Streetsblog Los Angeles

(Update: I got a little confused by the motion.  It will shut down through traffic on Yucca Street in Hollywood, between Las Palmas Ave. and Whitley Ave.   Cars are permitted, through traffic is blocked.  Curbed found me out. – DN)

In 1995, the City of Los Angeles installed some temporary traffic diverters at three intersections along Yucca Street to keep vehicular traffic and discourage other illegal activities that were too common-place such as drug dealing.  They closed the intersections with concrete bollards and later with attachable plastic traffic bollards.  Over the years, the experiment has been a success.  Crime rates on Yucca have dropped off while people-powered transportation has flourished.

View Yucca Street in a larger map

Seventeen years later, Councilmen Eric Garcetti and Tom LaBonge want to finally make the closures permanent while creating a more inviting place for cyclists and pedestrians.  The concrete bollards at the intersections of Yucca and Las Palmas, Cherokee, and Whitley Avenues has degraded creating a community eye sore and the temporary plastic ones are so beat up that in some cases drivers go right over them without even realizing that they are there.

The Councilmen hope that making the closure permanent, and working with the LADOT they can create more attractive and permanent ways to keep car traffic from using Yucca.  When pressed as to why they’re proposing to make the “temporary” closure permanent now, after 17 years of “temporary,” staff pointed to the poor shape of the bollards, a desire to improve the look of the three intersections, and a chance to make sure the intersections and Yucca Street work as a bicycle corridor.

For cyclists, Yucca Street already includes sharrows from Cahuenga Boulevard to Vine Street as part of a north-south bikeway connector. LADOT plans to create an east-west arm of this connector on Yucca Street by extending the Sharrows west to Highland Avenue. Staff for Garcetti believe this will create a comfortable corridor for bicyclists who wish to avoid busy Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue.

The City Council Transportation Committee will hear this motion as part of the regular meeting on Wednesday.  Streetsblog will follow-up on this story as it moves forward.

Villaraigosa at the L.A. Auto Show in 2010. It's ok, we know you're only smiling because you're daydreaming about the CicLAvia you had ridden in the month before. Photo:Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images North America via zimbio

Picture this.  One day one of the most important political figures in the city stands in front of a major Downtown attraction and announces that train service to this attraction will be increased dramatically in the coming weeks.  The next day, a major political figure, flanked by an up-and-coming political star and the City Council President, stands with the head of the local automotive dealer lobbying group and announces a political proposal to end business taxes for car dealerships.

In most parts of the world, that would be a sign of a hot political campaign with two candidates offering competing visions for a city’s transportation  future.  In Los Angeles, it’s just two days in the life of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  While car dealerships are praising the Mayor’s proposal, supporters of green transportation options are puzzled by today’s announcement.

“This city can’t take too many more of Mayor Villaraigosa’s ‘business friendly’ policies,” writes Alex Thompson, President of Bikeside. “The guy extends Metro hours one minute, and decides he wants more car dealerships the next.”

Earlier today, Villaraigosa, Council President Eric Garcetti and Councilman Mitch Englander stood toe-to-toe with the car dealership lobby and announced a plan to end local business taxes for car dealerships operating in the City of Los Angeles.  The plan makes sense from a short-term economic point of view.  Auto dealers produce substantially more sales tax than business tax. In 2010, auto dealers accounted for only $3.6 million in business tax revenue but $29 million in sales tax revenue.

But the three pols see a potential sales tax boom if they can convince the car dealerships that have fled the city for Glendale, Pasadena, and Beverly Hills to come back.  Since 1986, the City of Los Angeles has lost 95 auto dealers. If those 95 dealers were still operating within the City limits, Los Angeles would have an additional $57 million per year in sales tax revenue.  In addition to the new tax proposal, Villaraigosa also announced that Beverly Hills Porsche is moving from Beverly Hills to Los Angeles.  The Mayor’s Office of Economic and Business Policy helped to persuade Beverly Hills Porsche to come to Los Angeles by pulling department directors together and speeding the permitting process.

“For too long, LA’s business tax has driven auto dealers outside the City limits,” said Villaraigosa.  ”It’s time to reform the way we tax auto dealers so that we can bring more jobs and more sales tax to our City.” Read more…

Photo: Eric Garcetti

(Update: We're getting word that these racks have also popped up on Flower Street and Ventura Boulevard.  One person was so excited he wants to know where to send a "thank you" note to LADOT.  If you're the first to send in a picture of meters in an area there's a Streetfilms T-Shirt in it for you.  We'll post a composite series on Friday)

In my first post of 2009, I asked readers what they wanted me to cover and discuss in the new year.  One reader pointed out that with the city's change to meterless parking, a lot of bike parking was removed.  It may have taken half a year, but the LADOT has installed fifty-two of what their calling "meter hitches" on former parking meter polls on Hollywood Boulevard between LaBrea and Vine to create new bike parking. 

These new "hitches" have been used in other cities as they modernize their street parking so cyclists have as many places to park their bikes as before.  LADOT implied at last week's Transportation Committee meeting that hundreds more of these "hitches" are just waiting to be put up.

A statement from Garcetti's office is available after the jump.  If you see more of these racks pop up around the city please, let us know.

Read more...