At the October 2010 meeting, while waiting for the much anticipated arrival of Rita Robinson, General Manager, Department of Transportation, City of Los Angeles, stakeholders heard from Councilman Greig Smith's Chief of Staff, Mitch Englander on progress being made to removed hitched and unhitched advertising trailers from our streets. He gave the Councilman's perspective on the Wilbur restriping and referred stakeholders to the LA Bike Plan.

About 150 people attended the October 2010 meeting to hear from and share opinions with Rita Robinson. Ms. Robinson explained how she had pushed to have the street restriped prior to the beginning of school. Her department is trying to juggle conflicting objectives on Wilbur. They include: Traffic calming to allow for crosswalks to the nearby school and preclude the need to change the speed limit from 40 to 45 as requested in a recent traffic study. Prior to the recent striping, people had complained of speeding on Wilbur. There has also been a recent push to increase bike lanes in the city.

She assured attendees that she was well aware of the community concerns and had received numerous emails. She apologized for not vetting the change with the community and gave her commitment to finding a workable solution.

Stakeholders voiced many concerns:

• It takes 4 signal changes to get through an intersection.
• People turn right onto the street and end up driving in the bike lane, not realizing it's the bike lane, and then have a hard time getting into the only traffic lane.
• The left turn lane on Wilbur is so narrow as to feel like oncoming traffic is going to plow right into you.
• Accessing Wilbur from Ridgegate is very difficult.
• Signals are timed to allow for east/west traffic, not north/south traffic.

On the subject of bikes, Ms. Robinson admitted that they have only seen 3 bikes with their surveillance equipment since the restriping. One bicyclist exclaimed that he would not ride a bike there anyway since Wilbur doesn't go anywhere and there were many calls for removing the bike lane.

She concluded her comments revealing that one frustrated driver wrote wanting to know who was the idiot who made that decision to stripe Wilbur that way. He wanted to meet that idiot. She acknowledged that she was that idiot and she was here to meet that driver.

The PRNC is pleased to have been able to bring the key decision maker to the community and allow for a dialog on such a critical topic. We thank Ms. Robinson for coming out and facing the public and board member Mr. Vas Singh for arranging for her visit.

Ms. Robinson and her department will be working with the Councilman's office to reach a workable solution. In her words, "It's only paint folks. It's expensive paint."
Ms. Robinson's Bio.