http://la.streetsblog.org/2015/11/25/city-council-votes-to-rescindre-adopt-mobility-plan-2035-substantive-amendments-to-be-discussed-in-2016/
By Sahra Sulaiman, November 25, 2015
Representatives of the National Resources Defense Council, Investing in
Place, Los Angeles County Bike Coalition, Los Angeles Walks, and TRUST
South L.A., along with Don Ward/Roadblock, gather outside the City
Council chambers.
Midway through a rather uneventful City Council meeting — minus the
dude pacing the aisle in what looked like a Klu Klux Klan hood made out
of a pillowcase — the council took the next steps forward on
Mobility Plan 2035.
You will recall that Fix the City — tireless
crusaders against “lane-stealing” transit users and cyclists
— launched a lawsuit against the city for not following proper
procedure in adopting the plan to bring Los Angeles into compliance with
Complete Streets principles via safe, accessible, and “world class”
infrastructure. The council had adopted amendments to the plan and
approved it without first sending it back to the City Planning
Commission for review.
To remedy this problem, the council essentially went the route of a
do-over. They would rescind their vote to adopt the amended plan, and
then vote to adopt the original draft plan, as considered and
recommended by the City Planning Commission and the Mayor last spring.
The proposed amendments — now detached from the plan — would be sent to
committee for review and discussion.
Using this approach, the Plan successfully
made it through a joint committee meeting on November 10 and was sent back up for a full council vote.
Today’s vote, Councilmember Jose Huizar said as he introduced the
rescind/re-adopt motion, would be more procedural than anything (given
that the council had previously approved the original Plan in August).
And the amendments which were more technical in nature (seeking changes
in wording, for example) could be heard in December, while amendments
seeking more substantive changes — greater community engagement or voice
on implementation, the removal of bike lanes from the plan, etc. —
could be heard in February, when there would also be discussion of the
environmental impact of potential changes.
When Councilmember Mike Bonin stood to second the rescind/re-adopt
motion, he said he was doing so to ensure that the Mobility Plan was on
the soundest of legal footing going forward.
“But I also want to take a moment to remind us all of what this plan
is about,” he continued. “This plan is about mobility in Los Angeles.
This plan is about giving people an opportunity to get out of the
increasing, soul-sucking gridlock we have in this city. It is about
stopping the process we have now which
forces people into their cars and [offering] them an alternative.”
It “doesn’t make a lot of sense in a city that has 300 days of
sunshine and is relatively flat,” he said, that 84 per cent of the trips
Angelenos make under three miles are made by car.
It also doesn’t make sense, he continued, that Los Angeles has such a “horrible,
horrible track
record…of pedestrian deaths.” The emphasis on safety, improved
infrastructure, environmental protection, and improved access to transit
would fundamentally change the way residents interacted with the city
and each other. And “this plan, if fully implemented,” he concluded,
“would put 90 per cent of people in Los Angeles within one mile of a
transit stop. 90 per cent. That is a game-changing thing.”
Only two other councilmembers stood to speak.
Councilmember Mitch Englander said he agreed with Bonin, but had
concerns about the ability of stakeholders to add their input when it
came time to implement the plan in their communities. He asked that the
council vote twice on
the motion
— once to approve the rescind/re-adopt resolution and a second time to
send any amendments, including two added at the last minute by
Councilmember David Ryu, to committee to ensure that they were heard
(and, “out of an abundance of caution,” met the legal procedural
requirements).
Councilmember Paul Koretz, ever stalwart in his opposition, stood to
announce, “I’m opposed to any actions until we’ve actually removed the
Westwood Blvd. bike lane from this plan.”
Noting that because today’s vote would mean that any amendments to the plan would be heard only
after its approval, he repeated his stance, saying, “I’ll vote no on this and anything else until Westwood Blvd. has been removed.”
As no public comment was heard, Koretz’ brief comments were as adversarial as the discussion on the motion got.
When council president Herb Wesson called for votes on the
rescind/re-adopt motion and the motion to send all amendments to
committee, both passed rather resoundingly. Koretz, Englander, and Ryu
opposed the rescind/re-adopt motion (Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Paul
Krekorian were not present; Ryu’s vote first registered as “yes” and
then was changed verbally).

The
vote to rescind/re-adopt the Mobility Plan passed with 9 votes in
favor, and only Koretz, Englander, and Ryu (verbally) voting in
opposition.
The vote to send the amendments to the Plan to committee for further review and discussion passed with only one opposing vote.

The motion to send the amendments to committee for review and discussion passed with only Koretz voting in opposition.
The fact that the Plan had moved forward so easily and so
unceremoniously seemed to take community members hoping to speak in its
favor a bit by surprise. Only when Wesson moved on to the next item was
there finally a smattering of applause.
Outside the chambers, the group of supporters gathered to discuss the vote.
They were happy, said
Malcolm Harris,
Director of Programs & Organizing at
TRUST South L.A.,
that the City Council had come out in support of the Mobility Plan. But
they were still interested in ensuring that the South L.A. community
was engaged on the Plan and that its final iteration was more
representative of the vision of a diverse group of stakeholders.
Most
of the outreach regarding the Plan had taken place online (under the
name “LA/2B”) and used language and concepts that were not always
accessible or relevant to residents of marginalized communities.
Moreover, the level of education in basic planning one might have needed
to have in order to either understand the impact of the various options
presented in the online surveys or to be able to suggest (and justify)
alternatives would have excluded many from being able to participate
outright, regardless of their ability to connect to the LA2B website. As
a result, the visions of communities like South L.A. were not
well-represented in the final product.
And, as Victor Aquino (also with TRUST) said, the community’s
mobility needs did not stand in isolation from other concerns. While
door-knocking in South Central to gather
support for the Central Avenue bike lane
and engage residents on mobility more generally, he explained, he and
other volunteers were finding that residents spoke of mobility as being
inextricably intertwined with issues like health, economic development,
and safety. Shifts in one area — say, a rise in rents — could have a
significant impact on everything else (e.g. impacting their transit or
food budgets, forcing people to move to more distant, more crowded, or
substandard housing, etc.)
They were looking forward, Aquino and other members of TRUST said, to
further engaging area business owners and residents of all ages,
particularly the youth, to dialogue on what a representative plan should
encompass.
As if to prove that point,
the youngest volunteer in attendance, Sherry Alvarado, read out the statement
she had planned to give during public comment. Her brother had been hit
by a car, she said, holding up a grisly photo of his battered leg,
“because the road wasn’t fit for a bike.”
Safer streets for all users can’t come soon enough.