Bike Path Cleanup, New Parking Meter Attendents, and LADOT’s Organization: The Rest of Next Week’s Transportation Committee Agenda

Meet the new boss. Photo: SoCal Social Club/Flickr

Yesterday we reported on the ongoing debate over the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes, but that’s hardly the only item of interest on next Wednesday’s City Council Transportation Committee Agenda.

For starters, after a slew of bad publicity surrounding the “trashed” state of the Orange Line Bike Trail, the city went out to bid on a new contract for both trail maintenance and maintenance for the city’s transit facilities.  The LADOT is recommending that ShelterClean, the company that has held the contracts to maintain 5 transit facilities in the Valley including Chatsworth Station and Van Nuys Station, to maintain both their bike trails and their transit stations.  Here’s hoping they do a better job keeping the Orange Line bike trail than their predecessors.

Also on the agenda is the hiring of more mechanics to operate Los Angeles’ street parking meters.  Between the under-staffing, and expected attrition in the next year, L.A. could lose nearly $1.3 million in 2010 unless an exemption to the city’s hiring freeze is given.  According to the math offered by the LADOT, the city would need to allocate just over $301,000 in salary, benefits and other costs to cover hiring three technicians.  However, the city would gain almost $650,000 in revenue from having more meters functioning correctly.

But perhaps of greatest interest to Streetsblog readers, the LADOT provides a report on, well, how the LADOT is structured and works.  After a brief explanation of the various sub-departments there is a flow chart that breaks down the organization of the leadership and offices within the department.