Lunch with Wendy

I just got back from lunch with Los Angeles Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who chairs the council's transportation committee. Greuel is running for city controller next March and said she plans to spend what could be her last year on the council trying to eliminate barriers that keep people from taking mass transit.

"My theme is going to be that we have this mass transit system that can work for people but there are obstacles built in that disincentive people from taking it," Greuel said. She gave three examples of things she's trying to prod Metro (the agency formerly known as the MTA) into doing:

1. Use stacked or valet parking at the crowded subway stations in the San Fernando Valley. There are parking lots at Universal City and North Hollywood, but they fill early. "If I have a breakfast in the Valley and then want to take the subway to downtown, I can't," said Greuel, who lives in Studio City.

2. Get the subway to run later on Friday and Saturday nights, when people are out and may not want to go home early. Service to most stations ends between midnight and 1 a.m.

3. Allow buses to actually drop off riders inside Burbank airport.

All seemingly good ideas and Greuel said she's hoping to prod Metro into fixing all three. Afterward, she went to a news conference in the Civic Center to remind motorists that California's hands-free cell phone laws go into effect at midnight.

--Steve Hymon

Photo: City of Los Angeles

Comments

[LOVE_GROWTH]

market-based parking? that will get rid of the problem. they can be creative about it, god forbid angelenos are asked to pay for the cost of providing them w/ free parking.

[Tony Fernandez]

Encourage more development around the stations so that people don't have to drive there, they can just live there. Add more bike racks and bike lanes so that people have yet another option for getting to the station besides a car.

[M]

Did something happen that I am not aware of with the NBC/Universal takeover of the MTA parking lots at Universal City? The last plans I saw includes thousands of parking spots and up to 8 stories of parking garage (although there will only be about 100 more spots for metro riders than in the current lot). This sucks for the people that actually walk and bike to this station and don't like having to compete with cars for their life and actually take in the view of the northern mountains. My daily walk from the Universal City train station to my apartment is regularly the most dangerous part of my entire commute because of the cars that are oh-so-eager to get onto the freeway at the end of the work-day. Biking to the metro stations is pretty fast and parking bikes takes up way less room than a car. The biggest problem with biking is the car traffic.