Editorial

Don't settle for more punitive policing-as-usual. Don't waste any more time in making good on your promises to reform transit policing.

Monterey Park is proposing lane expansions and parking lots - with virtually no community engagement. No surveys were sent out. No town halls were conducted. No input from residents on how we want our tax dollars spent.

Don't let a handful of lying xenophobic bullies take choices away from Eagle Rock

Measure W would establish a parcel tax to fund clean water, primarily through multi-benefit projects that would green communities throughout L.A. County

There is a lot to like about Measure M, the Los Angeles County sales tax that would fund a mix of transit and other transportation projects throughout the county. For all of the transit, mobility, walkability, bikeability benefits - not to mention health, environmental, and job benefits - across the region, Streetsblog Los Angeles endorses Measure M.

Editor's note: Last week, Streetsblog Los Angeles ran an opinion piece from one of our occasional contributors, Alexander Friedman. The piece told Friedman's side of the story regarding a controversial and currently half-built Target store at the corner of Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. Friedman's piece generated a lot of comments, some insightful, some sympathetic, some angry. We're happy that it fostered a dialogue about what kind of development makes sense for a more walkable, more livable Hollywood. Another friend of the blog, David Bell, is a lawyer in the suit that Friedman wrote about. Bell approached SBLA requesting that we publish the following article to set the record straight on what was legally at issue with this ill-fated development. SBLA is not taking sides on this issue, but the disputes here highlight some of the difficulties in planning and developing Los Angeles' walkable future. 

There are many suggestions how to 'fix' L.A., but we still fail to connect the financial troubles of our city with its physical shape. Our sprawling urban landscape has a structural land use imbalance that is a major cause for our financial problems; unchanged, L.A.'s urban form undermines our recovery and jeopardizes our future prosperity.

Yesterday and today, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the sites for his Great Streets Initiative. The mayor's Streets initiative now has an initial budget of $800,000. SBLA previewed six of these Great Streets announced during Garcetti's State of the City address. The full list now includes 15 street segments, one per City Council District. Here is how Garcetti describes Great Streets: