LADOT

For one week a year, transportation agencies around the country and around L.A. County put their best face forward to the cycling community by programming a series of bike-friendly events intended to encourage and support better cycling.  The majority of the events, with the notable exception of Bike Writer's Collective Bike Not to Work Day, were programmed by either the team of Metro and the LADOT or CICLE and the City of Pasadena.

We've been waiting for weeks for Paul Krekorian's "Safe Streets" legislation, A.B. 766, to make it to committee, but in the meantime the support for the legislation has grown.  While the city was raising speed limits on roads throughout the Valley, it complained that it was unable to resist the changes because of a state law that limits be set at the eighty-fifth percentile of drivers.  This legislation provides a greater role for the community in setting the limits and greater flexibility for LADOT to resist raising the limits.

The more I think about the LADOT's new plan for the Olympic-West Pico-East project the more I think they may have gotten things backward.  Starting last night, the LADOT began a series of public meetings to provide the public input on "scoping" for the environmental studies, i.e. gave the public a chance to weigh in on what alternatives they would like to see to alleviate automobile congestion on Pico and Olympic Boulevards.

When I first read that the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation was holding public meetings this week on a revised Pico-Olympic Plan, I got nostalgic.  Covering the battle between the community and the city over the plan to remove rush-hour parking, restripe the roads and retime the signals was the signature story back at StreetHeat, the precursor blog to  LA Streetsblog.  As a matter of fact, most of the links below are to Street Heat stories that were brought over, which hopefully explains some of the issues with layout and image quality.

Blogdowntown reports that the chances that transit service comes back to Dodger Stadium are about the same as the Dodgers clearing out parking spaces for helicopter parking.  Despite a verbal commitment to the City Council last year that they would try and find sponsors for the shuttle, they refuse to talk to team sponsors and won't of course wouldn't dream of actually paying for what is essentially private shuttle service themselves. 

On Monday, I re-posted a story that first appeared on the excellent blog bikinginla about a Westwood crosswalk that was posted as closed to pedestrians.  On Tuesday, I decided to do the responsible thing and actually let LADOT know about the offending signage.  To its credit, the DOT replied via email within minutes and within hours had removed the offending signage.  They were even able to tell me which crosswalk was the offending one based on the picture after I told them I wasn't sure.

(Editor's Note: Thanks to everyone who wrote in or commented that a "T Intersection" is a legal crosswalk in California regardless of whether it is striped or not.  I knew that, I was going for satire and inadvertently misled people.  Sorry for any confusion.)

One of the Faux Streets, Closed to Car Traffic, at the Grove

Mayor Villaraigosa Mugs for the Cameras at Opening of Dodger Trolley