Great Streets
Streetsblog LA
Great Streets Challenge Grants Open to All L.A. Streets, Workshops Coming
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's Great Streets Initiative is hosting its second round of challenge grants. The grants help community partners create projects that make Los Angeles streets more safe, active, and fun. The focus is to get community groups working together to re-envision and to improve streets all over L.A.
October 5, 2016
Street Beats Inspires Spontaneous Episodes of Dance, Music, Joy, and Safety on Crenshaw Corner
Last week, the Street Beats team converted the extremely busy and often dangerous intersection of Crenshaw and Florence into a play zone.
February 26, 2016
Make It Mar Vista: Pop Up Bike Lanes and Parklets at Westside Business Festival
This Saturday, the Mar Vista Chamber of Commerce is hosting “Make It Mar Vista” along Venice Boulevard starting at Centinela Avenue and heading west. The event is the area’s newish small business showcase, highlighting one of the Westside’s more walkable corridors with small shops and locally-owned restaurants.
November 23, 2015
Lessons From UCLA’s TransportationCamp
What do you get when dozens of transportation professionals, technologists, and others interested in improving urban transportation networks all in one room at UCLA on a Saturday morning? The answer is Los Angeles’ very first TransportationCamp.
October 6, 2015
South L.A. Cyclists Call for Price, Garcetti to Implement Central Ave. Bike Lane
"What do we want? Safe streets! When do we want them? NOW!"
September 24, 2015
First Round of Great Streets Improvements Continue on Cesar Chavez; City Says Community Engagement on Horizon
Tracking the Great Streets program as it has begun to unfold around town has, at times, been a bit of an exercise in frustration. Which never fails to strike me as odd, given Mayor Eric Garcetti's declaration that the transformation of the 15 chosen streets into gathering places would happen via a "bottom-up and community-based process" in which the city "[worked] with neighborhood stakeholders to develop a vision for each corridor."
September 2, 2015
Challenge Grant Winners in Boyle Heights and South L.A. Race Against the Clock to Raise Project Funds, Build Networks
Twenty-three days is not a lot of time to get community buy-in on a complete streets pop-up event/project and raise $10,000 in support of it. Especially in lower-income communities like Boyle Heights and parts of South L.A., where the stakeholders who would ideally be buying into the projects tend to be less familiar with concepts like "tactical urbanism," are generally of lesser means, and/or are often unreachable via a social media campaign (or wholly unable to make online payments to it).
August 15, 2015
Venice Great Streets Phase 1: Road Diet, Protected Bike Lanes, Mid-Block Crossings
(Update: While I have the term "phase 1" in my notes, I was corrected that there are no formal "phases" to the project. Right now there is only a firm plan for the transportation improvements, but will be implemented as opportunities arise, such as partnerships with community groups or businesses. They could happen before, or after, the transportation improvements. - DN)
August 13, 2015