Pedestrians in L.A. Get a Green Light from Alarcon

In a city notorious for being ruled by drivers, City Councilman Richard Alarcon is championing the cause of the beleaguered pedestrian.

The City Council on Tuesday approved Alarcon’s motion to form a citizens advisory group to address pedestrian safety and take on the Herculean task of promoting the act of walking along the car-happy streets of L.A.

The idea that Los Angeles isn’t a pedestrian city “is ludicrous. Every morning there are literally hundreds and thousands of kids who walk to school, people at shopping centers crossing the street,” he said. “I think we should focus on this.”

The advisory committee will include volunteers chosen from each council district and members of local school and transportation agencies. The committee would hold meetings in different parts of the city seeking public comment on troublesome intersections, poorly timed signals, and other safety problems.

Such a model has been successful in the area of improving traffic flows, said Glenn Ogura, senior transportation engineer with the city. Ogura helps a citizens advisory group that takes input on traffic problems.

“We don’t have the ability to get out and see everything,” he said. Residents who come to public meetings to report problems are “our eyes and ears,” he said.

Last year, there were 3,076 pedestrian-related accidents in the city. The number has declined each year since 1994, when there were 3,345.

Los Angeles is one of the few major cities in the country that didn’t have a pedestrian advisory panel until now, said Pat Hines, executive director of a nonprofit pedestrian-education group called Safe Moves.

Making the city more pedestrian-friendly would solve a wide range of problems, she said.

“Look at any other school site: We have parents driving kids two blocks to school. It creates whole different problems for the school. If people could walk to the corner market, if kids could walk to school, it would eliminate traffic and cut down on accidents.”

Alarcon, who is the head of the council’s Transportation Committee, said several high-profile deaths in the past year convinced him that more needed to be done.

But beyond ensuring pedestrians’ safety, Alarcon said the committee will devote itself to getting more Angelenos out of their cars and into their walking shoes.

“More people walking will . . . create more livable communities,” he said. “People should not be hindered in any way, shape or form from walking.”

Although many improvements to the city’s walking infrastructure, such as better-timed signals, are not costly, there are vast areas where the city simply lacks the funds to do what is needed, he acknowledged.

For example, the city has miles of sidewalks in need of repair, and still has tens of thousands of curbs that need wheelchair ramps.

So while more information may be useful, said Tom Swire, assistant general manager of the transportation department, the city’s engineers are “not at a loss for locations to go out and investigate.”