Last Saturday, Streets Are For Everyone hosted a rally to celebrate L.A.'s newest car-free street: a three-quarter-mile stretch of Griffith Park Drive through Griffith Park.
City leaders are planning a suite of park road safety improvements in response to to the April 16 death of cyclist Andrew Jelmert, who was struck by a drunk driver speeding at 80 mph not far from the new car-free street. This stretch - informally called "trash truck hill" - closing to drivers complements several other park roads that are already closed to cars and treasured by cyclists and pedestrians. One of the intents of the closure pilot is curb drivers using the park as a cut-through.
L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman and the city Department of Recreation and Parks, working with Assemblymember Laura Friedman, crafted a multi-phase effort to evaluate and fast-track safety improvements to the park. The work was supported and celebrated by many livability non-profits including SAFE, Streets for All, and the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition.
At Saturday's rally, hundreds of cyclists rode the newly car-free street, and got a glimpse of what a safe Griffith Park will look like.
