The Los Angeles Metropolis Council moved Tuesday to focus on road takeovers at scores of metropolis intersections recognized for the illicit exercise.
The council voted 12 to 1 to launch a pilot program at 20 intersections, together with at Grand Avenue and 4th Road in downtown L.A. and Glenoaks Boulevard and Polk Road in Sylmar. Raised, hardened heart traces will likely be put in on the intersections to discourage motorists from doing donuts and different stunts, officers mentioned. This system price is $80,000.
Road takeovers, or sideshows as they’re recognized, sometimes draw massive crowds. Vehicles spin round intersections, burning tires and sending smoke within the air to the delight of onlookers.
The Occasions has reported on the shootings and lethal crashes that happen at road takeovers.
At a Metropolis Council committee listening to final month, police officers mentioned the takeovers are more and more violent. Responding officers are met in some instances with rocks and laser pointers, officers mentioned.
It’s extraordinarily harmful for police to strive to cease a road takeover, partially as a result of the automobiles will flee the world at extreme speeds, endangering the general public, the officers mentioned.
Based on police knowledge offered on the listening to, road racing and takeovers peaked in L.A. in 2020, with 912 incidents. In 2019, there have been 319 incidents and in 2023, there have been 482 incidents, police mentioned.
The Los Angeles Division of Transportation has already examined placing rumble strips and different site visitors measures at 5 metropolis intersections, mentioned Laura Rubio Cornejo, normal supervisor of the Los Angeles Division of Transportation eventually month’s listening to.
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Nonetheless, in some instances, the automobiles simply transfer to the subsequent intersection. Cornejo additionally mentioned that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy to curbing the issue of road takeovers.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents neighborhoods on town’s Eastside, was the lone vote Tuesday in opposition to the pilot program.
Hernandez mentioned she voted in opposition to the movement as a result of she doesn’t imagine it presents the fitting answer. “I wish to see us investing in proactive secure road infrastructure that improves security for our communities and reduces cases of road violence, not simply investing in fashions that reply after hurt happens,” Hernandez mentioned.
Councilmembers Kevin de León and Imelda Padilla had been absent from Tuesday’s vote.
The intersections focused for the raised, hardened heart traces embrace:
—Grand Avenue & 4th Road
—Grand Avenue & 2nd Road
—Grand Avenue & third Road
—N. Meyers Road & Kearney Road
—Figueroa Avenue & 2nd Road
—Crenshaw Boulevard & Florence Avenue
—Manchester Boulevard & San Pedro Road
—Hoover Avenue & Century Boulevard
—Western Avenue & Century Boulevard
—Normandie Avenue & Gage Avenue
—Balboa Boulevard & Foothill Boulevard
—Bledsoe Road & Bradley Avenue
—Balboa Boulevard & San Fernando Mission Boulevard
—Glenoaks Boulevard & Polk Road
—Yamell Road & Foothill Boulevard
—Lincoln Boulevard & Manchester Avenue
—Western Avenue & Washington Boulevard
—Mulholland Drive & Corda Drive
—Fairfax Avenue & Pico Boulevard
—Pacific Coast Freeway & Temescal Canyon
