Mar Vista Community Council decides to stay the course in road diet showdown
By Gary Walker
A sharply divided audience both jeered and cheered L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin’s continued support for Venice Boulevard
traffic lane reductions
Photo by Roy Persinko
Mar Vista residents opposed to the loss of traffic lanes on Venice Boulevard were dealt a setback on Tuesday night, when after a boisterous public meeting the Mar Vista Community Council voted 10-1 to reject a citizen-driven motion that would have asked the city to reverse the changes.
Opponents of the Great Streets pilot program that moved parking away from the curb to install a protected bike lane have vowed to continue the fight there and in Playa del Rey, where similar lane reductions have triggered widespread commuter backlash.
“I do not like it and I will oppose it to the very end,” vowed David Sumption, an engineer who lives in Mar Vista. “It doesn’t take a genius to design a bottleneck.”
The council meeting at the Mar Vista Recreation Center drew a sharply divided capacity crowd of about 450 people, many lining the walls or crowding into doorways. Those against the lane reductions, many waving bright orange signs that read “Stop the Unsafe Street Project” dominated the left side of the building. On the right, supporters of the traffic-calming measures and protected bike lines — many of them from alternative transportation and sustainability advocacy groups — held up black signs supportive of the citywide Vision Zero campaign to eliminate traffic-related deaths.
While supporting the continuation of the pilot program road diet for as long as a year, council members added a request for traffic studies and surveys as well as data on public safety response times.
Despite widespread complaints of exacerbated traffic congestion causing them longer commute times during the morning and evening rush hour, many on the council concluded it’s just too early to pull the plug on plans that have been in the works for years.
“Great Streets can be really transformative and a great point of pride for our community so I support it,” Mar Vista Community Council Chairman Rob Kadota told the crowd.
Changing the lanes back is “not a solution right now,” added council member Paola Cervantes. “Let’s gather the data so we can have more information.”
Council member Holly Tilson, who represents a western portion of Mar Vista between Beethoven Street and Walgrove Avenue, cast the lone vote in support of undoing the road diet.
“I’m torn,” said Tilson, but “I don’t think creating a bottleneck is the way to have a Great Street.”
The most anticipated speaker of the night was L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin, whose office is spearheading the Great Streets project in Mar Vista.
“I’m not going to hide the ball: There was a clear intent to slow down traffic,” said Bonin, who went on to explain that reducing traffic-related injuries and deaths is the primary objective.
Inundated with complaints about roadway reconfigurations in Playa del Rey, last week Bonin ordered the restoration of a second eastbound traffic lane on Culver Boulevard between Nicholson Street and Jefferson Boulevard.
Though reiterating that he’s open to tweaking road configurations over time, on Tuesday Bonin appeared to be holding firm on Venice Boulevard for now.
Alternately cheered by supporters and booed or even heckled by detractors — some of them shouting “Recall Bonin!” during the meeting — Bonin said he’s heard a lot of support for the new bike lanes on Venice Boulevard. “But I’ve also received homophobic slurs and threats,” he said.
Resident Steve Cohen, who opposes the current reconfiguration of Venice Boulevard, noted the hostility that has dominated the conversation around it.
“The polarization in this room is unnecessary because the engineering is wrong,” he said. “The idea is good, the execution is bad.”
Resident Michael Brodsky called on road diet opponents to consider public safety.
“The defining moment of my childhood was seeing my grandfather hit by a car and later dying of a stroke,” Brodsky said. “I’m for anything that slows down traffic.”
Great Streets aims to make the stretch of Venice Boulevard between Beethoven Street and Inglewood Boulevard safer and more inviting for pedestrians, but some local business owners have complained about declining foot traffic since the implementation of the road diet.
That includes Christine Nichols, who owns the C. Nichols Project art gallery on Venice between Boise and Stewart avenues.
“I’m asking for a more workable solution,” she implored.
gary@argonautnews.com
Typical for Mike Bonin. He says he’s received either praise, or slurs and threats, but he doesn’t mention the thousands of constructive negative responses to this plan and the one in Playa Del Rey. He just pretends there are just a few people in opposition.
The article also fails to mention the new configuration has created more safety issues with bike lane blind spots and road rage, and that 82% of Venice Boulevard businesses are opposed.
The simple solution would’ve been just to lower the speed limit on the existing configuration, but LA DOT says that’s impossible.
What truly scares me is when elected officials use cloak and dagger methods to push agendas through at the cost of everyone else’s lives. Bonin refuses to answer to those that oppose his oppression (which is the majority), and instead gloats about how successful his whacky schemes are, using a platform that none of our regular folk can hope to gain unless we utilise Lady Godiva techniques.
Car insurance costs are rising due to INCREASES in accidents due to these absurd measures.
But while we are all waring with each other about who likes/dislikes these road diets, the real winners are the developers. $$$$$$$ Money talks people $$$$$$$$
The people who supported the lane reductions were largely lobbyists and shills from outside of the community, some coming from as far away as Silver Lake, and our Community Council directors were directly involved in organizing opposition to their own stakeholders’ interests – I’ve seen the posts myself.
Our Community Council is failing us, the people who live and work here, in favor of politicians and bicycle lobbyists.
The fact is that this road diet is pushing aggressive traffic off Venice (where it belongs) and onto residential side streets. Venice is a -boulevard- and it needs to remain an efficient way to move high volumes of people from Venice and MDR to and from the rest of the city. Mar Vista is not a sleepy, hipster main street area. If you’re looking for that, go to Abbot Kinney or something. The people that live and work here need to get where they’re going, and Venice Blvd is where that traffic needs to be.
I couldn’t agree more. The lack of respect and concern for the citizens of this community is absolutely astounding. I used to support Bonin. I had no idea that he was such a nut. He and Garcetti have to go. I feel sick to my stomach when I think that I voted for these incompetent, out-of-touch fools. I wish I knew what was really going on. It has to be some payola scam, right? Nothing else makes sense. The overwhelming majority of residents of our communities are against this and yet they worked on it behind our backs, did it all with NO input from the vast majority of us, and are not being held accountable. It must be a money thing. Saaaaad.
it was only a show down because bonin packed the room with special interest groups – unethical and corrupt in my opinion. the current implementation is a nightmare and the residents who the city council and bonin are supposed to represent made that clear. time to get rid of both the council and bonin.
Bonin had a choice: undo this disaster or face recall. So recall it will be.
The design of this project is terrible. The streets are confusing and will cause more problems than they solve. The engineering is an embarrassing joke. It looks like it was designed by a politician, not a Traffic Engineer. In my opinion, this will cause more accidents than before and also, because of the design, hurt our small businesses. Mike Bonin stated that years of study and data went into this design. If that is true, he needs to get our tax payers money back because we got screwed. There are many industry standards and tools that modern traffic engineering can use to improve our streets but intentionally creating a bottle neck is not one of them. – David Sumption
Do you live in Mar Vista? Or Playa del Rey? There seems to be some confusion.
This is by no means a definitive vote, nor does it carry any weight, but at the end of the day we had hoped the MVCC would put the interests of the MAJORITY STAKEHOLDERS IN THE COMMUNITY over the interests of developers and nonprofits who receive City grant money. Obviously, they did not see the wisdom in doing that. If I were one of these offending councilmembers, or Bonin himself, I’d be very concerned about the sheer numbers of people that signed a petition requesting immediate restoration of the lanes, and are aware that their interests were not represented or taken into account. Make up all the fake data and fake news you want about how this is a “victory for safety” – nothing could be further from the truth. The next time a bike or ped is hit when a car takes a right turn and can’t see them on the ridiculous turns that have been created, the blood will be on Bonin’s hands, and the City is now on notice of this dangerous condition. The status quo of three lanes with additional crosswalks, with a green bike lane, is the appropriate solution that serves everyone so we can get to work, which is at the end of the day, is what we need to do to create tax dollars to pay for these improvements in the first place. This is urban planning gone so completely wrong and offtrack it’s breathtaking.
Particularly since the current MVCC Directors were elected with a total of 618 votes, with one Director elected with just 23 votes. Anyone living or working in Mar Vista is eligible to run in the next MVCC Director’s election in Spring 2018.
https://empowerla.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/MVCC-2016-Official-Canvass-of-Votes.pdf
Hey Argonaut, I think your story should be to investigate Bonin to see why he didn’t do anything in his first term to fix Vista Del Mar, now pulls this road diet right after his reelection. Also why don’t you try to get a straight answer for your readers from him or Gridlock Garcetti on how EXACTLY HOW Vision Zero will ever “eliminate ALL traffic deaths by 2025” (their exact words) when 30% of all fatalities are DUI related. Additionally extending alcohol service hours to 4 am will help fix this and make it all safer??? I’m confused! “Zero Vision” is not a plan its a pipe dream for when driver-less cars are 100% a way of life. As it actually starts to become reality it’s only going to be available to the elite… they are acting like everyone one will be driver-less in 2025… not going to happen. I can guarantee you I won’t be able to afford it and I’m pretty sure my neighbor will still have his gardening business using his 1987 Toyota pick-up still! I mean get real!
The design of this project is terrible. The streets are confusing and will cause more problems than they solve. The engineering is not done to current industry standards. It looks like it was designed by a politician, not a Traffic Engineer. In my opinion, this will cause more accidents than before and also, because of the design, hurt our small businesses. Mike Bonin stated that years of study and data went into this design. If that is true we did not get our moneys worth. There are many resources and tools that modern traffic engineers can use to improve our streets but intentionally creating bottlenecks is not one of them. – David Sumption
The solution to the Mar Vista Community Council voting 10-1 in favor of the anti-commuter Venice Blvd roadway mess is to run candidates for the seats next year when the current Director’s seats are up for re-election. Astoundingly only a total of 618 people voted in the last election in 2016, with some Directors elected with as few as 23 votes. 618 votes is a total for all Directors. Certainly pro-commuter Mar Vista residents can organize at the grassroots level and turnout more than 618 votes in May/June 2018 when the next Mar Vista Community Council Directors must run again for re-election. Here is a link to the final 2016 Mar Vista Community Council Director vote tally:
https://empowerla.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/MVCC-2016-Official-Canvass-of-Votes.pdf
It is amazing, and appalling that 618 Mar Vista residents are promoted as representative of the entire Mar Vista community.
Here is a link to empowerla.org which describes the 2016 procedure for entering candidates for Mar Vista Community Council Directors, and timelines for submitting applications to run. Empowerla does not yet have dates and times for 2018, but the time is now to plan to elect pro-commuter Directors and thus reverse the 10-1 vote:
http://empowerla.org/elections/
Here is a link to the empowerla home page. Empowerla oversees Community Council elections:
http://empowerla.org/councils/
Vision Zero is a perfect name for this fiasco. They obviously had no “vision ” of the traffic nightmare they were creating at the time. Unfortunately us local residents are paying the price for the their vision. We now feel like prisoners in our neighborhood, unable to simply go back and forth to work, to a doctors appointment or run necessary errands without getting into a major traffic jam. The roads are no safer for cars or bikers, along with road rage growing and accidents increasing. Bottom line is road diet is a major disaster, only to get worse come September when school is back. God help us all!
I can tell you that this road diet was very short sighted in PDR. I mean seriously-it should not take me an hour to get to work. I live in PDR and work only 10 miles away. An hour to go 10 miles!! If anything, I have seen an increase in people cutting through residential neighborhoods trying to get out of PDR. And what of emergency vehicles? Bonnin is doing the typical political response nowadays, deny it was a bad idea, lie and act like everyone supports it or pay special interest groups to show up at meetings to try and make yourself look good. Shady. There was never any “community input” prior to implementing this. The first I heard of it was the day they were re-paving the roads. I would be looking to see if Bonin had any financial gain by implementing this road diet. Follow the money. I can tell you exactly how this Mar Vista project will go down- I have been living the nightmare every day since the lovely road diet was implemented here!
The news sources you’re commenting on posted articles about the street changes in PDR and community meetings prior to implementation.
Mike Bonin’s “Great Street” has been based on deception from it’s earliest public mention in 2014. The 450 surveys that he collected didn’t ask Mar Vista stakeholders if they wanted lane reductions, increased gridlock, greater cut-through traffic, higher levels of idling vehicle pollution, and slower fire/police response times, yet Mr. Bonin continues to claim that those surveys demonstrate broad “community-driven” support for the lane reduction. He has also stated frequently that he would “keep what we love, and remove what we don’t want.” Yet, after the community told him that we don’t want the lane reduction, both through an online petition that has over 2,300 supporters, and a survey of “Great Street” businesses with 82% opposed to the lane reduction, he now claims that he won’t consider changes until his deputies collect and analyze “data” over the next year or maybe even two years. Sadly, Mr. Bonin was recently re-elected with a campaign that heavily emphasized “Reducing Traffic”. If Mr. Bonin doesn’t dramatically reconsider his position before the recall signature gathering window opens in October, I hope that a highly credible challenger will be ready serve as our new councilmember.
Oops, I underestimated the number of supporters for the petition asking to restore the lanes. As of right now, there are 2,441 supporters. https://www.change.org/p/mike-bonin-stop-the-unsafe-streets-project-on-venice-blvd?recruiter=53907516&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=share_petition