Traci Park is entrenched in car culture.
2023 was the worst year on record for car crashes in Los Angeles. 1,559 people were severely injured in crashes, and 337 people lost their lives on our roadways - more than any other city in the country, and more than the number of homicides. What's more, car crashes are the number killer of children in Los Angeles County. Our city streets are deadly because they were designed that way, with only cars in mind. It is terrifying to walk or ride a bike in this city precisely because the large, multi-lane highways that we call roads were not meant to accommodate anything but speeding hunks of gas-guzzling metal.
It's hard to believe that anyone would oppose making our streets marginally safer to avoid these catastrophic annual death tolls. But people do, including Traci Park and many of her supporters, who consider safe streets infrastructure “an assault on car culture” and part of a larger progressive conspiracy to take away people's freedom. For Traci Park, "freedom" is not the ability to move around the city on foot or bicycle without fear of imminent death. Freedom is the right to speed around in a car.
The people making up this car culture death cult lost their minds when former CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin advanced infrastructure improvements to make our streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians. In Westside LA politics, being anti-Bonin became synonymous with opposing any transportation improvements that reduce cars' unfettered access to our vast roadways (climate and safety be damned). In fact, the first failed attempt to recall the former councilmember was driven by people's hatred for "road diets" that Bonin spearheaded in the district.
Fast forward to the second failed recall attempt in the fall of 2021. At this point, Traci Park was already deeply embedded with the recall and all the anti-safe streets paranoia that went along with it. She moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 2021 and immediately took up common cause with well-heeled Westsiders who hate Bonin and everything he represents, including safe transit for cyclists and pedestrians. Of course, the majority of the city's safe transit users also happen to be LA's most vulnerable and disadvantaged residents who can't afford a car to begin with.
It's hard to believe that anyone would oppose making our streets marginally safer to avoid these catastrophic annual death tolls. But people do, including Traci Park and many of her supporters, who consider safe streets infrastructure “an assault on car culture” and part of a larger progressive conspiracy to take away people's freedom. For Traci Park, "freedom" is not the ability to move around the city on foot or bicycle without fear of imminent death. Freedom is the right to speed around in a car.
The people making up this car culture death cult lost their minds when former CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin advanced infrastructure improvements to make our streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians. In Westside LA politics, being anti-Bonin became synonymous with opposing any transportation improvements that reduce cars' unfettered access to our vast roadways (climate and safety be damned). In fact, the first failed attempt to recall the former councilmember was driven by people's hatred for "road diets" that Bonin spearheaded in the district.
Fast forward to the second failed recall attempt in the fall of 2021. At this point, Traci Park was already deeply embedded with the recall and all the anti-safe streets paranoia that went along with it. She moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 2021 and immediately took up common cause with well-heeled Westsiders who hate Bonin and everything he represents, including safe transit for cyclists and pedestrians. Of course, the majority of the city's safe transit users also happen to be LA's most vulnerable and disadvantaged residents who can't afford a car to begin with.
Traci Park campaigned against safe streets infrastructure.
During her 2022 campaign, Traci feigned interest in cycling, claiming that she loved riding her bike on the boardwalk in Venice. But when it comes to biking on actual city streets, she was nowhere to be seen. She even faked a family emergency to get out of a debate hosted by the safe transit advocacy group Streets For All.
In an interview with Streetsblog, Traci suggested she would oppose extending the Venice Boulevard Mobility Project westward toward Lincoln Boulevard, citing "lack of community engagement" by the LA Department of Transportation. The idea that LADOT did not engage the community around the Venice Boulevard project is a well-worn and completely bogus complaint Traci adopted from anti-safety activists. In fact, LADOT conducted more community outreach for the Venice Boulevard Mobility Project than any other project in its history.
In an interview with Streetsblog, Traci suggested she would oppose extending the Venice Boulevard Mobility Project westward toward Lincoln Boulevard, citing "lack of community engagement" by the LA Department of Transportation. The idea that LADOT did not engage the community around the Venice Boulevard project is a well-worn and completely bogus complaint Traci adopted from anti-safety activists. In fact, LADOT conducted more community outreach for the Venice Boulevard Mobility Project than any other project in its history.
Traci Park is the most vocal opponent of safe streets on City Council.
Before Traci was even sworn in, she attempted to kill $5.1 million for transportation projects on the Westside. Fortunately, City Council ignored her. After taking office, her first transit-related motions were an effort to delay a project on the notoriously dangerous Lincoln Boulevard, and a motion against lithium-ion batteries intended to fuel the "culture war against electric mobility".
Then in early 2024, Traci went mask off by openly opposing Measure HLA. This ballot initiative requires the city to make good on its own plan for upgrading city streets, called "Mobility Plan 2035". Although City Council overwhelmingly approved the Mobility Plan back in 2015 with its "Vision Zero" goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero by 2035, only 5% of the plan has been implemented over nine years. As a result, people continue to die on our streets at alarming rates. Measure HLA is a way to hold the city accountable for completing the original Mobility Plan's networks so we can all get around more safely and efficiently.
Less than a month before the March 7 primary election, Traci Park and her friends at the firefighters union came out swinging against HLA. Park introduced a motion characterizing HLA as an attack on cars, requesting a report-back on how many parking spaces and traffic lanes we might lose under the new law. The firefighters released misleading ads claiming that new traffic safety infrastructure would slow down emergency response times. As the LA Times put it, the firefighters' ads were "fear-mongering designed to scare Angelenos into voting against the measure." In fact, Measure HLA will improve emergency response times - adding hundreds of miles of bus lanes and center turn lanes allows emergency vehicles to bypass traffic and respond to emergencies even faster.
HLA was an incredibly popular ballot measure before Park's and the firefighters' baseless attacks, and their assault did little to quell public enthusiasm for the initiative. HLA passed with roughly 65% of the vote. Questions remain as to why Traci Park and the firefighters would engage in such a risky political move. After all, opposing a popular safe streets measure in the city with the highest number of traffic deaths is not a good look.
Park's PR push was likely a last-ditch effort to appease her die-hard car culture supporters. But the union's opposition is especially baffling, given the firefighters' first-hand experience with the bloodshed on our streets. There is some speculation the union was worried that firefighters would miss out on the cushy pay raises the LAPD secured in the summer of 2023 if city funds went to improving traffic safety. And of course, after lining Traci's pockets during her election to City Council, they likely pressured Park to join their bogus campaign against safe streets.
Then in early 2024, Traci went mask off by openly opposing Measure HLA. This ballot initiative requires the city to make good on its own plan for upgrading city streets, called "Mobility Plan 2035". Although City Council overwhelmingly approved the Mobility Plan back in 2015 with its "Vision Zero" goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero by 2035, only 5% of the plan has been implemented over nine years. As a result, people continue to die on our streets at alarming rates. Measure HLA is a way to hold the city accountable for completing the original Mobility Plan's networks so we can all get around more safely and efficiently.
Less than a month before the March 7 primary election, Traci Park and her friends at the firefighters union came out swinging against HLA. Park introduced a motion characterizing HLA as an attack on cars, requesting a report-back on how many parking spaces and traffic lanes we might lose under the new law. The firefighters released misleading ads claiming that new traffic safety infrastructure would slow down emergency response times. As the LA Times put it, the firefighters' ads were "fear-mongering designed to scare Angelenos into voting against the measure." In fact, Measure HLA will improve emergency response times - adding hundreds of miles of bus lanes and center turn lanes allows emergency vehicles to bypass traffic and respond to emergencies even faster.
HLA was an incredibly popular ballot measure before Park's and the firefighters' baseless attacks, and their assault did little to quell public enthusiasm for the initiative. HLA passed with roughly 65% of the vote. Questions remain as to why Traci Park and the firefighters would engage in such a risky political move. After all, opposing a popular safe streets measure in the city with the highest number of traffic deaths is not a good look.
Park's PR push was likely a last-ditch effort to appease her die-hard car culture supporters. But the union's opposition is especially baffling, given the firefighters' first-hand experience with the bloodshed on our streets. There is some speculation the union was worried that firefighters would miss out on the cushy pay raises the LAPD secured in the summer of 2023 if city funds went to improving traffic safety. And of course, after lining Traci's pockets during her election to City Council, they likely pressured Park to join their bogus campaign against safe streets.