Had a great conversation with Scarlett De Leon of @actlosangeles.bsky.social, Craig Joyce of @metrolosangeles.bsky.social, and @mbrozen.bsky.social of @uclalewiscenter.bsky.social at the Luskin Summit about safety, homelessness, and ambassadors on transit. Reasons for hope and models to emulate!:
"A reliance on fare revenues—while perhaps viewed as 'self-sufficient' pre-pandemic and incentivized in many states by tying state transit funds to farebox recovery ratios—has since become a millstone around the neck of commuter-oriented transit agencies."
ionanalytics.com/insights/deb...
The @metrolosangeles.bsky.social K Line North extension will add connections to key destinations and to other transit lines. And as I told @knxnews.bsky.social — from my perch at the edge of academia — we should value peer-reviewed research that tunneling will have no effect on the homes above it:
City Council rejected the downzoning and instead enacted a guarantee that SB 9 can be used for family-sized units! Thank you @electdanhall.bsky.social, @nzernitskaya.bsky.social, Cm. Snell, Cm. Raskin, and Mayor Torosis!
Item staff report: santamonicacityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Det...
Full agenda: santamonicacityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Det...
In-person comment available or by phone: www.santamonica.gov/public-comment
Send written comment to: <councilmtgitems@santamonica.gov>
Duplex ordinance revisions at @cityofsantamonica.bsky.social next Tuesday. The draft is, in effect, a downzoning!
As staff summarized, I "voted to oppose…until the City simultaneously considers…[re-]remov[ing] the owner-occupancy requirement and [restoring] guaranteed unit sizes of 1,500 SF."
A new UCLA study shows how one vague term in California law — “major transit stop” — could be limiting housing near transit.
A broader definition could unlock over 1.3 million acres statewide.
Will cities take advantage of it?
One of the few formal powers of Neighborhood Councils is sending @lacity.bsky.social boards Community Impact Statements. But that only works if @empowerla.bsky.social keeps contacts up to date and adds all bodies. North Westwood Neighborhood Council statement: cityclerk.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2...
Neighborhood Council Elections The City Clerk’s fiscal year 2026-27 budget request includes no funds for Neighborhood Council elections. This would save $915,000, which the City Clerk proposes to reallocate to other uses. The request would postpone the 2027 Neighborhood Council elections until 2029. The City Clerk is prioritizing resource realignment and strategic investments necessary to maintain mandated services, ensure administrative support for elected offices, and uphold the mission of providing equitable access to City government. Equitable access to City government must include Neighborhood Council elections each two years given the Neighborhood Councils are the most local elected boards in the City Charter. While saving $915,000 will help balance the budget, canceling Neighborhood Council elections seems short-sighted. The Neighborhood Councils need to work with the City Clerk and DONE to f ind a way to move forward with the 2027 Neighborhood Council elections even if the City Clerk does not participate.
@lacity.bsky.social proposes just not funding 2027 @empowerla.bsky.social Neighborhood Council elections: drive.google.com/file/d/1Rhzd...
Ukraine has postponed elections due to their war. I guess the City feels the same applies here?
Off the top of my head:
A locality cannot alter any ROW in a way that would [reduce bike or transit capacity, but said in better legal language], unless findings are made that [X, Y, Z; limited circumstances] that can be challenged in court.
I have no idea how you would write such a bill to address this, but perhaps as big (bigger?) of an issue than canceling projects is them being undone by a different majority Council after completion (Culver City, Encinitas, San Mateo, etc., etc.).
Without speaking to the particular mechanism of this bill, the problem you describe is real, yet for that reason simultaneously a one-time window to use those ambitious (yet vaporware) plans to actually get implementation beyond what could have been possible otherwise, like HLA.
Budget Ask: A $200 million annual addition to the Active Transportation Program (ATP), which is our state's premier pot of street safety funding. Last year, ATP only funded about 30 of the 350 projects that applied.
SB 1423 by Senator Henry Stern would steer half of STIP funds toward projects that actually make streets safer for people walking, biking, and taking transit, while also making the state’s top safe streets grant program easier for cities to access.
AB 1599 by Assemblymember Patrick J. Ahrens creates a California Transit Stop Registry. Better, standardized stop data means better trip planning, better coordination across agencies, and better information on the amenities riders actually have at stops.
AB 1976 by @buffywicks.bsky.social , the Safe Streets Streamlining Act, cuts process barriers that delay or kill good projects. It reins in bad petition rules, updates pedestrian mall law, and helps cities actually deliver safer streets.
AB 1837 by @asmmarkgonzalez.bsky.social would make transit lane and bus stop camera enforcement permanent statewide. Illegal parking slows buses and creates unsafe boarding. This bill helps keep transit moving and riders safer.
AB 1740 by @asmrickzbur.bsky.social makes it easier to build bike lanes, bus improvements, housing, and other multimodal projects in urban coastal communities, so cities can move faster on safety and climate wins while protecting coastal access.
This one's for Professor Don Shoup. He worked for years on sidewalks and accessibility and tracked how higher-resourced, single-family parts of Westwood with less pedestrian traffic long got almost all of the investment in the area. No longer!
Here is the North Westwood Neighborhood Council's Community Impact Statement calling for repairs: cityclerk.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2...
And here is the map: www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...
Map of sidewalk improvements planned in Package 86
Gantt chart of Sidewalk Repair Program Package No. 86 (LA 28)
Table of sidewalk locations for improvements in Package 86
Coming to the North Village: after years of inaction—and thanks to the hard work of the North Westwood Neighborhood Council—the City is making sidewalk and curb ramp improvements, supporting both the @la28games.bsky.social Olympic/Paralympic Village and car-less students and other pedestrians there.
So-called "Q" and "D" conditions add extra, parcel-by-parcel restrictions that make new housing in LA even harder than under base zoning. The North Westwood Neighborhood Council passed a Community Impact Statement calling for them to be regularized or removed: cityclerk.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2...
Read the technical appendix here for further methodological details: escholarship.org/uc/item/7g41...
And explore the code and datasets here: github.com/amillb/trans...
Explore the full, interactive @uclaits.bsky.social and @uclalewiscenter.bsky.social storymap here: its.ucla.edu/major-transi...
California efforts to promote transit use have focused on allowing more housing near transit. But what counts as a "major transit stop" isn't consistently defined—and that inconsistency is having real impacts. @uclaits.bsky.social newsletter: mailchi.mp/its/how-stat...
Santa Monica Could Use This One Trick to Increase Density Near Transit Stops...
Altermate title: Take it to the Max
santamonicanext.org/2026/03/sant...
