Streetsblog Los Angeles

Image via Parc Broadway

It’s the sadly abandoned building that attempted to be M.C. Escher-like but ended up looking more like a forrest green and maroon mess. And the property that is 245 W Broadway–what was once filled with offices and last occupied, at least in one of them, with a strange artist collective known as 245 West Broadway Productions–has been surrounded by fencing for what seems like forever.

Enter Parc Broadway, which adds even more good news to downtowners following the formal announcement of The Edison lofts.

This mixed-use development will revitalize a deadened strip on Broadway that will finally open up the avenue from Magnolia–where the new courthouse is soon to be finished and the Gallery 421 Lofts sit–to Pine, creating an essential need for more retail and pedestrian access.

Ground-floor space will house the retail while 219 apartment units will sit above. Accessible to both residents and the public will be a bike kitchen, a cafe, and an art gallery; residents will also have the luxury of a private fitness center and dog grooming facility.

The fourth floor will provide residents a pool, outdoor fireplace, and cabanas with a southside view of the waterfront.

Aesthetically, the building intriguingly uses laser-cut metal sheets that read as shadows by the day but alter in lighted color at night. The creme brick, two-story lofts–the massing’s lowest point along Cedar Avenue–is a welcome bow towards the First Congregational Church across the street clad almost entirely in classic red brick. Read more…

Last Friday, the Daily Breeze released the terrifying details of Yousef Adhami’s driving record, including details of the four license suspensions and high-speed-chase he led police on in 2008. That such a man is allowed to drive at all, much less drive professionally and own an impounding service, remains a sure sign that America and California don’t take vehicular safety all that seriously.

Adhami was driving a tow truck at twice the legal speed on Wedneday morning when he struck a Metro bus. Following a spectacular crash that included a clipped fire hydrant and s smashed 7-11, and his driving killed Metro bus driver, Olivia Gamboa.

The press has focused on the crash, the hero (the slain Gamboa) and villain (the deadly Adhami) and has been unambiguous in its coverage. However, a series of key questions have remained unanswered that will tell just how culpable the city and society itself are in this tragedy.

First, did the LAPD have a relationship with Adhami’s Hermosa Beach Towing?

Under Los Angeles Municipal Code, tow truck drivers needed to inform the LAPD after making tows under certain circumstances, including all tows that occur on private property. If Adhami was following this part of the law, and to be fair there is no reason to believe he was, then the LAPD knew the company existed, and accepted their were tows being made by the company without knowing it was unlicensed.

To complete tows for the city, drivers need to have a special pass issued by LAPD. Did Adhami have one? If so, what does LAPD do to insure that pass holders continue to have current licenses? What changes will be made as a result of this crash?

Second, where was Adhami going/coming? Read more…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that delays in politics rarely offer good news for those with facts on their side. This is especially true when the political powers that be suddenly develop a case of collective laryngitis.

Which is why the news that the Los Angeles City Council hearing and vote on the future of the Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lane was delayed again is almost certainly bad news. The hearing, originally scheduled for last Friday then re-scheduled for today, is now scheduled for tomorrow at 10 am. For now.

But while we wait, and wait, for a final decision and the long-awaited showdown between the Film and Television Industry and Downtown businesses, residents, bicyclists, pedestrians, Neighborhood Councils and everyone that just likes a safe place to walk, bicycle or be outside; two letters sent to the City Council do a better job of telling the story thus far than I ever could.

But first, some brief background. In November of 2011, after an impressive outreach among Downtown stakeholders, the City of Los Angeles re-striped Spring Street through the historic core. The new design, part of a pilot program, put a painted buffer between mixed-use travel lanes and bicycle lanes. It also painted the Southbound bicycle lane green. A similar plan for Main Street, running parallel but northbound, was scrapped at the request of the Film and Television Industry. When the LADOT planned to repaint the lanes, they were blocked by a request for “more outreach” for at least the past two months by Council Members Tom LaBonge and Eric Garcetti. During the outreach, a group of compromises were proposed, but the industry walked away from every compromise that didn’t cause a re-design that wouldn’t pass federal guidelines for road markings.

In other words, they refused any compromise that wasn’t a poison pill for the project.

The first, written by the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, expresses support for repainting the lanes, using statistics gathered by the LACBC and their own consultants, as well as listing a myriad of supporters of the projects. The second, on letter head with logos of three film unions, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, expresses their displeasure with the lanes and uses hyperbole to state their case.

Some samples: Read more…

Yes, the guy was in the street. Yes, he’ll be fine. Yes, this is definitely a hit and run, no matter what the local police say.

I get it.

It sucks to be stalked and harassed by photographers and camera crews whenever you step outside your house. It is unlikely to happen to a Streetsblog editor, but I can imagine it is pretty awful.

But, that doesn’t give you the right to endanger other people with your car.

For (at least), the third time in less than a year pop singer Justin Bieber is in the news for his penchant for unsafe driving. First, he was caught going 101 on the 101 by Council Member Dennis Zine, then his neighbors complained about him speeding through the neighborhood, and last night he “clipped” a photographer in the street and sped away from the scene. The police cleared Bieber of wrong doing despite video clearly showing him hitting the photographer and zooming away in a pretty white Ferrari.

If the police refuse to prosecute Bieber for his dangerous driving, he has yet to be even ticketed for his triple digit speeding last year, then it sadly falls on his handlers, family or whoever else is close to the popstar to step in and take the keys. Read more…

Miami’s Overtown neighborhood was once known as “the Harlem of the South.” In this historic black neighborhood, legends like Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday would play to big crowds late into the night.

In the late 1960s, much of Miami's Overtown neighborhood, a thriving black community, was cleared and replaced with a massive highway interchange. Image: Transit Miami

Overtown has never recovered. Image: Transit Miami

As decried by 70 year-old, long-time Overtown resident, General White:

Well there’s nothing but a big overpass now!

He’s referring to Interstates 95 and 395, which Nadege Green explains were built in the 1960s. After that:

Overtown was never the same. [Mr. General White] and thousands of other people here were forced out to make room for the highway.

The Florida Department of Transportation recently made a bid to take over more of the roads in the Overtown neighborhood. But City Commissioner Spence Jones issued a strong objection, saying the agency was responsible for destroying the neighborhood and displacing its residents. “FDOT gets an ‘F’ for our community in Overtown,” she told attendees at a City Commission meeting.

Elsewhere on the Network today: The State Smart Transportation Initiative reports that transit spending by state DOTs has increased slightly. We Are Mode Shift described the insane plans to widen two urban freeways in Detroit, despite the devastation such road projects have wreaked on that city. And A View from the Cycle Path considers how best to reach young people and teach them to become lifelong transportation cyclists.

Here’s a refreshing take on metropolitan economic health from the right side of the aisle: The conservative Free Congress Foundation says it’s time America got serious about investing in transit in its metro areas.

Young, educated people are demanding better transit options and returning to cities, notes a new report by the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank. Image: Brigham Young University Civil and Environmental Engineering

This think tank, founded by conservative Paul Weyrich (also co-founder of the Heritage Foundation), released a report [PDF] last week extolling the economic benefits of transit investment and healthy cities. The Free Congress Foundation is also holding congressional hearings on its findings on the Hill, bringing some much-needed conservative support for walkable, connected cities to Washington politics.

The report argues that returns on investment in highways are declining. Author Michael Bronzini says healthy, walkable cities are important to attracting talent in a knowledge-based, 21st century economy.

“The history of metropolitan area development in the U.S. since World War II to the present is well known, and has often been described as the ‘flight to the suburbs,’” says Bronzini. “More recently, many metropolitan areas have been seeing somewhat of a return to the city.”

“These new urban residents want walkable communities, social and cultural amenities and good public transportation services that will enable them to access all the opportunities that vibrant central cities have to offer,” Bronzini adds.

While some prominent conservative electeds have starved transit and approached the movement toward cities as a political threat, others, like Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, have shown leadership and recognized the economic value of creating more walkable places. The Free Congress Foundation’s report is more evidence that Republican transit opponents don’t speak for all conservatives when it comes to transportation policy.

• Bike Nation: LB Start in Early 2014, LA “in Next 12 Months” (Star-News)
• South Bay “on the Warpath.” Measure R Highway Funds Used for Leimert Station (Daily Breeze)
• Spring Street Park Opens (Blog Downtown, DTLA Rising, LAist, Streetsblog LITE, LAT)
• Angelenos Enjoying Echo Park Lake (Curbed)
• First and Spring Park Next…in 2 to 3 Years (Downtown News)
• Wolfpack Hustle Plans “Civic Center Crit” Race after CicLAvia (Downtown News)
• A Detailed Look at Vague Plan for Fairfax/Grove Streetcar (City Watch)
• CAHSRA CEO Addresses Controversies Over Contractor Also Chosen to Build Central Subway (NBC)
• SoPas’ Mayor: Biking to Work Since the Year I Was Born (The Source)
• Either a Majority Angelenos Are Disabled, or Disabled Placards Are Being Abused (ACCESS)
• The Bike Lobby Is Real! (Politico)
• Like Mike: Garcetti Plans Meeting with Bloomberg (Daily News)
• Daily Carnage: Drugs and Driver Blamed for 30 Car Pileup in Aga Dulce (Daily News, Video on NBC4)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Researchers at the University of Utah and AAA found that using hands-free electronic devices and on-board technology can cause dangerous levels of driver distraction. Image: AAA

Distracted driving killed 3,331 people on American streets in 2011, yet car manufacturers continue to outdo each other to add more infotainment distractions in their vehicles. These systems are expected to increase five-fold by 2018, according to AAA. Carmakers seek to show their commitment to safety by making their distractions – onboard dinner reservation apps and social media, for example – hands-free. But a growing body of research indicates that there is no safe way to combine driving with tasks like dictating email or text messages.

AAA recently teamed up with experts at the University of Utah to conduct the most in-depth analysis to date of the impact of cognitive distractions on drivers’ performance. They found that some hands-free technologies, like voice-to-text email, can be far more dangerous than even handheld phone conversations. Unlike previous studies, they also found that conversations with passengers can be more distracting than those on the phone, but only if the passenger is kept unaware of what’s happening on the road.

The researchers had subjects first perform a series of eight tasks, ranging from nothing at all to usage of various electronic devices to something called OSPAN, or operation span, which sets the maximum demand the average adult brain can handle. For the OSPAN, the researchers gave subjects words and math problems to recall later, in the same order, as a way to “anchor the high end of the cognitive distraction scale developed by the research team,” according to AAA’s Jake Nelson.

The more mental energy an activity requires, the more it slows drivers' reaction time. Image: AAA

The subjects then performed these eight tasks while operating a driving simulator, and then while driving on residential streets in an “instrumented” vehicle that captures information about the driver’s eye movements and brain activity.

In each environment, researchers studied how the additional tasks added to subjects’ “cognitive workload” and diminished their eye movements. They found that as drivers devote more mental energy to other tasks in addition to driving, the less observant they become, and the more they fail to scan for roadway hazards.

This bolsters the conclusions of previous experiments: that when drivers are mentally distracted by some other task, they get tunnel vision. They keep their eyes fixed on the road in front of them to the exclusion of everything else — the rear-view mirror, side mirrors, and “safety critical roadside objects” and “cross traffic threats” — such as pedestrians.

The AAA study also found that greater “cognitive workloads” slow drivers’ reactions to events like a ball rolling in front of the car and a kid running out to catch it. (Reaction times were measured with the simulator, not the instrumented vehicle driving on real streets.)

The researchers conclude that hands-free communications can be significantly more distracting and dangerous for drivers to engage in than passive tasks like listening to music:

Read more…

In recent months, Downtown Los Angeles, and especially Spring Street, have become ground zero for the battle over creating a Livable city. As the urban core densifies and diversifies, the older way of doing things keeps butting up against a evolving, truly urban, community. This is reflected in dustups over bike lanes, but also in easier-to-fix issues, such as the recent dustups over outdoor seating.

The issue: In order to maximize revenue business in Downtown Los Angeles were putting chairs and tables on the sidewalks, often times without a permit.
The response: Recently, the city began ticketing these businesses and handing out “cease and desist” notices promising more, and steeper, fines. Outdoor seating permits cost thousands of dollars and can take eight to nine months, roughly the same time it takes a human baby to come to term, for the permit to be approved or disapproved.

Fortunately, the stretch of Downtown Los Angeles with the most offenders is represented in the City Council by Jose Huizar, who’s becoming something of a regular on Streetsblog.

“It shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars and take nine months to get a permit,” Huizar says. “We want to support and encourage Downtown business, not hinder it.”

Huizar pushed city officials to provide amnesty for businesses while they can apply for the correct permits. The city is also working on a pilot program to expedite and reduce the cost of permits. The pilot program will apply to all restaurants seeking outdoor seating, not just those in Huizar’s district. Read more…

Potentially prominent new additions that would add to Downtown Santa Monica's modest skyline remain contentious.

Following last Friday’s horrific tragedy, the national media spotlight that followed, and another unrelated shooting soon after, some semblance of normalcy returned to Santa Monica last week with a council session punctuated by contentious land use agenda items and familiar debates about development.

To be perfectly honest, it felt a little surreal to slip back into listening to disputes about things like appropriate building heights downtown after the past week’s events, but the process of shaping the city’s future continues on.

Our Santa Monica weekly column is supported by Bike Center in Santa Monica.

The first major item for discussion included a first reading of an amendment to adopt tweaked language to the interim zoning ordinance, the ordinance that has temporary changed a few things in our zoning code, in accordance with the land use and circulation plan, but preceding the complete overhaul of the zoning code that is underway.

The amendment extends  the interim ordinance to February 2014 to allow more time for the new zoning code expected to be adopted by the end of this year. Also tweaked is an outdoor dining exemption from floor area ratio calculations of developments so that outdoor dining would not be penalized in the allowable FAR (but would still be calculated for parking). This will act as an incentive to create outdoor dining, encouraging more permeable and engaged interfaces with the street and more open spaces, which are all goals in the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE.)

Next up, was the first reading for an ordinance to update the language of the city’s affordable housing production program. The new ordinance is based on recommendations from the housing commission and includes a new category for “extremely low-income”, or 30% of the average median income. With Santa Monica having a higher median income than the region as a whole, the absence of this category meant the policy directed affordable housing being created before was still out of reach for those who have the hardest time affording to live here. New rent limits were also created to ensure “moderate income” restricted housing is below market rates.

Tweaks to the affordable housing program formula were overdue, but the accessibility of Santa Monica is going to remain difficult if we do not keep pace with housing construction or conversions that include housing. New housing units enable us to set aside proportions to low income designations and helps address the market rate supply and demand, and housing to jobs imbalances, which are significant forces driving up rents. Read more…