COMMENTARIES : Roads Closed . . . Let’s Keep Them That Way

Los Angeles is more than burning storefronts and quivering ground. Relaxing and benign places exist in our complex city. The upper section of Griffith Park is one of them.

Several hundred persons routinely turn out for the Sierra Club’s three-times-weekly night hikes in the park. On weekday mornings (and all day on weekends), a steady stream of hikers, joggers and equestrians follow the trails.

To us, Griffith Park is more than a home to the observatory, Los Angeles Zoo, Travel Town and other attractions. It is an island of wilderness in a sea of development.

Chaparral covers the surrounding hills. Coyotes, deer, raccoons, opossums, rabbits, skunks, owls and hawks roam free; with 53 miles of hiking trails to choose from, so do people.

When Col. Griffith J. Griffith donated the park to the city in 1896, locals weren’t particularly impressed. Undeveloped chaparral-covered hills were hardly scarce in turn-of-the-century Los Angeles. In the park’s early years, trees were often cut up and carted off as firewood.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt indirectly opened the park’s hilly core. Depression-era work crews built two paved roads in the undeveloped upper park: Mt. Hollywood Drive and Vista Del Valle Drive.

When these roads were new, the automobile was a symbol of freedom and affluence in Los Angeles. Later, it became an unquestioned necessity. Today, it is an environmental millstone around the city’s neck.

By the ‘80s, the roads built to open Griffith Park’s urban wilderness had become the avenues of its decay. They brought litter, fire (often from carelessly tossed cigarette butts), graffiti and crime. The roads became self-defeating. They degraded the natural beauty they were built to lead people to.

Meantime, undeveloped chaparral-covered hills had become scarce in Los Angeles. Long ago, the park’s value was tied to its development. Today, the upper park is a valuable public resource because of its non-development.

Two climatic catastrophes--the drought and El Nino--have helped suggest a promising future for the upper park.

High fire danger kept the roads closed to automobiles in the summer and fall of 1991. They remained closed when heavy rainfall broke the drought last winter. The rain damaged the roads and washed boulders and mud onto the pavement.

Motorists still have access to the park’s major attractions. But the road closings have created a car-free zone in the undeveloped upper park.

It is an increasingly inviting urban space. I have seen little fresh graffiti or litter in the upper park since the roads have been closed to cars. The trails feel more tranquil and secure.

Fire danger is down too. Joggers and hikers are perhaps less likely than motorists to smoke and flip still-glowing cigarette butts into the chaparral.

Rid of cars, the upper section of Griffith Park is something rare and precious. It is a piece of Los Angeles that works.

As we decide how to “Rebuild L.A.,” we should also decide what not to rebuild. We shouldn’t rebuild Mt. Hollywood Drive and Vista Del Valle Drive.

Take cars off these roads permanently. Let this small sliver of our city grow with nature, not blacktop. Let it be a haven for anyone wishing to escape the maddening din below.