‘Main Streets’ All Over Town : Program will seek friendly ambience for eight neglected thoroughfares across L.A.

Mayor Richard Riordan’s newly announced program to create a friendlier, “Main Street” ambience along some of the busiest yet least charming streets in Los Angeles is exactly the sort that politicians love. Any infusion of federal dollars brings kudos to local and federal officials alike; private contributions reap positive attention for the companies involved. But this program, if it unfolds as promised, is also just the sort to work a real improvement in the lives and spirits of pavement-weary city dwellers.

The Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative will provide funding to build new storefronts, plant trees and make other improvements in eight blighted neighborhoods. Residents and business people along the streets involved will recommend improvements; funds from the Federal Transit Administration and other agencies will pay for the changes. The city also hopes to receive state and private funds.

The eight areas are Virgil Avenue in east Hollywood; 1st Street in Boyle Heights; Figueroa Street in Highland Park; Jefferson Boulevard in South Los Angeles; Crenshaw and Leimert boulevards in the Leimert Park section of Southwest Los Angeles; Magnolia and Lankershim boulevards in North Hollywood’s NoHo arts district; around Sunland Boulevard and San Fernando Road in Sun Valley; and Vermont Avenue and 54th Street in South-Central Los Angeles.

Each area is expected to receive $250,000 this year and up to $2 million next year. But there are as yet no guarantees; delivering on those funds will be a major hurdle for the mayor.

The first and in some respects tougher challenge will be forging consensus on each area’s improvement plan among local residents and merchants. To some, for example, it’s self-evident that planting trees along barren urban sidewalks enhances a neighborhood. To others, those same trees represent a commitment of money and time for maintenance--commitments they may be reluctant to make. Benches that might be welcome in some communities could attract drug dealers in others.

Community groups and city agencies long accustomed to top-down planning are becoming more adept at facilitating the sort of sidewalk-level dialogue that must occur for neighborhood beautification to succeed. The ongoing Nuisance Alley Program, which helps residents to convert some of the city’s most debris-filled alleys into common gardens and recreational areas, is but one example. We hope the new Neighborhood Initiative will be another.