This is what Los Angeles' Transportation Strategic Plan is supposed to be about. The presentations from Bureau and Department heads on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 will deal mainly with funding issues for automobile projects. Strange, no?
The Mother of All L.A. Transportation Hearings is Tomorrow
Tomorrow, on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, from 10 a.m. until the public comment period begins at 4 p.m., the City Council of Los Angeles will be listening to testimony intended to generate a strategic transportation plan for L.A.
This all-day extravaganza originated in a recent Transportation Committee hearing, chaired by Councilwoman Wendy Gruel, that led a shocking discovery: the City of L.A. had no transportation plans for the future.
So, Councilwoman Gruel got to work with her colleagues, and had their staff create the notion of a Transportation Strategic Plan for Los Angeles. They even created a Transportation Strategic Plan for Los Angeles website. I waste a good twenty minutes composing a typos-ridden message to the Concilwoman.
Tomorrow, the council is going to have the Department of City Planning, the Bureau of Streets Services, the Bureau of Public Works, and the Department of Transportation make presentations regarding the strategic plan. You can check out the .pdf versions of those presentations here (well, all except the DOT's presentation for some reason). If that link goes away, the information is all affiliated with Council File #07-4123.
One thing I noticed after looking through the various presentations prepared for tomorrow: they had a lot to do with talking about funding car projects, and then handing over the design of our roadways to the DOT, or another team of traffic engineers.
I've generated couple of suggestions for members of the council, and a few of them have staff members kind enough to indulge my imagined ability to affect public policy. In the kind spirit of several councilmembers staffers, I'd like to offer up my two suggestions for long term transportation planning in L.A.
My Suggestions for Council Tommorrow
I run a bicycle repair collective called the Bike Oven, so mostly I'm concerned with making life easier and safer for bicyclists. However, I'd like to see our roads better planned, funded, and measured for bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users.
These two suggestions - introducing better roadway measurements, and expanding the legal definition of "transportation" - will build the groundwork required for Los Angeles to more closely reflect the needs of its people.
1. Better Roadway Measurement:
Measure more than cars. Use people counts, and other performance based measurements, to judge the quality of our roads and roadway plans.
The general plan instructs the LADOT to measure the performance of our roads. Unfortunately, those measurements are exclusively measurements of cars - how many cars per hour, how far can a car drive per hour, how fast can we get cars moving, etc. You can check out our current instructions to the LADOT here, in the section entitled "Citywide Transportation System Performance Evaluation".
The problem with this system, is that it keeps us from building roads that encourage walking, cycling, and the use of transit. We need a new set of roadway measurements.
We need to measure the number of people being moved, not just automobiles per hour. Additionally, the effects of automobile traffic should be quantified more explicitly: noise, loss of business foot traffic due to high speeds, traffic deaths, and other social measures.
One example is taken from a famous study by Dr. Donald Appleyard who, in his landmark 1981 "Livable Streets" study, demonstrated a direct correlation between the number of friends people have on a street, and the amount of cars travelling on a given street. The more cars travelling on a road, the fewer friends people who lived on that road had. Appleyard's survey was repeated in New York in 2005, with consitent results. Using Appleyard's survey and a 300' radius map's mailing list around an arterial road, we can make powerful findings to guide urban planners designing our roadways.
This type of measurement needs to be tied to our roadway designations. When Los Angeles City Planning Department Chief Gail Goldberg talks about "doing real planning", and the development of a planning toolbox - these sorts of road design tools need to be in that toolbox. The PlanningDepartment has been a bit lax, in the past, with its duties to plan the public right-of-way. Writing these metrics into the Transportation Strategic Plan will ensure that citizens, and not cars, are given priority when planning in the public right-of-way.
2. Expand the Definition of Transportation
Open up real change in your district by using general transportation funds to pay for non-automobile roadway improvements.
An additional difficulty the City faces when planning and funding projects for pedestrians, bicyclists, and mass transit have to do with policies and precedents that restrict spending on these modes of transportation.
Lessons from other cities around the world show that we can move many thousands of people cheaply, quickly, and safely by building city streets that allow them to bicycle, walk, or take mass transit. The barriers to funding these sorts of smart urban transportation planning efforts in L.A. need to come down.
To normal people, bicycling, walking, and taking transit are modes of transportation (of course!).
However, at the LADOT, the Bureau of Public Works, and other city agencies these are not considered "transportation" when the time comes to allocate funding for transportation projects. Department policies restrict most transportation funding - sending the majority to automobile projects only. Any project that will negatively impact the number, or speed, of automobiles will have a tough time getting funds due to these policies.
The City Council ought to explicitly define what "transportation" is, in an ordinance. This will allow Councilmembers pushing for local changes in roadway design (to revitalize a business district, or calm traffic in a neighborhood), to use general transportation funds for that change.
Right now, those election winning neighborhood enhancements are restricted to a funding "ghetto" - a tiny slice of transportation funds set aside for non-motorized transport.
So that is it. I doubt I'll be able to present this to the Council in person tomorrow. I have a job, afterall. I've spent most of my workday today preparing this brief write-up. You can download a .pdf copy of my suggestions (while it is up on the web).
I'd like to personally thank the deputies I spoke with today in Ed Reyes', Jose Huizar's, and Tom LaBonge's offices. I get jaded sometimes when I think about trying to make things a little bit better in Los Angeles. You all really gave me some hope. We'll see what comes of it.
Join the lively "conversation" about this on the Midnight Ridazz forum post I created, or leave a comment for me here on this blog.
Posts
4 comments:
You are on it. Props to you.
Where is LACBC or any pedestrian groups?
Matt,
Thanks fo' the props.
About the LACBC and other modal user groups, I really don't know. I often wonder why we're not as proactive as we could be.
Most members of the L.A. council are willing to at least hear us out. We just need to be organized, understand the extent of their power, and have the time to talk with them.
Bicycling (and related urban planning issues) could be a big part of the next election cycle in L.A. Our local elected leaders are pretty sharp folks (most of the time). If they see low hanging fruit to make neighborhood groups and local business interests happy - they usually jump right on board and claim the ideas for themselves.
Personally, as one of the little people, it feels good to have my ideas appropriated by a politician and made into something real.
Dorothy from LACBC was present yesterday and her testimony was pretty similar to what was in your posts, minus the stuff about traffic counts. She also warned that the city's bike master plan might be a dissapointment...that's something that bears watching.
Incidently, congratulations on Reyes' statement. I think he might have just printed out your blog post!
I'm going to the MR forum, but before I try to look on the bright side, why have a transportation meeting during the hours that most normal people have to work?
Ok that's it with me being negative, no just kidding, but I'm going to try to be opt$$$$$, oh forget it. I can't even spell that word.
Browne
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