CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Table wrap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Introduction & Community Context . . . . 6
Cognitive mapping exercise. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Outreach Process
Visioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Refining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Prioritizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Wrapping up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Other meetings and communication . . . . . . 12
Data Collection
Establshing a baseline: Pedestrian and bicycle count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Visioning: Surveys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Visioning: Interactive activities. . . . . . . . . . . 14 Refining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Prioritizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Data Analysis
Overall community priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 How did we determine the priorities?. . . . . . 18
Pico Great Street Collaborative
Visual preference boards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Pedestrian and bicycle count. . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Refining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Prioritizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Community Vision and Capacity
Curson-Burnside – the vision. . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Entire Great Street – the vision . . . . . . . . . . 32 Other efforts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Capacity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Recommendations
A note on implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Short term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Medium-term. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Long-term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Policy changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
1
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What Would Make Pico a Great Street?
Something special is happening on Pico Blvd in Mid-City. A grass-roots movement of residents and business owners has come together to build a vision for our Great Street. Over the last six months, we, the Pico Great Street Collaborative (PGSC), have asked over 1500 people in the neighborhood many variations of one simple question: What would make Pico a truly Great Street? In 2014, Mayor Garcetti named Pico between Fairfax and Cochran (a 14-block stretch) one of the city’s first 15 Great Streets. Two years later, a group of local residents and business owners formed the Pico Great Street Collaborative (PGSC) to figure out what to do about it. With little official support, we began holding monthly community meetings, working in committees, distributing surveys, building an action list, and advocating for improvements to Pico. We won some early victories, including 50 new trees and high-visibility crosswalks. When the Mayor’s Office awarded PGSC the 2016 Great Streets Challenge, it provided us an opportunity to intensively engage the community and develop a truly comprehensive vision for our Great Street. The Challenge came with $500,000 of city funds for street improvements to be built on Pico in 2018, and the Mayor’s Office left it up to the community to decide what the city should build. Since the available funds were relatively small, we decided to limit the scope of the project to the five-block stretch from Curson to Burnside. PGSC has spent the last six months leading an extensive community outreach process that included eight workshops with over 400 total attendees, 700 bilingual survey responses, and two private meetings with every business owner in a seven-block stretch. In all, we have made over 1500 points of contact across all sections of our community. We also conducted a pedestrian and bicycle count, and we published an art “zine” with artistgenerated ideas for activation of public spaces. Through PGSC’s thorough outreach, our community’s authentic voice has emerged. We speak clearly and distinctively, shaped as we are by the unique challenges and opportunities of our neighborhood. These are the priorities we have identified – the ways our community believes Pico can become a Great Street:
1. More landscaping 2. Safer ways to cross the street 3. Public gathering places
Pico Great Street Collaborative
4. Traffic calming 5. Pedestrian lighting 6. Public art
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Guided by the community’s priorities, PGSC has developed the following vision for Pico:
DESTINATION PICO: FUNDED
A concept plan for the five-block project area with $500,000 of improvements to be built in 2018 through the Great Streets Challenge.
• Painted curb extensions with planters • •
at Curson, Hauser, and the Burnside crosswalk
A new midblock crosswalk at Masselin with painted curb extensions, planters, and RRFB Retimed signal at Curson to shorten wait time for pedestrians crossing Pico
Legend
Curb Extention - Painted
Enhanced Tree Wells
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• Public seating • Striped medians between Hauser and Ridgeley and between Ridgeley and Burnside
• 16 expanded tree wells (4’x12’)
with landscaping and decorative edging/fence
• A pilot project for pedestrian lighting
Curb Ramps Existing Trees
Lighting Planters
Existing Signal
Street Seating
Striped Median
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DESTINATION PICO: UNFUNDED
A comprehensive plan for complete improvements extended across the entire 14-block Great Street.
• Permanent, landscaped curb
extensions to replace all painted curb extensions, plus new extensions at Genesee and Cochran
• RRFB at Burnside crosswalk • New midblock crosswalks at Ogden and Stanley with permanent, landscaped curb extensions and RRFB
• Permanent, landscaped medians
between Hauser and Ridgeley and between Ridgeley and Burnside
• At least six parklets • At least nine murals • Painted signal boxes • Expanded tree wells for all trees (4’x12’) with landscaping and decorative edging/fence
• Leading Pedestrian Interval at all
• Permanent pedestrian lighting • Wayfinding signage • A repeating artistic and/or lighting
• Sidewalk and curb reconstruction
• A neighborhood gateway element
• Completed ADA ramps at every intersection
signalized intersections
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element in the medians at Fairfax
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ADDITIONAL UNFUNDED
We have also identified additional targeted investments and policy changes that will help achieve the community’s vision for Pico:
• Bus shelters • Bike loop detectors on Cochran, Curson, Hauser, and Genesee
• Closing curb cut at 5369 W. Pico • Tree trimming • Bike share • Hauser Plaza complete design
• Pedestrian activated stop light at Burnside
• Fairfax island expansion • First/last mile connections to Metro Rail
• Oil well improvements • Blade sign regulation changes • Community plan overlay
Our Great Street has come a long way. A decade ago, our community fought just to prevent Pico from being converted into a one-way highway with no peak-hour parking, an idea that would have killed our burgeoning business district in its infancy. Now, our Great Street is coming into its own as a place, a destination in itself. Our community has embraced Pico as the heart of this neighborhood. Our task now is to help Pico embrace the community.
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2 INTRODUCTION & COMMUNITY CONTEXT Pico Boulevard in Mid-City between Fairfax Avenue and Cochran Avenue bisects a middleincome neighborhood featuring one of the most diverse communities in Los Angeles: 33% African-American, 30% White, 29% Hispanic and 6% Asian in the 2010 census. Walking down this ¾-mile stretch of Pico, you will encounter twelve restaurants, three bakeries, two Ethiopian markets, a supermarket, a church, two elementary schools, ten beauty salons and barbershops, a daycare center, two art galleries, and a wide variety of small specialty shops. In 2014, Mayor Eric Garcetti recognized the potential of this burgeoning and diverse business district by naming it one of the city’s first fifteen Great Streets.
Facing Challenges Together
The city has not always seen Pico as the heart of a community. In 2007, just as economic development on the corridor was starting to gain momentum, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed transforming Pico into a one-way seven-lane highway with no peak-hour parking. The city had essentially declared that the main purpose of Pico was to hurry cars through our neighborhood on their way to somewhere else. Our community, on the other hand, understood that a vibrant, walkable Pico could be a great asset to our neighborhood. We saw the oneway idea as a great threat to the livelihood of our small businesses, and we vigorously fought (and defeated) the project. In the decade since that victory, the business district on Pico has grown into a thriving neighborhood hub, and more people are walking and gathering on our Great Street. However, Pico is still designed to move cars, not pedestrians. It is designed to encourage people to pass through, not to stay. We have no public spaces—the closest park is over a mile away. Fast-moving vehicles and dangerous crossings discourage walking (Pico is in Vision Zero’s High Injury Network).
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INTRODUCTION & COMMUNITY CONTEXT
The sidewalks are poorly lit. Little greenery or public art exists to provide a sense that this is a place worth spending time in.
Pico Great Street Collaborative
To begin addressing these challenges, in early 2016 a group of residents and business owners formed the Pico Great Street Collaborative (PGSC). We aim to fulfill the goals of the Great Streets Initiative on Pico Blvd. by making Pico safe, healthy, economically vibrant, walkable, and beautiful. We immediately began a dialogue with the community to identify general priorities and specific improvements. By the end of 2016, we had held 10 public meetings and a town hall and had adopted a mission statement, strategic goals, and ongoing action list of ways to improve Pico. We had also developed two community surveys that received over 500 responses. Armed with a preliminary vision for Pico based on our outreach and data collection, PGSC applied for and was awarded the 2016 Great Streets Challenge by the Mayor’s office. This grant, which we named Destination: Pico, has enabled us to extend our outreach even farther as we build a vision for Pico together with our community.
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3 OUTREACH PROCESS PGSC conducted an ambitious six month community outreach process for Destination: Pico that included eight community workshops, two private meetings with every business owner in the project area, and extensive survey and data collection. The outreach process was designed to be as inclusive as possible. All outreach materials were presented in both English and Spanish. By conducting our workshops at pre-existing community events, we were able to target different populations in the neighborhood. For example, the Saturn Street Elementary Art Faire is patronized mostly by parents of students at the school, an 80% Latino population. For our survey canvassing, we partnered with four restaurants to include bilingual surveys in patrons’ checks. The restaurants included a modern soul food restaurant, a health food restaurant, a diner serving both Mexican and soul food, and a salad and sandwich café. (More details on the inclusiveness of survey collection methods are provided in Data Collection, page 13). The outreach process unfolded in three stages: visioning, refining, and prioritizing.
Visioning
During the visioning phase, the longest phase of our outreach, PGSC gathered extensive data on the community’s general preferences and priorities for our Great Street in order to begin crafting a vision for improvements to Pico. This phase included four workshops, survey collection, business visits, and an art “zine”. Workshops
• Visioning Workshop (April 23rd) - Our first workshop was a standalone event kicking off the outreach process. About 60 people participated.
• Spring Fling (May 6th) – This community event, sponsored by P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council, was held at LACES high school. About 90 people participated.
• Saturn Art Faire (May 12th) – Held in conjunction with an event for families at Saturn Street Elementary, our local LAUSD school. About 20 people participated.
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• Tree Planting (May 13th) – On the day when 50 new trees were planted on our Great
Street, with the Mayor and Council President in attendance, PGSC set up a tent with interactive activities for Destination: Pico. This was one of two workshops we held directly on Pico, capturing passers-by as well as community members who came to plant trees. About 50 people participated. Survey collection PGSC also dedicated significant resources during the visioning phase to collecting as many surveys as possible. Our methods are described in Data Collection, page 13. As a result of this emphasis, we collected almost 700 surveys total from business owners, residents, and visitors to our Great Street. Business outreach During the visioning phase, PGSC met privately with every business owner in the five-block project area, plus the adjoining blocks on either side – 85 businesses total. At these meetings, we informed the business owners about Destination: Pico, solicited their thoughts about the corridor in general and their business in particular, and asked them to complete a business owner survey.
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OUTREACH PROCESS Zine It on Pico One of the great revelations of Destination: Pico has been the highly motivated and talented group of artists working and living in our community who have selforganized in response to the grant. Led by LADOT Artist-In-Residence Alan Nakagawa, these artists met several times during the visioning phase at Brainworks Gallery and produced “Zine It on Pico,” a pamphlet depicting artists’ ideas for activating our Great Street through public art. Five thousand copies were distributed at our workshops, online, and throughout the city. Community members were encouraged to respond with their own art ideas. The zine effort was successful at bringing creative ideas for Pico to the fore, and at energizing our artist community.
Refining
Once PGSC had analyzed the data collected during the visioning phase, we designed an initial map of improvements for the five-block project area. Our outreach efforts then shifted toward gathering reactions to and refining the map. The refining phase included two workshops and another round of business meetings. Workshops
• Pico Dogs (June 24th) – PGSC set up a tent on Pico as part of the Pico Dogs art walk. This workshop provided the community the first opportunity to see the proposed map of improvements. About 50 people participated.
• Wilshire Vista Spring Mixer (June 25th) – Held
in conjunction with the annual block party thrown by Wilshire Vista, one of the four Neighborhood Associations bordering our Great Street. About 50 people participated.
Business meetings In our second round of meetings at all 85 businesses, we showed each business owner the map of proposed
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improvements to solicit feedback. While reactions were mostly positive, a few ideas were removed because of opposition from business owners. Because the map of proposed improvements contained a great deal of landscaping and other elements that require maintenance, we also secured commitments from owners to maintain improvements that would be installed in front of their business. We secured a verbal commitment to maintain every improvement (that requires it) on the final vision map.
Prioritizing
At the end of the refining phase of our outreach process, we synthesized all the feedback we collected through workshops and business meetings and made final modifications to the map of improvements. This finalized map serves as the complete vision for the five-block project area of Destination: Pico (see Community Vision, page 28). However, the projected total cost of the improvements was larger than the $500,000 construction budget set aside in the grant. We therefore needed to select a priority set of improvements to be built in Phase 1, with the remainder being built when additional funds are secured for Phase 2. In the prioritizing phase of our outreach process, we turned to the community for guidance on prioritization. At our Community Forum (August 19th), our seventh workshop, we unveiled the complete vision and asked community members to identify their top priorities. We also displayed photorealistic simulations of how two blocks of the corridor could look after the project is implemented. About 50 people attended this standalone workshop, held at Saturn Street Elementary. After analyzing responses from the prioritization exercises, we decided on three principles for prioritizing improvements as we narrowed them down to a $500,000 budget:
• Guided by priorities identified by community • Balance of safety and placemaking • Spread throughout the five-block project area
Based on these principles, we identified the improvements for Phase 1 to be built in 2018.
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OUTREACH PROCESS
With our Phase 1 map in hand, we met with staff at several city departments (DOT, BSS, and BOE), the Great Streets Office, and Council District 10 in order to brief them on our plan and gauge the feasibility of our proposals. We refined the map based on the feedback we received.
Wrapping Up
At our final workshop, the Open House (Sept. 17th), we displayed the final Phase 1 map. This purpose of this workshop was largely educational, as we explained the outreach process, the Phase 1 map, and the larger vision for our Great Street.
Other meetings and communication
During the six-month outreach process, we held regular meetings with Council District 10 Field Deputy Elizabeth Carlin to update her on progress. We provided updates to P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council, Picfair Village Community Association, and Wishire Vista Neighborhood Association. P.I.C.O. NC and the neighborhood associations also sent updates to their email lists about Destination: Pico and helped promote our workshops. P.I.C.O. NC also dedicated a section of their website to the project. PGSC maintains an 800-person email list, and we sent regular updates to our subscribers throughout the outreach process. Our accounts on Facebook and Twitter were also very active. Finally, we published four articles in the Neighborhood News, a newspaper serving Mid-City with a circulation of 15,000, to update the wider community about Destination: Pico.
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4 DATA COLLECTION For Destination: Pico, PGSC collected an enormous amount of data during all aspects of our six-month outreach process. We collected data for four purposes:
• Establishing a baseline • Visioning • Refining • Prioritizing
Establshing a baseline: Pedestrian and bicycle count
PGSC conducted a pedestrian and bicycle count in order to determine where people are walking and biking on our Great Street. 15 community volunteers participated and received training from staff of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC). Our intentions were two-fold: to count people walking and biking at signalized intersections in the fiveblock project area, and to count pedestrians crossing Pico between marked intersections on the entire Great Street corridor. We counted using the guidelines laid out by the UCLA Bike Count Data Clearinghouse so that our data could be entered in the clearinghouse. Volunteers counted during three two-hour shifts (Weds. 7-9a, Weds. 4-6p, and Sat. 11a-1p) at six locations. Three of the locations were intersections in the five-block project area: Pico and Curson, Hauser, and Burnside. For these locations, we used the “intersection” count technique, where all people moving through the intersection in all directions are counted. The remaining three “locations” were the dangerous stretches of our Great Street where there are no marked crosswalks for three or four blocks: Fairfax-Genesee, GeneseeCurson, and Curson-Hauser. For these locations, we used a modified “screenline” technique, where all people that cross an invisible line are counted. We modified this technique by placing the screenline down the center divider of Pico, counting anyone that crossed Pico between marked crosswalks.
Visioning: Surveys
PGSC developed two bilingual surveys for Destination: Pico – a general survey and business owner survey. For the general survey, we aimed to cast as wide a net as possible. We distributed the survey at our first four workshops. We developed an online version that we promoted through our own social media channels and those of community partners such as P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council and the local Neighborhood Associations. A survey also came with the bill in four local restaurants (CJ’s Café, My Two Cents, Bloom Café, and Casa Chocolate) for a three-week period. Finally, we sent surveys home with every student at the two local schools – Saturn Street Elementary and Holy Spirit Elementary.
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DATA COLLECTION
On the general survey, we asked general questions such as where the respondent lived and how they use Pico. Respondents then answered several pedestrian-safety related questions and two broader questions about what would make Pico a great street. We received 626 general survey responses:
• 130 in-person at workshops • 200 from restaurant patrons • 100 from parents of elementary school students • 200 online
For the business owner survey, we met individually with every one of the 85 businesses in the seven blocks of Pico between Dunsmuir and Stanley. This stretch corresponds to the fiveblock project area, plus the adjoining blocks on either side. The questions on the business-owner survey addressed the nature of the business, the reasons they located their business on Pico, their future plans, and what support would benefit them. Respondents also answered questions about what would make Pico a great street, with additional business-oriented options (e.g. “Simplified permit process for small businesses”). We received 68 business owner survey responses, an 80% response rate.
Visioning: Interactive activities
At our first four workshops, PGSC presented three interactive activities to solicit ideas, reactions, and qualitative responses from attendees. Visual preference boards helped us learn about the specific kinds of improvements community members want to see on Pico. The table wrap showed us where the community wants to see certain improvements located. And the mapping exercise helped paint an overall picture of how participants visualize and move through their neighborhood.
Visual preference boards Poster boards at the workshops showed eight different visual examples of a category of improvement (plaza, landscaping, pedestrian safety) and asked the participant to indicate their top three preferences with a sticker. For example, the pedestrian safety board had images of a curb extension,
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DATA COLLECTION artistic crosswalk, flashing beacon, midblock crosswalk, and more. About 200 people participated in the visual preference board exercise. Table wrap Presented with a map of the 14-block Great Street laid out on a table, participants were handed a set of stickers representing various improvements – midblock crosswalk, pedestrian lighting, public art, landscaping, etc. Participants were asked to put the sticker for each improvement where they thought the improvement should go. About 200 people participated in the table wrap exercise. Cognitive mapping exercise Ten copies of a street map of the neighborhood were laid out on a long table. Above each map was a question, such as “Where do you like to hang out?” or “Where in the neighborhood do you miss nature?” Participants were invited to draw lines or place dot stickers on each map to answer the question posted above. About 50 people participated in the cognitive mapping exercise.
Refining
At Pico Dogs (workshop #5) and the Wilshire Vista Mixer (#6), we presented an initial map of improvements for the fiveblock project area. Community members reacted to the improvements by placing stickers on the map that said “Yes”, “No” and “Not Here”. We also provided sticky
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DATA COLLECTION
notes for participants to write down their ideas and place them on the map. About 100 people participated in the refining exercise.
Prioritizing
At our Community Forum (workshop #7), we created a digital presentation to showcase the refined map of improvements for the five-block project area. Since the grand total of improvements cost more than $500,000, we asked participants to help us prioritize for Phase 1 using instant response technology. We walked participants through the map of improvements. For each intersection, using a clicker, each participant identified their top two. We also showed images of possible corridor-wide placemaking improvements, such as pedestrian lighting and seating, and participants selected their top choice. Finally, to get a sense of the community’s overall geographic priorities along the five blocks, we displayed the entire map of improvements on a poster board and asked participants to place one green sticker on the intersection they deemed the highest priority for Phase 1. In order to establish whether our participant group might be biased toward one end of the project area or the other, we asked participants to list the street they lived on when they signed in. About 50 people participated in the prioritization exercise.
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5 DATA ANALYSIS
Overall community priorities
Through our surveys and interactive activities, we collected over 1100 data points from community members to answer the question, “What would make Pico a Great Street?” We collected 700 surveys, and over 400 workshop attendees participated in three interactive visioning exercises. Taking the results from all these activities as a whole, a clear picture of the community’s overall priorities emerged from the data:
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How did we determine the priorities? Survey results
Both business owners and residents chose landscaping as their #1 priority for our Great Street from a menu of 20 options. Safer crosswalks were the #2 choice for residents and #3 for business owners.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Combining the results of the two surveys (694 responses total), the top ten answers are displayed below. Since the almost 700 survey responses represent the majority of the 1100 data points we collected during the visioning process, the survey results played a major role in clarifying the community’s overall priorities.
59%
Landscaping
1. Landscaping • Top choice of residents and business owners • Top selection during interactive workshop activity
52%
Safer crosswalks
47%
Outdoor dining
2. Safer crossings • Burnside crosswalk leads to two elementary schools
46%
Street events
42%
Parks
35%
Curb extensions
34%
Pedestrian lighting
34%
Traffic calming
• Many people crossing unsafely between Hauser and Curson
3. New places to gather • There are no parks within one mile radius • There are no public places to sit on Pico 4. Traffic calming • 26% of drivers on Pico speed
33%
Seating
5. Lighting • There is no pedestrian lighting on Pico
32%
Art
6. Art
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DATA ANALYSIS
Table Wrap
For the table wrap exercise, participants were given a set of stickers representing various street improvements. Participants were asked to place the stickers on a map of the Great Street according to where they thought the improvements were most needed. The #1 improvement participants chose was landscaping, followed by art, a safer crossing, and two kinds of public gathering space. Also making a strong showing were parks and pedestrian lighting. Note the strong preference for pedestrian scrambles at Fairfax and Hauser – not necessarily a realistic idea, but an indication of the strong desire for safer ways to cross our Great Street, even at signalized intersections.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Visual preference boards
Poster boards at the workshops showed six different visual examples of a category of improvement (plaza, landscaping, pedestrian safety) and asked the participant to indicate their top three preferences with a sticker. The following graphic shows the top three choices for each of the eight boards. Seeking to avoid the pitfalls of “design by committee”, we opted to interpret the community’s choices in this exercise as intentional, not literal. For example, the top choice on the landscaping board was “Double row of trees”. Instead of taking that preference as a literal direction, we interpreted the popularity of that option as an indication of the community’s general desire for abundance in landscaping. It is revealing to compare the total number of sticker dots that participants placed on each board in order to determine which categories of improvement elicited the strongest overall reactions (i.e. the most stickers). Once again, landscaping generated the most interest.
Board Category
Total Dots
Gathering Places
532
Landscaping Art
Pedestrian Safety Seating
Signage
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546 530 527 517 500
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DATA ANALYSIS
Cognitive mapping exercise
The purpose of this exercise was to draw out qualitative information about participants’ relationship to their neighborhood. We were interested in finding out the answers to question such as: Where do community members go when they take a walk? (Do they walk on Pico?) What parts of Pico do they avoid? Where do they miss nature? The maps on which participants drew included the entire neighborhood around Pico, not just the corridor itself. Residents take their walks on Pico The map at left is the total of all routes drawn by community members to show where they like to go for a walk. Pico, running east to west through the lower center of the map, is the common thread for these walks.
Residents dislike Pico at Fairfax and east of Hauser When we asked participants to draw their least favorite part of the neighborhood, two areas of concern arose – the intersection of Pico and Fairfax (our busiest intersection, left center on map), and Pico leading east from Hauser.
Residents miss nature everywhere on Pico Continuing the theme of landscaping in our outreach, participants drew most often on Pico (center) when indicating where they missed nature the most. The emphasis on Pico is not surprising considering that the tree canopy on the residential streets off Pico is generally much more mature and lush than on our Great Street.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Pedestrian and bicycle count
The pedestrian and bicycle count yielded several surprising results. The first can be seen in the lower section of the graphic above, depicting the number of people crossing Pico in the three- or four-block stretches with no marked crosswalks. Over 100 people made the unsafe crossing between Genesee and Curson and between Curson and Hauser. The peak of this unsafe crossing activity occurred during the Saturday 11a-1pm shift, when 73 people crossed Pico between Curson and Hauser. Unsafe crossing activity in the other two areas also peaked on Saturday.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Pedestrians Crossing Pico Intersections Curson Hauser Burnside Total
Wed 7-9a 55 130 135 320
Wed 4-6p 96 180 66 342
Sat 11a-1p 247 167 86 500
Total 398 477 287
Unsafe crossings Fairfax-Genesee Genesee-Curson Curson-Hauser Total
Wed 7-9a 5 36 16 57
Wed 4-6p 29 31 23 83
Sat 11a-1p 33 43 73 140
Total 67 110 112
The pattern of pedestrian activity at the three intersections – Curson, Hauser, and Burnside – also revealed surprising details about the geography of our Great Street. At Curson, the location of two of our most popular brunch restaurants, pedestrian activity peaked heavily on the weekend (247 crossings), representing an over 300% increase over average weekday numbers. At Hauser, the location of the main bus stop in our project area, pedestrian activity was relatively consistent across all three shifts. At Burnside, the intersection closest to our two elementary schools, most pedestrian activity occurred on the weekday morning (135 crossings). In general, we observed that the highest amount of pedestrian activity on our Great Street occurs on the weekend, which is not surprising given the number of restaurants and shops on the corridor. At intersections, we counted about 50% more crossings (500) on the weekend shift. Between marked crosswalks, the number of people crossing unsafely during the weekend shift (140) equaled the total people crossing during the two weekday shifts combined. This pattern creates a serious safety challenge on Pico, because car traffic tends to be less congested on the weekends, providing drivers greater opportunities to speed at exactly the times when more vulnerable road users are crossing the street. We counted about 10 cyclists riding on Pico per hour. The differences between shifts and locations were negligible.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Refining
At our fifth and sixth workshops, participants were provided the opportunity to react to proposed improvements on a map by placing Yes, No, or Not Here stickers on the map. Because the overwhelming majority of stickers placed on the maps were Yes, we did not perform a data analysis of this activity. Rather, these workshops amounted to a “voice vote” on the proposed improvements, with the community voicing its general approval on the direction we were taking.
Prioritizing
At PGSC’s Community Forum, 55 participants were shown a presentation that walked them through the proposed map of improvements block by block. Because PGSC had identified more than $500,000 in improvements for the project area, we asked participants to identify their priority improvements for Phase 1 of the project. For each block, participants voted on their top two priority improvements for the intersection using instant response technology.
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DATA ANALYSIS
At Curson, the clear preference was for curb extensions.
At Masselin, the new crosswalk was favored.
At Hauser, improving the plaza was the highest priority.
At Burnside, the upgraded crosswalk was the highest priority.
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DATA ANALYSIS
We also asked participants to indicate their priority for an overall streetscape improvement. Pedestrian lighting was the clear favorite. Interestingly, landscaped tree wells were the second highest priority even though they scored poorly when looking at individual blocks.
Finally, to prioritize geographically, a map of the entire project area was displayed on a poster board, and participants were invited to place one sticker at the intersection they wanted us to focus our efforts. The majority of stickers were placed at Curson and Hauser. An analysis of the day’s sign-in sheet indicated that about 70% of workshop participants lived west of Hauser. Due to the possible correlation between where participants lived and where they placed their sticker, we decided to disregard the results of this exercise.
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6 COMMUNITY VISION AND CAPACITY A shared community vision for Pico
After concluding a six-month outreach process involving over 1500 points of contact with the diverse, engaged, and opinionated members of this community – six months of challenging conversations, pavement pounding, and data collection and analysis – PGSC is confident in the vision for our Great Street that we have built together with our neighbors. We want a greener and more beautiful Pico, a safer and more walkable Pico, and a Pico that invites us to gather and stay a while.
Curson-Burnside – the vision
While the construction budget for Destination: Pico is limited to $500,000, PGSC set no limits on our visioning process for the corridor. As a result, in collaboration with the community, we have developed a complete urban design framework for the five block project area between Curson and Burnside.
Legend
This framework includes:
• Permanent, landscaped curb extensions at Curson and Hauser
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Street Trees
Existing Trees
Parklet
Mural
• Leading Pedestrian Interval at Curson and Hauser
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• A new midblock crosswalk at Masselin with permanent, landscaped curb extensions and RRFB
• Expanded tree wells (4’x12’) with landscaping and decorative edging/fence
• An updated signal (RRFB) at the Burnside crosswalk with permanent, landscaped curb extensions
• Two landscaped medians between Hauser and Burnside
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• A public plaza at the southeast corner of Pico and Hauser
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• Six parklets
• Nine murals
• Painted signal cabinets
• Pedestrian lighting
• Wayfinding signage
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6 • Public seating
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• A repeating artistic and/or lighting element in the medians along the entire corridor
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Entire Great Street – the vision
Our data collection during the visioning phase of the outreach process was not limited to the five-block project area for Destination: Pico. During this early, open-ended outreach phase, workshop participants were encouraged to envision the entire 14 blocks of our Great Street. For example, the table wrap exercise, where participants told us where they wanted to see certain improvements located, encompassed the entire corridor. Because of this groundwork, we feel confident in extending the five-block Destination: Pico vision across the rest of the Great Street corridor. This 14-block vision includes the 5-block vision detailed above, plus:
• Permanent, landscaped curb extensions at Genesee and Cochran • New midblock crosswalks at Ogden and Stanley with permanent, landscaped curb extensions and RRFB
• Leading Pedestrian Interval at Fairfax, Genesee, and Cochran • Additional parklets • Additional murals • Painted signal boxes • Expanded tree wells (4’x12’) with landscaping and decorative edging/fence • Pedestrian lighting • Public seating • Wayfinding signage • A repeating artistic and/or lighting element in the medians along the entire corridor • A neighborhood gateway element at Fairfax Other Efforts
Before Destination: Pico, PGSC had already developed a set of strategic goals and an action list of possible improvements for our Great Street, informed by over a dozen public meetings, multiple research walks, committee reports, and two surveys that received over 500 responses total. Based on our previous outreach, we have identified several other projects, small and large, that fell outside the scope of Destination: Pico but would make a big difference for our Great Street. These projects are listed in Recommendations, page 34.
Capacity
PGSC has shown that we are capable of performing extensive and thorough outreach that gives voice to all cross-sections of our community. Through our relationships with business owners, our 800+ person mailing list, and our ties with local schools, churches, and
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neighborhood organizations, our reach is deep and broad. We are clear communicators – both to the public and to government – with a group of writers and graphic designers volunteering to craft our message. We have also shown the ability to secure funding through grants. In addition to winning the 2016 Great Streets Challenge, PGSC was recently awarded the Let’s Play Everywhere Challenge, a grant from Dr. Pepper Snapple through KaBOOM! that will bring a temporary children’s plaza to the open space at Hauser in 2018. Through Destination: Pico, we have demonstrated our capacity to manage large-scale projects. We crafted an ambitious outreach plan that included eight community workshops, multiple private meetings with every business on the corridor, and aggressive survey canvassing in diverse venues. We are proud to have met every deadline and exceeded the city’s expectations for number of points of contact, despite the fact that we are an all-vounteer organization. We are also lucky to draw on the tremendous pool of creative talent in our community. Our urban design committee is comprised of architects, urban planners, landscape designers, furniture designers, and others, all of whom can make valuable contributions to the design of our public space. Separately, a group of local visual artists, formed as a result of Destination: Pico, has been pushing the conversation about public art and activation in our community. PGSC has not yet needed to form a non-profit 501(c)(3). However, our ad-hoc status limits our ability to raise funds and grow as an organization. In order to provide enduring support and investment in our community, we are currently exploring organizing ourselves into a 501(c)3 structure.
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7 RECOMMENDATIONS A Note On Implementation
Through PGSC’s extensive outreach, 1500 members of our community have articulated a clear and complete vision for Pico. To ensure that the community’s vision is achieved, it is crucial that city agencies collaborate with PGSC when designing and implementing improvements for Destination: Pico and beyond. During the design and implementation phases, PGSC’s leadership expects to be included in decision-making and consulted when plans need to change. In addition, the community’s vision reflects our desire for great urban design on Pico. Under the umbrella of PGSC, a talented and active community of urban designers and visual artists has organized on our Great Street. Many of the improvements we identified, such as seating and lighting, can incorporate design elements that reveal and enhance the neighborhood’s identity. PGSC’s Urban Design Committee would like the opportunity to contribute to the designs of these improvements when possible.
Short Term Build Destination: Pico Phase 1 The first $500,000 of improvements installed through Destination: Pico are scheduled to be built in summer 2018. Phase 1 includes a subset of the improvements identified in the complete vision described in Community Vision, page 28, including temporary installations of more permanent changes to come.
Legend
Curb Extention - Painted
Enhanced Tree Wells
Curb Ramps Existing Trees
Lighting Planters
Existing Signal
Street Seating
Striped Median
• Painted curb extensions with planters at Curson, Hauser, and the Burnside crosswalk • A new midblock crosswalk at Masselin with painted curb extensions, planters, and RRFB • 16 expanded tree wells (4’x12’) with landscaping and decorative edging/fence • A pilot project for pedestrian lighting • Public seating Pico Great Street Collaborative
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• Striped medians between Hauser and Ridgeley and between Ridgeley and Burnside • Retimed signal at Curson to shorten wait time for pedestrians crossing Pico RRFB at Burnside Many elements in the Destination: Pico complete vision remain unfunded and would be targeted for Phase 2 of the project. However, we feel strongly that the signal at the crosswalk at Burnside should be updated to a Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB) as soon as possible, as two schools and a church are located within a block of its location. Among the 113 survey responses we collected from parents of students at the two schools next to this crosswalk, the #1 improvement selected was “safer crosswalks.” Parklets Parklets are another improvement in the Destination: Pico vision that should be explored immediately. No fewer than six local businesses have expressed an interest in installing a parklet in front of their location. PGSC was unable to fund parklets in Phase 1 because the city program that oversees them, People St., requires a separate outreach process. We are passionate about parklets because they touch on several of the community’s top priorities – landscaping, gathering spaces, and traffic calming. Due to the overwhelming demand for parklets on our Great Street, People St. has indicated a willingness to entertain the idea of parklets on Pico despite the street’s 35 MPH speed limit. Landscaped medians The community has identified two potential locations for one-block medians on Pico: between Hauser and Ridgeley, and between Ridgeley and Burnside. LA Sanitation is currently undertaking a major sewer rehabilitation project across our neighborhood that will result in disruptions to traffic flow on Pico and the surrounding streets for an entire year. Fortuitously, the sewer project is scheduled for completion in Summer 2018, when Phase 1 of Destination: Pico is scheduled for construction. PGSC recommends that, to offset the effects of construction, LA Sanitation conclude their project by building the medians that the community has identified. Bus shelters The distribution of bus shelters on our Great Street defies logic. For example, at Hauser, the bus stop on the south side of Pico has a shelter, but the sunnier north side has only a bench. Shelters should be provided at every bus stop on the corridor, ideally with space for landscaping, public amenities, or for local artists to show their work. Bike loop detectors on intersecting streets Cyclists moving north-south through our neighborhood often cross Pico at signalized intersections. They often must wait excessive amounts of time at red lights because nothing
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RECOMMENDATIONS exists to detect their presence, unless they dismount their bikes and press the pedestrian walk button. Bike loop detectors would make it easier to cycle through the neighborhood, encouraging residents to skip the car for short trips. Close curb cut at 5369 W. Pico The sidewalk at 5369 W. Pico includes an unnecessary curb cut at a metered parking space. The business owner (oGorgeous) has agreed to allow the cut to be closed. Closing the cut would allow the community to reclaim the sidewalk space for a tree with landscaped well.
Medium-term Build Destination: Pico Phase 2 Phase 2 of Destination: Pico is a full build-out of the plan from Curson to Burnside as laid out in Community Vision, page 28. This would include:
• 12 permanent, landscaped curb extensions to replace all painted curb extensions • RRFB at Burnside crosswalk • Six parklets • Nine murals • Completed ADA ramps at every intersection • Sidewalk and curb reconstruction • Expanded tree wells for all trees (4’x12’) with landscaping and decorative edging/fence • Permanent pedestrian lighting • Wayfinding signage • A repeating artistic and/or lighting element in the medians • Leading Pedestrian Interval at Hauser and Curson
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Business façade improvements The community has expressed a strong interest in improved business façades on Pico. The many small, independently owned businesses on our Great Street are a great asset to our neighborhood, and PGSC is committed to supporting them and helping them flourish. Our small businesses generally operate with small margins that make it difficult to invest in façade improvements. PGSC would like to see a matching fund beautification program re-established. As a first step, a select number of storefront improvement grants could be made to encourage the removal of bars and security gates from storefronts or razor wire from auto shops’ street-facing walls. Additional funding for business owners to improve their signage or other façade elements would create a more engaging streetscape, and it would be good for business. Tree trimming/maintenance Thanks to support from Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Herb Wesson, 50 new trees were planted on our Great Street in 2017. However, this year, 14 older trees on the corridor have been illegally trimmed by business owners and billboard companies in order to increase visibility to their signs. Tree trimmers often indiscriminately cut the crown of the trees, disfiguring the trees and permanently stunting their growth. If this illegal tree trimming continues, the city’s 50 tree investment will be lost. PGSC would like to identify funding for a corridor-wide tree maintenance program that would include trimming by qualified arborists. Since no BID exists on the corridor (and is unlikely to be formed in the near future), we are seeking outside funding for this effort. Bike share Through our outreach, PGSC has identified a great demand for bikeshare stations in our community. Our Great Street is located 1-2 miles from the Expo Line, and soon the Purple Line, and bike share would facilitate travel to and from these important rail lines. Our preliminary analysis points to Hauser for a potential location.
Long-term Build entire Great Street vision The entire Great Street vision is an extension of the five-block Destination: Pico plan across the entire 14-block corridor. Many of the elements in the five blocks would be repeated across the remaining 9 blocks. It is described in detail in Community Vision, page 28. Neighborhood park The community has expressed a great desire for a public park in our neighborhood. Our area is extremely park-poor – the nearest park is a mile away. Many young families live in
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RECOMMENDATIONS the neighborhood. The entire community would benefit greatly from open space to gather and play. Hauser plaza
The southeast corner of Pico and Hauser represents an excellent opportunity for a public plaza on our Great Street. The sidewalk is 25’ wide from Pico to the alley behind (about 100’). Additionally, an opportunity exists to widen the plaza by 10’ by narrowing the unnecessarily wide southbound lane on Hauser from 20’ to 10’ and shifting the roadway over. The resulting 35’x100’ plaza, supplemented by a curb extension at the intersection, could provide almost 4000 square feet of public space. The plaza could be a place to sit, a place for landscaping, a place for a farmer’s market, a place for performances, a place to look at art – the possibilities are endless. After securing funds to develop the plaza, PGSC would sponsor a city-wide design competition judged by an independent panel of experts. Pedestrian activated stop light at Burnside We are particularly focused on the crosswalk at Burnside because it serves two elementary schools and a church. These are institutions that (a) are used by underserved populations and (b) are here to stay. While the community’s plan for Destination: Pico calls for an RRFB at this crosswalk, we believe that in the long term, a pedestrian-activated stop light is warranted to protect the families crossing at this intersection. Fairfax island expansion with gateway The Fairfax intersection provides an opportunity for recapturing unused street space on its southeast corner. A small pedestrian refuge island can possibly be extended by 20’ in width and even farther in length. The expanded island could then provide opportunities for a neighborhood gateway sign, landscaping, and seating.
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Oil well improvements The oil well at 5733 Pico is the tallest building on our Great Street. It is not a building at all, but a hollow shell containing an active oil derrick owned by Sentinel Peak Oil. In our cognitive mapping exercise, participants identified the oil well as the #1 landmark in our neighborhood. Three aspects of the well can be improved to serve the community. First, the green space around it could be made into a pocket park. Pico here is 75’ rather than 70’, and if the roadway were narrowed, more space could be reclaimed to make the park bigger. Second, the enormous blank walls of the well present a unique opportunity for large-scale public art. Third, the ficus trees along the sidewalk should be removed and the sidewalk repaired.
First/last mile connections to Metro Rail In a few years, our Great Street will lie 1-2 miles from both the Expo and Purple lines. Yet walking and biking connectivity to both lines is poor. We recommend that Metro develop a plan for first/last mile connections from our neighborhood to both rail lines.
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Policy changes Blade sign regulations Many businesses on our Great Street have expressed interest in installing a blade sign on their façade. Blade signs improve the pedestrian orientation of the business and promote the walkability of the street. However, current regulations prevent the businesses in smaller spaces from installing blade signs. Blade signs cannot be installed by businesses with less 50’ of street frontage, and they must be installed at least 7.5’ from the end of the frontage. This regulation penalizes the many businesses with small storefronts on our Great Street. Community plan overlay As our Great Street matures and property values increase, developers have begun purchasing commercial property on Pico and planning mixed-use developments. Many of the auto repair shops may eventually be replaced with new construction. It is critical that when developers invest in our Great Street that they contribute to its character. For example, we expect new buildings to be pedestrian-oriented, with no surface parking or curb cuts facing Pico. Landscaping should be emphasized in design. When the Wilshire Community Plan is updated, we request a community overlay for our Great Street that codifies these values and others. 50 new trees were planted on Pico in spring 2017. The new trees were installed with expanded tree wells. (Existing trees have mostly 4’x4’ wells.) The community’s vision is to eventually expand the wells of all trees on our Great Street to this larger size. When sidewalks on Pico are repaired or reconstructed for any reason, the new sidewalk should include 4’x12’ wells for every tree in the reconstructed area.
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8 CONCLUSION The Pico Great Street Collaborative is committed to fulfilling our community’s vision for Pico. We also believe that the diversity of our neighborhood is one of its greatest strengths; one of our foundational strategic goals is to “conserve the diverse, independent character of the neighborhood and its businesses.� Our Great Street is blessed with many successful minorityowned businesses, and our neighborhood is home to many middle-class minority families. We are also mindful of the displacement and pain that have been unleashed on many of us in recent years. Issues of race and gentrification lurk in the background of any conversation about a changing neighborhood, even one involving crosswalks. Improvements to Pico must benefit all the people in our community and not be seen as changing the neighborhood to the advantage of some and the detriment of others. We believe that community-led outreach is the best way to ensure that everyone has a stake in this process. Only when all voices are heard does Pico have the potential to truly become a Great Street for all.
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