Sidewalk Reroute

By Eric Richardson
Published: Thursday, May 24, 2007, at 03:23PM

Eric Richardson

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — For the past few days they've been doing road work in front of the Roosevelt on 7th street. Today's work involved closing the sidewalk in front of the building. To my surprise, they coned a pedestrian path around the work instead of just calling the sidewalk closed.

I mentioned two weeks ago that sidewalks Downtown are treated as second class citizens. Even as we say we're making Downtown pedestrian-friendly, we close off sidewalks for long-term construction and force pedestrians to travel out of their way to get around. Large projects will close off an entire block at a time, as is the case for the LAPD HQ construction and the old State Building demolition.

That's just not ok. Downtown is a pedestrian place, and we need to reflect that priority in the way we plan construction projects.

On a positive note, Flower around Market Lofts has been reopened as Sodha noted in the comments. I didn't make it down to 9th to see if anything had changed there.

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Comments

celia writes:

i thought of this last night as jim and i walked to the orpheum for last remaining seats. construction of the chapman lofts at 8th & broadway closed the sidewalk on broadway, but everyone just walked on the street, oncoming traffic be damned.

i don't know how long that sidewalk has been blocked, but on broadway there was a good amount of pedestrian traffic before and after the show. last night was the first in the series, but i hope they open up that sidewalk before the next show at the orpheum or there will be more annoyed theater patrons.

# on May.24.2007 AT 04:03 PM

ubrayj02 writes:

Letters to The Times, February 9, 1936

Our speed laws are very liberal, and the slow drivers seldom hurt anyone. On the other hand, the indifferent, slow pedestrians cause trouble, congestion, and are mostly the ones to be injured and killed.

Anyone who cannot, or will not, step lively, has no business on city streets.

If more fast drivers and slow, indifferent pedestrians were arrested, it would soon do away with so many accidents on our city streets.

-J.H. McNEIL

# on May.25.2007 AT 04:30 PM