In Westside LA politics, being anti-Mike Bonin is synonymous with being against any transportation improvement that reduces cars’ unfettered access to our vast roadways (our climate and safety be damned). After all, the first failed attempt to recall the former CD11 Councilmember was driven by people’s hatred for “road diets” that Bonin spearheaded in the district.
Fast forward to fall of 2021 during the second failed recall effort, and Traci 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.
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-safe streets activists. In fact, LADOT conducted more community outreach for the Venice Boulevard Mobility Project than any other project in its history.
Before Traci was even sworn in, she attempted to kill $5.1 million for transportation projects on the Westside. Fortunately, City Council ignored her. And since taking office, her only transit-related motions have been an effort to delay the Lincoln Boulevard Multimodal Bridge Improvement Project and a motion against lithium-ion batteries intended to fuel the “culture war against electric microbility.”
