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Post by Gokhan on Feb 9, 2015 12:17:53 GMT -8
After Venice Boulevard reconstruction and reconfiguration, cars making left turn onto Robertson Boulevard northbound are running red light for about five seconds at every cycle during rush hour. Note that this is not a seldom event -- it happens for about five seconds in almost every cycle during rush hour and it's typical of this intersection now. A pedestrian who looks at the signal but not the cars would be hit.
Red-light cameras and traffic cops are both absent.
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Post by masonite on Feb 9, 2015 13:55:09 GMT -8
After Venice Boulevard reconstruction and reconfiguration, cars making left turn onto Robertson Boulevard northbound are running red light for about five seconds at every cycle during rush hour. Note that this is not a seldom event -- it happens for about five seconds in almost every cycle during rush hour and it's typical of this intersection now. A pedestrian who looks at the signal but not the cars would be hit. Red-light cameras and traffic cops are both absent. That is too bad. Red light cameras are pretty done in city of LA. Too much of an uproar from the motoring public, because they thought it was just a money making scheme. I disagree with that strongly. The best way to avoid a ticket is not to run a red light, which endangers everyone. Of course, it is not practical to have policemen at many intersections, especially the LAPD which is still somewhat overwhelmed trying to police a big city with much fewer officers than other big cities. Still, if enough people complain, I bet this could get attention from LAPD traffic enforcement for a sting once in a while.
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Post by culvercitylocke on Feb 9, 2015 14:19:11 GMT -8
If red light cameras were everywhere they would save lives, but they were not deployed universally nor were they deployed to save lives by focusing on the most dangerous intersections. Rather they were deployed to intersections to maximize revenue and the amount of red light cameras was kept low to confuse drivers and thus resulting in maximum revenue. As the companies operating the cameras quickly realized, people adapted their behavior to not run red lights which depleted revenue, so in order to maximize revenue they deployed them in a pattern less fashion in order to avoid drivers modifying their behavior.
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f ron
Full Member
Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on Feb 9, 2015 15:07:54 GMT -8
After Venice Boulevard reconstruction and reconfiguration, cars making left turn onto Robertson Boulevard northbound are running red light for about five seconds at every cycle during rush hour. Note that this is not a seldom event -- it happens for about five seconds in almost every cycle during rush hour and it's typical of this intersection now. A pedestrian who looks at the signal but not the cars would be hit. Red-light cameras and traffic cops are both absent. That is too bad. Red light cameras are pretty done in city of LA. Too much of an uproar from the motoring public, because they thought it was just a money making scheme. I disagree with that strongly. The best way to avoid a ticket is not to run a red light, which endangers everyone. Of course, it is not practical to have policemen at many intersections, especially the LAPD which is still somewhat overwhelmed trying to police a big city with much fewer officers than other big cities. Still, if enough people complain, I bet this could get attention from LAPD traffic enforcement for a sting once in a while. Sadly, when "enough people complain" they are swiftly and (often) ignorantly dismissed as "nimbys". Unfortunately the so-called street improvements are demonstrably a greater threat to life and limb at intersections up and down the line. The hazardous conditions created on Overland Avenue have been alerted to the councilman's office. The best action seen there is the occasional motorcycle cop in the morning handing out tickets as fast as they can be written. I wish I could say that's changed the conditions but it hasn't.
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Post by masonite on Feb 9, 2015 15:38:44 GMT -8
That is too bad. Red light cameras are pretty done in city of LA. Too much of an uproar from the motoring public, because they thought it was just a money making scheme. I disagree with that strongly. The best way to avoid a ticket is not to run a red light, which endangers everyone. Of course, it is not practical to have policemen at many intersections, especially the LAPD which is still somewhat overwhelmed trying to police a big city with much fewer officers than other big cities. Still, if enough people complain, I bet this could get attention from LAPD traffic enforcement for a sting once in a while. Sadly, when "enough people complain" they are swiftly and (often) ignorantly dismissed as "nimbys". Unfortunately the so-called street improvements are demonstrably a greater treat to life and limb at intersections up and down the line. The hazardous conditions created on Overland Avenue have been alerted to the councilman's office. The best action seen there is the occasional motorcycle cop in the morning handing out tickets as fast as they can be written. I wish I could say that's changed the conditions but it hasn't. So alerting the City actually did work in getting the LAPD to put some of its few traffic resources here. That is better than most of the city where the chances of being caught for running a red light are about one in nearly a million.
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f ron
Full Member
Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on Feb 9, 2015 19:31:28 GMT -8
Sadly, when "enough people complain" they are swiftly and (often) ignorantly dismissed as "nimbys". Unfortunately the so-called street improvements are demonstrably a greater threat to life and limb at intersections up and down the line. The hazardous conditions created on Overland Avenue have been alerted to the councilman's office. The best action seen there is the occasional motorcycle cop in the morning handing out tickets as fast as they can be written. I wish I could say that's changed the conditions but it hasn't. So alerting the City actually did work in getting the LAPD to put some of its few traffic resources here. That is better than most of the city where the chances of being caught for running a red light are about one in nearly a million. Yes, in the most limited definition of the word it "worked". The hazardous conditions prevail when the cop isn't there. On a good day that means it's hazardous for 22 hours, on a bad day it means 24 hours. That said, I've witnessed the cop there 3 times in the past two months. Not sure if I consider that barely working or hardly working.
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Post by bzcat on Feb 10, 2015 18:13:06 GMT -8
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 11, 2015 11:35:54 GMT -8
Indeed it appears that the green light is now being delayed for about 3 or 4 seconds to give the red-light runners a chance to clear the intersection. So, the problem seems to have been solved by allowing the cars to run red light and delaying the green so that the pedestrians don't get hit by the red-light runners.
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Post by culvercitylocke on Feb 11, 2015 17:01:31 GMT -8
Indeed it appears that the green light is now being delayed for about 3 or 4 seconds to give the red-light runners a chance to clear the intersection. So, the problem seems to have been solved by allowing the cars to run red light and delaying the green so that the pedestrians don't get hit by the red-light runners. That's pretty typical of a delay. Most lights have a two to three second delay after the switch to red before a green signal is given. That change is probably done automatically by the computer rather than a conscious human intervention.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 24, 2015 11:13:03 GMT -8
There are so many hit-and-runs happening in LA these days. Many people are speeding and running red lights. Lack of traffic cameras and intersection cameras are largely responsible. LADOT insists on not installing cameras. It's probably because LADOT officials themselves would also get caught speeding and running red lights. This is worse than a typical third-world country, where cameras are everywhere. I guess we could safely say that LA classifies as a fourth-world country. Another USC-area hit-and-run (link)
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Post by johanragle on Mar 24, 2015 13:46:56 GMT -8
I wonder how much luck Seleta Reynolds has been having with the internal culture of LADOT. Seems like she's focusing on the low-hanging fruit like CicLAvia and the Great Streets initiative for now.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 6, 2015 21:29:29 GMT -8
It's hard to believe but it's happening. Skanska/Rados has completely closed the National/Palms intersection to pedestrians. Here is my e-mail to Expo and the city:
Dear Rick and Jay,
Please forgive my language but I am extremely furious.
I couldn't believe that Skanska/Rados has completely closed National/Palms to east - west pedestrian traffic 24/7 now!!! What kind of idiot is running this show? Why is he/she assuming that everyone drives or should drive a car? How am I supposed to walk to the Culver City Station to take the train to my job now?
Whoever idiot is running this show that doesn't have the brains to think that there are pedestrians out there, he/she should not be in the business of building public transit -- period!
Please correct this problem ASAP tomorrow morning and fire whoever idiot is in charge of Expo traffic mitigation if possible. Bad, bad performance!
Note that this isn't happening for the first time. That idiot's Venice/Robertson construction pedestrian mitigation was awful too, to say the least.
...
To add to my previous e-mail, that idiot's Venice/Robertson traffic mitigation also resulted in the tragic death of a very nice teenager (of which I witnessed the bloody aftermath), apart from some great inconvenience to pedestrians. He/she is mostly to blame for that accident with the K-rail configuration that was provided. He/she is a really, really incompetent person that shouldn't be employed by any company in his/her current profession.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 7, 2015 11:32:46 GMT -8
Well, it looks like my furious e-mail worked. This morning they put a flagger to help the pedestrians cross the street in the east - west direction in the southern crossing. (Of course, the northern crossing has been closed for a long time because of the station construction and will probably remain so for a while.) See the picture below. So, this is good now! However, I don't know what will happen in the evening when the construction workers are gone. Will there be no pedestrian access? They should provide some means of crossing during when there are no flaggers are present. It was hard to believe that this major intersection was closed to pedestrians last night. By the way, the sign at the lower left corner of the picture summarizes everything. They should make a Los Angeles flag out of that sign.
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Post by thanks4goingmetro on Apr 7, 2015 18:57:28 GMT -8
There are so many hit-and-runs happening in LA these days. Many people are speeding and running red lights. Lack of traffic cameras and intersection cameras are largely responsible. LADOT insists on not installing cameras. It's probably because LADOT officials themselves would also get caught speeding and running red lights. This is worse than a typical third-world country, where cameras are everywhere. I guess we could safely say that LA classifies as a fourth-world country. Another USC-area hit-and-run (link)No one in all of those cars stopped to help the old woman lying in the street? Also, third world countries are craftier about how they spend their money, it wasn't long ago when I was using a new BRT system in a South American country that functions like and carries more people per day than our subway lines do and it has under crossings, station platform doors, signal priority, level boarding, partially self driving buses, stations built into shopping galleries and onboard wi-fi....their local buses had dedicated lanes protected by a curb from other traffic....
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Post by davebowman on Apr 8, 2015 10:59:49 GMT -8
That is horrible. What is wrong with people? My girlfriend and I were rear-ended a few months ago and the driver at fault just took off before we could get a license plate number, and if I'm ever in another (non-serious) accident the first thing I'm going to do is take a picture of the other car.
Maybe I'm too sensitive to this as a USC alum and employee, but to me saying the accident is in "the USC area" is sloppy reporting. USC has had enough bad publicity recently, and to be more precise Mt. St. Mary's University is actually very close to that intersection and the headquarters of the Auto Club of Southern California is on the southwest corner, just out of camera range.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 8, 2015 11:17:34 GMT -8
It's horrible, yes -- shows how people have become emotionless robots these days.
It's definitely the USC area -- a stone's throw from the Greek row. It has had many pedestrians hits in the recent weeks.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 8, 2015 11:23:56 GMT -8
Photo from yesterday evening, showing the somewhat conflicting signs at the southern crossing of National/Palms Boulevards. As I said, the northern crosswalk has been closed for a long time. I was told that Expo Authority is sending someone there to correct the signs right now. A jaywalking ticket costs $200 these days, and if a cop saw someone crossing here, he would probably issue a ticket. The nearest signaled crossing is far away at Motor Avenue.
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