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Join Streetsblog Los Angeles and  Councilmember Mike Bonin (confirmed) at the Brentwood home of Joel Epstein and Karen Sarachik at a celebration to honor the public service of PAUL BACKSTROM Transportation Deputy to Mike Bonin, and Formerly Bill Rosendahl and Jack Weiss March 15, 2014 6 pm to 9 pm Suggested donation $100, proceeds will … Continued

This morning, local elected officials and federal administrators joined together to announce that Metro's Regional Connector is now fully funded. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is granting $670 million in New Starts funding to the Regional Connector, and also extending a low-interest TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan of $160 million.

In March of 2011, then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law the city's Bicycle Plan, a list of some 1,600 miles of bicycle lanes, routes, friendly streets and paths scheduled for the next 30 years. In some ways, implementation is going exceedingly well. The pace at which new bicycle lanes are being added exceeds even that of New York City. In other ways, the plan seems stalled as many of the projects that make up the "Backbone Bicycling Network" connecting neighborhoods, are being delayed or canceled as nervous City Councilmembers put up roadblocks to bicycle progress.

Tomorrow, the Expo Construction Authority Board of Directors will hear a motion by Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz requiring "the CEO and staff to work collaboratively with the City of Los Angeles to ensure that the landscaping of the two projects (the Expo Greenway and the landscaping for the Expo Line) compliment each other..."

Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke during a lunchtime plenary at the VerdeXchange/FutureBuild, a conference on sustainability, business and public policy, on Tuesday at the L.A. Hotel Downtown on Figueroa. He urged all departments in the city to look at everything through a lens of environmentalism.

- There is no way following that crash that I wan't going to get back on my bike -

On Saturday, Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell hosted a bike lane dedication for a half-mile of new north-south lanes on Virgil Avenue between Santa Monica Blvd. and Melrose. The project includes all new pavement, bike lane and Continental Crosswalk striping, as well as removal of peak hour parking restrictions.

The LAPD, Mayor's Office and to some extent the media are downplaying the significance of yesterday's afternoon car crash in Downtown Los Angeles involving the Mayor's SUV. Driven by an LAPD officer, the vehicle was driven into a pedestrian inside of a crosswalk causing her hospitalization. The the officer and his passengers were traveling east on 2nd Street towards City Hall when the crash occurred at Spring Street.

An LAPD squad car carrying Mayor Eric Garcetti struck and injured a pedestrian at 12:20 pm today near Second and Spring Streets. The woman was taken to the hospital by Fire Department. Neither LAFD nor the Mayor's Office would comment further on her condition.