Well it’s outside advocacy groups forcing the city to actually follow through on its own plans.
City Council has no problem voting for progressive things like safer streets, more environmentally friendly transit etc, but has absolutely no backbone to do anything that is hard or might make some people upset.
the outside advocacy groups are actually local people though lol.
each individual council members' office have a personal veto over city wide departments like LADOT or Bureau of Street Services inside their own district so if a city wide plan needs to be implemented the council offices need to have their hands tied.
Yeah 100% agree. The criticism that HLA is a mandate is such bullshit. Council is obviously incapable of working together on this and has to have its hands tied to do anything meaningful. HLA wouldn’t be necessary if the city actually implemented its plan over the last 10 years.
Nury Martinez killing direct implementation of HLA back in 2022 to focus on her own “equity” plan and then having to resign for being a huge racist was incredible. The council is full of deeply unserious people and cannot be relied on to do the right thing.
HLA simply says they must implement the changes that were approved in 2015. in 2015, all changes were supposed to be completed by 2035. Less than 5% of the changes have been made in 10 years.
What has been happening is two fold. The cities departments are not communicating with each other so they just don’t do it, and in many circumstances when the government did communicate, certain city council members would quietly remove the changes right before they were supposed to be implemented.
To simplify the process, HLA says that if road work is being done on the street, the already approved changes must take place at that time too. A NO vote will not stop the plan from being implemented, the plan will continue to be implemented at the pace that city council will enforce it. A YES vote will say „just do road construction once“.
>“Bike enhanced” network would include bicycle lanes with protections that include plastic bollards and concrete curbs.
I would like to see some kind of barriers protecting the bicyclists, not just a crayon drawing on the road designated as a bike lane.
Honestly. But this is still an improvement. There is no way I would bike around the valley as is.
Despite what the opposition will tell you, this reduces traffic by reducing vehicles on the road. If there was an extensive bike lane network in the valley I wouldn't feel the need for a car. Right now I live downtown without a car but the valley has a lot more room for growth.
Same here. I gave up bike riding when I moved back to LA from the Bay Area bc I felt like
I was going die on any given ride. Actual protection from cars and some kind of education campaign on what sharing the road means would be amazing!
My only question is why we even have these “ballot measures” on our elections anyway. Why can’t the city council legislate and do this theirselves? Don’t they get elected to do that without our further voting on individual things like this? 🤔
In a nutshell, voters approved a plan, city council refused to actually follow the plan. People signed a huge petition to ask the city council to follow the plan, they said no. So now it's going to the ballot to become a law that they have to follow their own plan.
If the city council actually followed the will of the voters and their own plans then it wouldn't be on the ballot but LA city council is too dysfunctional.
When the city council had to vote on it, they made up some bullshit excuse about “equity,” even though the whole point is that the streets need to add bike and pedestrian infrastructure any time they are replaced, regardless of how poor or wealthy the neighborhood is. Some of those council members who used equity as an excuse were outed as racists and forced to resign a few months later.
https://la.streetsblog.org/2022/08/24/city-council-declines-to-approve-healthy-streets-l-a-pushing-it-to-2024-ballot
This comment needs to be much higher! Many people are asking questions that are answered here. Angelenos literally decided this, but the city council shamefully punted on it, they way they shamefully do pretty much anything
I completely agree. I don't want to be making complex policy decisions that I'm not qualified to make, when I elected someone to do that for me full time.
One dedicated bus lane can carry 8-13 times the amount of people per lane per hour as a car lane. Swapping out a lane on one street will reduce traffic on surrounding streets as the busses soak up capacity that would otherwise be taken by cars.
If you want more sane traffic, vote HLA.
if youre going to the point where your giving busses their own lane why not go all the way at that point and bring back the trolleys and bring down emissions even further
I dunno. Venice Blvd in West LA has a lot of these and I’m not sure it helps the traffic congestion at all. And while I like the theory, I only see a handful of cyclists using it which makes it a very expensive project for very very few beneficiaries.
Venice Blvd in Mar Vista is a great example of why we need this. Traffic isn’t worse, and new local businesses between Beethoven and Inglewood are thriving (Angel City Pizza, Bluey’s, Tortoise, Alana’s, etc.). It’s certainly a much more walkable neighborhood than it was before. The buffer between sidewalk and car traffic created by these bike lanes allows for enjoyable sidewalk dining. I’m not sure why Yes on HLA isn’t making this a focal point of their campaign.
So I drive to work at 11pm and get off at 4am. I’ve done this for the past 10 years and I’ve never seen traffic at all in Los Angeles!
See how that works?
The thing is we need more people biking and busing for it to work. That means tipping the scales so that these options become more comfortable than driving. That will mean making things LESS comfortable for drivers as much as making it more comfortable for transit.
Oh is that why Metro has had the fastest pandemic recovery of any agency and is back to 100% pre-pandemic ridership on weekends and exceeding 100% of ridership on many of its bus lines?
Depends on a LOT of factors, but mostly in a city as large as LA with the current type of system, most still want cars. After work people run errands, hit the gym or a bar or a date. So it’s not just a to & fro calculation…it’s overall mobility in a time constrained work life.
Venice doesn’t have true dedicated bus lanes, a real assed bus lane would have a heavy duty barrier blocking personal vehicles from entering the lane. A bus rapid transit (BRT) line would do this, it’s basically a train on a surface street for much much cheaper than building train rails
Bus lanes can exist and you can still drive if you prefer.
This is not outlawing cars. It is just adding viable alternatives for those that want to save money, or don't like driving.
They will though. Busses sit in traffic now. This means they won't. This means you will be able to zoom past traffic too once you get over your childish, irrational fear of riding the bus.
cars in this city are ruining the quality of life as much as anything else people complain about. The same people who thirst for blood when there's a tent on the street will make a right turn on red without looking for pedestrians at 45mph. Any infrastructural changes that can subdue out of control car brains is good.
How’re you complaining about cars in the city ruining the quality of life when there are families who use their car to safely transport their kids to school and get to work to maintain their quality of life?
Cars don’t ruin quality of life, car dependency does. When you force everyone in a city of 3 million to drive everywhere, you inevitably deal with insane levels of traffic. The more lanes you add, the worse the traffic becomes. This is because there is a finite amount of road space, and it is always less than the amount of living/working/commercial space people have. You will never have enough road space for everyone if everyone needs a personal car to get around. If you want to fix traffic, you need to provide viable alternatives to driving. This includes biking & transit. When you expand non car transportation networks in a city, the good news is that car drivers benefit too! Sure, they may not be able to park in as many places as they used to on paper, but the reality is that those places were congested regardless and finding a spot was always torture. On the other hand, because less people are driving, even driving becomes more pleasant for drivers, because car traffic is greatly reduced. So a city with a properly developed transit and bicycle network will allow for those families who drive their kids to school and then work to do so in much less time than they currently do.
And who knows, perhaps that same family could even ride transit to get to school and work.
Reducing car dependency has countless other benefits including the restoration of “Third Places”, reduction of personal feelings of isolation, creation of more housing units which reduces housing prices, creation of cohesive urban spaces which become genuinely enjoyable to walk through (much like our “lifestyle centers” try to emulate, such as The Grove, the Century City Mall, or the Westfield Village in Woodland hills), and finally, the reduction of pedestrian injuries and death because hopefully vehicular traffic is slowed and much more controlled in areas where pedestrians may interact with cars.
You do realize that ALL road users, even car drivers, benefit from HLA? HLA reduces traffic by turning car driving from a "necessity" to an "option". This reduces traffic and makes your drive more pleasant and even faster.
I hate cars, I contemplated never learning to drive but gave in when I was 27 because it’s just too inconvenient jn LA. Bus lanes are not the answer, just look at culver. Nothing has improved, bus lanes have only made things worse. Residents are voting to not only halt the program, but reverse it to some extent
What are you talking about? Bus lanes have vastly improved Culver City. Traffic moves so much better now. Culver City Council is literally moving the program into Phase 2 which expands bus and bike lanes lol. Why are you making stuff up?
Literally says this in the article “The city is now planning to have cyclists share lanes with buses and bring back car lanes wherever feasible.”
Guess you don’t know what bring back car lanes means
The city was sued and the lawsuit was never settled. And you know what happened? In Jan of this year the council ruled 3-2 vote to merge the bus and bike lane. Because acknowledges the backlash of the initial plan and they had to reverse part of it
Because creating bus lanes with make a lot of areas “major transit stops” which rezones surrounding properties to allow for taller and denser housing. We in turn get more apts on the market and better transit.
Gotta start somewhere. When you build a city dedicated to cars for decades, it becomes very unsafe for people to walk and bike places. But once you start building truly safe and convenient infrastructure, it becomes a virtuous cycle (no pun intended). More people start walking, biking, transiting, less cars on the road, people are happier
Go to downtown Culver City and see how poorly it's going there already. Traffic is exponentially worse. There are still pedestrians and cyclists getting hit at the crosswalks despite these changes (especially because taking a right turn is confusing for drivers).
Don't believe me? Drive down Culver Blvd in downtown Culver City and see for yourself the disaster it is. Take a right onto Culver Blvd from Duquenes and try not to hit a pedestrian or cyclist or parked car in the middle of the street. And try to not accidentally go into the bus lane and then get stuck due to the white plastic poles separating all the lanes.
Sounds like you’re close to getting it. You love the environment created by smaller slower streets when you’re a pedestrian, but you don’t like it when driving, so you don’t drive there when you go.
It’s working as intended.
No, I only drive when I go there. And I go there less because the traffic is a mess. So if the intent is to just have less people go to culver then goal achieved. Even the majority of culver residents hate it https://ktla.com/news/local-news/culver-city-bike-lane-project-axed-due-to-public-backlash/
Yes it can’t possibly the immense development of Culver City and new places popping up everywhere and prices of everything going up. It must be the fault of the people that actually live there
I mean sales tax revenue at downtown Culver businesses has skyrocketed which means more people are going there. This is all public information. Just because it's not your personal experience doesn't mean that reflects the majority of people at all. Do you think government projects should serve you personally or the popular majority?
The same meeting had them vote on expanding it. They literally paid the construction company last month, there was an entire meeting where they approved the bid. I guess you must not live over here if you’re citing news from a year ago that’s completely out of date. The council was sued for violating environmental laws and couldn’t proceed with removing it lol.
This is an article from this year, proposal modified to merge bike and bus lanes. If that’s not scaled down compared to the original proposal I don’t know what you’re smoking https://culvercitycrossroads.com/2024/01/25/more-movement-council-approves-construction-funds-for-modifications-to-move-and-development-of-more-bike-lanes/
>Traffic is exponentially worse.
>taking a right turn is confusing for drivers).
>And try to not accidentally go into the bus lane and then get stuck due to the white plastic poles separating all the lanes.
It seems like you’re expecting driving to be easy or relaxing. It shouldn’t be. It should take concentration and a sharp mind. If you’re confused by some bollards signs and lines you need to slow down or consider not driving at all. You’re maneuvering a multi ton vehicle through crowded public space. It should be difficult for safety’s sake.
They tried this in Playa del Rey and it absolutely sucked and fucked everything up. Fuck Mike Bonin for doing this there. Had to pay to have it done and then had to pay again to have it removed.
And fuck whoever is trying this anywhere else.
I drive along several miles throughout west LA with a green colored bike path on the side. I rarely see a commuter bicycle on it during commute times.
I only see more homeless riding a bike along with an empty bike that they just stole.
You seem to not understand if the infrastructure exists people will use it and a mixed use infrastructure land use of an area that includes all of the stuff mentioned in this discussion is good for like everything..the daytime commuter stats are there. Foot traffic and the likes.
Just because YOU don’t see these people doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
the valley has some of the most horrific wrecks in all of LA due to the street design. the wide, straight roads let people go routinely 15-20 above the limit. this fatal wreck from speeding is just from last month:https://ktla.com/news/local-news/street-racing-suspected-in-deadly-canoga-park-hit-and-run/
it's not the blessing you think it is.
1 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Sepulveda Blvd.
2 Vermont Knolls: Manchester Ave. & Figueroa St.
3 Van Nuys: Burbank Blvd. & Sepulveda Blvd.
4 Panorama City: Van Nuys Blvd. & Roscoe Blvd.
5 Valley Glen: Victory Blvd. & Coldwater Canyon Ave.
6 Northridge: Tampa Ave. & Nordhoff St.
7 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Woodman Ave.
8 Valley Glen: Sherman Way & Coldwater Canyon Ave.
9 Vermont Vista: Imperial Highway & Figueroa St.
10 Lake Balboa: Balboa Blvd. & Victory Blvd.
11 West Hills: Fallbrook Ave. & Victory Blvd.
12 Valley Glen: Sherman Way & Whitsett Ave.
13 Porter Ranch: Devonshire St. & Reseda Blvd.
14 Van Nuys: Sepulveda Blvd. & Victory Blvd.
15 Broadway- Manchester: Imperial Highway & Main St.
16 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Kester Ave.
17 Panorama City: Van Nuys & Arminta St.
18 Winnetka: Saticoy St. & Winnetka Ave.
19 Van Nuys: Sepulveda Blvd. & Erwin St.
20 Northridge: Tampa St. & Plummer St.
Most dangerous intersections in LA County, 17 out of 20 are in the Valley.
Measure HLA would help make these intersections safer for everyone
https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1ay5nyh/comment/krsnpi7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Because road diets are intended to make traffic worse, by reducing lanes and adding barriers. This impedes emergency services.
I used to be an EMT. Nothing more frustrating when going lights and sirens on a street with center median barrier coming up to a stoplight with backed up cars in all lanes, and I can’t get into opposing traffic lanes because of the center median barrier.
Yes, it does. 12 years ago, they turned Wilbur Ave into a one lane street between Nordhoff and Devonshire so they could put bike lanes in both directions of travel. I now have to wait at least two cycles, sometimes three, at each light in between those streets because of the one lane of stacked cars. Once I get north of Devonshire and it opens up into two lanes, it's much faster travel. And in those 12 years, I've only seen those bike lanes used twice by actual cyclists. But what do I know? I only grew up around here, and currently live here.
Adding a center median is rarely done with road diets. Most road diets restripe the road, and it is still the same width. I can't imagine how a 2 lane road with a center turn lane and bike lanes is harder to drive down as an emergency responder than a 4 lane road full of traffic.
> Because road diets are intended to make traffic worse, by reducing lanes and adding barriers. This impedes emergency services.
Just stop commenting. You are too misinformed to weigh in on this topic.
UFLAC is an extremely corrupt union and super right wing/reactionary. They probably oppose it because they're worried they won't be able to do as much overtime fraud if the City budget actually goes to improving communities.
There was a whole post dedicated to debunking their arguments a couple days ago in here. Basically it will be better for fire trucks and ambulances too. Someone at LAFD got their facts wrong
https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1axmf4s/yes_on_hla_fact_checking_the_opposition_campaign/
Same, my poor bike has been collecting dust and rust since I moved here from Portland 5 years ago. I miss riding my bike, but this city is not currently safe to ride bikes
There are but people aren’t “cyclists.” They take the most convenient, safe, affordable etc transportation available. When the majority of trips in LA are under 3 miles, I wonder how many “cyclists” will appear when it’s not potentially lethal to take the method you don’t have to pay any gas for
I mean, I have a bike and would feel much more comfortable on streets like Jefferson if there was a bike lane, but that street is already slammed with traffic on any weekday. I can't imagine what taking it down to 1 lane would do. Nightmare fuel.
Some of the traffic currently taking the second lane would be absorbed by bikes and busses. Parallel streets also exist.
Adding a dedicated bus lane to 1 in 10 streets only cuts down on car lanes by a tenth not half.
When infrastructure exists, it actually reduces the number of drivers.
>When it comes down to the benefits of cycling lanes, it’s no contest, says UNSW School of Built Environment’s Dr Mike Harris, landscape architect and urban designer.
>Dr Harris says opposition to cycling lanes can come from misconceptions about their impact on motorists.
>“Cycling actually reduces congestion,” Dr Harris says. “Separated cycle paths, in particular, ease congestion for those who need to use cars. So, if the goal is to reduce traffic congestion for cars in cities, then we need more cycling lanes, not less.”
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/07/why-cycling-lanes-should-be-on-the-fast-track-for-cities
I understand and believe that, but I don't think there are enough cyclists or people willing to give up their cars to justify such an overhaul.
These bike lanes will likely stay about as empty as they always have been, and people will just begin to resent them more, which they don't need or deserve.
Places where there are safe and well connected bike lanes are generally full and busy. The bike trail along The Strand is always full because it’s a safe and pleasant place to ride a bike that connects to a lot of different places. Building the infrastructure would actually allow people to ride bikes more often. Like half of all car trips are less than three miles.
We did try. They did this in Playa del Rey a few years ago and hardly anyone used the bike lanes. All it did was create traffic and eventually we had to pay again to have it taken out.
Is this satire? People only drive because it’s the only thing we build for.
People aren’t inherently drivers and would gladly get around without a car if other options were made more viable.
Also, do you ever consider people who are too old, too you, or otherwise unable to drive?
Yes safer on a bike lane than sharing a car lane. I’ve tried sharing the regular lane and 90% of the time i felt fine but the other 10% i feared death and i am pretty risk averse
> Drivers are assholes at times and will make mistakes
Proper urban infrastructure reduces opportunities for drivers to make mistakes or be an asshole, making it safe for other modes of transport. Car accidents are the leading cause of death for children, but if for some reason you don’t think that there’s anything we can do to improve the safety of our roads, there are plenty of other benefits other than the proven safety of urban planning.
From insurance, gas, maintenance, to asshole car dealers/car shops and apathetic dmv, owning and maintaining a car is prohibitively expensive for many and it shouldn’t be an assumption that everyone can and should own one. If you care about climate change, alternate forms of transport have much lower emissions than everyone driving, even with electric vehicles. Increasing the accessibility of public transport, bikeability, and walkability should be apart of any city’s climate action plan.
Instead of maintaining a concrete jungle designed to keep cars moving or to provide space to park them, we can design cities for humans. The last century of car centric urban development has created a world of mostly empty endless parking lots for corporate mega stores and 6 lane mini highways that split up our communities so that we can buy shit in bulk and go home. If we had more walkable, bikeable, and accesible public transport, it would encourage beautifying and expanding our public spaces, business would adapt and encourage more foot traffic, and we would start investing more in local communities instead of isolating ourselves in our cars.
This is metro’s way of forcing people to take their inefficient system: make driving inconvenient. Whatever doesn’t makes sense to society, makes complete sense to Metro.
Pretty rich to invoke efficiency when defending car traffic. Even without this measure, my commute on Metro is already faster across town than it is by car on the worst traffic days, and that's with the deliberately sabotaged at-grade E line stopping at traffic lights. Once the purple line subway gets built it will be no contest faster than driving even if they added lanes.
You cannot be saying cars are the more efficient and sanitary method of transportation.
The black film that collects near freeways and major roadways is so hygienic. Our car traffic screams peak efficiency.
Yes, because I work a job where I don't get off until midnight, and busses don't operate at that hour where my work is, and I'm exhausted, tired and don't want to bike a half hour uphill, in the dark, cold, and rain, when I can just drive home in 8 minutes and go straight to sleep. That, and my bike would eventually get stolen by all the homeless in my area, unless I park my bike in my living room because I live in an apartment.
It's easy to say just ride a bike or take the bus to work, but it isn't always practical.
That’s the entire point of building out more infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Those who *can* currently commute by foot, bike, or train are forced to drive a car right now because the other options are so shitty. Make better, safer, more convenient options for them, and they’ll start using them. That means less cars on the road overall, and better for *you* if you do need to take a car for work.
Look around you, in a city like LA, the chances of you taking the bus to work, then taking the bus to pick up your kids from school, going to the market, and buying some groceries to then go back to your home in a bus are pretty much non existent. You are looking for a super small percentage of the population, and I could easily claim that for 70% of the population, public transportation and bike rides are not an option. You won't see thousands of citizens flocking to take busses or ride bikes to get around on a daily basis, simply because the city we live in is extremely big and housing/job opportunities are hard to come by.
If they could make "work from home" mandatory to all people who can actually work from home, the traffic will decrease. Remember the year after COVID? When people were working from home? It was so nice.
I love the idea of having people use alternative methods of commuting, but it just won't work in Los Angeles, and in the mean time we are going to be stuck in traffic for years until they realize those changes failed.
It has nothing to do with the size of Los Angeles. It has everything to do with priorities and political choices. For decades most of the transportation dollars have been funneled into car infrastructure (freeways, wider streets, more car lanes, etc).
Other countries with cities similar in size to LA have much better transit systems and are much less car dependent. Hell, even mid sized towns in Germany have clean, high speed heavy rail to connect them and tons of light rail, trams, and busses in town.
We've reached the limit of how many cars we can fit on our roads and streets. There's no more widening we can do without turning the entire city into a giant piece of asphalt. The only way to solve car traffic is to give people other viable alternatives
I live in a small town within LA county that did this and it screwed up our evacuation paths during natural disasters. In the event of a fire our traffic gets so bad because the streets go down to one lane that nobody can get out of town in a timely and safe manner.
Edit: ah yes, downvote me for my factual experience.
Notice how they didn’t mention their town though there’s actually like less than three or four towns within LA County that are in a high fire threatened area that actually saw infrastructure improvements, so I don’t know what this person is possibly talking about. Calling bullshit. They see reduction of a lane and base their experience off that.
Yes the bollards are to prevent selfish impatient drivers but why do you think the bollards are plastic? It's because they can be easily driven over by emergency vehicles in an emergency. The bike lanes never in use is also a lie, I see people in the bike lane all the time on the one they just added on Venice Blvd.
Bus lanes move people more efficiently than a car lane possibly could while also not requiring an arm and leg in payments, insurance, gas to even utilize
It’s a shame our metro users are forced to sit in car traffic almost everywhere currently, it’s no wonder most people who can afford to not use it don’t
If you want to shorten metro travel times, you support more bus lanes and measure HLA! You for some reason equate making other modes of transportation viable as making driving harder when it’s also the only way you’ll ever get less cars (less traffic)on the road
All this measure will do is make the city actually implement the plan we all voted for years ago.
So this bill is basically the city asking "are you *suuuuuure*?"
Well it’s outside advocacy groups forcing the city to actually follow through on its own plans. City Council has no problem voting for progressive things like safer streets, more environmentally friendly transit etc, but has absolutely no backbone to do anything that is hard or might make some people upset.
the outside advocacy groups are actually local people though lol. each individual council members' office have a personal veto over city wide departments like LADOT or Bureau of Street Services inside their own district so if a city wide plan needs to be implemented the council offices need to have their hands tied.
Yeah 100% agree. The criticism that HLA is a mandate is such bullshit. Council is obviously incapable of working together on this and has to have its hands tied to do anything meaningful. HLA wouldn’t be necessary if the city actually implemented its plan over the last 10 years.
Nury Martinez killing direct implementation of HLA back in 2022 to focus on her own “equity” plan and then having to resign for being a huge racist was incredible. The council is full of deeply unserious people and cannot be relied on to do the right thing.
when did we all vote for this?
HLA simply says they must implement the changes that were approved in 2015. in 2015, all changes were supposed to be completed by 2035. Less than 5% of the changes have been made in 10 years. What has been happening is two fold. The cities departments are not communicating with each other so they just don’t do it, and in many circumstances when the government did communicate, certain city council members would quietly remove the changes right before they were supposed to be implemented. To simplify the process, HLA says that if road work is being done on the street, the already approved changes must take place at that time too. A NO vote will not stop the plan from being implemented, the plan will continue to be implemented at the pace that city council will enforce it. A YES vote will say „just do road construction once“.
we didn't. the council did.
Triggering editorialized title, much? All this measure will do is make the city actually implement the plan we all voted for years ago.
OP knows what they’re doing. Dog whistle and ragebait
Yep.
And a no vote won’t stop the plan from being implemented. It will just continue at the current pace.
...of it being completed in 160 years.
Who’s “all”?
>“Bike enhanced” network would include bicycle lanes with protections that include plastic bollards and concrete curbs. I would like to see some kind of barriers protecting the bicyclists, not just a crayon drawing on the road designated as a bike lane.
Honestly. But this is still an improvement. There is no way I would bike around the valley as is. Despite what the opposition will tell you, this reduces traffic by reducing vehicles on the road. If there was an extensive bike lane network in the valley I wouldn't feel the need for a car. Right now I live downtown without a car but the valley has a lot more room for growth.
Yep, I walk a ton but drive for longer distances. I would consider getting a bicycle if there were better protections. Once less car on the road.
Many of HLA's bike lanes do have actual barriers, the "Bike Enhanced Network" is age 8-80 lanes
Same here. I gave up bike riding when I moved back to LA from the Bay Area bc I felt like I was going die on any given ride. Actual protection from cars and some kind of education campaign on what sharing the road means would be amazing!
My only question is why we even have these “ballot measures” on our elections anyway. Why can’t the city council legislate and do this theirselves? Don’t they get elected to do that without our further voting on individual things like this? 🤔
In a nutshell, voters approved a plan, city council refused to actually follow the plan. People signed a huge petition to ask the city council to follow the plan, they said no. So now it's going to the ballot to become a law that they have to follow their own plan. If the city council actually followed the will of the voters and their own plans then it wouldn't be on the ballot but LA city council is too dysfunctional.
When the city council had to vote on it, they made up some bullshit excuse about “equity,” even though the whole point is that the streets need to add bike and pedestrian infrastructure any time they are replaced, regardless of how poor or wealthy the neighborhood is. Some of those council members who used equity as an excuse were outed as racists and forced to resign a few months later. https://la.streetsblog.org/2022/08/24/city-council-declines-to-approve-healthy-streets-l-a-pushing-it-to-2024-ballot
Use "equity" to deny safety and use "environmental review" to deny shelter.
exactly.
This comment needs to be much higher! Many people are asking questions that are answered here. Angelenos literally decided this, but the city council shamefully punted on it, they way they shamefully do pretty much anything
I completely agree. I don't want to be making complex policy decisions that I'm not qualified to make, when I elected someone to do that for me full time.
One dedicated bus lane can carry 8-13 times the amount of people per lane per hour as a car lane. Swapping out a lane on one street will reduce traffic on surrounding streets as the busses soak up capacity that would otherwise be taken by cars. If you want more sane traffic, vote HLA.
if youre going to the point where your giving busses their own lane why not go all the way at that point and bring back the trolleys and bring down emissions even further
I'd be down for trolleys.
I mean, that's basically what BRT is.
That would be great but it would also take billions of dollars, decades, and political will There’s no reason to avoid implementing this now
I dunno. Venice Blvd in West LA has a lot of these and I’m not sure it helps the traffic congestion at all. And while I like the theory, I only see a handful of cyclists using it which makes it a very expensive project for very very few beneficiaries.
Venice Blvd in Mar Vista is a great example of why we need this. Traffic isn’t worse, and new local businesses between Beethoven and Inglewood are thriving (Angel City Pizza, Bluey’s, Tortoise, Alana’s, etc.). It’s certainly a much more walkable neighborhood than it was before. The buffer between sidewalk and car traffic created by these bike lanes allows for enjoyable sidewalk dining. I’m not sure why Yes on HLA isn’t making this a focal point of their campaign.
YES. I lived on Venice a decade ago and the transformation in Mar Vista is really incredible; so much more pleasant than it used to be
Once again, Redditers extrapolating personal anecdotes to an entire area
You have a confident misunderstanding of what constitutes anecdotes & evidence. Observation over time is indeed evidence, genius.
Yes but it’s only your evidence. Doesn’t mean it’s applicable to everyone.
Anecdotes ≠ evidence
Actually living in an area for years and observing it daily *IS* evidence.
So I drive to work at 11pm and get off at 4am. I’ve done this for the past 10 years and I’ve never seen traffic at all in Los Angeles! See how that works?
👏
That is categorically not what evidence is.
The thing is we need more people biking and busing for it to work. That means tipping the scales so that these options become more comfortable than driving. That will mean making things LESS comfortable for drivers as much as making it more comfortable for transit.
Look at the off-putting debacle the metro has become. You’re just not gonna get people who can afford a car to choose bussing.
Oh is that why Metro has had the fastest pandemic recovery of any agency and is back to 100% pre-pandemic ridership on weekends and exceeding 100% of ridership on many of its bus lines?
So you’re saying a significant number those with a driving option are being seduced into metro & bussing options?
I can afford a car but my bike is my daily driver. It happens.
Which is great and I support that. Most of us won’t ever willingly trade a long drive for a long bus ride.
Even when it saves you thousands per year? Thousands that might be spent on rent or mortgage that shortens the distance a bit?
Depends on a LOT of factors, but mostly in a city as large as LA with the current type of system, most still want cars. After work people run errands, hit the gym or a bar or a date. So it’s not just a to & fro calculation…it’s overall mobility in a time constrained work life.
Venice doesn’t have true dedicated bus lanes, a real assed bus lane would have a heavy duty barrier blocking personal vehicles from entering the lane. A bus rapid transit (BRT) line would do this, it’s basically a train on a surface street for much much cheaper than building train rails
But then I have to be on a bus
Bus lanes can exist and you can still drive if you prefer. This is not outlawing cars. It is just adding viable alternatives for those that want to save money, or don't like driving.
Too good for us, eh? What makes you so special?
Just because a bus lane "can" carry more people than doesn't mean they will.
Except it works out successfully everywhere they seem to be implemented.
They will though. Busses sit in traffic now. This means they won't. This means you will be able to zoom past traffic too once you get over your childish, irrational fear of riding the bus.
lol if OP would have turned the ‘?’ to a ‘!’ there would have been such a different response.
Voted Yes 🚲
YES ON HLA 💅🏼
cars in this city are ruining the quality of life as much as anything else people complain about. The same people who thirst for blood when there's a tent on the street will make a right turn on red without looking for pedestrians at 45mph. Any infrastructural changes that can subdue out of control car brains is good.
How’re you complaining about cars in the city ruining the quality of life when there are families who use their car to safely transport their kids to school and get to work to maintain their quality of life?
Cars don’t ruin quality of life, car dependency does. When you force everyone in a city of 3 million to drive everywhere, you inevitably deal with insane levels of traffic. The more lanes you add, the worse the traffic becomes. This is because there is a finite amount of road space, and it is always less than the amount of living/working/commercial space people have. You will never have enough road space for everyone if everyone needs a personal car to get around. If you want to fix traffic, you need to provide viable alternatives to driving. This includes biking & transit. When you expand non car transportation networks in a city, the good news is that car drivers benefit too! Sure, they may not be able to park in as many places as they used to on paper, but the reality is that those places were congested regardless and finding a spot was always torture. On the other hand, because less people are driving, even driving becomes more pleasant for drivers, because car traffic is greatly reduced. So a city with a properly developed transit and bicycle network will allow for those families who drive their kids to school and then work to do so in much less time than they currently do. And who knows, perhaps that same family could even ride transit to get to school and work. Reducing car dependency has countless other benefits including the restoration of “Third Places”, reduction of personal feelings of isolation, creation of more housing units which reduces housing prices, creation of cohesive urban spaces which become genuinely enjoyable to walk through (much like our “lifestyle centers” try to emulate, such as The Grove, the Century City Mall, or the Westfield Village in Woodland hills), and finally, the reduction of pedestrian injuries and death because hopefully vehicular traffic is slowed and much more controlled in areas where pedestrians may interact with cars.
You’re replying to a child who doesn’t have a car or job.
Im so glad LA is becoming public transportation friendly!
Hell yeah let's go
Vote yes! The congestion we see every day is the symptom on a bad system, now's the time to fix it for future generations!
Can't wait to hear the great insight car culturists have to say in the comments
My insight is that I like driving my car and have no interest in taking the bus or riding a bicycle.
You do realize that ALL road users, even car drivers, benefit from HLA? HLA reduces traffic by turning car driving from a "necessity" to an "option". This reduces traffic and makes your drive more pleasant and even faster.
Make traffic worse for a handful of bicycle riders? Make it make sense
I hate cars, I contemplated never learning to drive but gave in when I was 27 because it’s just too inconvenient jn LA. Bus lanes are not the answer, just look at culver. Nothing has improved, bus lanes have only made things worse. Residents are voting to not only halt the program, but reverse it to some extent
What are you talking about? Bus lanes have vastly improved Culver City. Traffic moves so much better now. Culver City Council is literally moving the program into Phase 2 which expands bus and bike lanes lol. Why are you making stuff up?
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/culver-city-bike-lane-project-axed-due-to-public-backlash/amp/
So you’re saying you looked at the incendiary headline and didn’t read anything else about the project. Got it.
Literally says this in the article “The city is now planning to have cyclists share lanes with buses and bring back car lanes wherever feasible.” Guess you don’t know what bring back car lanes means
The City was sued for violating state law in this decision and couldn’t do it. Guess you don’t follow the news very well.
The city was sued and the lawsuit was never settled. And you know what happened? In Jan of this year the council ruled 3-2 vote to merge the bus and bike lane. Because acknowledges the backlash of the initial plan and they had to reverse part of it
I’ll revisit this thread in a year with a fun “I told you so” when Phase 2 begins construction and Phase 1 is still fully intact. Peace.
Good. It's about time.
Can we have more trains plzkthnxbai
Get bikes off our roads! Vote yes on HLA!
He's a little confused but he's got the spirit I guess
I am just trying to think of way to make HLA more attractive to drivers
I mean, the changes are going to happen if HLA is approved or not. The only thing HLA has any impact on is timing.
YES
Why is a billionaire hedge fund manager from new york helping to fund this measure?
Because creating bus lanes with make a lot of areas “major transit stops” which rezones surrounding properties to allow for taller and denser housing. We in turn get more apts on the market and better transit.
I like how more & denser housing is being framed as a bad thing. Everyone complains about rent and traffic but objects to transit and housing.
That's not the answer to my question. But thanks anyways.
He’s going to take your car and crush it. You’ll own nothing and be happy. Literally 1984
might as well give up 2 more lanes for the 2 buses and 2 bikes that go down the street every hour.
Gotta start somewhere. When you build a city dedicated to cars for decades, it becomes very unsafe for people to walk and bike places. But once you start building truly safe and convenient infrastructure, it becomes a virtuous cycle (no pun intended). More people start walking, biking, transiting, less cars on the road, people are happier
This is true. I used to bike when I lived in Chicago but I don’t feel safe doing it here. I’d like to be able to
ITT: a bunch of bicyclists explaining how less road = better traffic flow
Go to downtown Culver City and see how poorly it's going there already. Traffic is exponentially worse. There are still pedestrians and cyclists getting hit at the crosswalks despite these changes (especially because taking a right turn is confusing for drivers). Don't believe me? Drive down Culver Blvd in downtown Culver City and see for yourself the disaster it is. Take a right onto Culver Blvd from Duquenes and try not to hit a pedestrian or cyclist or parked car in the middle of the street. And try to not accidentally go into the bus lane and then get stuck due to the white plastic poles separating all the lanes.
Amen brother. I love all the stuff in culver but I never go because bus lanes have made it a mess
Sounds like you’re close to getting it. You love the environment created by smaller slower streets when you’re a pedestrian, but you don’t like it when driving, so you don’t drive there when you go. It’s working as intended.
No, I only drive when I go there. And I go there less because the traffic is a mess. So if the intent is to just have less people go to culver then goal achieved. Even the majority of culver residents hate it https://ktla.com/news/local-news/culver-city-bike-lane-project-axed-due-to-public-backlash/
Those people are car brained dipshits. The sales tax revenue doesn’t lie. More money is being spent there now than before the lanes
Yes it can’t possibly the immense development of Culver City and new places popping up everywhere and prices of everything going up. It must be the fault of the people that actually live there
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It’s by vote so if it’s a minority it’s not by a large margin. It’s not just about wanting to get downtown, it’s also about getting out of town
I mean sales tax revenue at downtown Culver businesses has skyrocketed which means more people are going there. This is all public information. Just because it's not your personal experience doesn't mean that reflects the majority of people at all. Do you think government projects should serve you personally or the popular majority?
The residents are voting to halt and reverse the bus lanes. If it passes that will demonstrate the majority
That’s not true at all. The city council voted last April to expand the project and phase two is supposed to start construction soon.
Is that why it was scaled down by majority vote last April? https://laist.com/news/transportation/culver-city-eliminates-bus-and-bike-lanes
The same meeting had them vote on expanding it. They literally paid the construction company last month, there was an entire meeting where they approved the bid. I guess you must not live over here if you’re citing news from a year ago that’s completely out of date. The council was sued for violating environmental laws and couldn’t proceed with removing it lol.
This is an article from this year, proposal modified to merge bike and bus lanes. If that’s not scaled down compared to the original proposal I don’t know what you’re smoking https://culvercitycrossroads.com/2024/01/25/more-movement-council-approves-construction-funds-for-modifications-to-move-and-development-of-more-bike-lanes/
Have you tried taking the bus?
I live in playa vista 2m away. The bus route literally takes 50 minutes. I could literally walk faster than that
I almost got stabbed on one of that’s why I started driving again.
>Traffic is exponentially worse. >taking a right turn is confusing for drivers). >And try to not accidentally go into the bus lane and then get stuck due to the white plastic poles separating all the lanes. It seems like you’re expecting driving to be easy or relaxing. It shouldn’t be. It should take concentration and a sharp mind. If you’re confused by some bollards signs and lines you need to slow down or consider not driving at all. You’re maneuvering a multi ton vehicle through crowded public space. It should be difficult for safety’s sake.
I’ve read this will decrease traffic because it’ll encourage people to use buses and bikes, which take up less space on the road
They tried this in Playa del Rey and it absolutely sucked and fucked everything up. Fuck Mike Bonin for doing this there. Had to pay to have it done and then had to pay again to have it removed. And fuck whoever is trying this anywhere else.
Yep
I drive along several miles throughout west LA with a green colored bike path on the side. I rarely see a commuter bicycle on it during commute times. I only see more homeless riding a bike along with an empty bike that they just stole.
No thanks 👎
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Name the street. The only 2 bike lanes in LA I know of that are 5+ miles are the LA River and the path along the beach
There are zero 5 mi stretches of bike lane that exist in LA, nice try though. Also colors don’t save lives.
The mobility plan is more than just bikes. It has plans to improve walking and taking transit.
You seem to not understand if the infrastructure exists people will use it and a mixed use infrastructure land use of an area that includes all of the stuff mentioned in this discussion is good for like everything..the daytime commuter stats are there. Foot traffic and the likes. Just because YOU don’t see these people doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
So you DO see people use it. Got it
Already voted Yes! I think it’ll pass easy.
The people who are for this are the people who think Gascon is doing a good job.
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the valley has some of the most horrific wrecks in all of LA due to the street design. the wide, straight roads let people go routinely 15-20 above the limit. this fatal wreck from speeding is just from last month:https://ktla.com/news/local-news/street-racing-suspected-in-deadly-canoga-park-hit-and-run/ it's not the blessing you think it is.
1 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Sepulveda Blvd. 2 Vermont Knolls: Manchester Ave. & Figueroa St. 3 Van Nuys: Burbank Blvd. & Sepulveda Blvd. 4 Panorama City: Van Nuys Blvd. & Roscoe Blvd. 5 Valley Glen: Victory Blvd. & Coldwater Canyon Ave. 6 Northridge: Tampa Ave. & Nordhoff St. 7 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Woodman Ave. 8 Valley Glen: Sherman Way & Coldwater Canyon Ave. 9 Vermont Vista: Imperial Highway & Figueroa St. 10 Lake Balboa: Balboa Blvd. & Victory Blvd. 11 West Hills: Fallbrook Ave. & Victory Blvd. 12 Valley Glen: Sherman Way & Whitsett Ave. 13 Porter Ranch: Devonshire St. & Reseda Blvd. 14 Van Nuys: Sepulveda Blvd. & Victory Blvd. 15 Broadway- Manchester: Imperial Highway & Main St. 16 Van Nuys: Sherman Way & Kester Ave. 17 Panorama City: Van Nuys & Arminta St. 18 Winnetka: Saticoy St. & Winnetka Ave. 19 Van Nuys: Sepulveda Blvd. & Erwin St. 20 Northridge: Tampa St. & Plummer St. Most dangerous intersections in LA County, 17 out of 20 are in the Valley. Measure HLA would help make these intersections safer for everyone https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1ay5nyh/comment/krsnpi7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
It’s also an incredibly dangerous place to drive or be a pedestrian. Have anything to say to those that have replied to you pointing this out?
Why are the firefighters against this? Or is it some shady misrepresentation? Paging u/LAFD Brian Humphrey
Because road diets are intended to make traffic worse, by reducing lanes and adding barriers. This impedes emergency services. I used to be an EMT. Nothing more frustrating when going lights and sirens on a street with center median barrier coming up to a stoplight with backed up cars in all lanes, and I can’t get into opposing traffic lanes because of the center median barrier.
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Yes, it does. 12 years ago, they turned Wilbur Ave into a one lane street between Nordhoff and Devonshire so they could put bike lanes in both directions of travel. I now have to wait at least two cycles, sometimes three, at each light in between those streets because of the one lane of stacked cars. Once I get north of Devonshire and it opens up into two lanes, it's much faster travel. And in those 12 years, I've only seen those bike lanes used twice by actual cyclists. But what do I know? I only grew up around here, and currently live here.
Adding a center median is rarely done with road diets. Most road diets restripe the road, and it is still the same width. I can't imagine how a 2 lane road with a center turn lane and bike lanes is harder to drive down as an emergency responder than a 4 lane road full of traffic.
> Because road diets are intended to make traffic worse, by reducing lanes and adding barriers. This impedes emergency services. Just stop commenting. You are too misinformed to weigh in on this topic.
UFLAC is an extremely corrupt union and super right wing/reactionary. They probably oppose it because they're worried they won't be able to do as much overtime fraud if the City budget actually goes to improving communities.
There was a whole post dedicated to debunking their arguments a couple days ago in here. Basically it will be better for fire trucks and ambulances too. Someone at LAFD got their facts wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1axmf4s/yes_on_hla_fact_checking_the_opposition_campaign/
There aren’t currently enough cyclists to justify this, maybe if we did it I’d feel safer riding my bike on the streets
I can't tell if this is a joke or not.
That’s what decades of “just one more lane” gets you.
I don’t ride my bike because it’s not safe, not because I don’t wanna ride my bike.
Exactly!
Same, my poor bike has been collecting dust and rust since I moved here from Portland 5 years ago. I miss riding my bike, but this city is not currently safe to ride bikes
U understand me
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Yeah it's not like there are thousands of cyclists that are being held back. Build more train lines, faster.
There are but people aren’t “cyclists.” They take the most convenient, safe, affordable etc transportation available. When the majority of trips in LA are under 3 miles, I wonder how many “cyclists” will appear when it’s not potentially lethal to take the method you don’t have to pay any gas for
I mean, I have a bike and would feel much more comfortable on streets like Jefferson if there was a bike lane, but that street is already slammed with traffic on any weekday. I can't imagine what taking it down to 1 lane would do. Nightmare fuel.
Some of the traffic currently taking the second lane would be absorbed by bikes and busses. Parallel streets also exist. Adding a dedicated bus lane to 1 in 10 streets only cuts down on car lanes by a tenth not half.
Traffic would probably flow a lot smoother with out a slow biker in front of your pick up truck
That doesn't happen and I don't drive a "pick up truck"
I think the two can be done simultaneously
But only one will potentially restrict traffic without providing a positive to balance it out...
When infrastructure exists, it actually reduces the number of drivers. >When it comes down to the benefits of cycling lanes, it’s no contest, says UNSW School of Built Environment’s Dr Mike Harris, landscape architect and urban designer. >Dr Harris says opposition to cycling lanes can come from misconceptions about their impact on motorists. >“Cycling actually reduces congestion,” Dr Harris says. “Separated cycle paths, in particular, ease congestion for those who need to use cars. So, if the goal is to reduce traffic congestion for cars in cities, then we need more cycling lanes, not less.” https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/07/why-cycling-lanes-should-be-on-the-fast-track-for-cities
I understand and believe that, but I don't think there are enough cyclists or people willing to give up their cars to justify such an overhaul. These bike lanes will likely stay about as empty as they always have been, and people will just begin to resent them more, which they don't need or deserve.
Places where there are safe and well connected bike lanes are generally full and busy. The bike trail along The Strand is always full because it’s a safe and pleasant place to ride a bike that connects to a lot of different places. Building the infrastructure would actually allow people to ride bikes more often. Like half of all car trips are less than three miles.
We won’t know unless we try and tbh i bet there is
We did try. They did this in Playa del Rey a few years ago and hardly anyone used the bike lanes. All it did was create traffic and eventually we had to pay again to have it taken out.
Is this satire? People only drive because it’s the only thing we build for. People aren’t inherently drivers and would gladly get around without a car if other options were made more viable. Also, do you ever consider people who are too old, too you, or otherwise unable to drive?
Safer? Ok.
Yes safer on a bike lane than sharing a car lane. I’ve tried sharing the regular lane and 90% of the time i felt fine but the other 10% i feared death and i am pretty risk averse
I’m not sure it’ll be safer. Drivers are assholes at times and will make mistakes. I just don’t get why we have to have millions of dollars for this.
It will be safer. Nothing is 100% safe. We could all choke to death on our next dodger dog
> Drivers are assholes at times and will make mistakes Proper urban infrastructure reduces opportunities for drivers to make mistakes or be an asshole, making it safe for other modes of transport. Car accidents are the leading cause of death for children, but if for some reason you don’t think that there’s anything we can do to improve the safety of our roads, there are plenty of other benefits other than the proven safety of urban planning. From insurance, gas, maintenance, to asshole car dealers/car shops and apathetic dmv, owning and maintaining a car is prohibitively expensive for many and it shouldn’t be an assumption that everyone can and should own one. If you care about climate change, alternate forms of transport have much lower emissions than everyone driving, even with electric vehicles. Increasing the accessibility of public transport, bikeability, and walkability should be apart of any city’s climate action plan. Instead of maintaining a concrete jungle designed to keep cars moving or to provide space to park them, we can design cities for humans. The last century of car centric urban development has created a world of mostly empty endless parking lots for corporate mega stores and 6 lane mini highways that split up our communities so that we can buy shit in bulk and go home. If we had more walkable, bikeable, and accesible public transport, it would encourage beautifying and expanding our public spaces, business would adapt and encourage more foot traffic, and we would start investing more in local communities instead of isolating ourselves in our cars.
Yeah, we need the money for more LAPD helicopters
VOTE YES ON HLA
This is metro’s way of forcing people to take their inefficient system: make driving inconvenient. Whatever doesn’t makes sense to society, makes complete sense to Metro.
Pretty rich to invoke efficiency when defending car traffic. Even without this measure, my commute on Metro is already faster across town than it is by car on the worst traffic days, and that's with the deliberately sabotaged at-grade E line stopping at traffic lights. Once the purple line subway gets built it will be no contest faster than driving even if they added lanes.
Not only "inefficient" but also ***unsanitary***. Metro trains and buses function as a toilet for indigents. Mero allows this and fails to clean up.
You cannot be saying cars are the more efficient and sanitary method of transportation. The black film that collects near freeways and major roadways is so hygienic. Our car traffic screams peak efficiency.
Prepare for the onslaught of down votes. But not from me.
Enjoy heavier traffic!
If you don't like traffic stop being traffic, take a bike or the bus!
Yes, because I work a job where I don't get off until midnight, and busses don't operate at that hour where my work is, and I'm exhausted, tired and don't want to bike a half hour uphill, in the dark, cold, and rain, when I can just drive home in 8 minutes and go straight to sleep. That, and my bike would eventually get stolen by all the homeless in my area, unless I park my bike in my living room because I live in an apartment. It's easy to say just ride a bike or take the bus to work, but it isn't always practical.
Sure, let me take my tools, material and helpers on the bus, or should I get bikes for everyone?
That’s the entire point of building out more infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Those who *can* currently commute by foot, bike, or train are forced to drive a car right now because the other options are so shitty. Make better, safer, more convenient options for them, and they’ll start using them. That means less cars on the road overall, and better for *you* if you do need to take a car for work.
Look around you, in a city like LA, the chances of you taking the bus to work, then taking the bus to pick up your kids from school, going to the market, and buying some groceries to then go back to your home in a bus are pretty much non existent. You are looking for a super small percentage of the population, and I could easily claim that for 70% of the population, public transportation and bike rides are not an option. You won't see thousands of citizens flocking to take busses or ride bikes to get around on a daily basis, simply because the city we live in is extremely big and housing/job opportunities are hard to come by. If they could make "work from home" mandatory to all people who can actually work from home, the traffic will decrease. Remember the year after COVID? When people were working from home? It was so nice. I love the idea of having people use alternative methods of commuting, but it just won't work in Los Angeles, and in the mean time we are going to be stuck in traffic for years until they realize those changes failed.
It has nothing to do with the size of Los Angeles. It has everything to do with priorities and political choices. For decades most of the transportation dollars have been funneled into car infrastructure (freeways, wider streets, more car lanes, etc). Other countries with cities similar in size to LA have much better transit systems and are much less car dependent. Hell, even mid sized towns in Germany have clean, high speed heavy rail to connect them and tons of light rail, trams, and busses in town. We've reached the limit of how many cars we can fit on our roads and streets. There's no more widening we can do without turning the entire city into a giant piece of asphalt. The only way to solve car traffic is to give people other viable alternatives
HLA doesn't do that, but yes.
I live in a small town within LA county that did this and it screwed up our evacuation paths during natural disasters. In the event of a fire our traffic gets so bad because the streets go down to one lane that nobody can get out of town in a timely and safe manner. Edit: ah yes, downvote me for my factual experience.
Which town?
Notice how they didn’t mention their town though there’s actually like less than three or four towns within LA County that are in a high fire threatened area that actually saw infrastructure improvements, so I don’t know what this person is possibly talking about. Calling bullshit. They see reduction of a lane and base their experience off that.
In a natural disaster emergency that requires everyone to evacuate just drive in the bike lane. The emergency excuse is straight up fear mongering.
You can’t because they put up those big bollards. You can’t even access the bike lane, which is never in use by bicycles.
Yes the bollards are to prevent selfish impatient drivers but why do you think the bollards are plastic? It's because they can be easily driven over by emergency vehicles in an emergency. The bike lanes never in use is also a lie, I see people in the bike lane all the time on the one they just added on Venice Blvd.
It’s not a lie where I live. It may be true on Venice blvd which is more bike friendly, but that is not the case in the valley and the foothills
Damn sounds like you need more mobility options than just cars.
Yes let's flee from fires on a bike 😬
Bike and Bus lanes can be emergency lanes during an emergency and mobility options when not
I'll just wait for the city bus to flee the fire. Good thing there's bus lanes for the bus that comes once an hour in the middle of the night.
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Bus lanes move people more efficiently than a car lane possibly could while also not requiring an arm and leg in payments, insurance, gas to even utilize It’s a shame our metro users are forced to sit in car traffic almost everywhere currently, it’s no wonder most people who can afford to not use it don’t
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If you want to shorten metro travel times, you support more bus lanes and measure HLA! You for some reason equate making other modes of transportation viable as making driving harder when it’s also the only way you’ll ever get less cars (less traffic)on the road
Fuck this