LADOT

Kudos to L.A. City Transportation Department's (LADOT) for implementing another small livability and safety improvement. Last weekend, I came across a new striping configuration located at the intersection of Silver Lake Boulevard and Temple Street. These streets cross but do not quite intersect as Temple Street goes above on a 1934 grade-separation bridge, originally intended to reduce congestion on Silver Lake Blvd.

It may be one of those made-up statistics, but there is a repeated truism that millions of people visit Hollywood Boulevard every year, and they spend an average of about fifteen minutes there. Sure, there are the Walk of Fame, some beautiful historic theaters and other noble buildings, Metro Red Line subway stops, costumed performers, street musicians... but Hollywood Boulevard is mostly tacky souvenir shops, museums in name only, and sad restaurants one would never return to, all along a massive car-choked stroad.

At a press event yesterday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Councilmember Paul Koretz celebrated the expansion of L.A. Express Park to Westwood.

As expected, a suite of far-ranging parking reforms was heard by the Los Angeles City Council's Transportation Committee yesterday. The committee was broadly receptive to the reforms, directing the city's Transportation Department (LADOT) and other departments to further investigate a number of key reforms. What was perhaps most revealing was individual city councilmember attention to specific parking issues.

This afternoon the Los Angeles City Council was scheduled to hold its first hearing on motion 15-1006 aimed to reduce speeding and curb unsafe speed limit increases. Unfortunately the item was postponed to a future Transportation Committee meeting. 

Last night, the city of Los Angeles welcomed national safe streets advocate Leah Shahum at a forum discussing what Vision Zero will mean for Los Angeles.

The city of Los Angeles Transportation Department (LADOT) released its fiscal year 2014-2015 Annual Report [PDF] last week.

In 2012, Ashley Sandau was walking across Rowena Avenue and was hit and killed by a motorist. Then-Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge spearheaded efforts to make Rowena safer. The city Transportation Department (LADOT) implemented a road diet on Rowena. The street had two travel lanes in each direction. These were reduced to one travel lane each direction, plus a center left turn lane and bike lanes. LADOT studies have found that post-diet Rowena supports roughly the same volume of cars as pre-diet, but does so with reduced speeds and fewer collisions.

Yesterday's Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee touched on a number of items related to Los Angeles livability. Below is a brief recap of highlights. All these committee actions still need to be approved by the full city council before going into effect.