LADOT

Tonight, city officials with LADOT and City Planning will present the environmental documents for five Bike Plan projects in West Los Angeles. Highlighting the list of projects is a proposal by the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) to restripe 1.6 miles of Westwood Boulevard between National Boulevard and Santa Monica Avenue to create a "floating" bike lane in each direction. LADOT has said they would back such a plan if there were community support.

"I'm lonely," a man half-jokingly testified at the LADOT's Public Hearing in support of the First Year Bike Lanes last Thursday night. "My friends find [riding in the street] terrifying."

From the, "what the heck?" file.

When I think "Valentine's Day," I think "bike lanes."

When Governor Jerry Brown signed A.B. 2245 into law, a law allowing certain bicycle projects to opt-out of the CEQA process, the news was somewhat buried. On the same day, the Governor vetoed the "Give Me 3" safety legislation that created a legal buffer between cyclists and passing automobiles earning the scorn of cyclists everywhere.

Municipal bond rates are at historic lows.  A memo by two respected faculty members at the UCLA Anderson Forecast (available at Streetsblog, for some reason link to city website is broken) suggests the city take advantage of these low rates to fund a $3 billion program to resurface, rehabilitate, and reconstruct city streets. This same logic extends to any local investment activity - because rates are low, it’s a good time to build or repair anything the city will need in the future. Street repair is an especially good choice for a city experiencing an historically high unemployment rate because a higher proportion of street investment goes into labor and wages than for other investments, a subway tunnel for instance.

No pedestrian left behind?

If you live, work, shop or play Downtown, you may have already seen it.  Brand new "zebra crosswalks," known in the planning world as "continental crosswalks," have been installed at the intersection of 5th and Spring, creating a safer and more visible crossing at one of L.A.'s busiest intersections. This is the first zebra installed since December of 2009, when LADOT initiated a "pilot program" at the intersection of Manchester and Sepulveda on the Westside.

In May, Streetsblog reported that new bike lanes were painted on Sepulveda Boulevard between Venice Boulevard and National Boulevard. The new lanes could connect all the way to the Expo Line Station scheduled for Sepulveda and Exposition, about a half mile north of where the lanes now end.