Street Smarts

Los Angeles’ Flower Street, in the words of a planner at the Community Redevelopment Agency, is going to be “more pedestrian-friendly,” and in that is a lesson for all cities.

Owners of the city’s largest hotel, the Westin Bonaventure, are undertaking the project as part of a $5-million renovation of the nine-year-old hotel. Trends change fast in Los Angeles. But it represents a policy shift by the redevelopment planners as well as the hotel owners.

The hotel was one of the first major Bunker Hill projects. Its main entrance was planned on Figueroa Street, but patrons and taxis preferred the back door on Flower. This has meant that most of the comings and goings have been in a bleak, windowless, concrete-lined streetway, more bunker than glamorous reception area. Street-level amenities had received secondary treatment by redevelopment agency planners who were intent on separating pedestrians from cars with a network of five bridges that now bring pedestrians into the hotel above the bustle of traffic.

Canopied retail shops and a bar will now flank a brightened Flower Street entrance to the hotel for those arriving by car or bus, while those approaching on foot may still find refuge in the relative safety of the overhead pedestrian walks.

This does not necessarily mean the end of “pedways” or elevated people movers, however. The city’s master plan is adorned with a number of proposed walkways, including one linking the Arco center on Flower between 5th and 6th streets with the former Barker Bros. store on 7th Street. And most of the tunneling has been completed for a people mover running through Bunker Hill, on an east-west axis, should money ever become available for such experiments. It seems certain, however, that future projects will be friendly to pedestrians on all levels, thanks to the lesson learned on Flower Street.