The Los Angeles City Council finally seems to be taking its culture into account when dealing with the laws of the road. The proposed Mobility Plan 2035 no longer treats the car as the king of the highway – city planners and other transportation professionals would now be mandated to design and construct the transportation modules with bikers and pedestrians in mind as well as people who are on public transit. The community has long been calling for a multimodal transportation plan from the city, and the cries of people who prefer to bike or walk seem to finally be heard.
If Mobility Plan 2035 goes into effect, it would completely replace the plan that Los Angeles adopted just before the turn of the millennium in 1999. That plan was more focused on cars in general, with plenty of rhetoric focused on getting cars to their destinations as fast as they could get there. However, many people have actually completely removed the car from their lives in Los Angeles. Public transit is more popular than ever. Bicycles have always been popular yet underserved. Although the city is still as stretched out as it ever was, many people are actually choosing to live without a car.
Many of the recent energy problems in the city have brought awareness to more green ways to use energy. For instance, the entire state of California has committed itself to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This means that the entire state is backing any vision or legislation that reduces the amount of traditional driving that people do in cars that use fossil fuels. State law is behind the idea of the so-called “Complete Street,” that has served as a forefather of the Mobility Plan 2035. These Complete Streets are designed not around the car, but around pedestrians, cyclists and riders of public transit. No longer is the notion of better transportation encompassed completely in a wider street for a car.
– Provisions in the Mobility Plan 2035
One of the most effective measures in the Mobility Plan 2035 is the goal to completely eliminate traffic abilities by the year 2025. City streets will feel safer and more people will be willing to bike or walk themselves where they need to be, purveyors of the Mobility Plan are saying. Literally hundreds of miles of lanes for buses only will be created. There will also be newly protected lanes for bicyclists. Pedestrians will get drastic improvements in the scope of their streets that have been known to have a lot of pedestrians.
In order to pull off all of these changes, the city planners will need a great deal of data from the people who are actually going to be affected by these changes. Currently, the city has a great deal of public outreach form. The changes of Mobility Plan 2035 are just lines on a map right now: however, there are efforts to move this plan forward and gather the data that is necessary from the inhabitants of the city.
One aspect of the plan that are worried about is the fact that it only targets around 10 percent of the major streets in the city. The lane reductions as they are planned today may actually cause more congestion for people who continue to ride in cars. However, this sacrifice is seen as a necessary one that will still help to accommodate the majority of people who are looking to transport themselves efficiently in Los Angeles.
Pedestrians and bike riders definitely have more rights in Los Angeles, and you should take advantage of these rights if they are ever violated. If you are ever injured while you are walking or on a bicycle, then make sure that you contact a Los Angeles personal injury attorney immediately. You are no longer second-class citizens on the road anymore, and you must make your voice heard in order for those new rights to count for anything.
The injuries that you may incur from a vehicle crash while walking or biking are not ever to be glazed over. Make sure that you have a proper Los Angeles personal injury attorney on your side so that full compensation as well as the resources that you need to heal emotionally.