Villaraigosa Talks About Safe Streets for Pedestrians in State of the City

Earlier this week, Mayor Villaraigosa gave the annual State of the City address and for the first time it discussed a future with reduced auto dependency.  The following paragraph appears as part of a larger discussion of the Mayor’s Clean Tech Corridor initiative.  It’s not much, but it’s more than last year:

The Clean Tech Corridor will rest alongside the Cornfields Arroyo Seco
– the first and only LEED-pilot neighborhood by any big city in the
United States of America.  A cluster of pedestrian-friendly streets
sitting along public transit lines.  A model for future communities
where residents walk more, drive less  and have access to quality jobs
and affordable housing.

For more on what a "Clean Tech Corridor" actually is and what it could mean to L.A.  Check out this post at blogdowntown by Eric Richardson.

  • If the mayor could privatize crosswalk and bike lane building, maybe there’d be a deal in the works. Perhaps some mandatory logo wearing by anyone walking in the city would help fund an ad-supported effort to slow cars down.

    This mayor, from the get go, has been all about making LA less safe for alternative transit users and adding more access and speed for automobiles. Could he be any less engaged in what the LADOT is doing?

  • Tony V campaigned on the Subway to the Sea. He jump-started the re-analysis of the threat from subterranean methane pockets that led to Waxman withdrawing the rule that kept federal funding out of a wilshire subway. He’s stumped and spearheaded for Measure R.

    Now I’m not saying he’s the patron saint of alternative transit, but I’m curious why you think he has “been all about making L..A. less safe for alternative transit users and adding more access and speed for automobiles”? I don’t follow L.A. politics all that closely, so I’m willing to bet there are plenty of good reasons you are saying what you say, but please, educate me.

  • Tony V also campaigned using his “Tiger Team” of congestion busters – who acted quickly to speed up automobiles and increase the volume of traffic on our roads. He has thrown hundreds of millions at automobile infrastructure, while the planned 2002 Citywide Bike Network (total cost of $60 million over 8 to 10 years) has been un-built.

    Our standards, locally, for raising the speed limit using the state’s MUTCD have the LADOT raising speed limits across the valley (and across the city) despite fatalities and injuries due to speeding motorists and a poor bike and pedestrian network.

    There is no central database or online map that shows where and how many people get killed in (and by) cars and other traffic crashes – so the LADOT is given carte blanche to follow their prime directive of “More cars moving faster” with little opposition.

    Oh yes, and Measure R and the Subway to the Sea, yes what about those? Measure R dedicates the biggest chunk of its revenue to highway improvements and car projects. The Subway to the Sea is decades off in the future and will cost billions to construct. Boy is he out front on that one.

    When it comes to on-the-ground safety, and low cost solutions to moving people around the city on foot, by bike, or on the bus, this mayor stinks. He has achieved next to nothing in his 6 years on the job in this domain. Many freeways are re-paved, a $60 million grade separation in El Sereno got built, the LAPD got a new HQ ($300 million and counting) – but conditions on LA’s streets for alternative transit users are as bad as they has ever been.

  • David

    David Galvan,

    Consider yourself educated!

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