People

Los Angeles has a new transportation app that helps Angelenos choose ways to get around. The GoLA "Mobility Marketplace" App shows various transportation modes, including bicycling, transit, taxi, ride-hailing, driving, and parking and allows users to compare modes to see what is fastest, cheapest, or greenest. The app is a collaboration between Xerox and the city of Los Angeles, shepherded by the Mayor Eric Garcetti's Chief Innovation Technology Officer, Peter Marx.

The L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks has released a new "Griffith Park Action Plan" [PDF] designed to deal with car congestion primarily from Hollywood Sign visitors. Last night, DRP and City Councilmember David Ryu hosted a community meeting to receive public feedback on the proposal. Nearly 200 people attended the forum, where DRP and Ryu received over an hour of public testimony critical of many aspects of the proposal.

Welcome to the first #DamienTalks of 2016, a public affairs podcast focused on interviewing the people that create and advocate for sustainable transportation in the San Gabriel Valley. For those of you just joining us, #DamienTalks has been broadcast on Streetsblog California for over a year, but we've received advertising support to do a bi-weekly podcast focused on the San Gabriel Valley right here on Streetsblog L.A.

When Metro's 6.6-mile Expo Line opens in mid-2016, the parallel Expo bikeway will open too.

Tragedy has struck again on North Figueroa Street.

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.

In the excitement of seeing the City Council rescind its vote on an amended Mobility Plan 2035 and re-adopt the plan in its draft form just before Thanksgiving, I managed to miss another item on the Council agenda from Councilmember Nury Martinez: a motion requesting that "the City Attorney report on issuing John Letters to the registered owners of vehicles that are seen driving around in high-prostitution areas in the City."

This Saturday, the Mar Vista Chamber of Commerce is hosting “Make It Mar Vista” along Venice Boulevard starting at Centinela Avenue and heading west. The event is the area’s newish small business showcase, highlighting one of the Westside’s more walkable corridors with small shops and locally-owned restaurants.

It may be one of those made-up statistics, but there is a repeated truism that millions of people visit Hollywood Boulevard every year, and they spend an average of about fifteen minutes there. Sure, there are the Walk of Fame, some beautiful historic theaters and other noble buildings, Metro Red Line subway stops, costumed performers, street musicians... but Hollywood Boulevard is mostly tacky souvenir shops, museums in name only, and sad restaurants one would never return to, all along a massive car-choked stroad.