Urban Design

On Park(ing) Day, I pedaled out to a park(ing) space on La Brea where I met Josh Paget. He is one of the co-founders of and the current Festival Director for the New Urbanism Film Festival. The festival, now in its second year, is coming up November 6-9 at the Acme Theater in Hollywood. Festival details here. Note that, in addition to plenty of great films, it also boasts speakers, walks, rides, etc. Keep up with #NUFF and #NUFF2014 via Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, too. We conducted the following interview via email.  

Last Wednesday, proponents of preserving the historic Riverside-Figueroa Bridge lost an appeal before the L.A. City Public Works Commission. EnrichLA, RAC Design Build, and others, have pressed for converting the bridge into a "Landbridge" - an elevated park, similar to New York City's Highline, accessible to pedestrians and cyclists.

Wider sidewalks, bike paths, fewer car lanes, park space.

It was the California State Assembly's turn to review the recent State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) report on Caltrans at a Transportation Committee hearing Monday.

Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke during a lunchtime plenary at the VerdeXchange/FutureBuild, a conference on sustainability, business and public policy, on Tuesday at the L.A. Hotel Downtown on Figueroa. He urged all departments in the city to look at everything through a lens of environmentalism.

Contemporary. Hip. Accessible. Vibrant. Artistic.

The Times’ reporting on the vulnerability of pre-1976 concrete buildings to future earthquakes has exposed pockets of risk scattered throughout Los Angeles. Proponents of requiring retrofits of vulnerable buildings in the 1990s were right. Human life is more valuable than the money of building owners. These older buildings should be strengthened one way or the other. But simply requiring owners to upgrade or demolish one thousand medium to large structures could lead to litigation, to wasted materials and energy, and to piles of rubble and vacant lots that would disrupt and diminish neighborhoods throughout the city.

Earlier this week, Streetsblog published an article about how the Hyperion-Glendale Complex of Bridges Rehabilitation Project was giving short shrift to bicyclists and pedestrians and everyone that lived in the area. At the time, based on information provided to us by the Bureau of Engineering, I assumed that the issue could be resolved by arguing for a complete streets approach to the right people.