Avoid Protest Closures with E-Policing

By Eric Richardson
Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007, at 12:24PM

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Traffic on Main There's an immigration march up Broadway today that looks to cut Downtown's east-west traffic off right during the middle of rush hour. Inevitably, many drivers will get stuck and be thoroughly annoyed by not knowing what's going on.

You don't have to be that driver.

LAPD Central Division sends out First Ammendment notices to anyone who signs up for its E-Policing emails. If you were subscribed, this is what you would have received on Monday:

12/12/2007 
Procession for Immigration Reform 
TIME: 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
ASSEMBLY: Corner of 7th and Broadway
ROUTE: From the corner of 7th and Broadway, N on 
Broadway to Aliso, E on Aliso to Main, N on Main to 
rally site across the street from Our Lady Queen of 
Angels Church
CONTACT: Latino Movement USA
Juan Jose Gutierrez
323-269-6069

E-Policing won't do anything for those times when you hit a filming closure, but it's a great service for knowing about First Ammendment events Downtown.

Update (8:20pm): Hartley Voss sends in this great shot of Main street traffic as viewed from the PE Lofts around 7pm. That's a pretty solid sea of tail lights.

Comments

megan writes:

thanks for this!! just got a call from my friend asking me to find out what's going on with the traffic downtown, your blog was the ONLY thing that gave me any answers on the internet (that I could easily find, that is). Much appreciated.

# on Dec.12.2007 AT 07:11 PM

Metro Local writes:

The link below is to the live Los Angeles traffic info, click on Downtown and you can usually get a pretty quick picture of the magnitude of the gridlock and areas to avoid:

http://trafficinfo.lacity.org/

Road closures SHOULD be noted in the window on the bottom but filming related closures never seem to be posted there.

# on Dec.12.2007 AT 08:41 PM

Jason Li writes:

I am on the e-policing list and thought exactly about traffic when I got the message last night. I live on 8th/Maple and it looked a little busier than normal today in the area, expecially with the many east-west bus lines also taking 8th St. too. Good think I live and work in downtown.

# on Dec.12.2007 AT 09:16 PM

Ginny writes:

Oh...I LOVE IT! Here's the minority voice.

To all those people who were stuck in traffic: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now

I sent the notice out as soon as I got it to the DLANC crew. I figured out meeting would start late - and it did. We start late most of the time anyways...this time we just had an excuse.

I love it when traffic goes to hell in downtown. Maybe love isn't the right word...but imaging what downtown could be if we had more transit options, and a demonstration like to day could get the news? Can't you see it? Rather than "Traffic Gone To Hell, Jewelry District FedEx Pickups Delayed", we could see "100,000s Protest Antiquated US Immigration Policies"

# on Dec.12.2007 AT 10:48 PM

Just Another Guy writes:

The e-policing notification was wrong if that is what you got. There were a couple of issues that led to tonights "gridlock". There were traffic signals out at 1st & Hill along with others on Broadway and then also up to 2nd and Olive. As for the protest, the procession gathered at 7th east of Broadway and then went north on Spring to the church at Main & Caeser Chavez. Another source of information for events going on downtown is the BID Alert. Call the purple peoples service center and they should be able to help get you on the e-mail list.

# on Dec.12.2007 AT 11:08 PM

David Kennedy writes:

"To all those people who were stuck in traffic: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now"

I have to chime in here and point out this situation was a complete fiasco. This kind of smugness is unwarranted.

I live downtown and was stuck in this traffic for nearly an hour. And I was aware of the event. I picked up my kids from daycare at Union Station just after 6 p.m. The two-mile journey to our home at 9th & Broadway took about 50 minutes. Under normal conditions it takes ten minutes. I marshalled all my local knowledge and traffic guile to avoid the gridlock. I was completely unsuccessful as I was caught in this web of traffic I was astonished at how far out it cascaded. Alameda, San Pedro and Central all the way from the 101 down to at least Olympic. Complete gridlock. And these are streets far from the event.

Authorization for events like this need to be more carefully examined. An event like this should be scheduled for a time when the impact upon the community is minimized. Furthermore, if an event like this is planned for this time, the city should deploy resources to better manage it. And if this city can't afford to deploy those resources, it needs to think twice about inflicting this kind of chaos on the community.

# on Dec.13.2007 AT 01:18 PM

Ginny writes:

It's very difficult to deny First Amendment protected marches.

# on Dec.13.2007 AT 01:29 PM

David Kennedy writes:

Good heavens! I'm not advocating denying the First Ammendment. Please. I'm advocating sensible scheduling. A city has a variety of interests. These interests can conflict and, when they do, these interests should be balanced. Downtown needs to stop being the dumping ground for activity which would not be tolerated elsewhere in the city. Too often, no consideration is given to impact for events like this.

If you want to defend scheduling of last night's march and it attendent traffic chaos, go ahead. I'd love to hear the case.

My point is that for people to look out their window and smugly announce this traffic chaos is not their problem ("Let them eat cake!" she said), it isn't very neighborly. Being a good neighbor is an imperative for urban living.

# on Dec.13.2007 AT 02:43 PM

Avoid Protest Closures with E-Policing

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