Joe Linton

In 2015, I posted about what appeared to be a relatively new situation: a seemingly increasing number of cars parking on Koreatown sidewalks. I mentioned that I basically never saw this in my neighborhood only 5-10 years ago.

This week Streetsblog L.A. attended the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's West Coast Rail Conference. The conference featured speakers from public agencies and private industry speaking on rail projects from California to Korea to Turkey to Spain and many places between.

It was never going to be easy to shift Los Angeles decision-makers' attitudes to care more about keeping people alive than about moving cars. Nonetheless, L.A.'s mayor and city council have approved the city's Vision Zero policy, and directed city departments to work together to reduce L.A. traffic fatalities.

Yesterday about 30 Palos Verdes bicyclists staged a peaceful protest against the inaction of the Palos Verdes Estates City Council. The event was organized by a group called Cyclists for Palos Verdes and Southern California Bike Safety. The cyclists are pushing for PVE to install five "Bikes May Use Full Lane" signs on Palos Verdes Drive West, a popular and scenic street used frequently by recreational cyclists.

Streetsblog received a tip that someone is circulating wording to help L.A. Neighborhood Councils oppose reforms that would make it easier to permit new granny flats. The document, below, would be almost humorous if it was not such a NIMBY attack on affordable housing and bicycling.

I wanted to share some inspiring post-election advice from someone who I really admire: Dan Savage. Savage, a father, husband, and a wonderfully out gay man, is a sex advice columnist based in Seattle. I think his advice is insightful and entertaining. I am an avid listener to his Savage Lovecast podcast, which comes out every Tuesday morning. The Lovecast typically opens with a monologue with a generous dollop of Savage's radically inclusive left politics before he responds to readers questions on love, sex, and relationships. I am not sure that I would call Dan Savage a full-on urbanist, but now and then his urbanism shows. He is not preaching about walking, bicycling and transit, but he does mention his dislike of driving and his love for cities.

Transportation consultant Bruce Schaller released a new report with valuable advice for states and municipalities as they work to ensure that ride-hail companies best serve the common good. Ride-hail, or TNCs (Transportation Network Companies), includes primarily Uber and Lyft. Schaller was one of Janette Sadik-Khan's key deputy commissioners in the New York City Department of Transportation. His report, titled Unfinished Business: A Blueprint for Uber, Lyft and Taxi Regulation, was the subject of a talk Schaller gave yesterday at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

In this new promotional video, Caltrans District 7 inexplicably proclaims that widening a stretch of the 5 freeway in southeast L.A. County will "reduce congestion" and "improve air quality." The video, shown at Metro's board and committee meetings recently, further boasts about "better safety" and how outsized new bridges over the freeway will each "dwarf the original bridge." It goes on to herald Caltrans' $1.9 billion project (funded by Metro's Measure R) as a "21st-century transformation."

At the American Public Transit Association's annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, electric bus maker Proterra unveiled its new Catalyst E2 transit bus. The Catalyst E2 electric bus is "named for its unprecedented Efficient Energy (E2) storage capacity." According to Proterra:

My wife Carrie, our three-year-old daughter Maeve, and I bike-toured the central California coast last week. We took an Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Salinas, then an Amtrak through-bus to Monterey. From Monterey we biked down the coast through Big Sur and to San Luis Obispo, where we caught the train back to Los Angeles.