Month: July 2008

Last week, the LA Times reported that Metro will be taking the lead in restoring the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  For years, critics have contended that construction errors for the Red Line have led to the cracked and raised sidewalks, but despite Metro’s alternate theories, the agency will create a task force to rally government … Continued

Yesterday, at the end of our piece about the recent road rage incidents in usually-polite Portland and Seattle, we posed a question to Tom Vanderbilt, author of the forthcoming book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us. We asked: What is it about automobility that often seems to turn nice, normal people into impulsive, remorseless sociopaths -- blasting their horns, flying into fits of rage and wielding their vehicles like weapons in a crowded, pedestrian-dominated city.

Via Planetizen, Richard Florida argues the decline in the popularity of suburbs is not just a product of rising oil prices, but a result of a new "spatial fix" that is reorganizing how and where people live their lives. From Florida's column in the Globe and Mail:

Jerry Brown Declares War on Suburbs (WSJ)  Councilman Cardenas v MTA on Orange Line Development (Daily News)  Sharing the Road without the Rage (Times)  Bad Economy, Road Construction Team to Reduce Congestion (Daily Bulletin)  Antonovich Defends Molina on Gas Tax Strategy (SGV Tribune)  Parking and Density Policies Could Ruin City’s Livability (Daily Breeze) Road Pricing … Continued

Despite opposition from several key members, the Los Angeles City Council endorsed Metro's sales tax proposal and expenditure plan.  An earlier motion called on Metro to fund certain projects, such as a streetcar for the downtown and a Green Line extension to the airport, but an amendment offered by Council Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel removed those stipulations in favor of blanket support for the resolution which could increase LA City's coffers by $40 million a year in Local Return funds.

Three weeks ago, I announced a new Streetsblog feature where "every Friday" we'd examine a particularly bike-unfriendly place to visit. The idea was to show how far we have to go to have the Los Angeles that we all want and that's it's not all a political problem.  Many places in Los Angeles can actively discourage bicyclists from visiting by doing the little things wrong, such as not having bike parking or just being rude to people with helmets. While I asked for submissions, I also promised that I would write the first one up on my own. However, if there's a place you would like to receive the same treatment, please email me at damien@streetsblog.org. If you have pictures to support your story, all the better.

Two recent road rage incidents are all over the news in Portland. Earlier this month, a drunken man on a bike became aggravated when a driver, himself a self-described bike advocate, reprimanded the cyclist for blowing a stoplight. The cyclist threatened the driver, picking up his bike and hitting the car with it. Then this week, a driver struck a cyclist and continued to drive as the victim, who escaped without serious injury, clung to the windshield.

In a story about the housing downturn, BusinessWeek had some numbers crunched to see where home prices have remained most stable and where they have declined most precipitously: