions and just two months later produced a document, which first requires Council approval, instructing city departments to get to work on the Council's demands.

Sometimes the suggestions overlap with each other. Councilmembers Weiss, Greuel and Reyes all request reports on how LADOT and City Planning can work together. All in all, the majority of proposals were about increasing alternatives to driving or about funding.

Two highlights for cyclists come from Councilmembers Rosendahl and Reyes.

Reyes proposed changing the way the city counts traffic to take into account the amount of people moving along a road rather than the amount of vehicles. By relying on traffic counts to measure a street's effectiveness a bus full of people and a single passenger vehicle are counted the same. Currently, cyclists are not counted at all.

It seems ironic now to see that Councilmember Rosendahl's only motion is to "Direct LADOT to report with a proposal to develop a bike path in Mandeville Canyon" given the headache that the Ballona Creek Bike Trail is causing him these days.

After the jump you can find the full list of the Council's suggestions. If you have any favorites or any other suggestions, feel free to put them in the comments section and I'll submit them into testimony at tomorrow's Transportation Committee Hearing.

1. (Weiss) Report back on how the Department of City Planning(DCP) and Department of Transportation (LADOT) can combine efforts on the West Los Angeles community plan.

2. (Greuel) Direct LADOT and DCP to report back with a status report on a previous Greuel-Rosendahl motion (CF: 07-2419) relative to traffic counts.

3. (Greuel) Report back as to how the Department of Transportation and the Planning Department will work together to address the transportation aspects of planning in Los Angeles.

4. (Garcetti) In order to increase walkability along Metro Red Line stations, direct LADOT to develop a proposal for turning Western Ave into a pedestrian friendly corridor, as part of a broader strategy to obtain funding from Metro's Call for Projects.

5. (Garcetti) Direct LADOT to investigate the feasibility of a 24-hour public transit information system.

6. (Garcetti) Direct LADOT and DCP to study park-and-ride lots around Metro Red Line stops to encourage the usage of the subway.

7. (Garcetti) Direct LADOT and the CAO to study the feasibility of providing incentives for City employees and private businesses to increase carpooling.

8. (Garcetti) Direct LADOT to work with the CLA, CRA and DCP to create a valet district in Hollywood.

9. (Garcetti) Direct the CLA and DOT to work with the Hollywood Property Alliance to create a Hollywood Transportation website as a one-stop shop for people to access transit information in Hollywood.

10. (Garcetti) Direct LADOT to examine the feasibility of installing wireless internet access in Commuter Express and DASH busses as part of the City's Transportation Strategic Plan.

11. (Reyes) Direct LADOT to examine how to better match funding sources to the goals outlined in the Mission Statement of the City's Transportation Strategic Plan, in order to achieve more funding for public transit, increased DASH service, bicycle and pedestrian amenities.

12. (Reyes) Direct LADOT to report with recommendations to change the method of data collection to improve prioritization of transportation projects that accommodate all users rather than vehicular traffic only.

13. (Reyes) Direct the DCP to report on how it can playa greater role in transportation planning.

14. (Reyes) Direct LADOT to report on the new transportation planning concept that less signage and signalization on the roads may actually enhance safety by forcing drivers to slow down and pay attention, as well as other ways the City can enhance public safety on city streets.

15. (Reyes) Direct LADOT and DCP to detail how the General Plan Transportation Element update will interface with the City's Transportation Strategic Plan.

16. (Reyes) Direct LADOT and DCP to report on the coordination efforts the City is pursuing with regional agencies, such as Metro and SCAG and to identify innovative strategies, such as congestion pricing, reduced and shared parking, road diets, etc., that appear to be the most viable for the City of Los Angeles.

17. (Reyes) Since much of the region's existing rail and goods movement corridors run along the Los Angeles River, direct LADOT and DCP to report on ways to design a transportation system that coexists and provides multiple benefits to the Los Angeles River while serving transportation needs.

18. (LaBonge) Direct LADOT to improve the City's taxi system by establishing a "red car" or a Metro Red Line taxi system that would take travelers to within a quarter of a mile of a subway station.

19. (LaBonge) Direct LADOT to report back on ways to keep "big traffic," (large volumes of traffic) on "big streets," (such as Roscoe, Sherman Way, Victory Boulevards) to make the flow of cars more sensible.

20. (LaBonge) Direct LADOT to report back on freeway improvements that can be made to clear up "pinch points" (points of chronic traffic congestion) on local streets, such as Vermont Avenue, Silverlake Boulevard and Glendale Union Avenue.

21. (LaBonge) Instruct LADOT to report on ways to seek local funding opportunities with other jurisdictions that would allow Los Angeles to build future transportation projects.

22. (Rosendahl) Direct LADOT to report with a proposal to develop a bike path in Mandeville Canyon.

23. (Hahn) Direct the CLA to include a self-help funding clause in the City's Federal legislative agenda relative to transportation funding formulas that would credit local jurisdictions that have taxed themselves to fund transportation projects.

24. (Greuel) Instruct the CLA to report with the City'S transportation legislative priorities before the State Legislature's February 22,2008 deadline for new bill introduction.

25. (Hahn) Direct the CLA and LADOT to report on the steps necessary to include the Harbor Line rail proposal in Metro's Long Range Transportation Plan.

Photo: Richard Akia/Flickr

Nearly 50 residents of the Sylmar community, located in the San Fernando Valleyattemded a community planning meeting sponsored by the LA Department of City Planning to deliver a message: Sylmar wants a change. Tired of the poor planning that has encouraged a seemingly random development pattern and has ignored the transportation impacts of development on the residents; the community is using the creation of a new community plan to call for better roads, sidewalks, bike lanes, horse paths and transit service.  With some access to mountains and rivers, Sylmar has an active equestrian community.

The meeting was supposed to focus on planning for the environment, but much of the audience's comments had to do with transportation and land use. While many people complained about bottlenecks on the surface streets that provide access to highways; the majority of the transportation complaints were about roads that encourage people to drive quickly, imperiling those that aren't driving.

For example, many areas along surface streets lack sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk on the road and many bike paths were started but like so many bike projects in Los Angeles, they don't form a complete network and often end without warning in the middle of nowhere. Horse riders' complaints mirrored those of the cyclists; the road network is built for cars and doesn't provide a safe network for equestrians.

Residents also complained about the lack of transit options. One speaker noted, "we get transit when budgets are full, and get them cut when they aren't." The San Fernando Valley Service Sector will be meeting tonight to vote on Metro cuts that will affect Sylmar.

Bad transportation planning wasn't the only thing on people's minds. Speakers also complained about sprawling development patterns that have left the community without a downtown, without cultural centers and without places for people to gather and "enjoy the night...as a community."

The Planning Department's project manager, Anita Cerra, blamed the lack of specificity in Sylmar's last plan, written in 1997, for some of the problems Sylmar sees today. Echoing comments by Planning Department General Manager Gail Goldberg, who recently called the existing community plans "horrible," Cerra said the problem with the Sylmar's current plan is that it isn't nearly specific enough to block bad projects.  Cerra promised the new plan will be strong enough to better protect the community and help the community grow in a more sustainable way.

But a good plan isn't a guarantee of a better community. While City Planning seemed receptive to the community input, planners conceded that even with a good community plan, they can't guarantee that the plan will become a reality without proper funding and the political will to make change. If last night is any indication, the community is ready for change. Armed with a better community plan, they should be able to make it happen.

The draft plan should be available for review soon, and the draft environmental review should be completed later this year.

Image: Affordable Housing Institute