Bikeside endorses Albert Olson for MVCC

Bikeside is proud to endorse Albert Olson, at large candidate for Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC.)  Albert claims that he isn’t an expert in transportation, but when I first met him he was the chairman of the vibrant and well run MVCC Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  Shortly after he became the chair of the MVCC where he has proved to be adept at balancing interests and keeping the board moving forward.

If you live (reside), work or own property in Mar Vista, you can vote for Albert this Sunday, April 11th, from 10am till 4pm at the Mar Vista Recreation Center, 11430 Woodbine St.

Albert Olson for MVCC

Before I share Albert’s transportation position with you, Linda Lucks, endorsed by Bikeside for President of the Venice Neighborhood Council, sent in a position on transportation.  Here it is:

Streets, especially in Venice, are the place we live.  In LA, with so little open space, we live our lives in the streets.  They ought to be livable places.  Is Lincoln Blvd a livable place?  Is Pacific a livable place?  Humanizing our streets ought to be imperative for us, because it has a direct impact on our quality of life.  It doesn’t have to be about just cyclists or just motorists or just pedestrians – we can just start from the premise that streets ought to be hospitable to humans.

Venice proper actually does an amazing job on this – Ocean Front Walk, Abbot Kinney, Windward Circle, Rose – all great (but imperfect) places with great street life.  The big blight in Venice is Lincoln, and Washington could be better.  Here’s what Venice could do – instead of resting on it’s laurels as one of the most bike friendly and pedestrian friendly neighborhoods in the city, it could strive to be even better, and become a symbol of what a truly livable community looks like.  Venice is a trend setter in many arenas and bike friendliness is the next frontier.

Good stuff from the future President of VNC if you ask me.  Vote for her this Sunday!

Albert had a couple of sections in his transportation position that really resonated with me.  This part, is great:

Alternative modes of transportation, primarily pedestrian and bicycles, should and can be developed  within the current automobile road system to provide attractive ways for residents to move about locally without using their automobiles.   We need to focus on finding ways to make creative use of the sidewalks, parking lanes, and other available space, to create bikeways and walkways that are safe and useful.

To, that just makes good sense, and it’s crazy to me that the city is so resistant to that sort of sense.  But his next point hits the underlying problem smack on the nose:

The focus of new development projects should be on projects that provide for local, neighborhood, commercial centers that allow residents to stay in their own neighborhoods when making use of restaurants, shops, grocery stores, etc.

If your neighborhood doesn’t have good options for your day to day needs then of course you’re leave.  For most people that means driving.  If the retail and community centers in your neighborhood are located on traffic sewers like Lincoln Blvd, then it makes sense that you’ll head to the 3rd St Promenade for an nice evening.

City planners and transportation engineers have focused so hard on getting people to where they want to be, they made people not want to be in their own hood.

Here is Albert’s statement in full:

1.  The current automobile transportation system of West L.A. is maxed out.  New development projects should not be approved that increase density at this time.

2.  New modes of transportation need to be carefully planned and implemented when funds are available to do so.  These would focus on mass transit systems such as rapid bus systems, light rail, monorails, etc.  Ideally these will be situated on routes that don’t impede current automobile routes, as I do believe that our automobile system will be the transportation of choice for the majority of residents for the foreseeable future. I don’t have the answers as to the correct mix of all of these types of mass transit, but clearly they will be the future of our city fifty years from now.  As these new modes of transportation develop, it would then be possible to carefully increase density by new development projects in certain areas along some of the transit system routes.

3.   Alternative modes of transportation, primarily pedestrian and bicycles, should and can be developed  within the current automobile road system to provide attractive ways for residents to move about locally without using their automobiles.   We need to focus on finding ways to make creative use of the sidewalks, parking lanes, and other available space, to create bikeways and walkways that are safe and useful.

4.  The focus of new development projects should be on projects that provide for local, neighborhood, commercial centers that allow residents to stay in their own neighborhoods when making use of restaurants, shops, grocery stores, etc.

5.  The West side of Los Angeles has been built around the concept of large areas consisting of  residential neighborhoods of single-family homes, alongside areas of multiple-family dwelling, all interspersed throughout large commercial corridors with their attendant commercial developments.  I believe this is one of the unique characteristics of our area and deserves to be maintained as much as possible.  An important part of this concept is the protection of the residential neighborhood streets from the traffic encroachments of the larger commercial corridors, and finding fair and equitable ways for the protection to occur.