Walking

The L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks has released a new "Griffith Park Action Plan" [PDF] designed to deal with car congestion primarily from Hollywood Sign visitors. Last night, DRP and City Councilmember David Ryu hosted a community meeting to receive public feedback on the proposal. Nearly 200 people attended the forum, where DRP and Ryu received over an hour of public testimony critical of many aspects of the proposal.

Los Angeles Walks has been around a while, but only recently hired its first staffer, Policy and Program Manager Emilia Crotty. Keen-eyed readers probably spotted her introductory interview at L.A. Walks' website last month. In conjunction with L.A. Walks hosting their annual Sidewalk Soirée awards dinner this Saturday, SBLA wants to introduce Crotty to our readership. If you are interested in supporting L.A. Walks, and meeting Emilia Crotty in person, there are still a few tickets available for the Sidewalk Soirée, which honors Los Angeles City Councilmember Felipe Fuentes and walking guide Bob Inman.

New court filings today reveal more details about the settlement in Willits v. City of Los Angeles, a class action lawsuit over L.A.’s failure to make the public pedestrian right-of-way accessible to disabled people. Today's documents concur with the basic outlines of the settlement revealed in April 2014: the city of Los Angeles will spend $1.4 billion dollars over the next thirty years to repair damaged sidewalks that impede access.

The latest reports show that L.A. County has 18.6 million parking spaces, a whopping 14 percent of developed land. But apparently drivers want even more. It may be just anecdotal in my neighborhood - which is Koreatown near East Hollywood - but it seems like I am seeing more and more cars parking on sidewalks and curbs.

As previewed last week, the Los Angeles City Council's Public Works and Budget Committees held a joint meeting yesterday to discuss and decide on the future of repairing L.A. City sidewalks. In settling the Willits vs. City of Los Angeles lawsuit, the city is committing to spend $1.4 billion - over the next 30 years - to fix tree-damaged sidewalks.

It may be one of those made-up statistics, but there is a repeated truism that millions of people visit Hollywood Boulevard every year, and they spend an average of about fifteen minutes there. Sure, there are the Walk of Fame, some beautiful historic theaters and other noble buildings, Metro Red Line subway stops, costumed performers, street musicians... but Hollywood Boulevard is mostly tacky souvenir shops, museums in name only, and sad restaurants one would never return to, all along a massive car-choked stroad.

Next Monday, November 16, two committees of the Los Angeles City Council are scheduled to discuss a proposal that will shape the future of the city's sidewalks. The joint meeting of the city's Public Works and Budget Committees will take place at 2 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers. Critics of the proposal argue that the city fails to treat sidewalks as a serious core mobility network.

Transportation has always played a dominant role in shaping our urban environment. Historically, cities were built around the basis of everyday activities on foot; consequently, the prominent urban form was dense, compact, with high concentration of mixed-use development. As transportation technology progressed, the design of cities dramatically changed, in many ways to the detriment of the pedestrian. In Los Angeles, nothing has had a greater impact on the landscape than the car. Widened lanes, expansive freeways, large multi-lane systems, sprawling parking lots, and other amenities built around the needs of the car have resulted in a public realm that is often unsafe, unappealing, and stressful for the public.

Responding to community concerns that the high volume of pedestrian traffic at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue was creating an unsafe crossing, City Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell and the Department of Transportation recently announced that a "pedestrian scramble" will be installed by the end of the year.