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.

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. 

Photo:Latino Urban Forum/Flickr

The students sat at four tables with a sheet of colored construction paper. On a separate table was a pile of thousands of non-representational, materials. These materials were buttons, plastic parts of toys, Popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, small fabric flowers and much more

The students were instructed to use the construction paper and materials to build a diorama of their ideal street in 50 years. I told the students that they were no wrong or right answers.  The students had twenty minutes to finish this first task.

The students walked over to the table of objects and started searching for the apppropiate materials or in some cases by inspired by the materials.  These colorful, tactile, objects triggered the student’s emotional connections to the environment. By seeing, seeking, and touching the objects the student’s emotions increased.  This process mimicked how they experienced the city.

Once the participants secured their materials they began building. During this time I asked the students if they needed help and walked around the room. Some of the students wanted to create the right answer from the material covered in the class but the instructor and my self insisted we want their personal preferences on street use.

Photo:Latino Urban Forum/Flickr

After the twenty minutes they were gave a one-minute presentation to the group on their ideal street.  They stated their name and explained their model. One minute was good time limit because it allowed for every one to participate and kept the pace of the exercise. The shy students were less intimidated as well.

The students used the models to present their ideas by pointing to objects on the construction paper. The materials used are random to force creative thinking and create an equal/non-judgmental playing field where participants of all backgrounds can create non-traditional spaces and learn from one another.

The connections between objects and what they represented were fascinating to hear as they maneuvered through their models.

Since the students interjected their own personal experiences, memories, and random thoughts of places real and imagined, this became the most interesting part of the process.  It was powerful to watch the students explain with so much enthusiasm and conviction about their ideal street.

The student ideas varied. Each participant created his or her streets in his or her own terms. Some designs were ideal based. Some designs are specific, and literal.

Here is the list of the students’ concepts for their ideal street:

• Mixed Use/Complete Street
• Small Regional Plan
• Public Space
• TOD/Public Space/Complete Street
• Parking Management/Mixed Use
• Food on Streets
• Better Corridor Design
• Times Square/Streets for Entertainment
• Better Neighborhood Street
• Multi-use Neighborhood
• Better Land Use Planning
• Social Streets/Ped Friendly
• Michigan Ave
• Human Scale/Street Cars
• Eco-lodge/Nature in the City

Before the models were dismantled which sadden the students, they were documented in photographs.  This also led to next exercise where the students were placed in groups of to envision York, Colorado, and Occidental transportation. They students were tasked to bring together their best ideas to these places this was going to be done by each group discuss their ideas.  They were given a twenty minutes to complete this activity.

When the time was nearly over everyone gathered around the three tables to hear design solutions for York, Colorado, and Occidental College. Each group introduced the team members and walked us through their solutions. Each location had a different set of physical challenges that each group had to deal with. After each presentation the floor was opened up for questions from other students.

Many of their ideas from the groups seemed to focus on land use patterns and social activies on the streets. They created green zones, mixed-use, and ped/bike friendly streets. They also seemed to create streets that were destinations where you could patronize local businesses, take advantage of a community garden or places to hang out with friends to sit, rest, or linger. Moving quickly through the streets was not a goal of the students, which would be for a transportation planner.  The student’s ideas expressed a longing for a sense of community.

When some says they want a “nice street” that can mean many different things. This kind of exercise helps participants use specific adjectives and references which allows the facilitator(s) to understand the needs, desires and habits of individuals who live in a community.  In this case, the Occidental College Students envisioned different streets than the Boulevards that currently cross Northeast Los Angeles.  Their ides aren’t that different than advocacy efforts underway for North Figueroa Street by a group of community activists and businesses.  Residents and students are ready for change, is Los Angeles?

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.

Bray-Ali’s vision includes bike lanes for certain, but also a road diet, wider sidewalks, better street crossings, all of would feed into the business areas and the transit network that already exists.  The Gold Line stops a few blocks from Bray-Ali’s shop, but the traffic it generates to North Figueroa businesses is scant.

Patch talked to a few people who attended last week’s meeting, and found enthusiasm high.

Sibelius Park, a housing complex in Copenhagen, has cooperated with the Danish Crime Prevention Council to carefully define private, semiprivate, semipublic and public territories in the complex. Subsequent studies have shown that there is less crime and greater security than in other similar developments. Photos: Jan Gehl

Editor’s note: Streetsblog  is thrilled to launch a three-part series today by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts are from his book, “Cities for People” published by Island Press. Donate to LA Streetsblog and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press. Visit the Island Press website to find many more great titles by the nation’s leading publisher of books on environmental issues.

Feeling safe is crucial if we hope to have people embrace city space. In general, life and people themselves make the city more inviting and safe in terms of both experienced and perceived security.

In this section we deal with the safe city issue with the goal of ensuring good cities by inviting walking, biking and staying. Our discussion will focus on two important sectors where targeted efforts can satisfy the requirement for safety in city space: traffic safety and crime prevention.

Throughout the entire period of car encroachment, cities have tried to remove bicycle traffic from their streets. The risk of accident to pedestrians and bicyclists has been great throughout the rise in car traffic, and the fear of accident even greater.

Many European countries and North America experienced the car invasion early on and have watched city quality deteriorate year by year. There have been numerous counter reactions and an incipient development of new traffic planning principles in response. In other countries whose economies have developed more slowly and modestly, cars have only begun to invade cities more recently. In every case the result is a dramatic worsening of conditions for pedestrians and bicycle traffic.

The concept of shared or complete streets suggests equality between traffic groups, which is a utopian ide- al. Integrating various types of traffic is not satisfactory until pedestrians are given a clear priority (shared space in Haren, the Netherlands, and a pedestrian priority street in Copenhagen, Denmark).

In cities where the car invasion began early and has lasted decades, we can now see a strong reaction against the myopic focus on cars that has dealt such harsh blows to city life and bicycle traffic.

In many countries, especially in Europe, traffic planning in the 21st century has changed dramatically compared to the traffic planning of twenty or thirty years ago. The importance of promoting pedestrian and bicycle traffic has gradually been acknowledged while better understanding of the nature and causes of traffic accidents has produced a considerably wider variety of planning tools.

When the first pedestrian streets were introduced in Europe in the 1960s, there were really only two street models: those for vehicular traffic and those for pedestrians. Numerous types of streets and traffic solutions have since been developed so that today’s traffic planners have quite a wide range of streets to choose from: vehicular traffic-only streets, boulevards, 30 km/h (19 mph) traffic, pedestrian priority, 15 km/h (9 mph) areas, pedestrian-streetcar, pedestrian-bicycle and pedestrian only. The experience gained in the intervening years has also made it possible to reduce the number of traffic accidents and make walking or biking considerably safer and more comfortable.

In choosing street types and traffic solutions, it is important to start with the human dimension. People must be able to move comfortably and safely in cities on foot or by bicycle, and when traffic solutions are adopted special consideration must be given to children, the young, the elderly and people with disabilities. Quality for people and pedestrian safety must be key concerns.

A number of recent urban planning ideologies deriving from accident statistics contend that the risk of accident can be reduced by physically mixing types of traffic in the same street under the heading of “shared space.”

The underlying idea of these so-called shared streets is that they will give trucks, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians of all ages the opportunity to travel quietly, side by side and with good eye contact. Serious accidents will rarely occur under such conditions, or so it is thought, because pedestrians and bicyclists need to be extra vigilant at all times.

Obviously, if people are sufficiently frightened and keep a close watch on traffic, nothing untoward will happen. However, the price is high in terms of dignity and quality. Children cannot be allowed free rein, and older people and others with reduced mobility may be forced to drop walking altogether. In any discussion about people and traffic safety the risk of accident must be weighed against quality for pedestrians and bicyclists. Much of modern traffic planning continues to pay far too little attention to the quality of city life.

Mixing types of traffic is certainly possible, but not on the equal terms implied by the shared street concept. As the British “home zones,” Dutch “woonerfs,” and Scandinavian “sivegader” have demonstrated for years, pedestrians can thrive with other forms of traffic as long as it is crystal clear that all movement is based on the premises of pedestrians. Mixed–traffic solutions must prioritize either pedestrians or provide appropriate traffic segregation.

Copenhagen-style bicycle lanes take advantage of parked cars to protect bicyclists.

The principle of having bicyclists bike outside a lane of parked cars does not solve many safety and security problems. It does help to protect the parked cars, however!

There is every reason to applaud the many new types of streets and policies that ensure safety for pedestrians and bicyclists while allowing service vehicles to make door-to-door deliveries.

From project to project, planners must consider which types of streets and degree of traffic integration would be a good solution. The actual and perceived safety of pedestrians must always be the determining factor. It is not a natural law that motorized traffic should be allowed access everywhere. It is generally  accepted that cars are not welcome in parks, libraries, community centers and houses. The advantages to not having car traffic everywhere are obvious, so even though there are compelling arguments for allowing car traffic all the way to the front door, in many situations there are equally good arguments for establishing car-free areas surrounding the residences.

For centuries traffic in Venice has functioned on the principle that the transition from rapid to slow traffic does not take place at the front door but at the city limit. The Venice principle is hard to beat when prioritizing city quality. As mentioned above, a number of options have been developed for coexistence between pedestrian and motorized traffic. While these options open new doors, they also create more problems.

A pedestrian in Venice can be forgiven for thinking that many of the recent traffic solutions represent various forms of compromise com- pared to the vision of a true city for people. Or put in another way, in Venice it is easy to surmise that “there is only one thing better than slow cars — and that is no cars.” But as also mentioned, it is important to be pragmatic and flexible. There are many good new compromises, but they must be assessed and carefully selected.

In Venice the shift from rapid to slow traffic occurs at the city limits rather than at the front door. This is an interesting and inspiring for the contemporary vision of creating lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities.

Already in the first chapter of her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs discusses the importance of safety in the streets. She describes the crime-preventive effect of life in the street, of mixing functions in buildings and of residents’ care for common space. Her expressions “street watchers” and “eyes on the street” have since become integral to city planning terminology.

Being able to walk safely in city space is a prerequisite for creating inviting well-functioning cities for people. Experienced as well as perceived safety is crucial for life in the city.

The safety discussion has a general and a more detailed dimension. The general focus is maintaining and supporting the vision of an open society in which people from all socioeconomic groups can move about side by side in the common room of the city as they go about their daily business. Within this general framework, safety can also be promoted through careful consideration for the design of the many detailed solutions in the city.

Juxtaposed with the idealistic visions of safe open cities is the reality of many urban societies. Social and economic inequality is the backdrop for high crime rates and the fully or semiprivate attempts to protect property and private life.

A profusion of bars, fences, signs and cameras signals the insecurity and fear that have crept into communities around the world.

Barbed wire and iron bars fortify houses, security patrols cruise residential areas, security guards stand in front of shops and banks, signs threaten “armed response” outside houses in exclusive quarters, gated communities abound: all of these are examples of people’s attempts to protect themselves against invasion and trespass of private property. The examples also illustrate a general retreat to the private sphere by some population groups.

It is important to point out that simple individual urban crime-prevention solutions are not of much help, where the invasive sense of insecurity is often deeply rooted in social conditions. On the other hand, many urban communities are less gridlocked, including hard-hit city districts. In these areas there is every reason to make a solid effort to avoid the retreat of the population behind bars and barbed wire.

Other parts of the world do have cities and societies in which cultural tradition, family networks and social structure keep crime low despite economic inequalities.

To conclude, in almost all situations there are good arguments for working carefully to reinforce real and perceived safety, a prerequisite for using common city space.

If we shift the focus from defending the private sphere to a general discussion about feeling safe while walking in public space, we will find a clear-cut connection between the goal to strengthen city life and the desire for safety.

If we reinforce city life so that more people walk and spend time in common spaces, in almost every situation both real and perceived safety will increase. The presence of others indicates that a place is acceptly good and safe. There are “eyes in the street” and often “eyes on the street” as well because it has become meaningful and interesting for people in nearby buildings to follow what is going on in the street. When people make their daily rounds in city space, both the space and the people who use them becomes more meaningful and thus more important to keep an eye on and watch out for. A lively city becomes a valued city and thus also a safer city.

Life in the street has an impact on safety, but life along the street also plays a significant role. Urban areas with mixed functions provide more activities in and near buildings around the clock. Housing in particular signifies good connections to the city’s important common space and a marked reinforcement of the real and perceived safety in the evening and at night. So even if the street is deserted, lights from windows in residential areas send a comforting signal that people are nearby.

Approximately 7,000 residents live in Copenhagen’s city center. On an ordinary weekday evening in the winter season a person walking through the city can enjoy the lights from about 7,000 windows.

The light from buildings along city streets can make a significant contribution to the feeling of security when darkness falls. Above: Bakery in Amman, Jordan.

The Apple Store in Sydney, Australia.

The proximity to housing and residents plays a key role in the feeling of safety. It is common practice for city planners to mix functions and housing as a crime prevention strategy and thus increase the feeling of safety along the most important streets used by pedestrians and bicyclists. The strategy works well in Copenhagen, where the city center has buildings between five and six stories high, and there is good visual contact between residences and street space. The strategy does not work as well in Sydney. Although the Australian metropolis has 15,000 people living in its heart, the residences are generally from 10 to 50 stories above street level, no one who lives high up can see what is happening down on the street.

Tall buildings can also land softly and elegantly along streets and soften the transition between out and in (Lloyd´s of London. Architects: Richard Rogers Partnership, 1978 - 86).

Ground floor building design has a disproportionately large impact on the life and appeal of city space. Ground floors are what we see when we walk past buildings. It is also from the lower floors that people inside can follow what is going on outside, and vice versa.  If ground floors are friendly, soft and — in particular — populated, pedestrians are surrounded by human activity. Even at night when little is happening  in cafés and front yards, furniture, flowers, parked bicycles and forgotten toys are a comforting witness of life and proximity to other people. Light streaming from the windows of shops, offices and dwellings at night helps increase the feeling of safety in the street.

Soft edges signal to people that a city is welcoming. In contrast, in streets with retail, where solid metal shutters close off shops outside opening hours a sense of rejection and insecurity  is produced.  The streets are dark and deserted in the evening, and there is not much reason to be there on weekends and holidays either. Given the general desire for safe cities and inviting ground floors, preferred façade options have open metal grills and other types of transparency to protect goods but allow light to stream onto the street, and they also give nocturnal pedestrians the pleasure of window shopping.

Life in the street and on the street, mixed functions along the street and friendly edge zones are key qualities for good cities — also in terms of safety and protection. The polar opposite is the perfect recipe for an insecure urban environment: lifeless streets, mono-functional buildings devoid of activity for most of the day, closed, lifeless and dark façades. To this list we can add insufficient lighting, deserted paths and pedestrian tunnels, dark nooks and crannies, and too many bushes.

In the face of this rather depressing scenario it is important to remember that almost any enticement to invite people to walk, bicycle and stay in city space will also contribute to a greater sense of security.

A soft edge and clear distinctions be- tween public, semiprivate and private territories provide good opportunities to signal where you live and decorate it with your favorite flowers (Almere, the Netherlands).

Another contribution to our sense of security is a good city layout that makes it is easy for us to find our way around. It is a mark of good urban quality when we can directly find the destination we’re looking for without hesitation and detours. Clear structure and organization do not require large dimensions and broad straight roads from point to point. It is fine for the streets to be winding and the street network varied. What is important is that the individual links in the network have clear visual characteristics, that space has a distinctive character and that important streets can be distinguished from less important ones. Signs and directions and good lighting at night are crucial elements of the relationship between city structure, sense of locality and feeling of security when walking in the city.

In the chapter on human senses, it was mentioned how different distances are used for various types of communication between people, and how these distances are continuously used to reinforce the character and intensity of contacts. Interacting with others and protecting our private sphere are two sides of the same coin. Just as close contact necessitates precisely defined territories, a clear articulation of private and public territories on the larger arena is an important prerequisite for social opportunities and a sense of security.

Human society is subtly organized around various social structures that define and reinforce the individual’s sense of affiliation and security. A university student is part of a structure with faculties, departments, classes and study groups that provide a framework. Workplaces have divisions, departments and teams. Cities have quarters, neighborhoods, housing complexes and single dwellings. Coupled with well-known designations and signals, these structures in themselves help reinforce a sense of affiliation within the larger entity and security for the individual group, household or person.

Also on a small scale — particularly in connection with individual dwellings — clarifying territories and affiliations is crucial for contact with others and for protecting the private sphere. Whereas efforts are made to graduate and soften transitions between private and public areas by building semiprivate and semipublic transition zones, the likelihood of contact from zone to zone increases, and residents gain the opportunity to regulate contacts and protect private life. A well-proportioned transition zone can keep events at a comfortable arm’s length.

In the previous section soft edges and their importance for life in the city are discussed. It is emphasized that edge zones, porches and front yards can make a decisive contribution to vitalizing life in public space. These transition zones between the private and public sphere must be carefully articulated in order to clearly distinguish between what is private and what is public.

Changes in pavement, landscaping, furniture, hedges, gates and canopies can mark where public space ends and fully or semiprivate transition zones begin. Height differences, steps and staircases can also mark the transition zone, providing critical prerequisite for the important function of soft edges as the link between inside and out, between private and public. Only when territories are clearly marked can the private sphere afford the degree of protection that people need to make contact with others and contribute to life in the city.

Pedestrian and bicycle traffic save a lot of space in the city. Bicycle paths have room for five times more traffic than car lanes. The sidewalk has room for 20 times more travellers than car lanes.

Turning This...

Its no secret that outside of Griffith Park, Los Angeles is a city starving for open space.  There is nowhere this is more true than Hollywood, where even a weekly farmer’s market is under attack because it blocks access to a parking lot.  Thus, while Hollywood waits for projects such as the Hollywood Freeway Central Park, it’s important to try and create pockets of places where people can be outside in a safe and welcoming environment.

To that end, yesterday the embattled Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council President Eric Garcetti and Hollywood-area business leaders gathered to break ground on the “Cahuenga Alley” project which will turn the currently hideous alley into a clean, protected, pedestrian walkway.  The first-of-its-kind project is a sort of public-private partnership where the city will create the pedestrian plaza and local businesses will will install landscaping and decorative lighting, set up outdoor dining and patio space.  Maintenance and security will be maintained by the businesses.

...Into this. Image one: Office of Eric Garcetti. Image two: CRA

“Today we begin the Cahuenga alley’s transformation into a thriving pedestrian environment where locals and tourists alike can come to relax and enjoy our beautiful weather.  It’s going to be great for business and great for Hollywood,” said Council President Garcetti through a press release.

This project is reminiscent of outdoor mall projects such as The Grove or The Promenade in Santa Monica, but the here the alley itself will remain a publicly owned street.  Businesses will create the atmosphere, but the street will be open for public use and as a thoroughfare regardless of people’s dinner plans.

The lack of public access to the alley was a given reason for the project in the first place.  Back in 2008 when the project was first proposed, Curbed reported that the City Council motion authorizing the project said, “Over the years, adjacent businesses have used the public alley for private purposes and the public has been denied access to the alley. This alley should not become private space. Instead, this alley should be returned to public purposes and businesses should be required to apply for a Revocable Permit for use of this public space.”

Less than three years later, the property owners couldn’t be happier about opening up the space.

“The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance is proud to be part of this unprecedented partnership that is creating a new walkable, public space that will help attract more visitors to our local businesses.  This project demonstrates the innovation and creative solutions that can result when Hollywood’s business community works together with city agencies,” said HPOA Executive Director Kerry Morrison.

The city will invest $790,000 in the project through the CRA.  It is expected to open “sometime this fall.”

Earlier this year, urban planner and Streetsblog Board Member James Rojas wrote about a harrowing experience he had while trying to cross the street in his home town of Alhambra.  While the cause of the experience was some poor driving, the urban planner in Rojas couldn’t help but believe that with better design, Alhambra could be made a better, cleaner and safer city for pedestrians.

Yesterday, Rojas announced the formation of a new organization, Alhambra Beyond Cars (ABC) through social media on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  The purpose of ABC is to, in Rojas’ words from the above video, “If you look at mobility issues in Alhambra, walking, biking, and health, we need to increase the mobility of residents without driving.”

We usually don’t list calendar events from outside the city in our calendar, but we’ll make an exception for the first couple of organizational meetings for ABC.  Stay tuned.

Complete Streets are multi-use environments that enable safe and comfortable access for all users on both roadways and sidewalks in a way that promotes vibrant, healthy and active neighborhoods.  Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and public transportation users of all ages and abilities, including older people, children and people with disabilities, are able to safely move along and across a Complete Street environment.”  (Definition from Conference Program)

Strong examples are noticeably lacking in Los Angeles, but this conference was designed to inspire people to action!

Packed room at Complete Streets conference

Held at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown LA, it was a treat to go to a conference on one of my favorite topics: making streets more people friendly. You might say I’m a radical “streets for people” person, my attempt to be more positive than saying I’m a radical anti-carist, not wanting my car owning friends to be offended by my passions.

The unusually long day (8am to 7 pm) was supported with lots of fabulous food.  Though I don’t want to appear unappreciative of the many culinary delights, probably we could do with less eating and more movement a la Japanese style.  Seems like tai chi breaks are more common than coffee breaks in that part of the world, and there’s a lot less obesity and degenerative diseases there as well, so no time like the present to start eating less and moving ourselves more, much easier once our streets become more complete, the main subject here, after all.

For the rest of the article, click here to go to the L.A. Eco-Village blog.

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.”

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.

To see a full-size version of this image, click here.

I have been saying for years that Pasadena needs to give Fair Oaks Ave an extreme pedestrian-cyclist make-over along the street from at least the South Pasadena border (by the Raymond Restaurant) to Old Pasadena. The need for this make-over seems obvious when you consider: 1) Fair Oaks Ave looks like a mini-highway as you drive or, god forbid, walk down it, and 2) that the Huntington Hospital (a huge employer) adds a substantial presence to the built environment in Downtown Pasadena, but is tenuously connected at best to the area for pedestrians and cyclists, diluting if not completely negating its potential positive effects on the urban environment. In other words, the synergy is lost.

That’s why I am particularly excited to learn that South Pasadena (actually a separate municipality but closely tied to Pasadena both historically and culturally) will hopefully jump start the process for Pasadena (by giving us an inspirational nudge) as construction begins this week on a major revamp project along Fair Oaks Ave, called the “Fair Oaks Corridor Improvement Project,” that goes right through South Pasadena’s downtown district. The improvement plans entail the following:

“Roadway improvements, construction of medians, installation of streetlights and banner poles, installation of trees and landscaping, driveway and sidewalk reconstruction and other associated work on Fair Oaks Avenue between Columbia Street and Monterey Road, and the entire length of State Street.”

“The entire project should take about a year to complete,” according to the Assistant City Manager of South Pasadena, Sergio Gonzalez, who I spoke to this month regarding this infrastructure project. Gonzalez also informed me that the Fair Oaks Corridor Improvement Project is actually only one of four major roadway enhancements South Pasadena planned to complete, funded by a combination of the Rogan Bill, Metro, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and other local funds.  The entire list of projects include:

1) Orange Grove Improvement Project (Completed in 2005)

2) Fair Oaks Traffic Signal Improvement Project (Completed)

3) Fair Oaks Corridor Improvement Project (Under Construction)

4) Fair Oaks/110 Freeway Intersection Improvement Project (Proposed)

I am hoping that when the Fair Oaks Corridor Improvement Project is completed early next year in 2012, Pasadena will be inspired to implement similar roadway enhancements along Fair Oaks Ave from the South Pasadena border to at least Old Pasadena, improving the connection of the area by encouraging pedestrian activity (along with policy changes that nurture future mixed-use developments). When you consider that the Fillmore Gold Line station, which is only 2 short blocks from the Huntington Hospital, is currently surrounded by “nothing,” do we really need anymore reasons why we should invest in this area?

A little weekend viewing from the west coast of England. Since the summer of 2009, neighbors in Bristol have organized “Playing Out” events on seven streets, setting aside car-free hours for kids to play in the street without constant parental supervision. Watching this video immediately brought to mind Clarence’s Streetfilm of the 78th Street play street in Jackson Heights.

The Bristol moms behind “Playing Out” have put together a stellar web site laying out the case for car-free time on residential streets. I especially like their answer to the question: “Why do children need to play in the street when there are parks nearby?”

Parks are great for family outings and for older children who can get there independently but, unless you happen to live right next to a park, it usually involves a special trip, escorted and supervised by adults. Street play is very different. Firstly, it is literally on the doorstep so children can play ‘semi-supervised’ whilst parents get on with other things. This allows for more free, unstructured play, without being under the constant gaze of adults. Secondly, it is a step towards greater independence, giving both children and parents more confidence to gradually extend their ‘freedom to roam’, leading to children eventually being able to get to parks and other local places by themselves.

After reading the book L.A. in Maps I asked myself the question, “What’s next?”

I realized that Los Angeles is no longer being shaped by infrastructure and development.  Today, Los Angeles is being shaped by culture.

The book’s historical L.A. maps give an account of the city’s growth and development. They highlight how topography, policies, resources and infrastructure systems shaped our city. These maps start with the Spanish ranches,  and L.A.’s early street grid.  The early rail maps set the ground work for the regions development patterns. Small towns surrounded by farms were located along rail lines.  Oil wells, and movie studios, shaped how we used resources and grew around them.  All this helped create our messy, vibrant urban sprawl.

Today it is impossible for any one policy, resource, or system to reshape L.A. because we are filled in and a massive city in scale. We are no longer building massive housing at the urban edge, freeways or industry but looking to densify around an urban core. A few rail lines are not going to reshape this region.  Rather, culture is reshaping the Los Angeles region today.

Latinos, Asian, and hipsters, are reshaping the look and fill of LA while the shrinking middle class looks on.

These groups are occupying large areas of the city/region and are creating different environments in these areas.  For example Latinos are shopping off the sidewalks in Pico Union while hipsters are shopping in their designer stores or farmers markets in Hollywood and the Westside.  Meanwhile Asians are reshaping the San Gabriel Valley and Korean Town with restaurants, large homes, and fancy cars.  At the same time Latinos are crowding into buses and hipsters are clamoring for bike lanes.

And yet, because each group occupies a different economic strata and, different place in the city, rarely do they meet.

(Full Disclosure: James Rojas and Joe Linton, both contributors to this book, are Board Members for the Southern California Streets Initiative.)

This photo and more like it, by Carter Rubin

This past Saturday the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock played host to its eponymous music festival for the twelfth consecutive year.  With five blocks of Colorado Boulevard closed off to cars, the six-lane roadway was reborn as a gallery for local artists, a market for local venders, and a venue for the sun-drenched tunes of over 50 local bands.  A grassy median, normally a refuge for traffic-braving pedestrians, became the setting of picnics and mini dance parties.

With an assist from the LA City Councilmember José Huizar, event host Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock has expanded the festival greatly in a short time.  In 2007, the street fair first cracked ten thousand attendees and hasn’t looked back, now approaching six-figures.  By 6PM, a bustling hoard was making its way here and there – people of all sorts enjoying themselves – boldly idling where traffic otherwise would, between rows of shops and a small armada of gourmet food trucks.  The afternoon carnival bled into an evening of eclectic subculture with music to suit the tastes of alt rockers and club goers alike.

L.A. Weekly also has some pics from the event available here. But this one is from Carter again.

If you didn’t get a chance to check it out this year, whet your appetite on these photos and mark your calendar for a year from now.  This Streetsblogger gives the Eagle Rock Music Festival seven thumbs up!

(Note: Rating may be revised without notice upon adoption of more rigorous rating system.)

Ma-ma-ma-MyFigueroa

What would you do if you had $20 million dollars and were tasked with turning three and a half miles of one of Los Angeles’ most iconic streets into the kind of street that encourages people to be outside?  That’s the question the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) is asking at two workshops on Saturday, October 2, and next Tuesday, October 5, about Figueroa Street from the southwest corner of Exposition Park, past USC, and Staples Center in to Downtown Los Angeles.  Flush with $20 million in state “Proposition C” funds, the CRA is asking residents and business owners “what’s your Figueroa” and what do you want Figueroa to look like in the future.

While its easy to imagine what Figueroa could look like with $20 million in streetscape improvements and new crosswalks; the CRA is asking people to think a little outside the box.  For example, on the MyFigueroa Facebook page they actually provide a link to an article on separated bike lanes written by Aaron Naperstek for Streetsblog in 2006.  It makes me think of a Figeuroa Corridor with separated bike lanes, scramble crosswalks, and some greenery to make the street a place people want to be outside.  Heck, I’ll be disappointed if the project ends up being about paint at intersections and a handful of trees.

The people behind the outreach for the project have certainly been pushing an integrated campaign to draw participants to the public outreach.  In addition to mailing postcards throughout the corridor they’ve been active on the Internet soliciting feedback on a blog, twitter account and Facebook.  We’ll find out this weekend.  For more information on the public hearings, visit the Streetsblog calendar section, or any of the social media outlets linked to above.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) (Photo: The Washington Note)

The Livable Communities Act would provide
about $4 billion in competitive grants to coordinate housing,
transportation, and economic development policy with an eye toward
promoting sustainable development. About $400 million would be slated
for planning with the remainder funding implementation. The bill would
also create a new office within the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to guide and administer the programs. If passed, it would
strengthen the Obama administration’s multi-agency Sustainable Communities Initiative. 

At
today’s committee hearing representatives of the National League of
Cities, the National Association of Counties, the National Association
of Development Organizations, and the National Association of Regional
Councils each strongly endorsed the goals of the bill. 

Witnesses
drew on professional experience — from trying to revitalize barren
neighborhoods in Indianapolis to managing the growth of a rural
Maryland county — to explain how federal policy could spur better
development where they live. The Hartford region, for example, is
investing in a new bus rapid transit line, said Lyle Wray, the
executive director for the region’s Council of Governments, but they
haven’t been able to tie the transit project to broader goals. "Linking
that opportunity to affordable housing, jobs, and sustainability is
what the Livable Communities Act would allow us to do," he said.

Describing
the bill today, Dodd stressed that integrated transportation and land
use planning can help address a host of challenges: high foreclosure
rates, climate change and oil dependency, deteriorating infrastructure,
traffic congestion, and the loss of farmland. Those problems, Dodd
argued, aren’t urban or rural. "One community can use the grants to
develop brownfields in a post-industrial area," he said, and "another
might create a livable town center or main street." 

Even so, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), expressed doubt about whether his rural state would benefit under Dodd’s legislation.

After
acknowledging that sprawl is a problem, lamenting that in Montana
housing has replaced some of the best farmland, Tester pressed the
witness panel to explain how the Livable Communities Act would work for
a town like his, with only 700 people. The two representatives of rural
areas on the panel each suggested some sort of funding set-aside for
rural communities, an idea which seemed to intrigue Tester.

Two
other senators spoke who are not already sponsors of the bill. Sherrod
Brown (D-OH) primarily discussed his own legislation specifically
tailored to shrinking industrial cities, of which there are many in
Ohio, but seemed supportive of Dodd’s legislation. Mark Warner (D-VA)
told the committee that he supports the goals of the Livable
Communities Act, but would like to make sure that the bill is
rigorously defined. "Is it just squishy livability?" he asked. "Is
there a way that we can define this with metrics?" Witnesses assured
him that results like the volume of reduced greenhouse gases, acres of
preserved open space, and rises in property values can be measured.

No Republican Senators attended the meeting.

DCP is responsible for the city's General Plan, which includes various components. The main part of the plan that codifies street specifics is the Transportation Element, most recently updated in 1999 and available on-line. The language in the transportation element is actually not bad. It plans for many features that Streetsblog readers favor, including "[making]  the street system accessible, safe, and convenient for bicycle, pedestrian, and school child travel" and a "comprehensive program of multi-modal strategies" and more.

Bicycle-unfriendly Streets from Los Angeles' Current Street Standards

Unfortunately quite a bit of transportation element ends up boiling down to a 1-page Standard Street Dimensions sheet - on which the words "transit" and "bicycle" do not appear. The street dimensions specifications show standard cross-sections for all the types of streets that L.A. designates: Major Highway, Collector Street, etc. Bike/Ped planning consultant Ryan Snyder calls these street specifications the "DNA" of our streets. Whenever there's a new school, new park, new building, etc. the city consults the 1-pager and then generally mandates that the street be widened to its specified capacity. Check out the link - it's one page and it's instructive of why L.A. streets look the way they do.

Under the leadership of General Manager Gail Goldberg, DCP has been starting to chip away at the city's sadly suburban street standards. DCP's Urban Design Studio created a great new street plan for Downtown Los Angeles, which keeps in place the existing road-widths and the existing character of our no-setback downtown buildings. On 7th Street, the downtown plan actually specifies a road diet (reducing car lanes) to create bike lanes. DCP has other promising multi-modal pilots in the works, including the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan.  But there's still the matter of those suburban street standards being applied throughout the city day in day out.

DCP hopes to update the Transportation Element of the General Plan in the next few years. Planner Claire Bowin speaks of renaming it the Mobility Element, and planning L.A.'s transportation systems into something truly multi-modal. Unfortunately, for the last few years, the new likely-multi-million-dollar Mobility Element has always been a few years off. With the city's current budget crisis, it's not in the workplan for this fiscal year. Doesn't appear likely next year either.

DCP's Bowin got the idea to get a jump on the Mobility Element by seeking funding for studies that would get portions of it done. One of the first of these is the Street Classification and Benchmarking Study. Through this study the city will review best practices from other municipalities, and come up with ideas for modifying L.A.'s street classification system.

Bowin anticipates including expanding the way L.A.'s streets' performance is measured. Currently the city evaluates its streets using a metric called Level of Service (LOS.) LOS just measures vehicles, with no accounting for pedestians, cyclists, or transit.

The street classification approach favored by DCP and their consultant is to come up with a "Layered Network" - what appears to be essentially a finer-grained version of the existing street standards, which would include not just the current single type of each street. For example, in addition to today's "Secondary Highway", the new plan would be to have various types: Transit-Priority Secondary Highway, Bike-Priority Secondary Highway, etc. This would generate a network of streets geared to each mode: a Transit-Priority Network, a Bike-Priority Network, a Pedestrian-Priority Network, and, yes, even an Auto-Priority Network. (Doesn't L.A. already have one of those?)

While the Layered Network approach is likely to be a step in the right direction, especially in the light of today's car-monoculture standards, it's not quite a complete streets approach. Shouldn't all of Los Angeles be safe for walking? Early drafts of the study includes grating descriptions like this one of a Major Highway Class I: "Bicycle travel is not typically on this roadway. Bicycle priority streets should be designated on parallel facilities." Is this the kind of designation that the current Department of Transportation regime is likely to favor?

A shortfall of this study as currently scoped is that it's just a study. DCP states that it will have no specific recommended ordinances to be adopted. Any changes in the streets DNA will have to wait a few years before they can be adopted. Even then, Bowin characterizes the new standards would be a "greater toolbox" that would be available "for use in Community Plans." The Community Plan process is an exceeding slow and labyrinthine tool for adopting new street standards. It sounds like it would be another at least 2-3 years for the new toolbox to be approved in the Mobility Element, then another 2-3 years before a specific new standard could get approved for a specific street in a new Community Plan. With this approach, a fast-tracked change would be around 2015, if we're lucky. WWJSKD?

At the study briefing that this author attended, Stephen Box, Glenn Bailey, Ryan Snyder and others called for specific policy recommendations that could be made in a study like this:

- Minimize lane widths: Most of the revised classifications still call for excessive 11-foot-wide travel lanes. For pedestrian-priority and bike-priority streets, lane width should be the minimum: just 10-foot-wide

- Suspend Road-Widening: When DCP reviewed its downtown street standards, it suspended the roadway-widening for the downtown area. While DCP is reviewing its standards that apply citywide, it should place a moratorium on road-widening citywide.

- Suspend Other Unsafe Practices: Similar to road-widening, the report could recommend a moratorium on other practices that create unsafe incomplete streets. End speed limit increases. End crosswalk removals and the city's current practice of incomplete crosswalks at interesections. Halt new bike- and pedestian-unfriendly peak-hour parking restrictions for increasing car capacity.

- Add New Place-based Classifications: The proposed layered approach is still car-centric. New street designations could include: Main Street, Shared Space, Promenade, etc. - safe places where Angelenos would really want to go to, not just go through.

- Add Sidewalk Standards: Safe walkable places start with well-designed sidewalks with clear functional zones. Even on the newly proposed "Pedestrian Priority Streets" the road has clearly designated lanes, and the sidewalks get what's left over. The new standards should be exactly the reverse.

- Learn From Others: Many other cities have adopted great, comprehensive, complete streets standards. Look to progressive examples, including New York City's Street Design Manual.

L.A.'s next generation is counting on the Department of City Planning to do real planning. It's a good sign that DCP is re-examining the DNA of Los Angeles' streets. This study is a great opportunity to step away from streets that are car-centric wastelands and step toward health safe livable places.

Over at CicLAvia's blog, Joe Linton, who is no stranger to Streetsblog readers, has an interesting article featuring a dozen "Sadik-Khan"  like projects that could, and should, be done by the city of Los Angeles before next year's Street Summit.  After her inspiring perfomance at this year's Summit, NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan promised to come back next year and see how we're doing.  To, to the city of L.A. I say, "Tick-tock city!  That's only ten more months!"

Linton's project is mostly public plazas and bike lanes, although he does find space to plug regular CicLAvias throughout the city.

I have a different project that I'd like to see the city move on as a pilot program: a separated bike lane on Washington Boulevard in Venice.  The stretch of Washington near the beach and bike paths is some of the most biked area in the city, especially on weekends.  Given that bike lanes already exist in this area, the city could provide extra safety to the scores of occasional riders out to bike to the beach or along the beach bike path by flipping the bike lane and the car parking.  Thus, the parked cars would provide a buffer for the cyclists.  As an added bonus, the bikes would provide a second buffer from cars for the pedestrians visiting the many restaraunts and other shops along Washington.

Do you have a favorite, quick and low cost "Sadik-Khan" project that you'd like the city to try?  Leave it in the comments section.

Talk about having an immediate impact. Thanks to a grant from the L.A. County Department of Public Health, Green L.A.is looking for a "Living Streets Coordinator" for Boyle Heights.  You can read the full job description here, but here's a taste of what the Coordinator will do:

The Boyle Heights Living Streets Initiative will increase people’s ability to safely and pleasantly cycle and walk in Boyle Heights by implementing 3 prototype Living Streets near the Mariachi Plaza and Soto Gold Line stations. Currently, City of Los Angeles’ standard street improvement projects do not give any special consideration to cyclists and pedestrians. This Initiative will take advantage of the opportunity afforded by approximately $25 million allocated through various grants and funding programs to design and install street improvements near these Gold Line stations according to Living Streets principles.

Applications are due by May 7.

So what of all that 'let's liberate these languishing streets now!' energy generated by Janette Sadik-Khan's exhortation at the Los Angeles StreetSummit a month ago? Pilot Projects Now! is the response of one ambitious group.

A coalition group called Living Streets, composed of representatives from the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and LA Walks, together with a couple of urban planners and advocates, has some ideas. Living Streets wants to act now to locate and launch feasible, short-term pilot projects that move forward with the simple idea met with so much energy at the StreetSummit: Streets are for People (but somehow they forgot, and we noticed, so we're gonna fix it!) The group is holding a 'pick your pilots' meeting next Thursday, April 29, to discuss where we could start replacing asphalt with Astroturf, on the way to permanently reclaimed streets in this hardscape city.

The group coalesces around some shared principles about how streets can better reflect more of what people need out of them-10 Tenets of Living Streets, it calls them-whichemphasize the symbiosis between healthy urban residential and commercial places, a healthy environment and healthy people. They see thoughtful street design as a lever for all these things. The group has studied up on the strategies of a San Francisco-based group, Pavement to Parks, which locates under-used street swaths and orchestrates community-based design and implementation of small parks to replace them. At their April 29 meeting, Living Streets will begin to marshall the talents of interested Angelenos to locate such places of possibility, together with the requisite political support and designpower, and transform them into the asphalt oases we need.

Recently, Living Streets was selected as one of a handful of Los Angeles County organizations to receive federal funds to help model the kinds of agency and policy changes we need in order to someday be a people instead of car-driven metropolis. As part of this project, thanks to LA County Department of Public Health's RENEW program, it will coordinate with streets-overseeing public agencies and streets-interested communitymembers to help fill out the sidewalks and streets of Boyle Heights, and make the neighborhood's moving parts more people-accommodating. Ultimately, the project will create a template for discerning the location-specific possibilities and tools for bringing to life streets all over Los Angeles.

In the meantime, they're looking for a few good streets!

Bring ideas from your own neighborhood to their upcoming meeting:

Thursday, April 29 at 7pm 634 S. Spring Street Edison Room (1st Floor)

Questions and/or RSVP should be sent to: livingstreetsla@gmail.com

Although they aren’t advertising it as such, the City of Burbank recently put Verdugo Avenue on a diet, a road diet that is.  And amazingly, the world didn’t end.

Until recently, Verdugo Avenue was a four-lane throughway used by commuters as an alternative to busier streets such as Alameda and Magnolia.  However, with parks and schools along the road, including John Burroughs High School, the Buena Vista Library, Verdugo Park, and Lincoln Park, the city and residents wanted a change.  In 2003, the city included taking a travel lane for a bike lane in its Bike Master Plan.  In December of last year, at the same meeting when the city voted to update their plan, the City Council also voted to move forward what is technically called the “Verdugo Avenue Lane Reconfiguration.”

A planner in the City of Burbank Community Development Department referred to the new road design as a “thing of beauty” which might not make sense at first glance, until you consider that the road didn’t have a bike lane but did have an extra travel lane.  The road hasn’t even been on a diet for one month.  We’ll report back this summer with what lasting impacts the road has had on local traffic patterns and the quality of life for those using the road.  But there is one thing we do know, the City of Burbank decided to remove a car travel lane in favor of a bike travel lane, with the support of those living on the street.  Oddly, this change doesn’t seem to have resulted in a political revolution or, more ominously, the end of the world.

The local media hasn’t caught on to this story yet, but if you want to read more, you can read the staff report and city council minutes, here.