Complete Streets

"David!" I yelled, gesturing at City Planning's David Somers to come over and listen to what the residents playing cards in their yard were saying about the need for a stoplight at the intersection outside their front gate.

There's a cool new group on the move in South L.A. called the Mobility Advisory Committee.

Going to the gym may not be enough to keep off the pounds if you drive to work. That's the result of a study published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Last Thursday UCLA hosted its third annual Complete Streets Conference in Downtown Los Angeles. I was excited to have had the opportunity to attend with such a packed line up for the all day event, with a few big names in the mix including the esteemed Janette Sadik-Khan.

This week, I'm attending the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), now in it's 20th year and currently in West Palm Beach Florida from May 9th to 12th. This is my first time attending but CNU has long been influential to my thinking. Many of my books devoted to urban topics are written by prominent leaders of CNU, and many of these authors are speaking or contributing to the conference.  These writers attempt to distill and articulate what really makes cities thrive, and how we went wrong in so much of America.

Mikey, Jonathan, and George were waiting for a friend just a few feet from the corner of Ave. 50 and York Blvd. in Highland Park when a police car pulled up. Two cops got out and told them to turn around, spread their legs, and put their hands behind their backs.

The idea of “complete streets”—that is, streets designed with all users, not just cars, in mind—isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere yet. On Friday, planners, engineers, advocates, and students convened at the second annual UCLA Complete Streets for California conference at the Kyoto Grand Hotel downtown to renew their excitement in complete streets, see photos of cool projects around the country, and discuss how to make complete streets the norm in California. Advocates hope a widespread focus on complete streets in California could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging more walking and biking, but also promote healthier lifestyles, as explained by UCLA public health professor Richard Jackson.

Back in March, Carter Rubin covered the kickoff of an interesting project, funded by the LA County Public Health's RENEW Grant Program and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, to create a new street manual for road construction and redesign in Los Angeles County.