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!

@seandsweeney @markreabaker I’ve always been interested in this - regardless of what the $ / space cost is, what is that number mostly comprised of? What are the largest components to parking space cost (materials, labor, design, etc? Guessing labor?

@markreabaker Oh man ouch.

Back-of-the-napkin number every new developer should memorize: One structured parking space costs $25,000 to $50,000 to build per spot. So when the code says your 20-unit building needs 35 spaces, that's not a minor detail. That’s $1 million added the project before anyone signs a lease. Projects usually need parking. But it should be up to the developer to decide how much.

This is a case where you do, in fact, have to hand it to the ccp

@beckyhartung This is due to cities seeking “cost recovery” balanced budgets There is some labor cost required to process the permit & drop off the barricades. Culver City just approved a new fee schedule that subsidizes it entirely, after trying for a year to recover the cost from residents

If you wanted to close down a residential street in Pasadena for a one-time block party, the permit is free, but the barricade rental/delivery is $483.

@jph_hokie @mnolangray Yes! A fellow new wave TE Let’s change the culture best we can

@_MattHuff @mnolangray I’m also in favor of narrowing pavement space (fellow TE), and providing pedestrian, bike, and transit facilities. My favorite projects have been overhauling car-dominant spaces for true multi-modal accessibility. Emergency services veto a lot of decisions.

Even if your local zoning and building codes allowed it, your local fire marshal and traffic engineers would kill it.

Waiting at the airport to greet some friends, the joy that I’m seeing on other arrival’s faces when they reunite with loved ones is so good for the soul. So human, so happy.

Culver Public Market project goes vertical at Washington Blvd & Centinela Ave! This project spans two lots on either side of Centinela. Lots of nearby development, great restaurants (Hatchet Hall/Spanish Comedor) & bars. Very bullish on this part of town

@JeffNewman_ Agreed. That’s why we shouldn’t just concentrate growth in one narrow linear corridor with no concern for transportation needs. Holistic approach, TOD, etc.

@_MattHuff That Wilshire Corridor is an armpit...

This is exactly how I model urbanism YIMBY, growth, etc: Things must grow or else they begin to fade. That’s just how things (life) work At some point, a society grows to a geometric maximum where unit smaller-than-car travel is reqd to keep growing. This is just natural order.

LA gets these vibes again in just 2 years 😎 Olympics LA28!

Estamos perdidos, Estados Unidos aprendió a jugar al fútbol. Es el fin del deporte tal como lo conocemos, quedan máximo 10 años sin que sean campeones de todo y cambien las reglas para que entren superheroes de Marvel a dar publicidades cada 15 minutos. Aguantamos lo que pudimos.

@Lib_Development Out of curiosity what do you mean by “compress this”? But agreed, it’s true test will come when/if the People Mover opens

Wow the new LAX transit center is a fucking cathedral, damn. Hard to say without the peoplemover if it’s overbuilt. But the configuration of the bus bays is so bad, they really needed to compress this. Also it’s outside, so like Jamaica it doesn’t feel as expensive as it is

6 months ago I started a project to stay more informed on the changes discussed in my nearby council & committee meetings. It has now grown into a SoCal-wide mission to increase transparency & engagement IQ for all public meetings. Here’s a breakdown of platforms used by cities

@markkersey If you’re repaving, it just makes sense to make any road changes at that time. Design cost is negligible. Street repair/maintenance budgets should not be this barebones to begin with!

Definitely agree with the mayor on this one. Cutting road repair in favor of bike lane design is not what the vast majority of San Diegans want to see

The 1st part of this take is mostly true. The 2nd part is mostly false & repeated so often that I actually went & became a traffic engineer to test it. Even if US traffic engineers pushed 100% toward safer, higher mobility streets - the average voter would resist & reject it!

@CohenSite Wow, the market speaks! Obviously not *all* due to reduction in required parking but cool to see developers make that decision themselves

New CHIP developments filed in the last year in LA are overwhelmingly providing less than 1 parking space per unit.

“Drivers have been freed up to help customers” Think about every job that requires driving, especially in stressful dangerous areas. (Reminder that the average commuter drives an hour a day) Imagine what getting ~10% of the awake&non-working day back does to people & economy?

@fran_geleno @UrbanCourtyard Right? This place is incredible for grabbing a coffee at goodboybob and walking over to read a book/work. Not very inviting from the street tho.

@_MattHuff @UrbanCourtyard I’ve never seen anybody walk from the E Line station to this development, and I’m not sure why

The Water Gardens in Santa Monica feel extremely underrated and under-discussed. Directly adjacent to rail transit, wonderful design & sense of place. Just wish it had some residential. @UrbanCourtyard does this count as courtyard urbanism??

@yonahnthewhale @UrbanCourtyard Dying to know how easy an office-to-resi convert would be. About how occupied would you say the office spaces are out of curiosity?

@_MattHuff @UrbanCourtyard I work here and it’s great but no good food option and ya since no residential it’s dead and not used on weekends

That’s an interesting point with regard to the way CMs would probably have voted this election. Perhaps thats more indicative of them needing to work together post election (which might actually be a good thing that only CMs *would* know vs voters). However yes, I don’t think any re-structuring would eliminate the complaining we are now seeing but maybe it would focus it on more local issues/races instead of the system at large, which I don’t think is healthy. And agreed, redistricting along demographic/socio-economic lines could only help. Let us know if there’s anyway people can help with this cause!

Good discussion. I said the mayoral election is representative because the vote there isn’t a direct where we would actually vote on each issue the mayor decides upon. I am a fan of as much participation as possible. It’s why I prefer issues to be settled at the lowest level of government as is practical. I don’t really think that voting on Council reps, who vote on the mayor (also a rep) is any more representative, and there are certainly practical/application concerns. I think our system of an independently elected mayor, and elected council works best in a sort of two branch set-up. In the context of the specific happening at hand, the council wouldn’t chose Pratt. We know that 11 of 15 endorsed Bass, 1 is Raman, and so far the other three (Park, Yaroslavsky, Rodríguez) haven’t officially endorsed. Rodríguez gave a pretty positive motivating speech at Bass’ event on Tuesday, so she wouldn’t chose Pratt. If we called the election and let council Pick mayor, they’d pick Bass or maybe Harris-Dawson since he’s president, and the right / Prattsters would be having a fit over added power to the liberal council, and woukd have the same complaint about “democracy” when their councilmember choice lost an election. . I am a fan of redistricting with demographic concerns, which we attempt to address, and of expanding the number of districts. I just don’t see that doing that and instilling more power in council would change these results. I want Bass to win. I’m nit going to whine about broken democracy if she loses. I’m going to conclude that I was outnumbered and my complaint will be that others may not be thinking as smartly. But I don’t get to establish their beliefs or priorities for them. Best I can do is advocate for having who’s elected govern as I see best or compromise, convince others of the same for the term or the next election, and hope that City Council acts as an informed balance. I’ve not seen any better suggestion as to a system of running the city.

If Raman takes second and Pratt does not qualify for the general election, after days upon days of thinking he would, it will be the political equivalent of watching the Palisades burn again. If you can’t hold leaders accountable for their failures, then democracy does not exist.