Great Streets Initiative
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti launched the Great Streets Initiative to create community partnerships and ultimately reimagine streets as places to live, shop, and gather. Through the Great Streets Initiative, Mayor Garcetti wants to create healthier, more vibrant engaging public spaces for people.
The Great Streets Challenge is a program that focuses on building a strong partnership team between the Departments of City Planning and Transportation and selected community partners. West Angeles CDC was one of seven recipients for the 2nd round of Great Street Challenge Grants.
The Great Street project for West Angeles CDC focuses on the area surrounding 54th Street at Crenshaw Boulevard. The goal is to collaborate on and build a community-led vision for how the public areas could be activated through design, street furnishings, street trees, and public art.
The Great Streets project will:
- Build strong partnerships between West Angeles and the City of Los Angeles
- Capture community input that informs the vision and give ownership back to members of the West Angeles community
- Design 54th and Crenshaw in a manner that embodies the community’s vision for an improved neighborhood
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A GREAT STREET?
There are six areas of support that the Great Street Initiative provides to Challenge Grant recipients. West Angeles CDC will seek to capture the community’s vision for changing the public spaces around 54th and Crenshaw. West Angeles CDC is supported by three technical consultants, MIG, Alan Nakagawa, and LA-Mas. Together this team will bring forward ideas for the community’s consideration about how to transform 54th Street and make it safer for residents, businesses, and the larger community.
West Angeles CDC is leading a 6-month long outreach campaign to collect community feedback about potential improvements to 54th and Crenshaw. Outreach efforts include working with neighborhood leaders to canvass residents and businesses throughout West Angeles, hosting homebuyer, business, and other stakeholder meetings, and conducting a visioning survey.
This outreach process will culminate in a family-friendly Movie Night in August, 2017 that includes a demonstration the community’s vision for redesigned sidewalk areas. The demonstration will highlight design interventions that could be implemented to create attractive places for residents and improve safety conditions for pedestrians – especially seniors and youth.
Help Us Decide – Take the Survey
How would YOU improve our streets?
English – http://conta.cc/2qycOU7
Spanish – http://conta.cc/2svR6gk
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THIS GREAT STREET?
The Challenge Grant process will result in a community driven vision that clearly identifies the following:
• Street trees and landscaping that is sustainable, provides shade, and serves as a buffer from cars
• Safety enhancements that create a more comfortable environment for pedestrians and transit users
• Public art that enlivens the sidewalk and tells the story of West Angeles
• Seating that encourages the community gather and supports a vibrant business corridor
• Community engagement that creates relationships with the community that will bring forward project champions and passionate leaders