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News

People First or Cars First?

By  Zach Behrens
Published Jun 18, 2008 11:00 PM
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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 on one-way streets that signs telling you which street you're on tend to only display towards traffic? Half the time, pedestrians get shafted by this model.

And then, let's not even get started on how pedestrians are legally allowed to cross the street at unmarked crosswalks, but no education campaign is set in place or politician has been willing to take it on.

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