Month: August 2012

“Are they going to actually listen to what I have to say?" a South L.A. community leader asked when I talked to him about getting involved with the LA/2B project (the effort to integrate Complete Streets principles and community input into the Mobility Element of the City's General Plan).

This week Santa Monica planner Lucy Dyke, the city’s Deputy Director for Special Projects (a.k.a. the person in charge of making bike stuff happen) presented to the city planning commission an update on the status of implementation of the Bike Action Plan. Although most of the progress outlined was highlighting projects I’ve seen or experienced firsthand, such as the bike lane essentially to my front door on 14th Street, it was helpful to see all of the projects laid out in one place. Some new snap shots of ridership gains and other kinds of data were reported as well.

Well, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney declined to get into details about his plans for the nation's transportation system during his big speech in Tampa last night. Romney has been tight-lipped about actual policy recommendations throughout his campaign, although a platform released by the GOP this week was basically a worst case scenario for sustainable transportation and had the hallmarks of a Big Oil-fueled propaganda campaign.

While much of the world focuses on the national elections, East Hollywood Community Activist Elson Trinidad announced his candidacy to replace Eric Garcetti as the Council Member for District 13 earlier this week. District 13 includes Hollywood, East Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Glassell Park, Filipino Town and other mid-town communities. Garcetti of course is term-limited out of his seat and is running for Mayor. The primary election will be held in March, 2013.

Damien, Joel, Sunny and More Talk Buses, Metro, Civil Rights on HuffPo (Huffington Post Live) Big Daily Newspapers Note That Really Old Drivers Need More Tests (LAT, Daily News) Meanwhile, Bev. Hills School District Sends More Money to DC Lobbyist (Patch) Mike Feuer Had a Good Session Fighting “Buy Here Pay Here” and Promoting Measure … Continued

A middle aged man that sits by a hill near the East LA Civic Center Lake, blushes when Estela Garcia sits next to him, her top teeth protruding out of her mouth.

L.A. Streetsblog Editor Damien Newton will appear on Huffington Post Live today at 2:00 p.m. to discuss how local bus issues are impacting the national transit scene. You can watch at http://live.huffingtonpost.com/. Once the video is available for embedding, we'll post it here on Streetsblog.

In 2011, the City of Los Angeles passed a new Bike Plan which included a  “5 year bike network implementation plan.” The implementation plan focued on a handful of “core” areas to focus the bulk of the new bike facilities. One of those areas is Downtown Los Angeles. A year and a half later, checks in on how Downtown Los Angeles has changed in the past year and a half and what is in store in the coming years.

Over the years, we've had a handful of interns here at Streetsblog. For years, Carter Rubin has been in a class of his own for his contributions to our efforts but today we say goodbye to a young woman who's contributions match Rubin's.