L.A. moves forward with anti-camping law, traffic deaths continue to rise

Landlord Ivanhoé Cambridge has signed Hueston Hennigan to a nearly 34,000-square-foot lease expansion and extension at the PacMutual campus in Downtown Los Angeles, reports the L.A. Business Journal.  The new lease, a roughly 25 percent expansion on the firm's existing space, will run for a term of seven years.

The Business Journal also reports that Osmose Utilities Services, Inc. of Atlanta will open its first Los Angeles area offices at The Lakes in West Covina.  The approximately 6,000-square-foot space will house engineers, wood scientists, field technicians, and a sales team, among other functions.

Things to read from the past week

Editorial: Speed kills. It’s time for California to slow down cars "Critics of AB 43 argue that speed limits have little effect on speeding. Rather, drivers’ speed matches the design of the road. That’s mostly true, and it’s why we wholeheartedly support redesigning streets to slow down traffic and make them safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. But roadway redesigns take study, money and public buy-in. Communities could be left waiting years for safer street design, while the death toll from speeding continues to rise." (LA Times)

Should Whittier’s pandemic-prompted Greenleaf Promenade be made permanent? "Whittier city officials decision to close Greenleaf Avenue to cars and open it to merchants last year may have saved Michael Kachoeff’s 6740 and Modern Shaman’s restaurants from going out of business.  At the time, Kachoeff, like all other restaurant owners, couldn’t operate indoors because of state and Los Angeles County rules designed to fight the pandemic. So the city closed vehicular traffic on Greenleaf Avenue between Wardman and Bailey streets to allow restaurants to set up tables outdoors, normally under an awning." (Whittier Daily News)

A Look Back — and Ahead — as the LA Convention Center Turns 50 "As L.A. boosters gear up to mark the convention center’s golden anniversary with a celebration planned for July 29, plans are also moving ahead on a $1.2 billion expansion designed to secure the venue’s future in an increasingly competitive convention market." (LA Business Journal)

Carson mobile home park closures put owners, residents at odds, with city in the middle "The owners of the park say they’ve gone above and beyond what state law requires to accommodate Holtzman and the 130 or so other residents there. That includes, officials said, offering to let residents stay in a planned mixed-use development on that site with the same rent they pay now." (Daily Breeze)

What Activists, Legacy Media Miss in Chinatown "The sale of the Dynasty Center, which spreads from the 800 block of N. Broadway to Spring Street, hardly registered with the local legacy media. It nevertheless represents much more than meets the eyes of desk-bound observers who might never have actually entered Dynasty Center—which appears from the outside to be just another nondescript building in Chinatown." (Sullivan)

Where can we be in the City of Los Angeles?  Mapping the implications of proposed update to City of Los Angeles Municipal Code 41.18 UCLA researchers map the potential impacts of LA's anti-camping ordinance (ArcGIS)

If the Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan Fails, California and L.A. Lose Big "If President Joe Biden signs the bill into law in its present form, it would be America’s largest structural investment since the New Deal era. But if the bill is scuttled in the Senate, California could lose about $920 million dedicated to 200 projects such as a dozen bridge repair and construction projects, including a $1 million dollar pedestrian bridge in Wilmington and a bridge safety barrier rail at in Burbank at a cost of $2 million; electric vehicle charging stations for Burbank, Oakland, and San Pedro at about $2.1 million; bike lane expansions and widening in such cities as L.A., North Hollywood, Pasadena, and Camarillo for $6.6 million; and statewide wastewater and drinking water projects; as well as preparing for rising sea levels by shoring up impacted infrastructure." (LA Magazine)

Halfway Through 2021, LA Traffic Deaths Are On Track To Exceed Last Year’s Figures "There was an accepted understanding of traffic safety pre-pandemic: that fewer cars on the roads would mean fewer traffic deaths. That’s not what happened in L.A. and other U.S. cities last year, as more open roads enticed people that did drive to go too fast, leading to a higher rate of deadly crashes and a nearly unchanged death toll from 2019." (LAist)

Here's How Hard L.A. Has Made It to Install a Bus Shelter "L.A.’s complicated 16-step process requires engagement from no less than eight city departments, plus a sign-off from an elected official for every single one." (Curbed)

Infrastructure Deal ‘Worst Ratio for Transit Funding Since Nixon’ "Many details of the bill remain vague, but many sustainable transportation advocates were troubled by top-line funding ratios that would give transit a smaller percentage share of federal dollars than at any point since the Nixon administration, slash 95 percent of funding for a program that would reconnect BIPOC communities sundered by highways, and threw only crumbs to ending the accelerating roadway safety crisis." (Streetsblog USA)

L.A. finalizes its anti-camping law, setting the stage for vote-by-vote enforcement "The ordinance prohibits sitting, sleeping or storing items on public property near libraries, parks, day-care centers, schools and other locations. But it also states that enforcement in such places cannot occur until the City Council has reviewed a location and voted to give the go-ahead." (LA Times)