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SUPPORTED BY :
- Micheltorena Elementary Parent Teacher Association
- Friends of Micheltorena, a Project of Community Partners
- Principle Susanna Furfari, teachers and staff
- CD 13 Councilmember Eric Garcetti
- LAPD
- Silver Lake Neighborhood Council members
- The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce
- Sustainable Silver Lake
- Farm King
- Homegrownevolution.com
- The Master Gardener Program
- LA Bicycle Coalition
- The Bicycle Kitchen
- The Sunset Junction Street Fair
- REC SOLAR
GOALS
Transform the experience of “going to school” at Micheltorena Steet Elementary from bleak and dangerous to safe, warm and inviting by creating safe, living streets - safe routes to school - in the vicinity of the school and the community it serves.
Establish a kid safe prototype in the vicinity of Micheltorena Street Elementary School as a first step towards transforming all the pedestrian routes to this school as identified by LADOT.
We can eventually pattern this kid-safe street plan across the whole neighborhood by growing safe streets outward from the schools – ultimately providing safe passage to school from everywhere in the neighborhood as we transition Silver Lake from a car-culture to a sustainable culture of living streets.
NEED
From 2000 to 2010, there were 60 reported traffic accidents at the 4 intersections that surround the Micheltorena Street Elementary School.
Sunset Blvd. is a high speed thoroughfare used as an alternative to the 101 freeway. Drivers are in a hurry and not always paying attention. Micheltorena students are forced to cross busy Sunset Blvd. right at the peak of morning rush hour.This is a lethal combination. Micheltorena parents and stakeholders are seeking traffic calming measures that slow down the speed of cars combined with landscaping that increases safety and promotes walk-ability and bike-ability.
Of the 60 reported accidents near the school, 10% involved pedestrians. Half the reported accidents happened at the intersection of Micheltorena and Sunset with 29 reported incidents.
Due to lack of exercise, walking & biking, 1 in 3 Los Angeles school children are projected to be obese in 2010 (image 3). Increasing walk-ability and bike-abilitywill help kids get more exercise and lead directly to healthier kids with healthier lifestyles (image below).
A recent progress report created for Micheltorena Street Elementary shows 370 enrolled students, with 318, or 86%, categorized as socioeconomically disadvantaged. Capital improvements to this environment will demonstrate in concrete form a commitment to provide support to these kids and their families, many of whom do not have access to motor vehicles.
Community Impact
In advocating for, and building safe ways to walk and bike to school for these kids, the plan will synergize with local efforts to create walk-ability and bike friendliness across Silver Lake.
There is a growing outcry to increase walking and biking across Silver Lake – for safety, for quality of life, and for conservation of resources – but we are also in need of structural transformation to avoid increasing our accident statistics as we make the leap to pedestrianism and bicycle transportation.
Synergy between community and Micheltorena Street Elementary School will amplify dollars coming from the Safe Routes Grant exponentially. Friends of Micheltorena, a nonprofit consisting of parents and teachers at the school, will ensure funding for upkeep of trees and gardens and continued improvements for years to come.
Safe Routes to School will be the first step in reshaping the area beyond the immediate school environment – slowing traffic, planting trees, building bus shelters across silver lake, and making the streets across the neighborhood friendlier, safer places for all= LIVING STREETS
The Grant will also help raise the school’s profile and promote enrollment.
Mental Health, Safe Passage, and Environmental Education
Less urgently, but no less importantly, children who do not walk and play in their neighborhoods lose a sense of connection with the community that comes with being physically present in the local environment. This lack of connection encourages the development of isolated and fragmented communities where residents do not know or trust one another.Over the course of the project’s installation, students will learn about urban planning and design in collaboration with the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s Urban Design & Preservation Committee & Principal Furfari. The lesson will be “how to design for community, for people”. This project won’t “happen” to the school – but rather it will be an opportunity to learn about urban design and planning in collaboration with the school and the city.
Programmatics
Bike Kitchen
We will partner with the Bicycle Coalition of Los Angeles to start their bike kitchen program with the school. The Bike Kitchen not only promotes bicycling as a general form of transportation, but it also teaches bicyclists how to repair their bikes. This program will provide kids with hands on experience and using tools, as well as develop problem-solving strategies for all kinds of situations.
Bike corrals will be installed to effectively utilize space and provide the optimal amount of parking spots for students’ bikes. Bike corrals are also extremely secure and will aid in keeping bikes from being stolen.
Walking Buses
As the streets around the school become more pedestrian friendly, especially for younger pedestrians, the school will begin a “walking buses” program. This walking bus will go around areas within walking distance to the school and have a teacher or other trustworthy adult in charge that “drives” the bus from each house. Students hold hands to stay connected while getting extra exercise from walking. This will provide an additional opportunity to educate students about alternative forms of transportation and promoting environmentalism.
Traffic Safety Day with the LAPD
The Micheltorena Street Elementary School will create an Annual Traffic Safety Day in conjunction with the LAPD to promote walk-ability, bike-ability, and general traffic safety measures. This training will not only provide students with important safety information that will make them feel secure and provide parents with extra reassurance of their children’s safety, but it will also begin to create a personal and approachable relationship between Micheltorena Street Elementary School and the LAPD. An improved relationship between the school and the LAPD will result in a more trusting relationship between the children themselves and the police officers with whom they interact.
SUMMARY
In 2004, 493 pedestrians and bicyclists ages 14 and under were killed nationwide, and approximately 29,000 children were injured while walking or bicycling in the United States. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2004). The City of Los Angeles needs to begin to take traffic calming and pedestrian design seriously. Past Safe Routes to School applications were rejected for failing to integrate traffic calming measures and for not addressing specific design problems at the school level. It is our hope that this Safe Routes to School Application will be a model for future applications citywide.
As a necessary safety feature, a community improvement project and interdisciplinary school teaching tool, this safe routes to school project will be a transformational force for Micheltorena Elementary School and for the community of Silver Lake.
Our Safer Routes Application will request funding for:
- bulb-outs
- zebra stripe crosswalk
- bike parking and corrals
- a walking school bus in addition to pre-existing LAUSD pedestrian safety programs
- consultant to do the design work
Another shortcoming of the city’s past Safe Routes applications has been the use of generic support letters. In the case of this application we have already built a large coalition to support the project. A large group of neighborhood volunteers are already on board. Alongside our hero, Principal Furfari, the following organizations are ready to lend a hand:
- Micheltorena Elementary Parent Teacher Association
- Friends of Micheltorena, a Project of Community Partners
- Principle Susanna Furfari, teachers and staff
- Silver Lake Neighborhood Council members
- The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce
- Sustainable Silver Lake
- Farm King
- Homegrownevolution.com
- LAPD
- The Master Gardener Program
- LA Bicycle Coalition
- The Bicycle Kitchen
- The Sunset Junction Street Fair
- REC SOLAR
In addition, while not funded by the Safe Routes grant, concurrent plans for the school include:
- benches
- a fountain/water feature
- sidewalk improvements including street low-water trees and landscaping
- a bus shelter to shade students waiting for METRO bus on Sunset Blvd. (look above I think it should be included in the grant)
- an organic garden & fruit tree grove which will transform a 5,800 s.f. asphalt parking lot at the school into an organic garden and experiential, cooperative classroom. Note: this garden, already underway through massive school and neighborhood wide support will tie into the traffic calming improvements funded by the Safe Routes to School grant.
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