This is critical: if you live, work, or own property on or near North Figueroa Street in Cypress Park or Highland Park, get yourself to the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council meeting tomorrow, Thursday, September 25th, and speak out for the North Fig road diet. You owe it to yourself, your family and neighbors, your employees, and even your bosses, because this is the meeting at which District One Council Member Gil Cedillo will try definitively to move the bike lanes proposed for our main drag over the Marmion Way.
Okay, Marmion Way is a nice ride, even though it winds through some rather desiccated landscapes, but it doesn’t get bicyclists—and potential bicyclists—to the shops, schools, eateries, and amenities they need to reach.
But this is not solely about bicyclists: road diets serve the entire community and all its visitors. Although Cedillo steadfastly and mysteriously refuses to accept the conclusions of decades of observations, road diets reduce crashes, deaths, and injuries; they improve community feeling and public health; and they bring new prosperity to local businesses.
In fact, it is high time that the City of Los Angeles implement the already approved, designed, and funded road diet on North Figueroa Street, so that the communities it serves can enjoy the following primary benefits:
Road diets bring prosperity to local businesses, boosting sales, which in turn boosts tax income to the city. This is not opinion; this is fact. See what the Wall Street Journal has to say about it here.
Road diets often even reduce the time it takes for cut-through drivers to cut through your neighborhoods, by raising average speeds while reducing deadly peak speeds. This is not opinion; this is fact. See what New York City’s DOT has to say about it here.
In short, there is no reason, logical or otherwise, that North Figueroa should remain the bleak and murderous speedway that it is today.
If you’re reading this after the meeting, or if Cedillo has filibustered the meeting as he has so many others, to prevent road diet advocates from speaking, click here to send a preformatted email exposing the above three points to Cedillo’s office, the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council, and the LADOT. And you can edit the letter if you wish. Just be sure to sign it and note your NELA home or work address.
We’ve wasted enough time…and lives.
Meeting details:
Thursday, September 25th at 7 pm
Montecito Heights Senior Center
4545 Homer Street, 90031
[map]
One Comment
No filibustering will occur at this meeting. I am the Chair of the Transportation committee and I will be running this meeting. Bike lane advocates who complete speaker cards will be called upon to speak. Cedillo’s staff member(s) will speak first and will have a time limit. Then the meeting will be open to public comment, also timed, depending on remaining meeting time.