Reporting on last night's meeting, Ted Rogers, of BikinginLA fame writes of candidate David Vahedi:

As for Vahedi, he said that he absolutely opposed the project in its present form, and pointed out that he had filed the suit that initially halted the project. He said that he would support the elimination of on-street parking, which could add as much as 25% additional capacity during rush hour, but only after the city builds off-street parking facilities to compensate for the loss of parking spaces and prevent spill-over into the surrounding neighborhoods. And he noted that he and his family would be personally affected by this plan, as both he and his father live in the area bounded by Pico and Olympic.

An evening earlier I ran into Paul Koretz, Vahedi's opponent, who gave me a similar statement:

"I thought from Day 1 that removing parking without plans for an adequate alternative was a disaster...it make so little sense; I can't believe it's still being considered."

Assuming that Bill Rosendahl is still opposed to the plan, and the changes that were made don't address his concerns; you have to wonder about the politics of Pico-Olympic.  If both of the City Councilmen for the reasons effected oppose the project, and comments at public hearings close to 100% against; why exactly is this plan still being pushed?  Who is the Mayor's constituency in pushing this plan besides Santa Monica residents who "deserve" congestion relief on their trips downtown?

The more I think about the LADOT's new plan for the Olympic-West Pico-East project the more I think they may have gotten things backward.  Starting last night, the LADOT began a series of public meetings to provide the public input on "scoping" for the environmental studies, i.e. gave the public a chance to weigh in on what alternatives they would like to see to alleviate automobile congestion on Pico and Olympic Boulevards.

Meanwhile, while the public is discussing what alternatives they would like to see studied, the LADOT is promoting a plan they've already written which would take away peak hour parking and re-time the traffic signals to increase vehicle flow between Fairfax and Sepulveda.  In other words, we're being asked to provide alternatives for the LADOT to study that would compete with the alternative they've already developed.

The format for last night's public outreach meeting for the new Olympic-West Pico-East transportation plan was different than the other meetings for the project I'd been to.  Instead of a public presentation and open microphone for comments, attendees were invited to walk around the room to discuss the projects with a series of consultants and LADOT staff.  Different stations were set up to discuss the different concerns people might have with the project.

The new format did little to reduce public complaints and anger about a plan that would ultimately increae traffic in their neighborhood.  One resident basically commandeered the "parking" station where an image of the project area was projected onto the wall; and used it to make his own case against the project.  Residents also gathered around the a table set up for people to provide written comments to the point where it was sometime "standing room" only.

While many of the complaints were still directed over the impact parking would have on business, builder Avi Schonwald complained that businesses along the corridor were cancling renovation and expansion plans because removing rush hour parking would endanger their ability to stay open.  Another resident complained that the traffic plan would convert local businesses to "part-time."

Paul Koretz talks with the voters.

This is interesting because if Koretz is elected, then both of the City Councilmen whose districts would be effected by the plan would be in opposition to it.  Bill Rosendahl is already on record opposing it.

Amongst the parking mania, there were some people that were concerned that the LADOT's current plan, while a long way from the original one-way street proposal, still placed too high an emphasis on cars and not a high enough emphasis on the community.  There were some interested in bringing bus-only lanes to the boulevards and others concerned that the increased traffic would make it more difficult for pedestrians to use the street.

Last, there was a group concerned that the project ends at Fairfax Avenue, a street that is only two lanes in either direction.  When faced with overwhelming traffic on Fairfax, the street is already congested at rush hour, will commuters cut through local streets to avoid the bottleneck that will be created when the boulevards become four lanes again?

Surprisingly, LADOT project manager Ken Hustings had an answer to the question of "why stop at Fairfax" that wasn't "politics."  Apparently Councilman Wesson, who's district begins at Fairfax in that part of the city, had already planned streetscape improvements for the median and the new lanes would destroy the striping.  This is the first time since the project was altered to cut out Wesson's district that I've heard an explanation for this change other than "politics."

There's two more chances for residents to voice their concerns or suggest alternatives at public hearings tonight and next week.  If you want to mail comments send them by April 20th to:

Mr. Ken Hustings, P.E.
Senior Transportation Engineer
LADOT
100 South Main Street, 9th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012

The LADOT will be back with it's environmental review sometime in the fall or early winter of this year.

When I first read that the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation was holding public meetings this week on a revised Pico-Olympic Plan, I got nostalgic.  Covering the battle between the community and the city over the plan to remove rush-hour parking, restripe the roads and retime the signals was the signature story back at StreetHeat, the precursor blog to  LA Streetsblog.  As a matter of fact, most of the links below are to Street Heat stories that were brought over, which hopefully explains some of the issues with layout and image quality.

This morning, the LADOT released an outline for their "new" Pico East-Olympic West plan in advance of pulbic meetings this week.  There is one large change, instead of five lanes going in one direction and two in the other, the new plan has three going in each direction with extra room to create turn lanes.  Signal progression will still benefite people going in the "preferred" direction.  However, since a lot of the community was freaking out about the parking changes, I'm willing to predict the battle isn't over.

The "revised" plan for the boulevards would remove street parking at rush hour and convert the parking lanes into travel lanes.   After signals are re-timed there will also be greater priority given to vehicles traveling on one of the four lanes.  In typical fashion, the words "pedestrian" or "cyclist" don't appear anywhere in the summary.  Of course, it probably wouldn't aid their cause to mention that their plan would make the roads completely inhospitable to non-motorized transportation and a barrier for people foolish enough to try crossing the street on foot.

However, a lot of issues still remain with the new plan.  There's no mention of the lawsuit that forced the environmental review process of which these meetings are part, no mention of the impact the plan would have on traffic patterns on the local streets that connect or run parallel to Pico and Olympic Boulevards nor even a good explanation of any alternatives being considered.  Complete Streets?  Express Bus?  Anything?  And what about Councilman Rosendahl's demand that City Planning be involved in the creation and study of the plan?

As you may imagine, the history of this project is long and complicated.  To make it easy for new readers to follow and for veterans of the Pico-Olympic controversy to get caught back up, I've broken the story into six episodes.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

A long time ago, in a country far-far away, L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was on vacation and fell in love with the idea of turning Pico and Olympic Boulevards into one-way mini highways to alleviate congestion.  He brought the idea with him back to Los Angeles and suggested it for the Pico and Olympic and immediately created a panic in the community

Businesses feared that lost parking would hurt them, residents thought the plan would actually reduce automobile mobility for locals, environmentalists who understood the idea of induced demand argued the plan would bring more traffic and air pollution and pedestrians and cyclists viewed the seven-lane one-way streets as basically walls that would block them from traveling from one side of the street to the other.

The plan was sent back to the drawing board by Mayor Villaraigosa.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clone

After months of effort, the LADOT came out with a new plan in December of 2007 that embraced Yaroslavsky's belief that increasing thru-street capacity was the best way to alleviate congestion on these two boulevards.  Relying on a traffic study completed on a Jewish Holiday, the LADOT unveiled a plan that would not turn either street into a one way street but would create a "preference" for eastbound traffic on Pico Boulevard and westbound on Olympic Boulevard.  This way, the LADOT addressed the least important of the community concerns, making it possible for residents to go in either direction on their boulevard of choice.  All of the other issues remained unresolved.

In a show of the esteem in which they show community involvement, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the new plan via press conference flanked by Councilman Jack Weiss and transportation officials.  When his community basically freaked out, Weiss ducked every opportunity to explain his support for the plan or reconsider his support.

Following a packed, angry, house at a City Council Transportation Committee meeting, Villaraigosa sent the LADOT out to basically get yelled at for a couple of hours at a time.  From these meetings a consensus arose from the community that it had to do whatever it could to defeat the proposal.  Also, a new figure rose in opposition to the plan, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who did his best to hear both sides of the issue but ultimately sided with the community that would be directly impacted by this capacity enhancement-without-widening plan.

Farther South, Councilman Herb Wesson also expressed concern about the plan, so basically Weiss was opposed by Councilman to the east and west of his district.

Episode III: Revenge of the LADOT

With two of the three City Councilmen whose districts would be impacted by the plan opposing it, the LADOT struck a bargain with Wesson to cut the plan off at his district.  Thus, only Weiss and Rosendahl's districts remained in the plan before it went to the City Council.  With rumors floating that the plan was a "Done Deal" the Council actually rose up and tabled the plan until further study could be done.  An aggressive Rosendahl said he could support the plan only if the Department of City Planning was involved in the plan's creation.

Stung by the Council's rebuke, Villaraigosa basically ordered the plan forward anyway claiming the Council had no right to weigh-in on a restriping plan.  The Westside Chamber of Commerce and other community groups went to court after Rosendahl was shut-out of city negotiations.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Unsurprisingly, the courts ruled that the city needed to show some sort of plan and environmental review for a project that would add hundreds or thousands of new cars to the streets every hour.  The community celebrated the death of the "Done Deal."

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

However, the city wasn't done yet.  City officials surprised many people when they ordered the kind of study that was required by the court last summer.  The funding for the study swept through the Council, with even Rosendahl offering support since the plan would now embrace a "joined-at-the-hip" relationship between LADOT and City Planning.

Now the LADOT will hold hearings on their preliminary findings to garner community feedback.  Since the plan still has many issues as outlined above, there's still at least one chapter left to be written.

Episode VI: Return of the Public Meetings

The script is yet to be written but it will begin with these public meetings:

February's "Done Deal," that was later left for dead after a court ruled against the Mayor two months ago, is once again very much alive. 

Today the city council approved a resolution outlining how the city should conduct a full environmental review of the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative," the proposed plan to speed up traffic on Pico and Olympic Boulevards.  The plan has three components to achieve maximum car traffic flow: restrict parking at rush hour, synchronize lights to benefit vehicles traveling west on Olympic and east on Pico, and add traffic lanes at rush hour to aid cars going in the favored direction.

In response to a lawsuit by the communities along the corridors, a judge had ordered a complete environmental review of the plan before the city could begin to make any changes.  Interestingly, today's resolution  was put forward by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl, who has been one of the plan's chief critics, and Jack Weiss, who supports the project in the newspaper but rarely shows up to defend it in public.

Today's council meeting was different than every other meeting on the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative" that I've attended and not just because Councilman Weiss was present.  There were no angry crowds, no outbursts from the audience and no monologues by LADOT executive John Fisher.  Public comment took a total of three minutes.  Rosendahl, who for months had seemed pushed out of the picture by the Mayor's political muscle, was the only Councilmember to speak and he called the structure of a review a victory for the community because the Department of Planning will be involved in the review.  Rosendahl noted that "transportation and planning need to be joined at the hip," and seemed to believe that City Planning will do more to take care of local businesses than LADOT.

The public process for the review will provide more opportunities for the city to debate whether the goal of its transportation planning is to move as many cars as efficiently as possible.  While the fate of the the "Olympic West Pico East Initiative" may be uncertain, today's action adds credence to the theory that "the public process for road projects only ends when the project is built." 

Photo: Stewart James/Flickr 

Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero is taking a stand.  Romero tells the Times that if she doesn't get she wants for San Gabriel Valley, at no extra cost to her constituents, she'll vote to make sure all of LA County is denied the opportunity to to vote to increase everyone's transit options.  The Senator may have the muscle to back up her threat as AB 2321, the legislation authorizing the sales tax to be on the fall ballot after Metro's approval, still needs a full vote of the State Senate.

Romero's position doesn't make sense from a transportation stand point.  She's basically opposed to the sales tax measure because Metro won't guarantee a Gold Line extension without the funding from the sales tax.  While her argument that the $328 million set aside from sales tax proceeds won't extend the Gold Line as far as it needs to go has some merit; her argument that Metro should guarantee more funds for an extension without the sales tax rests on the argument that San Gabriel Valley residents would be more likely to support a sales tax increase if they have nothing to gain from it doesn't make a lot of sense.  After all, would you vote for a tax increase that has no benefits for you?

Have a headache yet?  If not, Romero also tells the Times that she opposes congestion pricing and Metro should approve it's plan for transit for the valley without knowing whether it will have the $213 million in federal funds.  Her argument?  SGV residents shouldn't be "forced" to pay tolls because there is a lack of reliable transit options.  Last I checked, which was right before I wrote this post, most of that $213 would be going to provide increased transit options for the effected corridors, including the San Gabriel Valley. 

So let's sum this up.  She can't support the sales tax proposal without a guarantee that she gets what she wants without the sales tax proposal.  She also opposes spending hundreds of millions of federal dollars to manage lanes and increase transit because Metro hasn't spent enough money to increase transit. 

This kind of grandstanding isn't new to Romero.  In the past she's slammed Metro for not lobbying hard enough for eastside projects after doing nothing to stop the governor's raid on transportation funds.  I guess the good news is that if she's as effective opposing the sales tax ballot proposition as she was the governor's budget or lobbying for local projects AB 2321 should pass the Senate easily.

Photo: Barack Obama/Flickr

LADOT Should Have Learned Lesson 3

A recent article in the Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal, found here at Red Orbit, discusses the five important lessons that every transportation engineer should learn. When I was saw the title of the article, I was hopeful that it was going to be about how transportation engineers need to be progressive and think outside the box. I was dissapointed.

When Nicholas Whitaker and I went on a car ride with Deborah Murphy, she expressed exasperation that transportation engineers are still so concerned with "improving" roads as the key to more efficient transportation. Sometimes, because the readers of this blog and many of the planners and engineers to whom I speak are more progressive, it's easy to forget how far we have to go to change the culture of transportation engineers.

Without further adieu, here is the list of five lessons every transportation engineer needs to know. Remember, this article was written by transportation engineers, for transportation engineers:

lESSON 1(sic): ONlY(sic) TRAFFIC ENGINEERS/ PIANNERS (sic) UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LEVEL OF SERVICE

LESSON 2: TRAFFIC ENGINEERS/ PLANNERS KNOW TOO MUCH MATH

LESSON 3: THE PUBLIC OFTEN ARE THE REAL LOCAL TRAFFIC EXPERTS

LESSON 4: VISIT THE STUDY AREA SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE PROJECT, ESPECIALLY DURING THE MOST RELEVANT TIME PERIODS AND JUST BEFORE KEY MEETINGS

LESSON 5: UNDERSTAND EACH JURISDICTION'S TRAFFIC STUDY REQUIREMENTS, DESIGN STANDARDS AND HEARING/ MEETING PROCEDURES

Ok, so the five things transportation engineers need to know breaks down like this: "We're smarter than everyone else.  However sometimes people whiners catch us because they know local conditions better than we do if we don't live in the study area. Try and learn as much as you can about the local road conditions and don't get slipped up by public process."

I would humbly suggest five other lessons that might be more relevant given what we're seeing in our cities and around the world. I'm so confident that my lessons are better, that I won't resort to shouting at you.

Lesson 1: There are ways to move people that don't involve cars.
Lesson 2: Transportation projects should enhance the community character, not destroy it
Lesson 3: Environmental studies are part of the process of deciding how to proceed. Not something that should be rushed or subject to politics.
Lesson 4: Community plans are important guidelines in designing a road project. Don't ignore them
Lesson 5: Listen to the people that live and commute in the study area. Projects get completed faster if there isn't a judge involved

If you can think of any other suggestions, please feel free to fill up the comments section.

Image:revolute/Flickr 

Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilman Jack Weiss, the two elected proponents of speeding up traffic on Pico and Olympic Boulevards at the expense of local businesses and non-motorized travel, were dealt a setback yesterday when a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge ruled that the city needs to study the impacts of the project before moving forward.  To read the ruling, click here.

The Pico-Olympic project has caused heated debate since Villaraigosa announced it last fall. Controversy over the project wasn't just spurred by businesses being scared by a loss of parking at rush hours, but also by a "press conference over policy" approach to lawmaking. Residents were furious that they didn't hear about the plan until watching it on the news or reading it in the newspaper after a press conference. As more details on the plan were released, such as the traffic counts were completed on a Jewish Holiday, the community grew more incensed and pleaded with their Councilmembers to kill the project.

Attempts by the City Council to discuss the proposal were effectively tabled when Villaraigosa declared that the plan was moving forward and he didn't need the council's approval. In a perceived slap to Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, the most recent revision included the entirety of the roads in Rosendahl's district while cutting out the part of the plan in Councilmember Herb Wesson's district.

Villaraigosa declared that the plan would go into effect the first weekend in March. It was then delayed until the end of March after local business groups filed suit. Most recently, the plan was set to go into motion "later this week."

"The undisputed evidence is that City Council Transportation Committee meetings on the proposed activity were abruptly suspended and the City's Department of Transportation was instructed to implement "phase one" of the plan by the Mayor."

"In this instance," Judge Torribio went on, "where the city has not prepared any environmental document."

So what's next for the Pico-Olympic Plan? The Times reports that the Mayor's Office is still debating whether or not to appeal the decision, but in the meantime will begin an environmental review that could take 6 months to a year to complete.

A third option to get the plan moving again would be if the City Council declared that the project had no significant impact. After the Mayor's snub last winter, it's hard to see that taking place. Maybe steam rolling all concerns in a typical "design and defend" campaign wasn't the best idea after all.

By the 1950s, the politicians and planners of Southern California had made their bet: Freeways would solve the awful traffic gripping city streets.

Now, Los Angeles officials are taking a different tack. With the Santa Monica Freeway congested, they're looking at increasing the capacity of Olympic and Pico boulevards to ease traffic on the Westside.

Life has a way of coming full circle, eh?

Oh. So the "180" is adding capacity arterial streets instead of adding capacity to the highways.

How radical.

Later in the article, Gail Goldberg, head of City Planning proposes something that would be truly radical for Los Angeles, but then dismisses the idea out of hand.

"One way you can move toward less congestion is if you provide people better accessibility and walkability and more pleasant streets," said Gail Goldberg, the city's chief planner, who is not wild about the Olympic-Pico plan. "But as a city we're not ready for that conversation yet."

Cyberspace is filled with blogs dedicated to bike, bus and train advocacy. And organizations, from the BRU to the Transit Coalition to SO.CA.TA. to the LACBC to C.I.C.L.E. all exist because people are tired of car-culture warriors making all of the major transportation decisions for Los Angeles.

In just the past couple of weeks, public meetings for the city's Bike Master Plan were overflowing with cyclists demanding better facilities.

Pedestrian advocates, tired of waiting for the city/county to do something about our unsafe and unpleasant roads for pedestrians are taking matters into their own hands. It seems that every month there is a new walkabout planned for somewhere in LA County. A walkabout is an event where the community patrols its own streets to discover how to change them into pleasant pedestrian environments. In February, one was held by the neighborhood council in Woodland Hills. This Saturday, there is another one in downtown Pasadena.

And for transit users, their reactions to plans to reduce service are also telling. Hundreds of people took time off from their evenings and weekends to beg the city not to cut service.

In short, the people of Los Angeles are ready for a real 180 in transportation planning. We're ready for streets that are safe to walk and bike on. We're ready for a world class transit system. Angelenos are ready, but is there a public official willing to lead us there?

It seems that every time I go to a meeting focused on the Pico/Olympic Boulevard controversy the meeting gets a) more crowded and b) more confrontational. Last night, literally hundreds of residents and business owners packed a forum held by the Westside Neighborhood Council to hear about LADOT’s plan and loudly voice their objection. The plan would increase capacity on Pico and Olympic Boulevards by re-timing traffic signals, limiting left-hand turns and imposing restrictions on peak hour parking.

The format of the event was designed to limit direct interaction between LADOT and the audience to prevent an angry back-and-forth from dominating the meeting. Questions were written on cards and read by a moderator.

The crowd’s anger wasn’t just directed at DOT. The crowd jeered one of the plan’s chief proponents, and their local Councilman. Jack Weiss. Weiss was again conspicuous by his absence. The councilman’s representative did not speak to the crowd or attempt to answer any questions directed towards elected officials.

Also up for a verbal berating was Westside Neighborhood Council Chair and event moderator Terri Tippit, an opponent of the plan, who was under constant pressure to either read more questions, read less questions, explain what the question meant, or "shut up and let him (DOT representative John Fisher) answer the question.

I mention the crowd’s passion not as an condemnation of the event, which was as well moderated as could be expected, or the attendees; but to illustrate how heated this issue is for the people along the corridor.

If most of the emotion at last week’s meeting was over the issue of lost parking and its impact to the community, this meeting was dominated by fears of cut through traffic racing through local side streets. Fisher, repeatedly claimed that the plan was designed to reduce cut through traffic by increasing capacity on Pico/Olympic during rush hour so there would be no need to cut east/west through the community. Also, by limiting the left hand turns on intersections with smaller roads, north/south traffic will stay on larger roads such as Beverly Glen Blvd.

(ed: note: An original version of this article said "Motor Ave" instead of Beverly Glen Blvd. Motor Avenue will actually be seeing a decrease in cut through traffic because of signalization limiting left hand turns.)

The crowd was unimpressed, repeatedly questioning the proposal and wondering how bringing more traffic to the area (greater capacity=more traffic) will somehow help their current issues. Several times there were questions asking why traffic calming wasn’t used to keep cars off the local streets instead of this more complicated plan. The answer: traffic calming can help, but this plan will help more.

Business owners were similarly unimpressed with claims that the parking restrictions wouldn’t effect them in the long-term. Fisher pointed to dry cleaners along Pico Boulevard that currently thrive even with peak hour restrictions on parking. Locals noted that those cleaners have adequate off street parking, and that in a neighborhood that is mostly Jewish it’s pretty insulting to imply that they should pick up their laundry on weekends (when they can’t drive).

DOT couldn’t promise that the community would have a chance to do a full review of the plan before the City Council voted on it, after all the Council doesn’t report to LADOT; but did promise that they were not yet done their community outreach or tweaking the plan to meet the community’s approval. If "community approval" is the goal, they have a long way to go.

(editor's note: The above picture is of a "straw poll" that was done at the end of the meeting. For the majority of the event, there were no empty seats and the standing room extended into the lobby.)

The angriest people were the business owners along Pico Boulevard who see a speedier road with no parking as the death knell for their restaurants, shops and dry cleaners. "We already have a freeway system" one restaurant owner complained, "Stop trying to turn our surface streets into a second one and bankrupt all our businesses at the same time!" The owner of two dry cleaners complained that "70% of my business occurs between 7 and 9 in the morning and 4 and seven at night. If you take away my parking, you'll force me to close both shops."

Some of the other complaints with the plan itself included:

1) Restricting left-hand turns will create more people driving on community streets to avoid having to make three rights to get home

2) Pico and Olympic will become un-passable boundries for those that need to turn left off of them to get home

3)The real problem is the over-development in places like Santa Monica and Wesfield Mall (located conveniently in Councilman Weiss' Fifth District) and nothing is being done about that

4) The plan is just moving the bottleneck and won't impact traffic

5) Seven minutes (the estimated savings for commuters) isn't worth displacing hundreds of businesses

6) What effect will this plan have on ridership for the Expo Line?

Each councilperson reacted to the testimony in their own way.

The usually-affable Councilman Rosendahl sat off the center podium and just listened to the testimony. Rosendahl's district will benefit from the quicker commute and the Councilman will be holding a public hearing on January 9th to elicit more feedback. The meeting was criticised as being held too early by many speakers, but the Councilman did not commit to moving it to February or beyond.

Chairwoman Grueul focused on keeping the meeting moving along and making sure every speaker was heard. Somehow she managed to do this without the aid of a gigantic countdown clock. She also let speakers finish their thoughts if they went over the suggested speaking time of a minute. I hope her courtesy towards her constituents doesn't impede her career.

So the job of soothing people's anger fell to the HOT-Lanes-hating, parcel-tax-promoting, Councilman LaBonge. LaBonge tried joking (How do I get this many people to come to Parks and Arts?), teaching history (We didn't build our freeways correctly because of a strong homeowners group in Cheviot Hills, now we're doing what we can.), and stumping for his parcel tax (Who wants to see more transit?).

What worked best was responding intelligently to people's concerns and working with the one person who didn't testify against the plan (a representative from Metro) to make sure that Metro would work with DOT and the Council to hear people's concerns.

The future of the Mayor's congestion busting plan for the Westside is now in question as the opposition seems deep, angry, and well organized. What isn't in question is that its generally a bad idea to ignore your community groups and committees and talk to the newspapers before your constituents.