Skip to Content
Streetsblog Los Angeles home
Log In
Complete Streets

Temple Street Slow Jams Celebrate Improvements, Though No Road Diet

4:34 PM PDT on September 25, 2018

Temple Street community members celebrate safety improvements through Slow Jams #templestreetslowjams Photos by Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A.

This morning, community stakeholders performed Temple Street Slow Jams to bring attention to needed safety improvements for Temple Street. The city of Los Angeles is implementing "complete streets" improvements on Temple between Beadry Avenue (in downtown L.A.) and Beverly Boulevard (in Koreatown.) This 2.3-mile stretch of Temple has been hard hit by car crashes which have killed or seriously injurred 34 people in eight years.

Parents and students - from VISTA Charter Middle School and Camino Nuevo Charter Acadamy - along with community nonprofit representatives, marched multilingual signage along Temple urging drivers to slow down. Signs announced that "safety changes are coming to Temple Street."

Temple Street Slow Jams at the 5-way intersection of Temple St, Silver Lake Blvd, and Beverly Blvd
Temple Street Slow Jams at the 5-way intersection of Temple St, Silver Lake Blvd, and Beverly Blvd
Temple Street Slow Jams at the 5-way intersection of Temple St, Silver Lake Blvd, and Beverly Blvd
VISTA school students slow jamming
VISTA school students slow jamming
VISTA school students slow jamming

The "Temple Street - Beverly To Beaudry Project" includes extensive resurfacing, curb and sidewalk repair, painted curb extensions ("intersection tightening"), flashing beacon crosswalks, pedestrian head-start signals ("leading pedestrian intervals"), and new traffic signals.

What's missing from the project is the road diet that was initially part of city plans shared in 2017. A road diet would be cheaper and more effective than the project underway. Unfortunately, city leaders, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, and councilmembers Mitch O'Farrell and Gil Cedillo, backed away from lane reconfiguration based on a backlash largely from outside the community, including interference from the litigious "Keep L.A. Moving" (KLAM) based in Manhattan Beach. KLAM sent Manhattan Beach traffic safety denier Karla Medelsohn to speak at the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council's forum on the Temple Street project. The city's failure to reconfigure Temple Street is now cited in the international press as an example of L.A.'s failure to address its traffic violence epidemic which kills an Angeleno every 40 hours.

Bureau of Engineering construction is anticipated to last from October through June 2019, with Department of Transportation implemented safety upgrades from November through June 2019.

Some safety changes are coming to Temple Street. Some aren't.
Some safety changes are coming to Temple Street. Some aren't.
Some safety changes are coming to Temple Street. Some aren't.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog Los Angeles

Bus Rapid Transit Plans in SGV Get Clearer, and More Complicated

New concepts for rapid bus service across the 626 have ironed out the questions of where an East-West route would run and where demonstrations could begin.

December 1, 2023

Metro Board Approves $207 Million for 91 and 605 Freeway Expansion Projects

Metro and Caltrans eastbound 91 Freeway widening is especially alarming as it will increase tailpipe pollution in an already diesel-pollution-burdened community that is 69 percent Latino, and 28 percent Black

November 30, 2023
See all posts