Transfer tax deal is live. It’s going to be a fun 72 hours! leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNa...

The station plazas are, obviously, victims of the housing crisis. They are intentionally uninviting to reduce the appeal for people to sleep there. But the galactic take is there shouldn’t be station plazas on Wilshire at all, it should be developed like 7th/Metro. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Topography and climate of LA: one structure fire, 100 miles of smoke from Thousand Oaks to Banning.

It would be so easy for California to do a receipt lottery like Taiwan. It would bring in so much sales tax revenue

Despite all the tall-ass curbs I've seen in LA I only today realized that the _prescriptive_ standard was actually 8"! The BOE's street design manual claims going too short poses a danger to pedestrians, but curbs only impede cars that are either slow or at glancing angles.

TIL that LA Metro transit signal priority has been impacted by copper wire theft of LADOT loop detectors. See the Nov 2025 memo at the bottom of this report. The City ended its copper wire theft task force in July 2025. lacity.primegov.com/viewer/previ...

Excellence in paving in Los Angeles in... a random dead-end alley. Not sure what the story is here, possibly improvements extracted from some recent nearby MFH developments?

Wow, it looks like the collapse of Institutional Revolution Today (IRT - Center/Brownist) is leaving the floor clear for Everybody Movement (Center/Bay Area) to become the largest party. It's unclear whether they'll work with Not Me Us (NMU - left/Bay Area) or Accelerate! (Right/LA + VC)

Definitely less aversion to congestion in France vs Canada, in my experience as a binational. If you want some resources on road designs in France, the CEREMA (www.cerema.fr/fr), which merged with the now-defunct CERTU, is a good starting point. This one, for example: doc.cerema.fr/Default/doc/...

The draft SB 79 implementation methodology from @scagnews.bsky.social is out, and it's got some eyebrow-raising stuff! Memo here; thread below:

SCAG wants to pull the rug out from under SB 79 in LA. They want to eliminate planned train lines that haven't fully completed the CEQA process, like the K Line north and Sepulveda Line. Some of our best neighborhoods! Boo!

With more Platner discourse on the tl [end mandatory bsky politics tie-in], I encounter Homeless Skinhead With A Swastika Face Tat And PURE WEST NOW Sleeve Distributing Esoteric Millenarian Literature Who Supports Total Barbarian Genocide (Buddhistly) straight out of a contrived logic experiment

Emeryville’s Powell/Hollis slip turn lane closure project is finally complete, with landscaping, bollards, & green crossing markings for the Emeryville Greenway now all installed.

Oh, surely it can't be THAT bad -- OH GOD (Spectators: the LAX people mover section begins on page 549 here: grandjury.co.la.ca.us/pdf/2024-25%...)

Bass is in such a precarious enough position though that if she does it too much then she gets Lori Lightfooted out of the general. Ideally she should try to platform Huang to both shore up her center-right base and split the people to the left of her more equally.

New Luskin poll for LA mayoral election: Bass 25%, Pratt 11%, Raman 9%, undecided 40%. n=813, late March luskin.ucla.edu/volatility-a...

I very nearly retired early today. 23 traffic signals and was only stopped at three for 136" (86" of that from a state signal). 11.6% stopped at signals 4 3% stopped at City operated signals.

Another vague international comparative sense I have for something vaguely relating to curbs is on drainage. Generally, the tendency seems to be that North America has fewer, higher-capacity inlets (catch basins) with center-running storm sewers, vs more closely-spaced inlets with curb-running sewer

Online one sometimes sees Europeans, especially Britishers, note that actually, the standard curb (sorry, kerb) height is 15 cm or so. This is sort of true (but not really descriptively true). Anyways, I stumbled on some curb height patriots from the UK affirmatively defending 60 cm curbs.

From a vehicular cycling facebook group while searching for the history of an MUTCD clause: "segregationist farce-silities" (n.b. "crosswalk along a shared use path"). Impeccable Foresterist Standard English.

That’s definitely the concern I have with trying to replicate any of this in the US. You can’t really do Dutch materials without Dutch maintenance culture. Which in turn depends on different financing mechanisms (taxes rather than one-off impact fees, etc.)

Also Switzerland: buses can turn left from the right-turn lane, effectively using it as a queue-jump lane, because our actuated and adaptive traffic light will take care of emptying it before the bus arrive.

Support bus lanes on the Westside: - Santa Monica Blvd west of Beverly Hills - Sepulveda Boulevard between UCLA & LAX - combined north-south La Cienega Blvd & Jefferson Blvd corridor from West Hollywood to Westchester [cont'd]

Most L.A. voters undecided about mayor's race, with support for Bass at 20%, poll finds

Today is probably the first time I feel this thing is not that far away from being ready for prime time. Still a lot of work, but I hope we can have this online by the end of April 🤞🤞🤞

"I don't believe that anyone in the city knows what the books are now." Zev Yaroslavsky warns state legislators that LA28's opaque budget could stick the city and state with a huge bill — his construction metaphor is very good as is his reminder that in 1984 there was no financial backstop from LA

"Major transit stop": how these 3 words are defined determines what can be built where, throughout CA. Thrilled to share my latest (wonkiest?) @uclaits.bsky.social & @uclalewiscenter.bsky.social research—an interactive site at the intersection of transit & zoning: its.ucla.edu/major-transi... (1/12)

Now that incentives for zoning liberalization are out, and build-to-rent single-family housing is effectively banned, I think the ROAD to Housing Act might do more harm than good. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Endorsing literally the worst big-city mayor in the country—who doesn’t just oppose new housing, but actively fights it—is completely disqualifying. He is shameless. He needs to be trounced in 2028.

Gov. Newsom says he ‘broadly’ supports L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection bid

I don't know what to call this...a map, a hierarchy, something else? Either way, putting some thoughts on transit signal priority together. I think this covers all the strategies used in Madison, but there are likely more.

Yimby Ur-Text

Look at the size of the waterway reserve for the Tamsui River and wildlife in Taipei. 10-20 story housing building everywhere it is safe, clustered density at MRT transit stops.

Today's detailed deep dive by Maylin Tu @maylin.bsky.social on the long struggles for streets/sidewalks accessible to disabled Angelenos la.streetsblog.org/2026/02/27/d...

My ChatGPT prompts: “It should have the promise of meaning, it should be decipherable, everything should be spelled right and it should make sense”

An interesting example of how reconnecting the street grid for cars isn't the go-to solution for urban design in Italy. When this large former industrial precinct was redeveloped in the early 2000s, the cul-de-sac roads that ended at the factory walls were reconnected just for peds, with small gates

A concentration camp that meets ADA requirements. Very professional and ethical of the architect of record.

Buy American requirements that lead to setting up bespoke plants with workforces with no previous experience producing the kind of vehicle made at the plant lead to this problem, it's how American railcars wind up having all sorts of bizarre problems too.

#headwayposting: nearly 30 minutes delay on the E Line wb from Atlantic due to some sort of delay that was already supposedly cleared by the time I boarded the train

Santa Monica is upgrading Broadway bike lanes - concrete curb protection on the way. Construction now from 4th to 9th. (Will extend to 26th)

hard to communicate how shattered many basic functions in the City of LA are. we've stopped repaving streets, streetslights are dark, sanitation pickups take weeks. departments bleeding staff bc of budget cuts are also being raided to staff the mayor's pet projects. we can't even spend FREE money

When they say "millions" here, they mean over $100M! Together these awards totaled to: Wilmington Safe Streets: $32M Skid Row Connectivity Project: $39M Boyle Heights Connectivity Project: $32M (it's notable that the motion omits the embarrassing total)

Every lawyer looking at a 5,000 or a 5,000,000,000 contract: "they are the same picture, the level of legal liability is the same. They should be held to the same scrutiny and standards." Please, teach lawyers how to count.

on the other hand:

That number does not mean "1 minute away", it means something like "you have to arrive at the stop in 1 minute to have an X% chance of catching the bus". Is that a useful number to put into a UI? Opinions differ! BART clearly puts the former definition into platform signage.

The latest in development of the WSCCOG bus network. - Analysis of existing conditions continues, including deprioritizing certain segments for the earliest phase of implementation. - Engagement meetings in early March. - LAWA expresses concerns. - More solidified concept expected by April

his policy site is low key hilarious because every single policy solution begins with 'eliminate single family zoning' lol. i don't hate it!

do the two halves of the Luskin center talk to each other

Here's a new curb ramp in my home municipality of Lomita that I know for a fact was constructed purely per a standard plans reference + a general intent drawing.