West LA

Amidst all the election news comes word that there is a small Bikelash brewing on the Westside from residents worried that the diet is creating spillover traffic jams on other local streets. The good news is that the proposed solutions seem to be about improving traffic calming measures on the streets parallel to Motor Avenue. The bad news is the complaints will be heard at tonight's meeting of the Palms Neighborhood Council which will feature local City Council Member Paul Koretz. The agenda for tonight's hearing is here.

The buzz started on Monday: an alert reader (and Wilshire bike commute champion) notified Streetsblog that the sharrows on Motor Avenue disappeared between Venice Boulevard and National Boulevard, a three quarter mile stretch of mixed residential and commercial development, during a recent repaving.

By now, you've probably read the action alert from the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition or read the article on Biking In L.A. warning that things are not going smoothly for planning of the Expo Bikeway. As you might remember, I serve as a member of the Expo Bicycle Advisory Committee (EBAC), and wanted to share some thoughts with you.

It was a warm night last May when four racers gathered at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Amherst Boulevard to race. The race would take them east, for three miles to the corner of Wilshire and Beverly Glen Boulevard. The goal? To prove that even during Wilshire's legendary rush hour, that our chosen mode of transportation was the fastest, the most efficient, and quite simply, the best.

(Update: I received a question on why we published the name and address of the angry homeowner, questioning whether or not he qualifies as fare game to be signaled out by name.  I chatted with a friend of mine who doesn't have a stake or opinion in the issue of how UCLA decides when to keep its transit stops open.  He advised me that it wasn't illegal, but that we should have contacted him for a quote if we were going to feature him so prominently.  It was my call to leave his name in so any blame/fallout should fall on me, not Juan.   I just removed his name, address and references to his employment from the story and comments.- DN)

The question of how far Neighbors for Smart Rail, a coalition of homeowners and community groups fighting the expansion of the Expo Line into West Los Angeles, were willing to take their legal challenges to the line is now answered.  They're willing to take it all the way.

A group of Cheviot Hills residents who's property abuts the proposed Expo Bikeway on the Westside of Los Angeles have filed suit for the second time in two years alleging that environmental clearances given the bikeway were given in error.  Their first lawsuit, filed in June 2010, resulted in the City of Los Angeles and Caltrans reversing their original environmental clearance decisions and re-working their studies.  The bikeway was granted a second environmental clearance, known as a Categorical Exclusion (CE), in November of 2011.

(Hello Beverly Hills Courier readers!  Confused by allegations that Metro controls editorial decisions here at Streetsblog?  To help clear things up, we've compiled a list of the connections between Streetsblog and Metro right here.)

The first of several major issue scheduled to be addressed by the Metro Board of Directors was the approval of the environmental documents for the Westside Subway.  After the Beverly Hills City Council formerly requested a hearing earlier this week, Metro staff recommended that the Board split approval for the Subway into two parts so that part could be approved today and part could be approved after another hearing was held.  The first part would cover the extension from the current Wilshire/Western stop to Wilshire/La Cienega.  The route approved would be 3.9 miles of the 8.6 mile route that was proposed by Metro staff.