Streetsblog Los Angeles

At last week’s Art Walk, the monthly event where downtown art galleries open their doors to the public for free, thousands of people gathered to walk through the Downtown.  The event is changing the way people view Downtown Los Angeles, but last week, tragedy struck.

A two-month old infant in a stroller was killed when a Mercedes jumped a curb and struck the stroller and her mother.  It was initially reported that the driver would face no criminal charges, but later it was reported that he might face vehicular manslaughter.  The LAPD believes he was trying to parallel park front first when he hit the gas instead of the brake, careened into a parking meter, and then into a crowd.

Some have responded to the crash by calling for the walk to go carfree.  Others are claiming that Art Walk has become to large an event to be managed efficiently and should be closed.  Streetsblog had a chance to interview Mayor Villaraigosa on the phone today and we asked him about the crash (more on the rest of the interview tomorrow):

First, it’s obviously a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the family.  It’s irresponsible to blame Art Walk for this crash, from what I understand it was a freak accident…It’s too soon to talk about what, if any, changes are needed.  I know Art Walk is working with the city to make people as safe as possible when people are crossing the street.

Streetsblog contributor Brigham Yen advances the argument that the City should think of making Art Walk, at least part of it, car-free  on his self-named blog.  Yen points out that New York does the same thing in Times Square on weekends.  Commentors at other blogs are calling for a monthly mini-Ciclavia on Spring and Main Streets between 2nd and 9th, where the Walk regularly takes place. Read more…

We'll never know if the now-funded improvements to Jefferson and Ketzler would have saved the K-Town Ridazz, but we do know it will make the intersection safer for the hundreds of people that climb these stairs to the Baldwin Hills Park Scenic Overlook. Photo: Adventures in Los Angeles, Art and Architecture

Last Friday, the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, a county agency, awarded Culver City $570,000 to improve the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Hetzler road, the same intersection where Christine Dahab crashed into a group of stationary Midnight Ridazz early in the morning of June 16.  The improvements include the installation of a raised median near the intersection to differentiate the area surrounding the Scenic Overlook and the rest of the park from the industrial area around it, bike lanes from Duquense Avenue to the west to the City border to the east, a sidewalk on both sides of Jefferson and installation of a pedestrian signal at Hetzler.

Referring to the improvements and the crash, Charles Herbertson, the Director of Public Works for Culver City said, “I’m not sure any of the things we’re proposing would have stopped that, but it couldn’t have hurt.”  Herbertson also stressed that the proposal was before the Conservancy since before the crash and that the city has been trying to find funds to improve the intersection for a long time.

Even while the city scrambled to find funding to fix the intersection as more and more people used it to access the park, city leaders sounded the alarm that the intersection could claim lives before funding is identified.  Consider these two quotes from Culver City Councilmen on the situation at Jefferson and Hetzler from Culver City Patch about a grant application for the Metro Call for Projects:

“My gut tells me that in between those years of waiting, something bad is going to happen across that boulevard and then we will have to react in lieu of waiting for that grant,” Cooper said. Read more…

It's too bad that we often need to see this before we can see real pedestrian safety improvements. Photo:Daily News

The past week has been a dismal one for pedestrian safety issues.  One week ago, the K-Town Riders were probably peacefully planning out their ride, checking their tires, or otherwise going about their business with no idea the carnage that would be unleashed on them.  One week ago the fate of our city’s red light camera program was still uncertain.  But one week ago, one of the deadliest intersection in the city still didn’t have a traffic light.

Well, at least there’s some good news from the last seven days.

Over six months after Emely Aleman, 12, and Angela Rodriguez, 10, were crossing the street in a marked crosswalk when they were hit and tossed fifty feet in the air by a Jeep Cherokee.  Aleman passed away at the hospital, while Rodriguez is on the long road to recovery.  It was the third crash at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Archwood Street. in 2010, down from four crashes in 2009.

Yesterday, Councilman Paul Krekorian announced that construction of a traffic signal at that intersection has begun.  Krekorian and School Board Member Tamar Galatzan, who ran against Krekorian for the seat he now holds, teamed together with the community to create the political pressure to expediate the light’s installation.  A council resolution in Aleman’s name was passed by the City Council late last year urging LADOT to install this signal as quickly as possible.

The Council District 2 blog quotes Krekorian: Read more…

After a parade of public speakers rose to speak on whether or not the L.A. City Council should overrule the Police Commission and not allow Los Angeles’ red light cameras to come down, Councilman Tony Cardenas motioned to delay the final vote until Tuesday so that more City Council Members could be present.  At the time, there were eight Council Members in the room, and all ten would have had to vote for the Cardenas/Parks motion for it to pass.

However, at least two members in the room were clearly in opposition.  Councilman Paul Koretz and Councilman Bill Rosendahl joined Councilman Dennis Zine, who was not present, in speaking out against the cameras.  Koretz read a list of studies done by other cities on the benefits of their red light programs, all of which found the program lacking.

“Red light cameras make no sense for the City of Los Angeles, currently,” he concluded.

Oddly, he did not mention his own city’s study, which found a reduction of 62% in crashes at intersections where the cameras were implemented.  While 200 cyclists and pedestrians have been killed in car crashes since the cameras were instituted throughout the city, none of them were killed in intersections with the lights.  He also didn’t mention that the Federal Highway Administration have found that crashes are reduced at intersections with red light cameras. Read more…

There is more to walking than walking. Photos by Jan Gehl.

Editor’s note: Streetsblog San Francisco is thrilled to present a three-part series this week 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. This is part two. Donate to Streetsblog SF and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press.

It is a big day when at about one year of age a child takes that first step. The child’s eye level moves from the vantage point of the crawler (about 1 foot) above the floor to about 2.6 feet.

The little walker can see much more and move faster. From now on everything in the child’s world — field of vision, perspective, overview, pace, flexibility and opportunities — will move on a higher, faster plane. All of life’s important moments will hereafter be experienced on foot at standing and walking pace.

While walking is basically a linear movement that brings the walker from place to place, it is also much more. Walkers can effortlessly stop underway to change direction, maneuver, speed up or slow down or switch to a different type of activity such as standing, sitting, running, dancing, climbing or lying down.

A city walk illustrates its many variations: the quick goal-oriented walk from A to B, the slow stroll to enjoy city life or a sunset, children’s zig-zagging, and senior citizens’ determined walk to get fresh air and exercise or do an errand. Regardless of the purpose, a walk in city space is a “forum” for the social activities that take place along the way as an integral part of pedestrian activities. Heads move from side to side, walkers turn or stop to see everything, or to greet or talk with others. Walking is a form of transport, but it is also a potential beginning or an occasion for many other activities.

Read more…

Murphy, presenting for the MyFigueroa project team. Photo:LA Streetsblog/Flickr

Over the course of this year, I wanted to take time ever now and then to introduce you to members of our L.A. Streetsblog team here in Los Angeles by letting you hear them discuss transportation issues in their own words. Previous articles have focused on CicLAvia’s Joe Linton and the Safe Routes to School’s National Partnership’s Jessica Meaney.

Today, we focus on Deborah Murphy.  Long time Streetsblog readers might wonder, “Hey, didn’t we meet Murphy already,” but given her role not just with L.A. Walks, but as a key member of the My Figueroa project team that could change South Park forever, now seems like a great time to check back in.

For those of you that haven’t read/listened to a Streetscast, I’ll provide the topic and a quick quote before posting the audio. Read more…

Every circle represents a half mile radius from a school. Every red circle shows the highest possible danger to pedestrians based on state statistics. The map is of "Central Los Angeles." To download more maps, click here.

This morning, Transportation for America (T4A) released a report, “Dangerous by Design” which gives a state-by-state ranking of how dangerous each state is for pedestrians.  While there are certainly worse states to take a walk in than California, 6,957 Californians died (of 47,700 nationally) while walking as result of a crash between 2000 and 2009.

Locally, the news isn’t any better.  The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana region ranked as the 27th most dangerous place in the country to take a walk; more dangerous than every California region except the Riverside-San Bernadino region and Greater Sacramento.  2,533 pedestrians were killed in the Los Angeles region between 2000-2009.

However, the reality of pedestrian danger really strikes home when looking at a new series of maps released by the State of California and University of California-Berkeley that break down how dangerous it is to walk to school based on the number of pedestrian collisions within one half mile of a school.  That sea of red pictured in the map above is a jarring look at the main barrier to promoting walking and bicycling to school.  In too many areas, parents believe it just isn’t safe.

Predictably, where one lives and how much money one makes are the top factors in determining how safe it is to talk to school, or work, to do errands or just for exercise.  T4A notes that low-income and minority communities are most likely to feel the brunt of poorly designed streets imperiling pedestrian lives. Read more…

Most of South Lake Avenue functions like a strip mall, with parking in the back and stores with "convenient" back door entrances that siphon pedestrian activity away from the actual South Lake Avenue itself. There's many more pictures of South Lake after the jump.

For awhile now, I’ve contemplated the perplexing question of “What can improve South Lake Avenue (an underperforming shopping district)?” and I’ve come up with my own conclusions as to why the moribund district performs so poorly.

Let me also start off by saying “Thank you” to those who took the time yesterday to email me their thoughts expressing their very valid concerns over the unfortunate news that Borders will be closing their location on South Lake Avenue due to their recent bankruptcy and reorganization (a Borders store associate on South Lake Avenue told me “one to two months”).

I was just as bummed about the news, and as a result of those emails I received, I felt compelled to go out and “exam” South Lake Avenue today by doing my own little research. I asked myself the obvious question as I walked up and down the street: “Why are there so few people walking on South Lake Avenue?”

The answer in my opinion is quite “simple” and boils down to two major drawbacks that hamper South Lake Avenue: 1) The tenant/business mix is uninteresting in its current configuration, and 2) the back entrances to the businesses from the Shoppers Lane parking lot is insidiously harmful to South Lake Avenue in the front. Read more…

The first time Adolfo Hernandez went to the National Bike Summit, he got a sense of just how monochromatic the livability movement can be.

Chicago's Active Transportation Alliance serves as a model of how to integrate communities of color into livability programming. Photo courtesy of Active Transportation Alliance

“I think there were about 300 or 400 people,” he said. “And really, I could count on one hand people I thought were people of color.”

Hernandez is the director of outreach and advocacy for the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago. His own organization has a predominantly white, affluent membership, he says, but that’s changing. And a new study by the Centers for Disease Control highlights the urgent need for smart-growth and livability organizations to diversify and include the full range of people who care about these issues.

The CDC asked people how “street-scale urban design policies” (read: sidewalks, lighting) affect their level of physical activity. Overall, about 57 percent of adults said these neighborhood features were “moderately” or “very” important – but people of color placed far greater importance on those factors in the built environment than the white people surveyed.

In fact, 50.5 percent of black respondents and 40.6 percent of Hispanic respondents said neighborhood features were “very important” in determining their level of physical activity. Only 26.9 percent of the white people surveyed gave that answer. A quarter of the white respondents said it wasn’t important at all, while only 12 and 13 percent of Hispanics and blacks, respectively, said that.

Hernandez says that low-income communities and communities of color “get” issues of walkability, though they may feel alienated by the jargon livability advocates use. “People want to be able to walk and feel safe; they want their kids to be able to play outside,” he said. “The instant you start talking to people about what they like and don’t like about their block, they might say, ‘I hate that it’s hard for my kids to walk to school’, or ‘It’s hard for my kids to play outside.’ ‘We’re worried about how fast the cars are going.’”

Read more…

The offending crosswalk via Google Maps.

I pressed the crosswalk button and waited until the traffic light signaled me to cross the street. Before I stepped onto the cross walk on Main Street at the intersection with Granada, heading north, I looked ahead slightly left to see if there were any on coming cars.

Besides the handful of cars stopped by the red light at Main Street the coast was clear.  I did notice a white van stopped at the southbound Granada left hand turn lane waiting to make the turn.

There was nothing to signal danger as I proceeded to cross this street, something I do every day.  All of a sudden the white van starts making a left-hand turn, a mere 10 seconds after I stepped into the crosswalk. I was not even half way across the street before I watched this van head right toward me.

I thought to myself this can’t be happening. This driver clearly sees me.  I am right in front of them.

Seemingly, in slow motion this white van approaches.  I am thinking what do I do? I can’t believe this is happening. I am a moving target getting ready to get hit by this white van. Read more…