with Daveed Kapoor As a member of the Downtown LA Complete Streets Working Group, I was asked to do a rendering of Spring Street for presentation to the LA City Council and for public input on Park(ing) Day. The goal of the presentation was to get approval for a parklet pilot program in Downtown LA, which will take a handful of street parking spaces and repurpose them as miniature parks. This concept was pioneered in San Francisco and has now spread to other cities like New York (see this excellent site by the city of San Francisco for examples). We hope to be able to repeat the success here in Los Angeles and return some of the public right-of-way to pedestrian use in our auto-centric city.
The rendering depicts the block of Spring Street between 6th and 7th Streets in Downtown LA. I have include a "before" photo so you can see the street in its current state. Improvements shown include a 40' x 8' parket in front of LA Cafe, a cycle track bike lane with a landscaped median, and a mid-block crossing with curb bump-outs. The bike lane and curb extensions are improvements that the Complete Streets Working Group is working with LADOT and Street Services to construct. This rendering was featured in the Architect's Newspaper article "Parallel Parks" on 10/27/2011. |
