L.A. River Moves Closer to State Park Status

Clearing a major hurdle toward beautifying one of the city’s most neglected resources, a state budget committee this week approved funding to make the Los Angeles River a new state park.

If approved, as is considered likely, the Los Angeles River Greenway would be the first new state park in Southern California’s urban core in 17 years, a state park official said.

A joint budget committee of the state Senate and the Assembly also this week approved $83.5 million to buy 62 acres of the river-adjacent area called Taylor Yard--a former Southern Pacific railroad facility near downtown Los Angeles--to convert into parkland.

Though both measures are part of the proposed $100-billion state budget and await approval this month by legislators, local environmentalists Friday cheered the developments.

“Now people can come down to the river and see this, they can even walk down to the water--this feels like we’ve won the lottery all at once,” said Melanie Winter of the Friends of the Los Angeles River, pointing to the blue-green water rushing inside the river’s concrete-lined walls along the Golden State Freeway in Atwater Village.

Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said: “This is a day to rejoice in. This is one of those moments we’ve been working for.”

Winters and Villaraigosa, joined by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and other environmental activists, spoke at a news conference Friday to highlight the projected funds for the river park.

The measures are widely expected to win approval in the state Senate and Assembly, and to be signed by Gov. Gray Davis, who has backed the bills, said Hilary McLean, a spokeswoman for Davis.

Activists and officials on Friday mentioned such possible new amenities as more bicycle and hiking paths by the river and footbridges across it at various points along its entire 55-mile length. But no one discussed or committed to any specific project.

Boxer and Villaraigosa said the river, a former natural waterway that now flows from the San Fernando Valley to the Port of Long Beach mainly as a walled flood-control channel through heavily urbanized areas, is one of the city’s greatest unifying forces.

“I really think the river can be a metaphor for rebuilding unity across our community,” Boxer said. She added that she is pushing for federal money to bolster other funds for the Los Angeles River project.

The designation of the river as a state park would grant it access to more funding in addition to whatever share it receives from the $2.1 billion approved by state voters in March through Proposition 12, the park and open space bond measure. Almost half of that bond will be set aside for such projects as soccer fields and baseball diamonds in urban parks around California.

“This is a great thing,” said Netty Carr, a resident of Atwater Village who strolled beside the river with her granddaughter, Miranda Garcia, during the news conference.

“I’m out here five times a week,” said Carr, who has lived in the area 25 years. “A lot of people don’t know this great resource is even here.”

Indeed, open space activists joked Friday that one of the biggest challenges to restoring the waterway has been convincing people that Los Angeles does indeed have a river and that it can be beautiful enough to attract many visitors.

The need for area parks is profound, said Villaraigosa, who is a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles and has campaigned in part as an advocate for urban parks.

For example, Maywood in southeast Los Angeles County currently has the least amount of park space of any city in the nation, McLean said.

Approved in 1983, the 300-acre Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Park in Baldwin Hills was the last state park designated in the city’s urban core, said Russ Guiney, district superintendent for the state parks’ Angeles district.

He called the preliminary approval of the river park “a very large achievement.”

Early Friday, Villaraigosa spoke over the roar of nearby industrial machinery and the chirp of birds at Elysian Gateway Park, a small green space alongside the river that once was the weed-strewn site of abandoned houses. Today, it has pristine paths, a sandbox and picnic benches.

“This park,” he said, “is one of the jewels along this river.”

From Elysian Gateway, Villaraigosa and Boxer traveled north to Atwater Park, another area straddling the river. They lauded the area’s paved bicycle path, sycamore and oak tree plantings and community exercise stops complete with signs featuring yoga instruction.

“This has been a labor of love for the community,” Lynne Dwyer, executive director of North East Trees, a nonprofit group that restores urban green areas, told Boxer.

Winter, who said that 10 years ago the area resembled “an urban wasteland,” added, “We need to begin to imagine this as a resource and not just as a piece of infrastructure.”