Editor's note: Today we have a guest post from Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who has represented Oregon's 3rd Congressional District since 1996. He is the lead sponsor of the House's "CLEAN TEA" climate legislation and founded the Congressional Bicycle Caucus.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer. Photo: Airdye.com

With much excitement, today we are launching the Livable Communities Task Force -- an official initiative of the House Democratic Caucus that will work to improve community livability and Americans’ quality of life.

This means reducing the nation’s dependence on oil, protecting the environment, improving public health and investing in housing and transportation projects that create jobs and give people more commuting choices.

As Chairman of the Livable Communities Task Force, this is an exciting moment for me. When I first came to Congress 13 years ago, people sometimes looked at me funny when I used the term “livability.” They had no idea what I was talking about. Today, not only are blogs like yours dedicated to transportation, infrastructure, and livability, but other leaders in Washington are talking about how to make our communities more livable.

The Obama administration is leading on this issue, having recently established the Partnership for Sustainable Communities with six “livability principles” for coordinating policy across the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

What a difference a year makes.

The Task Force is made up of 20 members from around the nation who are leaders on everything from transportation and building efficiency to renewable energy and community gardening. In the coming months, we will work with members of the administration to hold briefings and strategy sessions on everything from the livability provisions in the energy and climate legislation that passed the House to the pending transportation re-authorization.

After spending a lifetime in public service working to make our nation’s communities more livable, it feels like the pieces are coming together. America was ready for change when President Obama came into office. It is exciting that in 10 months we have moved legislation that will rein in global warming pollution. With the leadership of Secretary LaHood and Chairman Oberstar, we are gearing up for a transportation bill that will make smart investments in low-carbon transportation, give people more commuting choices, and reduce America's dependence on oil.

It is an honor to lead this unique Task Force and, and I am eager to work with Congressional leaders and members of the administration who are committed to protecting our environment and making our communities safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

With all the remarkable recent livable streets improvements in New York, it's no surprise the tenth annual Walk21 Conference chose the Big Aplle. Visitors and attendees salivated over new pedestrian infrastructure and public spaces, including tours of the recently opened High Line and a special visit to the soon-to-be-restored High Bridge. Featuring a plethora of speakers, design charrettes and walking workshops, the three-day event drew experts from the UK, Austria, Japan, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Italy, and Australia, among other places.

We were able to speak with the organizers as well as conference registrants, and also got a chance to chat with headliners such as Jan Gehl, Janette Sadik-Khan, Kristina Alvendal (Vice Mayor of Stockholm), and Gil Peñalosa (Walk and Bike for Life, Ontario) about the future of walking and the vital importance of this conference in inspiring world leaders.

Livable streets prodigy Elli Giammona. Photo: The Missoulian

Elli is a 9-year-old in Missoula, Montana who a couple of years ago began to question why she couldn't bike to school. When her mother explained that it wasn't safe because the road leading from their home to Hellgate Elementary -- a typical suburban arterial, from the looks of it -- didn't have a sidewalk, Elli took action.

With encouragement from her mom and the help of her younger sister and older brother, she petitioned Missoula County, gathering signatures and composing a letter explaining the benefits of a walkable Mullan Road. The Missoulian reports:

The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2009, around the time [county public works director Greg] Robertson was looking for a project eligible for American Reinvestment and Recovery Act dollars. Criteria? A quick turnaround, a project in the urban area, and one uncomplicated by problems like right-of-way negotiations and extra environmental reviews.

"Honestly, I didn't have any other projects for consideration at the time that would have met the criteria," he said.

Long story short: A new trail is expected to be finished in time for Elli to ride it to school next fall.

Not only has Elli made it safer for herself and her neighbors to ride a bike or take a walk, she's also made plain how completely the stars must align for something as simple as a car-free ribbon of asphalt to become reality. (Even now, the planned Missoula trail won't connect with the school because of right-of-way costs.) Just a few decades ago a kid riding or walking to school would be considered the epitome of American wholesomeness. Now it's a symptom of child neglect, in part because of infrastructure so obviously inhospitable that even a 7-year-old gets it.

In the end, it really wasn't about David Byrne.

Even though it was billed as An Evening With David Byrne, anyone who attended last Friday's panel discussion at the Aratani/Japan American Theater in Little Tokyo expecting rock star insights from the former Talking Head and current Bicycle Diaries author would have been disappointed.

Clearly, though, that wasn't what the evening was about.

Instead of a delivering a sermon on bikes and livability, he was here to start a conversation. And rather than using his celebrity to get people to listen to him, he used it to get us to listen to people we should have been listening to all along.

Which isn't to say that he wasn't entertaining, or that he didn't manage to make his key points, which was that livable cities require effective planning and public spaces that allow people to interact with one another. It also doesn't mean that he didn't have a book to sell, autographed copies of which flew off the sales tables in the lobby after the show.

However, after a brief initial presentation, Byrne stepped aside and let the evening's real stars - UCLA urban planning professor Donald Shoup, Michelle Mowery, Senior Bicycle Coordinator for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and cycling activist Jimmy Lizama, co-founder of the Bicycle Kitchen - take center stage.

The role of bikes in a more livable world

Byrne kicked things off with a series of slides showing how the futurist urban plans of the early 20th Century led to today's impersonal concrete-lined streets, noting that people don't fit into modern urban design. "This is pathetic, the way cities treat their citizens." He also talked about the unique view of urban life offered from the saddle of a bike, and offered slides of bike infrastructure - good and bad - from around the world.

Introduced as a "parking rock star" - which he noted isn't the same as a real rock star - Donald Shoup offered an amusing look at the wasted space and high costs required to park the endless parade cars that pass through our cities every day. He went on to discuss the problem of drivers endlessly circling city streets looking for underpriced curbside parking, rather than pay market prices; as he put it, "drivers cruising for parking really are on a road to nowhere." He noted how bikes can help reduce these problems, and looked at bicycling infrastructure that "works," including physically separated bike lanes, contraflow lanes and bicycle boulevards - adding that you could build a dozen bike boulevards for about what it cost to build two recent roundabout in Westwood.

As an audience member said, Jimmy Lizama was the real rock star of the evening, drawing a huge round of applause simply for taking the stage. In a rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness style that made note taking almost impossible, he told the story of his transformation from a non-rider to bike commuter to bike messenger to one of the area's most respected bike activists. "The L.A. I know and love is bicycle and pedestrian friendly," he said, and later added, "I like the freeways, I think they'd make great bicycle paths."

Respect for someone local cyclists thought they knew

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was the grudging respect earned by Mowery.

As LADOT's Senior Bicycle Coordinator for the last 15 years, Michele Mowery is the government official L.A. cyclists love to hate - a Fully Assimilated Bureaucratician, as one local bike writer recently put it, and for many riders, the public face of LADOT's perceived failure in providing effective cycling infrastructure in the city.

Yet her brief presentation suggested that image could be the result of forces beyond her control, from a lack of funding to a bureaucracy that seldom supports cycling. Improving bikeways doesn't just happen, according to Mowery; it takes technical support, funding and the political will to make changes. "We need an educated and excited constituency to speak to elected officials on the local, state and federal levels," she said.

She also positioned the proposed new bike plan, not as an end in itself, but as something to revisit and build on for the future. The key, she said, is finding a way to communicate to motorists and authorities that we have equal rights to the road. Cyclists need to write letters - not just emails, but actual hard copy letters that can be passed around and shared - because elected officials don't hear from bicyclists often enough. "They need to hear from all of us."

News was also made during the question and answer period, when it was announced that plans are in motion for the city's first cyclovia - or cicLAvia, as the organizers put it - with a $25,000 grant from the California Endowment. In addition, it was announced that a $1.5 million grant has been awarded to build L.A.'s first bike station at the L.A. Convention Center downtown.

The panel was as part of the ALOUD series, presented by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (Photo: Zimbio.com)

Not every advocate for cleaner transportation may agree with LaHood's response, but it certainly marks progress in crafting an effective message for the Obama team's nascent livability effort.

The U.S. DOT is also actively touting its contributions to bicycle and transit infrastructure, cheering last week's premiere of the Washington D.C. Bikestation -- 80 percent of which was federally funded -- and calling for an end to the long-standing turf wars between different modes of transportation.

Will the administration succeed in quieting critics of its livability work? If highway lobbyists' latest take on the issue is any guide, it may take some time.

In the meantime, LaHood's full interview in the October addition of the AARP Bulletin is available after the jump. He talks about the White House's Green Cabinet, the stimulus law's slim pickings for transit, and other hot transportation topics.

All Photos by Joe Linton unless otherwise stated.

LONG BEACH'S LIVABLE COMMUNITY AGENDA

Long Beach is the 36th largest city in the United States and the 6th largest city in California. It is, however, Los Angeles County's second most populous city; at a half-million people it's about 1/8th of the city of L.A.'s four million. It's just this sort of comparison that Long Beach doesn't want to hear.

Long Beach, in looking to differentiate itself from Los Angeles, and even from adjacent Orange County, has embarked upon an ambitious and for-Los-Angeles-County-unprecedented "Livable Community Agenda." Long Beach wants to become known as great place for bicycling and walking. The city, of course, sees this as desirable for the health and well-being of its residents, and as good for the environment... but it's also an economic development strategy. If Long Beach is to attract and retain companies and workers, then it needs to be able to compete. The city has decided that livability will make it competitive.

The Livable Community Agenda has the broad support of Long Beach's City Council and is a top priority for its city manager.

Long Beach has plenty of infrastructure that's already conducive to biking and walking. It has a historic downtown, still relatively intact, despite decades of car-centric redevelopment. It has significant density, especially in its southern beach-proximate formerly-street-car suburbs. It's well-served by transit, including the Metro Blue Line and Long Beach Transit. The city is surrounded on three sides by bike paths: on the beach and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers.

Charlie Gandy and Sumire Grant

ENTER CHARLIE GANDY

Long Beach's Transportation Programs Officer Sumire Grant embarked upon a nationwide search for a leader that could spearhead Long Beach's new bike/ped agenda. The city made a really smart move bringing in Charlie Gandy as its mobility coordinator earlier this year. Gandy is a nationally prominent bicycling proponent, who played a huge role in fostering livability in Austin Texas (which helped differentiate that city from Dallas and Houston.)

Charlie Gandy immediately helped the city step up implementation of its 2001 Bicycle Master Plan. In the past 6 months, the city has striped 15 miles of new bike lanes, in some cases removing parking and/or car lanes. It has mostly completed the facilities designated in its worthwhile, but less-than-visionary, master plan.

Then Long Beach really got down to business.

LIFE IN THE GREEN LANE

StreetsBlog readers may remember that in June 2009 Long Beach made a big splash with their innovative green-stripe sharrow lanes, based on a design piloted in Salt Lake City. These handsome lanes extend 15 blocks on 2nd Street in the heart of Long Beach's very popular Belmont Shore commercial district. The sharrow lane makes current law explicit: bicycles and cars share the street; bikes take the lane and stay out of the door zone.

It may not be intuitively obvious, but the city's primary goal for these lanes was actually reducing bike-ped conflicts. Belmont Shore is a very popular shopping street, with sidewalks nicely very crowded with pedestrians. Pre-sharrow counts showed that 42% of bicyclists on 2nd Street choose to ride on the sidewalk. The same counts showed 48% of bicyclists riding in the door zone, so another project goal was to get bicyclists to take the lane. Though often favored by newer, less-confident bicyclists, sidewalk riding and door zone riding are actually much more dangerous than riding in the middle of the lane.

The city recently completed post-sharrow counts and the results are very promising! Overall, bicyclist volumes have increased by 29% - the daily average went from 414 to 538. Sidewalk bicycling declined by 17%. Door zone riding declined by 7%. Cyclists taking the lane increased 22% - from 12% to 34%. No bike-ped or bike-car crashes have been reported. Anecdotally, it appears that cars are tending to use the left lane, which is making parallel parking easier and safer, too. The lanes are very comfortable for pairs of cyclists to ride side-by-side.

Merchants and others were initially skeptical, fearing that moving cyclists off the sidewalk would result in car-bike crashes. Some members of the  business association are already asking if the project, a 1-year pilot, can be made permanent. Sharrow lanes have been requested by businesses from other Long Beach commercial areas, including 4th Street, Bixby Knolls, and Downtown.

Though their numbers have decreased, many riders are still on sidewalks or in door zones, so the city plans to launch an educational campaign. The city is also currently designing a project that would extend 2nd Street's livability interventions eastward into the Naples neighborhood. That project tentatively includes removing a car lane, widening sidewalks, and adding an eastbound bike lane and a westbound green sharrow lane.

TRAFFIC CALMING DOWNTOWN

Yesterday, workers were putting the finishing touches on a smart small traffic calming project at the corner of 1st Street and Linden Avenue in Downtown Long Beach. Both of these are two-lane roads with diagonal parking. The city installed a pair of landscaped curb extensions (also called bulb-outs.) Curb extensions narrow the roadway, creating shorter and safer pedestrian crossings; the narrower roadway psychologically cues drivers to slow down.

With the diagonal parking, curb extensions can free up quite a bit of real estate. Long Beach's project has plenty of landscaping, wider sidewalks and even room for outdoor dining for the adjacent Village Grind coffee shop and Utopia restaurant.

A closer look at the project reveals a series of circular metal objects in the street. It turns out that these are actually retractable bollards, located at both ends of the block. The city can easily raise these bollards up to create a 1-block ciclovia-type space for festivals, farmers markets, and the like.

Cars were taking their turns pretty slowly. Carefree pedestrians and bicyclists were easy to spot. Coffee drinkers were sitting, sipping and watching. It all feels very civilized.

COMING NEXT FRIDAY - Part 2: What's underway for the Long Beach's near future: a tale of cycletracks, bicycle boulevards, traffic circles, federal stimulus money for bikes, and much more.

Last weekend the Eco-Village sponsored a weekend of events designed to empower the residents within and surrounding the Eco-Village and reclaim their streets.  On Friday night, they hosted Portland architect and activist Mark Lakeman, founder of the City Repair movement, who encouraged those listening to think of themselves as villagers empowered to take control of their streets instead of vassals to the bureaucracy known as local government and DOT's.  On Saturday, they took his words to heart and went to work on their own street at Bimini Place.

Local activist and author Eric Knutzen gives a good description of the talk at the Homegrown Evolution blog:

Lakeman believes in actions that correct what he believes is our disassociation from nature and our alienation from each other. He's a passionate opponent of the grid, the imposition of street networks and regimented thinking that he traces back to Roman imperialism. He's probably most famous for inspiring groups of like-minded neighbors in Portland to adorn their streets with furniture and elaborate murals, usually done without asking for permission (see examples on an interactive map). He wants to empower us all as "villagers", in charge of our own collective fate, rather than as serfs subservient to distant bureaucrats and moneyed interests....

....we've got to look to nature and at each other to devise the form of our cities. The form these villager led interventions take in Los Angeles, Austin, Iowa City and Brooklyn are going to be different. What all our cities share in common is the need to get started immediately to undo a century's worth of bad planning and disempowerment.

What better way to follow-up that sort of inspiration than with a street party designed to re-claim a street and provide the local children a safe place to interact with their community and have fun.  A number of Eco-Villagers have written about what happened on Saturday and there's a lot of pictures of the event.  Briefly, the villagers barricaded the streets, brought out the street paint and got to work.  In addition to decoration, they also installed crosswalks at the intersections in front of the Eco-Village.  Naturally, they did this without the sanctions over our bureaucratic overlords Downtown.

For more coverage of the event, and a host of photos click over to these stories at the Eco-Village Blog, Handmade Ransom Notes and Urban Adonia.

First glance at a new Victory Boulevard?

For those not familiar with the area, let me paint a picture.  Victory Boulevard is basically a four lane highway that cuts Woodland Hills into two pieces.  Near Shoup Boulevard is a gigantic, and expanding mall surrounded by acres of parking lots.  Treatments for the road that are on the book include pedestrian over passes, a sure sign that the road is inhospitable to pedestrians.  Remaking Victory Boulevard into a complete street would be a major victory for Livable Streets.

Not shockingly, the LADOT confirmed my suspicion that the new paint isn't an indicator of a new and better design for Victory.  Instead of slowed traffic, bike lanes and better pedestrian accommodations we'll have the same speeded-up traffic we see today.  There's no bus-only lane planned for Victory Boulevard, unless we're talking about the one in Staten Island.

I'm sure some people reading this story had to think me crazy that a road such a Victory could go under such a large change.  Last summer the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborood Council held a Saturday series called "Destiny in the Valley" where planners and Caltrans professionals outlined what would be a "Great Street" for Valley roads.  The Victory Boulevard of my dreams sounds awfully similar to the "Great Street" described by local Caltrans Director Doug Failing.

But, for a couple of hours I was able to think that a new, safe and multi-modal Victory Boulevard might be on its way. 

The Los Angeles Eco-Village is continuing its battle with the the Los Angeles Unified School District over the LAUSD's plans for a 137-space parking lot to be located across the street from the main apartment building of the Village.  If the LAUSD goes forward with its current plan, it would literally add hundreds of vehicle trips to a street that the Eco-Village has worked for years to make as car-reduced as possible.

If you're interested in helping them out, you can read more about their efforts and get some draft letters here.  To learn more about the Eco-Village check out the Streetfilm done on the Eco-Village last year.

Earlier today, the City Council Planning Committee heard how the City is addressing the state mandate to bring "Complete Streets" planning to Los Angeles.  For those of you who don't remember, last fall Governor Schwarzenegger signed A.B. 1358 into law which required municipalities to construct streets that are safe and accessible for all users when municipalities redo their general transportation elements.

While the city isn't planning to update our general transportation plan anytime soon, despite claims from the City Council otherwise, the Planning Department was able to respond to Councilman Ed Reyes and the rest of the committee by claiming that everything is fine.  The city is well on it's way to be a leader in complete streets.  You can read their full report here.

In their report, they do point to many laudable pilot programs as proof that the city is really serious about making bicycling and walking a priority in their planning.  Most of these are a step in the right direction, for example: the Los Angeles River Improvement Overlay, the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan, and the standards for Downtown Streets.  However, they also listed the Bicycle Plan as proof that they're moving forward.  Even though I was listening to the hearing on my laptop, I could almost hear the LACBC's Doroty Le's eyes roll when she described the claims that the plan "would make L.A. one of the most bicycle friendly streets in America" as "overstated."

Joe Linton, who wrote about this issue at the Green L.A. Transportation Working Group Blog, also testified that while it's great that the city is moving forward with a series of great pilot programs; the City should focus on re-working it's street design to better accomodate everyone that uses it, not just the cars but bicycles, pedestrians and, yes, even horse people.

I tend to agree with Linton that these select few great projects prove the rule that in general our transportation planning is extremely car-centric.  But what do you think?  Is the city's path to creating a transportation grid that works for all users going to come about because of a series of progressive pilot programs that show the way or because of an overhaul of the way we do design our streets?

Before he was president, he was a fan of "complete streets." (Photo: whitehouse via Flickr)

Many urbanites remember the last congressional transportation bill as a disappointment that pushed a pro-highways approach while forcing transit projects to compete for a small slice of the federal funding pie. But that 2005 transportation clash brought us some instructive moments that escaped the mainstream media's focus at the time.

As a semi-regular feature on Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I'll be looking back at past transportation debates that have the potential to impact the upcoming re-write. For today's installment, let's look at the "complete streets" amendment that fell six votes short of passage in 2005 but had a pretty crucial sponsor: then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

The "complete streets" amendment submitted four years ago was similar to the legislation that was recently re-introduced in both the House and Senate. It would have required state DOTs to account for bike paths and pedestrian access wherever feasible and required metropolitan planning organizations that serve populations of 200,000 or more to appoint a coordinator for bike-and-ped programs.

Obama did not speak in favor of the amendment, but the future president's early endorsement of complete streets principles provides a powerful tool to livable streets advocates working on this year's transportation bill. Few arguments are as effective in Washington as a charge of flip-flopping -- to which the Obama administration risks exposing itself if it doesn't support a national "complete streets" policy in this year's bill.

What's more, if senators maintained their past positions, the Obama "complete streets" amendment would almost surely pass into law today. Since the proposal lost by six votes in 2005, 11 GOP Senate seats have flipped to the Democratic column (including party-switcher Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania).

Of course, "complete streets" may be included from day one in the Senate's next transportation bill, especially now that the House has added similar language to its climate change legislation. But that would open the door to a GOP amendment striking "complete streets" from the bill, and to the same tired and false rhetoric that Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) used to kill the Obama amendment in 2005:

Yesterday Miami became the latest American city to pull off a big car-free event, when an estimated 2,000 people (including mayor Manny Diaz) took to the streets for Bike Miami. Mike Lydon at Transit Miami reports:

South Miami Avenue was much more like an urban plaza than a street. Did you notice how the cafe seating and active retail edges allowed people to watch the active participants promenade through what became more a stage than a street? It was a beautiful event and instructive. Indeed, I have never seen such an exercise of urbanism within downtown Miami. The event clearly demonstrates the wonderful potential of downtown Miami and I think the event's organizers and participants now understand what livable streets can mean for the health of downtown Miami.

Clarence Eckerson and the Streetfilms crew have been all over the wave of Ciclovía-inspired events this year, filing reports from Chicago,  New York, Portland and San Francisco. As for videos of Bike Miami, some hand-held footage has surfaced on YouTube, and after the jump we've got the introductory remarks from Mayor Diaz and local district commissioner Joe Sanchez.

Photo of South Miami Avenue: Transit Miami

Video: 305librarian

As I mentioned below, today I'll be out and about with Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson.  To help wet your appetite for what we're filming today, and the three upcoming Los Angeles Streetsfilms, here's their most recent offering by Nicholas Whitaker who shot a couple of LA Streetfilms' last spring.  Whitaker's film focuses on Chicago;s "Sunday Parkways" festivals where the city shuts down miles or roads to cars to open the street back up for people.  I the film maker's own words:

By closing down over three miles of parkways to cars for four hours, the event allowed people of all ages and walks of life to step into the streets and experience the richness of these neighborhoods in a more livable way.

Spanning from Garfield Park, through North Lawndale and Little Village, participants danced, rode bikes, played games, excersised, walked, talked and enjoyed the beutiful weather.  After years of hard work, the organizers of this even were able to bring together community groups and citizens to put on this beutiful experiement in livable streets. Here is to an even longer and more frequent Sunday Parkways Chicago next year!

A Complete Streets Plan from New York

To almost no fan fare, last week Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 1358, Assemblyman Leto's Complete Streets Legislation, into law.  According to a press release from the Complete Streets Coalition, this legislation requires:

...cities and counties to include complete streets policies as part of their general plans so that roadways are designed to safely accommodate all users, including bicyclists, pedestrians, transit riders, children, older people, and disabled people, as well as motorists.

While the new law is a major victory for Livable Streets Advocates, especially the California Bike Coalition who listed the passage of this legislation as their top priority in recent years, advocates' work is far from over.  Jim Brown, the Communications Director for the CBC, commented in a recent Streetsblog post about complete streets:

Caltrans has an internal policy called Deputy Directive 64 that calls for consideration of the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians for state highway projects, including design, construction and maintenance. That policy is being updated and strengthened to more clearly align with Complete Streets principles and could be unveiled in the next few weeks.

In both cases everything depends on implementation. For AB 1358 the Governor's Office of Planning & Research will develop general plan update guidelines that will (ideally) carry out the policy expressed in the bill. And DD-64 is just a statement of policy -- next will come development of specific implementation guidelines. The work is just beginning!

Image: Streetsblog

The Great Taco Truck War of 2008 is over, and the winner is the Taco Truck.  In August, a judge ruled that a new county ordinance requiring four wheeled food vendors to move every hour or face fines up to $1000 was struck down in court.  Last Friday, the Los Angeles District Attorney's office announced it would not appeal the decision.

Supporters of the ban argued that the ordinance was a quality of life issue for residents who live near where the trucks do business at "all hours of the day and night."  So far, there's been no discussion of what is next for efforts to regulate Taco Trucks, but urban planner James Rojas has an idea he's pitched before; why not license the trucks and develop some street vending regulations?

Image: Mattlogelin/Flickr

Last week, the state legislature finally passed AB 1358, The Complete Streets Act.  This legislation would require that all modes of transportation be given equal consideration when Caltrans or any other government body in California spends funds on a road project. Other states that have passed similar legislation include Oregon, Illinois, Massachusetts and Virginia.

Passage of this type of legislation is at the top of the "to do" list for bicycle and pedestrian reformers throughout the country including the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition and the California Bike Coalition. 

I guess state legislators know how to say "Happy Birthday."

For such a groundbreaking piece of legislation, it received scant notice in the press.  Over the last week, the only news story on A.B. 1358's passage can be found in a Sacramento Bee editorial, which devoted one paragraph of an editorial to the legislation over the weekend.

Pedestrian safety: Assembly Bill 1358 would require cities and counties to accommodate all users – including bicyclists, pedestrians and transit passengers – when building new streets and highways. This "complete streets" bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco would encourage the building of more sidewalks and bike lanes statewide. It dovetails with the governor's efforts to fight obesity and reduce greenhouse pollution.

However, as with all things in Sacramento these days, this important piece of legislation is caught in the logjam created by the Governor's insistence that he will not sign any legislation until after the legislature passes a balance budget.  However, that timeline doesn't work for local bike advocates.  The LACBC wrote their members yesterday with instructions of how to write to Governor Schwarzengger.  Their draft letter and instructions can be found after the jump.

Photo: Ohio Cap City/Flickr

LA City Councilman Tom LaBonge is making news again.   On Thursday, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission will hear his proposal to limit the size of new development along the historic "Larchmont Avenue" south of Beverly Boulevard.  The Councilman, at the request of local residents, is hoping to preserve the "small town" feel of the shopping district.  From LaBonge's weekly email to his constituents:

Tom's proposal to preserve Larchmont Village will be aired by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission next Thursday, Sept. 11 at 8:30 a.m.  The meeting will be held in City Hall Room 1010.  If you plan to attend and would like to reserve parking in a city lot, please call Anna Nunez in our office at (213)485-3337.  The commission will consider Tom's proposed zoning restrictions which would limit the height  of any new development in Larchmont Village to 35 feet.  The plan would also preserve the existing five-foot setback and limit the width of individual storefronts to 50 feet in an effort to preserve the small-business atmosphere.

LaBonge has been on the case since residents raised concerns that property owners would see greater profit in renting properties currently leased by small business owners to the El Toritos and Pinkberry's of the world after the popular La Luna Ristorante lost its lease last year.  If adopted, his proposal could protect these businesses as well as encourage potential chain retailers from moving into three large retail buildings that take up an entire block of Larchmont.

Photo: Sean_Yoda_Rouse/Flickr

Since Streetsblog first broke the news that another cyclist was assaulted on the Ballona Creek Bike Path last month, people have been asking what we can do to make the trail a more safe place.  While I have some ideas, as someone who has never actually taken a ride along the trail I would be an odd choice to tell interested users what "they should be doing."  But do you know who would be a better choice?  Streetsblog readers.

To that end, I've started a discussion group in the "Livable Streets Network" for Ballona Creek Trail Safety Issues.  Right now, the group is just me.  But, having talked with some of you I know that the group will grow quickly in the near future.  By joining the group, you'll be part of a private listserve on trail discussion issues and will be able to communicate with other trail users instantaneously.  I hope we'll be able to come up with a list of goals and organize an action plan together.

To join, you need to be a member of the Livable Streets Network.  To do that, go to the Livable Streets Network Homepage and create an account.  Once that is done, click on the groups link at the top of this page and search for "Ballona."  From there just join the group and start talking.  I started the first topic, wondering whether we should organize a "Take Back the Trail" ride or not, but the number of discussion topics is limited only by your participation and imagination.

If you want to start a Livable Streets Group for another project, please do so.  You can set the group to have open membership or invite only and when it comes to "taking back LA's streets one block at a time" we need all the help we can get.

San Francisco held its inaugural car-free "Sunday Streets" event last weekend. New York Streetsblogger Jen Petersen was there and files this report.

Whatever the weather, San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf doesn’t suffer from a shortage of dollar-shelling, strolling tourists on weekends, and so clearing street space for more people-powered mobility on a sunny morning had instant takers.  As was the case at New York’s Summer Streets, more than a few participants simply stumbled upon the event.  And since Civic Center and Fort Mason was hosting the U.S.’s first Slow Food Nation, a foodie-drawing tribute to regional, small-scale food producers, there was an even greater influx of slow and deliberate pilgrims on this particular weekend. There wasn’t a chance that the northern part of the route would go un-used, though I wondered how many San Franciscans actually ventured that way. But save for the artisan street vendors set up as usual at Market Street and Embarcadero, the weekend-shuttered financial district was still a tourist no-go zone. 

South of the Ferry Terminal Building (itself a regional foods marketplace), however, cyclists, walkers, rollerbladers, and runners transitioned to the physical activity-promoting leg of the route. And so rounding the bay’s curve to South Beach, where the SF Giants’ AT&T Park was open for base running, and the China Basin inlet, where Cheryl Burke Dance Studio offered Tribal Belly, Afro-Colombian, Salsa, and East Coast swing dance classes all morning, the re-appropriative potential of the street came to life. I maintain: there is no higher social use of street space than dancing!

And while the dance stage set up in front of Pier 48 was a lively space, the China Basin/Mission Bay stretch of the route felt fashioned by a place-marketing tour agency. Freshly-constructed condos and little else lined the street’s west side, while barbed wire fencing barred bay access for most of the route.  But oh how that unobstructed sapphire bay view beckoned! I found myself daydreaming about a waterfront Sunday Streets with free kayaks and canoes on offer.   

Pedaling beyond condo-led redevelopment’s reach, my thoughts turned to residents of the route’s immediately adjacent, currently park-poor neighborhoods. Did they know about the street closure, and had they toured this ribbon of their city on car-free streets, taken in a free dance class, or at least breathed in an unusually quiet view of the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate? Or was this Wharf-to-Bayview route more effective for place marketing to the economically mobile, who might now add the yet-to-be-named, still comparably industrial waterfront south of Mission Bay to their "possible purchase" map?

Regardless, there were many smiling faces, and much inter-modal cooperation. For a city that has a hard time holding on to families with children, San Francisco (or the wider Bay Area) certainly has plenty who will show up with bikes, provided they can safely reach the designated route. Family bike gangs were more numerous than spandex and logo-covered road rider packs, Critical Massers (away at Burning Man, perhaps?), or fixie-fixated hipsters. The traffic current was slow, there were no lane markers for different modes and paces, and riders helped to point out perilous streetcar tracks for their fellow riders. And movers of all speeds even dismounted and unlaced rollerblades to dance together, still helmeted, in front of Pier 48. Maybe this is the most incisive indicator of a successful Ciclovía-style event after all. 

Photos 1 & 3 by Jen Petersen; Photo 2 by pecanpieguy/Flickr

Last night Site LA  hosted a workshop where invitees were invited to plan for the ideal city of the future.  Attendees were encouraged not to think in terms of what is practicable but to assume that they had a magic wand and could just make whatever they wanted to happen happen. 

When Metro asked the public to imagine the future, there were set guidelines, basically we were asked to think about transit alleviating highway traffic.  Last night, the only guideline was that we had to be able to render our vision in a 3-d model.  Given small boards and some items found around the house, the "urban planners of the future" got to work creating miniature, futuristic versions of James Rojas' downtown model currently on display at the 7th and Fig Art Center.

While the mini-models were a far cry artistically from Rojas, the themes were the same.  The participants imagined a future with an amazing transit system, walkable and bikeable streets, dense development and lots of public space.  Only one participant of 40 mentioned cars at all, the rest focused on moving people not cars.  At one point a person explaining their project pointed at all of the "transit lines" and admitted they weren't sure how they fit together yet.  A person shouted out, "oh, your city is LA!"  Laughter ensued.

Some of the ideas should be studied today, such as a ferry system connecting beach areas and ocean adjacent cities.  Others, such as a kite system to fly people from building to building, probably need some more work before they can be applied to the world as we know it.

Once the nearly 40 participants had presented their views we were sent back to our tables to try and unify our vision with those sitting nearest us.  There was some more hodge-podge planning and people discovered that by and large our visions worked together pretty well in creating a unified plan that was completely different than where we're heading. 

Ok, so people don't like the future of urban living that we're being presented with, a city choking on its own traffic.  That's hardly news.  The next question is what we do about the problems we're facing today to create the sustainable transportation that we all imagined last evening.

The event was moderated by Site LA's resident genius Dorothy Le and urban planner James Rojas.  Many of you may also know Le as the planner for the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition.  Joining them was Gordon Feller, CEO of the Urban Age Institute and the Master of Ceremonies at the annual Meeting of the Minds conference coming to urban areas nationwide. 

Feller set the tone for the evening with a presentation that put into perspective the challenges facing urban planners.  Already more people live in cities than not worldwide and by 2030 over 60% of all humans will live in urban areas.  Unfortunately, when it comes to transit and planning, the western world hasn't set the best example on how to grow and as we struggle to grow in a smart way, cities in developing countries are repeating our mistakes.  However, last night wasn't about wallowing in our mistakes but dreaming of our future.  As Feller said towards the end of his presentation, "The alternative to a breakthrough is a breakdown...tonight is about imagining the what not the how."

Following Feller's introduction, the groups were randomly formed and people got to work creating their mini-models.  After each person presented their vision we reformed as groups and worked together on a larger model.  Some groups literally stacked their models on top of each other, and others tried connecting their mini-cities to create a larger urban vision.  There was no right or wrong way to think about it, after all, we were only constrained by our imagination.

For example, while my group encompassed the aforementioned kite system, three of us had similar ideas about separating local transportation from long distance commuter transportation.  Thus people would utilize bikes and sneakers to get to major transit hubs that would connect to other major transit hubs.  Buildings would have amenities for bikes and pedestrians and because of frequent service people would be able to move from point A to point B quickly and safely.  Or, they could use kites to swoop from building to building.  Their call really.

While none of the 5 major plans presented are going to win awards for their artistic merit, each "city" presented a unique vision of the transportation future, none of which focused on the automobile.

Perhaps odder than some of the models, the event was sponsored by Toyota as part of their "From Here to There: A Heya Project."  While it was certainly odd to have an event on the future of transportation, a future that if the participants had their way wouldn't include cars, paid for by a car company.  However according to Geri Yoza, Toyota's National Marketing Manager and a participant, "There is no one solution to our transportation problems, only by understanding how young people think and what they want will we, as a company, be prepared for the future whatever it may hold."

To see more pictures from last night, go to out Flickr page here.

Photos: Damien Newton