Streetsblog Los Angeles

Black & Brown Unity Ride posts up at the Watts Towers (photo: sahra)

“It’s still important for us to come together,” began Taryn Randle, one of the ride leaders and member of both the Ovarian Psycos and Black Kids on Bikes.

The black-brown tension sometimes present in L.A. had been a surprise to her when she arrived here from Chicago, she told the largely black and brown crowd. Fixing it had become a major focus of her studies and work, and she looked at the Black & Brown Unity Ride (organized by the Psycos, BKoB, and the East Side Riders) as a simple but effective way to take the issue on.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to have this unstated hatred towards each other based off of ignorance. I think it can be overcome by simple things like this — us coming out like this on a Sunday, biking, kicking it, eating, listening to music….It’s a good way to start that conversation and building that bridge.”

Bringing groups of riders together and letting the communities they rolled through see that adults of all races could have fun together, she and others felt, could provide a good example for communities and youth struggling with those issues in their own neighborhoods.

Along the way, Taryn reminded the riders that the purpose of the ride was unity. She encouraged them to talk to the riders they hadn’t come with so that they could get to know each others’ experiences.

Riders take a moment to stretch and breathe at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights (photo: sahra)

The openness of riders to learning about each other seemed to make it easier for people to join in as we went along.

At Mariachi Plaza, one of the start points of the ride, I spotted a Latino gentleman on a bike watching the riders stretch. I asked if he wanted to come along with us.

Let me call my son, he said in Spanish.

He wanted his fourteen-year old to see the spectacle and join in. When his son said he couldn’t get there in time, the man decided to come along anyways. It was his first experience with a group ride, and he appreciated the larger purpose behind it.

At Exposition Park, we picked up a rollerblader with an iguana on his head. He was originally headed to Venice, but said there was no way he could miss out on rolling with us. Read more…

Proposed York Boulevard Street Porch, Highland Park. Click on the image for a high resolution pdf of the image.

Move over Sunset Triangle Plaza, a pair of street reclamation projects on the Eastside are threatening to steal your thunder as the most progressive street reclamation project in Los Angeles. Living Streets L.A.and Councilman Jose Huizar unveiled new designs for a “street porch” on York Boulevard in Highland Park and a “street plaza” on Huntington Drive in El Sereno.  Both designs are completely unique as they arrived as a result of an extensive community process that started with a simple question, “How would you like to improve your street?”  Nearly a dozen sessions later, each community devised surprisingly similar plans. “Ryan [Living Streets' Ryan Lehman] and I were pleasantly surprised that when given the option to choose any street improvement, the project both people chose were in one case a street porch and another case a street plaza,” explains Steve Rassmussen Cancian, the architect for the project. Rasmussen Cancian prefers to avoid the term “parklets” which confuses people by leaving the impression that the city is planning something bigger, such as a soccer field, for the middle of the street.  He prefers the more descriptive “street porch” for the above pictured design for York Boulevard which is actually resembles an urban porch.  For El Sereno, pictured below, he prefers the term “street plaza.”

The El Sereno Street Plaza. Click on the image for a high resolution pdf of the image.

Read more…

Fidel, now a Business Administration student at LACC, used to run with a tag-banging crew near USC.

In my effort to expand the boundaries of what we consider to be livable streets issues, I present the first of a three-part story about a 19-year old named Fidel who ran with a crew for a few years on the north edge of South L.A. He hopes that by talking about how he grew up, people can begin to see the extent to which some of L.A.’s streets can be very hostile to youth. The insecurity of the streets and the negative encounters they experience there, although not the only factors, can play an important role in their decisions to join a gang or crew. Making some of these communities more hospitable for everyone, then, means considering these factors as well as the socio-economic conditions that facilitate and promote violence. Livable streets, in other words, would do well to ally itself with those working on broader questions of equity and social justice.

WHEN THEY JUMPED HIM IN to the crew in 10th grade, he tells me, the actual beating didn’t last very long. There may have been 6 guys, but Fidel, a natural fighter, was swinging more fiercely than they were. After he connected hard with a couple of the guys, they decided they had had enough and declared it over.

That was it. He was in.

He would quickly become their strongest fighter. Eager to prove himself, he was always ready to make a name for the crew and to protect his friends. He would be the one to step things up a notch by punking on some of their rivals. He would gain a reputation as the one not to be messed with.

“I had a lot of anger,” he admits somewhat sheepishly. “I fought a lot as a kid.”

I study the shy, self-conscious, sensitive 19-year old with the sweet disposition and easy smile as he nervously fidgets with the honey sticks meant for my tea. I know he is telling me the truth, but I still have a hard time believing it.

# # # # #

I met Fidel a year ago, when he was finishing up his senior year at West Adams High School. He had been assigned the task of writing a personal story about a struggle to overcome an obstacle. He was noticeably not thrilled about having to write about his feelings. He had sat down at a safe distance from me then, burly and reticent, a bit on the defensive, and looking for all the world like a cholo with his closely shaved head, goatee, and, as he put it, “mean mug.” He had stared at his hands and announced he didn’t have anything to write about.

“Yeah, right,” I remember thinking to myself.

He’d been through so much, but had never really talked about any of it before and wasn’t sure how to start. Once he did, story after crazy story tumbled out in a chaotic rush, each one more intense than the last.

He had been in and out of crews since elementary school, but he was feeling remorse about the things he and his current crew were doing. Friends were starting to get deeper into both trouble and drugs. Fights were becoming more intense and guys were ending up in the hospital with broken hands, stab wounds, and their heads split open by metal pipes. Others were heading off to jail. One was later killed.

He could see where it was all going, he said, and knew that he didn’t “want to not have kids and be in jail for life with just guys.”

He was most afraid about what it would do to his parents if something happened to him – he didn’t want them to be stuck with court tickets or hospital bills that he knew they couldn’t pay. They didn’t even know he was in a crew and trying to hide it from them was tiring.

So, he got out. Read more…

The South Figueroa Corridor Plan proposes changes for more than just Figueroa Street. However, despite being fully funded, politics in post CRA Los Angeles may doom the project.

In 2008, we were curious. In 2011, we were ecstatic. In 2012, depression is starting to set in. The South Figueroa Corridor Project, unveiled to the cheers of Livable Street advocates last February, may be on the ropes.  Without action by a city agency, or the mayor’s office, advocates are going to have to say goodbye to the separated bike path, bus only lane, increased open space, pedestrian plaza and other improvements the project promised.  But it shouldn’t be that way.  In 2011, advocates were given three progressive visions for South Figueroa, currently a four or six lane street with whizzing cars or gridlock depending on the time of day.   Instead of “good,” “better” and “best,” we might get status quo. With the state-mandated dissolution of Community Redevelopment Agencies, a certain amount of chaos is occurring around the state.  Nowhere is that more prevalent than Los Angeles. One month after the dissolution of the local Community Redevelopment Agency, the city seems no closer to having a plan than it did when the California Supreme Court upheld Gov. Brown’s plan to shutter the CRA’s doors at the end of January.

Good.

Read more…

Mikey, Jonathan and George after being frisked on Ave. 50 and York Blvd. in Highland Park.

Mikey, Jonathan, and George were waiting for a friend just a few feet from the corner of Ave. 50 and York Blvd. in Highland Park when a police car pulled up. Two cops got out and told them to turn around, spread their legs, and put their hands behind their backs.

The police proceeded to give them a very thorough pat-down, including reaching their hands into the boys’ pants and turning their pockets inside out. They rifled through the boys’ wallets for ID and then ran their information. They poked around in the truck the boys had been standing next to, even though it wasn’t theirs.

The boys were clean — something the kids had told the police themselves, to no avail. Without an apology or even a “Have a nice day,” the police were gone. The whole incident had taken only a few minutes.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

The police had been looking for weapons, they said. It happens to them a lot. It happens to all their friends, too.

It was normal, they shrugged.

While it might be the “norm,” it shouldn’t be “normal” for minority and lower/lower-middle class youth to feel they could be treated to public TSA-style pat-downs any and every time they strike out into their neighborhood streets. Besides being unlawful, such incidents are demoralizing, dehumanizing, and disempowering. Because these incidents generally happen in view of everyone, they also have the unfortunate effect of communicating to the more recent arrivals that the minority youth are trouble, while effectively telling these youth that they are not welcome in the very neighborhoods they grew up in.

Jonathan, George and Mikey are searched by police while they wait for a friend.

Livable Streets Should Be Livable for All Read more…

Local uber-planner Ryan Snyder looks on as international planning rock star Gil Penalosa speaks at last Friday's "Complete Streets Conference" sponsored by UCLA's Complete Streets Initiative. Photo: Juan Matute. For more images, click here.

The idea of “complete streets”—that is, streets designed with all users, not just cars, in mind—isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere yet. On Friday, planners, engineers, advocates, and students convened at the second annual UCLA Complete Streets for California conference at the Kyoto Grand Hotel downtown to renew their excitement in complete streets, see photos of cool projects around the country, and discuss how to make complete streets the norm in California. Advocates hope a widespread focus on complete streets in California could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging more walking and biking, but also promote healthier lifestyles, as explained by UCLA public health professor Richard Jackson.

The head cheerleader was keynote speaker, Gil Penalosa, executive director of healthy communities nonprofit 8-80 Cities and former government supporter of complete streets initiatives in Bogota, Colombia (where Ciclovia, a model for Los Angeles’ CicLAvia, happens every Sunday). He made a case for designing cities where people age 8 to age 80 would feel safe and able to move around—“Mobility is a human right.”

He reminded attendees that Californians aren’t unique in their attachment to automobiles, and that some of their attachment may be a myth—one-third of Los Angeles residents do not drive. He offered encouragement like, “If these cities [Copenhagen, Vancouver] can do it, any city in California can do it.” If there’s a will, there’s a way, given, of course, the right combination of funding and support from city staff, politicians, and citizens.

In Los Angeles there’s a unique combination of challenges, not the least of which is a minimum of four different agencies own the streets, reminded Tim Papandreou, deputy director at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. A former Angeleno, Papandreou brings both a local perspective and that of a distanced observer to his view of how L.A. develops.

The property owner owns the area outside his business, but the Departments of Public Works, City Planning, Metro, and others, also have a piece of the puzzle. Still, Papandreou believes a change in favor of more pedestrian and bicycle-oriented streets is possible in Los Angeles—“It’s going to happen,” he says. “The political environment will change. In San Francisco, you were crazy to run on a complete streets platform 10 years ago. Now, you’re crazy not to.” Read more…

There’s been a lot of excitement, not just in Silver Lake but around the city, for the opening of Los Angeles’ first street plaza in Silver Lake this weekend.  Pictures and renderings of the “Sunset Triangle Plaza” at at Griffith Park and Sunset Boulevards have been popping up at Eastsider, LAist and Curbed as well as Streetsblog.  The grand opening of the plaza is this Sunday from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.

But before the plaza is opened to the public, they need our help to finish the installation.  What makes these plazas such a great place to be isn’t just the green paint and polka dots, but the “park like” atmosphere including a place to sit down and some nice foliage.

On Friday and Saturday, Streets for People will begin filling the planters at Sunset Triangle Plaza and we could use your help! If you are interested in volunteering for this project, please email Anna at streetsforpeoplela[at]gmail.com.  Friday’s planting session runs from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. and Saturday’s from 2:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.

Of course, even as we wait for the official opening, cyclists, pedestrians and cyclists are already treating the plaza as what it will be.

The concept for the plaza was developed by members of the Silver Lake community in 2006. Residents saw the area as a place where a street could be reclaimed for community use rather than cut-through traffic. Drawing inspiration from programs in San Francisco and New York, the plaza will have not just potted plants; but also street furniture such as chairs and tables. Read more…

(Update: I got a little confused by the motion.  It will shut down through traffic on Yucca Street in Hollywood, between Las Palmas Ave. and Whitley Ave.   Cars are permitted, through traffic is blocked.  Curbed found me out. – DN)

In 1995, the City of Los Angeles installed some temporary traffic diverters at three intersections along Yucca Street to keep vehicular traffic and discourage other illegal activities that were too common-place such as drug dealing.  They closed the intersections with concrete bollards and later with attachable plastic traffic bollards.  Over the years, the experiment has been a success.  Crime rates on Yucca have dropped off while people-powered transportation has flourished.

View Yucca Street in a larger map

Seventeen years later, Councilmen Eric Garcetti and Tom LaBonge want to finally make the closures permanent while creating a more inviting place for cyclists and pedestrians.  The concrete bollards at the intersections of Yucca and Las Palmas, Cherokee, and Whitley Avenues has degraded creating a community eye sore and the temporary plastic ones are so beat up that in some cases drivers go right over them without even realizing that they are there.

The Councilmen hope that making the closure permanent, and working with the LADOT they can create more attractive and permanent ways to keep car traffic from using Yucca.  When pressed as to why they’re proposing to make the “temporary” closure permanent now, after 17 years of “temporary,” staff pointed to the poor shape of the bollards, a desire to improve the look of the three intersections, and a chance to make sure the intersections and Yucca Street work as a bicycle corridor.

For cyclists, Yucca Street already includes sharrows from Cahuenga Boulevard to Vine Street as part of a north-south bikeway connector. LADOT plans to create an east-west arm of this connector on Yucca Street by extending the Sharrows west to Highland Avenue. Staff for Garcetti believe this will create a comfortable corridor for bicyclists who wish to avoid busy Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue.

The City Council Transportation Committee will hear this motion as part of the regular meeting on Wednesday.  Streetsblog will follow-up on this story as it moves forward.

Nowhere else in LA area are individual street routes as important than in the Northeast. Because of the area’s hills there is no grid.  Streets wind their way up hills and cut through valleys creating public space and connecting the community to places beyond.

Photo:Latino Urban Forum/Flickr

Sixteen Occidental College students are rethinking designs for York Boulevard in Highland Park and Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock as part of Urban and Environmental Policy Institute transportation class.

I facilitated a workshop to have the students to approach transportation planning from a non-traditional approach. Rather than ask the students the typical question. “How would you improve transportation on Colorado and York Boulevards?” I asked a different question.

Usually, the first question would have created answers such as wider sidewalks, bike lanes, bus service, more parking or faster traffic speeds. These are all great but they fail to understand how people want to use the street as public space.

Instead we took a comprehensive approach to the street design. I asked the students how would they envision these streets in 50 years?  From this point we can plan backwards and find create the right mobility and land use patterns for the streets.

By having the students investigate how they envision the role of streets in their lives in 50 years we received creative, innovated, in-depth comprehensive answers.  Read more…

When two Streetsblog sponsors get together, the world is our oyster. For more on the meeting, read this first hand review at g4do-g4do

Earlier this year, when the designs for South Figueroa’s My Figueroa project were released, Josef Bray-Ali wasn’t happy.  While many advocates celebrated designs that would, if implemented, result in segregated bike paths, transit-only lanes, pedestrian plazas (at a minimum), Bray-Ali saw another major investment in the Downtown and area around L.A. Live. Meanwhile, the portion of Figueroa where he worked and that he loved remained a traffic sewer, with five lanes of concrete and curbside parking blighting the area.

Now, with the city considering bike improvements for North Figueroa, Bray-Ali sees an opportunity to bring My Figueroa to North Figueroa.  Last week, a group of thirty community activists gathered in the Flying Pigeon Bike Shop to create an organization to do just that.  At the Flying Pigeon blog, Bray-Ali notes that the event expanded beyond the usual suspects with local businesses sponsoring the meeting by donating the chairs, tables, food, and other supplies.

“The city sees North Figueroa as a cut through for people that don’t want to drive on the 110,” Bray-Ali explains.  ”As a result, cars cut through the neighborhood without stopping, businesses suffer and the middle-class moves farther away.”

In other words, this is about more than a bike lane.

Read more…