Streetsblog Los Angeles

In an effort to create an online and physical map of community gardens throughout Boyle Heights, the Las Fotos project is asking for your help. The map will include original work by the young women who participate in the program. You can submit leads on any public or private gardens or fruit trees by clicking here. If your lead is confirmed, you could win a $100 gift card.

Click on the image to see a larger version of the flyer. To see the poster in Spanish, click here.

Las Fotos Project has since worked with Latina youth throughout Southern California, and has developed partnership with national and international nonprofit organizations and schools to expand the movement of empowering Latina youth through photography and self-expression. It was founded in 2010 by Los Angeles-based photographer Eric V. Ibarra after seeing a need for teenage girls throughout Los Angeles to have a skill that could help build their confidence and self-esteem.

“Las Fotos Project’s student photographers are creating a resource map with all the gardens and public fruit trees for the community of Boyle Heights,” writes Natalie Franco, a professional advisor and advisor for this project. “We need your help! Please submit your leads to any gardens or public fruit trees here: www.lasfotosproject.org/boyleheightsgardens“

Over the course of ten weeks, 14 students will use Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping to document the location and size of all gardens throughout the community. The map will distinguish between gardens and green spaces on public property, shared community gardens, and school gardens, and will distinguish them by size: small medium, or large. Read more…

Bailey WEB

In November of 2009, I took a bike ride with Carlos Morales and other members of the Eastside Bike Club, not to be confused with the Eastside Riders, and Browne Molyneux of the Bus Bench to explore the bicycle and pedestrian access to the Gold Line’s about-to-be-opened Eastside Extension.

During the ride, we ran into City Council Member Jose Huizar who was not yet a member of the Metro Board of Directors. Huizar listened to the concerns of some of the riders, and engaged with us about what kind of fixes we would like to see.

Today, the first round of those are much closer to reality. Earlier today, Huizar  the Department of Public Works and Metro joined with community members Tuesday for a groundbreaking ceremony in Boyle Heights for the first part of the Eastside Access project. This project would turn Bailey Street into an extension of the Mariachi Plaza station, creating a pedestrian connection from the plaza to Pennsylvania Avenue and Bailey Street.

“Since the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension route opened in 2009, our goal all along was to enhance and transform the areas around the light-rail stations to improve pedestrian and bicycle access and traffic, as well as support business, community and art-related projects,” said Councilmember José Huizar. “The Garden Street on Bailey Project is an important part of a multi-million dollar, multi-agency commitment to do just that.”

The Eastside Access project is a $12 million pedestrian improvement project in and around four stations of the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension along First Street. A graphic showing all of the remaining projects can be found at the bottom of this story.

 On Bailey Street, the city will construct a series of small improvements along the one block between Mariachi Plaza and Bailey Street. These improvements include: Read more…

(One of the ongoing stories in our Boyle Heights/East Los Angeles coverage has been the debate over whether or not to proceed with the redevelopment of Wyvernwood Garden Apartments. Jesús Hermosillo has a master’s degree in urban planning and contributes regularly to Boyle Heights Beat. Streetsblog has not taken a position on the project and welcomes an op/ed by the Fifteen Group or any proponents of the project. – DN)

To save or not to save Wyvernwood Garden Apartments, and build something else in its place, is the question more and more people are grappling with as city officials prepare to decide on the proposed Boyle Heights Mixed Use Community Project.   Anti-redevelopment arguments center on preserving a cultural landmark, and averting another mass displacement reminiscent of Chavez Ravine. No matter which side of the debate you fall on, there is no doubt a new Wyvernwood will change Boyle Heights forever. The consequences of the $2.2 billion real-estate venture—one of the largest ever proposed in the United States—could spell an ecological catastrophe for Boyle Heights.

Google earth image via Los Angeles Times

Despite its billing as an exemplar of New Urbanism—an urban-design movement promoting compact, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods as a green alternative to automobile-reliant development—one of the proposal’s central features is undoing the historic garden community’s pedestrian-oriented design to make way for vastly expanded car facilities.

Fifteen Group, the Miami-based company that owns Wyvernwood, proposes to replace the seventy acre “Garden City” campus containing hundreds of orange-colored buildings, 1,187 homes and over 6,000 residents, with something similar to an Eastside version of Playa Vista,. The proposed development contains  4,400 condominiums and rentals; 325,000 square feet of stores, restaurants and offices, recreational facilities for residents including swimming pools and spas; and parking for 9,048 cars.

Although total parking spaces proposed is over five times more than 1,799 spaces currently on site, the number ultimately built could be higher if Fifteen Group fails to obtain an exemption from city minimum parking rules requiring 10,903 to 11,003 spaces for a project this dense.  Fifteen group justifies the project as creating “a healthier place to live and work.” At the same time, the developer wants to continue subsidizing automobile ownership after describing Wyvernwood’s current provision of 1.5 parking spaces per home as “inadequate,” corresponding to “a time when there were fewer automobiles” than today. Read more…

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s East L.A. Bike Ambassador Program is proving to be one of its most active local programs. While the group is meeting again tonight to discuss strategy for working with the city to improve bicycle access and safety in East and Northeast Los Angeles.

Photo: LACBC via Change.Org

It’s been a cause celeb for many bike advocates to expand the My Figueroa! (aka South Figueroa Corridor Project) to Figueroa Street in Northeast Los Angeles. Now that desire has taken the form of an online petition at Change.Org asking LADOT and City Planning for Bike Lanes on North Figueroa Street between Colorado and San Fernando Boulevards.

As of publication, the petition has over 200 signatures, an impressive number but well short of the 500 signatures goal. You can sign the petition by clicking here.

In the petition the LACBC brings up more than just bike friendliness as a reason to invest in bike infrastructure. They focus on how a strong bike network creates a safer environment for all road users, fosters a stronger sense of community and increases the incentive for people to shop locally.

Yellow in favor of the new development, white opposed. Photo: Erick Huerta

City Council Member Jose Huizar, who represents Boyle Heights, East L.A. and parts of the Downtown, held a community meeting with the current residents of Wyvernwood Apartments to hear their concerns regarding the proposed redevelopment project to replace the current apartment with a higher-cost mixed-use housing development. In 2011, Huizar expressed concern with the project, but last night seemed more neutral while listening to the 200 residents in attendance.

The new Wyvernwood Apartments proposal is a $2 billion dollar project submitted by the real estate company Fifteen Group, to remodel the entire Boyle Heights apartment complex to mixed used housing development. The new plan offers opportunities for businesses to open up on bottom floors, with housing on higher up. The proposal includes plans to widen sidewalks and to make pedestrian access to and around the development easier. A final environmental report on the project is expected next month.

A different angle shows a lot more yellow.

Representatives from City Planning and the Public Housing Department spoke to residents about some of the processes involved with the proposed plan and urged them to continue to stay involved in future meetings to voice their concerns or support. The next community meeting will be held in October after the FEIR is released and city planners present their recommendations.

Passions flared before and during the meeting as each side was given 30 minutes to voice their reasons for supporting or being against the renovation. Supporters included resident Guzman Guerra, who testified that many are tired of living with an infestation of bed bugs, rats and cockroaches in their apartments. Others added that with the changes in the complex, crime, drugs and gang activity would be reduced while living conditions improve. The currently-standing 80-year-old apartment complex suffers from outdated plumbing, electrical wiring and structure damage. Just last month, a sewer pipe broke, leaving a stench throughout the development.

But not everyone supports the project. Maria Hunter challenged supporters, saying that if residents were sanitary and hygienic, they wouldn’t have insect or rodent infestations. If Wyvernwood residents became more active in reporting drug and gang activity, holding the owners responsible for their apartments, renovation wouldn’t be needed.  Read more…

Getting doored down Floral Drive can cause a lot of problems. @Elrandomhero/justarandomhero.blogspot.com

(When I found out that Kris was “doored” a little over a week ago, I asked him to write about it on Streetsblog. I didn’t push him to editorialize about it, something the reporter in him is loathe to do with his personal experiences. I think that it’s important for readers to understand where our team is coming from when we talk about issues such as bike safety or harassment on the train. – DN)

I don’t like riding fast through residential streets. They are too narrow, and people and cars are constantly coming from either side of the street. So getting doored while I was riding my bike down Floral Drive in East Los Angeles was a surprise. I was riding slowly uphill, and I have never been thrown off my bike by someone else’s actions.

Erick Huerta, or @elrandomhero on twitter, was riding ahead of me and noticed a man in his Dodge Camaro texting on his phone, but with his door opened slightly. Though I only had a second to maneuver around when he opened it, my right pedal still hit the door and knocked me off my bike.

The two-lane street doesn’t give much space to parked cars or cars themselves, so bicyclists usually end up hugging close to the sides of parked cars. This creates numerous blind spots for bicyclists like not seeing motorists exiting their vehicle or automobiles exiting driveways — lines of cars park so close to driveways that they act like a wall. If an automobile were trailing close behind me, a motorist’s alertness and good breaks would have been the only thing to stop me from ending up underneath the car since I landed in the middle of the car lane. Read more…

Since there were no bike pit stops in Boyle Heights for Metro Bike to Work Day, I took a break from the neighborhood and checked out the one in East Los Angeles. Staff and students from La Causa Youth Build, a charter school that serves 16 to 24 year olds that are pushed out of traditional schools, stood on the corner of Olympic and Goodrich Boulevards.

Amy Ruvalcaba, La Causa’s AmeriCorps coordinator and who organized La Causa’s Bike to Work Day pit stop, said that when she saw  that there was no pitstop in the East Los Angeles area just two weeks before Bike to Work Day, she started work on bringing one to La Causa.

La Causa has a curriculum with a foundation in social justice and sustainable practices.  The school organized a team of students to help at the pit stop intermittently throughout the day. Juan Gutierrez, 23, is a current student at La Causa Youth Build. Gutierrez manned the kiosk when I visited and was there throughout the morning before his classes in the afternoon.

La Causa’s pit stop wasn’t in a prime location for cyclists, but it did allow for students to visit or man the kiosk between classes. The volunteers had to contend with the noise and presence of big rig trucks coming from a lot of industry from around their offices and neighboring City of Commerce.

Regardless, those passing by, mostly pedestrians and some cyclists, stopped at the kiosk to see what was being offered.  Read more…