Streetsblog Los Angeles

The Woodland Hills Warner Center Community faces a tsunami of development. The Westfield Village bulldozers are revving, the Warner Center Specific Plan update is underway and the 3rd densest employment center in the City is besieged with gridlock.

The community needs a plan to fight back and reclaim their streets.  To that end the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Community Council has assembled a panel of visionaries to discuss the problem and elicit feedback from the community at an open meeting this Saturday at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital Auditorium from 8:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The public is invited to join in the discussion on the issues and opportunities that challenge our neighborhood including traffic congestion, urban design, water reclamation, energy conservation, mass transit, accessibility, mobility, walkability and livability.

The panelists includes:

• Bart Reed, Transit Coalition Executive Director
• Joyce Pearson, Chair of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council
• Denny Zane, the former Mayor of Santa Monica during the revitalization of the Third Street Promenade
• Larry E. Smith, Executive Director of North East Trees

Following the lead of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Conference of Mayors will consider a resolution making the case that bicycling should be integrated into our nation's transportation, climate, energy and health policy initiatives.  They will vote on the resolution at a conference that begins this Friday and ends on Tuesday, June 24.

The LACBC joins the League of American Bicyclists in encouraging cyclists to call their mayors and tell them you want this resolution passed.  The LACBC helpfully supplies the number, 213-978-0600, and email address, mayor@lacity.org, for Mayor Villaraigosa's office.

Of course, Villaraigosa isn't the only local mayor attending the conference, just scanning the list of attendees I see mayor's for Long Beach, Manhattan Beach and San Gabriel will all be present.  Every Mayor has an equal vote at the conference, so make sure to let  your mayor know that biking is important to you in the next couple of days.

Photo: Damien Newton 

Complete Streets advocates received a double dose of good news this week from Washington, D.C. For the first time ever, Complete Streets legislation is now introduced in both Chambers of Congress after the Safe and Complete Streets Act was introduced in the House of Representative. Meanwhile, the Senate version of the bill received its first Republican cosponsor.

Sacramento Democrat Doris Matsui introduced the Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2008. Unsurprisingly, Matsui's move was praised by transportation reform advocates, but her office notes that Complete Streets is popular with more than just bike riders, pedestrians and transit users. Her press release, the full text of which is available after the jump, quotes not just leaders of the Complete Streets movement but also clean air advocates and the AARP.

Meanwhile, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman became the first Republican in either the House or the Senate to cosponsor Complete Streets Legislation. Coleman joins Senators Tom Harkin (D-ID), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Thomas Carper (DUE) as cosponsor of S. 2686, the Senate version of the Safe and Complete Streets Act. Harkin introduced S. 2686 earlier in April.

Complete Streets laws would insure that all federal transportation dollars spent on road projects are used to improve conditions for all potential users of the road, car drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and transit users. While Complete Streets has proven controversial nationally, it has been adopted by several states including California, Oregon, Illinois, Massachusetts and Virginia.

 The League of American Bicyclists has set up an action alert to help people contact their Senators in support of S. 2686. Currently, neither California Senator is a cosponsor.

A full copy of Matsui's release is available after the jump.

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Enraged by the Expo Construction Authority’s decision to increase funding for an overpass at Culver City and not for a grade separated area by Dorsey High School, the Citizen’s Campaign to Fix the Expo Line (Fix Expo) has obtained legal counsel and intends to sue to Expo Authority to force more grade separations in the South L.A. part of the project.

Fix Expo’s complaint can best be summed up by one paragraph in the press release:

"They found the money for the Figueroa underpass at USC and they found the money for overpasses in Culver City," said Carol Tucker of the Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners. "They find the money for everything and everywhere except South LA. Have they no shame?"

It sounds like the lawyers advising Fix Expo are two heavyweights. One is a former California lawyer of the year and the other a veteran of Labor/Community Strategy Center vs. MTA, which resulted in the consent decree which has guided Metro planning for the last decade, will be heading up the legal team.

A full copy of the press release can be read after the jump.

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While the New York Times is discovering a growing livable streets movement in Los Angeles, our Paper of Record’s transportation columnist, Steve Hymon, is ready to throw a party for a road widening project in Eastern Sierra. The widening will double road capacity from two to four lanes for 14 miles between Independence and Big Pine. It should be completed in 2009.

According to the article car traffic is light on the now two-lane stretch of road but that the road’s duel use as a truck route makes it more perilous. Hyman goes into detail about some of the horrific crashes that have taken the lives of motorists and passengers along the route, but in every example given, the fault of the accident lies on drivers who were driving recklessly not road conditions.

For example:

Take, for example, the crash near Olancha last August. A 23-year-old woman from Cerritos was driving a Toyota SUV on the 395.

Stuck behind an SUV pulling a trailer, she tried going around and rammed into a Mazda traveling in the other direction. A 14-year-old girl in her SUV died, as did a female passenger in the Mazda.

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The Los Angeles County Bike Coalition is urging cyclists everywhere to submit comments on Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan. As we’ve noted here before, Metro isn’t just a transit agency, but also the main transportation planners for LA County. While the current Draft Long Range Transportation Plan is long on deserving transit projects, the total amount of funds that will be available for bicycle and pedestrian projects is between one and two percent of the total budget for the next thirty years.

Of course, the plan is still a draft and changes can be made…which makes getting written comments to Metro by April 25th asking for greater investment in bicycle and pedestrian projects all the more important. The LACBC has put together some talking points and all of the necesary contact information that you can find after the jump.  If you’re interested in reading my testimony, you can find it here.

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The California Assembly Transportation Committee passed Assemblyman Mike Feuer's legislation that would allow LA County to place measures on the ballot to fund transportation projects.  A.B. 2321 allows for the county to levy an additional half cent sales tax that would go directly to transportation projects after approval by two-thirds of voters.  The controversial A.B. 2558 will allow the county to increase vehicle fees or the gas tax in the name of fighting climate change with majority support of voters.  Both initiatives could be on the ballot this fall.

Passing committee is just a first step in allowing LA County to raise the funds they need to build all of the projects outlined in the Long Range Plan. Before any of these fees will be in place, Feuer's legislation would need to pass the full Assembly, the full Senate, be signed by the governor, placed on the ballot by L.A. County and passed by the voters.

Following a brief debate on whether or not animals should be allowed in the rears of pickup trucks, the Committee discussed A.B. 2321.

After a brief speech by Feuer introducing the legislation, Metro Board Member Richard Katz and a representative from the San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce both testified in favor of the bill.  Disappointingly, both testified about how the new funds would impact on automobile congestion. There was almost no discussion of how the funds could be used to provide alternatives to the automobile. When others were given the chance to briefly voice support for the legislation, CALPIRG representative Emily Rusch quickly commented that these funds could be used for a lot of deserving transit projects.

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Have you ever looked at a major construction project and wondered how it would affect your commute? Most times, those developments add a lot of traffic to LA’s already congested roads, but unless you’re living in one of five small zones in the city, such as the Warner Center, that require it; they don’t bring in any money for transportation improvements.

Metro is looking to change that.

Since 2003, Metro has been working on the framework that would allow LA County municipalities to adopt "Congestion Mitigation Fees" which would be charged to developers based on the amount of trips their development will create. While Metro would create the guidelines, it will be up to individual municipalities to adopt the ordinances to create the program and collect the fees.

Nevertheless, the members of the City Council Transportation Committee expressed some concerns about the program at yesterday’s meeting.

Councilmember Tom LaBonge expressed frustration that Metro would be placing barriers in the way of developers. After discovering that "Congestion Mitigation Fees" were being pushed by the state and not USDOT, LaBonge took Metro to task, "I feel the agency is getting away from stuff like building transit systems and road systems."

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LA Streetsblog picks up the action as UCLA holds a 28-15 lead over the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in their Sweet Sixteen match up in the NCAA Tournament. UCLA is wearing their home whites despite being miles from Westwood. The game is being broadcast nationally at CBS.

Meanwhile, Metro Board Chair Pam O’Connor was wearing her road pinks at her home court at Santa Monica City Hall for a call-in-show about Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan. Metro Live! was broadcast on LA City Cable Channel 36 and Santa Monica Channel 16.

Just like UCLA ended up winning after some shaky moments, O’Connor gave a strong performance despite perhaps over focusing on the benefits of TAP cards. We pick up the action, after the jump.

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The Los Angeles City Council is poised to pass what could be groundbreaking legislation next week, and based on public statements about the legislation, may not even know it. Next Tuesday, the Council is scheduled to vote on a motion that would spend $2 million to study "West Los Angeles Rail Corridor and Connectivity Analysis." While promoting this plan, Councilmember and resolution author Bill Rosendahl noted the importance of having one vision to tie together all of the rail and bus projects on the Westside.  However, the resolution’s mandate is also to study the options to create "Livable Boulevards" in West Los Angeles. Following yesterday’s ribbon cutting at Bimini Place, Los Angeles is re-positioning itself to change the way it thinks about urban development and transportation.

A Livable Boulevard is a street that isn’t just designed to move cars, its designed as a center of place for transportation and the community. Livable Boulevards provide equal access to many transportation modes including walking, biking and transit. To protect pedestrians and cyclists, streets also have traffic calming and landscaping designed to slow down traffic. Development along Livable Boulevards emphasize mixed-uses, so that people can live, work, shop and be entertained without needing a car.

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