In July of 2017, Los Angeles installed a "road diet" on a 0.8 mile stretch of Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista that reduced driving lanes from four to two so that bike lanes could be installed, according to the Wall Street Journal.
These new bike lanes were apart of genius Mayor Eric "Yoga Pants" Garcetti's Vision Zero initiative. His plan was to eliminate traffic fatalities in Los Angeles by 2025. But the "road diet" on Venice Boulevard only separates bike lanes from traffic with parking buffers.
Of course, like most plans or ideas that come from Mayor Yoga Pants, the idea of a "road diet" has been a complete disaster. Pedestrian deaths have nearly doubled in the last couple of years. In 2015, the number of deaths totaled 74 and jumped to 135 in 2017. On top of this all, Los Angeles still holds the record for the world's worst traffic!! So instead of fixing this problem and seeing the city's air quality reduced to 1980's levels, Garcetti decides to eliminate driving lanes on certain streets making situations worse than before. Sign this guy up for the 2020 Presidential Campaign.
It's nice and humble to want to keep the streets of Los Angeles as safe as possible, but government officials really need to stop pushing projects on communities if the results prove they don't work. It causes a complete inconvenience to residents, hurts businesses, and adds more unnecessary stress and problems to emergency medical responders in the process.
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