Urban planning master’s student Huma Husain got a mention on the blog Curbed for her capstone project involving complete streets in Los Angeles. Husain found that about 11 different local and state agencies have jurisdiction over the design of even just a small cross section of street. Curbed also posted a graphic she made that shows all the different agencies involved—and illustrates just how difficult it can be to redesign streets for all users in L.A. Read it here.

Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the Lewis Center and a professor of Urban Planning, was featured prominently in aUCLA Today story on what has come to be known as “The Rampture” — major reconstruction of on- and off-ramps at Wilshire Boulevard and the 405 Freeway. Taylor offered a sober assessment of the work’s likely impact on local traffic. “It would be easier if we could just shut everything down,” Taylor said. “Instead, we have to do this while we’re still moving 300,000 vehicles through there a day. … There are going to be incredible delays.” Starting June 22, the entrance ramp from westbound Wilshire to the northbound 405 and the exit ramp from northbound 405 to westbound Wilshire will close for 90 days. Crews will work around the clock to demolish and reconstruct the ramps in a configuration designed to reduce backups and encourage traffic flow. The ramp work is part of a $1 billion widening project covering 10[…]

UCLA Lewis center will be hosting a roundtable panel called Stabilizing Neighborhoods: Innovations in Local Housing Markets, which will focus on strategic responses by key actors who seek to alleviate the impacts of battered local housing markets and the underperformance of local economies. Panelists from both the private and public sector will share their experiences working with communities, banks, and local governments to stabilize local neighborhoods. Although the downturn in economic and housing markets has disproportionately and negatively affected the poor, this period of low housing and land value also may be an opportunity for increased affordable housing production. Panelists will discuss potential opportunities, public-private partnerships, and strategies for developing affordable housing.

Lewis Center Executive Committee Member J.R. DeShazo and staff researcher Juan Matute’s chapter on the Local Regulation of Climate Change will be available in the Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning, edited by Lewis Center Faculty Fellow Randall Crane and MIT Professor Rachel Weber.  The chapter highlights the challenges to operationalizing global climate action goals at the community level – where there is not yet consensus about how to measure greenhouse gas emissions let alone how to assign and enforce responsiblity for emissions reductions.  DeShazo and Matute put forward a framework for measurement that would move local governments forward on these two goals.

Lewis Center Executive Committee Member J.R. DeShazo and staff researcher Juan Matute’s chapter on the Local Regulation of Climate Change will be available in the Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning, edited by Lewis Center Faculty Fellow Randall Crane and MIT Professor Rachel Weber.  The chapter highlights the challenges to operationalizing global climate action goals at the community level – where there is not yet consensus about how to measure greenhouse gas emissions let alone how to assign and enforce responsiblity for emissions reductions.  DeShazo and Matute put forward a framework for measurement that would move local governments forward on these two goals.

For a summary of THE FUTURE OF CALIFORNIA REDEVELOPMENT DISCUSSION please go here. 

From the NY Times: Program aims to make the streets of San Francisco easier to park on   Excerpt from NY Times Story: “But San Francisco is trying to shorten the hunt with an ambitious experiment that aims to make sure that there is always at least one empty parking spot available on every block that has meters. The program, which uses new technology and the law of supply and demand, raises the price of parking on the city’s most crowded blocks and lowers it on its emptiest blocks. While the new prices are still being phased in — the most expensive spots have risen to $4.50 an hour, but could reach $6 — preliminary data suggests that the change may be having a positive effect in some areas. Change can already be seen on a stretch of Drumm Street downtown near the Embarcadero and the popular restaurants at the Ferry Building. Last summer it was nearly impossible to find spots there. But after[…]

The idea of “complete streets”—that is, streets designed with all users, not just cars, in mind—isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere yet. On Friday, planners, engineers, advocates, and students convened at the second annual UCLA Complete Streets for California conference at the Kyoto Grand Hotel downtown to renew their excitement in complete streets, see photos of cool projects around the country, and discuss how to make complete streets the norm in California. Advocates hope a widespread focus on complete streets in California could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging more walking and biking, but also promote healthier lifestyles, as explained by UCLA public health professor Richard Jackson. The head cheerleader was keynote speaker, Gil Penalosa, executive director of healthy communities nonprofit 8-80 Cities and former government supporter of complete streets initiatives in Bogota, Colombia (where Ciclovia, a model for Los Angeles’ CicLAvia, happens every Sunday). He made a case for designing cities where people age 8 to age 80[…]

We would like to announce that the power point presentation from the 2nd Complete Streets for CA Conference are available. To get all the coverage, please visit here We encourage everyone to share the presentations with colleagues that were not able to attend the event. Please also view our conference highlight video here

Madeline Brozen, the Program Manager for the UCLA Complete Streets Initiative, spoke on Wednesday February 29 on the UCLA Campus.  The event was meant to emphasize the importance of making the UCLA campus more bike friendly.  Such accomplishments are visible in places like UC Davis, which is considered the most bike friendly campus in the US. UCLA has a few challenges like the major arterials and huge traffic volumes that surrounds it. Adjacent to our campus is also the highest intersection in the entire city at Wilshire and the 405 where 120,000 cars per day go through the intersection.  Such challenges mean that it will take a combination of factors to make UCLA a bike-able community. Highlights of Madeline’s talk: a. Have a website where people can share the bike routes they take to campus. For example, Westholme although it has sharrows it is a very steep 3 block climb.  Many bikers have to find alternate ways to get to campus.[…]