Matt. PE.

Hopefully, this account can grow to be a casual discussion & learning resource for those interested in traffic, transportation, and other urban issues. Follow me to learn with me!

@yummyloserpoint I do agree and long term I think that’s the goal. But in this case the parking garage will open up the adjacent surface lots for (hopefully) housing development by handling the parking question!

@_MattHuff while i do think garages are necessary, i’d disagree with it in this specific case. considering the new hospital nearby, i really wish this had been housing, especially considering nearby grocery stores and the fact that the lincoln blvd brt will come in the future

New parking garage going up in Marina Del Rey! Hot take: a good urbanist should both accept & promote more parking garages as a practical compromise that addresses the #1 source of local pushback to density. I believe in public-private garages & we must study how to build more!

@mrnonel 100% agreed. Ideally these are built outside of urban nodes but intra-node parking garages can be converted to staging easily. Regardless getting better at building these garages helps everyone.

@_MattHuff How about constructing staging sites for autonomous vehicles? They are not parking but waiting for the next passenger pickup.

@Ragcha @KatyForLA Little Ethiopia & Fairfax is a great mini-example of a very widespread problem in LA Should Fairfax at Little Ethiopia be a PLACE where people hang, shop, & eat? Or should it be a PIPE where the movement of goods & people is paramount? The simple truth is that it cannot be both

We should build a parking garage in Little Ethiopia on Fairfax near Olympic — then get rid of street parking for the commercial district and open up more lanes of traffic, so there isn’t such a big jam there every day with people trying to get to and from the 10. @KatyForLA @KarenBassLA @mhdcd8 @nithyavraman

@JohnGonzalesLA1 Agreed! Lots of surface parking with potential in Leimart Park Village, excited to watch how everything develops. Will definitely think more about other uses for parking structures, interesting concept

The simplest answer is to potentially do it on city-owned property, where that is available at key nodes. Potentially with housing above, . That’s my hope for at least one of the surface parking lots in Leimert Park Village. Ground floor commercial with parking above and then housing above that. In an ideal world we’d be able to build parking structures in a way that they could later be adapted to other use without an infeasible amount of construction. That’s a tough bonus to navigate.

@skyforceracing Yes! I’m not in the know on what else is planned in this area but this should unlock those other surface lots once complete. (Surely someone at the County has a plan for MDR right? Should be much more of an important LA destination than it currently is)

@_MattHuff Marina has literally acres and acres of surface parking just waiting to be put to better use. This is a step in the right direction

@BermudaDunesGuy I am 100% on this wave w/ regards to autonomous vehicles BUT I’ve done the math on production numbers and I don’t see adoption reaching that level for a good minute In the meantime garages will smooth the transition & open up space for other uses (can be used to store cars too)

@_MattHuff As the use of Cyber taxis become more common it will eliminate the need for large parking structures.

@MavishTelap Yes! It would at least make other improvements more feasible as the common “but where will people park” resistance becomes null

@_MattHuff this is so pretty and this would revitalize so many historic downtowns esp in the NE

@algoodgroup Now that is simply too good of an idea! It does add some challenges w/ regards to use of the parking garage 1st floor especially in a smaller space like this. But activating the ground floor street level should definitely always be #1 priority

@_MattHuff why dont they make the first floor retail so it can generate some income?

@LAbutyeah Agreed! I think it’s much more politically viable to get road diets/bus/bike lanes if you can offer additional parking at the same time

@_MattHuff Would gladly trade a couple great parking garages in DTLA for some road diets and the strategic removal of street parking.

@SukritGanesh There are many methods of public-private-partnerships that make sense, including this one. And you’re already building a super strong structure, makes sense to activate the top somehow. Unfortunately in this area of MDR I doubt that was an option

@_MattHuff I'd go further. Put up 6-story public parking garages with housing on top. 3 floors of parking open to the public and 3 floors for the housing units. As long as the marginal cost of adding units above the garage is less than the rental income, it makes sense.

@TCAinLAX Mindanoa Way & Admirality Way! Across from Trader Joe’s. Replaces existing surface lot.

@_MattHuff Where is this?

@JohnGonzalesLA1 Street parking going away for alt transport was the major initiator for my thought process. Our ROWs are simply too valuable to store cars. The question that I want to explore is how do we build parking garages at smaller scales / lower costs?

Wholeheartedly agree. Even if you are a car-hating urbanist, these are a good compromise in order to smooth the way for a lot of what you’d like. This will become more evident as zoning rules permit more and more no/reduced parking buildings and street parking gets removed for alternate transportation means,

@mnolangray @aarmlovi The private built environment responds to the public built environment! There should be more legislative focus on this area although the details are understandably murky

As in many areas of US city planning, we try to compensate for our failure to design/manage the public realm by micromanaging everything that happens in the private realm. If you want development to engage with the street, you need streets people actually want to engage with!

The trouble is, if Houston banned front-loading townhouses and slot houses, there wouldn't have been a townhouse boom. This reluctance to micromanage, even when it results slightly suboptimal outcomes, is why Houston builds and other American cities don't.

Street racing at 125+ mph on the I-10 in LA led to a crash, but the Waymo Driver saw it coming: it detected the anomalous situation early, tracked the reckless vehicle post-crash, and maneuvered defensively to safely bypass the scene.

@MuseZack “Simply doing grade separation” My friend, grade separation of active railway is not low-hanging fruit Probably closer to one of the higher fruits imo Low fruit would be to experiment with different full road closures & evaluate traffic impacts (if any) before going permanent.

The lowest hanging fruit to improving the LA Metro system is simply doing grade separation for the light rail lines, especially near downtown. Those trains lose huge amounts of time waiting for red lights on city streets. Then turn the Valley G line from a bus to a train line.

@JohnGonzalesLA1 @mottsmith @metrolosangeles Guilty of the same!

I know. I’ve always had a liking for “Met Her at a Bar” as I met my wife at Hennessey’s in Hermosa Beach. Funny thing is that when a friend told me about “The Night We Met”, all the way through when she later made the reservation for us, I kept forgetting the name as all of those place names are so familiar.

Eight and La Brea, one block from the @metrolosangeles D Line, is off the hook.

@orenbj @mottsmith @metrolosangeles Essentially 2 owners making their corner of LA happen! Inspiring

@mottsmith @metrolosangeles Yes! Such a happening intersection.

@JohnGonzalesLA1 @mottsmith @metrolosangeles The Night We Met has the best ambience! Fun fact: the owners own that corner building, and every other corner building at that intersection except for All Seasons. Her Little Bar Met Him At a Bar Met Her at a Bar Her Thai Night We Met was actually the most recent acquisition!

We went to The Night We Met, on the northeast corner a few weeks back and liked it. Nice vibe and solid Pan-Asian food. I hope, now that the rail is open, that someone can make the long empty and always challenged Luna Park space across La Brea from the portal into something good.

@Cassy_Horton This exactly. Proud is the feeling of this moment for sure

@_MattHuff Metro is doing the best work of any local agency in LA especially when it comes to community activation and culture, and delivering meaningful, visible, and consistent improvement to people’s lives. It makes me proud to be an Angeleno

Honestly, LA’s Metro agency deserves much more credit than it’s currently given. It’s nearly impossible to get community consensus from a single neighborhood block, let alone several cities and county!