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L.A. Residents Revolt Against Lane-Shrinking "Road Diet," Threaten Their Councilman's Recall And Get Results; LB Residents Voice Opposition But Haven't Pursued Political Action (On This Or Other Issues) Challenging Up To Five Council Incumbents, And Get No Results


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(July 28, 2017, 1:05 p.m.) -- In L.A. County's largest city, L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin announced on July 26 that he has agreed to support removal of an L.A. City Hall-imposed "road diet" that shrank vehicle lanes, added bike lanes and slowed traffic along Vista Del Mar in Playa Del Rey. The L.A. Councilman announced his action in this video after riled L.A. residents demanded that their erased vehicle lanes be restored and launched an advocacy group ("Keep L.A. Moving" at this link) that stated in part:

Road Diets -- such as the ones installed on Vista del Mar, Culver, Jefferson and Playa del Rey -- create problems, including longer commutes, cut-through traffic, more pollution and higher accident rates. They impose financial burdens on individuals and businesses. They hurt families, especially the working class. The impact was immediately felt in PDR [Playa Del Rey] and its surrounding communities, and unfortunately will continue to impact residents until the all ill-conceived road reconfigurations are fixed.

And they didn't stop there. L.A. residents produced YouTube VIDEOs that held Councilman Bonin and L.A. Mayor Garcetti accountable by name (at this link.) And perhaps most significantly, they launched a no-nonsense website (www.RecallBonin.com) and an accompanying Facebook page to remove their resisting incumbent.

[Scroll down for further.]

And the Councilman's retreat on one street isn't enough, they say on Facebook [bracketed material by us]:

WE WON THE BATTLE FOR VDM [Vista Del Mar] BUT THE WAR CONTINUES

On Wednesday evening LA City Councilman Mike Bonin put out a video (http://buff.ly/2uE7zRM) stating that Vista Del Mar Blvd will be returned to four lanes!

With the help of [LA County Supervisor] Janice Hahn [whose district includes Long Beach] who promised to increase beach parking down below. This is a step in the right direction however it's far from enough!

Our other streets and communities are still being held hostage indefinitely. Culver Blvd, Jefferson Blvd, Pershing Blvd and Venice Blvd are still under the Road Diets. What's worse, other major streets in the district including Lincoln Blvd, Wilshire, Olympic Blvd and Sepulveda are still slated to be modified under Mobility 2035 and Vision Zero.

We will continue to fight for our streets. Our people, our businesses and our environment are under attack. We stand with our community and with LA District 11.

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Meanwhile, in L.A. County's second largest city, a number of Long Beach 3rd Council district residents objected when their Councilwoman, Suzie Price, applauded imposing a "road diet" along Ocean Blvd. That project has now erased some vehicle lanes, slowed traffic and installed bike lanes from 39th Place to the eastern end of the Peninsula (details below). 5th district residents voiced dismay when they woke up to discover that City Hall had installed green bollards along Studebaker Rd. between Spring St. and Wardlow Rd. 8th district residents came to the City Council meeting and testified in opposition to a similar installation along Orange Ave.

In each case, Long Beach residents got nowhere despite emails, social network comments and attending "informational" meetings where Council incumbents and city staff told residents what City Hall planned to do and then did it. Councilwoman Mungo has acknowledged the bollard objections, recited city management's rationale for what was done and said it may be re-examined in the future (translation: no promises of the outcome residents seek.)

Councilwoman Price faced push-back from a number of her constituents over the Ocean Blvd. road diet. Neighborhood resident Susan Miller raised issues about the plan from its inception. Ms. Miller predicted backups would result, especially on weekends and holidays. On July 4, she documented this.


Photo by Susan Miller, July 4


Photo by Susan Miller, July 4

Ms. Miller told LBREPORT.com: "[C]ars have been backed up from Bennett to Livingston for the last hour and the beach parking lots are all full so the next 11 hours will be a war zone down here..per Next Door commenter it is worse towards the peninsula:" She noted the following sentiment voiced by a Peninsula resident on NextDoor.com

susie [sic] price...have you waited for 30 minutes or more in your brainless road diet. just to get on the peninsula from granada and ocean. this is in southern california. Manhattan and many other diet roads are livid, disturbed...Please come down and enjoy a picnic on the road as we wait to get 1/2 mile . This is an ugly outcome from a 'diet'.. You promised to remove this if it didn't work. It doesn't work. I've seen 3 serious traffic accidents. Your crew is underamazing. Dump the homeless? dump the lines? dumb [sic] our government is the only answer.!!! Vote the changes for a peaceful, positive peninsula. Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

Ms. Miller also said the Ocean Blvd. road diet raised a public safety issue in slowing/delaying/obstructing LBPD/LBFD responses by erasing previously available vehicle lanes. LBPD and LBFD reps denied or downplayed the issue...but Ms. Miller tells LBREPORT.com:

On July 4th, five different times I saw the paramedic/ambulances on East Ocean Blvd were detained because of the road diet. The few drivers that tried to pull over - had no where to go/not enough room for the ambulance to get around.

I saw a couple of bicyclists fall off their bikes because they weren't paying attention when a car moved into the bike lane to let the ambulance go by - the bikers had ear buds on /not hearing the sirens. Many vehicles would not stop or pull over.

Motorcycles and bicyclists kept going in spite of the sirens. No one was yielding to the City trucks working on the Fourth that had their amber lights flashing/no one heeding the amber lights...

Internal emails obtained by LBREPORT.com under the CA Public Records Act show that Councilwoman Price personally involved herself in how the city communicated the Ocean Blvd. road diet to her constituents and ultimately implemented it. She reviewed and responded to all or nearly all of her constituents objections, asked staff for its responses to a number of the complaints, and ultimately swatted the residents' objections down, basically siding with city staff's safety rationale (slowing traffic.)

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Earlier this week, Councilwoman Price doubled-down on her stance, stating during a July 25 City Council study session on City Hall's proposed FY18 Capital Improvement Plan:

Councilwoman Price: Traffic calming: This to me seems like it's a major function of the city. I mean I don't know if every office is like ours but we receive requests for traffic calming all the time [and Price questioned whether $300,000 proposed in FY 18 was sufficient "to allocate to a function that is of such need in every district."]...I know how important traffic calming is to the residents. To the school children that are walking to school, to folks that are trying to deal with the increased density in their communities, I think traffic calming projects really are a huge opportunity for the city to service the residents in a way that is not as high-dollar as some of the repaving and infrastructure projects that we have. We get a huge return on our investment on those types of projects...Nothing really brings residents more satisfaction than feeling like their streets are safer in terms of traffic...

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A week earlier at the July 18 Council meeting, Price made the motion and Councilmembers voted 9-0 to authorize spending roughly $2 million (funds obtained from various taxpayer sources, see below) for a project in her Council district that includes adding green bollards and shrinking a northbound lane of Bellflower Blvd. between PCH and Atherton St. In an agendizing memo, city staff stated:

City Council approval is requested to enter into a contract with Sequel Contractors, Inc. (Sequel), for street improvements on Bellflower Boulevard, between Pacific Coast Highway and Atherton Street, which is in need of rehabilitation (Exhibit A). The rehabilitation work consists of replacing damaged curbs, gutters, driveways, alley entrances, and sidewalks; tree trimming and root shaving; reconstructing deteriorated pavement by cold milling and resurfacing; and installation of reflectorized K-71 flexible post delineators, restoration of pavement markers, markings, traffic striping, signage and curb paint. This project will eliminate one northbound lane on Bellflower Boulevard between Atherton and Pacific Coast Highway for construction of a Class IV bikeway on Bellflower Boulevard, creating a bikeway separated from vehicular traffic. The Class IV bikeway will provide for connectivity to local Long Beach activity centers that are included within the City's approved Bicycle Master Plan. Construction of the bikeway is supported by a grant award in the amount of $397,084 made available under the Caltrans Bicycle Transportation Account (BTA) Grant, which provides funding for bicycle projects. The City Council authorized the City Manager to apply for, and accept, this grant on January 5,2010...

...This project includes the construction of a Class IV bikeway on Bellflower Boulevard, providing residents with more recreational and health benefits achieved by cycling. The project will also allow for residents to use bicycles as an alternate mode of transportation, resulting in less vehicle usage and a reduction of air pollution harmful to the environment...

Pursuant to Assembly Bill 1358 (the California Complete Streets Act), and as part of the implementation of the Mobility Element of the Long Beach General Plan, the City's practice is to conduct a complete streets assessment for all roadway construction projects. The project site, Bellflower Boulevard between Pacific Coast Highway and Atherton Street, is a mixed-use area, zoned for community commercial automobile-oriented, institutional, park and single-family residential. It currently has four-foot to ten-foot wide sidewalks, five bus stops served by one Long Beach Transit route, and bike lanes on both sides of the street. The bike lanes are being widened and updated to current standards. The current infrastructure encourages the use of multi-modes of transportation by motorists, bicyclists, public transit passengers, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities. The project site has landscaping areas along the sidewalks. Currently, the tree well spacing is between 25 feet and 40 feet.

FISCAL IMPACT

The total cost for this project is estimated at $2,576,412, which includes the contract award amount of $1,965,272, including contingency and the cost for design, construction, construction management, labor compliance, and project oversight. This project is supported by $1,400,000 in Federal MAP-21 funds, $779,328 in State Gas Tax funds, and $397,084 in BTA grant funds. The BTA grant is not currently appropriated. Accordingly, the appropriation increase of $397,084 is requested in the Capital Projects Fund (CP) in the Department of Public Works (PW), offset by grant reimbursement revenue. There is no cost match associated with this grant.

To hear what LB Councilmembers said and did in less than four minutes on July 18, 2017, click here.

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In 2016, residents objected to Councilwoman Price's stance supporting a "road diet" along Ocean Blvd. that has erased vehicle lanes, created bike lanes and slowed traffic from 39th Place to the eastern end of the Peninsula. Councilwoman Price noted that the plan included creating about 100 diagonal parking spaces from 39th-54th Place for the parking-scarce nearby neighborhood, and the new diagonal spaces do appear to be fairly heavily utilized. However residents warned that the diagonal parking could invite collisions when parked cars backed-up into oncoming bicycles and vehicles...and we've received a report of at least one near-miss that sent a car into a median tree.

On March 23, 2017, Councilwoman Price held a community meeting prior to expanding the road diet from 54th Place to the eastern end of the Peninsula, urging residents to give the road diet a chance and making an offer:

Councilwoman Price: My commitment to all of you, and this is only as good as my word, but my commitment to all of you is that this is a job that's going to take place with paint, OK, and if after six to eight months you feel that it's a disaster, you feel you absolutely don't like it, I will be listening to you...If we get an overwhelming request to repaint the road and make it the way it currently is, we will do that. We have set that money aside. The only thing I would ask is that you give it six to eight months...Please give it a chance; we don't make traffic decisions in this city by vote...[Says she spoke in detail to city traffic engineers who apply traffic science, she says they told her they feel strongly this will be good for the Peninsula]...If it's a disaster, I promise you...I will repaint the road [restore the previous condition], just give me six months. Give me six months and let's talk about it. Put a note in your calendar in six months saying 'Call Suzie' and tell me what you think about the road diet, six months after it's implemented, OK? And we will take it from there as a community but change is hard and I get it, and it just is, but let's just give it a try. OK? That's all I ask of you guys." [applause]

It remains to be seen if L.A. residents will pursue a recall if their Council incumbent allows "road diets" to remain and proliferate on other streets in his district.

LB residents in five Council districts (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th) have an automatic opportunity (without a recall) to vote to retain or to replace their Council incumbents in April 2018 elections. To date, only two non-incumbents have filed forms indicating their "intention" to run (one in the 3rd, one for Mayor.) LBREPORT.com is unfamilar with the records of these individuals on any neighborhood protective, taxpayer protective or other city issues on which we've reported over the past 17 years.



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