Month: January 2009

Stimulus Draft Disappoints on Infrastructure, Especially Transit (NYT) Dr. Thompson Pleads ‘Not Guilty,’ Wants Case Dismissed (LA Now) Cities Battle Over Future of Gold Line (KABC) Debate Continues Over Schwarzenegger Proposal to Gut CEQA (Merc) Debunking the Safety Myth of Car Travel (WalkBikeCT via Streetsblog.net) Bike Activism and Planning Gaining Traction in Israel (Haaretz via … Continued

Last fall, responding to reports of violence on the Ballona Creek Bike Trail, a group of Streetsbloggers responded by creating their own Livable Streets Discussion Forum and organized the Tour De Ballona ride to educate riders to the safety issue and draw attention to the problem.

Looking to circumvent a citywide bike lane injunction or avoid bike lane-related Community Board histrionics? Alex Tee and Evan Gant from the product design firm Altitude Inc. have a novel solution for you: Use laser beams to project your own lane from the back of your bicycle. Gant tells me that he and Tee developed their LightLane concept for a design competition aimed at encouraging bike commuting. For now, the idea exists only on paper but the duo has received so much positive feedback, they are planning to build a prototype.

(Enjoy Marin Luther King Day and the inauguration.  I'll be posing on a curtailed schedule the next two days.)

Climate change and peak oil challenge us to to change how we live in ways that are hard to imagine. How will we respond, and what systems are possible to help us adapt to radically changing conditions? One powerful model we can learn from is Cuba. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s … Continued

Jane Matsumoto will present an update on Metro's Transit Access Pass (TAP) program at the Wednesday January 21 meeting of Metro Citizens' Advisory Council, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Today in City Watch, Stephen Box talk about the need to improve pedestrian safety for everyone, cyclists, pedestrians and drivers. 

Yesterday, the City of Los Angeles had two visitors, one from Australia, Professor Peter Newman, and another from Virginia, University of Virginia professor Timoth Beatley, to warn us that we have a lot of work to do to prepare Los Angeles for a future where our culture isn't based around the automobile.  Our visitors were two-thirds of the team that wrote the groundbreaking book Resilient Cities which outlined four potential future for modern American cities:  the ruralized city, the divided city, the resilient city and the collapsed city.