PEDESTRIANS ARE PEOPLE TOO - Ask anyone smart enough to get off the tour bus at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and they will mention something many people don’t know about Los Angeles: this is a city made for walking. Albeit not along every street, but think about those stars on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard. The fact is that the best way to see Hollywood, and countless other parts of the city, is on foot.
But that doesn’t mean walking doesn’t face an uphill battle getting the attention of policy makers, planners and others involved in shaping the built environment.
Enter urban designer Deborah Murphy, Safe Routes to School advocate Jessica Meaney and Alexis Lantz of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.
Murphy, with the blessing of her sister complete streets advocates, recently started volunteer-driven Los Angeles Walks, to promote a more pedestrian-friendly Los Angeles.
According to Murphy — though all of us are pedestrians to a greater or lesser degree — pedestrians have not been terribly well represented to date in the sprawling county we call home.
When I spoke with Murphy about Los Angeles Walks, we kept the conversation focused on how every transit rider is a pedestrian. In turn, this means addressing the so-called first mile, last mile problem — or how we get between the train or bus and our final destination.
For Murphy, promoting transit ridership goes hand-in-hand with having a good, safe trip to and from the bus stop or train station. The challenge for pedestrian improvements has been funding, with pedestrian projects receiving a fraction of the money allocated to road or transit construction. Less than 1% of the national transportation budget goes to pedestrians projects, according to Los Angeles Walks.
Murphy argues that the Los Angeles region needs to examine its funding priorities. “The money is there but the regional problem is it doesn’t go to pedestrians,” she says. In light of a spate of recent incidents in which pedestrians were either injured or killed by cars and trucks, Los Angeles Walks advocates for wider sidewalks and other changes to dangerous intersections.
Changing the culture to better acknowledge and serve pedestrians will mean drivers will no longer be able to think of pedestrians as an anomaly or an unexpected event at intersections and along the street.
As Murphy asked me rhetorically, “how many times have the police heard a driver after hitting a pedestrians say, ‘I didn’t expect a pedestrian to be crossing there.’” According to Transportation for America, at 45 miles (72 kms) an hour a pedestrian has only a 15% chance of surviving being hit by a car.
In addition to focusing on better pedestrian connections to transit, Los Angeles Walks works for better pedestrian linkages throughout LA’s commercial districts and around schools and parks.
As Murphy explains, “People don’t just shop on one side of the street. They shop and want to walk on both sides of the street.”
More Info Here: Los Angeles Walks.org
“This is serious business but we want walking to be fun,” explains Murphy. And safe.
(Joel Epstein is Chief Talent Officer at bliss lawyers and a Los Angeles based strategic communications consultant focused on transportation and other critical urban issues … and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. For more about Joel visit: blisslawyers.com or JoelEpstein.com. This column was posted first at theurbn.com)
-cw
Tags: Joel Epstein, Los Angeles, transit, transportation, Los Angeles Walks, pedestrians
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 50
Pub: June 22, 2012