Metro's Chair and City of Santa Monica Councilwoman Pam O'Connor held one of her monthly online chats with residents yesterday. StreetsblogLA was there and noted that she personally thinks transit planning needs to stop just counting cars and start counting people. You know, bicycles, walkers, people on busses -- all those aspects that make up street use. The current mainstream models mainly focus on cars, cars, cars. Ever notice in Downtown LA when walking around......

Here's a sign of the times. This bike rack at the Variety/E Channel Meridian Club building on Wilshire normally has three or four bikes on it. This day, bikes (including mine) had to be locked to parking meters because the rack was full. Related: Gas is currently averaging at $4.60 a gallon for regular in Los Angeles......

The rising price of gas is nothing new, but these past seven days, a gallon of gas has jumped up 27 cents. Prices have not increased at this pace since August 2003. One year ago, gas prices were about one dollar less than today's Los Angeles average of $4.38 per gallon of regular. "The Auto Club says California refineries are producing more diesel fuel and less gasoline, creating a need to import more costly unleaded......

LAist Featured Photos contributor Marshall Astor titled this photo "Holy Fuck Part Deux! Thrifty Gas in San Pedro Goes for Broke." He continues to say "this gas station's prices have gone nuts, but every time I drive by, there's some moron at the pump getting gouged. "For reference, I paid $4.01 at a nearby station last week, and most other nearby stations are in the low $4.10-20 range. "I'm expecting this pump to hit $5.00......

Mia Birk of Alta Planning, the company that is working on the LA Bicycle Master Plan | Screen Capture from Sundance As part of Sundance Channel's green programming, tonight's episode of Big Ideas For A Small Planet features cities tackling transit with green solutions. No, Los Angeles is not featured (save for a couple stock shots of an orange Metro bus), but the ideas presented in the episode are all something the region could......

On July 1st, after a two year warning, driving while talking on your cell phone, unless it is with a hands free device, will be illegal. There's some confusion, however, on how it all plays out and it depends on whether you are a teen or adult. Adults (that's 18 and over) can hold a phone, dial a number or answer a phone, but must converse hands free. Teens cannot do any of that, including......

Photo by toastycakes via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr In an attempt to avoid the voter confusion rampant in the state during this year's Super Tuesday balloting, LA County officials are doing their best to educate the public about the InkaVote Plus system, including the audio options for disabled and multilingual voters. It seems "fire season" in the Southland is now a year-round thing. After yesterday's Griffith Park fire comes news of another......

Photo by manmadepants via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Atlanta may have received top honors this time around, but Los Angeles and San Francisco linger at the back of the top ten list for worst commutes in the country, according to a report released by Forbes. And to that, they compare some LA vs. SF statistics: Commuting Efficiency: "Los Angeles checks in at 20%. In San Francisco, an extremely efficient city, 28%......

Photo by Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA via Flickr Today's edition of Steve Hymon's weekly Road Sage column explores one Altadena man's story of de-caring for five years, but unwillingly giving back into car culture after Metro changed some lines, ultimately forcing his four hour daily roundtrip to be a little longer and more unpredictable. Cliff Moore, who is not fond of driving, lives in Altadena, works in Sun Valley and likes it that way.......

Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr For over a year now, the plan to make both Olympic and Pico one-way(ish) streets has been thought and fought, presented and resented. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Jack Weiss, the major city backers of the project, were set to go forth with the project this week. That is, until Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio said "not so fast." In his......

You just finished filling up your tank at the gas station, but the next thing you do is not grab your keys to leave, it's to take an extra twenty seconds to note some statistics by inputting into Twitter the miles since your last fill up, the price per gallon and how many gallons you put in. Welcome to FuelFrog, a new application designed by three guys who embarked on a mission of launching a......

Photo by VirtualEm via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr An Urban & Environmental Planner friend of mine in New York City believes that when you build bigger and beefier streets, all you do is build increased traffic congestion. "Build it and they will come," he would say. Today, Steve Hymon in his weekly Road Sage column explores the subject by extension of the Pico/Olympic plan, where city officials are planning to begin......

Photo by Salaam Allah West Coast Transitphotography KING! via the LAist Featured Photos pool It sounds really boring: California Health and Safety Code Sections 43845. However, within that state code is a something pretty neat: if your place of work has 50 persons or more employed for them and subsidizes leased parking for your and your fellow employees, then they must participate in the Parking Cash-Out program offering you a cash allowance in lieu......

Don't forget that umbrella on the way out the door today -- it's gonna rain (yes, that is an intentional Steve Reich reference). Right now, surfers should be enjoying the best swells of the week and skiers can look forward to a nice snowpack of "about 6 inches of snow at elevations of about 6,000 feet," according to the LA Times. As always, with the good, comes the bad. Among the more strenuous commute and......

I have to confess something: despite living in the NoHo Arts District, despite working on Sunset and Vine, despite writing for one of the most public-transit-friendly blogs in the city, I have remained hesitant about taking the Metro to work every morning. I mean, it makes sense: the station in NoHo is about a 10-15 minute walk away, it's a quick 10 minute trip to the Hollywood and Vine station, which drops me conveniently......

Green LA Girl is walking every street in Santa Monica and she just discovered this Web 2.0 gem: Walk Score. It calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. to help people find walkable places to live. Pretty awesome, right? I've always prided myself on my part of Sherman Oaks and it's walkability. Within a 10-minute walk radius I can walk to two bars, four restaurant bars (including......

A Memorial Weekend BBQ in East Hollywood was my destination yesterday. And since my recent habit has been to use public transit mixed with the bike, that's what I set out to do from my Sherman Oaks flat. First, I was off to Ralphs Fresh Fare at Ventura and Coldwater to pick up some food. I shop, exit and head to my bike. Right then, an escalade pulls up and parks in the fire......

It is a shame that it took us a year and some months after the Orange Line's opening to bike it from end to end. So we braved the chilly weather today and did it. We even did it from the Clybourn St. Burbank border on the Chandler Bike Path that connects to the City of Burbank's 4-mile bike path. One way, the Orange Line ride is 14 miles (add 1.2 miles for the......

Not to dwell on traffic stuff but:Just because i cut this woman off, and then flipped her the middle finger after she honked at me for cutting her off, she starts following me and riding my bumper so close that i can't even see her front license plate in my mirrors.She is in her 40's and driving an Infinity SUV, and i can't stop wondering what she plans on doing once i park my car.........

Oops! CNN puts "Where's Obama" where it should have been "Where's Osama." Wha? You don' know who Obama is? You Should. Need inspiration to bike commute in Los Angeles? Meet Monica Howe. "In an unusual match-up, Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas will face four challengers, including three candidates from the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council, in the March 6 election." "L-A-X hasn't had a major overhaul since the 1984 Summer Olympics and the Tom......

LACityNerd comments on LA Curbed's commentary on Daily Bruin's article about DOT's proactive enforcement of cars in driveway aprons at sidewalks. We've had our own parking problems in Westwood, but as to parking in aprons, you deserve a ticket -- it gets in the way of our bikes. As one commenter on Curbed said, "Living in the City 101: YOU CANNOT PARK ON THE SIDEWALK." NPR reports that in Los Angeles, 67.8 percent of......

You see these everyday. The little dashed lines that tell you the lane is going somewhere else. Well, those are called Elephant Tracks. Not officially, but that's the CalTrans lingo. The official term is somewhat pedantic: dashed white channelizing lines. According to CalTrans spokesperson, Jeanne Bonfilio, Elephant Tracks are there to communicate to you that your lane will be "channeling" off your current path onto an exit or an interchange. On city streets, these......

J'aime Oberlander is a Castaic native and a commuting UCLA senior, which is a not so small demographic. A product of home-schooling, she became aware of her social ineptitude in high school. This interviewer is happy to report that she's obviously gotten passed that. Her first name is "J'aime", French for "I love"; her second name is "Rachel", which is biblical Hebrew for "lamb of God". When put together the names state, "I love......