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Streetsblog LA
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
Voices From The National Bike Summit
Last week, hundreds of bike advocates descended on Washington D.C.
for the tenth annual National Bike Summit -- the largest one yet.
Hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the summit is always a
great opportunity for advocates to share ideas and make the case for
cycling on Capitol Hill. This year attendees encouraged their senators
and representatives to sign on to several key pieces of legislation,
including the Active Community Transportation Act, Safe Routes to
School Act, and the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act.
March 15, 2010
LaHood Reaches Out to Transit Industry, Lamenting ‘Lousy Economy’
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sought to commiserate with the
cash-strapped transit industry today, declaring the Obama
administration an ally of local rail and bus agencies even as the
"lousy economy" clouds prospects for passage of a new long-term federal
transportation bill.
March 15, 2010
Mr. Villaraigosa Goes to Washington to Pitch 30 in 10
Senators began searching today for new strategies to connect local
planners with an ever-dwindling pot of federal infrastructure dollars,
even as a senior U.S. DOT aide declined to say whether the White
House's upcoming principles for the next long-term transportation bill would include funding specifics.
March 12, 2010