Business & Tech

Business, Landlords Want to Take Back the Boulevard

The first in a series of meetings to revitalize Colorado Boulevard generates a constructive discussion.

About 50 people--including business owners and landlords--attended the kick-off meeting Wednesday of “Take Back the Boulevard,” a local initiative aimed at radically transforming the Eagle Rock stretch of Colorado Boulevard into a pedestrian-oriented, bike-friendly commercial district.

“How many of you are skeptical that anything is going to come out of this [meeting]?” Mott Smith, a public planning and development consultant as well as one of the eight members of the initiative’s steering committee, asked the gathering during a roughly hour-long presentation at the .

In response, two or three hands went up, including that of Allen Yap, who owns , an auto parts and accessories store on the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Eagle Rock Boulevard that attracts customers from as far off as Riverside.

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“How many of you are confident that something can come of this?” Smith then asked, prompting a lot more hands to go up this time around—Yap’s among them.

That Yap, a longtime member of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, reacted with both skepticism and conviction to the idea that Colorado Boulevard can indeed be rescued from the six lanes of traffic that make it more of a highway than a street, serves as an apt reminder of the enormity of the task at hand.

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The Battle Ahead

“If you look at Colorado Boulevard today, it’s typically devoted to moving cars,” said Jeff Jacobberger, another public planning and development consultant on the initiative’s steering committee. “The question is, can some of it [the boulevard] be devoted to other things?”

With the help of a PowerPoint presentation, Jacobberger outlined just how Eagle Rock can “Take Back the Boulevard” and turn it into a passageway rivaling—if not outdoing—main streets in such progressive, creative and environmentally conscious cities as San Francisco, Portland and New York.

“The focus of the project is the public’s right of way in streets,” said Jacobberger, explaining that it typically takes around 25 seconds to cross from one side of Colorado to the other—at a signaled crossing. (Pedestrians who’d rather not hazard an “unsignalled” dash across may need to walk as much as 1,600 feet—a seven-minute exercise that, in urban planning parlance, is a “potential roadway-width problem for businesses.”)

Colorado Boulevard—An Anomaly

Because the Eagle Rock stretch of Colorado has three lanes in both directions, it attracts far more traffic than portions of the boulevard in Glendale or Pasadena, Jacobberger pointed out. Confronted with relatively higher speeds, motorists have trouble taking their eyes off the road—and what they tend not to see is the businesses along Colorado.

“Successful avenues”—Lake in Pasadena, Honolulu in Montrose, Larchmont in Larchmont Village—do not have the same crush of traffic that Colorado Boulevard has in Eagle Rock, added Smith, inviting the audience to propose other commercial districts on which Colorado could be modeled.

Take Back The Boulevard has already obtained some initial funding for its planning process from TERA (The Eagle Rock Association), the office of , and the . The initiative’s goal, said Jacobberger, is to generate feedback from the community aimed at creating a feasible plan that will spur economic growth along Colorado.

Take Back the Boulevard Plan

The plan would be implemented in phases, making allowances for the fact that not every section of the boulevard has the same characteristics and needs—and that the plan’s eventual outcome would be tied to additional funding, approval from Caltrans and the City’s regulatory constraints.

The central question, Jacobberger said, is “what simple changes can we make, with the greatest benefits?” Here are three key changes proposed:

  • Take advantage of the Los Angeles Bicycle Plan ("piggyback on city work," as Jacobberger put it) by adding a bike lane—between diagonally parked cars and the sidewalk, for example—and creating enough bicycle parking facilities to encourage this mode of transportation.
  • Make it easier and safer to cross the 90-foot boulevard by creating “bulbouts” that offer pedestrians increased visibility, while reducing the amount of time vehicles have to stop at crossings, thereby improving traffic flow.
  • Make it easier and more enticing to stroll and shop by making sidewalks wider, adding shade trees and improving the landscaping on medians along the boulevard.

What Do Stakeholders Want?

Asked if there’s a consensus on whether improving Colorado Boulevard will be good for local business, not one dissenting voice could be heard at the meeting. Asked if there’s a consensus on slowing traffic—or rather, “smoothing” traffic to keep top speeds down—about 40 percent of the hands went up.

By the end of the PowerPoint presentation, it was clear that a constructive dialogue between business/property owners and the initiative’s steering committee had begun in earnest.

As Bob Arranaga, a member of the steering committee who was formerly the land use director at the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, put it: “I have not heard this kind of dialogue in all my years in Eagle Rock—you guys are opening up new doors.”

The 'Parking' Bugaboo

Predictably, however, parking issues dominated much of the discussion.

“What you’re doing is great, but I don’t think it will solve the problem of parking,” said Tim Yalda, an artist who owns Curve Line Space, an art gallery and custom framing store on Colorado Boulevard whose reputation is encapsulated in a number of five-star reviews on yelp.com (“Despite all the frame stores near my home in Studio City, I will always drive to Eagle Rock for Tim and his shop!” declares one).

For businesses to thrive, “we need to invite people out of Eagle Rock,” Yalda said, adding: “As a property owner, I know the real battle is with residents” who tend to oppose parking on residential streets near businesses.

A related problem, Yalda said, is that many people get tickets because they don’t realize parking meters must be fed until 8 p.m.—unlike in Hollywood, which has a 6 p.m. deadline. “We need to talk to the councilman,” said Yalda, referring to Huizar.

Another business owner pointed out that while one side of Colorado Boulevard has a one-hour parking limit, the other side has a two-hour limit. “The clients who come to our business are there for more than an hour,” she said.

Some Fixes Are Easy

Zenay Loera, the director for Huizar’s office in CD 14, stepped in and said that she would circulate petitions among business and property owners, urging the City to make parking time limits consistent on both sides of Colorado Boulevard. ("Be prepared for a long—long—wait," one stakeholder interjected half-jokingly.)

In response to a question about the evident lack of awareness about off-street parking, Loera also offered to have signs posted on the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Eagle Rock Boulevard, alerting motorists to the fact that, hidden from their view, is a sizeable metered parking lot behind the row of businesses on the south side of the street. "That's an easy fix," she said.

What's Next?

A Take Back the Boulevard action plan is expected in mid-2012, based on surveys and community feedback. A public meeting is scheduled on September 21 at 7 p.m. at the . The meeting will present information about the current conditions along Colorado Boulevard and invite community feedback about potential improvements.

Check back for more about Take Back the Boulevard coverage.


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