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Monday, May 18, 2020
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority to Replace Its App with `Transit’
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Monday it partnered with a Canadian company to replace its smartphone app and collaborate on improving real-time bus and train arrival information.
Metro said riders can download the app, Transit, as a replacement for Metro’s GoMetro app, which is outdated and will be phased out.
“Now, more than ever, we need to provide riders with the tools they need to get around Los Angeles County, and this app does that extraordinarily well,” Inglewood Mayor and Metro Board Chair James Butts said. “At the same time, this will also provide Metro with higher-quality data that will allow the agency to respond more quickly to riders’ changing needs as Los Angeles County recovers from this pandemic.”
The Transit app will provide an improved customer experience, including accurate real-time arrival information for buses and trains as well as step-by-step navigation with Transit’s GO feature, according to Metro.
Riders will be able to plan trips with transfers within Metro and to other agencies, along with the ability to combine public transit with options like Metro Bike Share and private rideshare services.
Customers can personalize their service alerts and set favorite lines.
Additional Metro features are expected to be integrated into the app in the future.
“With Transit as Metro’s official app, riders will know where to go, and Metro gets an app platform to help build Los Angeles’s multimodal future,” said David Block-Schachter, Transit’s chief business officer.
Transit’s partnership with Metro enables data sharing that helps Metro improve service, while safeguarding privacy and protecting sensitive user information, according to the transit agency.
Transit does not engage in background location tracking, does not sell location data to advertisers and does not share location data with Metro that could allow users to be identified.
The contract with the Canadian company costs zero dollars and the partnership is expected to save Metro $240,000 per year in app maintenance and development costs, according to Metro officials.
“This is a win-win for riders, taxpayers and Metro, as it will allow us to focus on improving our system while allowing our partners at Transit to continue providing an innovative mobility tool that many of our riders are already familiar with,” Metro CEO Phillip Washington said. “We look forward to working with Transit to add more features that help make getting around Los Angeles County even easier.”
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UCLA: Support Increases for Smoke-Free Policies in L.A. Housing
Half of Los Angeles apartment dwellers report having been exposed to unwanted secondhand smoke in their homes, and most of those say they favor policies banning smoking in their buildings, according to survey results released Monday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Owners of multi-unit housing properties in Los Angeles also expressed strong support, with 92% saying they favor smoke-free policies, according to the results of the survey of more than 5,000 tenants and owners in some of the city’s most densely populated areas.
“We found that one in two tenants said that they were exposed to secondhand smoke and that there is a need to reduce that exposure in order to protect all tenants and children from harmful health effects,” said Peggy Toy, director of the Health DATA Program at the Center for Health Policy Research and lead author of the study.
Currently, that protection is hard to come by. There is no citywide policy in Los Angeles prohibiting tenants from smoking in privately owned apartments and condominiums. And in Los Angeles County, roughly 80% of cities allow smoking in those units.
The danger of exposure to secondhand smoke is well documented. While tenants who smoke may believe they pose no threat to others, secondhand smoke from tobacco, marijuana and e-cigarettes can drift into other units through shared ventilation systems, walls, windows and common areas, endangering other tenants. Drifting secondhand smoke cannot be controlled and has been linked to more than 40,000 annual deaths from heart disease and lung cancer combined, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
For the study, nearly 5,000 survey responses were collected from household tenants in a dozen Los Angeles City Council districts, with help from community partners who conducted surveys in English, Spanish and Korean, according to Toy. About 200 surveys were conducted online and over the phone with private owners of multi-unit buildings.
The surveys covered topics such as tenants’ experiences with secondhand smoke in their homes, tenants’ and owners’ views on smoke-free policies, and the potential challenges of enforcing these policies.
“As more people are spending time at home due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that tenants feel safe about their surroundings and protected from exposure to unwanted environmental risks like secondhand smoke,” said Dr. Tony Kuo, director of the division of chronic disease and injury prevention at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
“We are hopeful that multi-unit housing owners, tenants and community stakeholders can come to a solution that protects our communities from this danger in their homes,” he said.
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DHS Man Accused of Firing Gun in Palm Springs, Fleeing Police, Posts Bail
A 25-year-old man accused of firing a gun in a Palm Springs neighborhood prior to leading police on a high-speed chase was out of custody Monday on $3,500 bail, authorities said.
Juan Louis Macias of Desert Hot Springs was arrested last Friday and booked on suspicion of evading police, unlawful discharge of firearm and child cruelty at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, the Palm Springs Police Department reported.
According to police, dispatchers received a call of shots fired about 12:40 a.m. near the 2800 block of South Palm Canyon Drive. Officers located a Lexus sedan matching the suspect vehicle description being driven around the area of the call and attempted to stop the vehicle, but the motorist sped off and eluded them.
Police found the car abandoned a short while later, and after searching the area, located Macias and a juvenile passenger hiding in a backyard in the 2900 block of Airlane Road. The youth’s relationship to Macias was not clear.
Police searched the car and found an empty gun holster and ammunition — but no gun.
Jail records show Macias is scheduled to be arraigned at the Larson Justice Center in Indio on Sept. 22.
Macias has no documented felony convictions in Riverside County.
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CHP: Woman Killed in Crash East of Temecula Failed to Stop at Intersection
A 50-year-old woman fatally injured in a collision just east of Temecula failed to yield at an intersection and drove into the path of another vehicle that had the right of way, authorities said Monday.
Michelle Jeffers of Temecula died at a hospital several hours after the late Saturday afternoon crash at Madeira de Playa Drive and Calle Contento, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Officer Mike Lassig said that just before 5 p.m., Jeffers was westbound on Madeira de Playa in her 2007 Mercedes-Benz E350 and “for unknown reasons at this time, failed to stop at the stop sign.”
According to Lassig, 60-year-old Darnell Mills of Murrieta was northbound on Calle Contento in his 2018 Ford Expedition, traveling roughly 35 mph with no stop sign to which to yield, when the victim’s sedan suddenly drove into his path.
“(Mills) was unable to avoid the Mercedes, causing the SUV’s front end to collide into the driver’s side of the sedan,” the officer said.
Riverside County Fire Department crews arrived within a few minutes and found Jeffers clinging to life. She was airlifted to Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar, where she died four hours later.
Lassig said Mills and his three passengers suffered minor injuries and were treated and released from the same hospital that evening.
The collision remains under investigation.
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Woman Charged With Murder in Man’s Stabbing in Winter Gardens Neighborhood
A woman who allegedly stabbed a man to death in the Winter Gardens neighborhood north of El Cajon was charged Monday with murder.
Julia Gonzalez, 23, faces 26 years to life in state prison if convicted of the May 8 killing of 32-year-old Lakeside resident Justyn Nicholas Preston.
Gonzalez, who pleaded not guilty to murder and knife-use allegations, is being held on $1 million bail and is due back in court June 30 for a readiness conference.
Sheriff’s deputies responded around 12:35 a.m. May 8 to the 8200 block of Jema Way to reports that a man had been stabbed during an altercation with neighbors, Lt. Thomas Seiver said.
Preston was found with multiple stab wounds and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Gonzalez was arrested later that day and sheriff’s officials indicated she was the lone suspect. They did not release a suspected motive or what connection there was, if any, between Gonzalez and Preston.
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Criminal Probe Underway in Blast, Fire in Downtown Business
An investigation is underway Monday to determine if criminal conduct was involved in a fiery explosion in the downtown Los Angeles Toy District that injured a dozen firefighters and damaged buildings and fire equipment.
Los Angeles Fire Department’s arson and counter-terrorism unit, the criminal conspiracy section of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Major Crimes Division and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are involved in the investigation.
“The National Response Team … along with ATF special agents from the Los Angeles Field Division, were activated today to join the investigation of the fire,” the ATF said in a statement released Monday morning. “The NRT callout will have experts arriving today and they will begin processing the scene.”
The NRT was activated at the request of the Los Angeles city officials, according to ATF.
“ATF is committed to working alongside Los Angeles Fire Department to determine the origin and cause of this fire that tragically injured firefighters,” said Monique Villegas, special agent in charge of ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division “ATF will provide whatever resources are necessary to thoroughly investigate and provide answers.”
Carbon dioxide and butane canisters were found inside the building but it’s unknown if they contributed to the explosion, LAFD spokesman Nicholas Prange told City News Service.
The explosion happened about 6:30 p.m. Saturday while firefighters responded to the initial call of a fire in a single-story building at 327 Boyd St., between East Third and Fourth streets, housing a business called Smoke Tokes Warehouse Distributor, “a supplier for those who make butane honey oil,” according to LAFD Capt. Erik Scott.
Firefighters had begun an offensive battle inside the building when there was an explosion and multiple buildings became involved, Scott said.
“There was a significant explosion that caused a mayday report,” Scott explained. “This was upgraded to a major emergency category.”
Some of the 11 firefighters suffered “obvious damage and burns” in the explosion and were taken to County-USC Medical Center, according to Scott, who said two of them were listed in critical but stable condition.
A 12th firefighter was treated and released from an emergency room Saturday for a minor extremity injury.
Three firefighters were released from the hospital Sunday. As of late Monday morning, six firefighters remained hospitalized, Scott reported.
Dr. Marc Eckstein, medical director for LAFD and a physician at County-USC, said the 11 hospitalized firefighters arrived awake and alert, but two were put on ventilators due to smoke inhalation and four were sent to the intensive care unit for burns. Most of the burns, Eckstein said, were on their upper extremities.
On Sunday, the two firefighters were removed from ventilators, but remained in intensive care, Prange said.
Mayor Eric Garcetti, at a briefing that night, said: “The good news is that everybody is going to make it,” but added, “We have a lot of firefighters who are shaken up.”
LAFD Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said the mayday call, which is used only when a firefighter is “down, missing or trapped,” was “the kind of call I always dread.”
He said the injured men, who were from Engine No. 9, realized something was wrong when they were inside the building but could not escape in time to avoid the blast. Their fire engine parked outside was charred, and the aerial ladder was damaged — with eyewitnesses saying firefighters on that ladder climbed down with their coats on fire.
Multiple ambulances and fire companies were called to the scene, with more than 230 firefighters responding and establishing a treatment area just east of the building. The fire, which spread from the narrow one-story building where it originated to neighboring businesses, was knocked down at 8:08 p.m.
The cause of the fire “is of paramount concern,” Scott said.
Earl King, a 64-year-old man who lives in an alley a block away from the building that went up in flames, said at first the smoke was so minor he thought it was just a trash can fire.
“The smoke was getting bigger,” he said. ”And then all the sudden there was a big ‘ole popping sound…POP, POP, POP…That’s when, BOOM! And then we can feel it — you know that little vibration.”
The sound reminded him of a large train chugging right toward him, he said.
“It scared the hell outta me,” he said. “And then when we looked up we seen all the smoke, and the ashes coming down with fire on ’em…. It was no joke. It was no joke.”
He said the blaze seemed to be in a complex that includes a vape shop warehouse where he’s worked as a day laborer before.
“We be doin’ their containers,” he said. “You know, unload their truck.”
King said when he was working in the building he noticed plenty of flammable materials.
“A lot of those warehouses have chemicals, you know the stuff, like butane for lighters, or whatever,” he said.
Police described the area where the explosive fire occurred as “Bong Row” because of a large number of cannabis, CBD and pipe businesses.
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