ExpressPark

Autonomous vehicles could make streets much safer, and/or could greatly increase miles driven and greenhouse gases emissions. Which future will it be?

Today, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced seven council motions [PDF] that would reform parking. The motions are wide-ranging: from diverting parking meter revenue back into neighborhoods where it is generated, to tiering parking ticket fines, to expanding dynamic pricing via Express Park.

At a press event yesterday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Councilmember Paul Koretz celebrated the expansion of L.A. Express Park to Westwood.

As expected, a suite of far-ranging parking reforms was heard by the Los Angeles City Council's Transportation Committee yesterday. The committee was broadly receptive to the reforms, directing the city's Transportation Department (LADOT) and other departments to further investigate a number of key reforms. What was perhaps most revealing was individual city councilmember attention to specific parking issues.

Tomorrow's 1 p.m. Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting will be the first public airing of the final report of Mayor Garcetti's Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group. In February, the Working Group delivered "Proposals for Parking Reform in the City of Los Angeles": a 40-page report [PDF] outlining an extensive series of parking policies tailored to solve parking problems within the city of Los Angeles. The recommendations are far-ranging, including parking revenue, parking minimums, freight parking, parking ticket fines, street sweeping restrictions, and much more.

Yesterday's Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee touched on a number of items related to Los Angeles livability. Below is a brief recap of highlights. All these committee actions still need to be approved by the full city council before going into effect.

Earlier this week, I accepted an invitation to do a downtown Los Angeles bike-along with City of L.A. Transportation Department (LADOT) parking enforcement officers. LADOT also uses bicycle officers to do parking enforcement in the Valley, West L.A., and Hollywood. The parking enforcement staff downtown is 30 strong, all on bicycle.

(Last week we had a chance to talk with UCLA Professor and renowned Parking Rock Star Donald Shoup about Los Angeles' ExpressPark system coming to the Downtown soon.  The transcript was edited slightly by both of us for clarity. For more information about ExpressPark and the city's plans, visit Blog Downtown. - DN)