Streetsblog Los Angeles

The Ovarian-Psyco Bicycle Brigade Luna Ride for May. The women ride out Saturday evening from Proyecto Jardin in Boyle Heights. Photo from Ovarian-Psycos Facebook page

Cinco de Mayo is often celebrated in bars, with people donning red, green and white apparel, and drinking tequila. While people miss out the meaning of Cinco de Mayo – the Battle of Puebla anyone?- the best party this Cinco de Mayo can be found tomorrow night on a bike, and looking up at the sky.

The Ovarian-Psycos Bicycle Brigade, an all-women bicycle collective with Eastside roots, are having  their monthly Luna Ride, or Full Moon ride, tomorrow night in one of the most exciting environments for the year. Tomorrow’s women-only ride will also have one of the largest full moons of the year.

The group will start gathering at 5 P.M. at Proyecto Jardin, a community garden in Boyle Heights, and will ride out at 5:30 to City Terrace to the Coyolxauhqui Statue, a memorial to the Aztec Moon Goddess. Proyecto Jardin will also have a  salsa contest before the ride that is open to the public.

Tomorrow’s super moon will appear to look 14% larger and 30% brighter than other full moons in 2012. The super moon will reach perigee, or the point it gets closest to the earth in its elliptical path, at 8:34 pm.

The Ovarian-Psycos are an all-women bicycle group that advocate for increasing women-ridership, but also increase social awareness on issues surrounding women. The Ovarian-Psycos have had Luna rides since their inception. The ride shows how women’s menstrual cycles have connection to the moon cycle. This is an all-women ride, and it is open to bicyclists of all skill level. Read more…

Ever since I attended a lecture by Donald Shoup at the LA Street summit in 2010, it has been stuck in my brain that most municipal zoning codes effectively make it illegal for developers to pursue truly sustainable models of development. Parking minimum requirements set a bar for levels of parking that must be built, often with arbitrary formulas based on building use and size written during decades when trends of car use and ownership were on very different trajectories than they are today.

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To make headway on environmental sustainability, and the lack of affordable housing in Santa Monica, both significant issues in recent Santa Monica politics, I believe it is time to give up on rigid parking minimums.

On the sustainability front, the present scale of automobile dependency in America is not enduring; as fuel becomes more costly and automobile infrastructure investments that expand capacity produce diminishing returns. Given all this, buildings with very low, or zero parking spaces for cars are more sustainable than those with large surface lots of deep garages, regardless if a LEED certification is stamped on it or not. However such car-lite development and land use is outlawed in most areas of Santa Monica, and really most of America.

In the realm of housing, as I pointed out in the post concerning the new affordable housing building going up on Pico Boulevard, high levels of parking for cars adds to construction cost and diminishes the number of units that can be provided for housing people. Developers and managers bundle the cost of parking with units, causing higher rent for anyone living in the development regardless of whether they own a car (or two) or not.

In the case of non-profit developers, fewer units will be constructed to make way for parking. Many of the most affordable market rate apartments in the city could never be built now, because they have too few parking spaces. My own building would not be built if proposed today.  Only a few units of our small complex have parking garages.

Such codes can be circumvented to some extent in Santa Monica through the request of a zoning variance.  Applying for a variance triggers a costly and time consuming public process with no guarantee of earning a variance. For the big developers, passing through such hoops is an annoyance but one they will go through with a team of experts to navigate the process.

For smaller developers, businesses and land owners, seeking a zoning variance to allow fewer parking spaces is a hassle most avoid; even if building fewer parking spaces could benefit their bottom line, provide cheaper retail space for business, or more access to housing.

Take for instance this small 8 unit half finished apartment building, started in 1997 in Santa Monica and featured recently in the Lookout News.  The development languishes with a tight budget, a difficult permitting process that changed during construction, and impractical codes for the site foot print. In 2010 some exceptions were made for senior housing.  This project is now “senior housing” in order to get a parking requirement reduction.

“But while the battle with the contractor has been a major cause of delays, the biggest problem has been parking, according to Desai. A four-unit apartment requires eight parking places for tenants and at least one for guests, he said.

“There isn’t any room,” he said. To meet the standards, Desai said he would have had to demolish the building and start from scratch, which he simply couldn’t afford.” Read more…

Proposed York Boulevard Street Porch, Highland Park. Click on the image for a high resolution pdf of the image.

Move over Sunset Triangle Plaza, a pair of street reclamation projects on the Eastside are threatening to steal your thunder as the most progressive street reclamation project in Los Angeles. Living Streets L.A.and Councilman Jose Huizar unveiled new designs for a “street porch” on York Boulevard in Highland Park and a “street plaza” on Huntington Drive in El Sereno.  Both designs are completely unique as they arrived as a result of an extensive community process that started with a simple question, “How would you like to improve your street?”  Nearly a dozen sessions later, each community devised surprisingly similar plans. “Ryan [Living Streets' Ryan Lehman] and I were pleasantly surprised that when given the option to choose any street improvement, the project both people chose were in one case a street porch and another case a street plaza,” explains Steve Rassmussen Cancian, the architect for the project. Rasmussen Cancian prefers to avoid the term “parklets” which confuses people by leaving the impression that the city is planning something bigger, such as a soccer field, for the middle of the street.  He prefers the more descriptive “street porch” for the above pictured design for York Boulevard which is actually resembles an urban porch.  For El Sereno, pictured below, he prefers the term “street plaza.”

The El Sereno Street Plaza. Click on the image for a high resolution pdf of the image.

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Bicycles ride past Mariachi Plaza on the 1st Street Green Bike Lanes. Mariachi Plaza is one of the first stops in the proposed Boyle Heights expansion that has been stalled for the past year. Photo from LADOT Bike Blog

For CicLAvia, figuring out how, when and where to expand has been its biggest challenge.  While CicLAvia is free to attend, it costs a lot of money to push past the current 10-mile route, closing streets to cars, providing police support and re-routing car drivers who find entrences and exits from the freeway blocked.  Despite CicLAvia’s success, money to expand has been hard to find.

Yet, CicLAvia is working with what they have. At a CicLAvia board of trustees meeting last week, trustees decided the existing route would be cut at certain parts in order to accommodate an expansion in other parts. Bobby Gadda, CicLAvia board of trustee president, said that CicLAvia expansion on First Street to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights would be in the draft route the board will send to the city next week for the next CicLAvia in October.

“(We’re) pretty committed and looking to make it happen,” said Gadda about the Boyle Heights expansion.

Currently, LADOT provides services for the 10-mile route but can’t provide for more coverage. If miles were to be added, CicLAvia would need to hire contractors to manage the same services LADOT would do, adding an extra cost to their budget, Gadda added.

For an event that has after four CicLAvia, with media outlets saying each brought out more than 100,000 participants, it remains in a precarious financial state.

“We’re back to zero in terms of funding,” said Gadda going into this October’s CicLAvia. 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.

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.

Avid Streetsblog reader Simon Hartigan is tired of drivers driving down the Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lanes. After catching drivers using the bike lane as bypass, he sent the video to Streetsblog. This raises the question of what should the city’s next step to protect the bike lane be? Is it time for grade separation, or would a little LAPD enforcement be the best effort?

A portion of Hartigan’s email that accompanied the above video is below. Added emphasis is mine:

Bike lane or bypass lane? I was filming before and caught many culprits using the Spring Street bike lane as a bypass lane. The average might be as high as 1 per minute or two. I even took a phone call before while on the lane just hanging out for a bit not blocking any bike traffic, and got yelled and screamed at by motorists for blocking their bypass lane, so the car drivers also feel entitled to it as their space. This happens every time there’s heavy traffic on Spring Street…