West LA

A recent article in the newsletter for the Cheviot Hills Homeowners Association provides an amazing example of how two people's viewpoints, and rhetoric, can present two different stories. When I first read the article from CHHA, I actually didn't recognize that it was coverage of the same story I wrote back in September of 2010.

After experiencing a community backlash over the Wilbur Avenue road diet and bike lanes project in the Valley, LADOT developed an improved outreach plan for a proposed road diet for Main Street in Venice.  The project would mirror the road configuration on Main Street in Santa Monica, and in the words of the LADOT would "complete" the street by providing seamless connectivity on Maon Street throughout the Westside.

Cyclists riding South on Main Street in Santa Monica are "welcomed" to the City of Los Angeles by a bike lane that disappears at the city border.  For no other reason than switching sides of a political boundary, cyclists who were riding in a bike lane in Santa Monica are moved in to the rest of traffic in Los Angeles.  And, the two-lane Main Street doubles to a four-lane one as well.  Welcome to Los Angeles!

If you live in the Venice area and want to learn more about the project to make Main Street from Navy to Windward Circle, please attend the Venice Neighborhood Council Meeting this coming Tuesday. LADOT and Councilmember Rosendahl's staff will be on hand to present on this project. LACBC will also be there to offer support for the project and talk about the community benefits.

In an odd quirk of L.A. City Council rules, a Committee can "meet" with just the chair present and move legislation along to the full Council for a vote.  Thus, with the majority of the City Council downstairs debating how to frame the outsourcing of political will to raise parking rates in a way that didn't make them look like a rubber stamp, Transportation Committee Chair Rosendahl served as a one man committee.  Rosendahl's office explained to me that if the Full Council Meeting was still happening, that the Chairman would not ask all the witnesses who trekked Downtown to come back later and would hold the hearing himself.

You knew it was bound to happen.

Tomorrow morning, Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the families of two hit-and-run victims will publicly ask for help in solving two separate crashes from last January.  During the news conference, Rosendahl and the investigating detectives will announce a $50,000 reward in each case for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects.

We've spent a lot of blog space questioning the value of the mammoth I-405 Widening Project, but the project has brought some good news to cyclists on the Westside.  Via twitter, Rach Stevenson announced that the southbound bike lane on Ohio Boulevard by the V.A.'s office has been restriped and moved out of the gutter.  Before this welcome change, Biking In L.A. referred to this bike lane as "the worst bike lane on the Westside."

I just got off the phone from the courthouse in Norwalk and the news is good for supporters of Phase II of the Expo Line, although the case brought by Neighbors for Smart Rail was not completely dismissed by the judge.