Many Cities Get Free Bike and Bus Upgrades from New Development
From LA.Streetsblog.org
L.A. City could shift current resources that today go to widening streets – and instead upgrade sidewalks, bus stops, and bike lanes – especially when new development pays for it
By Joe Linton
L..A. City voters just passed Measure HLA, which city officials assert will cost billions to add bikeways, bus lanes, and sidewalks. One way for L.A. to get a jump on these improvements would be to learn from adjacent cities that are getting bike and bus improvements implemented for free – alongside new development. This practice won’t do everything – but it’s one inexpensive way to move toward multimodal streets.
At new development sites, L.A. could shift current resources that today go to widening streets – and instead upgrade for walkability, transit, and bikeability.
When a developer builds something, L.A. city typically requires that the project widen streets, adding new car lanes and/or new parking. The city’s multimodal Mobility Plan (approved 2015) and new mitigation metrics (approved 2019) and a new no-widening ordinance (any day now) were supposed to curb the city’s practice of requiring new development widen streets.
But widening never ended. The city continues widening alongside new development – from the Valley to downtown L.A. Metro stations to, right now in 2024, Hollywood to Historic Filipinotown.
Photo by Andrew Gook on Unsplash
