Report Has Some Hits, Some Misses : Residents and Officials Should Consider Transit, Housing and Other Concerns It Raises

The recent UCLA report titled “The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley” is for anyone who still thinks of the Valley as the all-white enclave of the 1960s. “Although the San Fernando Valley is as diverse as the rest of the city and is faced with many of the same problems, this area has yet to be redefined in our collective consciousness,” it says.

For those who are well aware of these changes, however, the report often runs the gamut from the obvious (“Traffic congestion continues to worsen in most of the San Fernando Valley . . . “) and the unintentionally humorous (“Significant Findings: There is culture in the Valley”) to matters that were hardly worth much consideration. Did we really need to know, for example, that there are 11 bowling alleys and 20 billiard parlors in the Valley?

There are, however, some facts that Valley residents, planners, and elected officials ought to consider:

* With a few exceptions, such as Universal’s CityWalk, the Valley lacks pedestrian-oriented activities. The region also lacks large, performance-oriented cultural venues.

* Most mass-transit arteries are designed as though the vast majority of Valley residents travel to downtown Los Angeles. That is out of step with the needs of the Valley’s work force and the demographic makeup of the Valley.

Warner Center, Universal City, Chatsworth and Van Nuys, for example, all provide large numbers of jobs. Only 5.6% of the workers living in the Valley commute to Los Angeles’ central business district. More than twice as many commute trips from the Valley (15%) involve Beverly Hills, Century City, Hollywood, Culver City, the mid-Wilshire district, and West Los Angeles. Nearly 80% of all commuter trips, according to the report, are within the Valley.

A related point is that bus service to low-income areas of the northeast Valley should be improved to better connect people with jobs.

* “Museums are the rarest form of culture in the Valley,” the report also points out, “leaving its residents with extremely limited access to this type of institution.” The Valley is also “park poor,” with just 3.9% of its acreage in parkland. This means that efforts to set aside more land as park space are reasonable and necessary.

* New housing is built in areas that don’t need it, while scant amounts are built where it is needed, such as in the northeast Valley.

The report did well to point those facts out. Now, perhaps, residents and the area’s elected officials will begin to address them.