Overhead shot of the calmed streets in Pacific Palisades. No, those aren't apartment buildings.It's a common complaint of community groups that they are powerless to slow down speeding traffic in their neighborhoods. While there are many barriers to reducing average traffic speeds in L.A., state law and the LADOT to name a few, two relatively well-off communities may be on their way to slower cars on their local streets.
In a well-to-do section of Pacific Palisades, residents on two streets, Corona Del Mar and Alma Real Drive thought the speed limit of thirty miles per hour was too high. After discussing the issue with their Councilman, Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl, a motion was created to lower the speed limit to 25 miles per hour. The Calfironia Vehicle Code allows for residential streets to have 25 m.p.h. limits, but if an engineering survey determines that more than fifteen percent of drivers drive faster than that limit, then police can't use radar to enforce the limit.
The survey for this street shows that the speed should be 30 m.p.h. The residents didn't care about radar enforcement. After all, this is hardly a street that sees a lot of traffic cops. The motion passed Committee unanimously, and can be read here.
The second community was a little more proactive than the one in Pacific Palisades. Over two months ago a motion to allow the Mt. Olympus Community to install its own traffic calming was stalled in committee because the LADOT had concerns about the placement of the speed humps. You can read the report from that meeting here.
Over the last two months, those issues were worked out, the motion to allow them to buy their own speed humps and install them was passed unanimously as well. Installation, could happen as soon as the end of June.
While both of these victories are rare pieces of good news; it's hardly time to crack open the champagne. When neighborhoods in the Valley and N.E.L.A. are given control of speed on their streets as these more affluent communities are, then L.A. will be on its way to being a truly livable city.
