Mark Vallianatos
Recent Posts
Transportation and food Access idea 3: Regional Food Hubs
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I’ve written about how transit could be improved and sidewalk vending legalized to increase access to healthy food. Before food can get from stores and food trucks and carts to shoppers, it first has to be transported from farms, through distribution chains, to retail sources. This third installment in a short series on transportation and food […]
Vallianatos: Policy Shifts Towards Walkable Communities Anathema to “Buy Here Pay Here”
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(This is part two of our series on reader’s response to last week’s series on Buy Here Pay Here used car dealerships. Yesterday we summarized the statements of Joe Linton, Roadblick, Adrian Martinez, Damien Goodmon and Allison Mannos. Today we bring a more detailed response from Occidental College Professor Mark Vallianatos. Tomorrow, we’ll have a […]
Transportation and Food Access Idea 2: Legal and Healthy Street Food
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Having written about food & transit last week , I want to share some thoughts (and a poll) on street food. Street and mobile food are important determinants of the food environment in Los Angeles. They are also critical elements of more vibrant streets. But they have enemies and most of the policy activity in […]
Transportation and Food Access Idea 1: Transit and Good Food
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(Mark Vallianatos is Policy Director of UEPI and an Adjunct Professor at Occidental College, where he currently teaches the Environmental Stewards class. Mark is co-author of The Next Los Angeles: the Struggle for a Livable City and a number of publications on food access, transportation, and goods movement.) Several years ago, our institute collaborated with […]
Editorial: Don’t extend the 710;Shrink It and Expand Alternatives
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I have written about how amorphous the scoping process for Metro and Caltran’s 710 gap-closure/ big dig project has been. I’ve now given shape to my own opinions in comments for the scoping phase of their environmental review (which ends on April 14th). Please submit comments if you are interested in the future of freeways […]
The 710: A Post Modern Freeway
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I’m sad to report that a generic timeline has replaced the board game of transportation history I admired during the first series of 710 conversations outreach meetings. With the stakes raised by CalTran’s release of a notice of scoping/initiation of studies for the SR-710 Gap Closure Project (which we’ll be calling the SR-710 California’s Big […]
The 710 Game: Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $780 million
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It seems suggestive that Metro and Caltran’s just launched SR-710 Conversations public outreach process features a timeline of transportation milestones printed as a board game. It remains to be seen whether it will be a game that the public plays: a creative rethinking of mobility needs in the San Gabriel Valley and Northeast Los Angeles, […]
Controversy Over Hollywood Farmer’s Market Raises Question: Who Owns the Street?
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The uncertain future of the Hollywood Farmers Market has inspired much energy and advocacy that food and street advocates in Los Angeles can be proud of. Market operator See-LA rallied allies and supporters. Farmers’ market patrons flooded City Councilperson Eric Garcetti with messages of support for the market. Garcetti in turn helped extend the permit […]
Interactive Planning and a Q and A Session with Michael LoGrande
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(We usually don’t re-post stories from other websites. But with a slow week for events coming up, we decided to reprint the story announcing this event on Wednesday at Occidental College written by Streetsblog Contributer Mark Vallianatos in lieu of the “Week in Livable Streets Events” post. If you leave any questions or comments here, […]
Oxy: Q and A with New Planning Director
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We want you & your best ideas for planning & making Los Angeles a better place. Join UEPI at Occidental College on December 1 for a Q&A session with recently-appointed L.A. City Planning Director Michael LoGrande and L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, who has written about whether Los Angeles can become a ‘post-suburban city.’ […]
Too Big to Miss: Confronting the Costs of Freight Transport at the Moving Forward Together Conference
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Community members, activists and researchers met at THE Impact Project’s Moving Forward Together conference in Carson last weekend. THE (Trade, Health, Environment) Impact Project is a local collaboration of environmental justice organizations and academic institutions that banded together to fight pollution from the goods movement/ logistics industry in Southern California. http://www.theimpactproject.org/ ‘Goods’ movement or logistics […]
L.A. Doesn’t Have the Worst Traffic in the Country
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(This article first appeared at Occidental College’s Urban and Environmental Policy Blog.) This morning I saw a No on 23 yard sign. It read “Stop Texas Oil. Vote No on 23.” A few minutes ago I came across a recent study by CEOs for Cities that could be summed up as “Stop Texas Sprawl Merchants. […]