Sahra Sulaiman

Squeezed in between the major thoroughfares connecting Boyle Heights to downtown, the Pico-Aliso community has long been treated by the city as an area to be passed through, and as quickly as possible, at that.

"What is the situation in South L.A.?" is the question Colin Bogart, Education Director at the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, posed to launch our discussion of the removal of a 7.2 mile bike lane planned for Central Avenue from the Mobility Plan 2035.

The hundreds of miles of alleys that run through South Los Angeles often look more like dirty dumping grounds than inviting places to stroll.

Six months ago he had been hit by a car on Rodeo Road, the young man told me. He was laid up for seventeen days. Now he had a metal rod in his back.

Listening to the City Planning Commission vote in favor - albeit somewhat reluctantly - of moving forward on the regressive amendments to the Mobility Plan 2035 this morning, I felt my heart sink.

This coming Saturday, June 25, and next Thursday, June 30, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) will hold scoping meetings to gather community input regarding the extent to which the clean-up of lead-contaminated properties located within a 1.7-mile radius of shuttered lead-acid battery smelter Exide could affect surrounding neighborhoods. Community comments, the DTSC Notice of Preparation (NOP) states, will "help shape the scope of the Environmental Impact Report" (EIR) which will ultimately guide the clean-up of as many as 2,500 contaminated properties.

THE NUMBER ONE THING that representatives from the "creative habitat" known as the Reef felt they had learned from engaging the community, the speaker told the more than 600 town hall attendees this past May 5, was that Historic South Central was "lacking a sense of place."

If at first you don't succeed in winning the Promise Zone designation from the Obama administration, try, try again.

Last year, on the 23rd anniversary of the 1992 riots, then-councilmember Bernard Parks held a groundbreaking ceremony with developer Eli Sasson and a host of local dignitaries at the site of the proposed Vermont Entertainment Village. The shiny new open-air mall, Parks and others claimed, would anchor positive growth in the South Los Angeles neighborhoods around Vermont and Manchester and transform them into a destination.

As bike month comes to a close, we have some good news for South L.A. cyclists. At yesterday's Metro Board meeting, a $2 million contract was awarded to Cityworks Design to begin working on plans for a 6.4 mile segment of the Rail-to-River bike path project (segments A-1, A-2, and A-3, above).