#GreatStreetsChallenge

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Introducing our Challenge Partners: Pacoima Beautiful

Welcome to our Q&A with Pacoima Beautiful Planning Director Max Podemski! Max shared this of Bradley Alley in Pacoima to highlight their approach to community-led public space projects. This project closed down a dead end street and turned it into a new public space that acts as a gateway between the San Fernando Gardens public housing facility and the broader community. The space is programmed year round with events such as Zumba classes. This is an example of how we can reclaim blighted urban spaces and turn them into neighborhood anchors. Find out how you can get involved by checking out Pacoima Beautiful!

Tell us about yourself. Who is on your team and what does your organization do?

Pacoima Beautiful is a 20-year-old environmental justice organization serving the Northeast San Fernando Valley. The majority of our residents rely on walking, biking, and public transport, and we see enhancing our streets as a key strategy to creating a better environment for our communities. This includes streets that are safe for cyclists and pedestrians, as well as clean and inviting public spaces. We have partnered with Vanessa Thompson who works for ARUP, an international engineering and design firm that has worked on prestigious projects such as the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing. Vanessa is from the Northeast San Fernando Valley and previously interned for Pacoima Beautiful. We are very proud and happy to be working with her on this project.

Describe one challenge or opportunity you are most excited to tackle on your street?

The intersection of Parthenia Blvd. and Van Nuys Blvd. is very large and complex, and it will experience a profound change when Metro’s East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor breaks ground in 2021. Our goals for the project is to enhance safety, beautify the intersection, and increase the areas sense of place. The primary challenge will be to achieve these goals while accommodating the Metro project and the large amount of vehicles that move through the intersection. However, the change presented by the Metro project is a huge opportunity to rethink this intersection from a place that primarily serves cars to an important community anchor. We hope that this Great Streets project acts as a bridge that transitions the neighborhood from its current state to a more multi-modal future.

Pacoima Beautiful Planning Director Max Podemski (left) facilitates a walk audit of Van Nuys Blvd, and Parthenia St. with local residents and community members.

Describe one key strategy you’ll use to engage residents, businesses and other communities along your street?

One key strategy is presenting to existing neighborhood groups and organizations. This is a way of making people aware of the project who might not normally attend a planning meeting, but who still have a large stake in it. We have arranged to present at community organizations and schools that have regular meetings. This is also a way of building up our email list so that we can invite people to large events such as our workshops.

What is something that you love about your street or neighborhood that you hope more Angelenos would know about?

Panorama City is the heart of the Northeast San Fernando Valley. For many years it was the commercial center of the area with large shopping centers, office complexes, and even an automobile plant. The new Metro project is already resulting in resurgence in the area with increased development. We hope that our Great Streets Challenge project will once again make Panorama City the center of the Northeast Valley.

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Introducing our Challenge Partners: South Robertson Neighborhoods Council

From SORO: “As a Neighborhood Council, our primary job is outreach. This photo is from the SORO NC Booth at the 2015 SoRo Festival. Anchored in the middle of the street pretty much everyone who passes through the festival passes by our booth and it's a tremendous opportunity to get to know each other as community, and have important conversations about the community we want to share, face to face, in the middle of the street that ties us all together and gives us our name–South Robertson. A little slice of village life in the middle of the big city.”

Join SORO on Sunday, May 21 for their project kickoff and workshop. RSVP here!

Tell us about yourself. Who is on your team and what does your organization do?

My name is Marjan Safinia. I'm the Outreach Chair and the Chair of the Robertson Revitalization Committee for the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council (SORO NC), chartered and funded by the City of LA. Together with Doug Fitzsimmons, President of SORO NC, we are collaborating with a number of active team members from our board and the community on the project, as well as SORO Community Foundation, a local nonprofit. As a Neighborhood Council, we're tasked to create a closer bridge between local government and our community and for years we have been hearing about the strong community desire to see changes along South Robertson, so we're thrilled to be part of this project.

Describe one challenge or opportunity you are most excited to tackle on your street?

We're really excited to explore a Complete Streets approach to South Robertson. The project area is less than a mile from the on- and off-ramps of the I-10 freeway at Robertson, and as such, serves as a major traffic artery. It's also the primary commercial corridor for neighborhoods hungry for more local businesses that serve them and a walkable neighborhood. So how can we approach this delicate balance? How can we vision a street which will draw walking community members and businesses that serve them while recognizing we are also a piece of a network of arteries designed to carry traffic around the City? Redressing this balance between local needs and City needs is part of our challenge here in South Robertson, and emblematic of the problem many streets around Los Angeles are facing.

Describe one key strategy you’ll use to engage residents, businesses and other communities along your street?

We're really lucky to be celebrating the 20th Annual edition of the SoRo Festival along South Robertson's project area on June 4th this year. Two decades ago, community members who formed the SORO Community Foundation envisioned a street festival that would draw together all the residents, businesses, nonprofits and City services that served this area to create a sense of shared community along our major corridor. For the last 20 years, on the first Sunday in June, our community has continued this tradition, shutting down traffic on South Robertson for a few hours and building a vibrant community-driven street festival with activities, entertainment, food, etc. 

Each year this event draws over 8,000 people from all around our community (and more!), and it's an excellent opportunity to engage a broad cross-section of stakeholders in conversation and preferential voting on a number of potential approaches. Although this is our biggest single outreach opportunity, we're also leveraging our long-established network of outreach partners such as neighborhood associations, schools, religious organizations, businesses and City partners to get word out about ongoing outreach meetings, and investing in thoughtful paid social media advertising to target folks who may not be connected to these institutions in our community, but can be found online. We believe in opening a lot of doors of different kinds for folks, recognizing that everyone will engage at a level that is comfortable for them and it's our job to provide them with a multiplicity of engagement options so that giving input is made easy!

What is something that you love about your street or neighborhood that you hope more Angelenos would know about?

I wish more Angelenos knew about the wonderful, connected and cared for residential communities that exist right behind a strip of South Robertson that most people probably barely notice as they barrel on and off the freeway. We think South Robertson is one of the most diverse and engaged communities in the City, and you'd only know that there is such a wealth of community here if you look beyond the commercial corridor. We'd like to work to close that gap, so that the community has a corridor that more closely represents them, and we're able to create a distinct sense of place and identity for South Robertson in the larger patchwork of the City.

Read KCET’s story “Rethinking Streets in Los Angeles to be More People Centric” to learn more about SORO’s efforts, or get involved by attending a community workshop on South Robertson below!

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Introducing our Challenge Partners: Proyecto Pastoral

Proyecto Pastoral developed the logo above for this project showing a woman crossing the street with her child. This represents the concerns in the community about pedestrian safety and the mothers of young children who are working together to improve safety in the neighborhood.

Join Proyecto Pastoral on Saturday, May 6 for “Luchadores United for Pedestrian Safety” a community festival celebrating safer streets. RSVP here!

Tell us about yourself. Who is on your team and what does your organization do?

Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission is a 30 year old Boyle Heights organization whose mission is to support grassroots projects in education, leadership and service. Comunidad en Movimiento (CEM/Community in Action) is the organizing arm of Proyecto Pastoral. CEM leaders have led efforts to address safety and wellness issues in their community. Pedestrian safety has been a priority for CEM for many years through our “Camino Seguro” or Safe Passage program, where we have volunteers oversee children crossing the streets to ensure that they reach school safely. Through CEM’s committees (Safety, Education, and Community Development) we have led several community assessments with parents, students/youth, and residents to identify safety needs and priorities. CEM leaders developed strategies to address these key concerns, such as much needed street improvements and other community-driven efforts to bring awareness around pedestrian safety, improve walkability and connectivity in the neighborhood, and build partnerships with local agencies and stakeholders.

Describe one challenge or opportunity you are most excited to tackle on your street?

We’re excited to be able to transform 4th Street by including some of our proposed street improvements to help address the safety concerns along corridor. Currently, 4th Street functions as a mini-freeway in and out of downtown LA with interchangeable lanes and easy access to the 101, 5 and 10 freeways. It’s been a challenge that the surrounding community that lives near 4th Street has had endured for many years. These safety concerns have escalated due to the reconstruction of 6th Street Viaduct project, that has brought additional traffic and street congestion between Boyle and Anderson Street.

Describe one key strategy you’ll use to engage residents, businesses and other communities along your street?

We’ve developed a robust community engagement outreach plan to ensure the involvement of seniors, youth/students, local residents, and key stakeholder groups in the neighborhood. In our plan, CEM leaders and residents have led door-to-door (door knocking) efforts to talk to residents about our project and May 6 Pop-Up event, senior walking groups/activities to promote our event and gather feedback from our senior community, youth and teacher information sessions to gather feedback from our youth around safety and build buy-in to participate, a street sign making art workshop to develop street signs of people from the community for the pop-up event. These efforts are leading toward encouraging permanent signs and high-visibility crosswalks that help slow down traffic and build awareness of the existing residential community on 4th Street.

What is something that you love about your street or neighborhood that you hope more Angelenos would know about?

I love the resilient community of Pico Aliso. Through the years they have fought to keep their children and overall community safe from violence and other safety concerns. The Pico Aliso community are who we call “Luchadores” or “Fighters.” They continue this fight and legacy by addressing the pedestrian safety and other safety and wellness concerns for their families, their children, and for the future generations to come.