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Streetsblog LA
‘A Dozen or So’ Senators Delay Passage of Oberstar’s Highway Funding Fix
A contentious congressional dispute over
$932 million in transportation funding remains unresolved this week
after the Senate approved a one-month extension of federal aviation law
rather than a three-month version of the bill that included a fix to
the provision at issue.
March 29, 2010
Parking Rock Star, Donald Shoup Blasts L.A.’s Parking Policies
It's no secret that Livable Streets advocates are big fans of the theories of Donald Shoup. The Shoupista that introduced him on Saturday referred to him as "Shoup Dogg," and Streetsblog prefers to sing "Shoup there it is." These kind of salutations for an Economics professor who dresses the part of the academic activist from his tweed jacket to a t-shirt that reads "All may park, ALL MUST PAY" may seem silly; but his message for Angelenos is not. Our parking policy doesn't just make bad economic sense, it's also playing a major role in holding our city back. The UCLA professor is considered one of the foremost expert at parking policy, and when it comes to his host city; he doesn't like what he sees.
March 24, 2010
Vroom! Three New Speed Limit Increases Come to City Council
The move to speed up Los Angeles' streets continues unabated. Less than a week after hundreds of people gathered at the L.A. StreetSummit to discuss how to tame traffic and make Los Angeles' streets more livable, the City Council Transportation Committee is expected to hear, debate, and pass three speed limit increases in the San Fernando Valley at 2:00 p.M. this Wednesday in City Hall. In a way, its kind of a sobering crash back to reality. After a week of being reminded of what could be, activists are back to where we are...fighting speed limit increases that represent the exact opposite kind of thinking to what we talked about all weekend.
March 22, 2010
Streetscast: Full Audio of Janette Sadik-Kahn’s Speech Last Night
For anyone that missed last night's talk and won't make it tomorrow or just can't get enough of LA Streetsblog's rock star coverage, I've downloaded the audio from last night's speech. With apologies to Professor Gottlieb and the rest of the speakers from Occidental College, I'm just posting the parts where Sadik-Kahn is speaking.
March 19, 2010
Sadik-Khan Packs the House, Then Brings It Down
Last night, the L.A. StreetSummit kicked off with a rousing keynote
address and slide show by the groundbreaking New York City DOT
Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn. Three levels of Occidental College
students, bike advocates from around the county, and others interested
in Livable Streets packed the auditorium to hear Sadik-Kahn show the
changes that have come to New York City's streets under her and Mayor
Michael Bloomberg's leadership in the past three years.
March 19, 2010
House “Fix” to Jobs Bill Takes $192 Million from California
Fixing a disputed provision in the jobs bill that President Obama signed into law yesterday
-- as Senate Democratic leaders promised House transportation committee
chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) following complaints by several members of
his panel -- would involve the redistribution of $932 million in
funding for two major federal road and rail programs.
March 19, 2010
Dem. Senator Asks LaHood to ‘Put an End to’ Transportation Earmarks
When House leaders agreed last week to ban earmarks to for-profit entities, tax and transportation projects got a notable exemption.
But that doesn't mean Congress has no appetite to curb transport
earmarks, as Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) showed in a letter sent this
week to U.S. DOT chief Ray LaHood.
March 18, 2010
DIY Goes Legit: Hills Community Wants to Pay for Its Traffic Calming
Fed up with speeding traffic zooming through their local street, residents of the well-to-do Mt. Olympus Homeowner's Association have approached the city with a plan to pay for the speed humps and speed feedback signs that would make a difference in protecting their street from speeding drivers of all stripes. A motion to allow them to do just that was heard at last week's City Council Transportation Committee Hearing, with a resolution expected at next weeks.
March 17, 2010
Villaraigosa Steps Up Case for “30 in 10” in D.C.
Days after pitching the Senate environment committee for federal help with expediting his ambitious "30/10" package
of new transit projects, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was
back on the Hill yesterday meeting with lawmakers as part of a broad
campaign for more investment in California infrastructure.
March 17, 2010