Cities, Counties, and Countries

Earlier today, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti nominated Seleta Reynolds to be the new general manager for LADOT. Streetsblog announced the nomination earlier today via this brief article, which includes the mayor's press release.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has nominated Seleta Reynolds to be the new general manager for the city’s Transportation Department (LADOT.) From preliminary research on Reynolds’s background, this looks like great news. Reynolds currently works for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) where her focus had been livable streets, with a focus on building more equitable streets.

Just four days before San Jose's City Council was expected to approve the Diridon Station Area Plan, a four-year-old community-based plan to guide the next 30 years of transit-oriented redevelopment around the Diridon Caltrain Station, city officials released a memo on June 6, proposing numerous amendments in response to City Council questions and public comments made at the council's preliminary review of the plan on May 20.

SAP Center, the corporation that owns the 19,000-seat arena across Santa Clara Street from San Jose's downtown Caltrain station, doubts that the next 30 years of transit improvements will bring more visitors to events at the "Shark Tank." Instead, they insist that 20,000 new car parking spaces be built within its redeveloping neighborhood.

Tomorrow, San Jose voters will choose which of the candidates running for mayor, or for five of the city's ten council seats, will proceed to run-off elections in November. San Jose's growing bicycle advocacy community has put the spotlight on which candidates have made commitments to a bike-friendlier city, and many candidates have responded by courting the increasingly influential "bike vote."

The Peds Count! 2014 Summit kicked off in Sacramento with a panel of top-level executives from regional planning agencies celebrating their accomplishments in improving conditions for pedestrians.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will soon renew its contract for Clipper, the Bay Area's "all-in-one transit card." Transit advocates are urging MTC to use the opportunity to create a more seamless fare system, and remove barriers that could allow Clipper payments on both the region's transit agencies and "first-and-last-mile" trip services.

Yesterday, on the Bay Area's 20th Bike to Work Day, Bike East Bay and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland demonstrated what a block of Telegraph Avenue would look and feel like with a parking-protected bike lane. Without help from the city's Public Works Department (but with city approval), the two advocacy groups created temporary bike infrastructure by painting green lanes and bike stencils, putting down planters, and turning the adjacent traffic lane into a parking lane.

When East Palo Alto repaved Woodland Avenue between Newell Avenue and West Bayshore Road in late March, one half-mile of the city's bumpiest pothole-filled street was suddenly transformed into its smoothest one, complete with new striping and well-placed sharrows on top. City planners hope the sharrows will help residents bike and drive more predictably on Woodland's streets, almost all of which are too narrow to accommodate both parallel-parked cars and bike lanes.