Which way West L.A.?? Judge stops Villar, Weiss Plan for Pico and Olympic
From the Los Angeles Times.
By Steve Hymon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 12:57 PM PDT, May 5, 2008
A Superior Court judge gave a big red light to the city of Los Angeles this morning when he ruled that a plan to make the Westside's Olympic and Pico boulevards behave more like one-way streets can't go forward until a study is done of its effects on businesses and residents.
The ruling is a blow to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his ally City Councilman Jack Weiss, both of whom have been pushing the proposal since November. Two Westside groups -- one representing businesses and the other homeowners -- sued the city to stop the plan.
In his five-page ruling, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio wrote that the Olympic-Pico proposal had a reasonable chance of causing impacts that required study. He took particular umbrage with a claim by the city that the project didn't need to be studied because it wasn't a major change to how the streets are managed.
"In other words, the very purpose of the project is to expand the use of the existing streets," Torribio wrote. "To claim that the project will not expand the current use and is therefore exempt" from further study "seems inconsistent with the stated purpose."
The idea behind the proposal was to give commuters an easier way to get to and from jobs on the Westside, given that the Santa Monica Freeway is often clogged.
The first part of the plan involved removing street parking along parts of Olympic and Pico during rush hours -- leading to complaints from merchants, who said they feared it would frustrate and drive away customers. The city also wants to time traffic signals to stay green longer so that westbound Olympic and eastbound Pico traffic moves faster.
City leaders had planned to start work on the project this week.
"This is a pretty clear ruling -- they have to start from scratch," said John Murdock, an attorney representing the Westwood South of Santa Monica Boulevard Homeowners Assn. "They've got to look at the whole project from beginning to end and determine whether it can be mitigated or not -- and if it can't, they've got to do a full environmental impact report."
Such studies can take six months to a year to complete.
Matt Szabo, a spokesman for the mayor, said officials would be reviewing the decision. Last week, Villaraigosa said the city would be willing to conduct a study if required.
By Steve Hymon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 12:57 PM PDT, May 5, 2008
A Superior Court judge gave a big red light to the city of Los Angeles this morning when he ruled that a plan to make the Westside's Olympic and Pico boulevards behave more like one-way streets can't go forward until a study is done of its effects on businesses and residents.
The ruling is a blow to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his ally City Councilman Jack Weiss, both of whom have been pushing the proposal since November. Two Westside groups -- one representing businesses and the other homeowners -- sued the city to stop the plan.
In his five-page ruling, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio wrote that the Olympic-Pico proposal had a reasonable chance of causing impacts that required study. He took particular umbrage with a claim by the city that the project didn't need to be studied because it wasn't a major change to how the streets are managed.
"In other words, the very purpose of the project is to expand the use of the existing streets," Torribio wrote. "To claim that the project will not expand the current use and is therefore exempt" from further study "seems inconsistent with the stated purpose."
The idea behind the proposal was to give commuters an easier way to get to and from jobs on the Westside, given that the Santa Monica Freeway is often clogged.
The first part of the plan involved removing street parking along parts of Olympic and Pico during rush hours -- leading to complaints from merchants, who said they feared it would frustrate and drive away customers. The city also wants to time traffic signals to stay green longer so that westbound Olympic and eastbound Pico traffic moves faster.
City leaders had planned to start work on the project this week.
"This is a pretty clear ruling -- they have to start from scratch," said John Murdock, an attorney representing the Westwood South of Santa Monica Boulevard Homeowners Assn. "They've got to look at the whole project from beginning to end and determine whether it can be mitigated or not -- and if it can't, they've got to do a full environmental impact report."
Such studies can take six months to a year to complete.
Matt Szabo, a spokesman for the mayor, said officials would be reviewing the decision. Last week, Villaraigosa said the city would be willing to conduct a study if required.
Labels: jack weiss, mayor antonio villaraigosa, olympic blvd, pico blvd
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 5/05/2008 03:22:00 PM
23 Comments:
I'm sure El Stupido Mayor won't be haStudy: 25% of LA's Welfare Goes to Illegal Aliens
May 5, 2008, 1:48 PM PDT
KTLA REPORTING... L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich says the county spends more than $1 billion a year on benefits to illegals....According to new data from the Department of Public Social Services, nearly 25% of Los Angeles County 's welfare and food stamp benefits goes directly to the children of illegal aliens, at a cost of $36 million a month -- for a projected annual cost of $432 million.
"The total cost for illegal immigrants to County taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year - not including the millions of dollars for education," said Antonovich.
"With $220 million for public safety, $400 million for healthcare, and $432 million in welfare allocations, illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers."
The supervisor said, in March, illegals collected over $19 million in welfare assistance and over $16 million in food stamp allocations.
ppy to read this either.
Judge Toribio is a moron, who's been forgetting to take his Alzheimer's meds. This plan won't add traffic, just change the use of the streets so the same amount of traffic will flow more smoothly. Whenever that's been done on other boulevards across town, from Wilshire to Sunset in Hollywood to Ventura to South L A, it's worked. It also keeps traffic off side streets which residents clamor for.
The WLA Chamber of Commerce is headed by the same Jay Handel who's active in the HOA involved, and his allies are the same old battle-axes who've fought every single change or traffic improvement and development since the 80's. So this is NOT a widespread opposition but the same group of people who've shown up on the boards of every HOA and NC in the same area, and also lead the WLA Chamber of Commerce.
The vast majority of people who use the streets are opposed, but don't have the time to fight these people and rely on the city to do it for them.
If you've heard Handel on KFI screaming against Weiss and Villar to John and Ken, even they cut him off as a non-stop whiner -- he's got the NEw York Jewish voice worse than nails on a chalkboard, which is his "brusque" personality in person, too.
He claims to rep the merchants with his other hat, but in fact, he was behind getting residents to oppose the city's offer of street parking permits to customers during the extra hour of no parking. In other words, he and his bunch just want to oppose everything whatever it costs the city in money and traffic congestion, no matter WHAT. Stupid judge or Rocky's attorney's, to be unable to present a full picture.
What WILL be funny is when Rosendahl, who's pulled his support because he wants so badly to be "liked" by everyone that he can't stick with any decision, gets his way and makes all the meters cost $4.00/ hr. instead of the current buck, to offset wasteful lawsuits like this one -- no one will park at these shops anyway, they'll go to nearby malls and places with parking, like in Beverly Hills. Perfect Karma, they can thank Jay Handel and the Usual Suspects.
I love this news because it proves that JACK WEISS is as big an idiot as Villaraigosa.
Weiss is an arrogant, dump-as-Delgadillo elitist.
Elect him to City Attorney and the shame is on US.
My diabolical mind tells me that the master plan is to make it so hard for customers to park on Pico and Olympic that they will go elsewhere...thus putting the merchants out of business. Weiss & Co would love nothing better than to tear down all the old establishments and build mixed use, density packed, high rises. And Reyes would love to move the barrios into the white world.
Just look at what's happening on Santa Monica Blvd. between Sepulveda and Century City...the shops are going broke! Pier One was forced to move out and others will be following!
We need to build a wall around our Westside and valley communities and secede from L.A. They can do whatever the hell they want downtown...but NOT IN MY BACKYARD!
Lots of areas opposed this idea. Pico Union and MacArthur park residents had serious concerns, but they can't afford attorneys to protect their interests in court.
At some point, you would think that the Mayor and sidekick Weiss would understand that they aren't third world military dictators, and they would grasp the value of discussing such things with the people most affected and work out the concerns on the front end. But of course that take time and sincere concern about the public.
Pier One had a large lot -- 2 in fact -- and its going out of business had nothing to do with construction on Santa Monica Blvd. Which was a huge pain for everyone but everyone is glad it's done-- the street is the best boulevard stretch in the city.
Only danger is that ClearChannel/CBS and other billboard companies will put back the disgusting billboards that were taken down -- with Weiss's insistence, you might notice. So lumping him in with Reyes, Perry etc. who want to put billboards UP all over the city and diss the westside as greedy "aestheticists" is just stupid. These same NIMBYs who're fighting Weiss now also fought him over Century City, where two BANKRUPT highrises were falling into literal slum ruins, unoccupied -- but this group preferred to have a dark/ shuttered Shubert Theatre and 3-screen movie theatre, and out of business deli and nightclub, just because there was NO traffic. Now that's what we'd call good planning -- and they shook down the developer who fixed up this slum, turned it into an elegant mixed-use space heralded around the country and abroad as architecturally excellent, and attacked Weiss for it.
What you oppose-everything NIMBYs won't realize until it's too late, is that when Weiss, with his good relations with the Mayor and most of the Hispanics, is gone, you'll have no one to protect this area.
Pudgy little Koretz won't have the clout -- and by the way, HE presided over West Hollywood's own conversion of Santa Monica Blvd. (for which both cities got fed money and would have been remiss NOT to do it.)
As to what WILL put these shops out of business: Rosendalh's raising meter fees to $4.00/hour AND the fines.
Frankly, those shops are only there because of a total lack of planning in this city til now -- there's no excuse for having little shops with no parking, tie up major boulevards just for their few customers. No new commercial permits should be given on Pico or Olympic without off-street parking. That's how it's been in Beverly Hills for so long, and look how smoothly traffic flows through there by comparison.
5:41: There were 18 months and over 18 community meetings about this, and many areas DO support it, like mid-Wilshire, and went to Council's Transportation Committee to say so.
It's these WLA NIMBYs, where there's an overlap between Jay Handel being head of the Chamber of Commerce and owner of a small restaurant in Brentwood (not even Weiss's district) with NO parking, and Handel's being in charge of his HOA and one of those who loves to get on as many boards as possible, who take over with a few people and CLAIM TO speak for others who don't have the time to show up at meetings and have been bugging their Council office to do something about traffic congestion.
All the rest of you can thank Jay Handel for forcing another hugely expensive EIR and lawsuits on YOU.
It's SO funny to watch Jack Weiss squirm now that Villaraigosa is sinking with another ill-advised idea.
Squirm, Jack. Squirm. You couldn't beat Zuma Dogg in a race to be City Attorney.
Arrogant. Elitist. Weiss.
I am thriled to see an EIR.
Not just because it is needed, but because it shows how politically inept villar and weiss are.
Good luck in your next campaigns, dudes. Explain to everyone how you tried to run roughshod over Los Angeles without even asking us.
7:19, You're not "Los Angeles," and Jay Handel, Eveloff and the rest of that group make my skin crawl. Talk about "elitists" with nothing to be elite about. See how they fare once Weiss moves on to City Attorney -- I wish they would secede, so they're not wasting MY taxpayer money anymore.
There associates in the HOA are allied with the Cheviott Hills NIMBYs too, more ancient people who have costs us lost billions in fed funding for mass transit and two generations lost in building it.
Their most recent accomplishment was to force the Expo Line to stop at La Cienega instead of Robertson and to go so far south of Pico- Olympic that the traffic problems have grown far worse meanwhile. NOW the morons regret it and want the route to run back up north...
WHO CARES what these dinosaurs think, they don't represent me or the vast majority of the city. Maybe they should just put up tolls around their stretch of Pico and charge tolls themselves -- would save them from shaking down us the taxpayers and developers fixing up a literal abandoned slum. (Last commenter is one of "them," speaks for maybe 1/20th of the public.)
5:56 wrote:
"All the rest of you can thank Jay Handel for forcing another hugely expensive EIR and lawsuits on YOU."
The lawsuit doesn't cost the city anything unless it decides to fight the lawsuit. And the Mayor and Weiss should have realized that it would have to do an EIR on this project and considered that before proposing it. Isn't Weiss asking the voters to make him the city's top legal expert?
Someone should ask him how he evaluated the possibilities of an EIR before signing on to the project.
If he never thought about it, maybe he shouldn't be the City Attorney. If he did consider it, I'll bet he never told anyone about it, asking the public to buy into his plan without knowing the risks.
Anyone who bothers to actually read the plan and who attended the meetings would know that it called for increases in traffic, not decreases, on north/south streets such as Westwood and Sepulveda.
The primary benefit of the plan was a theoretical seven minute reduction in travel time from Centinela to Crenshaw. (the benefit was based on exceptionally weak study - a short stretch for part of one day).
Then the plan was shortened on the east to Fairfax. Then Beverly Hills opted not to participate on its portion of Olympic. The Mayor and Weiss and DOT still touted the SAME benefit even though the plan area was smaller and cut in two. Who do you think is lying? This was nothing short of a political gimmick - expect them to offer a gas tax holiday next.
The loss of parking for businesses without any solution for replacing that parking would harm businesses and their employees.
DOT said themselves that the plan would create chaos. They also said that it had a good chance of creating unintended consequences. They also said that it had not been tried anywhere in the country.
DOT was going around promising mitigation of anything went wrong. They promised to take it out, fix it, put new restrictions in, etc. The problem is that they didn't budget a DIME for any mitigation - just what we need when the City is broke.
Finally, it should trouble everyone that the Mayor removed the plan from the normal democratic process and tried to implement it by decree.
Anyone thinking of voting for Weiss should think twice as he went along with such a blatant and costly abuse of power.
As for previous bloggers who are concerned that Handal is not speaking for anyone: All but one NC and every HOA along the route, and the GWLACC (sixth largest chamber in the county) opposed the plan. Even Weiss said 90% of "his" people were against it. Wesson cut his area out as he was worried that it would harm businesses. This was a plan that was roundly opposed by just about everyone. Any suggestion to the contrary is 3rd floor spin.
It was City Attorney Rockard's job to prepare the lawsuit, and one failing, from what I've read, is that the DOT people involved weren't prepared with enough answers to every nit-picky question that you people come up with. And nit-picky is what it is, the number of meetings and months that were put into dragging this out is ridiculous.
You people are a handful of ancients who've owned your houses forever and don't even pay your fair share of taxes, relative to what you want to demand and your arrogance. This seems to be the same everywhere -- in Beverly Hills, the Courier did an analysis of the taxes paid by the 2 dozen most active opponents of the Beverly Hilton rehab, which the city needs for revenue, and found that on average, they're living in huge mansions but paying less than $2,000/ year in taxes on average! In fact, the whole bunch together in the North of Sunset HOA paid less than $40,000 the whole year!
That's exactly what I've seen from your bunch, and frankly, I'm just a younger homeowner who has a visceral loathing when I see such a bunch of nasty, rude, mean and low- class people like Handel and others who I won't name here. But I know who you are... I'd never join an HOA Board with you people on it, nor does any young professional.
You're such an incestuous bunch, the same handful are behind every single vendetta against Weiss because he doesn't kiss your butts, or blow with the winds like poor Bill Rosendahl. You're harming the city and the rest of US by your endless series of selfish, greedy, narcicistic and just plain NASTY series of behaviors.
For people who put on such airs, and actually say you could run the city yourselves without the Council office or any city hierarchies or agencies -- while being elected by no one and unknown to 99.99% of the HOA and NC areas you claim to represent -- you're not only wasteful of taxpayer money and have NO vision of the future, but are a stunningly rude, crude, smugly combative (talk about "elitist") and low-class behaving bunch.
You should not "win" because your "win" is a loss for the city financially and in terms of policy, as has been every other selfish "cause" you've ever been behind. You only won this round because the judge sounds like an idiot who didn't have all the facts, and Rockard didn't prepare thoroughly.
I don't give a damn about this Pico- OLympic Plan but you bunch sound like some whiners all right. The rest of us have daily struggles but don't sue over every little thing, and you don't like when your critics call you out on it, but you do sound like jerks who think the whole world revolves around you.
We have to content with people going to Dodger stadium parking on our lawns and being unable to come and go from our homes during every game because of traffic. Lots of people have traffic problems and if you turn down every solution, what do you expect? So what, lose some meters during rush hour or change your traffic patterns to make up for shorter commuting times for everyone. Every other major street has done it.
Next time you want some sympathy, think about the Boy who Cried Wolf.
And like someone said, just wait until all the meters in the are four bucks an hour -- that will give you something to whine about. Maybe you shouldn't have imagined you have a private village in the middle of a busy boulevard. This isn't Mayberry 1950 anymore for nay of us. And maybe if you weren't such arrogant jerks, your Councilman and the Mayor would have listened to you more. Over on this side of town, we teach our kids manners and try to model them.
7:44 I AM part of Los Angeles. I didn't say that I was the ONLY part of it.
Perhaps it's your cloudy reading comprehension that makes you think that Weiss still has a chance to be city attorney.
Hmmm: he had tens of thousands of signatures and all the bad press in the world from a RECALL effort, and this is what the rest of the city remembers of this do-nothing cluck who is dumb enough to call himself an "allie" of the Mayor.
The Visine is right over there in the cabinet. Get some of the wax remover for your ears, too.
"Because Weiss doesn't kiss our butts"??? Is that what you said?
Maybe you missed the tens of thousands of people who signed a recall notice. Did they ALL feel as you say they do? Or is it that he's purely an incompetent, arrogant, elitist?
M'friend, there are things that I can share here about his performance on Public Safety that we are saving for the day he announces his campaign.
You'll see. You'll see and you'll say, "why, he couldn't even hurt a fly." But the rest of us will be well informed about this dirtbag Weiss
Fill Potholes.
No left turns during rush hour.
Olympic West – Pico East.
Again, this confirms the 41st Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa never had any goals for this great city of L.A.
Boy, 10:44, you NEED THERAPY BAD. Whatever it is that zuma dogg and matt dowd are taking, taking three doses.
You never had the signatures even close to the recall min., which is why you pulled the plug on your farce so no one would no how few you have.
If you'd cared about cost, you wouldn't have filed for it in the first place just because you don't like a guy, and you had to shake down the developers on your own. What you did by doing that, makes L A a laughingstock nationally, not only among developers -- who DO need to be closely monitored, I do agree -- but among ALL business. From the L A Business Journal to national business journals, YOUR group has been mentioned as why this city is dying. So you'll get the worst of the worst going into your neighborhoods instead. And you've lost ALL of us sympathy as westside whiners, so when we really need it, you'll be the boy who cried wolf. You've already given HOA's the name of CAVES, congrats.
Your pushing the city into expensive EIR's and lawsuits because you're arrogant jerks is just another example that you don't give a damn about costing the city money, and counting ballots sure as hell NOT why you pulled the plug. That site of yours is immature and shows signs of mental illness, the kind of issues that need meds. Hope you get help.
For Gd's sake, do you really think anyone wants the likes of YOU people and that abrasive Handel speaking or acting for US? You're a tiny group of people that gets on every HOA and NC, cobbled together the "Coalition of HOA's" that you're bragging about again, but at the center are the SAME 5 people. With control and deeper issues. Seriously, I hope you get help.
Doncha just love all these mensas who demand that something be done about traffic but oppose every proposal to actually do something?
Then they carp about development, but the reality is that you could stop all development today and the traffic will be at least as bad as it already is, and probably worse.
So then they say deport all the illegals and the worst congestion will magically disappear, even though most of the illegals don't have cars and the real problem is multi-car families with everyone driving their own car too far and too often with no passengers.
So then maybe we should just sterilize everyone so there will be no more childbirth here and then maybe in 20 years we'll notice a difference in traffic. That'll go over big.
I seem to recall that it wasn't the mayor and Weiss who started this Pico/Olympic thing, it was everyone's favorite westside demagogue Zev Yaroslopsky, who didn't have to do an EIR to shoot his mouth off about something that he didn't have to take responsibility for. It's the people who are actually trying to figure out how to help us cope with traffic congestion who took the hit in court yesterday.
If they both end up unemployed on July 1, 2009, as some here would prefer, it at least shouldn't be because of this.
Say what you want about Jay Handel and his group but at least when they oppose or support something they organize and get into action. Unlike the many lazy whiners on this blog who complain but do nothing but post. Rarely do people actually get into action in this city that's why its such a mess. LA is in the worst shape in history and its a diaster and failuare for Antonio. So many complain but what have you actually done to spread the word tha we need a new mayor come 2009? We need to start campaigning against Antonio now.
I'm on board with 5:22.
Sterilization is the answer to everything. Unwanted pregnancies, stupid people, child abuse, overpopulation, etc.
How could we legislate that because it would be awesome.
JOE FROM THE MEAN STREETS OF EAST LA SAY'S;SMART GROWTH HIGH DENSITY UNSTANIBLE POLICES ARE NOTHING BUT MADNESS!!!HOW CAN THE CITY CREATE ONE WAY THOURGH FARES KNOWING THIS ONLY GIVES HIGH DENSITY HOUSING DEVELOPERS THE CAPACITY TO OUT PACE THE THOURGH FARES WITH NEVER ENDING GRID-LOC!!!NOT TO MENSION THE FACT THE CITY IS ENTERING A DAVESTING DROUGHT SEASON!!DURING THE SUMMER AT 100 DEGREE WEATHER THE 4 MILLON PLUS RESIDENTS WILL ALL TRY TO TURN ON THIER AIR CONDITIONERS ON AT TH SAME TIME. CAUSING NEVER ENDING ROLING BLACK OUTS!! DUE TO UNSTANIBLE HIGH DENSITY DEVELOPERS!!THE GOAL OF THE CITY IS TO CREATE THE INFRASTUCTURE COLAPSE INORDER TO CORARSE THE RESIDENTS INTO NEVER ENDING MONO RAIL PROPERTY TAXES!!WHY FALL INTO THIS TRAP!!!!
West L.A Traffic 2008 By J.M. Rojas
I Know a lot of you out there like to walk, commute and ride bikes to save the environment. Don’t get me wrong. I'm not hating on the earths suffering nor am I hating on the destruction our existence commits upon the planet. What your about to read is not about electrical vehicles, thousand feet high freeways or vehicle emissions, It is in fact about Driving in L.A.
To some of you L.A is the valley or Pasadena, or the S.G.V or some other kind of acronym, which makes no sense to me. L.A to me is WEST L.A, The district bordered by Santa Monica on the west, Brentwood on the northwest, the unincorporated Sawtelle Veterans Administration grounds on the north, Westwood on the northeast, Rancho Park on the east and southeast, and Mar Vista on the south and southeast. Its generally accepted boundaries are the San Diego Freeway on the east, the Santa Monica Freeway on the south, and the city limits of Santa Monica on the west, and Wilshire Boulevard on the north.
Its major thoroughfares are Olympic, Santa Monica, Pico, Wilshire, and Sawtelle Boulevards, Barrington and Bundy Drive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Los_Angeles,_Los_Angeles,_California) To many of you what I am about to explain may not mean much but to those of us who love to drive in L.A and do it all day long this may mean a thing or two. Over the past few years we have seen many traffic changes in west L.A traffic, such as Cameras on traffic lights, street sensors, and Digital L.C.D billboards, we have also seen many traffic changes completed after about a decade, such as The Santa Monica Blvd/ Ill Santa Monica street and side walks in Brentwood. All though these changes have in-deed impacted our lives, especially those of us who commute east bound on Santa Monica Blvd, those other changes have not affected us all, like the changes that are trying to be implemented on Pico and Olympic which will affect everyone on the Westside and later all of Los Angeles. On November 26, 2007 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa unveiled his Olympic west-Pico-east initiative the proposal is said to improve traffic and travel times along two of the west sides most congested corridors. “ This is a new way, a smart way and a safe way to reduce traffic congestion” Mayor villaraygoza said. The project has been developed by the mayor, and the LA department of transportation (LADOT). The three phase project is said to speed up the flow of traffic while reducing congestion on Olympic and Pico Blvd along the seven mile stretch between La Brea and Cantilena Ave.
Phase 1. Ensures consistant rush hour parking restrictions along both Pico & Olympic.
Phase 2. Creates preferential flow signal timing to allow commuters to move more and more quickly along Pico heading east and Olympic heading west.
After evaluating the results of the two initial steps The city of Los Angeles plans to re-stripe Olympic and Pico in Phase 3 which will make Pico and Olympic permanent One-Ways, The plan also seeks to protect Westside neighborhoods by limiting left turns onto residential streets and reducing cut through traffic on local roads.
(www.lacity.org/mayor/myrpress/ mayormyrpress27449692_11262007.pdf)
In addition the mayor has joined governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to announce a $150 million dollar plan to synchronize every traffic light in Los Angeles and unveil the $46 Million 101/405-interchange improvement project.
So why not make Pico & Olympic One way streets?
The people have spoken and many believe that implementing these changes are both Impractical and unsafe, people believe it would harm local businesses by preventing people from parking at all hours of the day and restricting access to stores and shops on one side of the street. It will also make access to local neighborhoods to residents and encourage unnecessary cut-through traffic through residential neighborhoods.
People believe that there are other projects on the west side that have not been completed that should be flagged in red such as the changes to the 405/10 freeway interchange which is a project that has been in production for over six years with little to no changes. These half ass jobs are also responsible for the traffic congestion on the west side. It took over a decade to fix the traffic issues on Santa Monica Blvd which is also a major street in West L.A running parallel to Olympic and Pico.
Early this January Superior court Judge John Torribio put the brakes on the Mayor’s Pico East-Olympic West traffic scheme, the City would have to fulfill its California Environmental Quality Act obligations and conduct an impact study. The study could take as much as a year.
The judge’s decision could not have made Mayor Villaraigosa … or his first Lieutenant on this project, City Councilman Jack Weiss … happy campers. The Mayor felt so strongly about his almost one-way streets idea a few months ago that he dissed any recommendations from Wendy Gruel’s Transportation Committee and ordered the immediate implementation of the Pico-Olympic plan. (http://www.citywatchla.com/)
The Pico-Olympic battle got to court because two citizen groups … the West LA Chamber of Commerce and the Westwood Homeowners Assn sued the City. They represent a coalition of businesses and a coalition of community groups respectively. Both felt that the City was not listening to stakeholders in the most affected neighborhoods and that the City was ignoring the potential impact of the Mayor’s plan on the environment and the area’s residents. (http://www.citywatchla.com/)
Although the issues are complex and deserving of discussion, the Mayor has chosen to avoid the City Council and has announced his intent to implement this plan by himself. Apparently he has the support of Jack Weiss, Council representative of the Westside, the area which will be most impacted. Although both the Mayor and Mr. Weiss had representatives at the meeting, none of them chose to offer any insight into the issues or to answer any of the questions aimed at them. Rather, they stood cowardly in the back and let John Fisher, a representative of the Department of Transportation (DOT), answer the questions and dodge the pick-forks. As you may be aware, the Plan desires to transform Olympic Blvd into a “predominately west” street and Pico Blvd into a “predominately east” street during “peak hours” of rush hour a somewhat unstable term as used by DOT, but now stated as being 7-9 am and 4-7 pm), from the 405 all the way downtown, to alleviate traffic congestion. It was clear from the meeting, that the Powers that Be have a hidden agenda and are merely using this as a smokescreen. (http://belaironline.blogspot.com) Although there is so much against this project phase 1 and 2 have all ready began to take place and he put into production with out any jurisdiction. People have had to fill law suites against VillaRaigosa and his pico/Olympic plan A group of Westside businesses filed suits y to stop Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa from implementing his traffic relief plan for Olympic and Pico boulevards.
The suit by the Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce alleges that Villaraigosa's plan would increase the number of vehicles on those streets. The result, they say, would be more traffic and smog. They say the proposal should be studied further under the state environmental law. (http://www.knbc.com/traffic/15311846/detail.html)
I drive all over town everyday and don’t find that any change is that necessary to the Pico and Olympic streets, There are far more traffic filled streets such as Lincoln Blvd, Montana, and Sawtelle, and these are streets that can take a change with out any outrage. I think that if these changes are implemented it will make surrounding neighborhoods unsafe. Pico and Olympic will be used as a highway, people will travel at higher speeds and in time this secret shortcut will be a traffic jam disaster.
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