Streetsblog Los Angeles

Candidate Weiss and his union supporters last March. Photo: Jack Weiss/Flickr

Former City Councilman Jack Weiss has not been what one would call progressive on most transportation issues.  While he backed the Mayor on transit issues, he also was his largest backer for the massively unpopular Pico-Olympic Plan which would have sped up rush hour automobile traffic at the expense of parking for businesses, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.  Weiss sounded a progressive tone on his candidate's survey for Streetsblog, but also backed an LADOT plan to remove traffic calming in Holmby-Westwood.

None of this history explains his bizarre editorial in today's Jewish Journal where Weiss makes the case that Los Angeles desperately needs an National Football League team because of the city's lack of public spaces.

Instead, I want to discuss the more subtle, community-building impact of a stadium and a team. I didn’t understand this issue in 2002, but I know more now about the city than I did then.

Los Angeles is an anomaly. We may have beaches and mountains, but we have very little in the way of shared civic space. The “Civic Center” itself is a fib of a name. We lack grand walking avenues, a true central park and pedestrian plazas. We drive from home to work on elevated freeways, park underground and then drive home again, rarely interacting with one another in the way common daily in New York, Chicago, Washington or San Francisco.

When we feel a need for communal spaces, we turn to developed space, not public space. The Grove, Century City, L.A. Live, Universal CityWalk and Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade are popular precisely because city planners permitted the city to grow wide and not deep. They fill a gap that our city’s infrastructure cannot — pedestrian-friendly space for thousands of people at a time...

...And that’s what intrigues me from an urban policy standpoint about an NFL stadium — it addresses what Bret Easton Ellis’ narrator was talking about in “Less Than Zero” when he said, “People are afraid to merge in Los Angeles.” It fills the void in Paul Haggis’ opening lines from “Crash” — “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”

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Traffic calming prevents left turns at corner of Hilgard and Lindbrook

Nearly a month ago, we discussed the efforts of local Councilman Jack Weiss and the LADOT to remove three temporary traffic calming measures that were placed on streets surrounding the Palazzo development to mitigate traffic on the streets surrounding the large, mixed-use development.  Before the traffic calming can be removed, it requires the blessings of the City Council.  When the Transportation Committee heard Weiss' motion to remove the signs and cones protecting LeConte, Weyburn, and Lindbrook avenues, the hearing wasn't going well for Weiss and his allies.  Thus the motion was pulled  so Weiss could try and negotiate an agreement between the communities.

Tomorrow, the motion is back on the agenda.  Despite some efforts to get the communities to sit down and talk about their disagreements, no meeting has actually been scheduled.  (Update: A meeting between the two sides and Weiss' office did take place last night.  The hastily scheduled meeting was put together after the City Council had scheduled tomorrow's hearing)

For those new to this issue, here's the crux of the problem.  As part of the agreement between the Palazzo Development in Westwood and the Holmby-Westwood Community, traffic calming measures were placed at the intersection between Weyburn Avenue and Le Conte, Weyburn and Lindbrook Streets to prevent cut-through traffic.  For the traffic calming to permanently remain, it would need the support of two-thirds of the effected community in an LADOT mail survey.

The "effected community" as described in the agreement voiced approval for the traffic calming measures by a margin of 72%-28%.  However, the LADOT's standard for measuring community support for traffic calming has a much larger area than what is described in the developer's agreement.  So, the LADOT surveyed a "compromise" stretch of the population which approved of the plan by only a 60%-40% margin.

Of course, by not sticking to either their standard or the protection plan approved in the development agreement, they're basically begging to be sued no matter how this turns out.  But that's another issue.

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Jack Weiss speaks to supporters on election night.

Late last night, 5th District City Councilman and candidate for City Attorney Jack Weiss responded to our candidate survey.  While Streetsblog has been critical of some of Weiss' transportation priorities as Councilman, there's a lot to like in Weiss's responses to our questions.  Some highlights:

"No level of pedestrian fatalities is acceptable for any city. Aggressively prosecuting negligent motorists who kill or cause bodily harm to a pedestrian is critical to send a message that the City will not tolerate aggressive and negligent behavior, but by then a life has been lost and the damage has been done."

"All too often there is an information gap that needs to be closed between the directives of the Mayor and City Council and what is enforced day to day on the street. We witnessed this problem most recently when LAPD officers detained numerous cyclists based on a bicycle licensing program that had been terminated by the City Council weeks earlier. This has to stop."

For a full copy of Weiss' responses, read on after the jump.

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Photo: Los Angeles Times

I've been promising for awhile to write out questionnaires for the remaining candidates for City Attorney.  Here are a couple of questions I would like to put to paper, but since the whole point of blogs is "two-way communication" how about all of you play editor and review my questions and add your own in the comments section.  Next week, I'll compile everyone's comments into a document and send it both Jack Weiss and Carmen Trutanich.  When I hear back from them, you'll be the first to know.

There has been an uptick of violent collisions where drivers are failing to see pedestrians in crosswalks resulting in a crash. What role do you see the city attorney taking in the efforts to keep our streets safe for all users?

When a motorist kills a pedestrian and the motorist is found not to have any drugs or alcohol in their system it seems as though the police have their hands tied on what they can do. How would you empower police to better investigate when a pedestrian is killed by an unsafe driver?

There’s been a lot of discussion of cyclists as a key part of reforming transportation. Conversely, I hear from drivers all of the time that cyclists don’t follow traffic laws and are generally a nuisance. What, if anything, do you hear about cyclists and how would that affect the way you perceive traffic justice?

Many times when a cyclist is struck by a car, there is little to no effort to charge the driver with any sort of crime unless there is something spectacular about the crash such as last summer’s crash in Mandeville Canyon. Why do you think this is, and what can be changed about it?

While almost all of the races in yesterday's city-wide elections were foregone conclusions before the ballots were counted, there are still a couple of important races yet to be decided.  Ironically, the races that are yet to be decided are the races between Fifth District City Councilman Jack Weiss and Carmen Trutanich for City Attorney and the race to replace Weiss in the Fifth District which has been narrowed down to Former state Assemblyman and West Hollywood City Councilman Paul Koretz and Century City area homeowner activist David Vahedi.

These races will be decided on May 19, roughly two months and two weeks from today.  In that time, Streetsblog will put together surveys for each of the four remaining candidates for the two offices and report back their answers in un-edited responses as we receive them.  However, this being a blog, a medium for two way communication, I'm asking for your help.  What questions do you want to see the candidates answer concerning transportation, development and Livable Streets before the May 19th runoff?

It might not seem obvious at first what value a survey of City Attorney candidates by transportation reform advocates could have.  However, "enforcement" is the third of the three "e's" of transportation planning joining "engineering" and "education;" so people may want to get the future city attorney on record right now concerning their visions for lawful and safe streets in Los Angeles.

In the case of Vahedi and Koretz, we already know a good deal about their transportation plans.  The Los Angeles Times ran a series on all the Fifth District Cadidates' views on both the Expo Line and development in more general terms.  Of course, the blog "BikingInLA" invited all candidates to write a statement on cycling issues in Los Angeles.  Vahedi responded.  Koretz has not.  In addition to what's already out there, what do you want to know from the candidates?

I'll post the surveys before I send them out on March 18.  Streetsblog will do the same for the candidates to replace Wendy Greuel in the Second District once the details of the election and the candidates are known.