Passengers jockey for position to get precious rush hour seats at the Orange Line

The Orange Line is feeling the squeeze. An immediate success upon its opening in 2005, ridership continues to surge on the San Fernando Valley’s dedicated busway, which runs from Woodland Hills and Chatsworth to North Hollywood. The line currently handles more than 30,000 passengers on an average weekday, making it the second busiest bus line in Los Angeles County. While that success is something to celebrate, elbow room is getting hard to come by.

“Yesterday it was pretty miserable,” said Mark Hill, who commutes between Sherman Oaks and downtown Los Angeles. “You had people letting the bus go because you could just not fit any more.”

Metro plans to relieve some pressure by adding additional service. Next week, the agency’s Board of Directors is expected to take action on an annual budget that includes $1.2 million for more midday buses on the Orange Line. More late night service was also added recently, and increased Saturday service is planned for late June.

Jon Hillmer, a 30-year veteran in Metro’s bus operations, said the popularity is due to the line’s speed and convenience.

“It offers rail-like service on rubber tires,” Hillmer said. “People board at stations, wait on platforms and pay their fares at machines.”

The line also provides important connections to other transit options. At Chatsworth station, it connects to Metrolink’s service to Ventura County. At the North Hollywood station, it connects to the Red Line subway, which provides access to Hollywood, downtown L.A. and the rest of Metro’s rail system.

While improvements are planned to handle the growth in ridership during off-peak hours, rush hour is a different story.  One additional bus trip will be squeezed onto the back end of the peak traffic period but, after that, the agency is just about maxed out on how many buses it can run at a time. Among other issues, the line is constrained at intersections with north-south roadways, which are managed by the city of Los Angeles’ Department of Transportation.

“Running buses every 4 minutes during rush hour is the best we can do under the current traffic configuration,” Hillmer said. “The city is reluctant to go below the 4-minute frequency level.”

Jonathan Hui, a spokesman for the city agency, said it allows buses to pass through the intersections every two minutes, but they only get special priority—early or longer green lights—every four minutes. That preferential treatment is important to keep the line moving swiftly.

“Not everybody can get the green at the same time,” Hui said. “The Orange Line is obviously important, but so are drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists.”

The two agencies are currently working on a solution to the problem. Hillmer said possibilities include sending two buses in tandem through intersections, or getting shorter but more frequent green lights to enable more buses to get through.

While the rush hour fixes remain a work in progress, adding extra buses during off-peak hours should be a big help to riders who crowd the Orange Line before and after rush hour.

“At 7:45 p.m., there are still a lot of people waiting, ” said Isabel Barbosa, who commutes from her home in Woodland Hills to downtown L.A. Even at 8:30 p.m., “it’s usually standing room only,” said another commuter, Ian Tudor.

Most of the current rider congestion occurs between the station at Sepulveda Boulevard and North Hollywood, but as last June’s extension of the line to Chatsworth matures, Hillmer expects more growth on the western end.

Ridership probably hasn’t even peaked for the year. The months of September and October, when students return to school, are typically the busiest. The extra riders should push the line’s numbers closer to those of Metro’s busiest bus line—the 720 Rapid, which runs between Commerce and Santa Monica on Wilshire Boulevard and averages about 40,000 riders each weekday.

Despite the ridership boom, Orange Line commuters like Mark Hill say they appreciate the smooth, fast ride the line offers—even when it’s standing room only.

“The buses are nicely appointed,” he said. “There’s plenty of stuff to hang on to.”

Posted 5/16/13

Inside the scaffolding-clad Hall of Justice, a massive lead paint clean-up is underway. Photo/Clark Construction

Los Angeles County’s legendary Hall of Justice has had its share of dangerous inhabitants over the years. Now you can add one more to the list: lead-based paint.

The 1920s-era red oxide paint, containing as much as 39% lead, was found when construction workers last summer uncovered painted steel beams that had previously been encased in concrete. Testing on the steel and surrounding concrete revealed higher-than-anticipated lead concentrations in both.

This week, the Board of Supervisors approved an ambitious, $6.45 million abatement effort that will require lead removal in more than 15,000 locations throughout the hall, which, since opening in 1925, has played host to some of Los Angeles’ most notorious figures, including Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and Bugsy Siegel.

The unexpected discovery of the lead-painted structural steel came as workers were preparing to begin seismic reinforcement work on the imposing downtown structure, which has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

“Absolutely, it’s a surprise,” said Greg Zinberg, project executive with Clark Construction, the contractor for the renovation. “We’ve had to re-strategize about how we’re approaching the project…We’re talking about thousands of hours of work.”

Areas within the building are being cordoned off to contain lead dust and workers must wear protective gear, including respirators and special suits, as they go about their tasks. A literal top-to-bottom scrubbing will be required to decontaminate the structure.

Even so, the project remains on schedule to finish up next year, with county departments, including the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s office, still on track to move in by early 2015. The lead abatement work itself is expected to wrap up by this October.

The funding for the lead removal comes from $16.9 million set aside in the project budget to cover unanticipated changes that crop up during the construction process. The overall budget for the project, which is being financed by long-term bonds, is $231.7 million.

This is not the building’s first brush with lead problems. When open fire escapes on two sides of the building were set to be cleaned out as part of the renovation project, workers found 4½-foot-high heaps of pigeon droppings on just about every floor, said James Kearns, the Public Works division head whose team is overseeing the project. Testing on the pigeon guano found lead as well as the more expected pathogens, resulting in an earlier $36,415 abatement effort.

The pigeons haven’t spared the surface of the building, either. Behind scaffolding, cleaning is now underway to restore the hall’s dingy grey exterior to its original white—the same color as nearby Los Angeles City Hall. But getting it done meant encountering decades-old droppings amid the colonnade of Romanesque columns along the building’s upper floors—“an interesting discovery,” as project executive Zinberg puts it.

As for the lead abatement, the latest twist in long-running efforts to bring the Hall of Justice back to life, workers are taking it all in stride. “Right now, we’re moving along and getting through it,” said Kearns, of Public Works. “It’s not an easy job but it’s all under control.”

For a look inside the building during an earlier phase in the construction process, click here.

Lead paint on structural steel beams was found under concrete coating. Photo/Clark Construction

Posted 5/15/13

Mutual fans: Stella March, center, with Laker star Metta World Peace. At left, county mental health director Marvin Southard and chief deputy Robin Kay. Photo/Los Angeles County

“How’s Kobe doing?”

The question came from 97-year-old Stella March, a stalwart Lakers fan for decades. And it was directed at someone she thought would know—Kobe Bryant’s teammate, Metta World Peace.

“He tried to fight through it, but he couldn’t,” Metta said of Bryant and the Achilles tendon he tore on the eve of this year’s NBA playoffs. “He’s doing better now,” he assured March.

“I felt badly for him,” she said softly.

Then March turned the conversation toward Metta—and her observations had nothing to do with hoops. “What you’re doing for the kids, it’s very meaningful,” she told him. As they talked, they held hands.

From outward appearances, these two—the tiny white-haired woman with the walker and the towering player with the muscular arms—might seem like an odd pairing for a meeting of the Board of Supervisors. But as both would be quick to tell you, you can’t judge what’s inside from the outside. For they share a mission that transcends their cultural and generational divide; both are committed to destigmatizing mental health problems and treatment. And in that respect, both are very much on their game.

Stella March and Metta World Peace, a first meeting.

March and MWP, as the former Ron Artest likes to be called, were honored Tuesday by the board to kick-off “Mental Health Awareness Month.”

March is widely recognized as one of the nation’s preeminent advocates for families whose lives have been touched by mental illness, a crusade she began in the late 1970s after her son, a UCLA student, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Among other things, her efforts led to greater government and pharmaceutical research, ultimately helping to produce a new generation of medications. She also was the driving force behind building the National Alliance on Mental Illness and initiating its “StigmaBusters” program to combat inaccurate representations of mental illness in film, television, print and other media.

In those early years, she says, mental health treatment and research was so bad that many serious sufferers “were wandering around on the streets with nowhere to go. They were shunned and stigmatized as dirty street people.” With her organization’s help and support, she says, many of the severely afflicted “learned the basic skill of telling people how they recovered. Each one had a different story of recovery. It was fantastic.”

Metta World Peace understands the power of that message. Ever since he made headlines by thanking his therapist on network television after the Laker’s 7^th-game championship victory in 2010, the once-troubled player has openly talked about his counseling for anger and family issues. In December of that year, he teamed up with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health to produce a public service announcement aimed at encouraging young people to seek help. “Talk to somebody about it,” he says in the PSA. “I did. Take the first steps.  Be a champion.”

Since then, he’s also made his pitch during high school assemblies here and across the country and has created a website called Limelight that promotes mental health treatment.  A new public service announcement campaign between Metta World Peace and the county—called “Talk it Out”—was launched earlier this month and will continue throughout May.

Before their Tuesday appearance before the Board of Supervisors, March, a fan of MWP’s moves on and off the court, asked to meet him in a small conference room behind the board’s dais, where he was signing posters for the new campaign. Helped into the room by her daughter, Joella, and officials from the mental health department, March was greeted by the 6-foot-7 player with an embrace, as though she were the star. He then took a seat beside her so she wouldn’t have to strain looking up at him.

“Thank you for what you’ve done to help,” she told him. “We’ve got to keep advocating for people.”

She needn’t worry. As Metta World Peace told the audience in the board’s hearing room: “This is a lifetime work.”

Stella and Metta, holding out hope for the mentally ill.

Posted 5/14/13

The Springs fire has left a trail of destruction—and ecological uncertainty—in Sycamore Canyon.

When wind-driven flames tore through one of the Santa Monica Mountains’ most scenic canyons last week, hearts sank with visions of another city escape transformed into a smoldering moonscape.

Sycamore Canyon draws thousands of visitors every month with its gorgeous vistas, canopied trees and a network of trails suitable for everyone from strolling couples to hardcore hikers.  So the big question was this: exactly how destructive was the fire that ignited near Newbury Park in the inland valley and didn’t stop until it reached the sea at Point Mugu State Park, about 30 miles north of Santa Monica?

Over the past couple of days, some answers—along with new questions—have emerged, as national and state parks experts have hit the charred ground to begin investigating the fallout from the only spring wildfire in anyone’s memory.

What they’ve found might be good news for people eager for a return to the trails but troublesome for the area’s wildlife, especially its birds, now in their prime nesting season. “Normally, with fall fires, that’s not going on,” said fire ecologist Marti Witter of the National Park Service. “There was probably a significant hit to bird populations.”

The rare early timing of the so-called Springs fire also has raised questions about the regenerative resilience of burned trees, which were in their spring growth period and already were challenged by drought conditions. Deciduous trees, such as the sycamores, had yet to begin moving nutrients from their leaves to their trunks, as they do during the late summer and fall months. Those leaves are now scorched or incinerated. At a minimum, experts predict that damaged trees could remain leafless and unsightly for months longer than if the blaze had erupted later in the year during the normal fire season, when subsequent wetter months help force new growth.

“People are going to be looking at a black landscape much longer than they normally would,” said Witter, of the park service’s Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Sycamore Canyon remains off-limits to hikers.

For now, the public won’t be seeing anything; officials have ordered a two-week closure of the Sycamore Canyon Trail area until an assessment of the potential dangers can be determined. A key player in that process is National Park Service plant ecologist John Tiszler, who, like Witter, also works in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Earlier this week, he toured the popular lower canyon on behalf of Ventura County fire officials.

“Clearly, the vast majority of it burned,” Tiszler said. “I know people are very worried about this but I don’t think there’s any reason to think that a catastrophe has occurred.”

Tiszler said “the fickleness of the winds” had left some spots unscathed as the flames quickly shifted through the broad lower canyon beyond the undamaged Point Mugu campground. Those scattered green zones, he said, could provide refuge for displaced, nesting birds and such ground wildlife as lizards, which park service staffers are attempting to rescue. (Click here for a satellite image of the “burn scar.”)

Tiszler said that, in the lower canyon, he flagged only 15 sycamores and oaks that had the potential to fall along the fire-road trail. Only three or four of them, he said, should be taken down. But in the canyon’s upper, narrower passages, he said, the toll appears worse because of more intense flames and heat.

The staying power of all those affected trees could be tested in the days ahead, Tiszler said, when high winds are expected to whip through the area again. He also said a looser standard will be applied to damaged trees along hiking trails that don’t have gathering areas, where the public might linger and be at greater risk. “If there’s no person, car or picnic table,” he said, “then the potential of being a public hazard is much reduced.”  

Tiszler also noted that trees in Sycamore Canyon had withstood a number of blazes over the decades, including the more devastating Green Meadow fire in 1993. “Trees are like alien beings from another planet,” he said. “They are so different from us, the way they heal themselves, what they tolerate.” He said trees can stand strong even with deep hollows burned into their core because their weight is borne by their outer rings.

Like many veteran hikers and naturalists, Ron Webster of the Sierra Club does not view flames as an enemy of Sycamore Canyon’s trails, a good number of which he helped cut years ago. “You know, it’s just fire. The place greens up and then we’re off again,” said Webster, who, at 78, still leads trail crews in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“Be sure to schedule hikes there in the spring. You’ll see wildflower displays like you won’t believe,” Webster said, noting that seeds have long been lying dormant under the deep chaparral that has been burned away.

Witter of the park service said she, too, has learned to put the area’s fires in perspective. A longtime Topanga resident, she remembers the destruction of property—and the uprooting of lives—from the wildfires two decades ago that cut a fiery path from the mountains around her neighborhood to the ocean’s edge in Malibu.

“Seeing all those burned homes, that was emotionally devastating,” Witter recalled. “This fire has changed the landscape, but it should come back.”

Fire hollowed out the core of this broken oak so its outer rings could no longer support its weight.

 Posted 5/10/13

“Buyer Beware” supervisor Katherine Takata outside a Sur La Table store at The Grove that overcharged.

“Men’s Shorts Now $49.50.” The sign at the J. Crew was clear. But when the knee-length summer pants were rung up last year on a Tuesday morning, the scanner read $64.50.

It was a costly mistake—for the merchant. The “shopper” was an inspector from the county’s “Buyer Beware” program, and the $15 error, along with a mistake in the store’s favor on a pair of T-shirts, added up to a misdemeanor. Now, more than $3,200 in fines and investigative costs later, Mother’s Day bargain hunters will find a different eye-catching sign in that J. Crew, in Glendale’s Americana at Brand shopping center.

“Notice of Overcharge Conviction,” it says.

Signed by the county’s Agricultural Commissioner/Director of Weights and Measures, the 8½-by-11-inch notices have quietly become a part of L.A.’s shopping landscape in the decade since the county first began mandating their display.

Today, the county has 16 full-time inspectors working on price verification, funded by some $2 million a year in fees, says Deputy Sealer of Weights and Measures Katherine Takata, who oversees the program. Inspectors have found overcharges everywhere from supermarkets and drug stores to the handbag department of the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus, where, in late 2011, scanners were caught charging $990 for a Prada handbag that was supposed to be on sale for $910.

Some inspectors visit retailers as anonymous shoppers or respond to consumer complaints; others show up unannounced and conduct annual spot checks.

Diplomacy also is part of the job for the inspectors, who, like traffic cops, never know what they’ll encounter.

“People cry,” Takata says. “People get angry. We’ve had people try to hug us if they pass the inspection. Someone fainted once when the inspector identified herself. Another time, an inspector asked a store manager in the Beverly Center for an ID and the man excused himself and came back a half-hour later, all sweaty—he’d run all the way back to his house to get it.”

The job does have its entertaining moments.

“We’ve had celebrity sightings,” she says. “We’ve been in store parking lots during shootings. One of our inspectors was at a Victoria’s Secret once, checking prices, and one of the clerks asked him if he wanted a changing room.” Two inspectors once foiled a robbery at a Rite-Aid by blocking the exits, she says, and several undercover inspectors have themselves been mistaken for shoplifters.

When the inspections pay off, however, they can yield serious victories for consumers. Early this year, for instance, the legwork of L.A. County inspectors helped win a multi-county, $875,370 ruling against Best Buy. As part of the settlement, the retailer has to give California customers a $3 discount if they discover any more erroneous charges.

“Most overcharges occur because of human error—things like expired price tags not being taken down or updated in the system,” Takata says. “Sometimes it’s just a regularly priced item sitting on their shelf, and you bring it to the cash register and it rings up incorrectly. Sometimes it’s clearance items that haven’t been marked properly in the system.”

Innocent as the errors may be, however—the store manager at the J. Crew cited a computer malfunction when a routine spot check turned up those overcharges—the state holds retailers responsible for the accuracy of their prices. State law forbids merchants to charge more than the lowest price advertised.

Overcharges of less than $1 are infractions, carrying fines of up to $100 per violation, but overcharges of more than $1 can be prosecuted as misdemeanors, with penalties of up to $1,000 per violation.

“It may seem like a small thing,” says Takata. “But for, say, a retiree on a fixed income, even a dollar is significant. And for big companies like Ralph’s or Best Buy, these fines are a drop in the bucket. These overcharges add up. When Macy’s overcharges by dollar for a tie, it isn’t just that one tie and that one dollar. It’s all the people who buy that tie at Macy’s.”

Last year, she says, the program collected nearly $271,000 in fines from misdemeanor prosecutions, nearly $67,000 for investigative costs and nearly $99,000 in civil administrative penalties. At the moment, she says, notices are fluttering from the doorways of about 80 retailers across the county.

Over the years, Takata adds, those signs have been a special source of consternation for some merchants, who complain that they deter business. Because they are specifically written into the county ordinance that created Buyer Beware, however, businesses must display them.

“We try to work with people, but there’s not a lot of wiggle room,” she says.

The county’s overcharge notices, required by law to hang within five feet of a retailer’s front door for 60 days after a conviction, were conceived in an effort to ensure accurate pricing after Supervisor Gloria Molina complained about overcharges at a Macy’s and a Kmart during the 2001 holiday shopping season. At the time, only one full-time inspector had been assigned to monitor pricing accuracy at the more than 10,000 merchants who do business here.

A subsequent investigation found overcharges at two-thirds of 108 retailers sampled around the county, and that spawned the Buyer Beware program, which requires stores to register price scanners and pay a fee that, in turn, underwrites the scanner inspection program. The blue-and-white overcharge notices—variously regarded as something between a restaurant grade and a scarlet letter—were added at the end of a yearlong grace period after the inspections were launched in 2002.

ACWM spokesman Ken Pellman compares the signs to speeding tickets. “The enforcement prevents larger problems and keeps things orderly,” he says. Like speeding tickets, he adds, they have also worked well as a deterrent. Last year, only about 17 percent of the 8,459 retailers inspected were caught overcharging.

Overcharging, he says, “is still unfortunately a common problem, but it’s less common than it used to be.”

Posted 5/9/13

Even infrequent toll road users need a transponder, but they'll no longer pay a monthly maintenance fee.

Metro’s board of directors, taking aim at one component of a controversial ExpressLanes pilot project, voted Thursday to scrap for six months a maintenance fee levied on infrequent users of the toll roads, Los Angeles County’s first.

The board voted 7-4 in favor of a motion by Director and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to suspend the fees in the interest of fairness. Yaroslavsky’s motion, originally introduced for consideration in January and recently amended, applies to Los Angeles County residents who make four or fewer trips in the ExpressLanes each month. The motion only applies to local residents so that commuters who live in other counties—where monthly charges continue to exist—can’t go bargain-shopping here for their FasTrak transponders.

Everyone who uses the toll roads, which are located on the 110 and 10 freeways, is still required to have a transponder and to pay tolls if they’re traveling solo in the lanes. Carpoolers (two or more on the 110 Freeway, three or more on the 10 Freeway at peak hours) don’t have to pay any tolls but still must have a transponder in their vehicle. Until now, even carpoolers had been subject to the $3 monthly fee if they used the lanes infrequently.

“I think this is an unfair fee,” Yaroslavsky said, adding that he doesn’t believe exempting infrequent L.A. County users will have much of an impact on the program’s bottom line. Still, his motion sets a six-month time limit for the monthly fee exemption, during which Metro’s staff can gather data on how it affects usage of the lanes and the overall cost of operating them.

Stephanie Wiggins, who is managing the program for Metro, said she expects the number of ExpressLanes accounts to increase now that the monthly fee has been removed, drawing in motorists who “to date haven’t opted in because they feel the $3 fee is an impediment.”

Customers can obtain a transponder online, at AAA and Metro offices, as well as at Albertsons and Costco stores. They must then deposit $40 into an account from which toll charges and fees are deducted. (Some discounts are available.)

A Metro report said the agency started assessing the monthly $3 fees on February 24 and had collected a total of $14,175 from 4,725 infrequent users as of March 31. Overall, there were 107,921 accounts in the system in March, of which 27,620 were infrequent users who live in L.A. County.

The fees haven’t been the only issue to emerge since the first ExpressLanes started operating last November. Large numbers of citations have been issued, and while minimum average speeds in the new lanes have easily met or exceeded their 45 mile per hour target, speeds in the general purpose lanes next to them have dropped—which Metro said is to be expected as motorists get used to a new program.

Supervisor and Metro Director Mark Ridley-Thomas argued that it’s premature to “tinker” with the project by dropping the maintenance fee until the pilot period is complete in 10 months.

“It’s simply too soon,” he said. “I don’t know that it warrants intervention at this point.”

He voted against the measure, along with fellow supervisors and directors Michael D. Antonovich and Gloria Molina. Also dissenting was Director John Fasana, a Duarte city councilman.

Wiggins of Metro acknowledged that the agency has received complaints about the fee, but Ridley-Thomas and Molina said their offices had not received any.

Although she voted against changing the fee, Molina signaled she has some other issues with the program, starting with the fact that she had a tough time finding a place to get a transponder. “I seem to have gone to the only Costco that doesn’t have it.”

Logistics can also be a challenge, she added. “On the 10 [Freeway]…people don’t know how to get on it and utilize it, including myself.”

Posted 4/25/13

Bike to Work Day is Thursday, but cycling to work is increasingly common on any given day in Los Angeles.

Bike commuting appears to have turned a corner in Los Angeles, with new lanes and a burgeoning youth-oriented bicycle culture tempting more and more workers to saddle up.

“I think we have reached a tipping point,” said Lynne Goldsmith, manager of Metro’s bicycle program.

Next Thursday, May 16, is Bike to Work Day—one part of Bike Week, Metro’s annual celebration of pedal power. Metro and local advocates are expecting thousands of cyclists to participate. They hope some will shift their commuting habits for good.

Goldsmith said the number of trips taken by bicycle in the county, for commuting or otherwise, has doubled since 2010. She believes the change is partly due to economic necessity and partly because cycling has become trendy with the younger generation.

“We don’t think it’s going to go out of style,” Goldsmith said. “I think it’s here to stay.”

Josef Bray-Ali, owner of Flying Pigeon Bikes in Northeast L.A., seconded that notion.

“Fewer young people are getting driver’s licenses,” said Bray-Ali. “We have an economic crisis. A bunch of people may not be able to afford a car, but they can get a bike.”

Bray-Ali said “fixies”—single-gear bikes decked out with bright colors and other design details—have become wildly popular among the younger generation. “They buy fixies to knock around town with friends, but then they get jobs or go to college,” he said. The cycling habit follows them, and eventually they upgrade to higher-end bikes with commuter-friendly features like chain guards and rear-mounted racks.

UCLA’s experience supports this trend. Since 2005, the number of students and employees commuting to campus has tripled, said Dave Karwaski, associate director of transportation for the school. A desire for a healthy lifestyle combined with new infrastructure played a large part in that change, he said. UCLA is already a bronze-level “Bicycle Friendly University,” according to the League of American Bicyclists. Over the next few years, the university intends to make further improvements to get to a silver or even a gold rating.

Experienced bike commuters like Jeff Chapman echo the importance of infrastructure. For him, safety is paramount—he often tows his young children to school by bike. But, as director of the environmentally-conscious Audubon Center of Highland Park, he also appreciates the fact that pedal power is non-polluting.

He said his kids really enjoy the ride, too.

“They are learning directions better and we see cats along the way,” said Chapman. “They’re interacting with the community in a different way than they do in the back of a car.”

Another bike commuter, Cy Eaton, has cycled in lots of cities—New York, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago and Vancouver, to name a few. “In terms of that list, L.A. ranks toward the bottom,” he said. “But that’s a pretty stout list to compete against.” Since moving here, he’s had to upgrade to sturdier tires because flaws in the asphalt were giving him too many flats. He said the surface of most bike lanes in L.A. is “very disappointing.”

Still, Eaton notices a lot of improvement around town. Having previously lived in Los Angeles in 2008, he moved back last year. His current commute takes him 8 miles in each direction between East Hollywood and Burbank. He’s not riding in fear like he used to.

“I was pleasantly surprised with how aware motorists have become of cyclists,” said Eaton, adding that bikes on the road are no longer a “novel occurrence” in L.A.

For its part, Metro is using education to create a safer experience. The agency’s “every lane is a bike lane” campaign aims to inform drivers that bikes have the right to a full lane of roadway in some circumstances.  In June, the target audience shifts to the cyclists. Joining forces with the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition and Bike San Gabriel Valley, Metro will use a federal grant to fund 90 three-hour safety lessons, through September. Participants will receive free helmets and bike lights as a bonus.

Metro’s Goldsmith said that, in the future, “the nut we have to crack is businesses. We need to convince businesses that they will grow if they encourage bicycling on their block.”

Just like in the streets, indoor infrastructure like bike lockers and showers is important to getting more people to cycle to work, said Linda Lyles, executive director of Century City Transportation Management Organization.

To draw more newbies out for Bike to Work Day, Metro is sponsoring bicycle pit stops with snacks, water, reflective decals and other giveaways. Those who sign a pledge to bike to work that day will be entered into a prize drawing, and all riders with a bike and a helmet will be able to board Metro and other regional transit providers for free.

Posted 5/9/12

New LED screens premiered at the Hollywood Bowl during last month's Korean Music Festival.

It’s showtime. State of the art LED screens, custom-designed furniture for picnicking with pizzazz and a striking new wine bar will greet Hollywood Bowl patrons this summer—part of an amenities infusion that also includes a new sound system.

Clearly, the county-owned Bowl, recently recognized by Pollstar magazine as the nation’s best major outdoors concert venue for the ninth straight year, isn’t resting on its laurels.

“I think we’re really lucky because we start with a great experience, and a great venue people love,” said Gail Samuel, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which operates the bowl under a long-term lease with the county. But “staying competitive in the concert business” is essential, she said.

“The way people want to experience things has evolved, so we want to provide as many options as possible and…stay up with the most advanced technology,” she said.

The new sound system and LED screens made their Bowl debut during the Korean Music Festival, a lease event last month, and also will be up and running for other pre-season lease events including Fleetwood Mac on May 25 and Andrea Boccelli on June 8. The new furniture and wine bar will be making their bow in time for the Bowl’s official opening night, June 22. (Tickets for the summer season are on sale now online or at the Bowl box office.)

When the season starts, patrons coming up the Peppertree Lane hill toward the amphitheater will be greeted by an almost continuous row of new dark wood benches specially designed to allow for level seating on a slope. Other new pieces include deep platforms that will provide seating for large picnic groups of six to eight people. Additional picnic-friendly elements include benches with small built-in tables of powder-coated stainless steel in a signature “caper berry” green.

Specially-designed furniture will make it easier for Bowl patrons to get their picnic on. Image/Rios Clementi Hale

Julie Smith-Clementi of Rios Clementi Hale Studios, which oversaw the furniture project, including benches it designed for the site with manufacturer Forms and Surfaces, spent time at the Bowl last season observing how people staked out pre-concert space on the grounds. She said it was disconcerting to see patrons desperate for a place to park their picnic baskets.

“So many people were just throwing blankets onto the asphalt,” she said. “One woman was running from one area to the next, trying to find a table.”

The infusion of new furniture will expand seating at the site significantly—from about 2,001 to 2,855, a 43% increase.

Meanwhile, those who prefer a pre-concert glass of champagne to a picnic on a bench will likely be making a beeline for the new wine bar designed by Callas Architects, already being billed as “a new ‘meet-up’ landmark location.” The wine bar, next to the Bowl’s marketplace, perches above the popcorn stand, which also has been stylishly redesigned.

Barbara Callas, the architect, said she aspired to “a modernist classicism for a world-class singular amphitheater.”

“The concession space of spherical canopies mirrors the Bowl’s geometry and creates a dramatic new entry,” Callas said in a statement.

Inside the amphitheater itself, the four new LED screens stand ready to brightly beam the onstage action—in wide screen, high definition format—to patrons throughout the venue, from the boxes to the back benches. They’re designed to provide high-resolution images even in the daytime.

“The thing about the old screens is you can’t see them when it’s not completely dark,” said Samuel, the Philharmonic’s COO. “With these screens in broad daylight, we can run them and it’s a beautiful clear picture. So when our shows start at 8 or 7:30 and it’s still kind of dusk, you’ll see them from the very beginning.”

Also new this summer: an L-Acoustics K1 loudspeaker system to replace the venue’s old sound system, which had been in place since 2004. The K1 is expected to provide higher quality sound and more advanced speaker technology.

The 2013 improvements follow last year’s introduction of colorful, redesigned restrooms and a new moving walkway at the Bowl’s main entrance.

Funding for the LED screens and park furniture was provided by the office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Proposition A funds. The wine bar and loudspeaker system were underwritten by the Philharmonic.

Rendering copyright Barbara Callas A.I.A. architect and principal-in-charge of the Hollywood Bowl wine bar project

Posted 5/8/13

Dr. Antronette Yancey, 1957-2013.

No one who knew Dr. Antronette K. Yancey—public health expert, UCLA professor, athlete, author, poet and general force of nature—will be surprised to hear that the first time I met her, she interrupted a meeting so we could all exercise.

This was in 2011, and we were serving together on the First 5 LA Commission. She was already an appointee and I had just been named to the rotating post of chairman. I didn’t know at the time that she was a national leader in the anti-obesity movement, nor did I know we were about to become dear friends. I just knew that her voice was confident, her smile was charismatic and her opinions were as down-to-earth as they were incisive. Also, at 6-foot-2-inches tall, she was pretty imposing.

We were wrapping up a discussion on our search for a new executive director when Toni suggested that we all stop and do some shoulder circles.

“She can’t be serious,” I whispered to one of my colleagues.

“She’s very serious,” came the reply. “She does this at every meeting.”  She even had a name for it:  “Instant Recess.”

Toni asked if I would join the exercise break, and I demurred.  “I took my regular 4 mile jog early this morning,” I said.  “I’ve gotten my exercise for the day.”

She politely explained that my run was commendable, but it didn’t make up for the unhealthy impact of sitting in meetings all day.  She also politely explained that a sedentary work environment increases the probability of cardiac and other diseases.  Besides, she said, “a little exercise break will make you feel better.”

I told her I would pass.

Almost nobody else followed my lead.

They followed hers. Dozens of people—from audience members to county department heads—started swinging their arms, stretching and bending as I slipped into the adjacent room where they kept the snacks. Dr. Yancey just smiled at me as I made my exit. On her face was a look that said: “Just wait, mister—I’ll get you yet.”

This Friday, a memorial at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills will commemorate the remarkable life of Toni Yancey, who died last week at 55. A non-smoker, she had come down with a chronic dry cough that she had thought to be an allergy; it turned out to be lung cancer.  In the days since her death, the many of us who knew, admired and loved her have struggled to make sense of the shocking loss of such an important voice and such a bright light.

Long before she was tapped for the nonprofit board advising First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, Dr. Yancey was making it her mission to help people counteract the risks of sedentary living. As the county’s first director of chronic disease prevention in the late 1990s, and then as a founding co-director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, she consistently stressed fitness. As a scholar, she published dozens of papers on chronic disease prevention, obesity and nutrition.

But her secret weapon was that she led by example. Knowing how hard it can be for most people to overcome inertia, she brought her signature exercise breaks to schoolyards, community centers, conferences and public meetings. She made videos featuring members of the Lakers, Sparks and Padres. She did public radio commentaries on the importance of healthy living.

Even after her cancer diagnosis, her work continued. With me, she talked community and basketball—she’d played for Northwestern University’s Division 1 women’s team in college. With others, she found different points of connection: as a mother and a grandmother, as a devoted mate to her partner Darlene Edgley, as an ex-model, a musician or as a published poet.

I will remember her as an inspiration. After that first humbling encounter, I never again skipped an exercise break at the First 5 Commission. Frankly, it made me feel better. I became such a believer that I often get up in long meetings and move around to get my blood circulating.

Last summer, she gave me a copy of her 2010 book,  “Instant Recess: Building a Fit Nation 10 Minutes at a Time”. I treasure it. It is the product of years of research that led her to the conclusion that exercise breaks are important to our health and longevity.

Yes, in fact, she did get me. I only wish I had been given more time to work with and learn from her. I will miss her dearly.

Dr. Toni Yancey at her treadmill desk. Photo/The New York Times

Posted 5/2/13

Five people have died in the upper reaches of Eaton Canyon in the past two years, including this man in 2011.

It was late in the day when several twentysomething hikers happened upon veteran Los Angeles County rescuer Richard De Leon. Next to him was another young man, whose broken body had just been retrieved from the rocky floor of Eaton Canyon.

“Where you coming from?” De Leon asked the group, knowing all too well the answer.

“The second falls,” they confirmed. “But we’re fine.”

De Leon motioned to the man now being photographed by coroner’s officials. “So was he about an hour ago.”  

The hikers assured De Leon they weren’t like that guy.  “We know what we’re doing,” they insisted.

“So did he,” the rescuer said, hoping to drive home his point but knowing that he might as well have been lecturing the rocks.

Every day in the mountains above Pasadena, this sense of youthful invincibility collides with a stretch of treacherous terrain that leads to a waterfall tucked into Eaton Canyon. Unlike an easy hike that starts at the county-operated nature center and ends at a lower waterfall, there’s no trail to speak of to reach the upper falls—just an obstacle course of crumbling rock, tree limbs and narrow ridgeline paths with sheer cliffs on both sides.

In just the past two years, five people have fallen to their deaths there, the most at any single site in the county’s sprawling recreational landscape. The most recent, in March, was a 17-year-old Alhambra girl, who was a standout in academics and athletics. Already accepted to Cornell and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, high school senior Esther Suen sustained fatal head injuries after she plunged 200 feet. A teenage companion also fell, but he survived.

Although the problem is not new, De Leon, who is team captain of the Sheriff’s Department’s search and rescue team in Altadena, says the frequency of people being stranded and injured is on the rise because of social media postings that draw inexperienced hikers to the place and the destruction of other Angeles National Forest trails from the massive Station Fire a few years back.

“By the second or third rescue of the day,” De Leon says, he gets frustrated with the risk takers. “I start thinking, ‘Will you people just stop!’ ”

How to get them to do that, however, has turned into a test of competing strategies and wills among the government agencies that share responsibility for the area, including L.A. County and the U.S. Forest Service, which is responsible for the wilderness land that hikers use to reach the second waterfall.

The risky ascent above Eaton's first waterfall.

In 2011, a series of multi-jurisdictional meetings were convened that included representatives from Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich’s office, the county’s parks and sheriff’s departments and the Pasadena fire department. From that effort came an online public service announcement featuring four uniformed sheriff and fire officials, who stressed that getting to the second waterfall “isn’t worth losing your life.”

But many at the table had wanted more. Some in the law enforcement contingent wanted to start charging reckless hikers for the substantial costs of rescues. Others suggested fencing off access points. At a minimum, though, most everyone agreed that the forest service should post a strongly worded warning sign where hikers, who’d easily reached the first waterfall, begin the mile-long trek to the second one. That is, most everyone except the forest service.

Ranger Mike McIntyre, who oversees the area, told the group that forest service lawyers wanted no warning signs placed on the agency’s land, in a spot where there’s not even a trail. Doing so, he said, could open the forest service to legal liability; attorneys representing injured hikers might argue that, if agency officials knew there was a risk of injury, then they had an obligation to make the area safer.

Now, in the wake of Suen’s death, the group is headed back to the table, this time with an even greater urgency to push the forest service to act, especially with the busy summer season approaching—or, as the Los Angeles Daily News put it in a recent editorial calling for better signage and more patrols at Eaton, the “dying season.”

Said Sussy Nemer, a senior deputy to Antonovich, whose district includes Eaton Canyon: “We’d like to see all the county agencies and the City of Pasadena work with the forest service to increase the signage near the second waterfall and put in place some kind of physical barrier to prevent hikers from even getting up there.”

Nemer said her office also hopes to recruit the area’s new state and federal elected representatives, “who could serve as allies in our cause.”

Russ Guiney, the director of the Los Angeles County’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said he’s under no illusion that more warning signs or even a fence would end the risky adventurism that’s luring the mostly younger crowds to dangerous heights. But like the county’s warnings signs in the lower canyon, he said, it might stop some in their tracks, which would represent a significant contribution to life and limb.

“I think if I was the forest service, I would want to do more,” Guiney said. “I’d think we had a moral obligation. Certainly, we in the county feel that we have a moral obligation….What people deserve and expect is a fair warning.”  

Guiney also said that his office would continue to monitor—and counter—such social media sites as YouTube and Yelp, where people have romanticized the second waterfall and downplayed the dangers.

Forest service ranger McIntyre said in an interview that, at the moment, he doesn’t foresee a shift in strategy from his agency. “We’re doing what our lawyers are telling us to do,” he said.

People mistakenly come to Eaton Canyon thinking it’s an urban park, along the lines of Griffith Park, he said. “But the forest is a wildlands area,” he said. “I’m not saying the forest is dangerous but it comes with inherent risks. We need to make people better prepared, and they need to know their limits.”

Michael Leum, who oversees all of the Sheriff’s Department’s search and rescue teams, says to count him among those who’d like to see the forest service take a more active role in Eaton’s safety issues and not treat them “like Kryptonite.” Since the forest service says it has no trails beyond the first waterfall, Leum said, “they believe there is no need for maintenance or signage, regardless of the fact that hundreds of people go up there.”

Leum said that if he had his way, he’d want the agency to “install safe ingress and egress into the area.”

The status quo, he said, only guarantees this: “People are going to get hurt and killed in that canyon.”

A memorial to Esther Suen, who fell to her death in March near Eaton's second waterfall.

Posted 5/2/13