Things to read from the past week:
- The U.S. finally has a system to prevent deadly rail accidents. It took 50 years: "Using GPS signals, wayside radio towers and onboard computers, positive train control can track every train in the U.S. moving across nearly 60,000 miles of track. It’s designed to automatically stop a train if an engineer runs a signal, or slow it down if it’s moving too fast." (LA Times)
- After a Year of Uncertainty, Hollywood and E-commerce Can Save LA in 2021: "The entertainment capital of the world is also at the heart of the e-commerce boom. As major job generators, the two sectors will likely form the foundation of L.A.’s recovery." (Commercial Observer)
- How do people cope with crushing rents?: "Rent burden describes much of a person’s or family’s income goes towards paying the rent. We have maps that show rent burden, we have data; we assume we know what we are talking about when we say the “rent burden is too high.”....But we really don’t."(Lisa Schweitzer)
- Downey Freeway Fighters Hang NO MORE LANES Banner over 5 Freeway: "...a slogan used by the Happy City Coalition, a group that recently formed to oppose Metro and Caltrans’ plan to demolish hundreds of homes to widen the 605 and 5 Freeways." (Streetsblog LA)
- COVID-19 is making LA safer for pedestrians: "Total pedestrian-vehicle collisions in 2020 fell by 70%, to 1,135, down from the 3,733 collisions reported in 2019, according to publicly available data from the Los Angeles Police Department." (Crosstown)
- Remember the Green New Deal? Mayor Garcetti Explains Where That Stands: "It's been almost two years since Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a Green New Deal for the city. Battling climate change, he said, was not only a moral imperative but an environmental emergency and an economic opportunity. Setting an ambitious target date of 2050 to achieve a zero-carbon electrical grid, transportation system, and buildings, as well as zero waste and zero wasted water, the Green New Deal was a bold idea. So how is the city doing so far?" (Spectrum News 1)
- Long Beach moves ahead with program to legalize unpermitted units – if owners make them affordable: "While the units would be exempt from some zoning and planning regulations, owners would be responsible for bringing them into compliance with safety codes." (Long Beach Press-Telegram)
- Governor Newsom to Propose $4.5 Billion for Equitable Recovery for California’s Businesses and Jobs in 2021 Budget: "Calls for immediate action to support small businesses, including $575 million on top of the $500 million previously allocated to California’s Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant, bringing total support to more than $1 billion" (CA Governor's Office)
- LA, Irvine rank in top 20 on list of best cities to live in without a car for 2021: Wait...really? (ABC 7)
- LA County Extends Eviction Moratorium To End Of February And Boosts Protections For Renters (LAist)
- Los Angeles Mayor Blames COVID Outbreak on Density: A lesson on the difference between density and crowding (Planetizen)
- Downtown developer will pay $1.2 million in L.A. City Hall corruption case: "Carmel Partners, which is developing the tower known as 520 Mateo in L.A.'s Arts District, agreed to make the payment as part of a nonprosecution agreement reached between the parties last month. The three-year agreement will spare the firm from becoming a defendant in the corruption case." (LA Times)
- New West Hollywood task force to address housing: "The task force, which is composed of community members, is intended to help advise the city on how it can best meet its regional housing needs allocation number in the coming eight-year cycle, including 1,063 very low income units." (Beverly Press)
- Los Angeles 1960s in color: A drive up Hill Street between 9th and 3rd Streets - Pershing Square, the Subway Terminal Building, the Foreman & Clark Building, and other landmarks are visible (NASS YouTube)
- Metro experiencing staff shortages and canceled trips due to regional surge in COVID-19 cases: "The number of new COVID-19 cases has exploded in Southern California over the past two months — and Metro, unfortunately, is feeling the impact on our bus and rail service due to staffing shortages. As a result, some bus and rail trips will likely be canceled each day over the next few weeks. For example, on Monday, Jan. 4, we had to cancel about 10 percent of trips." (The Source)
