SUN VALLEY : LANI Project Seeks to Improve Transit

Sun Valley commuters could soon benefit from transportation improvements ranging from new bus stop shelters and street lighting to enhanced landscaping, repaved roads and cleaner sidewalks.

“And that’s just for starters,” said local Postmaster Jon Eshbach, who was appointed in June by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon to head a committee charged with planning beautification and other improvements related to Sun Valley’s sagging transportation infrastructure.

Sun Valley was one of eight city zones designated as a Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI) project area, a 30-month federal grant program aimed at transforming deteriorating urban freeway corridor communities into attractive, accessible neighborhoods.

The program seeks to empower neighborhoods by asking residents to develop proposals for improvements themselves, and then making funding and other resources available to them.

Since the beginning of the process, Eshbach and his committee have worked steadily to develop a list of proposals to submit to city officials. The Sun Valley group was one of the first LANI committees to finish its proposal and receive approval. Eshbach said he hopes that work will begin later this month.

“Our proposal is a work of art,” Eshbach said. “It addresses both short-term goals and long-range projects to ensure that when the LANI funds are gone, the work can continue. We’ll keep pushing at it. It took us a long time to get the plan together, but we feel it addresses a wide variety of things.”

Eshbach said while other LANI project areas focus on the development of a single street, Sun Valley has attempted to spread its resources across a broad area so that both businesses and residential areas will be improved.

Each of the eight LANI project areas in Los Angeles will receive $250,000 in federal Department of Transportation funding to start their programs. The city will contribute another $100,000 to each zone. The only other LANI zone in the Valley is in North Hollywood.

If the LANI programs are successful in Los Angeles, more federal funds could be made available for other cities across the country where communities are heavily affected by the transportation infrastructure, LANI officials said.

Those interested in participating in the Sun Valley LANI project are invited to attend the group’s meetings at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at 8128 Sunland Blvd.