Lindsey Miller

Big Blue Bus (BBB) has just begun the gargantuan process of figuring out how to best integrate its system with the Metro Expo Line Phase 2, set to open in early 2016. Three of the seven new stations being built are within the City of Santa Monica, but all are within BBB’s service area. The end of the line will be at Colorado Avenue and 4th Street, just a few blocks from the beach. The line connects to Downtown Los Angeles via Culver City, ending at Metro Center, 7th St. and Figueroa St.

The Santa Monica City Council took a historic vote last night to approve the conceptual design for the city’s first greenway on Michigan Avenue. The goal for the Michigan Ave. Neighborhood Greenway (MANGo) is to reduce and slow car traffic primarily through street design changes, making biking and walking through the neighborhood a safer and more pleasurable experience. The bikeway would also connect such destinations as Santa Monica High School and Virginia Avenue Park, eventually including the beach to the west, and the Bergamot Expo Line Station and Edison Language Academy to the east.

On Friday, transportation professionals, elected officials, and businesses gathered in Anaheim for the Mobility 21 Summit to discuss strategies to improve transportation and mobility in Southern California.

Old toy warehouses. Coca-Cola bottling plants. Bridge-cable manufacturing. A sushi restaurant with cardboard furniture. Angel City Brewing. Buildings covered with colorful graffiti.

Planners who traveled to Los Angeles over the past four days to attend the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference were greeted by a very different L.A. than the one they visited at the last APA conference in L.A. over 25 years ago.

The idea of “complete streets”—that is, streets designed with all users, not just cars, in mind—isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere yet. On Friday, planners, engineers, advocates, and students convened at the second annual UCLA Complete Streets for California conference at the Kyoto Grand Hotel downtown to renew their excitement in complete streets, see photos of cool projects around the country, and discuss how to make complete streets the norm in California. Advocates hope a widespread focus on complete streets in California could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging more walking and biking, but also promote healthier lifestyles, as explained by UCLA public health professor Richard Jackson.