Opinion: L.A. can pay for the Olympics — but not to improve a dangerous Hollywood intersection?

To the editor: I don’t get it. How can the Los Angeles City Council continue to approve “financial packages” for hotel and residential developers, contemplate wooing Amazon to build its second headquarters here and pay for the 2028 Olympics when residents can’t be guaranteed basic services such as a safe intersection? (“They raised tens of thousands of dollars to fix a dangerous intersection. Now they can’t get the city to take action,” Sept. 13)

Why do people need to be killed or injured before the city installs a speed bump or, in the case of the Bronson Canyon residents who raised money to rework a dangerous intersection, a traffic circle?

Even when a community decides to protect its own, as a Hollywood Hills neighborhood tried to do, and raised the money to install a traffic circle, the city in effect blocked it at every turn.

Somehow there is always money and time for developers, big corporations and the International Olympic Committee. What about the residents of Los Angeles?

Genie Saffren, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: More than 40 years ago, my partner and I purchased a home on Canyon Drive, above Tuxedo Terrace, and lived there for the next 10 months. The intersection at Bronson Avenue and Canyon Drive was hazardous then and remains so.

Kudos to residents for taking decisive action, raising money to install a traffic circle when City Hall told them there wasn’t enough money to do so, and persisting for 12 years in the face of obstruction. Shame on the city for impeding the process.

Glen W. Redman, Los Angeles

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook