Road diet was a disaster of his own creation
Friday morning traffic congestion on Vista Del Mar
Photo by Carol Kapp
“Saturday Night Live” soap opera spoof “The Californians” skewered Angelenos as comically vain and traffic obsessed. The intense public fury about the Playa del Rey road diet pretty much proves the latter.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin correctly asserts that calming traffic can save lives, but his hasty and unilateral implementation of vehicle lane reductions on Culver and Jefferson boulevards, Pershing Drive and Vista Del Mar hurt the cause — and his reputation as a consensus-builder.
When the deed went down in May, Bonin took full ownership of the roadway reconfigurations. In a letter to constituents (link to a version of which also appeared in The Argonaut), Bonin defended the road diet as a public safety imperative in the wake of multiple traffic fatalities. As for angry South Bay commuters, “I refuse to solve their 405 Freeway traffic problem on the backs of the people I represent,” he wrote.
On July 26, Bonin released a videotaped announcement that Vista Del Mar will soon return
to two traffic lanes in each direction, thanks to a deal with L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn that moves public parking to the beach below the roadway.
In that video, Bonin goes on to apologize for the debacle on Vista Del Mar, then promptly walks back his role in it. Turns out it wasn’t him but the city Department of Transportation that made the changes on Vista Del Mar “suddenly and without community input because they were told the city faced immediate and serious liability concerns,” Bonin says.
The liability argument makes sense: The city did pay out a $9.5-million legal settlement in April for the death of a teenage pedestrian on Vista Del Mar.
Funny that Bonin didn’t make this clear from the get-go, before he got clobbered for eight weeks on social media and in letters to the editor. But that’s his story now, and he’s sticking to it.
“The rationale for the Safe Streets Playa del Rey initiative was about safety, and the rationale behind Vista Del Mar was the liability issue that the city was facing,” Bonin told us this week in a news story published online.
Meanwhile, what happens with Culver, Jefferson and Pershing will depend on input from a new stakeholder task force that Bonin is forming to address community concerns through face-to-face dialogue.
Now that’s more like the Bonin we know: inclusive of public participation, almost to a fault. Everyone makes mistakes, and Bonin has otherwise done a lot of good in our community — usually by helping stakeholders find common ground. Moving forward, we hope that’s the road he’ll choose to take.
Meanwhile, I still have to take an alternate route every day, sometimes multiple times a day, to return to my own home. The home for which we sweated and saved and lived with a hot plate in a studio apartment for seven years, started our business while working day jobs, and put off having a family, in order to save the down payment. The home that we almost lost during the economic collapse, when we had to work three jobs to make it through and get it off the auction block. The community that I used to so enjoy driving home to, down Culver Blvd., after a long, stressful day. Now I can’t use it at all to drive home. I tried, once again, for the last time, the other night. I thought it was late enough, at 11:00 p.m., to try to use it. Unfortunately, it was a nightmare. There is no other lane for me to move to when crazy, psycho drivers are on my butt, pushing me to speed; and I have to really focus with the too-narrow lane and the other cars coming right at me from the opposite direction Then, as I make it to Pershing and make my familiar move to get out of the way, oooops…..that lane has been stolen, too. There is no longer the slower right lane for me. There is no escaping the nutcase behind me until I just pull aside at the curb (probably a move for which I could be ticketed) and let him go by. Jefferson is no better. We are talking about moving, but where to go in California? The political fascists are proliferating and more powerful than ever. The middle class is disappearing. I was born in California and “worked hard and played by the rules,” but there seem to be very few rules left, and certainly too little common sense, and few places left to go.
By the way, there were no cyclists to be seen. Just a previously adequate road that has been mutilated and rendered unusable for me and countless others. I get sick when I think of the taxpayer dollars involved.
Thank you for speaking up so eloquently. I, too, am a native Californian–third generation and feel that government has destroyed my hard-earned quality of life. We will be relocating out of state soon.
Mad Voter, I am so sorry. We will most likely be leaving this year as well. We don’t know what else to do. Our dream life is becoming a nightmare and we see no light at the end of the tunnel. Where the heck do you plan to go? I truly wish for you the very best in your relocation. Godspeed.
Why is no one willing to acknowledge that Culver and Pershing were subject to awful congestion before the road diet?
Why does no one acknowledge that traffic needed to be slowed on both roads for the safety and quality of life for those who live and work in the area?
All we hear is “I had an awesome commute before the traffic measures were put in place by the evil Bonin and now my life is in shambles”
I don’t buy it and i appreciate the efforts being made to make traffic in our neighborhood safer and saner.
P.S. There are more bicyclists using Culver & Pershing
I applaud The Argonaut for finally holding Councilman Bonin accountable and responsible. He has no one to blame but himself.
We need to form a protest at the DOT headquarters. I also gave out the DOT’s GMgr’s twitter handle thinking that it would have been bombarded by now. Nothing happened.
Chris, I missed that. What is the DOT’s GMgr’s twitter handle? Thanks!
Recall Bonin. Sue him for the wasted tax payer dollars.
http://www.RecallBonin.com raised over $25,000 in two weeks toward a $180,000 recall campaign budget.
No one is happy. Not enough planning. Not enough input.
Everyone paid for that. Easiest way to see…DOT painted stripes over pot holes. So obvious. If you ride your bike or walk, you see the three times they have changed the striping. Each time they melt the stripping and scrap the road. How much did this cost, in time, money and quality of life? Let’s get more disclosures. Bonin and others didn’t do enough planning and sadly we all paid for that, and his reputation.
Lots of people are happy. Speak for yourself. People where getting killed and injured. It’s not about the speed of your commute. Slow down in our town.
I hope that Councilmember Bonin will fix his Venice Blvd. road diet disaster too, before school starts in twelve days! There have been at least 14 bike and/or car accidents on his Mar Vista “Great Street” since implemented in late May. And, if safe bike lanes were his goal in Playa Del Rey, why didn’t he send a crew of weed whackers and street sweepers to restore the roadway shoulders on Culver, Jefferson and Lincoln Blvds…before spending over $8 million of our hard earned tax dollars on that portion of his road diet disaster? – http://www.RestoreVenice.com
I love the new cycle lanes in Playa del Rey and we think the slower streets are great. A lot of residents in Playa del Rey like the changes and feel that we want to stop our town from being somewhere that commuters speed through.
I have lived in Playa del Rey for 10 years and I use the crosswalk in PDR across from Gordons Market. They have added big painted lines and blinking lights over the years and cars still want to clip your heels to get through fast. Even now cars are driving in the new bike lane while I’m riding my bike on Culver Blvd to try to get to the corner faster. Cars are always racing to make the light at Vista del Mar. I would have never attempted to cycle to playa Vista or across the wetlands as it was too dangerous. I have done it several times since the conversion. It has been much safer now that cars are slowed.
Also I understand that a lot of people in Manhattan beach are upset about the “additional” commute time but their fast commute has been paid for over the years with death and injury as well as stress to all of us who use the area for our lives not just for driving through. Whenever I want to go to PV or Torrance I slowly drive through Manhattan beach to avoid the freeways, it is very slow and only two lanes with lots of crosswalks. Should we get rid of the parking and open up four lanes of traffic through Manhattan beach? No it would ruin Manhattan Beach and I would never suggest it.
I applaud Bonin and Garcetti for putting quality of life and safety above peoples greed for shorter commutes.
If things must change back to the way they were, then I would ask that LAPD pacific division come out in force and start handing out tickets for running red lights, speeding, & crosswalk incursions. (go ahead and include noise violations for exhausts too, they like to ticket for that in MB)
Agree with Richard, opening up Playa Vista with the bike lane to Playa Del Rey residents has been a great, great addition. Biking along Culver east of Nicholson previously was taking your life in your hands. And to those who say just sending in the ‘weed whackers’ would have accomplished the same, how about the freeway speeds everyone blazing through this area carried on with previously? Wouldn’t have solved that. Even now, the crosswalk in Playa by Gordon’s market is considered a suggestion by passing commuter traffic and for every car that stops to allow you to cross several others just breeze past regardless of pedestrians young or old attempting to cross.
I live on Pershing Drive, and until the lane changes on this street passing traffic through this residential area between Westchester Parkway and Cabora screamed through this area at the highway speeds they got up to south of Westchester and never once in my time living there did I see a single person pulled over for speeding, not once. The traffic calming measures have been a tremendous success for this resident, and the bike lane initiative is something I’m grateful for. Being able to open my car door parked outside my own home without waiting for a break in speeding traffic has certainly improved my quality of life and odds of staying alive.
I believe Bonin deserves a lot of credit for trying to put safety first. In the absence of much more aggressive and visible police traffic patrol in the area on a daily basis and speed camera enforcement protecting it from commuters seeing Playa Del Rey as an unfortunate bottleneck, these initiatives are to be applauded.
I had suggested this elsewhere, but why can’t additional bike lanes on Culver/Jefferson be added off to the SIDE of the road, where there is plenty of room? Then we could still have the existing lanes AND safe bike lanes.
The efforts Bonin have made a great difference on pedestrian safety. More people are using the bike lane and PDR residents also have to comply on a single lane transit when traveling on Highland Ave. That community wanted pedestrian safety and our community is no different. Daily I have witnessed people nearly getting killed in the crosswalk in debate on Culver Blvd. Now they do slow down, some not all. However a vast improvement. If policed or ticketed on non-compliance as requested the city would have made money in daily violations ten fold.
Reading the comments I am ANGERED at what expense is a LIFE to commuters? We are talking PEDESTRIAN Safety and MOTORIST DAILY VIOLATIONS (speeding, noise, illegal turns, illegal stopping, motorist harassment of pedestrians in a crosswalk, motorist damage to street signs, motorist accidents) I could video ANY time of day from where I reside in Playa to validate these statements. Motorists went unchecked and DEATHS happened.
I live directly on the infamous Culver Boulevard in the belly of the beast, and the changes have been most welcome. Yes, it impacts us as well — it takes longer to get out of our building, and then home again — but there is only one thing that matters, one thing at the heart of all this: safety and lives. Jack, a lovely human being, died not in the middle of the night but in broad daylight crossing in a marked crosswalk. Which, by the way, drivers still ignore (our last two attempts in front of Gordon’s over the last few weeks drew five and six cars, respectively, that didn’t even slow down for us). We’ve been encroached upon in the new bike lanes, too, but they are much safer than nothing; my perception of more bikes attests to that. Towns cannot be highways; actual people live here. Of course Manhattan Beach is well aware of that, as that town performed its own road diet, as it should have. People tell us, “Well, you chose to live there.” As if everyone who chose to live far away from their jobs didn’t make a choice, too. At the end of the day, it’s not about privilege and exceptionalism. It’s about lives and safety. That’s it. Thank you, Councilman, for remembering that. You have my vote.