Streetsblog Los Angeles

Photo: Gary Kavanagh/Flickr

One of the sub-rifts I’ve observed within the debates and backlashes against development in Santa Monica reflects the diverging views within environmentally conscience minds about balancing localized and broader impacts. There are people who have advocated for environmental initiatives of various kinds their entire life, who I fundamentally clash with despite also considering myself a passionate advocate environmental protection. We’re seeing the same issues with completely different lenses.

In what I am going to refer to as a slow or no growth locally perspective, to add development intensity of any kind here is to further potentially increase the impact of Santa Monica. This impact is a net negative, and one perceived to be associated with a linear increase in more vehicle traffic or other negative consequences.

Anchoring around walkable areas tied to transit investments already under construction, is lower impact and more sustainable (ecologically speaking and financially) than having the investment capital for development flow outward. Adding transit oriented development as non-linear, and facilitating more walkable and bikeable distances between a greater number of potential homes and businesses with the potential for longer trips by transit made more convenient. A shift away from automobile dependency and centrism is an imperative.

Within the realm of choices Santa Monica can make for itself, allowing for more transit oriented development near our already under construction electric light rail line connecting us to Downtown Los Angeles, is one of the best things we can do to enable lower energy use per capita for more people, maintain strong city finances, and address some of the supply side of the forces making the city less affordable and accessible. People living in Santa Monica along the Expo Line corridor already have shorter commute times than most places in the region, I’m guessing in part because so many jobs already exist within that area (my own 10 minute daily bike commute fits completely within that light pink slice).

Our ideal climate also reduces household energy demand significantly. As of this writing, Burbank just set a new record high of 103 degrees. Santa Monica was in the low 70′s and upper 60′s during the same part of the day, wrapped in that natural air conditioning we call the marine layer. Given a choice of adding units in Burbank or Santa Monica, units in Santa Monica will by default use less energy without residents even having to think about it. The means to live a lower carbon lifestyle, so long as one can afford the barriers to entry and the capacity exists, is just plain easier in Santa Monica. Read more…

(Note: To help Streetsblog readers decide how best to cast their vote in the election, we asked two regular writers not on staff to write their recommendations in the election. Today, Founding Board Member Emeritus and our 2011 Streetsie Writer of the Year Dana Gabbard writes about his decision to back Wendy Greuel. Tomorrow, current Board Member and 2009 Streetsie Writer of the Year Joel Epstein takes his turn writing about his support for Eric Garcetti. Update: Here is Joel’s piece on Garcetti.)

I am a fairly simple person. When I wrote a commentary in favor of the passage of the bullet train bonds I offered just two reasons why to vote for it. Now I can also add to its virtues its assistance in funding the Regional Connector and Union Station Run-through tracks (aka the Southern California Regional Interconnector Project). Plus all those pesky hidden fees the airlines sock you with has made a fast intra-state network of bullet trains suddenly a lot more appealing vision than it was even back in 2008 when the bonds passed.

OK, so what does a simple guy like me do when faced with the complicated question of who I should vote for in the runoff on May 21st between Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, the top two finishers in the March 5 primary, to be Mayor of Los Angeles? Sam Lubell’s recent excellent critique of our civic culture in the city of Los Angeles and the need to reform/streamline city government plus the rather scathing management audit of the L.A. Dept. of Transportation by the Controller’s Office illustrate the magnitude of challenges the next Mayor faces regarding livability and transportation issues.

So while there isn’t a lot of substantive difference between the candidates (which accounts for why the campaign has devolved into a rather mean grudge match replete with mud-slinging and low blow accusations) style does matter when one has to make a choice among two fairly equal choices.

I choose Wendy Greuel. She isn’t flashy. OK, to be honest an excess of charisma isn’t a problem for her. But she is sober and willing to tackle the systemic problems that our city government faces. I respect her and believe she could grow in the job into being a great Mayor. Read more…

Graduating senior Jay Sneed (at podium) offers closing remarks at the forum to address racial profiling at USC while Tommie Bayliss waits to speak to senior officers in person (Sahra Sulaiman/LA Streetsblog)

*This is a sister-story to our recent piece on how the new security measures around USC resulted in the increase in profiling of lower-income youth of color around the campus. Read that story here.

“WE DO NOT BELIEVE AT THIS POINT that there is any indication that this [incident] was race-based,” Capt. II Paul Snell of the LAPD Southwest Division told 1000 attendees at a forum last Tuesday night to address the mistreatment of black students by the LAPD when shutting down their party on May 4th.

People’s eyes rolled back so far in their heads, it looked like some of them might get stuck that way.

Too many in attendance had either been on the scene, had friends who had been there, or had seen the many images, videos, and detailed accounts of students describing how 79 officers (some in riot gear) had used bias, aggression, bullying, excessive force, and even racial slurs to disperse a party of minority students celebrating their last day of classes.

I reached out to squeeze the heavily tattooed arm of Tommie Bayliss, a student at the cinema school who I had watched grow increasingly agitated while awaiting his turn to address the panel of officers and USC officials.

“Are you OK?”

His head snapped up in surprise.

After a long pause, he nodded, “Yeah.”

I didn’t buy it.

Just minutes earlier, he had been demanding accountability and shouting questions to the panel out of turn. His friend and a co-organizer of the event, Jay Sneed, had quickly rushed over to settle him down while Rikiesha Pierce, another event organizer and author of a Neon Tommy article about biased policing at a party in mid-April, took to the microphone.

“They can’t hear you when you’re screaming,” she admonished Bayliss. “You gotta stand. You gotta be decent. You have to come with understanding and intellect.”

Bayliss has understanding and intellect in spades, and he recognized the importance of decorum. But, he also saw the forum was quickly coming to an end, which meant he wasn’t going to have a chance to say his peace publicly. Read more…

This week there is a ton of bikey stuff happening around the county, especially inside city limits, Pasadena and Long Beach, as part of “Bike Week” celebrations. We’re highlighting some of the events below, but be sure to check out Bike Long Beach, Bike Week Pasadena, Santa Monica Bike Week and Metro’s Bike Week page to see more details and more events happening around town(s).

• Monday – Metro’s all excited about the Eastside Access Project. They even claim to have” exciting, new streetscape designs that will make you want to stroll, power-walk, or ride your bikes to the Indiana, Maravilla, East LA Civic Center,  and Atlantic Gold Line Eastside Stations.” Come see and learn about these streetscape designs tonight. Get the details for the 6 pm meeting, here.
• Tuesday – It’s the most original event of Bike Week, the Good Samaritan Blessing of the Bikes! This not-at-all kitchy event usually features some of the best rah-rah bike speeches you’ll ever here and the awarding of the Golden Spoke award. If you’re worried about your bicycle being attacked by vampires, or you have a love of fresh-squeezed OJ, this is the place for you. Stop by on your way to work, the blessing starts at 8 am at Good Sam’s.
• Tuesday – Do you like burgers and the LACBC? The Counter in Studio City is doing a fundraiser. Eat there, show them this coupon. All will be good as long as they are open on Tuesday.
• Wednesday, Thursday – Metro Board of Directors committee hearings. Look around for Leimert Park Station hints or check out the special budget hearing. Even with Leimert Park announcement stalled until next month, there’s plenty to see. Dana, you’re going to look through the budget for me, right? RIGHT? All the meeting details are available on the Metro website.
• Thursday – It’s Bike to Work Day and Bike From Work Day. All in one day. Groovy.
• Friday – Bike Night at the Hammer! Grab some friends and pedal on over for an evening celebrating all things bicyclistic! Free festivities include bicycle portraits, a screening of the 1983 Australian action movie BMX Bandits (starring a young, not-yet-famous Nicole Kidman), bicycle-centric crafts, and free admission to exhibitions including LLYN FOULKES. Guest hosted by artist and bicycle enthusiast/activist Lisa Anne Auerbach. Details.
• Friday – If I weren’t leaving town Friday morning, I wouldn’t be at The Hammer, but at the Bike In at Bike Week Pasadena. No offense to the hammer, but the Bike In is going to screen a quick Streetfilm and they invited me to speak. I’ll speak pretty much anywhere, and I mean anywhere, I’m invited. Oh, and the movie is Napoleon Dynamite. Get the details, here.
• Saturday – In 2008, I rode Pasadena Critical Mass the Saturday of Bike Week in Pasadena. The Kids Costume Bicycle Parade sounds like pretty much the same thing except it’s officially sanctioned and the Mayor’s going to be there. No, not Antonio the Mayor of Pasadena, silly. Details.
• Sunday -  Kidical Mass Bixby Knolls celebrates one year of family bike rides with a kid-friendly ride, featuring ice cream at Georgie’s Place, where the event begins and ends. Details.

Is there more? Is there something we need to know of for next week? Let us know, damien@streetsblog.org

(Note: All week Streetsblog will be celebrating bike week by providing you five simple ways you can celebrate our “special week”without going to special events that occur during work hours. – DN)

Bikeside, the 501c(4) lobbying group for cyclists, is back after a short hiatus. Looking to track any changes in cyclists’ attitudes, Bikeside is building off their August 2011 survey and again asking cyclists if L.A. is a bike friendly city. You can take the survey, here.

2011 results. Click on the image to see a larger version.

As you can see, the August 2011 numbers are bleak. Even amongst hard-core cyclists, sentiments ran 2 to 1 against L.A. being considered a bike friendly city.

Of course, a lot has changed since August 2011. There have been four CicLAvias with two more announced. Los Angeles was recognized as a “bronze level bike friendly city” by the League of American Cyclists. Hundreds of miles of bike infrastructure have been painted.

Is that enough to change cyclists’ mind on whether or not the city is really a bike friendly one? Stop by and register your opinion. It took me less than five minutes to fill out the survey. Respondents are also given a chance to mark their preference for either Eric Garcetti or Wendy Greuel.

Grocery delivery can cut carbon emissions compared to driving your car to the store and back. But delivery services also replace walking, biking, and transit trips. Image: Transportation Research Forum

In a recent study out of Seattle, researchers Erica Wygonik and Anne Goodchild found that having groceries delivered by truck can cut mileage by up to 85 or 95 percent compared to driving a car. ”It’s like a bus for groceries,” Goodchild told NPR. ”Overwhelmingly, it’s more efficient to be sharing a vehicle, even if it’s a little larger.”

The most efficiency can be squeezed out of grocery delivery when dispatchers can design short routes that serve many people. When customers can choose their delivery times, however, the routes become significantly less efficient.

But in urban areas, where houses are close enough together that delivery might be relatively efficient, not everyone drives to the store. And people without access to a car might be the most likely to use a delivery service. In these locations, perhaps delivery services are replacing walking, biking, and transit trips more than driving trips.

It looks like more research is needed to evaluate the full impact of grocery delivery services on travel choices and carbon emissions. “We don’t have great data about how people get to the store,” Goodchild said in an email exchange. “We also don’t know to what extent these shoppers (bike/ped) might choose to shop online, versus those who drive to the store.”

She said she and her co-author have talked about conducting simulations where they consider biking “but would need to estimate calorie burn.” Yes, calorie burn — but hopefully not “increased respiration.”

Jake's girlfriend and her co-worker at Sam Schwartz Engineering were so excited that he won Streetsblog's "Commuter Idyll" challenge that they created this "infographic" of his commutes.

When we saw that Washington’s news-traffic-weather radio station, WTOP, was holding a ”Commuter Idle” contest for the worst commute in the DC area — and rewarding it with $1,000 in gas money — we couldn’t resist. We went looking for the best “Commuter Idyll” — the trips to work that made people happy, got them fresh air, helped them fit exercise into their day, gave them some extra time to sleep or read, and brought them to work more clear-headed and ready to tackle the day. And Streetsblog readers had lots of great stories to share of ditching long car commutes for transit, biking, or walking. We shared some of them yesterday.

Meanwhile, check out the painful stories of soul-sucking commutes of WTOP’s 10 finalists. Some are out of the house by 4:00 a.m., drive 80 miles each way, are stuck in their car for six hours a day. Imagine all the better ways they could use that time and money!

Our “Commuter Idyll” winner — Jake Williams of Chicago — had a hellish commute too. He made big changes to get control over his time, his health, and his happiness. Here’s Jake’s story.

Upon graduating from college at UCLA, I moved back home to Chicago to start my working career as an engineer. I had commuted to internships before, one in Kenosha, WI and one in Melrose Park, IL, so I was already exposed and accustomed to the solo commute by automobile. I was looking for work anywhere in the metro area, and when I was offered a job in Lincolnshire, a suburb of Chicago 26 miles from my apartment, I was not fazed. Little did I know that the next four years would at times literally “drive” me crazy.

The guts of Jake's old ride.

The commute affected my whole life and actually made me dread going to and from work. I tried waking up early in the morning, and while it was nice seeing the sunrise, it was not a sustainable schedule. I worked longer hours, and although the morning commute was somewhat more tolerable, the commute home was about as awful. I tried breaking up the afternoon commute by heading straight to the gym and then going home. The result was that I was gone 14 hours a day and exhausted, constantly.

I would become angry and irritable. I needed a “cool-off” period when I got home. I stalked the roads religiously on traffic sites and on the various radio stations, but knowing never changed what was coming. I realized that the commute had completely conquered me when I left work one snowy winter day and got so frustrated with the stagnation on the road that I turned around and went back to work, for hours.

So, when times got rough and I was laid off from work, the strange, overwhelming feeling was of relief. Ironically, I was supposed to be laid off a day earlier, but I had to call off work because my car had broken down. I was disenchanted with my career choice and lifestyle choice, and I realized after a couple of months that I had the power to change all of that. I decided that I had one of many new goals: to walk to work.

Read more…

Friday at City Hall

• Garcetti Pushes Density, Single-Car Households as Future of L.A. (LAT)
• Metrolink Releases “How To” Guide for TAP Transfers (Metrolink)
• A Review of Both Candidates for City Attorney in the Times (Feuer, Trutanich)
• LA’s Sprawl an Excuse for Pedestrian Exploration? A Look at the Big Parade (Atlantic Cities)
• Washington Post Looks at L.A.’s “Underground Art” in the Subway (Article, Gallery)
• Advocate Raises Funds to Turn Cypress Park Ped. Tunnel Into Art Gallery (Eastsider)
• WeHo Continues Plans for “Party Shuttle” (WeHo News)
• SoCal Gas Prices Rise for 9th Straight Day (Daily News)
• Re-Opening Date Announced for Echo Park Lake (Curbed)
• Daily Carnage: Car Jumps Embankment on 405, 4 Injured (Daily News)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Screengrab off Channel 35 by Juan Matute. Marybeth Newton playing the role of child juggler, and Carter on the left, me in the center, Joel and Bill on the right

Assuming the City Council hasn’t run wildly late this morning, Streetsblog Los Angeles just received our commendation on our 5th birthday. Thanks guys! I was joined at the podium by my family, and Streetsblog Los Angeles Board Members Joel Epstein and Carter Rubin. Epstein was also honored for his role in the re-opening of Bundy Triangle Pocket Park.

Given two minutes to say thanks, I also challenged the Council to continue down the path staked out these last few years towards livability.

Thank you very much for allowing me this time to speak and for wishing all of us at Streetsblog a happy birthday.

I brought my children today, not just so they can see their Dad get an award and get on tv, but because they are the reason we work so hard to put out Streetsblog every day. We can’t fix all the problems in the worldas much as we’d like to. But we can give them a safe, clean city with a bevy of affordable transportation options, open space, and healthy communities.

And that’s what Streetsblog is all about, helping create that future through journalism. By highlighting the good work of community leaders, volunteers, parents, businesses and yes…even sometimes City Council Members.

With the 2013 election, the city is at a crossroads. Yes, we have a growing transit system thanks in large part to Measure R, but will we see these projects completed in time for these children to enjoy them? Yes, we have a bike plan, but do we have the courage to implement it? Yes, we have new pedestrian coordinators at LADOT, for the first time ever, but can we find the funds to fix our sidewalks and make all our intersections ADA compliant. Read more…

This? all photos by Joe Linton

The Southern California Streets Initiative, the local non-profit that staffs and edits Streetsblog Los Angeles, has voted to support local journalism outside of the city limits to Long Beach and Santa Monica. Thanks to local support from Santa Monica Bike Center and Long Beach Community Foundation, we’ve been able to do this without reaching into our regular operating funds.

Or this? Photo: Gary Kavanagh

Our goal is to expand coverage into Santa Monica and Long Beach, and with your help, these dreams will come true. We’re proud to announce we’re raising funds for both a Streetsblog Long Beach and a Livable Streets/Green Living news website in Santa Monica (which would be sort of a cross between Streetsblog and the old Green L.A. Girl website). This is where you come in. Your gift can help determine which city gets its own Livable Streets news site first.

We’re holding  the “Long Beach v.  Santa Monica” Livable Streets Contest. Whichever city raises the most funds between April 15, 2013 and the end of this month wins and will be the first city to get its own Southern California Streets Initiative either Streetsblog Long Beach or <Un-named project> Santa Monica. Regardless of which city wins, we’ll continue trying to raise the funds to bring each city its own Livable Streets news site.

There’s a lot of ways you can contribute:

• Make a donation to Streetsblog Los Angeles by clicking here. Make sure to designate the funds to go towards “Los Angeles” and indicate the city you’re supporting in “why you support this work” section.
• Make a monthly donation. If fifty people make a $5 monthly donation, that creates a $3,000 funding stream for your local website.
• If you’re a major donor or potential advertiser for either site, email me at damien@streetsblog.org. Your commitment will count towards picking the Livable Streets Fundraising Champion.
• Write a check to Streetsblog Los Angeles, 11539 National Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90064.

If you don’t care about Santa Monica or Long Beach, shame on you! But you can still contribute to support Streetsblog, and and we’ve got some great prizes, including a Dahon Folding Bike and a Bike Commuter Pack courtesy of Planet Bike..

Oh, and for those keeping score at home:

Santa Monica: $450

Long Beach: $100