Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson will use a series of events to engage the community around a major street redesign project.
In high spirits, over 50 South LA families donned costumes on a cloudy day for a Halloween Bike Ride to draw attention to the newly formed Western Avenue Redesign Project (WARP).
The Halloween Bike ride is just one of the ways Councilmember Harris-Dawson intends to engage the community about infrastructure improvements along a 4.5 mile stretch of Western Avenue, from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Century Boulevard.
The project wants to reimagine what changes can be made along the corridor to make it pedestrian-friendly, safer for bicyclists, drivers, youth, and elders. Through an online survey, the community can identify challenges along Western and suggest how to make it easier for drivers to access businesses, restaurants, parks, and churches along the avenue.
Western Avenue is listed on the High Injury Network; this unfortunate moniker means that it has a high concentration of traffic collisions that result in severe injuries, especially for pedestrians.
A sense of urgency informs this collaboration with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and StreetsLA. Safety upgrades being considered include more street lighting, speed deterrents, pedestrian hybrid beacons, protected left-turn signals, and increases to the bike infrastructure.
The Council Office wants and needs community members to chime in on what they would like to see along their key transportation corridor. So if you missed the Halloween Bike Ride, follow the Councilmember on social media (mhdcd8) to learn about more events, and access the Western Avenue Redesign Survey to let your voice be heard.
The streets belong to the people, and they should be walkable, well-lit, safe for bicyclists, and include green space. So let’s take this opportunity to imagine that for our community.
