Streetsblog Los Angeles

Another truck parked in the bike lane.

One of the major obstacles to building a truly bike friendly city isn’t in the engineering and design of a street, it’s in the enforcement and respect given to all modes of travel. In the above picture, a truck is blocking the new bicycle lane on Sepulveda Boulevard. Sadly, this not an unusual occurrence in this part of the 1.2 miles of bike lanes.

Why do trucks feel as though they can park in bike lanes with impunity? The most obvious answer is that: they can park with impunity. They almost never get ticketed. Second, city owned vehicles are parked in bike lanes on a regular basis. Los Angeles has sent a message, parking in a bike lane is o.k.

In this case, the truck is actually a city-owned vehicle. If you haven’t already guessed which department, click on through to see which Department is blocking the bike lane. Read more…

New bike lanes extend from National Boulevard to Venice Boulevard along Sepulveda Boulevard

In April, a pair of North-South bike lanes appeared on 1.2 miles of Sepulveda Boulevard, providing a crucial connection from National Boulevard to the Venice Boulevard bike lanes. The new bike route actually spans two City Council Districts, the 11th District represented by Bill Rosendahl and the 5th District represented by Paul Koretz.

I’ve had the chance to ride the lanes a handful of times since the paint went down on April 2. The ride can be bumpy, and the Northen end of the route tends to attract trucks, especially the large retail stores just south of National Boulevard. Still, the lanes have changed my riding pattern and anecdotally are welcomed by Mar Vista riders. The lanes bring no controversy, they were put in without causing the elimination of any mixed-use travel lanes.

“Every new bicycle project brings us closer to the goal of building a truly multi-modal transportation system here in Los Angeles,” explains Rosendahl. “I’m ecstatic to be part of this transformative period, and while I’m pleased to see the bicycle infrastructure going into place, there’s still no question that much work remains to be done in creating safe conditions for everyone on the road.” Read more…

(Update: I’m leaving the text below unchanged so that peoples notes in the comments section makes sense.  Both LADOT and the Office of Councilman Reyes report that there has been contact between the Councilman and LADOT and that lanes will be built “next year.” – DN)

Two weeks ago, Streetsblog reported on efforts by middle school students at Nightingale Middle School in Cypress Park to encourage the city to build bike lanes on two streets connecting the community to the school.  While their efforts received something of a brush off from LADOT and Councilman Ed Reyes, the students are showing some tenacity.  B.I.K.A.S., a new advocacy website for bike advocates published more letters from students and the above video is starting to make the rounds with students and administrators making the case for safer bicycling.

In the video Jackson Huang, interviewed by another student who’s name I can’t make out, talks about his love of riding his bike and how it can be a dangerous experience.  Huang also addresses his comments directly to Councilman Reyes, whom LADOT claims could push the bike lane projects to a higher priority level.

“Ed Reyes, if we don’t get those bike lanes, people will get hurt and people will get more flats.  The United States is one of the most obese countries in the world.”

The video goes on to interview Mr. Summer, the Dean of Students, and Enrique Gonzalez, the principal.  Both are regular bike riders. Summer recounts a story of when he was hit by a bike while Gonzalez makes the case for a safer community.

The students aren’t asking for anything that requires a major lift from the city, just a mile of bike lanes to make their commutes safer.  The lanes would be on Cypress Avenue – from Pepper Avenue to Arroyo Seco Avenue (0.48 miles – immediately alongside NMS) and Avenue 28 – from Pepper Avenue to Figueroa Street (0.48 miles – one block from NMS).  Both lanes appear in the city’s bike plan and the city’s 5 year-implementation plan.

LADOT has said they would “love” to accelerate the projects but is waiting for leadership from the Councilman.

12.04.25 Newton Response Letter

Way back on February 23rd, Streetsblog updated its readers on our request to get a copy of the video from a Metro bus on January 19th when two Los Angeles County Sheriffs boarded, had an altercation with a mentally disabled woman, and eventually punched the woman in the face. The end of the incident was caught on camera by an army veteran and his smart phone. According to the veteran, the sheriffs tried to confiscate his phone.

During the back and forth in the press between Sheriff Lee Baca, witnesses and the victim; it became clear that the only end to the “he said, she said” was to be able to view the entire scene, from the moment that the law officers entered the bus through the altercation. Fortunately, such a record exists. Unfortunately, Metro is refusing to let anyone look at it.

Streetsblog requested a copy of the video from Metro’s usually helpful public relations department. They referred us to the public relations office. In early February, Metro rejected our request citing state statutes that didn’t seem to apply to this request. When we asked for clarification as to how these statutes applied, Metro sat on the request for ten weeks then sent us a response that didn’t answer any of our myriad of questions.

When we started this investigation, we were looking for information to clarify a public debate. As Metro continues to stonewall, our concerns have become more broad about a culture of policing that doesn’t allow for true public oversight.

We’re continuing to review our options going forward, but it’s clear that Metro isn’t going to hand over the records out of a sense of public responsibility. If you would like to contact a member of the Metro Board of Directors on our behalf, I’m including links to their email addresses after the jump. Read more…

Kids describe what a healthy community looks like to them at the Advancement Project's booth at the South L.A. Rising event. photo: sahra

If you were an alien that landed in L.A. this weekend, you could be forgiven if the juxtaposition of the festivities surrounding the opening of the Expo Line and the ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the L.A. Riots (Civil Unrest or Rebellion, depending on your perspective) left you a little confused.

Flying over South L.A. in your UFO, you would have seen a number of things that might have seemed contradictory: Small armies of parents taking their kids to ride the new Expo Line shepherded safely by colorfully-dressed Metro ambassadors; a small and rather rag-tag group of zombies dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” in a parking lot near one of the train stations;

Zombie flash mob at the Crenshaw stop of the Expo Line.

TRUST South L.A.’s flash mob asking Metro to consider the housing rights of residents living near the train stops; theater performances by the Watts Village Theater Company; the Community Coalition-sponsored gathering at 81st and Vermont celebrating South L.A. Rising; and two separate gatherings on the corners of Florence and Normandie — a riled-up one led by a group called the Coalition for Community Control over Police and a more celebratory one led by the 77th Street Area Community Police Advisory Board and the 77th Street Area Clergy Council.

B.C. from the Black Riders (the new generation of Black Panthers) after her speech calling for African Americans to unite to fight the system instead of each other.

Although seemingly disparate, the events were linked by underlying messages of unity and a call for all Angelenos to invest in South L.A. and participate in breaking down the boundaries between it and the rest of the city. Read more…

The proposed My Figueroa

(Not sure what the My Figueroa project is?  Check out this story from last year?)

Less than a month ago, it seemed as though the progressive South Figueroa Corridor Project, known as the My Figueroa project, was on the ropes.  No agency was stepping up to take it from the CRA and Streetsblog was pleading for someone, anyone, to take it on.

What a difference a month makes.  LADOT General Manager Jaime De La Vega can be heard calling the project a “legacy project,” and the Architect Newspaper is declaring a “Figueroa Comeback” now that LADOT is taking control of the project’s future.  The South Figueroa Corridor Project was a project of the Community Redevelopment Agency, funded by a state grant, which saw some of the most progressive local transportation consultants team with Gehl Architects, the legendary Danish transportation planning firm.

In early 2011, the team unveiled the project in a pair of meetings along the corridor that were packed with transportation advocates and community members.  When the CRA’s closed their doors earlier this year, the fate of the My Figueroa project was in doubt.

The project covers three miles of South Figueroa from 41st Street to Seventh Street as well as a half mile of 11st Street between Figueroa and Broadway, a half mile of Martin Luther King (MLK) Boulevard just south of Exposition Park, and a half mile of Bill Robertson Boulevard from into Exposition Park starting at MLK Boulevard.

Despite the happy news that the project might be back on track, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before the project becomes reality, and advocates can’t let up just yet.  This article breaks down some of the places where advocates might still need to apply pressure to make sure the South Figueroa Corridor Project goes from pretty posterboard to Los Angeles’ most Livable street.

The Project Timeline

The biggest remaining concern is the timeline for the project.  The state funding comes from Proposition 1B that funds the project from initial outreach through design expires early in 2015.  LADOT must complete the project by the end of 2014 to qualify for reimbursements from the state funding.  While the Architect Newspaper announced that LADOT would be completing and environmental study of the corridor with a group of projects in the Bike Plan, LADOT is backing away from that claim. Read more…

Touring Expo phase II corridor by bike with contractors, planners, and Expo BAC members. Photo from the pedestrian bridge overlooking the trench right of way following the 10 freeway crossing.

On Earth Day this past Sunday, the Expo Line Phase II Bicycle Advisory Committee, of which I am a member, was given a tour of the Expo corridor and bikeway proposals with a few of the private consultants and public planners involved in the project. Looking at diagrams is never a sufficient replacement for some on the ground perspective, so I was glad we had this opportunity to scope everything out. It was also exciting to see a few testing trains in operation in preparation for tomorrow’s opening.  I had not had a chance to get out and see the trains in action previously.

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A small contingent of BAC members and interested parties met up a little earlier than the scheduled meeting where Phase II begins, to take a look at the tail end of the Phase I bike route and get a sense for how it will flow together. While I am incredibly excited about the opening of the Expo Line, looking at the bikeway connections in Phase I did not inspire confidence in Metro and LADOT’s ability to plan for pedestrian and bicycle facilities to connect to rail stations.

As with many grand infrastructure projects, the engineering of Phase I overlooks many of the details of both form and function that matter to people at the street level. Either they still don’t get it, or Metro and LADOT just don’t care to make more than a minimal or required effort. What ever the case, bicycling was clearly the afterthought in the Expo planning and engineering.

Even simple and inexpensive things such as wayfinding are deficient, especially where on-street facilities transition to off-street paths. The crosswalk connecting to the La Cienega station from the northeast intersection corner was less than ideal. It is broken up by a right turn pocket with a traffic island. The island had landscaping across most of it, narrowing it to a small choke point, reducing the functionality of the island for people trying to get across and limiting standing room.

Even when building trains, it still seems that it’s all about the car in L.A. Getting a new bike route is better than the former lack of one.  In the case of the Phase I Bike Path, critical deficiencies at various points diminish the usefulness of this route as a feeder for the rail line or as a stand alone facility.  Metro representatives often remind me that cars take priority at intersections and cannot have their green time affected.  Bicycling ridership is modest, they say, never acknowledging that bicycling remains marginal because it is marginalized by design.

Take for example the absurdity of this post on bicycling safety along the Expo Line from Metro’s The Source. Riders are directed in the post to cross tracks as close as possible to 90 degree angles, but the bike lane striping pictured does not allow enough room to do so properly. Have none of the people responsible for designing streets and rail crossings ridden a bike since they were children? The depth of incompetence and lack of basic understanding of operating a bicycle within the American traffic engineering profession never ceases to amaze and dumbfound me. Read more…

After two months of delay, and after being pushed to second on today’s agenda behind the Westside Subway, the Regional Connector finally had a moment to shine at the Metro Board of Directors.  The environmental documents approving the Connector passed seven to zero.  The official twitter account for the Regional Connector celebrated by noting that the “Regional Connector has gone from a study to a project.  How cool is that?”  Given that the Connector is perhaps the most important project in the region, connecting all existing and future transit lines, the final passage of the environmental documents is very cool.

While the environmental documents were approved, a motion to allow Metro to move into “final design” of the project with their current contractor passed with amendments that required Metro staff to continue to work with hotels and financial institutions along the Flower Street route before moving into final design.  If staff and representatives from Flower Street can’t reach an agreement, then it would be up to contractos to determine if the desired modifications can be reached within the project budget.

Over the past two months, Metro staff worked with the Little Tokyo community and Financial District representatives to reach a compromise between the initial environmental documents and the concerns of the Financial District.

Metro delayed a vote on the Regional Connector environmental documents so that staff and business in the hotel industry and Financial District could work out a compromise.  With many of the major players from the Financial District absent from today’s meeting, the extended tunneling proposed for the Regional Connector, it will now be tunneled with a “deep bore” method for the entire route minus one block from 4th Street to Fifth Street on Flower.  The Source has a complete list of the changes made to the Regional Connector environmental documents to reach a compromise.

Other former Regional Connector opponents were also on-hand to voice support for the current alignment.

“Little Tokyo immediately recognized the impact of the Regional Connector to our community,” stated Chris Aihara, representing the Little Tokyo Community before thanking staff for working with the community to create a project they felt protected their community.  Mike Okamoto with the Little Tokyo Business Council later expressed support for the project but warned that details still need to be addressed for a mitigation plan. Read more…

The subway extension route approved today covers this route. The rest of the subway will have to wait for the May, June or even July meeting. Click on the image for a larger view.

The first of several major issue scheduled to be addressed by the Metro Board of Directors was the approval of the environmental documents for the Westside Subway.  After the Beverly Hills City Council formerly requested a hearing earlier this week, Metro staff recommended that the Board split approval for the Subway into two parts so that part could be approved today and part could be approved after another hearing was held.  The first part would cover the extension from the current Wilshire/Western stop to Wilshire/La Cienega.  The route approved would be 3.9 miles of the 8.6 mile route that was proposed by Metro staff.

Despite news that Metro wouldn’t vote on the subway route under Beverly Hills or the location of a Century City station, dozens of speakers from Beverly Hills shared comments that tunneling under the high school would be unsafe and a smaller but still significant number of speakers testified that such a route is perfectly safe and that opposition from Beverly Hills is a waste of time and resources.  The majority of the comments addressed the routing through Beverly Hills.  Because Metro made clear before testimony that they would not vote on the issues regarding Beverly Hills, we’re not going to cover that part of the conversation.

Support for the Subway was overwhelming among the speakers.  Only two speakers spoke out against the proposal to extend the Subway from the Wilshire/Western Intersection all the way to La Cienega Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard.   Of the three speakers who spoke against the Subway in general terms, only the Bus Riders Union’s Sunyoung Yang made the case that the Subway was a waste of funds.  ”There is nothing sustainable or economically justifiable about this project when you are blowing $6 billion on a nine mile project,” concluded Yang.  Oddly, Yang’s comments were greeted by applause by many people who previously testified that they supported the subway and transit before hitting on some concerns unrelated to today’s vote. Read more…

As debate continues at Metro headquarters over the Westside Subway, the Parent-Teacher Association of the Beverly Hills High School released the above video on YouTube. The video graphically illustrates their concerns. Sometimes a video is so clear that commentary from Streetsblog writers is not necessary.