A coalitiongroupcalledLiving Streets, composed of representatives from theLos Angeles County Bicycle CoalitionandLA 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 streetsin this hardscape city.
The group coalesces around some shared principles about how streetscan 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 hasstudiedup 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 Streetswillbegintomarshall the talents ofinterested Angelenostolocate such places of possibility, together with the requisite political support and designpower, andtransform 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 helpmodelthe kindsof agency and policy changeswe needin order to someday be a peopleinstead of car-drivenmetropolis. As part of this project, thanks toLA 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, andmake the neighborhood's moving partsmorepeople-accommodating. Ultimately,the project willcreate a template for discerning the location-specificpossibilities andtoolsfor 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 7pm634 S. Spring Street Edison Room (1st Floor)
Questions and/orRSVPshould be sentto: livingstreetsla@gmail.com
Jen Petersen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University. Her interests include playing in traffic and living to write about it.
L.A. County needs to embrace physically-protected bikeways, robust traffic calming around schools, and similarly transformative, safety-focused projects