http://www.latimes.com/la-me-adv-great-streets-201407027-story.html#page=1
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Interstate 110, Southbound Harbor Freeway
flickr.com |
Hello Everyone:
Finally the oppressive heat and humidity has tapered off and yours truly doesn't feel so miserable anymore. Now, I can fully devote my time attention to all things architecture, historic preservation, urban planning and design.
Today's topic is acupuncture. Specifically, 'urban acupuncture.' In a recent article by David Zahniser, Matt Stevens, and Laura J. Nelson in the
Los Angeles Times titled, "Mayor sets out to transform L.A. streets through 'urban acupuncture,'" our reporters take a look at Mayor Eric Garcetti's plans to transform Gaffey Street in San Pedro and fourteen other rather nondescript looking streets throughout the city and county into places of urban activity. The mayor describes this process as 'urban acupuncture' with plans to add bicycle racks, plazas, crosswalk upgrades, and assorted amenities all designed to draw pedestrians to otherwise desolate stretches of streets and attract new businesses. It's a nice idea and if properly implemented, it could make these places with automobile-centric businesses into very lovely places to spend time.
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Mini-mall at 312 North Gaffey Street
San Pedro, California
loopnet.com |
Los Angeles is best known for its wide and all too frequently mind numbingly traffic jammed boulevards that criss-cross the urban landscape more intended to get people from one end of the city to the other than for creating some version of street life and community. Mayor Garcetti's "Great Streets" initiative hopes to remedy this situation. The initiative, which has been met with both excitement and skepticism from the targeted communities. "Twenty years ago, a street was a place that moved cars. You moved through it, and there were very few people who conceptualized a street any other way," says USC Price School of Public Policy urban planning professor Marlon Boarnet. If put into motion, the "Great Streets" initiative
(http://www.lamayor.org) would create streets that people "would want to go to and spend time at, as opposed to places you just want to move through."
It sounds like a fantastic idea, make some of the more dodgy stretches of boulevard in and around Los Angeles more attractive and pedestrian oriented but behind all this sunshine is a hard calculus: the city lacks both money and the space to add the alternative solutions needed to significantly reduce traffic congestion: widening the streets and costly mass transit. Therefore, the good mayor is pursuing a a reverse strategy: bring the amenities to the targeted communities so that the residents don't have to travel and hopefully, not use their car. That sounds pretty steep for some of the residents, whose biggest concern is anything that'll make traffic more worse than it is already.
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Car driving along Gaffey Street
San Pedro, California
loopnet.com |
Back in the City of San Pedro, many of the locals, still irritated over the decision to add bicycle lanes to some of the major streets, really aren't in the mood for anything that will create more congestion along Gaffey Street, according to Doug Epperhart, former president of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. Mr. Epperhart said, "Their attitude is 'Anything that will slow my progress to and from the freeway, I'm not interested in.'" It's not the first time City Hall has tried to upgrade these mix and mismatched boulevards. If history is any indicator, building a village on a street is easier said than done. During the nineties, then-Mayor Richard Riordan implemented the Target Neighborhood Initiative, which awarded federal funds to a dozen business districts including the portion of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park and Central Avenue in South Los Angeles. The intention was to create a Main Street atmosphere, with trees, murals, streetlights, and help business owners pretty up their storefronts. The improvements did not always translated into increase revenue, one of key goals of the program, according to Con Howe, the director of Los Angeles City Planning, 1992-2005. Mr. Howe resigned himself to the fact that some neighborhoods "just had a lot more challenges than others."
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Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Photograph by Michael L. Jiroch
panaramio.com |
Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to create more favorable conditions for transformation by zeroing in on sites that already have green shoots of economic activity. Ever the political campaigner, the mayor is quick to highlight the success in the Thirteen Council District he represented prior to becoming mayor. For example, in the Silver Lake area, he close one block next to the Sunset Boulevard business district to automobile traffic and replaces with a green-polka dot plaza. In the Atwater Village community, then Council Member Garcetti worked to make Glendale Boulevard-a major feeder to the 5 Freeway-more hospitable to pedestrians. City work crews upgraded the crosswalks, extending the curbs further into the street, added landscape elements and trash cans. It sounds more like cosmetic, rather than substantive improvements but, the mayor touts the fact that these small improvements led to the arrival of new restaurants and retail establishments.
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Larchmont Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca
en.wikipedia.org |
Los Angeles' commercial boulevards were built many decades ago along, some now-abandoned trolley lines. As demographics shifted toward the suburbs and the streetcars gave way to the car, developers began to focus less on pedestrian traffic and cater more to the car, says Matt Roth historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California. As mini-malls became more common in the seventies and eighties, long blocks of street-facing storefronts became less and less. Some, like sections of Melrose Avenue, Larchmont Boulevard, Robertson Boulevard retained some semblance of a street life, others did not. However, long dormant sidewalk-oriented districts are awakening. For example, once sleepy York Boulevard in Highland Park, a community north of Downtown Los Angeles, has become a vibrant place that
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El Huaraches Azteca
York Boulevard in Highland Park, California
losangeles.grubstreet.com |
caters to an array of middle and upper-class desires: coffee, comic books, vegan ice cream, and over priced donut. Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice has become a commercial and retail destination that rivals Rodeo Drive. The Great Street program cheerleaders have their collective fingers crossed for similar good results.
Chapman University urban studies fellow Joel Kotkin calls the mayor's initiative a "good idea in principle." Nevertheless, he argues that the local economy is the most important factor in improving the streetscape. Mr. Kotkin says, "Designating a nice couple of blocks in the middle of poverty is not a great accomplishment...if you don't have growth, I don't know how you sustain this over time." No truer sentiment.
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Pico Boulevard between Hauser Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue
blog.archpaper.com |
Several streets, in each of the fifteen council districts, selected by Mayor Garcetti have already become the beneficiaries of investment. For a complete list please go to
http://www.latimes.com/.../la-me--in-great-streets-announcement-20140602-story.... In West Los Angeles, the mayor has targeted four blocks of Westwood Boulevard, bordered on the north by the Geffen Playhouse and on the south by the UCLA Hammer Museum. In his former council district, the mayor chose a section of Hollywood Boulevard already packed with tourists. I'm not sure that this was a good choice because there are sections on the eastern side of the famed boulevard that could, perhaps, benefit from some attention. In my part of Los Angeles, the Mid-City area, a ten-block segment of Pico Boulevard has a small number of restaurants that offer outdoor dining favored by the mayor. On Figueroa Street, running through Highland Park, gyms, a record store, vintage clothing store, and the restaurant Kitchen Mouse have joined the check-cashing businesses and pupuserias.
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Van Nuys Boulevard in the City of Pacoima
flickriver.com |
In the City of Pacoima, California, residents are skeptical about the prospects for Van Nuys Boulevard, another street targeted for 'urban acupuncture.' This section of the boulevard, which features gorgeous murals of Mona Lisa and the actor Danny Trejo, offers much of the basics: a barber shop, dentist office, taco stand, and a market. The residents have suggested a number of ways to improve the street: a park, rubbish cans, benches, some shaded areas. "It's nice that everything is close by, but that doesn't it's nice," says Alejandra Morales Sanchez. Van Nuys may seem like a great remove from Hollywood, Westwood, or any of the other streets included in Mayor Eric Garcetti's program but they have one thing in common, they aren't living up to their potential as great streets.
Is the "Great Streets" program a great idea? Hard to tell because the greatness of a street comes with time. The Champs Elysees in Paris did not become the grand boulevard it is overnight. What makes a street so great is the uniqueness of its character. I see this in York Boulevard in Highland Park and I see the potential in Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima. What these places need is strategic investments and tax credits for the existing businesses and a strong commitment to maintaining the character of the community. What makes streets and communities great are their uniqueness and from that, robust economic activity will follow.
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