Streetsblog Los Angeles

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. Read more…

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. Read more…

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… Read more…

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: Read more…

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. Read more…

In which I plug the awesome street/music festival that I only attended for the first time two days ago, despite being fairly well attuned to the LA music scene…

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. Read more…

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.