Social media histrionics and fake news have corrupted the road diet debate
By Peter Flax
Flax is a writer and editor who bicycles through Playa del Rey during his daily commutes from Manhattan Beach to the Westside. An advocate for cyclist and pedestrian safety, he served on the Playa del Rey Safe Streets Task Force until it was disbanded in October.
The battle over road diets in Playa del Rey and Mar Vista has done more than reveal polarized opinions on how to configure our streets — it has exposed fundamental problems in our civic discourse. Many who follow Beltway politics now understand how fake news, agenda-driven lobbyists, and aggressive social media activity can poison the political process and national conversation. Unfortunately, these same issues plague the very public dispute over road diets on the Westside.
I saw these problems firsthand as a member of the task force Mike Bonin created to find common ground in Playa del Rey. I have no doubt that this group would have enjoyed a higher likelihood of success had it been convened before roadways were reconfigured, but that does not excuse the tactics of some members of the task force and the organizations they represent, who went to extraordinary lengths to undermine the process.
The leadership of road diet opposition group Keep LA Moving and its allies played several cards at once — relentlessly using social media to argue the composition of the task force (which was numerically balanced) was stacked against them while constantly bullying the agenda so safety issues never got a proper discussion; simultaneously deriding the task force meetings as secret while pushing their agenda hard in that format and organizing clandestine meetings to bulldoze public officials to their ends.
One unpublicized meeting spelled the end of the task force and the Playa del Rey road diet. In league with outside forces, lower Playa business owners — among them prominent members of the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce, already applying public pressure — demanded an audience with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. People familiar with the proceedings tell me the group confronted Garcetti with a narrative that the road diet was destroying local businesses and made explicit threats to undermine the mayor’s political ambitions. These strong arm tactics set off a chain of events that led to the near-complete reversal of traffic-calming measures on Culver, Jefferson and Pershing.
This was just one piece of a campaign to disrupt a fact-based conversation about the impacts of the road diets in Playa del Rey and surrounding communities. A few weeks before the process broke down, the task force had been given extensive historical traffic data by LADOT that finally provided a quantitatively accurate sense of how the reconfiguration of roads in Playa del Rey had impacted travel times. The INRIX data showed quite clearly that after the initial weeks of chaos, the traffic just wasn’t as bad as social media histrionics suggested. In September, for instance — a time when Culver had been reconfigured with two lanes going northbound, but still had one heading toward the beach — the total year-over-year delay imposed by the road diet on travelers driving southbound on Culver from the 90 Freeway to Vista del Mar was two to five minutes during the evening rush (and zilch the rest of the time).
Suddenly, after months of screaming about traffic, the leaders of the fight against the road diet didn’t want to talk about traffic data. Instead, the conversation pivoted to high-pitched stories about businesses in crisis. Lisa Schwab, owner of Cantalini’s Salerno Beach, an old-school Italian restaurant in Playa del Rey, articulated a dire narrative in which her business was collapsing due to the road diet. The group was given no actual data and thus had no ability to analyze Schwab’s serious-sounding claims —whether or why her business was failing, whether revenue had been declining before the road diet, or how reducing the westbound trip by two to five minutes would resuscitate her restaurant. Task force members who tried to ask aloud if the problem might largely be due to the perception that traffic was far more horrible than the data indicated were shouted down aggressively.
In short, rather than debate facts about impacts to traffic and commute times or pursue a consensus approach to address both congestion and safety, we got sidetracked into a persuasive, data-free, urgent, subjective conversation about impacts on businesses.
This was a savvy move: Everyone cares about the health of small businesses in the community. As an advocate for pedestrian and cyclist safety, I will admit that I’m comfortable if peoples’ commutes get a few minutes longer if it makes our streets less dangerous, but I don’t want local merchants to suffer. Nobody does, and a perception that road diets harm local businesses could shift public opinion in a major way. Dozens of studies conducted in major U.S. cities have concluded that traffic calming efforts ultimately boost business, but that certainly hasn’t stopped opponents from arguing that these dynamics don’t apply in L.A.
Now this mess is playing out in Mar Vista. The organization Restore Venice Blvd is recording and aggressively socializing videos of a few local business owners articulating how the road diet is harming their businesses. The most widely shared video focuses on the plight of John Atkinson, the owner of Louie’s of Mar Vista. In his video testimonial, he claims that the road diet cut his revenue by one-third and drove him out of business in just four or five months.
This is a compelling narrative, but it is at best incomplete and at worst completely misleading. Atkinson’s video doesn’t mention how his business had been temporarily shut down by the L.A. County Health Department for a vermin infestation the same month the road diet was enacted. Nor does it mention that he reconceived the restaurant from a homey eatery serving value-priced Southern fare to a trendier spot serving $13 avocado toast, which led to scores of horrible Yelp reviews, angry threads on Reddit and longtime regulars abandoning their former local favorite. In an environment full of polarized opinion and devoid of substantiated facts, the narrative of a business going under because of the road diet is fuel on a fire.
The absence of facts is a defining problem in the public conversation about our roads. This cannot simply be blamed on one side of this dispute. Part of the problem is how poorly our politicians and transportation officials as well as the city’s dominant news outlets have communicated inconte-stable facts to people who live and drive in L.A. The mayor has been painfully silent.
This has created a void that allows a free-for-all on Facebook and Nextdoor, where people on both sides can essentially make up their own facts — about travel times, accident rates, business impacts, the laws governing speeding and jaywalking, the scientific underpinning of Vision Zero, and so on. Rather than form opinions about what to do on Venice Boulevard based on substantiated traffic or accident data, published studies on road diets, or an unbiased analysis of business impacts, the public has wound up getting informed and misinformed by social media, where people who are angry about traffic freely dismiss INRIX and LADOT data as #fakenews and then create memes with data they prefer.
And now these same groups are trying to warp and leverage the stories of businesses that are failing. In the hysteria over road diets, the people who are fighting hardest to put everything back the way it was don’t appear to realize how they are amplifying the problem. The reconfiguration of roads in Playa del Rey and Mar Vista begat a nuclear response that surely scared away occasional visitors — with lawsuits, an opportunistic recall effort, boycott proposals, and exaggerated stories of 24/7 traffic jams. Now the very interests who have portrayed shopping districts as war zones paralyzed by traffic (even though data says otherwise) and openly discussed boycotts are broadcasting fictionalized stories of distressed businesses to sway public opinion. It’s fake news writ large.
The ultimate losers in this strange battle are people who get hurt and killed trying to cross the street. The conversation over safe streets has degraded to the point where people discussing pedestrians who have been killed by speeding cars regularly engage in victim blaming — comments about teenagers who were jaywalking or a shopkeeper wearing dark clothing or crashes after midnight.
Putting aside the fact that many people are killed in broad daylight by speeding or distracted drivers, I’d like to live in a city in which I can cross the street in a black T-shirt without fear, a community where teenagers who make mistakes don’t have to face the death penalty.
Our streets are not safe — roughly 300 pedestrians and cyclists died on L.A.’s roadways last year, more than any other city in America — and we should be able to discuss facts as a community to figure out how to solve that.
The key point that has rarely, if ever, been discussed in the media is the repeated attempts by bicycle enthusiasts to use the incidence of pedestrian accidents as a ruse in order to get taxpayers to fund a dedicated bicycle workout course on city streets. This is not about commuting, nor is this about making streets safer for pedestrians. Rather, the by now obvious, goal is to create a city-wide network of high-speed bicycle workout courses, essentially a taxpayer-funded personal gym.
I commute by bike. It’s purely utilitarian. My commuter is heavy, and I’m often carrying tons of groceries on it. It’s not about a high-speed workout course. I just want a safe way to get where I need to go. And yes, I want a city-wide network of ways to do that.
My husband commutes by bike. With all due respect, your generalizations are ridiculous.
BTW my comment was meant for David… xx
“…in short” bahaha your articles are always a million times longer than they need to be, and not entertaining at all. Yikes!
Spin master, I am rather impressed that you are able to apply the exact same tactics that you complain about in the exact same paragraph. It is OUR community, and we will not hand it over to politicians or high density development (the real goal)
Mike Bonin has been a champion for Playa del Rey in fighting back against high density, out of scale and character developments in our community. With his and his offices support we have gained rulings, in our favor, at the Planning Commission, Area Planning Committee and the Coastal Commission. The lane reductions in PDR worked AGAINST developers. Now it’s all back to where it was.
Julie that is false and whoever convinced you of that was selling you something. His lack of transparency shows he knew small businesses would be hurting. Getting them out, rezoning the place, and getting big brand corporations in there is a developer’s wet dream… one they would pay handsomely for.
I along with many others ( and all of those that came before us) have spent the last 5 years defending PDR from oversized inappropriate development. Without the support of Mike Bonin there’d be a 56ft building on the Jake’s lit. The Chamber of Commerce supported that project as did many members on the Neighborhood Council one of which was a lobbyist for the developer. I’m not wrong whatever your real name is.
Well said, Julie. Bonin has been our advocate concerning LAX as well. Road safety is important as are our businesses. But histrionics and bullying power plays do not constitute truth or helpful data. Our small neighborhood has been hijacked by the stench of national politics and people are falling for it. Let’s bring back civility and data as we make decisions for our neighborhoods.
Quite a storyteller, leaving out many of the facts. I get a kick out of him stating they don’t want to talk about traffic data now ……we can’t get any data to talk about because there was A) never any proper study done so no proper data exists or B) the data they have will dispute their claims. Live in this neighborhood and you will have experienced the increased traffic through our residential streets, not safe streets any longer! There are many issues that are wrong with this diet not just one Mr. Flax, so yes it is complicated. Before implementing just maybe we should have had some long well thought out conversations.
Thank you, Peter Flax, for your thoughtful article.
Typically, The Argonaut provides intelligent and thought provoking content to its readers through meticulous scrutiny and Editors with integrity. Apparently, the Editor was out today and Jerry from Maintenance approved this dumpster fire full of manure and bile.
Thank you Peter! And thank you for sharing your accurate account of how the Task Force was hijacked from the begining. The community needed to know the truth. #factsmatter
Interesting take on the task force guys… not at all how I remember it! Peter remind all of us how many meetings EXACTLY where you at? I know you missed the first one where rules and general guidelines were established and everyone shared just thoughts on what they wanted to get out of the task force! You also missed Seleta Reynolds state “bike lanes were only added because they were cheaper than sidewalks” So lets not pretend these were planned, they were an after thought. MANY in the first meeting cited safety, not adversely effecting small businesses, or emergency personal as their top reasons for joining the task force. I know you where there Ryan! If you want everyone to know the TRUTH… RELEASE THE RECORDINGS! This is why many of us on the task force wanted public meetings and open fours. Bonin did enough damage behind closed doors. Now others wanted their “safe places” to be able to spin whatever story they want to tell. In my opinion this whole Task Farce was a joke from the beginning, it was a stall tactic. even when Chad from Bonin’s office wanted to see if their was anything the group could find to get done right away, the moderator tried to shut it down and stated “this group is not ready for that” and that was I believe the fourth meeting already. So I agree with one thing #factsmatter Ryan… RELEASE THE RECORDINGS and let people listen to that nonsense for themselves if they wish!
So your big rebuttal is to question my attendance? As you stated, I missed two meeting. I’m all for releasing the recordings. Would be fun for everyone to hear how many times the moderator had to admonish John Russo for interrupting people or shouting at folks. .
I wonder how many of these businesses are losing customers because regulars are so turned off by their participation in Keep LA Moving divisive bully tactics? I will never spend another dime at the Shack. Cantalini’s lost a regular, I’ve switched dry cleaners, and take my shoes across town to be repaired. At the end of the day, I supported local businesses to support my community. When those businesses are tearing the community apart, why bother?
Their business was down due to the road diet, so they voiced their concerns about the road diet, and then you subsequently boycotted their businesses…because they voiced their concerns about the road diet that was hurting their business. Do you not understand the sequence of events here? How is your mentality NOT a bully mentality?
Baha so all this bullshit about people who didn’t like the road diets were “bullies” is 100% untrue. Your comment is proof of that. Wow. Such childish little pussies. Especially the people who play the victim throughout all of this, then say “oh the road diet was poorly conceived” good lawdy yall are some freakin idiots.
Nice to see I am not alone. Not spending at those 3. Hope there are more doing the same.
Lack of public discussion with the impacted communities before enactment of “road diets” was the big error of LA government. Much monies would have been saved because those discussions would have led to the rightful conclusion that “road diet” is impractical and nonsensical. When only 1-2% of commuters are cyclists and the rest utilize public/private vehicles, isn’t it nonsensical to eliminate 33.3 – 50% of roads for the 1-2 % of the population? Especially in widespread LA, with inadequate and inconvenient mass transportation systems.
It is not the number of lanes, but the care or lack of care of cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians which affect incidence of roadway accidents.
Of course motorists are 90% of users when you design facilities just for them, and bicyclists and pedestrians get killed with impunity. That only changes with bus lanes and bike lanes. We have both in my part of town; it’s no big deal. Traffic is pretty much the same, and there are plenty of bus riders and everyday bikers. Playa sounds like a great place to drive through on my way to somewhere else, somewhere where narcissistic blowhards aren’t running the show.
Mr. Flax fails to mention two major safety improvements from the Playa del Rey road diet changes:
1) Most of the parking spots along Vista del Mar have been eliminated thereby reducing the number of pedestrians that could get hurt.
2) The new speed humps on Culver are slowing traffic, making it much safer for pedestrians and bike riders.
I agree 100% about the removal of parking on VDM! That was a really big step for safety. I wish there weren’t four lanes of cars doing highway speeds at many times of day, but the previous configuration, with cars parked on the east side of the road, was no bueno. Speed humps are good too. Thanks for the note.
I believe it. This is the new reality of people giving false information to get what they want. Makes me reconsider Keep La Moving and the LAX Costal Chamber of Commerece’s ulterior movtives.
How was Lisa supposed to prove that her business was down 25% over the summer months? Should she have brought her books to the task force? As a business owner in the community for 25 years, her word has been solid for a long time. When she says she has to take out loans upward of 45k to cover payroll, I believe her.
As far a lack of data being a problem, it’s not generally true. LADOT completed a really half-assed study of the playa streets which isolated each intersection, intentionally ignoring the compounded impact on the experience of driving through the entire stretch. Still the report made it clear that the already bad situation (delays) at each intersection would get much worse. We know that traffic collisions were waaaaaaaay up. Traffic accident data is accessible to anyone who wants it through the CHP website, so that data is just hard fact. We know that drive times were significantly affected, not 2-5 minutes as claimed in the article, but 15-20 minutes of added time to get from the 90 to the culver/vdm intersection in the evening. INRIX data has been proven to be worthless. When you compare it side by side with Waze or google maps, you immediately see that INRIX under-reports traffic – it’s just an inferior product.
the two biggest pieces of false data in this road battle have been the propaganda stats from Bonin’s office. One: that traffic accidents are the greatest killer of children under 14. And two: that 80% of pedestrians are killed in a 40 mph accident (vs. 5% killed at 20 mph). Increased speed certainly is more likely to kill, but the history of distortion of that stat is a long story – data is from 1960’s UK, was repeatedly scaled up, and eventually the government of UK admitted it was not a usable stat (that was a decade ago).
Even the PDR-Westchester Neighborhood council was willing to totally ignore the INRIX data and give into the hype . The lanes are restored, the Manhattan Beach Freeway is back in business, and Culver is still bumper to bumper from 7-9:30 am . None of the complaining businesses are even open at this time . So sad for PDR – I wonder if Manhattan Beach would tolerate 50mph on Highland ????
People speed late at night when there are no other cars on the road. The road diet did nothing to deter midnight speeders. How can you pass judgement on businesses’ operating hours then completely dismiss how important time of day is when claiming speeders are out? Do you see the irony?
I’m with you, Peter! This road diet experience (along with a certain president) has ruined my opinion of social media. Nextdoor is a toxic abyss and if indeed, 42% of American’s get their news from Facebook, well then heaven help us. I will continue to support those that advocate for safer streets, affordable housing and multi-modal transportation in LA.
Unfortunately, the entire exercise was an impractical solution to a non-existent problem. Anyone who lives in Playa Del Rey can tell you that our commute out of the neighborhood has always been bad due to the already restricted access to our neighborhood because of natural and man made barriers. Was the city trying to improve traffic or increase safety? Neither was accomplished as a result of the diet. Restricting lanes simply increased the number of cars per lane. Where there had previously been large breaks in traffic to cross the four lane streets before the diet, there were tiny breaks to cross two lane streets after the diet. If the goal was to improve bicycle safety, The real solution would be to widen culver to two lanes each way with a dedicated left turn lane from Culver west to Jefferson east while simultaneously adding bike lanes in each direction. As for commute times, an extra 5 or 10 minutes may not seem like much in a 45 minute commute to downtown, however it is a significant increase for a 5 minute run down to Home Depot. Finally, let’s not forget how much money was wasted in this debacle. My father had two major philosophies that he impressed upon me as a child 1. “Think before you act” and 2. “If you’re going to do something god d@mnit, do it right.” Unfortunately, in this case neither happened.
I’ve driven through and ridden there with my family and it’s definitely way calmer than before. I hope we can find more ways to help keep LA safer.
WOW! Talk about Fake News and skewed facts! This author is the master!
Well put, Peter. After attending the Mar Vista Community Council meetings and witnessing the bluster, bullying, and decidedly un-civic behavior demonstrated by those against the project (laughing at a man that lost a leg after being hit by a car, the yelling of “lies,” “recall,” and assorted vulgarities aimed at anyone speaking in favor) I came away realizing there would never be a respectful, fact-based discussion on the subject. Unfortunately, that language and denial of any information that doesn’t conform to certain prejudices has persisted and in fact has been become not a side effect but the core of the movement. Witness the Recall Bonin petition having to start over due to the fact that they didn’t, or couldn’t, sign the section stating that all information submitted was true.
The community council meetings were the sad result of bypassing the most important step to implementing a road diet (per the federal highway association): get community sign-off first. Instead, Bonin skipped that part, and forced a major change to a road trafficked daily by 43k cars.
Peter Flax and pro road diet members of the task force, why is it that you did not want to have open sessions, live stream the meetings? Why did you reluctantly agree to recordings only then to demand the recordings were not released? How many meetings did you miss? Where are your facts? For all who are interested some of the INRIX data that you speak of can be found on the keeppdrmoving.com website…under “about”. Facts about historical traffic accidents are also provided. It appears the organization has nothing to hide and will be adding more later.
Why didn’t you mention the lawsuits in your article and the fact that the city lied on their CEQA exemption. Or the fact that LADOT and Bonin tried to strong arm keeplamoving into dropping their lawsuit after several behind the scenes phone calls were made, by Bonins office, to convince pro road Diet taskforce members to agree to returning lanes on culver blvd in support of business. It was stated that the lanes could not be returned immediately due to the pending lawsuits with inquiries into whether or not the lawsuits would be dropped in support for the businesses. When the response was no, ALL of the lanes were given back.
Why did several of Bonins cronies reach out to my husband before the very first taskforce meeting to tell me to lay off social media because all of the lanes were going to be returned? Did I trust that? No. Am I my husband? No.
Where are all your facts peter flax? You don’t site any sources to support your “facts”.
Hi Lisa. Glad to see you’re still at it. The Argonaut fact checked my story, which I suppose is why you’re not really refuting anything I said but just making a bunch of strange accusations. If there’s a specific fact I wrote you want to dispute — about travel times on Culver or the truth about Louie’s, for instance — let me know and I’ll post it publicly on Twitter. Have a great day!
Peter Flax…yes as long as you are at it I will be at it! From what we have seen there are no studies showing road diets on street with upwards of 43,000 cars per day are recommended. Los Angeles city and FHWA both limit road diets to corridors up to 20,000 cars per day.
No need to provide INIRIX data and LADOT time trials as this info is on the keeppdrmoving website. Much more data will also be added such as max speeds. In terms of the accusations I would be curious to hear your response, but I gather you will not respond.
Would love to see your twitter but unfortunately I have been blocked by you. I must have been a disruption to the echo chamber.
Thanks for responding and giving me the opportunity to share some data in this forum.
City of Los Angeles Complete Streets Design Guide: page 144 “According to FHWA, a four-lane roadway with average traffic daily volumes up to 20,000 vehicles represents a good candidate for potential road diet project”
https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/guidance/info_guide/ch3.cfm#s335.
Section 3.3.5 “The FHWA advises that roadways with ADT of 20,000 vpd or less may be good candidates for a Road Diet” …traffic volumes well above 20,000.
York Blvd: The Economics of a Road Diet: ES Executive Summary: “Traffic studies have consistently shown that road diets will not worsen congestion under the appropriate conditions-streets with less than about 20,000 daily vehicle trips”
Tell me your handle on Twitter — it sure as heck isn’t your name — and I’ll unblock you. I’ve only blocked maybe 10 or 15 accounts total, and they all been accounts that were more interested in attacks than conversation. Willing to give it another try.
Still waiting for you to correct the lies in your article in cyclingtips where you falsely claimed that the LADOT never recommended to Bonin safety measures on Vista Del Mar that he ignored which led to 2 deaths. In response to your article I pointed out to you that the Larsen lawsuit specifically identified the LADOT officials who made the recommendations and the dates and content of the communications. So is your position that its okay for you to lie, but nor your opponents?
Hi, Peter. It appears that Trolleywood (above) is organizing a business boycott. Thoughts?
Thank you, Peter, for laying out the facts. You were there. I was there. We were witnesses to Playa del Rey being torn apart because of a very well-intentioned effort by Councilmember Mike Bonin to make our streets safer – for people and for wildlife. Unfortunately, this effort was highjacked, and now we’ve got a speeding highway through Playa del Rey, with reckless drivers everywhere.
The worst thing was how people who we thought were neighbors became more than un-neighborly. And I’m relieved to see you address how bullying was – SADLY – the main factor in the result. It was rough to be in the middle of the hurricane of those five months where we – outside of the construction times – had a slower, but still flowing traffic regime.
Were there times of gridlock? Yes. As there had been before.
But your revelation about the DATA provided to us in the Task Force – showing that there was not much of a time factor (only a few minutes) – of a change – backs up what so many of our neighbors and I experienced. The bullying kept that data from being released, which is unfortunate. But now it’s out – and I’m sure some of the same voices of disregard for the facts will continue to dispute what we know to be true.
At least there are speed humps to slow things down a bit, and the speed limit signs help too. Still, people on Pershing can’t get out of their driveways without serious waits now. It’s not as easy for delivery trucks to do their work on Culver without that center lane. It’s back to being impossible to parallel park on Culver or try to exit your vehicle without a significant wait. Traveling by bicycle or walking on these roads is back to being treacherous again. And the roadkill of wildlife is back to being a real, serious impact again on the roads through the Ballona Wetlands.
Anyone who thinks the road diet was not making things safer and more calm was paying more attention to their social media outlets (and the bullying there) than the realities of the roads.
Marcia, just curious where you bike?
Wow . . . I have a friend in Kansas who has an opinion? Where does the Argonaut draw the line on people who do not live in our community or even our city writing editorials about our city and community? Was this the best the Argonaut could do in finding an opinion for gridlock – a person who doesn’t even live here? You could have even used your photographer who is divisive and argumentative and bullying on social media for this OpEd piece. (she’s not really bullying, but I guess that’s the term whiney outsiders now use for anyone that disagrees with them).
One of the cofounders of Keep LA Moving lives in Manhattan Beach. Most of the big money to fund that organization and the recall have come from MB and Hermosa. Many of the loudest complaints about PDR traffic came from angry South Bay commuters. I suspect that you are fine with people who live outside your community getting involved in this dispute in the name of regional interests….as long as they agree with you.
Peter Flax lives in the South Bay and was one of two South Bay residents on the Task Force. He bicycles thru PDR on a regular basis. I think if he was relevant enough to be asked to be on the Task Force, he’s in the position to write an Opinion piece.
Peter/Julie: Please address Trolleywood’s (above) admitted boycott of local businesses. It seems to be one of those acts of bullying that the original article decried.
I don’t agree with that approach.
Peter Flax has engaged in the same tactics and lies in support of the road diets. In a recent article he wrote for cyclingtips.com he stated, “a well-traveled story on social media that LADOT employees had proposed safety changes to one of the impacted road years ago and that the city councilman who leads the district ignored this advice. Multiple LADOT officials I spoke with insist this is completely untrue.”
However, the Larsen lawsuit set forth the names, titles, dates and content of the communications/recommendations by LADOT and how and when then were communicated to Mike Bonin. When I called him out on this, he did not correct his article but rather engaged in an ad hominem attack against me for proving him wrong.
Hi Derek — I remember you. You went by “D Man” and I just went back to story and see that you deleted all your nasty comments. Probably a good idea. But I see that the answer I gave you — which I guess you didn’t find satisfactory — is still in there. I posed your exact wording to a very senior LADOT official and printed their full answer in my comment. Here it is. The short answer is that that recommendation came from a non-engineer and the idea was nixed by LADOT and not Bonin. Cheers, Peter
“Selwyn Hollins is not an engineer, and no longer works for the department. That was under a former general manager (also not a transportation planner/engineer). LADOT management reviewed that recommendation and determined that one signal would not be enough to prevent people darting across the street at multiple places to get directly to their parking spots — and also that we’d need several signals all along the corridor to feel confident that people would not jaywalk, and we had neither the time nor the funds to implement them. Further, the signals would have undoubtedly led to as much or more congestion along Vista del Mar as the lane reduction. It wasn’t Mike Bonin who deep-sixed that idea. It was LADOT.”
Peter, YOU ARE A LIAR AND ARE PERSISTING IN YOUR LIES. No one claimed that the recommendation was made by Selwyn Hollins, who was the LADOT official who passed the recommendation along to mike bonin’s staff.
The recommendation to add signals with crosswalks was made by Mr. Brian Gallagher, Senior Traffic Engineer for LADOT by way of email on 6/14/13. This was communicated to Ms. Pauline Chan, Senior traffic Engineer for the City of Los Angeles. An email was then written by Selwyn Hollins, Executive Officer of LADOT operations, on 6/14/13 to Darrell Powell, Office of Chief Legislative Analyst for Mike Bonin.
You are a liar, are caught telling a lie, and are still refusing to admit that you are spreading false information.
Histrionics indeed. Whether from delusion or just the crass old, “say it enough times and people will start to believe it” school of propaganda, the author is way off base here. The truth is that he, and those who have been forcing “road repurposing” onto communities have been the bullies in this schoolyard.
KeepLAMoving has made every effort to publicize the FACTS about road diets in general, and the very specific misapplication of them on high-volume streets around LA. The “crippling the debate” is purely down to the lack of transparency and honesty on the part of the pro-road diet contingent. They’ve attempted to stifle discussion altogether in order to push through their plans — illegally, improperly, and with utter contempt and disregard for hardworking people across the city.
Unlike the anti-car crowd, KeepLAMoving has listed sources and citations in our communications. We’ve had engineers examine the city’s source data, uncovering repeated manipulations and outright lies about accident rates, traffic volumes, etc. That data has been the core focus of our fight. From the first falsifications used to apply for a CEQA exemption (where the City falsely submitted traffic volumes for Playa del Rey that were less than 1/3 of what was actually measured by the LADOT), to Bonin’s attempts to mislead the public by comparing 3-month accident data against annualized data to give the impression that the road diet lessened the frequency of traffic accidents on Venice Blvd., officials have aimed to blur the truth about their actions.
In similar fashion, the above editorial is rife with misinformation For instance:
* Lane removals in Playa del Rey did not address the issues that led to fatal accidents, and caused the accident rate to skyrocket — surpassing the annual average by more than 450% in just four months. That is why it is so important to talk about things such as jaywalking and poor lighting, as well as the fact that speeding was not a contributing factor in most cases. This is not victim shaming. It’s rational analysis, which is what is needed if one is sincere about improving safety. PdR roads were among the safest in the city until Bonin’s road diets were imposed. According to DOT analysis, what could have made them safer was lighting and crosswalks. Not a road diet. The crosswalks, speed tables and other measures that were finally installed should have been the steps taken in the first place.
* While it’s true that published studies have shown road diets can help make some streets safer, all of those studies involved roads with less than 10,000 cars/day. National engineering standards (http://bit.ly/2BzxkWF) as well as the LADOT’s own guidelines (http://bit.ly/2AnewcM) disavow the use of road diets on streets with an Average Daily Volume exceeding 20,000 cars. The most recent data for the streets in Playa del Rey, as well as on the “dieted” section of Venice Blvd. in Mar Vista, is beyond 43,000 ADV, far above the threshold.
* PdR businesses suffered devastating losses that were clearly attributable to the gridlock created by the road diets based on Google Analytics, customer feedback, and comments on Social Media. A survey of 62 businesses in PdR showed they were all negatively affected — from the restaurants and the dry cleaners to the gas station and the dentist. That is why they, the Neighborhood Council and the local Chamber of Commerce all published letters pleading for the lanes to be restored. And it’s why, rather than proposing boycotts as the author alleges above, KeepLAMoving repeatedly encouraged people to support PdR’s businesses. It took courage for Lisa Schwab and other business owners to make their struggles public. They were reluctant to do so, and did only when many of them were pushed to the point of ruin. Just like what’s happening on Venice Blvd.
* Mike Bonin’s office turned business owners away for months, and when the Councilmember finally deigned to meet with them, he turned a deaf ear. Ultimately, the Mayor’s office stepped in, demonstrating the kind of leadership and concern for constituents that was lacking at the District level. Bonin’s incompetence and hubris is what spurred his constituents to demand his recall. (An effort entirely independent from KeepLAMoving).
* As a member of the Task Force, the author is well aware that the meetings were controlled by the facilitator and the LADOT which directed the conversation, focusing on process and aspirational goals and hindering any meaningful progress. The group composition was indeed unbalanced, as Bonin’s Chief of Staff admitted when he highlighted the appointment of a member of the PdR/Westchester Neighborhood Council as a “Safe Streets Advocate.” The public was barred from the meetings, and promised recordings were buried by a unanimous vote from the “pro road diet” Task Force members.
Suffice to say pretty much every one of the author’s assertions is blatantly false. What’s more, we have documented him repeatedly engaging in an aggressive and threatening manner online, including the stalker-like behavior of posting personal information about our donors and members. His insults and vitriolic rhetoric belie his claim of being a journalist. It’s a shame publications such as this one continue to let him blather on.
It bears repeating that the vast majority of Playa del Rey residents were not notified of impending lane removals, surrounding communities were not given notice, nor was the public allowed the legally mandated period of evaluation and comment prior to the project. The roads in question are neither “shortcuts” nor “the South Bay Freeway.” They are critical connectors between communities that are cut off by geographical features including the Marina, LAX and the Ocean. The lane removals destroyed the carefully planned Area G Tsunami Evacuation Route, delayed emergency response vehicles, pushed traffic into neighborhoods, caused a spike in air pollution and litter, doubled (at a minimum) commute times, and so much more. The situation was a case study of what can go wrong when officials ignore their own engineers, their constituents, and rational thinking in pursuit of a personal agenda.
Road diets are not a panacea and, as has been amply demonstrated in District 11, they are disastrous when misapplied. Education, enforcement, and engineering solutions can make streets safer without penalizing people who, of necessity, rely on cars. City officials should use Measure M funds to fix streets like they promised. They should create a public transit system they themselves will use, and put bikeways in neighborhoods (on non-arterial roads) to encourage cycling on local trips. Everyone wants safer streets and enhanced communities. Hyperbole and histrionics won’t get us there. Location-appropriate engineering solutions — based on the honest evaluation of accidents, traffic and actual needs — can.
The Argonaut SHOULD PRINT the above well-thought-out response by KeepLAMoving..
Agree wholeheartedly to the above suggestion!!
There’s one attack in here I want to respond to immediately: This idea that I have stalked people. This has appeared in numerous comments in numerous stories so I suspect it’s a talking point in Keep LA Moving’s private FB groups and on Nextdoor.
This is referring to a single Twitter thread I composed early in the road diet. It was an interesting moment in time, as advocates on both sides were figuring out how to best represent their interests and take action. I was struck that Keep LA Moving was super engaged in Manhattan Beach (where I live) and yet portraying themselves on social media as mainly fighting for people like school teachers and nurses trying to get to work and daycare. In these early days, as the organization was looking for money to fund its lawsuit, it created a GoFund me type page that was public. I found the contributors quite interesting I still do.
The fact is that all the big contributors to Keep LA Moving were very wealthy people who live in Manhattan and Hermosa Beach. Many were/are top Silicon Beach execs or private equity guys who sit on the board of many companies. I did not publish people’s addresses, but I did name names and share public information about the value of their homes.
I still believe that people should know that the key funding for Keep LA Moving — an organization that portrays itself as a defender of the working class, the small businessperson — came from private equity guys who live in $20 million house in MB, who drive fancy cars solo from their beachfront houses to offices in Brentwood, who want to make sure the people who work in their Silicon Beach companies can do the same. People should know that someone on the MB city council donated to the lawsuit — that’s disturbing.
I understand that Keep LA Moving doesn’t want people to know that they’re funded by Manhattan Beach zillionaires who are concerned about their personal commutes and business interests. But publicizing the names of donors, who were displayed on their own web site, is not stalking.
Every single bullet point you have posted is demonstrably false.
1. The road diet on Vista Del Mar addressed late night and off-peak speeding, which is the primary factor driving collisions to be deadly. To call roads that are the sites of multiple deadly crashes “safe” is an incredibly low bar that guarantees further roadway deaths. As should be obvious, the point of Vision Zero is not the impossible task of eliminating human error, but to ensure that human error is not deadly: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/11/the-swedish-approach-to-road-safety-the-accident-is-not-the-major-problem/382995/. Any mention of an “accident rate” that does not quantify the severity of crashes is
2. The misinformed talking point that road diets are not applicable on roads exceeding Average Daily Trips (ADT) of 20,000 comes from a misreading of studies conducted in the 1990s (and thus prior to contemporary prioritization of safety), which do not set any limit for implementation of road diets but do propose conditions where congestion could be impacted for 4-to-3 lane road diets. LADOT’s most recent 2016 study notes “no strict limit on ADT as a barrier to implementation” and references multiple successful road diets on urban locations with 30,000 ADT. The reference to Venice Blvd, which was essentially a 7-to-5 lane road diet, has absolutely no relevance to studies on 4-to-3 lane road diets, and demonstrates Keep LA Moving’s complete misunderstanding of basic roadway engineering principles.
3. Pointing to social media comments while actively pushing for a boycott of affected businesses is faulty circular logic. No survey to document such a statement has been published to support a scientific study linking the road diet to business profits.
4. If the Recall Bonin campaign is independent from Keep LA Moving, why do people running Recall Bonin signature drives identify themselves as members of Keep LA Moving?
5. The idea that the PDR Task Force was unbalanced is betrayed by the fact that the Task Force did not take any actions to maintain the safety improvements.
Why should any of us trust anything you say when it is so consistently false and misinformed?
Misinformed and a terrible writer to boot! The fact that these simpletons are still trying to defend an objectively bad plan boggles the mind. The road-diet mess in Playa Del Rey was an admitted failure of planning and execution. What is there to still argue about?
Let these cowards “boycott” our town’s businesses. I welcome it… why would we want these people in Playa?
David G-
Looking forward to hearing evidence disputing any of the 5 points above.
Best,
Michael
Michael. Posted as a reply to you by mistake, should have been a general reply. Your 5 points are meaningless and not worthy of comment. “Points” 1,3 and 4 are totally irrelevant in that they are either semantically premised or inconsequential. #5 requests proof of a negative, which is not possible or persuasive. #2 seems like something that requires expertise to determine. That said, I don’t see your 7:5 // 4:3 point to be facially meaningful.
Playa del Rey (not Manhattan Beach), middle-class, apartment living, non-zillionaire resident here. 100% agree with KeepLAMoving’s post. They speak for me and 100% of my friends and neighbors (also middle-class, apartment living, non-zillionaires) I know from Playa del Rey (not Manhattan Beach). I usually ignore Peter Flax’s posts/articles since first being exposed to him with his hyperbolic, condescending, snarky, elitist article in the LA Times (see: Hey, Manhattan Beach, preventing pedestrian deaths is more important than your speedy morning commute) which I honestly think was the fire that stirred the pot and kicked off all of this nastiness in the first place…but he blocked me on Twitter so I can’t even follow him if I wanted to, even though I’ve literally not once spoken to, tweeted to, or messaged him in any way. I “liked” many posts that challenged him, but I guess that’s enough of an trigger to get blocked. I don’t typically get involved at all on social media or comment on articles because I have a job and responsibilities, but the small vocal minority is getting so loud, I had step away from my workday to raise my voice in support of the majority of Playa del Rey (not Manhattan Beach). I recommend Mr Flax to listen to the respectful debate between Don Ward and Alexis Edelstein on Bike Talk if he want to learn how to build bridges with those he disagrees with vs instigating and condescending and then complaining about being bullied when he gets pushback.
I have been hearing this claim that road diets are not good for 20,000 or more cars per day. That’s just not true. KeepLAMoving cites this article: https://planning.lacity.org/documents/policy/CompleteStreetDesignGuide.pdf to claim that “National engineering standards (http://bit.ly/2BzxkWF) as well as the LADOT’s own guidelines (http://bit.ly/2AnewcM) disavow the use of road diets on streets with an Average Daily Volume exceeding 20,000 cars.” That is simply untrue. The Complete Street Design, and the FHWA that it is cited from says otherwise.
The LADOT articles states (page 144):
Road diet projects are applied to multi-lane streets
that exhibit unsafe vehicle speeds and have a
documented history of pedestrian and bicycle safety
concerns or that are designated as streets with a
Class II bicycle facility.
• Prior to implementation, road diet projects should
have a traffic analysis conducted to determine their
feasibility.
• According to the FHWA, a four-lane roadway with
average traffic daily volumes up to 20,000 vehicles
represents a good candidates for a potential road
diet project.
Now where does it mention that it is “up to 20,000”.
Thank you Peter for the great article! I agree with Peter that our cyclist community should continue the boycott of local businesses since they removed our lane. We need to show the community that we do have numbers that matter. The dribble stated above about CEQA studies and facts is not important. What’s important is that we change the car culture in Los Angeles at all costs. Everyone must learn to rely more on bicycles and public transit or as we always say “move out of our city!”
Peter – thank you for writing this. I am grateful that we live in a city that is making safety a priority. Most of the people that I know support the changes and are disheartened that the hostility has shut down any opportunity for a productive dialogue.
The bullying and harassment from the campaign to restore the lanes has been horrible. Many of us have left Nextdoor completely. People have told me they are reluctant to go to community events in Mar Vista because they don’t want to deal with the toxicity. The restore campaign urged people not to attend Make it Mar Vista because it was organized by the Mar Vista Chamber of Commerce. Those of us who support Vision Zero have been slandered and personally attacked. The new campaign of videos by restore to demonstrate that small businesses are hurting seem designed to tell people not to shop in that area. You don’t need to use the word boycott if you are saying it is a bad experience.
People are missing the point on this article. It’s just for fun. It’s a bit of anarchist entertainment. Peter is raging against the Mike Bonin and Garcetti machine. He’s saying that they were wrong and lying when they announced the road diet was unpopular and that the lanes were being added back. He’s agreeing with the anti road diet crowd that everyone is on the same side and that is recalling Mike Bonin
Thanks Peter, for your well researched story. It’s a great overview!
All sorts of fake news in this article. It saddens me that those that were pro-diet couldn’t see or believe what was happening. The accidents were way up. There are photos. There is proof. I saw them with my own eyes. I have lived in Playa del Rey for 10 years and never saw the volume of accidents that I did this past summer.
Further – the only notice I ever received about this was after the fact. I heard they wanted to make the streets safer (who doesn’t want that?) but never once did I hear take away lanes. Not once. There was no mass outreach to the community. To say it was put on Facebook or NextDoor is not an acceptable means of outreach when you are changing the landscape of a community. It is my choice to commute 23 miles from my home. I knew that when I took my job but to take a 45 min commute and turn it into a 75 min commute with no advance warning was cruel, unacceptable and simply not right. Without offering better public transportation options. That is crucial to making these programs work and currently, it is is 2.5 commute by bus and rail to my job – one way. Not feasible.
The commute times were also way up. From the 90 fwy to the Nicholson turn used to be, 5- 7 minutes, around 4 pm. Some days it would take me up to 20 minutes. I timed with my cell phone timer. Daily.
The cut through traffic to side streets was also greatly increased.
I felt less safe than ever running, driving or even walking through Playa del Rey as cars were frantic to find a quicker or shorter way home.
There are few ways out of Playa del Rey. We have the ocean. Which also makes us a tsunami zone which by impeding traffic, put more and more lives at risk.
I am grateful Councilman Bonin and the mayor recognized that Playa del Rey was not a good place for a road diet. I am grateful the changes, like speed humps and more crosswalks, happened. Things that should have happened in the first place.
Whoever wrote this doesn’t know shit about what goes on in our neighborhood. They don’t see the daily gridlock from losing a lane, they don’t see the INCREASED accidents. Yes INCREASED. You talk about 1 business, not all the other ones who have shut down or have problems. You dont see that we now have triple the amount of traffic flying down residential streets. Or the fact that getting home now means having to take an alternate route. The people who live here, and grew up in this neighborhood see all these awful changes. So you can just shut the hell up, because you don’t know jack-shit about Mar Vista.
The irony is strong with this yellow journalism-producing writer.
I am a 23 year resident of PDR. This “plan” from Mike Bonin was a disaster of non-communication, ignoring the overwhelmingly negative public response, waste of taxpayer dollars, and a failure to solve the real unsafe situations – Intoxicated drivers or pedestrians on nights and weekends who break the law and cause accidents.
The reality of slowing traffic with speed bumps instead of the wonky desk drone “solutions” that were installed and revised could have happened with honest and forthright community engagement, instead of Bonin’s covert meetings/surveys with a few supporters in order to proclaim an “emergency” solution and settlement in order to avoid the legal hot water he was facing from the lawsuit depositions.
RecallBonin.com