Photo by Pro-Zak via Flickr It's 11:45 a.m. and City Council is in session getting ready to vote on an item supporting Metro's proposed half-cent sales tax for transportation projects. Their vote would also tell Metro which projects are priorities for the city, including the possibility of a downtown streetcar and getting the Green Line to actually hit LAX. Councilman Jose Huizar spoke up to get some clarification on projects within the city. "Is......

A sign near the intersection of Riverside Dr. and Fulton Ave. in Sherman Oaks. | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist Further investigation into reasons why a few spots around the city have signs prohibiting bicycle sidewalk riding shows that both Sherman Oaks locations were due to troubles caused by skateboarders. After pedestrians getting hit by boards, cars nearly hitting skaters falling into the street and customers being intimidated, Van Nuys Division LAPD officers requested a......

Councilman Bill Rosendahl played to the cycling community last week when he announced that he was convening a Community Forum to address issues raised in the aftermath of the Mandeville Canyon "road rage" incident of July 4th. The response to the Community Forum, which was announced last Wednesday, was so significant that the event was moved to a larger venue to accommodate the anticipated crowd. Abruptly, Rosendahl's Office reversed course on Saturday, announcing that the......

On Wednesday, the City Council will be voting on a six-month taxi cab pilot program for downtown and Hollywood. But the Department of Transportation has a concern, according to a report (.pdf) of theirs: "There is a possibility that during peak hours, key lanes of traffic could be impeded by taxi operations generated by the pilot program." LA Times Road Sage Steve Hymon translates: "They're scared silly of anything that may slow down some bloke......

--> Thursday afternoon, there were two DASH buses and a DASH shuttle vehicle parked on Hollywood Boulevard, all of them idling. The 2nd DASH bus had an operator at the wheel and he pulled out into the street, passing the 1st DASH bus and stopping to chat for a moment with an operator on the street who then jumped into the shuttle vehicle and drove away, leaving an idling DASH bus on the street.......

Left to right: LADOT Staff Michael May, CD-4 Larry Hoffman, Mayoral appointee Glenn Bailey at a LABAC meeting | Photo courtesy by Alex Thompson Shocked by the horrific road raging motorist vs. cyclists incident on Mandeville Canyon Road this past holiday weekend, the cycling community has rallied in the last four days to fight for justice and to ensure that Los Angeles city leadership, law enforcement and the judicial system respond to incidents such......

Joy and happiness surround the new park and pay stations in this photo of a citizen with a park and pay ambassador | Photo provided by the City of LA The Department of Transportation caught wind of yesterday's confusion at the Park and Pay Machines in Silver Lake and decided to take a stab at explaining what happened. "What occurred in this case is that after inserting their quarter, the customer pressed 'OK' twice......

The new Park & Pay meter system is now in effect in Silver Lake -- at least along both sides of the 3500 block -- where we found people gathering in confusion at this meter outside Millie's this morning. The Australian-made Reino meters are not as imposing or as ugly as traditional meters, and while you can pay with change, cash, or credit card, it is paperless -- there is no receipt needed to post......

A motion (pdf) coming before the City Council Planning & Land Use (PLUM) Committee this afternoon could mean complete structural and operational reorganization for the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), a group which serves at the pleasure of the Mayor and City Council in an advisory capacity on bicycling in the City of Los Angeles. The BAC, comprised of 4 Mayoral appointees and 15 Council appointees, one for each District, has been charged with......

Living in an RV in San Pedro just got a little harder, at least for the next 30 days. Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced a new pilot program making it harder for RVs to park in the "designated RV restriction district in South San Pedro." New street signs installed state that no parking will be allowed for oversized vehicles between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 a.m. “These oversized vehicles cause neighborhood blight and present safety......

Photo by Peggy Archer via Flickr On Friday, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) launched their new website, which is a vast improvement to what they had before. And while the site is repackaged with a much nicer visual design and an easier to find live traffic conditions page (super useful, check it out), it's still missing two important components that should be built in the near future: A guide/FAQ to parking questions.......

Tomorrow is the 23rd Annual LA Marathon, and the multiple races taking place in the city as a part of the day-long event are going to compromise a great many of our streets. Many street closures will begin in the overnight and early morning hours, and the LADOT is expected to enforce parking restrictions aggressively. According to the City of LA's official LA Marathon info: "Impounding of vehicles will begin no later than 2:00 am.......

Mayor Villaraigosa celebrated “Metro with the Mayor" day by riding the Rapid to the corner of Wilshire & Western where he held a press conference announcing the implementation of the “New & Improved!” traffic signal synchronization program for Wilshire Boulevard. Joined at the podium by Councilwoman Wendy Greuel and LADOT General Manager Rita Robinson, the Mayor explained that the new Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS) as implemented on Wilshire Boulevard, would increase capacity by 20%,......

The City of Los Angeles is in the process of updating its Bicycle Master Plan, a component of the Transportation Element of the City’s General Plan. For the cycling community, this should be a joyous occasion, the opportunity to participate in the creation of a City Planning Department document that codifies the rights of cyclists and drives the development of a multi-modal city. But critics complain that the BMP Workshop process is obligatory at best......

Zoom in, zoom out, click on the icons and click on the lines for more info and times of closures | View Larger Map Last week Wednesday night, February 6, 2007, Veteran Officer Randy Simmons was killed upon entering the home of a gunman who reported to have shot three family members. This was the first casualty in the 41-year history of the LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit. Funeral arrangements for Simmons are......

A reader, Zach, submitted a question last week about RVs parking on his street in Hollywood: I live on Gower, south of Sunset, and my street is always filled with homeless people living in RVs. Is there any recourse I can take to get them to leave? Are they breaking any laws?Technically, these folks are not breaking the law... yet. And all this can change in a matter of a few months all because LADOT......

A water main break has closed the northbound and southbound lanes of Sepulveda at Century and is estimated to reopen at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning according to a press release just released by Caltrans:Los Angeles – The Department of Transportation (Caltrans) announces that a Department of Water and Power (DWP) 36-inch water main break has caused the closure of northbound and southbound Sepulveda Boulevard at Century Boulevard in Los Angeles. Estimated duration of the......

View Larger Map NOTE: One approach equals one left turn signal, some intersections have more then one new left turn arrow. One left turn signal can cost up to $80,000. Mayor Villaraigosa is making sure his recent replacement at the Department of Transportation is a good choice. Today, they announced the 30/30 program:LADOT will install and activate 30 left turn arrows in 30 business days at some of the City’s most congested and bottlenecked intersections.......

CityWatch is reporting that Gloria Jeff, fired Los Angeles Department of Transportation General Manager, wants her job back. "She says the Mayor … who did the firing … did not give her an annual performance evaluation, gave her no explanation for the firing and demanded that she resign within 21 hours." A spokesman for the Mayor, Matt Szabo, countered: “Gloria Jeff received numerous indications from the mayor’s office that her management of the Department......

Brady Westwater at the blog, LA Cowboy, asked some fair questions on his blog yesterday about the former head of the city’s transportation department, who was fired last week: “Why Did The Press TOTALLY Fail Us On The Gloria Jeff Disaster?” After some research, he found that “not a word was ever printed about her past” – if that’s true, Gloria Jeff is in the wrong business. Get this woman to a PR firm......

Guess what, folks? Something huge happened today. Something to have drinks over. Something that is enough reason to run around the streets screaming "joy to the world". You know what that is? GLORIA JEFF GOT FIRED. Okay, that doesn't sound so great -- I know you are scratching your head right now. Who? What? Where? Gloria Jeff was the general manager of the city's Department of Transportation, otherwise known as LADOT. You know, the......

View Larger Map Ventura Blvd. is well served by three bus lines, the 750, 150 and 240. During the day on a weekday, you can pretty much walk to a stop and find a bus coming. To the north of the Valley's famous boulevard is the Orange Line, which during the same times of day seems to run every few seconds (it's only at 12 a.m. am I waiting longer than 10 minutes). Sandwiched between......

Lace up those tennies and grab that trusty iPod! Our good friends over at Metro and LADOT in conjunction with the Confederation of Downtown Assoc. are now offering free podcast tours of downtown L.A. through the program Downtown LA Walks. Downtown LA Walks describes itself as an urban “way-finder”, and was designed to help people navigate their way around via new signage noting landmarks, and historical facts. The fun and informative podcasts offer several......

Guest Day Editor Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site. MetroRiderLA promotes what I call the "Los Angeles Public Transit Lifestyle" (it's not really trade marked, feel free to use those words in anyway you please). The idea behind the Public Transit Lifestyle goes something like this (from the website): "The implication is simply that the citizens......

Q: What do you call a road with five to seven lanes of traffic in one direction, if the only way to exit this road is by going to the right? Pose that question to most Angelenos and the answer would be "a freeway, stupid!" But they'd be wrong. The answer is the increasingly popular proposal by LA County Supervisor Zev Yarolslavsky to convert Olympic and Pico boulevards into one-way streets in order to......

It's bike to work week and tomorrow is the big day. Here is some of what is happening: Rush-Hour Bike Rally to City Hall Taking off from the Hollywood/Western Red Line station at 9 a.m., hundreds of cyclists will ride to city hall in demonstration of cycling solidarity. It's an 8-mile ride that will be escorted by the LAPD with arrival at city hall. At 10:30 a.m., there will be another rally or "bang......

While it may be true that no one walks in LA, people do ride their bikes, and this week is your chance to ride your bike to work while feeling superior to your coworkers. Metro will kickoff its 13th annual celebration of Bike to Work Week with a bike rally and fair featuring Ed Begley, Jr. and a free concert by the Ditty Bops at Los Angeles City Hall, Monday, May 14. Metro also......

It is Caltrans with no space or capital T. We know, it looks way cooler like CalTrans or some variation, but according to their website and press releases, they go by the boring-with-uppercase-letter Caltrans. It seems like all transit agencies have this dilemma. Metro wants to be called Metro, not MTA (the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) [get nerdy and call it LACMTA]. But no one wants to let go of the acronym,......

It's one of those annoying things you have to love about Los Angeles. Freeway directionals that confuse the hell out of newbies and out-of-towners alike. Your internet map directions say take the 110 South (or maybe West), yet the signs on freeway just say 110 Harbor or 110 Pasadena. Great, now the guy in front if us is slowing down because they are freaking out over which is what. In the Valley, many complain......

Attention transit nerds! Are you jealous of other big cities that employ GPS technologies to bring you the time of the next arriving bus on your cell phone or wireless PDA? We might not be that far away. In collaboration with LADOT, Metro is testing out their own version on RapidBus.Net with a select number of lines including the Orange Line. Here is what we experienced and our recommendations: 1. It let us know......