KeepLAMoving
Karla Mendelson is director of KeepLAMoving.
PROFILE
Karla Mendelson
Guest
FROM Karla Mendelson
Design and Architecture
Road diets and road rage A fight over a road diet in Playa del Rey has turned a community on itself and raised questions about the roll-out of efforts to calm streets regionwide. Workers reinstate lane stripes on a stretch of Vista del Mar in Playa del Rey. Photo by Frances Anderton The story began back in June, when transportation planners removed car lanes from Culver, Jefferson and Pershing Boulevards and installed bike lanes in place of those car lanes. They also removed a lane from each side of Vista del Mar, the road running parallel to Dockweiler Beach, and they moved parking from the east side of the street to the Westside. This was to reduce dangerous crossings between beach and parked cars following several deadly collisions. Karla Mendelson, Lance Williams, Kimberly Hunnell and Ray Karapetyan meet at the street corner of Culver Boulevard and Nicholson Street in Playa del Rey to discuss the controversial "road diet." Photo by Frances Anderton But after all these changes traffic became too slow. Enraged drivers created a petition to recall City Councilman Mike Bonin, and they filed a lawsuit. Bonin took to the Internet to offer a mea culpa. Now the Department of Transportation has rolled back some of the changes and a task force has been formed to rethink how to calm traffic in the beach community. We talk to residents and commuters on both sides of the issue, and hear from a transportation planner about how best to ease the transition from a car-based region (as one resident points out, "people going to Costco, if they could park their car inside of the store, they would do that not to walk") to one in which "no one traveling around the city of Los Angeles is dying getting from one place to another."
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Do ‘road diets’ boost safety for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers? “ Road diets ” is the term for removing car traffic lanes in favor of bike lanes, parking, or larger sidewalks. The city transformed two lanes on Vista Del Mar earlier this year. Other streets in the neighborhood of Playa Del Rey were put on a diet too, including Jefferson, Culver Boulevard and Pershing Drive. People were upset, and some sued the city. The car lanes on Vista Del Mar are coming back. But the debate continues.
Recommended
UnFictional
The Other Man Stories of two men who meet by chance and emerge indelibly changed – or at least, one of them does.
Good Food
'Dandelion and Quince,' food and crime, 'All About Eggs' Sarah Lohman talks about the murder and historic recipes that form the backbone of her new book, “Ohio 1910,” and Rachel Khong shares highlights from Lucky Peach’s last cookbook, “All About Eggs.” Michelle Mckenzie tells us how to cook oft-forgotten fruits, veggies and herbs, and Jonathan Gold reviews AR Cucina in Culver City. Plus: raspberries at the market and a special guest DJ set from Alton Brown.
The Business
Revisiting showrunner Steven Bochco on his memoir Steven Bochco, the writer-producer behind record-breaking Emmy winners Hill Street Blues, LA Law and NYPD Blue, fought battles with everyone from out-of-control actors to network censors in his long career. He isn’t afraid to tell those tales in his memoir, Truth Is a Total Defense. This week we revisit the conversation where he shared some of his favorite stories with us.
Bookworm
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo (Part I) Lincoln in the Bardo dramatizes a grieving President Lincoln as he visits the grave of his beloved son Willie, who died at age eleven. In the novel, the buried dead believe they're not dead -- "they're sick and refer to their coffins as "sick boxes."