Santa Monica’s Ocean Park Blvd Project: Green Streets meet Complete Streets

Ocean Park Boulevard - after - as planned

At Creek Freak, one of my past criticisms of green street projects is that they don’t adress issues of alternate transportation. Wonderful “Green Streets” projects address rainwater issues. Wonderful “Complete Streets” projects address walking, transit, bicycling. But n’er the twain shall meet?

Finally a local project has come across my desk that combines green streets and complete streets. At this point it’s about a half year before construction starts, but Creek Freak is happy to highlight the city of Santa Monica’s Ocean Park Boulevard project.

Ocean Park Boulevard - before - as it appears today

Bridge and Bikeway Construction in West San Fernando Valley

Illustration of Tampa Avenue Bridge design, including Cheri Gaulke's medallions with steelhead and coyote, image courtesy city of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering

Construction is underway on a couple of Los Angeles River bridge retrofit and widening projects in the west San Fernando Valley. Specifically work is proceeding on the Tampa Avenue Bridge and Winnetka Avenue Bridge in the Valley communities of Reseda and Winnetka, not far from Los Angeles Pierce College. The bridge projects include river- and historic-themed artwork, a portion of the Los Angeles River bike path, and native landscaping.

Bridge, with bikeway and greenway, construction at Winnetka Avenue

Back in Novemer 2008, Creek Freak reported that this project was one of two L.A. River bike path sections that the city was gradually proceeding with. The new path will be two miles on the south bank, from Mason Avenue to VanAlden Avenue, including grade-separated underpasses at Vanowen Street, Winnetka Avenue, Corbin Avenue, and Tampa Avenue.

News and Events – 22 August 2010

 

RECENT NEWS 

> The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has a new video (above) 0n Stormwater Runoff 101, featuring shots of the Elmer Avenue project profiled here earlier. The shots of the trash boom on Ballona Creek are pretty scary! Overall it’s an excellent video, though I wish they didn’t call storm drains “sewers.” (Thanks to In the Watershed) 

>Last Wednesday, August 18th, 2010, KCRW 89.9fm radio’s Which Way L.A.? ran an episode entitled Navigating the Los Angeles River. The program features Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes and George Wolfe of river expedition fame. The radio program is available for online listening here. Also in Shipping News: LAist reports about a petition floated for boating access to the river: register your name on the online petition here. 

Click on image to go to Save Los Angeles River Open Space for larger images.

> See handsome new  renderings of the L.A. River Natural Park  at the Save L.A. River Open Space website. It’s a watershed park proposed for the site currently known as Studio City Golf and Tennis. See creek freak’s backgrounders on this struggle here and here. 

> The L.A. Times reported yesterday that endangered steelhead remain endangered. This is good news: steelhead, an anadromous fish once abundant in local rivers and creeks, will remain protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. Recommended reading: creek freak’s coverage of Fish in the L.A. River.

> Tiny new feature: we’ve added a Tweet button for posting our articles to Twitter. The button now appears at the bottom of each post.  Follow us at Twitter at @LACreekFreak! 

UPCOMING EVENTS 

> Jenny Price’s Hidden L.A. Los Angeles River Tours are coming up August 29th, September 4th, September 12th, and September 26th. Keep up with them by liking them at their Facebook page. You may get to actually drive in the river!

> Coastal Cleanup Day – takes place Saturday September 25th 2010. The event includeslots of clean-ups on local creeks and rivers . 

CicLAvia route for walking and biking on car-free streets in October

> CicLAvia – pronounced “seek-law-vee-uh” – a car-free 7.5-mile open streets festival taking place on October 10th 2010 (that’s 10-10-10) - will include the historic Gothic-Revival 1931 4th Street Bridge. Read more about CicLAvia here and more about the 4th Street Bridge on their list of 10 historic buildings along the 10-10-10 route. Self-promotion confession – Creek Freak Joe Linton is way-involved in this not-especially river-related effort – and has been writing various top 10 lists at the CicLAvia site.

Very Clever Very Funny Plastic Bag Video

This one really needs no explanation… just watch and enjoy this beautifully shot and produced straight-faced mockumentary about the life of a plastic bag.

Kayak News: KABC vid and Reyes Motion

Click to watch the full video at KABC website!

George Wolfe of L.A. River Expeditions is at it again. KABC TV channel 4 kayaked the Sepulveda Basin with him and posted this video. (Sorry I couldn’t quite get it to embed – so click on image or link to view.)

In other L.A. River kayaking news, Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes has introduced a council motion to get more folks boating on our navigable river. Below is an excerpt from Reyes’ August 10 2010 press release.

Not Necessarily Narrowly Navigability

Navigable, yes, not quite the navigable river that we have in mind. Tom Andrews photo of 2008 Los Angeles River expedition - from LAist

Here at L.A. Creek Freak, we’re very excited about the EPA’s determination that the Los Angeles River is navigable and is protected fully under the Clean Water Act. It’s a welcome decision, strongly supported by the river’s past,  present, and planned future. The determination got the L.A. Times out kayaking the river (watch their excellent video!) and sparked off mayoral, journalistic, and advocate discussions of the river’s bright future.

But… the whole navigability test is… unfortunately… a bit limited.

Is navigability the right test for what streams deserve federal Clean Water Act (CWA) protection? Is the Clean Water Act all we need to restore rivers, creeks, and watersheds? Does a narrow focus on improving water quality get us to a goal of healthy creek and stream ecosystems? 

News and Events – 7 August 2010

Lewis MacAdams, poet and activist and the Los Angeles' BFF

NEWS

>In yesterday’s L.A. Times, Patt Morrison has an interview with Lewis MacAdams, founder of the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), and, as Morrison aptly puts it, the river’s BFF.

Below are two excerpts, for the full story, go here.

FoLAR turns 25 next year. As the ’70s phrase goes, is it still all about consciousness-raising?

When we started, I thought all I’d have to do is convince people the river can be a better place. I quickly began to understand that first I had to convince people there actually is a Los Angeles River. That took a long time.

Before the river was channelized, it moved across the floodplain. So that channel we see has nothing to do with what the river looked like before. Now the river has kind of reached people’s consciousness, and that makes it much easier to do what we do. So now we can go into specific issues.

I called it a 40-year artwork. I vastly underestimated how long it was going to take. My theory was, it took 40 years to screw it up; it’ll take 40 years to fix it. Somebody said no good idea is ever accomplished in one lifetime. Ultimately the river’s going to be there. My attitude is, if it’s not impossible, I’m not interested.

Is it the Donald Rumsfeld river — the river you have rather than the river you wish you had?

No, you start with the river you have and then go to the river you wish you have. One advantage when we started FoLAR was that there was not much room for nostalgia. There was no “backwards” to go. We really had to think: What is a postmodern river, a human-surrounded river? The L.A. River symbolizes all the damage that human ego has done to the natural world; it seems to have this symbolic presence.

>Urbanophile covers Cincinnati‘s nearly-complete riverfront revitalization, with some great-looking renderings. 

>Long Beach and other lower Los Angeles River cities are spending $10M in federal stimulus monies to install grates to keep trash out of the river. Watch ABC video coverage here.

EVENTS

>Tomorrow, Sunday August 8th 2010, at 7am, Audubon hosts a shorebird watching event, on the Lower Los Angeles River. It features Kimball Garrett, bird-expert from the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. It’s free and starts at the Willow Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River in Long Beach.

Not Enough to Waste – New Water Solutions Booklet from Green L.A.

Cover and sample pages from Not Enough to Waste booklet - image from Designed by Colleen website

I had the pleasure of reading a handsome new booklet that gives a great overview of Los Angeles water issues. It’s called Not Enough Water to Waste: Solutions to Securing L.A.’s Water Future and it’s published by Green L.A. Coalition‘s water team – many of the same folks in the coalition that’s actively pushing to get Los Angeles’ Low Impact Development (LID) ordinance passed.