LA’s Traffic
Excerpted … and slightly edited … from the WHWCNC Newsletter
Speaking to a recent gathering of Woodland Hills homeowners, Rita Robinson, new LA Department of Transportation General Manager, offered a glimmer of hope for easing —and possibly even solving— the traffic dilemmas that have been growing throughout Woodland Hills and the city.
Robinson, who was appointed to her new post by Mayor Villaraigosa after successfully re-energizing the City’s Department of Sanitation, promised that there was going to a be a new attitude at the DOT. “A major step forward,” she said, “will be enhancing the communications between residents and the traffic engineers responsible for mitigating problems in specific areas.”
She said that she has instructed her District Office Traffic Team to be more open to suggestions and complaints from the community, and to be more communicative about what is happening at key locations.
“I want to my staff to be more accessible,” she stated when asked about the telephone maze callers now have to negotiate when trying to register a concern or ask for solution for a specific traffic problem. Robinson even sparked to a suggestion of having a traffic engineer attend a neighborhood council meeting every other month, to allow the community to voice problems or suggestions directly to the person who can facilitate a solution. “Having open communications between the people who live in the community and the traffic engineers who are responsible for that area makes a lot of sense,” she stated, promising that she would discuss the suggestion with her staff.
Without getting into specifics, because she is new on the job, Robinson showed that she has already drawn a bead on key problem areas in Woodland Hills, including Ventura Blvd., the 101-Valley Circle/Mulholland confluence, the Victory Blvd. crossings at DeSoto and Winnetka, and the free-for-all between shopping centers on Victory near Fallbrook. She acknowledged that the Transportation Department may have a quality control problem, and emphasized that she wants to do her best to alleviate frustration, irritation and problems.
The new transpo GM told the gathering that she is investigating a “No Roadwork During Rush Hour” policy, and is also looking into an Automated Surveillance System at key intersections so that traffic lights can be synchronized or altered to keep the greatest amounts of traffic flowing.
She invited the community to write her directly if they felt that traffic problems aren’t being addressed adequately or quickly enough by the area’s traffic engineers. “We want a partnership with the people who live in the community,” she emphasized. “We are the traffic--all of us--and we have to work together to solve it.”
It was obvious that Rita Robinson can talk the talk. Now the community wants to see if Ms. Robinson also can walk the walk. (This opinion piece was posted first in the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborhood Council Newsletter. Read this and other reports and information on the WHWCNC website: www.whcouncil.org ) _
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