At Ease, Soldier: A young member of the East Side Riders proudly poses with his bike at the Watts Towers.

Several years ago, I spent a week photographing a stretch of 37th St. as part of a neighborhood documentation project of the area around USC. Where other photographers had diligently snapped structures and streets, I had cajoled residents into participating in the project and later gave them copies of the photos so they could see the final product. The soul of a neighborhood is its people, I had argued in defending my approach at the time. Without them, the structures are just a shell.

I was reminded of this while surveying the scene at Augustus Hawkins Natural Park on a chilly Sunday morning in late January. About 60 riders had shown up to participate in the CicLAvia South L.A. Exploration Ride through Watts. Each had a different motivation for being there. Some simply enjoyed participating in exploratory group rides. Those unfamiliar with the area came to check out our landmark destination, the Watts Towers. Others were linked to the CicLAvia South L.A. Host Committee, TRUST South L.A., C.I.C.L.E., or the BikeRoWave, the groups facilitating the ride. Still others were from the Watts-based East Side Riders (ESR), eager to make the case for Watts to be included in the CicLAvia expansion route.

Finally, a sizable contingent—at least 20%—came to document the ride, including the L.A. Times, KPCC’s OnCentral, the Annenberg Innovation Lab, filmmakers from Ride: In Living Color, folks from ParTour (a USC initiative harnessing new media and mobile technology to advance positive social change), and, of course, Streetsblog. The apparent newsworthiness of this crossing of socio-economic boundaries served to underscore how infrequently it occurs, even in a city as diverse as ours.

The ride was a continuation of the Committee’s efforts to host monthly rides into South LA. The larger purpose was to promote cycling and show the value of livable streets in communities, bridge gaps between communities by helping people explore new areas, demonstrate proper riding techniques and the rules of the road, and, in the case of ParTour, to engage participants in the creation of a crowd-sourced map of the route to showcase South L.A. as a rideable destination.

On just about all those counts, the organizers of the ride could consider it to have been incredibly successful, something for which they should be commended.

Seeing curious faces poking their heads out of doors and windows as we rolled by, however, I wondered if residents viewed the successes in the same way. To what extent did they grasp the goals of the ride or feel inspired by seeing bikers pass down their streets? Know about (or even have an interest in) the crowd-sourced map? Or agree that bridges were being built between their community and others?

It was hard to know, as, for the most part, we did not stop to interact with those who smiled and waved their greetings as we passed.

Some members of the ESR who had grown up along these streets voiced frustration that this was an important part of the real Watts that we were missing: the people. Moreover, the limited amount of time we would be in the neighborhood and a desire to see CicLAvia extend southward seemed to add to the pressure they felt to make sure participants would see enough to appreciate the community for what it was. Simply riding a route to a landmark, they noted, did little to help others see their community a destination.

To mitigate some of these concerns, both the ESR and the ride organizers had collaborated to work in a stop at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) to begin the process of bridge-building. It was a great move—a number of the riders in the group mentioned being inspired by the talk given by the WLCAC’s president and CEO, Tim Watkins, about the community and their work, and said they had not known about the WLCAC prior to visiting.

Post-talk, riders gathered together for a group photo at the Mother of Humanity statue, agreed it had been a fun ride, and then hit the road, headed back to the original starting point.

Lovely a ride as it was, would people return on their own to visit the community? Would people in the community now feel inspired to take back the streets for bikes? What were the longer-term gains for the community? What should they be?

Best Friends: Frederick Buggs and Joshua Jones of the East Side Riders roll down Holmes Blvd. together

There is only so much that can be accomplished with a single ride event. But if we seek to use cycling to bridge divides and make the communities themselves the destinations, then we may need to think about innovative ways to get more out of future such events. Cyclists tend to focus on finding routes that make it easy to move through places to points of interest when mapping rides. Thus, when community is built, it tends to be among those participating in the ride, not with those we pedal by. Genuine, sustainable bridges between communities clearly requires greater engagement of the residents of an area — both cyclists and non-cyclists — in such a way that the people of a community are able to participate in and contribute to the experience.

But what does that look like in practice? How much and what kind of outreach does that require? To figure it out, over the next few weeks, I will be retracing some of the route taken through Watts that day and interviewing residents to get their perspectives on these and the other questions raised above. Stay tuned for part two…

Vea el Streetfilm sin subtítulos, aqui.

After sponsoring two Streetfilms of the first two CicLAvias, Los Angeles’ version of the open streets festival based on Bogota’s Ciclovia, Los Angeles Streetsblog faced a dilemma: How can we continue to cover the event that draws over a hundred thousand Angelenos to the streets?  The Answer? Make a Streetfilm that was accessible to Southern California’s large Spanish-speaking population.

¡Viva CicLAvia! consists of two parts.  First, narrator Mara Corina Arellano Colin explains the history and concept of Los Angeles’ amazing open streets party, including footage and photos from similar festivals in Bogota, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Brussels and Miami.  While the narration is a great explanation of the benefits and culture of CicLAvia, the soul of Social Impact Consulting’s efforts are the interviews with participants.

The next five minutes is a parade of Spanish speakers professing their love of CicLAvia.  Whether it’s the team from South Central’s Mendez Bike Shop, the traffic officer spreading his arms while explaining Viva CicLAvia, or Hollywood’s City Councilman Eric Garcetti; the broad smiles in the Southern California sun give a message in any language.  Giving people more chances to play in the sun is good for Los Angeles.

This Streetfilm marked another first for Streetfilms, a directly reader supported video.  L.A. Streetsblog asked its readers if they wanted a Spanish language film on CicLAvia, and when they said yes, the readers were challenged through a Kick Starter campaign to fund the film.  Needless to say, the readers came through.

Watch here without English subtitles.

Filmmaker, South LA native, and long-time rider Yolanda Davis-Overstreet on her bike in eighth grade.

WHAT STAYED WITH HER were the stories, said Yolanda Davis-Overstreet, South LA native and director of “Ride: In Living Color,” a documentary currently being filmed on African-American cyclists.

The stories started flowing from the moment she walked into City of Bicycles in Inglewood in 1996, and they didn’t stop coming over the hours spent on 50-80 mile group training rides around Los Angeles. The riders’ mutual enthusiasm for cycling made it easier for people from different walks of life to get to know each other as individuals and share their histories more openly, she said.

It would be almost 15 years before Davis-Overstreet started to gather those stories more formally. Beginning with the 2011 Tour de Palm Springs, she documented the voices of participating riders of color. She then moved on to interview cyclists from Los Angeles and around the US, including Olympians Giddeon Massie and Nelson Vails, and local professional racer and mentor to inner-city cyclists, Rahsaan Bahati.

Things took off after a trip to Oakland, where Davis-Overstreet saw the political possibilities of the bicycle. Seeing African-Americans come together in the National Brotherhood of Cyclists to combat the high incidence of deaths linked to physical inactivity and poor diet in communities of color was a powerful experience. So was meeting local activists from Richmond Spokes and Bikes 4 Life who help at-risk teens by engaging and employing them in cycling and green industries that benefit the local community. Cycling, she realized, had brought people together around issues of social justice and galvanized them to take action to make change.

Upon her return to Southern California, she sought out activists of color in Los Angeles like Tafarai Bayne of T.R.U.S.T. South LA (and CicLAvia board member) and John Jones III of the East Side Riders (groups that will be profiled on South LA Streetsblog in the coming weeks). Each spoke of how members of the community could be activists for safer streets, and that cycling could play a role in achieving that goal. The East Side Riders’ group, for example, teaches young kids to invest in their communities on rides to feed the homeless living in their own neighborhoods.

As for the specific focus on African-Americans? We have a story to tell, said Davis-Overstreet. “Telling stories is community”–it is how we create community and how we know what we come from. Moreover, they are stories not often heard by those outside the community. How many people know, for example, that the 1899 World Champion cyclist (and two-time US Champion) was a 20 year old African-American riding out of Massachusetts named Marshall “Major” Taylor? That he managed to be champion despite being physically assaulted for being Black by other riders during races, even narrowly escaping a lynching after a race?

Stories like Major Taylor’s are not often part of the larger historical narrative of cycling. And, although there are outstanding African-American competitive cyclists and many riders of color in the streets today, neither the cycling industry nor the activist community is particularly reflective of that diversity. Davis-Overstreet noted that she was one of just a few African Americans present at events like Bike Summit and Interbike. Even though the people she met there voiced their desire to see a more diverse set of participants, many readily acknowledged that they were not sure how to reach out to those communities and begin those conversations.

“Ride: In Living Color” may play a role in making that dialogue easier, even while still being filmed. Davis-Overstreet has made an effort to connect insiders in the cycling industry that she has met on her journey with activists and riders of color, facilitating their conversations and conference calls on a regular basis. Others she has profiled have since been inspired to begin documenting their own stories and those of people around them. In the end, however, the film may offer more insight into our commonalities than our differences. Davis-Overstreet’s view that the bike is a tool to help “find our own internal happiness” and be a “vehicle for change in any community,” is something that anyone who regularly rides a bike is likely to agree with.

Davis-Overstreet aims to finish filming by April. More on the film and the filmmaking team can be found here: Ride: In Living Color

Kris Fortin, photo:Rafael Cardenas

Streetsblog is happy to announce that thanks to a generous grant from the California Endowment, today we are opening two “local bureaus” in South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights.  These bureaus will each feature new writers who will bring us stories on how decisions on transportation planning, development, transit oriented development and open space impact the health and character of these communities.

There’s also a lot that everyone can learn from these communities.  Fortin and Sulaiman will be exploring how the culture of these communities impacts their streetscapes, architecture and local culture.  As we explored in-depth during our 2011 series on L.A. County Department of Public Health PLACE Grants, how a community is built has a dramatic impact on the health, well-being and life expectancy of the people living there.

In addition to publishing their stories on the front page of Streetsblog, all of the South L.A. stories and Boyle Heights stories will be published on special community sites at http://eastsidestreetsblog.org and http://southlastreetsblog.org .

Sahra Sulaiman

In Boyle Heights, Kris Fortin will be leading our local coverage efforts.  Fortin has been freelance writing about the Latino community for the past four years at the Los Angeles Times, the former Café Magazine, and currently at Boyle Heights Beat and Mis Neighbors. After getting his bachelor’s degree in journalism and urban studies and planning, Fortin wedded the two areas through an internship at Planetizen and hopes to continue to delve deeper into urban issues through journalism.

In South L.A., our lead writer is Sahra Sulaiman.  Sulaiman is a documentary photographer and researcher who has been 99.5% car-free since buying a road bike and riding it across Spain on a dare in 1996. A well-travelled M.A. and A.B.D. in International Relations, she also is deeply invested in LA as a regular volunteer with at-risk teens in local-area high schools and is currently working on a year-long photography project documenting the difficult circumstances which many of them endure. She seeks to use her skills for gathering unique stories to bring a more human dimension to discussions about the future of transit in Los Angeles.

Each writer will be publishing a story later today.  I won’t ruin the surprise for you, but they’re both great reads.

Carlos Morales PhotoFlying Pigeon

Speaking of surprises, we’re also proud to announce the addition of Carlos Morales to our team.  You may know Morales through his writing at The Voice/La Voz papers in East L.A. or you might recognize him as the founder of the Eastside Bike Club.  Morales will be writing a weekly column for us about his observations and views of life while pedaling through Los Angeles.  His first piece will run a little later this week.

But don’t worry, just because new writers are joining the team doesn’t mean that our original writer, Damien Newton, is going anywhere.  You might see his byline a little less frequently than several times a day, but the tradeoff is that you’ll also see longer stories and more original reporting.

I’m sure some of you are reading this and wondering, “Why does Boyle Heights and South L.A. get local coverage and not my community?  The good news is that we plan on continuing to expand over the next couple of years to provide more community reporting.  If you can help us find a source of local funds, we’ll be happy to provide regular local coverage in your community as well.

Supporters and friends of artist Patrick Henry Johnson gathered on 1/22/12 to celebrate the dedication of the mural, Elixir, to the community.

Although the pilgrimage route along Crenshaw Blvd. was short—0.8 miles, to be exact, it was rich in meaning.

The mission was the dedication of Patrick Henry Johnson’s 40×40 ft. mural, Elixir, to the community.

Led by the artist, approximately 25 “pilgrims” made their way from Starbucks towards the group of supporters and artists already waiting at the base of the resplendent African American woman he had painted, just as the day was coming to a close.

The colors generated by the setting sun mirrored those depicting her as a transcendent body, rising to occupy her rightful place in the heavens as her own, self-contained universe.

Johnson had decided to make the event a pilgrimage, he said to the supporters crowded around him in front of the work, because of his desire to bring the community together “in a collective agreement to make the mural sacred.” Although Johnson had done the entire painting himself, an effort requiring just under 3 full months of work, he acknowledged he couldn’t have done it without the support of the community. When he needed funds to rent a lift so he could reach the top of the wall, he said, friends came together to contribute the $270 that allowed him to finish the piece.

Friends and community members also lent moral support for him while he was painting, with one even calling to make sure he was ok when she heard him screaming and crying in front of the wall from across the boulevard. His screaming wasn’t madness, he explained to us. “On the second to last day [of painting], I had this incredible surge of energy…I discovered the reason I had to do the painting myself…I couldn’t have had another artist on the painting because of the love that I have for the subject matter.” And because, he realized, he needed to let her go.

As he broke down, the crowd surged around him in support, including his young son, Elijah, who sidled up and grabbed him around the waist in a tight hug. Finally, Johnson was able to get out that he had named the mural “Elixir” because it described a transformative substance—one that had transformed him. He hoped that it would be seen as a celebration of not just the woman he had loved, but of the natural beauty of the Black women in the community.

This celebration of identity was echoed in the pieces written by all of the spoken word artists that stepped up to perform.

Proclaimed Conney Williams:
“Don’t view me as 40 ounces
Because I drink infinity
I cruise Afro-Centric down the River Crenshaw
And birth the miraculous…
Drink me like electric sunshine
Drink me original and simple…
Drink all of me until thirst no longer poses on this corner of heaven.”

Poetess Danna Kiel read from her poem, “I Am,” declaring:
“I am George the Funk’s sensation
I am God’s most beautiful creation
I am Patrick Henry Johnson’s transformative creation
I am a Black woman.”

EL, another poetess spoke and sang her piece, an homage to the afro, with the repeated (and catchy) refrain, “With the flick of a pick—Planet Sistah!”

Supporters of the arts, like Johan Beckles, concurred on the importance of having public symbols that “would encourage black women to embrace their natural beauty” instead of spending thousands of dollars to try to make themselves meet society’s ideal. Moreover, she added, it was nice to see women being celebrated by a man in such a public way.

Beyond identity, friend and supporter Sonia Barrett noted, the mural was important in pushing those in the community to dream big and to follow their passions first, and to worry about where the money was going to come from later.

As the crowd broke up toward the end of the ceremony, however, it was clear that what had stuck with people was the empowering message of embracing your identity. As people left the celebration of art and their community, the small voice of a child sang out, “with the flick of a pick…”

“Elixir” can be seen on the southwest corner of the intersection of Crenshaw Blvd. and Stocker St.

While both Metro Staff and staff for Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas have hailed the FTA’s decision as a “milestone,” one would expect the Crenshaw Subway Coalition (CSC) which is suing the project under environmental justice concerns to have an opposite reaction.

Instead, CSC President Damien Goodmon sees an opportunity for Metro and CSC to work together even as the community group’s lawsuit against the line moves forward.

While the FTA’s decision wasn’t popular with proponents of a grade-separated rail line, instead of railing against the decision, a decision that could be overturned by a federal judge, opens an opportunity for Metro to begin studying the proposed “subway option” for Crenshaw where the twelve blocks.

Now that Metro has its Record of Decision, it can continue on its current track while beginning a second track to integrate the tunnel Goodmon argues.  Assuming the tunnel is cleared, it would allow contractors to include the tunnel in construction bids, an option they currently have for “optional stations” in Westchester and Leimert Park.

“At the end of the day, it cost Expo Construction Authority more to fight us than it would have to put an overpass or underpass at Farmdale,” said Goodmon referencing his past battles over the Expo Line.  ”Metro shouldn’t repeat that mistake.”

When the Metro Board approved stations for Leimert Park and Westchester without funding, it also cleared those projects to undergo an environmental review.  Goodmon is basically arguing that Metro repeat those decisions for the “Park Mesa Tunnel” which would complete the grade separation of the Crenshaw Line along the Crenshaw Corridor.  While the Metro Board, and now FTA, have approved these stations, the budget for the line has not increased from $1.7 billion.

Goodmon argues that the first step for agency would be passing “The People’s Motion” unveiled at a November community meeting that called for study of the Park Mesa Tunnel.  At this point, no Board Member has shown interest in formally introducing the motion, but the CSC moves forward undeterred.

“Studying the tunnel puts us in a situation to succeed.  Not studying it puts us in front of a judge,” Goodmon concludes.

A look at the current (top) and planned (bottom) Jefferson Boulevard from a presentation prepared by Fehr & Pehrs

The Village at USC, a 5.23 million square foot mixed use development being programmed by the University of Southern California, is back in the news. Yesterday, Blog Downtown examined how the retail plans for the project could impact the Downtown. But the project could also have a major impact on the car parking in the area both in the garages that will be developed and on Jefferson Boulevard.

As you can see on the design above, a ten foot sidewalk and twelve foot parking lane will be replaced with a seventeen foot sidewalk and six foot bicycle lane. The new configuration would run for about a mile on Jefferson between Figueroa Street and Vermont Avenue. There are now bike lanes in the area, the new Expo Bike Lanes just south of Jefferson on Exposition Boulevard.  The Jefferson lanes promise improvement.  They are planned to be both wider and better placed on the street.

There is a benefit to pedestrians in the project area as well. The current road configuration has 80′ of asphalt between the sidewalks creating a wide barrier for anyone looking to cross the street. By widening the sidewalk, the crossing distance by fourteen feet and twelve of the remaining 66 feet are bike lanes which are a lot easier to cross and have much lower crash rates than mixed use travel lanes.

Hearings for the project are tentatively scheduled for the end of the year and Streetsblog will announce them when they’re scheduled. There’s a lot of issues that need to be addressed beyond transportation such as affordable housing, impacts on the existing community and other issues related to construction. But for now, The Village also brings promise of a more Livable Jefferson Boulevard.

Exactly what it looks like. Photo: Gökhan Esirgen

By now, many of you have seen the pictures that Gökhan Esirgen took of a car sitting on the Expo tracks at the station of Exposition Boulevard and Vermont Avenue that appeared on the Transit Coalition forum Tuesday evening.  A quick call to the Expo Construction Authority confirmed that the picture shows exactly what people thought it showed, a distracted driver actually took a left onto the Expo tracks.

The Authority was quick to point out the signs and other markings which clearly state that cars do not belong on train tracks, perhaps spooked by all the attention given to the on-street crossings for Expo. While my photo library for the station doesn’t show the signs, I was mostly looking at the bike lanes which ran parallel to the station not crossing it, I do remember the signage being pretty clear about what was happening.

But in the end, all the signage, gates and safety devices in the world don’t amount to much if a negligent driver is determined to cause havoc.  In this case, the damage was minimal.  The car stopped before it could do any real damage to the tracks and testing resumed later on Tuesday afternoon.

This image, taken in South L.A., is used around the world to demonstrate how you can have lots of options, and still be in a food desert. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

(Mark Vallianatos is Policy Director of UEPI and an Adjunct Professor at Occidental College, where he currently teaches the Environmental Stewards class. Mark is co-author of The Next Los Angeles: the Struggle for a Livable City and a number of publications on food access, transportation, and goods movement.)

Several years ago, our institute collaborated with community groups on a food assessment of three neighborhoods in South and Central Los Angeles. Residents, many of them students and parents at local schools, mapped over a thousand locations where food could be bought  and conducted surveys of food selection inside a random sampling of these stores. Project CAFE (Community Action on Food Environment) captured valuable data on the distribution of food retail establishments and the availability, price and quality of healthy foods in different types of food stores. These findings, which you can check out in a short report  and a peer reviewed article, are consistent with other research on food access in low income areas of Los Angeles (and other places). Fast food is pervasive. Supermarkets and farmers markets are scarce. Corner stores and liquor stores – the most common place to buy ingredients for cooking – have a worse selection, higher prices, and lower quality than full service grocery stores.

When we talked with residents about the challenges of accessing a healthy meal and ideas to improve the food environment in their neighborhoods, one of the themes that they came back to again and again was transportation. Mothers described the difficulty of using transit to reach stores with better selection when they had to transfer lines and carry bags and manage children on crowded buses.  We heard that some drivers wouldn’t let riders bring hand carts onto buses. The difficulties of getting around to shop for food meant that many people who don’t own a car end up walking to the closest store- which, as we have seen, probably doesn’t have a great selection of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, etc.

Struck by this input, we looked for opportunities to do more work on the ways that transportation impacts food and health. With funding from a Caltrans environmental justice grant, we partnered with the Community Redevelopment Agency / LA and Esperanza Community Housing Corporation on a follow-up study on transportation and food access in South Los Angeles. This recently completed project looked at a variety of ways to get good food to people and take people to good food.

Since the impetus for the work started with stories about buses and shopping, that’s where I want to start.  I also hope to write about healthy mobile food, local food distribution, and land use and store and street design that can promote a healthier food environment.

The geography for the project mainly corresponded with the City of Los Angeles’ Southeast plan area. Partners mapped transit lines and food stores to see if there were any obvious gaps in the transit system that would make it difficult for shoppers to buy food.  Zoomable maps of the project area are available in the project report   We also surveyed stores for food availability and transportation infrastructure. We found that:

• Only one store offered a shuttle service for customers who buy a minimum amount of groceries
• Only 6 percent of stores had bike parking
• 52 percent of the surveyed stores had dedicated, off-street car parking. (100% of gas stations with convenience stores, 78.6% of grocery stores, 33.3 % of convenience stores)
• 82 percent of stores were located within two blocks of a transit stop

Bus routes along Main, Avalon, and Central, the blue line at the north and north east edge, green line at the south, and (hopefully soon-to-open) expo line to the north west provide transit service on main commercial corridors in the project area. How could transit better enable people to reach good food?

 Carts on buses.

Folding shopping carts are commonly used, especially by seniors and parents with children who cannot carry multiple grocery bags. These metal wire carts are often viewed as being flimsily made. And when buses or trains are crowded, it can be difficult to maneuver them on and off and make for space for them in seats or aisles. We have heard many stories of shoppers with carts not being allowed to board buses. Some ideas for better baskets and better buses:

• Perhaps a design competition could develop an inexpensive, dependable, easy to roll, easy to lock wheels so it doesn’t roll/ spill, easy to stow folding cart.
• Encourage stores, metro, and other agencies to give away or sell low cost, well-designed folding carts
• Should buses used on certain commercial streets have a dedicated space for shopping carts and bags in the middle of the bus like some airport shuttles do?

 Stops at stores.

Although there are bus stops near most stores in our project area, we heard some anecdotes that some merchants and real estate developers don’t want bus stops in front of their stores. Apparently they don’t want to deal with extra trash and bus benches are viewed as attracting homeless people. Since bus stops closer to stores can help people lugging groceries, Metro should work with property owners and store managers to encourage the siting of stops near major stores (and farmers markets.)

 Lower fares for food program participants

Currently people 62 or older, disabled individuals, and K-12 and college students can receive reduced fares on Metro. If we as a society were serious about promoting food justice and easing health disparities, it could make sense to offer Metro discounts to recipients of CalFresh (individuals and households with gross income up to 130 percent of the federal poverty rate) and WIC (pregnant women and parents or guardians of children under 5 with incomes up to 185 percent of the federal poverty rate). I haven’t tried to run the numbers on what share of Metro riders would qualify for a ‘healthy food shopping’ discount (it’s complicated by the fact that less than half of LA county residents eligible for CalFresh apply for the program). Reduced fares could increase low income shoppers’ incentives to travel further to stores with better selections of fresh and healthy food. It could also increase the amount of money they have to buy food.

 Healthy food at transit stations

Metro can improve access to good food by working with cities and developers to include food stores in transit oriented developments- a subject I hope to write more about in a follow-up piece on transportation, land use and store design. Metro has a more direct program that allows third party vendors to sell food at train and bus stations. In 2010, Metro staff analyzed the program at the request of the Board, which was interested in potential expansion of vending to increase revenue.  The report identified challenges such maintenance costs from passengers taking food onto trains and buses and infrastructure costs that be required to allow vendors to sell inside mezzanine levels of stations, and recommended that vending not be expanded. However, bringing a health perspective to the analysis might change the calculus. A majority of the permitted vendors as of May 2010 sold hot dogs as their primary item. Might Metro give preference to vendors of healthy meals and fruits and vegetables? Imagine a county-wide network of healthy carts and farm stands easily accessible to riders in all communities.

The Crenshaw Subway Coalition has two major issues with the Crenshaw Line as it's current planned: the lack of a Leimert Park Station and a need for grade separation along Crenshaw Blvd. But their legal testimony focused almost soley on the grade-separation. Foreshadowing?

The Source had barely published its story highlighting the Metro Board’s decision to approve the environmental certification of a Crenshaw Light Rail line that may or may not have a Leimert Park Station and definately runs at-grade through the Crenshaw communities’ top retail corridor when I caught up to Damien Goodmon, the head of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition. His reaction was concise and clear, “The Metro board has had its say, now it is time for the community to have its say through the courts.”

And just like that, the countdown for a lawsuit on the Crenshaw line began.

The Crenshaw line would be 8.5-mile light rail project that will run along and under Crenshaw Boulevard, Florence Avenue and Aviation Boulevard. The line will connect the Expo and Green Lines and will pass through South L.A. and Inglewood. The budget for the project is over $1.7 billion, almost all of which is coming from the 2008 Measure R sales tax. It is scheduled to open in 2018.

The Crenshaw Subway Coalition worked closely with Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to try and get the light rail grade separated for twelve blocks through Crenshaw’s downtown business district and a station to serve the Leimert Park Community earlier this year.  The Coalition was completely rebuffed on the first front, and got a strange “we’ll build the station if we can afford it” answer on the station.  However, there was not a unified front between the Coalition and Ridley-Thomas yesterday.  While Goodmon was threatening legal action against the EIR, Ridley-Thomas was waxing poetic about the struggle to bring world class transit to South L.A.

From The Source:

“This is a historic moment,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metro Board member Mark Ridley-Thomas. “For 25 years, community leaders have worked to make a high-quality light rail line a reality. This was the dream of Julian Dixon, of Diane Watson, of Mayor Tom Bradley and many, many others. Today’s vote means we’re ready to start right away — not 15 years from now as originally was slated to happen…”

Meanwhile, the Crenshaw Subway Coalition is working with Raymond Johnson Esq.  The principal at Johnson & Sedlack, Johnson has a reputation as an accomplished environmental lawyer who doesn’t shy away from fighting the goliaths of the world whether the defendent was WalMart or local governments such as Orange County or and the San Bernadino Water District.

Johnson submitted testimony on behalf of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition that outlined a litany of complaints with the light rail project in Crenshaw’s business district.  The complaints include charges that the line would destroy a pedestrian environment, bankrupt businesses creating a downward spiral for the entire community, create visual blight, increase traffic, ruin parking and would “shift the cost of providing a public good to the residents and businesses of what is an economically depressed and minority neighborhood that is perceived to be without power or influence.”

Johnson’s full letter can be read here.

Neither Johnson nor Goodmon has tipped their hand to what their legal strategy will be going against Metro, but one thing’s for sure. The certification of the EIR is not the Crenshaw Line’s last stop before heading to construction.

John M, Liechty Middle School. It doesn't look like a great place to walk to...yet...

What do you do when the main barrier to encouraging more students to walk and bicycle to school isn’t social pressures or broken infrastructure, but a different sort of public safety hazard?  What do you do when it’s not motorists, but gangs that imperil children who want to walk or bike to school?

If you work with the Advancement Project, and you’re working in South Los Angeles’ Westlake Neighborhood and Belmont Community, you get the community involved, you get the police involved, and you make a plan.

Working with 21 different community groups, advocacy groups and government organizations, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Advancement Project worked to create a map that showed what challenges face students walking to school and create a safe corridors program to address those needs.

“Our role has been to coordinate the amazing assets, programs and services already existing in the community,” explains Maribel Meza, a policy advocate with the advancement project.  ”It has been a grassroots, community driven effort.”

The first step of the project was to complete basic outreach to partners and communities to identify three areas to work on as part of the Project’s efforts in Westlake.  Two of those programs had to do with creating safe passages for children to walk or bike to school and other places of interest.  Next, meetings were held with all the stakeholders, including students and their parents, to create a mapping analysis.  The mapping analysis created showed results that you probably wouldn’t see in Santa Monica, identifying not just places where students would be imperiled by poor urban design but also gang recruiters or even angry alcoholics.

Meanwhile, the LAPD, parents, and gang interventionists and parents agreed to patrols on the most problematic routes for student travelers.  Areas that had the highest risk would be patrolled by the LAPD, while areas of lesser but still significant challenge would be patrolled by volunteer parents before and after school.

With the routes selected and parents on board, the program will launch later this month when the school year begins.

The aforementioned coalition began work on a Safe Routes to Schools grant for John M. Liechty Middle School to bring a strong pedestrian infrastructure to the area, including better street lighting, sidewalks and road crossings.  The lighting is especially important for students taking part in after school programs who often find themselves traveling home in the dark.  If selected by Caltrans, it would bring $1 million to the area to improve connections to the school.

Meza believes that the community outreach and safe passages plan makes the grant proposal much stronger.  “With the work of the collaborative we had a much stronger application with this City transportation grant that would bring street lights, road bumps and other environmental improvements around the school.”

To expand their program, the Advancement Project has appealed to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, arguing that the lack of access to schools creates a public health and obesity crisis.  Kosed notes that,  “Studies have shown that when students are scared in their neighborhood or walk to school it creates a public health problem.”

In addition the lack of access creates problems for student learning.  The Belmont area has a program where students can choose their high school based on their interests.  One school specializes in teaching students science, and another focuses on the arts.  However, that diversity is underutilized when physical, safety and mental barriers keep students from traveling to the high school where they would be best served.

If awarded, the Robert Wood Johnson grant would invest $200,000 in the Project’s efforts, a significant out-of-state investment for South L.A.  The grant is designed to reward innovative community-based projects and based on the work going on in this South L.A. community; there are few if any communities in Southern California working as hard to make their streets safe as this one is.

If anyone things Mark Ridley-Thomas is done with Crenshaw, just visit his transportation page.

When Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ motions to make the Crenshaw Light Rail project run entirely below-grade and to construct a station at Leimert Park both failed, the Board Member promised he would be back with a new motion to improve the project in a different way. At last week’s Metro Board Meeting, Ridley-Thomas introduced a motion calling for community benefits during construction of the Expo Line.

The motion’s asks can be split in to two parts, the fiscal parts and the transportation parts.  The fiscal parts are about protecting the businesses and local economy during construction.  The Supervisor notes in his press statement announcing the motion, “The Crenshaw/LAX line project is moving fast ahead. As it is being built we must also make sure the community doesn’t pay too high a price for its long-overdue rail service.”

Perhaps the boldest ask is that businesses along the above ground portion of the route, between 48th and 59th street,be partially compensated for lost business during construction.  To the best of my research, and that of Damien Goodmon, Metro has never taken this step before, but it is done in other parts of the country and could make fiscal sense for the agency in the long run.

“I’m guessing, it would take what $45 million?  $50 million? Of a 1.7 billion project?  Can you imagine how much smoother the sailing would be for Metro if the businesses felt taken care of?” Goodmon rhetorically asked.  ”In this economic climate, in this part of the city, it doesn’t make sense to ask a community to sacrifice now for economic development some point in the future.”

Support for this portion of the motion isn’t just popular with the community advocates, small business owner Cory Hartly tells the Wave, “I think compensation would be a good thing, but it’s sad because there are a lot of businesses on Crenshaw that are going to be affected by the line.  It’s going to be uncomfortable for people to park and customers will start to go elsewhere.”

The second plank is a request that a certain percentage of the workers be hired locally from the Crenshaw communities.  While Ridley-Thomas doesn’t select a number, such as 30% of workers should be hired from the Crenshaw communities, combined with the demand that businesses be compensated, is a key part of preserving the middle-class within the community during construction.

When it comes to transportation, there are two items of note: one has to do with foot traffic and one car traffic.

The first ask is for streetscape and sidewalk improvements through the area where the train will run at-grade.  Some people view the Crenshaw and South L.A. communities as “inner-ring suburbs,” but we’ve already seen that many elements of the community desire dense mixed-use development.  Ridley-Thomas’ motion calls for the kind of pedestrian amenities that were lacking for the Gold Line Eastside Extension to connect the community to the train and its stations.

That being said, despite support for this part of the motion, the community would much rather the Metro Board reverse course and back the Crenshaw Subway proposal that was defeated at the May Metro Board Meeting. “If its between wider sidewalks and planting trees or running the train underground, we’ll plant the trees ourselves,” Goodmon laughed over the phone,  “We’ll have a whole tree people week.”

Which is not to say that every part of the motion makes sense and has broad support.  While the Supervisor’s desire to have all intersections run at a “C” Level of Service or higher is understandable, understanding that the intersections in this area don’t run at that level now make such a proposal unlikely.

Consider the intersection at Slauson and Crenshaw.  The intersection now rates an “F” on Level of Service.  There’s two ways to improve it to C, one is to turn the area into a mini-highway, and the other is to play loose with the numbers.  Neither of those methods would be popular.

With this motion as backdrop, the Crenshaw Subway Coalition meets tonight to discuss their options moving forward.  Metro should note, that another lawsuit is just one of the options their considering, but it is an option.

After the Metro Board of Directors voted for Richard Katz’s “compromise” motion on the Leimert Park Village Station over the proposal by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Metro Board Chair Don Knabe commented to the disappointed crowd that remained that they hoped they would see the vote as a step forward for the Leimert Park Station.  Here at Streetsblog, I wrote that the station was “approved,” not having seen the motion until later.

But since the Katz motion only called for the station to be built if funds were available in the original budget, the construction of the station is far from certain.  And the band of politicians and community activists serving the predominantly African American community surrounding the proposed Leimert Park Village Station, don’t view the new motion as a step forward, and are ready to keep fighting.  For his part, Ridley-Thomas is planning a new motion for this month’s Board Meeting, although his staff isn’t ready to announce what that motion is.

Meanwhile, the pages of South Los Angeles publications are screaming invective at Mayor Villaraigosa, who controls enough votes on the Metro Board to swing the issue and could insure construction of a station at this month’s meeting.  Ridley-Thomas, and the crowd that included somewhere between 300-600 South L.A. residents, believed he had the Mayor’s support going in to the May Metro Board Meeting and found the compromise motion to be a disappointment.

Photo: Office of Mark Ridley-Thomas

The Los Angeles Sentinel, after recapping a rally the day before the May Board Meeting and the meeting itself, ends on a chilling note for light rail advocates who are eager to avoid another battle similar to the one over the Expo Line.

Danny J. Bakewell Sr., who has been at the forefront advocating for this project, share the same sentiments as the community – that it’s not over.  He said, “we’ve tried friendly negotiations trying to use our influence, and at this point, we’ve come up short with nothing.  I’m will be calling a community meeting in Leimert Park to rally the residents of Baldwin Hils, View Park, Windsor Hills to voice our concerns, loud and clear – either we get an underground train, or there’ll be no train.”

While The Wave Newspapers merely asked whether Villaraigosa intentionally killed Ridley-Thomas’ station motion, the strongest article was written by Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., and managing director of the Urban Issues Forum at the Electronic Urban Report.  Samad blatantly accuses Villaraigosa of a soft-racism by refusing to “bet on black,” and wonders if the Mayor ever planned (or still plans)to support the station.

Given Ridley-Thomas’ performance on King Hospital and the Expo Line, and his role in making Measure R happen that benefited all communities, he should’ve been given an opportunity to find the $500 million on Leimert Park and Park Mesa (or at least Leimert Park Village component) for his own community, and Villaraigosa should have been leading the way in that conversation to pull his four votes. Park Mesa lost by the margin that Villaraigosa controlled. He fronted us off again. Then he sent a press release out claiming he supported the project. Yeah, in theory, not in funding.

Similar stories can be found at Our Weekly which recaps the meeting and lays blame at the feet of Villaraigosa and Katz.  (“Mr. Katz was charged by Mayor Villaraigosa with planting the bomb that would blow up plans for the frequently ignored or delayed black community.”) and City Watch which where local advocates respond to light rail advocates (“Characterizing the motion by County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to underground the one-mile portion of the Crenshaw-LAX Line in Park Mesa Heights and return the Leimert Park Village station to the light rail project that failed at the May 26th Metro board meeting, as “pork barrel spending” is astonishing to say the least.”)

One thing is for certain, the communities of South Los Angeles aren’t done fighting for a Leimert Park Station, and are prepared to play hardball to get it.

Image: Fix Expo

A motion by County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas would grade-separate the planned Crenshaw Light Rail Line for twelve blocks from 48th Street to 59th Street along the Crenshaw Corridor and would require the construction of a station at Leimert Park.  Both grade-separating the Crenshaw Line and the Leimert Park Station are listed as “optional” in Metro’s most recent corridor studies.  To pay for the grade-separation and new station, Ridley-Thomas asks Metro to identify funding sources “including but not limited to” Measure R funds for the Expo Line and for the Green Line to LAX, the Arbor-Vitae interchange project and sales of “surplus property” along the right-of-way that won’t be used.  The Crenshaw Line will run below-grade for the rest of the route along Crenshaw Boulevard.

Ridley-Thomas’ motion has strong support within the Crenshaw and South L.A. communities, even if his motion placing Measure R projects against one another and possibly shuffling funds approved by voters has raised the ire of transit advocates and is probably politically impossible.  The Fix Expo/Crenshaw Subway Campaign published comments from “Save Leimert Park” urging Metro to move forward with not just a station plan, but a mixed-use development and parking plan for the Leimert Park area..  It would seem that someone in Metro must agree with them.  How else could one explain locating the  press conference announcing a $543 million federal loan for the Crenshaw Line at Leimert Park back in October of last year, well after the Leimert Park Station was deemed optional.

Meanwhile, the community group Hyde Park Organizational Partnership for Empowerment (HOPE) is advocating for increased grade separation for the rail project.  Noting some of the safety issues that exist with the Blue Line, which also runs through a predominantly minority community, Winnifred Jackson slams the at-grade proposal for the 12 blocks between 48th Street and 59th Street.

HOPE believes the rail line should be underground in our community for many reasons. The thought of 225-ton trains running 40 mph at street-level down the middle of Crenshaw Blvd is daunting.  Even if the (mostly black-owned) small businesses survive the four long years of disruptive street construction, after the line is built Crenshaw Blvd will lose half its parking.  With trains crossing every 2½ minutes during rush hour, traffic congestion will worsen. The safety risk to motorists and pedestrians, particular our children, is concerning.  A similar rail line, MTA’s Blue Line, which runs through black/brown communities of Compton, Willowbrook, Watts and South L.A. has killed over 100 people, including many children, in over 875 accidents.  Thousands more have been injured.

He overstates time savings to LAX, which the Hatch Mott McDonald analysis (p.43) shows as being 1-2 minutes with the Crenshaw underground section included–for the vast funds Ridley-Thomas is trying to capture that is a result which isn’t by any stretch of the imagination worth pursuing.

Caterwauling is no justification for prioritizing transportation spending or overturning the results of a county wide vote. We must resist weighing down Measure R with un-needed gold plating.

If the residents want it, they can form a special district and tax themselves to pay for it (much like Berkeley paid for the tunnels they asked BART be placed in).

Alpern is a lot more understated in an article in last Friday’s City Watch where he praises the Supervisor’s vision for the Corridor but opposes any transfer of Measure R funds.

So while it might be a very, very good idea to find extra funding to make this huge, long north-south passenger rail line as rapid, safe, useful and high-capacity as possible, it’s a very, very bad idea to set one region of the county (the Mid-City/Crenshaw region) against other regions (the Westside and South Bay).  No one wins that battle.

So let’s hope that Supervisor Ridley-Thomas has a few creative ideas  that remain unclarified in his efforts to make the Crenshaw/LAX Line the best it can be.  A “Mark-Up” is a good idea, but an wanted inter-regional dust-up is “off the Mark”.

As much as I regret that my travel schedule keeps me from the River Ride, tomorrow’s Bike-a-Thon may be the bike ride I’ll most miss this year.

Click on the image for a larger shot of the poster, or click here to download the poster.

The basic idea is to raise awareness of the damaging local impacts a proposed widening of the I-710 (not the Big Dig) near Long Beach will have on the people living near the widening itself.  The ride has two start points, one in Long Beach and the other in Los Angeles.  The riders will ride the L.A. River Path and meet in the middle, at Coolidge Park in North Long Beach, just south of Artestia Boulevard, on the west side of the river.  Proponents of this widening, which would over double the highway capacity, insist that it will improve air quality by reducing congestion.  Advocates are not convinced of that claim.  Nor should they be.

The Coalition for Environmental Health and Justice, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Communities for a Better Environment, Natural Resources Defense Council & Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma.  The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition is also providing a boost.

Much like a Streetsblog fundraiser, the event has a suggested donation, but the organizers won’t send anyone away that can’t pay the $5.  There’s also a heck of a lot more scheduled than just a bike ride.  It looks like a heck of a party as well.  Here’s the lineup for the day.

10:00AM-11:00AM…………………Ride to Coolidge Park, Long Beach CA

11:00AM-11:15AM………………….Snacks & Water distribution

11:15-11:25AM………………………..Welcome (by EYCEJ & CBE)

11:25AM-11:40AM…………………”Destruye y Huye” Local Band

11:40AM-11:50AM…………………NRDC – 710 Struggle

11:50AM-12:00PM…………………LA Bicycle Coalition “Call to Volunteer”

12:00PM-12:30PM………………….”Salinger” Local Band

12:30PM-12:40PM………………….Open Mic/ Announcements

12:40PM-12:50PM………………….Closing

One of our Streetsblog Board Members, Jocelyn Vivar Ramirez, works with the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and will have a full report here next week.

The South Figueroa Corridor Plan proposes changes for more than just Figueroa Street.

A standing room only audience descended on the Fashion Institute of Design on South Grand Street to listen to a presentation from the embattled Community Redevelopment Agency for a ground breaking and popular proposal to transform the South Figueroa Corridor.  When people discuss Los Angeles’ streets, they usually use terms such as “car-oriented” or “ugly.”  The new South Figueroa, aka My Figueroa, would be a truly beautiful street designed for people to walk, bike wait for transit or just enjoy life outside as well as a way to shuffle cars from one area to another.

The South Figueroa Corridor Project covers three miles of South Figueroa from 41st Street to Seventh Street as well as a half mile of 11st Street between Figueroa and Broadway, a half mile of Martin Luther King (MLK) Boulevard just south of Exposition Park, and a half mile of Bill Robertson Boulevard from into Exposition Park starting at MLK Boulevard.  While there are different proposals being studied for each part of the corridor, Oliver Schultze, from the world-renowned Gehl Architects in Copenhagen, promised that every part of the corridor would see some sort of improvement.

Good.

The project team offered three proposals for different sections of Figueroa, a “good,” “better,” and “best” options.  Whether a segment qualifies for good, better, or best depends on the amount of funding available and the current level of street life in the segment.  The good option consisted of an eight foot separated bike lane traveling the length of the corridor in each direction, an eighteen inch separator, car parking and bus bump outs, and a transit only lane for buses and streetcars.  In addition to creating a safe place for cyclists, removing them from car traffic and the sidewalk, it also created a 22 foot buffer between the sidewalk and the first regular vehicle travel lane.

As Joe Linton noted from the audience, “I love that protected bike lanes are the base proposal.”  Figueroa street would be the first street in Los Angeles to feature protected bike lanes.  In fact, no city in Los Angeles County has these special bike lanes, although Long Beach is adding some as we speak.

Better

While the base design is pretty amazing “for Los Angeles,” once we get into the “better” and “best” designs one starts to see some ideas that would turn Figueroa into a world class street.  The “better” segment begins to actively re-purpose space reserved for the private automobile and give it back to humans, or as Schultz put it moves “progressively into the carriage way.”  Instead of a separated bike path, there’s a much wider  “flex lane” which serves as a continuation of bike path,  pedestrian walkway and a very limited space for car traffic (deliveries, etc.).  The transit only lane for streetcars and buses remains in the proposal, after a wide divider for bike parking, street trees and other street beautification projects.

Best.

By the time we begin discussing the “best” segments, you might start thinking we actually live in Copenhagen.  Figueroa is shrunk to two traffic lanes, a transit lane and a large pedestrian plaza. The sidewalk is large enough for restaurant or coffee shop seating before we even get to the flex lane.  Then, there’s another space reserved for pedestrians or just sitting outside on a bench.  Schultze noted that in some segments of Figueroa, there will be 5,000 people walking through in just an hour and pedestrians make up the majority of street users.

From parking lot to public space.

For 11th street, Schultze proposes closing the segment to all traffic besides local traffic and deliveries by creating a “Paseo” as seen above.  Bill Robertson Boulevard would undergo a similar treatment, with the north end being closed completely and the south area turning into an adjacent “Olympic Park.”  As for MLK Boulevard, the team determined that the amount of car traffic would make reducing the travel lanes a more difficult proposal, but that other treatments could still transform the area.  In the above image, the project team unveils a linear park proposal that manages to keep most of the parking and still creates a different, more public, feeling for the space.

Jay Varata, the CRA director for the area, summed up the entire proposal by noting that this plan is “…a chance to do something very unique in Los Angeles.  A chance to look at pedestrian space in a new way.”

But the plan isn’t near the final design phase yet.  Currently the team is soliciting feedback from the first designs, getting cost estimates to complete their plans and will hold another series of hearings in April before selecting a “Locally Preferred Alternative.”  From there, the proposal will undergo final design before going through the hearing process for a final project.  Staff didn’t rule out the possibility that the project would be segmented or go through pilot stages in advance of a corridor long project.  However, Melanie Smith, one of the project consultants did note that, “This all needs to happen very fast.”

Friendly comments from the audience asked the speakers to put in more information about the safety benefits of the project to head off political opposition, work with the Downtown Streetcar team to make certain the pictured trolley line makes it from the poster board to the street, and work with planning to make certain the project doesn’t become an engine for gentrification.  The project team noted that the state grant they received to create this project was only possible because of the large amount of affordable housing present and planned for the corridor and that local agencies, including LADOT, are enthusiastic about the project.

Deborah Murphy, the lead consultant for the grant and a member of the L.A. Streetsblog Board of Directors, noted that the connectivity to transit, not just the streetcar, was a key part of the proposal.  “If we were having this meeting six months from now, everyone would be asking how this connected to the Expo Line.”

More concerned comments pressed the team about what would happen to displaced cars and what accommodations were being made for street parking for automobiles.  With the traffic plan not completed, the staff could only hazard a guess on the first question.  The second one was kind of a hilarious statement on the defensiveness of car culture warriors.  There are over 545 acres of car parking garages within a quarter mile of the project.  However, the questioner complained that these spaces were the “most expensive in the city.”  So why was the question so odd?  Because even a cursory look at the plan above reveals that the proposal would actually increase on street parking.

I questioned Schultze about that before the presentation.  After all, it was Gehl Architects who created the graphic illustrating all the car parking along the corridor that we featured last week.  He explained that creating short-term parking that it increases the customer base for business.  With 60% of Figueroa’s facades facing away from the street, creating foot, bike and car customers is a key part of transforming the street into a true public space.

Another question asked whether this was a contained project, or if we could expect more projects such as this in all parts of the city.  Earlier in the evening I joked with Schultze and Murphy that it was nice to discuss a project where Streetsbloggers were asking, “Why not us?” instead of “why us?” when discussing changes.  The team noted that the scope of this project is the Corridor, but they have received feedback from City Departments that this is the test case for a broader remaking of the city.

Murphy summed up the purpose of the program, and the city’s need to embrace this kind of change by noting that the city has invested in infrastructure for cars over all other modes for too long and that, “Everyone deserves a great place to walk, ride their bike, wait for transit or whatever.  We have a lot of making up to do.”

Image by Gehl Architects

Making Cities for People, the official blog of Copenhagen super-architects Gehl Architects, gives us another look at the Figueroa Corridor as it is and as it could be in South Los Angeles. The above image shows how our city’s lifeblood is literally being drained away by the collective demand for car parking. Even Gehl’s team, which has worked on street projects around the world, seems taken aback by the over-abundance of car parking offered in Los Angeles.

Honestly, I don’t think that I need to even say anything about the image above. It speaks for itself and shows many of the problems facing the corridor that connects USC to the Downtown.

The image that accompanied Tuesday’s piece on the Figueroa corridor isn’t the only option for the street. Gehl’s team offers two more at Making Cities for People. One shows a vastly expanded pedestrian plaza and another shows a smaller pedestrian area and a separated bike lane. That these projects are earning the support of the CRA and local business community is a step forward for Los Angeles. Of course, actually building it is a much bigger one.

The images can be found at Making Cities for People and are available after the jump.

An expanded pedestrian plaza...

L.A.'s first separated bike lane.

For a copy of the flyer announcing their February meetings, click here.

I have to be honest.  If the My Figueroa project ends up fulfilling its mission of designing a people-friendly Figueroa Street from the southwest corner of Exposition Park to Downtown Los Angeles only by adding a couple of trees and repainting the crosswalks, I’ll be extremely disappointed.

The project team raised expectations by encouraging participants to last September’s community meetings to consider improvements to the corridor such as separated bike lanes and scramble crosswalks.  Then, in addition to partnering with Streetsblog Board Member Deborah Murphy, they announced that the architects for the project were the world renowned Gehl Architects out of Copenhagen.

Now, via a flier announcing February’s outreach meetings, they’ve released their first proposed sketches for the corridor.  Instead of five through traffic lanes, a planted median and some street parking, let’s look at the street that’s proposed in the picture above.  Instead of five lanes of yuck and some trees, I see two lanes of through traffic, a dedicated transit lane, a pedestrian plaza, a lane for local and bicycle traffic and then restaurant seating.  What a change that would be…

In short, this is a street that would serve people regardless of their favored mode of transportation.  If this plan comes through, South Figueroa will be Los Angeles’ first true complete street.  Generally, once cities get one street that looks like the one pictured above, residents from the rest of the city start asking “what about us?”

Streetsblog spent a lot of time in 2010 discussing how the culture of the city was starting to change.  If this project ever becomes a reality, then the change isn’t just coming.  It will have arrived.

Doesn't look transit oriented from here. Both pictures via Curbed

Last week, at a packed meeting of the City of Los Angeles Planning Commission, the Commission punted on a proposed $250-million residential development known as the Lorenzo.  The developer, Geoffery Palmer of Palmer Construction, is known for his other Italian-themed apartment developments Medici, Visconti, Orsini and Piero.

He’s also known for successfully challenging a local law that required him to put a certain amount of low-income housing into his developments.

Lorenzo would add nine-hundred residential units and thousands of parking spaces adjacent to the a station for the Expo Line in South L.A. just a stop away from both USC on one side and the Los Angeles Convention Center on the other.

The developer and his allies in organized labor claim (note: It’s been pointed out to me that Palmer doesn’t use union workers.  I was referring to the people he turned out at the Planning Commission.  Apparently, those workers were just given the day off from work on one of his other projects.)  the project is a win for the community and construction industry.  Opponents say it’s an attempt to gentrify South L.A. and deprive the community of needed medical resources.  The land is zoned for medical developments, requiring the planning commission to change the zoning before the project could be approved.

For the local community, the issue of giving up medical space for a residential development their neighbors would be priced out of is a sore one.  And not one they’re planning on taking lying down.

“This is a community that is historically under-resourced when it comes to medical services. If the City were to deprive a predominantly low-income African-American and Latina community of another health care resource, it could open them up to a civil rights claim,” Serena Lin, Staff Attorney for Public Counsel.  Public Counsel represents the UNIDAD coalition along with a dedicated legal team including Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chatten-Brown and Carstens, and Natural Resources Defense Council.

Given the heat of the debate, and the location of the proposed project, it’s time for Streetsblog to weigh in and decide whether the Lorenzo project even qualifies as a “Transit Oriented Development.”

In the past, we’ve examined the W development at Hollywood and Vine and the Westlake/McArthur Park Project by evaluating the development on these standards: does the design take advantage of the transit node, does it create an attractive and safe pedestrian network, how are the bike amenities, does it create a mix of housing options and uses, and is there a restriction of automobile parking?  We’re going to answer these questions based on information in other news sources and the environmental documents.

Does the Design Take Advantage of the Transit Node

We have a project that is located literally across the street from a light rail station so it would be hard to design a project so badly that it doesn’t take advantage of the station.  Indeed, as we’ll see later, the developers are counting on the node to handle a lot of the local trips as they plan to reduce parking and don’t plan on any road improvements for the project.

Does it Create an Attractive and Safe Pedestrian Network

This looks slightly better...

The development team behind the Lorenzo Project  will happily tell anyone that asks that the proposal is pedestrian oriented.  While the Tuscan-style residential area does have a pleasant looking courtyard.  A truly transit-oriented development is also pedestrian-oriented because one of the goals of the project is reduced car ownership.

We don’t know enough about the project to say whether it will, or won’t, be transit oriented, but at this point it doesn’t look good.  At last week’s hearing, Planning Commissioner Michael Woo referred to similar developments by Palmer as “fortresses.”  Providing physical barriers between the community and the development is the opposite of pedestrian, or transit oriented development.

How are the bike amenities?

According to the EIR for the project, there is bicycle parking planned for the project.  However, there is no mention of what fprm or where the parking will be located.  Let’s give Lorenzo an “incomplete” for this category.

Does it Create a Mix of Housing Options and Uses

This category could be the trickiest.  Yes, there is a plan for retail space.  Yes, there is an affordable housing component.  However, based on the history of Palmer’s other developments, there is plenty of room for question.

First, the affordable housing question.  The Lorenzo Project pledges to make 5 percent of their units affordable housing, but community members say that isn’t enough.

“Transit-Oriented Development is critical, but it must be done responsibly – not on the backs of low-income people and people of color in South LA.  We need to develop and enforce TOD policies that ensure more affordable housing is built and maintained along transit corridors.  Smart planning means building up a transit system where the City’s core transit ridership, including the transit-dependent, have greater access to transit.  It means including people in the planning process, not displacing them from their homes.” Serena Lin, Staff Attorney for Public Counsel.

Complicating the issue for affordable housing advocates is Palmer’s history.  The Downtown News explains:

Palmer, one of Downtown’s biggest developers, two years ago sued the city to avoid having to set aside units for low-income tenants in his proposed Piero II apartment complex in City West. He won the case in December 2007, and the city appealed the ruling — a risky move, experts have said, because while the original decision applied only to Palmer’s case, an appellate court ruling would set a precedent not just in Los Angeles, but throughout the state.

The second issue is with the retail component.  In the past, Palmer’s Italian-style developments have all had a retail component, but they’ve had trouble filling the spaces.  With signs that the Great Recession is beginning to level off, it could be that we’re about to see a retail boom and restaurants and shops could come to their developments, including a future Lorenzo Project.

To attempt to assuage the concerns of residents concerned about the loss of medical properties, Palmer Construction says they will provide a unit for a community health center rent-free for the next two decades.

Is There a Restriction of Automobile Parking

For this category, it seems that the Palmer team is doing the best it can.  The group is claiming a ten percent reduction from the City of Los Angeles’ ludicrously high two spaces per unit minimum because of the nearby rail line.  They further reduce the parking by another couple of spaces because of their yet-to-be-unveiled bike parking plans.

In short, there’s a lot we don’t know about the project as of yet, and what we do know is tainted by the state of some of the other projects the developer has already completed.  At this point, the “fortress” design and questionable affordable housing component are the biggest barriers to this project being a truly Transit Oriented Development.

Video by Alex Schmidt via Spot.us

Last week, GOOD Magazine examined the role that the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s City of Lights program has taken in giving voice to the overlooked and under-represented bicyclists in Los Angeles County.  A program that started by handing out lights to immigrant cyclists and has become a national model for bicycle advocacy by focusing their efforts on safety to those who are most underserved by government.

The above film, by Spot.us reporter and producer Alex Schmidt, is intended as a companion piece to the article in GOOD.  While cyclists around the country can learn a lot from City of Lights Coordinator Allison Mannos and the Bus Riders Union’s Sunyoung Yang, I was most intrigued by some of the voices I’m hearing for the first time such as City of Lights volunteer Arlen Jones or bike commuter Gil Maldonado.

The video does a great job explaining what City of Lights is really fighting for.  They’re not dedicating their lives to improving conditions and resources for immigrant cyclists because they think cycling is great and fun.  They’re doing it because making it attractive and safe to bicycle gives a new freedom to a population that is by-and-large car-free by necessity.

Taken in concert, the story and article do a great job outlining the twin challenges faced by City of Lights.  How does one get the city to address the needs of “invisible cyclists” and how do you reach out to a community that’s getting ignored. 

In the video, Daniel Rivera is asked if there were conditions that would make him consider biking.  Riveria finds cycling in L.A. too dangerous, so instead he borrows a car or bus fare to get around town.  He answers (translated by Scmidt to English):

Of course.  If there were bike lanes like there are in Santa Monica, then I would.  Otherwise it’s too dangerous.

From the article, Mannos was asked why so many bikes near the City of Lights Day Labor Center are chained to fences and not the new bike racks.  Her answer illustrates the second problem perfectly.  Just putting in new amenities is not enough, when a community isn’t looking for them.

Allison Mannos isn’t surprised. Immigrants, she says, are not accustomed to amenities that cater to them as cyclists. “They’re not used to someone giving them a light and saying, ‘What you’re doing is awesome, keep riding,” she says. “So it just takes a lot more education.”

Clearly, there’s a lot of work left to be done by the City, by City of Lights and by the rest of us.  You can read more about City of Lights at their blog, Ciudad de Luces.