CityWatchLA - Streets are for People

CityWatch, Apr 22, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 32

What happens in Los Angeles doesn't stay in Los Angeles … it resonates! In fact, common wisdom holds that "As goes LA, so goes the nation." This was especially evident at this week's Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) conference in San Diego where almost 1000 traffic, public health, land use, law enforcement and advocacy professionals came together to leverage federal funding and implement safety initiatives that reduce fatalities on our streets.

Against the backdrop of LA's budget crisis and the proposed reduction of city services in an effort to close the $463 million deficit, the OTS funding, programming and partnership opportunities are all the more important.

Dr. Jeffrey Michael of the US Department of Transportation opened the conference with a big picture challenge saying "When it comes to traffic safety, we look to you for leadership in addressing distracted and impaired motorists."

Christopher Murphy, OTS Director, made it personal and challenged the conference participants to start by changing their own behavior. "It's up to the professionals to set the standard so stop multi-tasking and concentrate when you're driving."

Conference participants were presented with an array of opportunities to work together on engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation, and enforcement strategies for making our streets safer for all users.

LA was well represented at the conference and Ron Durgin, President of Sustainable Streets, said "Implementation of California's Complete Street Act is so much more likely when engineers and law enforcement and advocates all work together to make our streets safer for all modes, from peds to cyclists, from transit passengers to motorists."

For the people of Los Angeles, safe streets are much more likely if they are pursued by the local community in partnership with local advocates and City Hall.

The immediate opportunities on the horizon are the current Safe Routes to School funding, federal and state money that can be spent to improve local sidewalks and streets to encourage children on their school commutes.

For more information, visit OTS.ca.gov or SustainableStreetsLA.org or email info@SustainableStreetsLA.org

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net.)

CityWatchLA - LA Fails to Cash the Check

CityWatch, Feb 11, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 12

The City of LA is mired in a budget crisis, one that has prompted the mayor to go on a “confidence tour” while the city council conducts triage on city assets and the people of LA brace themselves for the next round of service cuts and fee increases.

While those in control would have us believe that this is all due to the current global economic crisis, it’s not quite true. Quite simply, the City of LA has been mismanaging money through thick and thin, through feast and famine, and even when the funding comes through, LA fails to cash the check.

While city hall attempts to balance the budget on the backs of the people who live here and who operate small businesses here, the real opportunities to pay our staff, repair our infrastructure, support healthy communities and partner with our schools are missed because of simple ineptitude.

1) The City of LA competes with itself for funding. The federal and state government both have Safe Routes to School funding, dispensed on an annual basis and LA allows the Department of Transportation, Public Works, and the CRA to all submit projects that compete with each other. A more efficient solution would be to allow Public Works (a charter department) to take the lead and then to ask the hard question, “Why is there a redundancy of services by the LADOT and the CRA?”

2) The City of LA simply fails to compete for great funding. The Office of Traffic Safety provides funds that can pay for public safety personnel and overtime but LA continues to go after funding for “Watch the Road” billboards as the city council debates furloughs and layoffs.

3) The City of LA qualifies for funding and then simply fails to do the work.

• It’s been years since the city council addressed the fact that 33 of the most dangerous street crossings for schoolchildren had not received safety improvements even though the funds had been in place for years. They blamed city staff.

• It’s been years since I stood on Wilshire Blvd. with LA’s gridlock busting Mayor, Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel, and LADOT GM Rita Robinson to announce the federal funding that was going to be spent on revitalizing and rebuilding Wilshire Blvd., from one end to the other. Since then, the Mayor has lost interest, Greuel is now the City Controller, Robinson retired in frustration and works for LA County, and anyone who travels on Wilshire Blvd. does so at their own risk.

• As of last week, the city council continues to debate Wilshire Blvd., finally deciding to avoid making a decision until they had seen more reports and studies. Meanwhile, LA residents pay an average of $746 per vehicle in repairs per year as the result of damages from potholes and road debris.

4) The City of LA’s failure to complete projects and then invoice the federal and state authorities disqualifies us from funding cycles. City staff engage in the “sister agency” turf war that screams of the inefficiency of having such redundancy. The LADOT has two projects still open under a Cooperative Work Agreement (fund extension) which makes the whole city ineligible for BTA state funds that pay for city projects that improve safety and convenience.

5) The City of LA qualifies for funding but can’t do the math. When the LADOT was at the Transportation Committee to discuss plans for its share of the Metro’s “local return” funds, the numbers being discussed were based on 10% of net instead of 10% of gross. I pointed out the error ($7.3 million over 5 years) and it was corrected.

LA’s City Council has an obligation to protect the city’s assets and to the deliver city services. The Great City priorities of Public Safety, Public works, Public Health, and Public Education depend on an honest, open and transparent accounting of our funds. It continues with the responsible management of our funds and it moves forward with oversight and accountability.

As for today, it’s incumbent on the city council to “cash the check” and put city staff to work repairing our streets and delivering city services.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. Disclosure: Box is also a candidate for 4th District Councilman.)

CityWatchLA - Zero Deaths, Everyone Counts

CityWatch, Apr 21, 2009
Vol 7 Issue 32

California's Office of Traffic Safety, the department that administers traffic safety grants, recently convened a statewide Summit and, for the first time, invited bike activists to participate. I was honored to receive a "scholarship" to the conference in San Francisco.

Given the recent spike in pedestrians deaths in Los Angeles coupled with the City's current financial woes, I fully expected to encounter a full contingent of City Council and DOT representatives, all with grant proposals in hand and all asking "What can we do?" But such was not the case.

What I encountered was 750 people from around the state, ranging from law enforcement officers to traffic engineers to public health advocates, all marching under the banner of "Toward zero deaths, every 1 counts" and all committed to working together to not just lowering the number of deaths on our streets but to eliminating them altogether.

The uniqueness of this conference was apparent at registration when I was handed a flyer that reminded guests "do not leave service revolvers unattended in the guest rooms." It continued at the opening session when the call to order included a moment of silence for those law enforcement officers and road maintenance workers who had been killed this past year while working to make our streets and highways safer for everybody.

During the conference I had breakfast with a Police Officer from Vernon, population 100, who wanted to know how he could address the safety of the "workforce" cyclists who work in Vernon and ride the sidewalks, often after dark, and who don't know the rules of the road.

I had lunch with a Police Officer from San Francisco and heard first hand how they were able to establish a working relationship with the cycling community, all while making safety a priority and somehow accommodating a Critical Mass ride that regularly draws thousands of cyclists to the streets.

I had dinner with traffic engineers who punched holes in the "crosswalk removal" studies and the "false sense of security" mythology that is so often referenced as the LADOT reevaluates and removes our crosswalks.

Through it all we heard of the current trend in traffic safety which is to focus on surviving the collision, a scenario that leaves the pedestrians and cyclists on the street as vulnerable or more vulnerable than ever. While the mileage death rate is at its lowest point since it began being measured, speed-related fatalities are on the rise.

Tom Vanderbilt, author of "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), drove home the point that our greatest opportunity for improving safety lies in modifying motorist behavior in order to prevent the collisions, not in simply engineering to survive them.

As the conference progressed and the speakers offered solutions from all directions it became apparent that there is no simple answer but that there are a multitude of approaches and our greatest opportunity is to simply lay down some priorities and to work together to make them happen.

To that end I am pleased to announce that pedestrian and cyclist safety is one of the eight areas of focus for the Office of Traffic Safety, that the OTS is keeping track of the numbers and that the OTS mission is to effectively and efficiently administer traffic safety grants that reduce traffic deaths, injuries, and economic losses.

The hard questions for the City of Los Angeles is these:

• What are LA's priorities for safety on the streets?
• Does LA evaluate pedestrian, cyclist and motorist safety?
• Is LA going after the funding that will support efforts to make our streets safer for everybody?

(Stephen Box is a transportation and cyclist advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at stephen@ThirdEyeCreative.net)