Stephen Box

With all the bleak news about the City of Los Angeles' budget woes, and the ridiculously poor state of the same city's Transit Oriented Development program; the last thing one might expect to hear out of city hall is a fight over how the city spends its "Street Furniture Revenue Fund."  Yesterday, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a veto of Councilman Tony Cardenas' request to use street furniture funds to pay for his office staff, that's exactly what we got.

At City Watch and his personal blog Soap Box, Stephen Box punched an SUV sized hole in the Mayor and Police Chief Charlie Beck's claim that the City of Los Angeles has become the "second safest big city in America, after New York."  Box's contention is that because the city assumes that most traffic crashes are "accidents" even when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, that the city can keep its official statistics low and avoid having to spend resources to keep the city safe.

Some see it as a niche ride for activists.  Some see it as Stephen Box's attempt to get on television and continue his feud with Councilman Tom LaBonge.  Still others as a ride that engenders mire bad will with city agencies than it's worth.  After all, how many hard core cycling activists really want to ride through car choked streets to look at a bunch of holiday lights?

Starting on Thursday, the City of Los Angeles will hold the first of five "official" public meetings on the Draft Bike Plan that was released for public viewing after some draft maps were released earlier this summer.  It's been a long road for the Bike Plan from the scoping meetings held in February of 2008 and a process that has brought a groundswell of hope and the seeds of change in other cities has been one full of anger, accusations and a near complete lack of trust.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who regularly reads Streetsblog doesn't know who Stephen Box is.  Either he, his wife, or one of the groups he leads seem to make news just about every week somewhere in Los Angeles.  But for those who don't know, Stephen Box is a Bike Activist and Community Organizer who lives in Hollywood with his lovely wife, Enci. Stephen says "I believe that our streets are the new ‘public space’ and our ability to share that space is one of our greatest opportunities for revitalizing and redefining our communities.”

Last Saturday night, transportation activists Stephen and Enci Box arrived at the Hollywood and Western Metro Red Line station and found the station in shambles.  A homeless encampment had moved onto the top floor, five of the six escalators were out of order and the "emergency intercom" was broken.

She may not have filled out our CD 2 Candidate Questionaire, but fresh from his trip to Austrailia Stephen Box brings us this video of Benson rallying to the virtues of biking and walking in L.A.  To the cheers of supporters, Benson says: