Paul Koretz

Paul Koretz has delivered is the worst section of the Expo Line. Koretz’ section has a mile-long gap in the bike path. Koretz’ section has kids walking in the street because of a missing sidewalk between the Palms Station and Lycée Français High School.

Listening to the City Planning Commission vote in favor - albeit somewhat reluctantly - of moving forward on the regressive amendments to the Mobility Plan 2035 this morning, I felt my heart sink.

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

Last night, the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council voted to "reconsider" its support of the recently-passed Mobility Plan for the City of Los Angeles. The plan, which places safety at the center of all transportation decisions instead of vehicle travel speed, has been a favorite target for conservative talk radio hosts, "Fix the City," and now some Neighborhood Councils who favor the reverse.

Recently, Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz joined Mayor Eric Garcetti and others at a preview of the Expo Line Phase II, which extends that light rail line from its current terminus in Culver City, all the way to downtown Santa Monica. Afterwards, a press conference for this long-overdue project was held at the nearly-completed Palms Station, where they gave speeches and celebrated this milestone toward providing better mobility and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Here are the top five things I learned listening in to this week's Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting. The public meeting took place Wednesday, August 27, at Los Angeles City Hall. If you're nimble and/or having trouble sleeping, catch the full audio here.

Yesterday's Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting featured a number of livability issues that deserve more in-depth attention: Safe Routes to School, bicycle and pedestrian traffic counts, parking privatization, and more. SBLA will do a brief re-cap, and will track and report on these issues more in the future.

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.