For the past two years, the LA harbor community of Wilmington and our promotora educators have been working with LA City's People Street Program for safer pedestrian infrastructure. Dubbed as the Wilmington Calles Seguras Familias Sanas (Wilmington Safe Streets Healthy Families) campaign, local parents and grandparents quickly identified the popular intersection of L St. & Figueroa St. as an ideal candidate for a crosswalk.

No one plans to get into a car crash but if you're one of the many Angelenos injured or lost a loved one in traffic violence, it can be incredibly painful, confusing, and frustrating. Who do you call first? What resources are out there for victims? 

Well, no worries. We got you. Click below to find our Resource Guide created by Southern California Families for Safe Streets, families who have been impacted by traffic violence themselves. 

We're ending this year by sharing our 2020 annual report: An Extra-Ordinary Year in Review. 

In this report we share our work, our theory of change, and how we've been community organizing during this extra-ordinary year of the pandemic, national racial reckoning, and turbulent politics. 

You can find it here!

Ever heard of a walk audit? Well, it's a powerful City planning tool used by engineers and community members alike. And it's simple. You walk around your neighborhood and assess needs related to transportation, access, and walkability. Need a stop sign? Flat side walks? More signal time? Street lighting? That all part of a walk audit.

Now imagine dozens of your neighbors doing their own and you combined those stories and data. You've essentially built a community roadmap for safe streets.

 
Safe street promotoras Gaby and Nancy virtually hosted their own walk audit in Wilmington to showcase and example to community members. 

By Mehmet Berker of Los Angeles Walks and Aziz Fellague Ariouat & Jessica Meaney of Investing in Place

Today, on Tuesday the 24th of November, the Los Angeles City Council is set to take up an amended version of Council File 20-1376. This ordinance purports to amend Section 41.18 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (which makes it illegal to sit, sleep or lie down on the sidewalk) in a way that would pass muster under the decision in Martin v. Boise, a Federal court case that determined that such a blanket ban was unconstitutional. In the immediate term, thanks to the tireless effort of activists, the City Council seems to be not voting on the item today. 

Southern California Families for Safe Streets steering committee and our various family foundation members have penned a public letter to their state legislators calling on policymakers to do away from the state's 85th Percentile Rule, which states if enough people are driving a certain speed, that should be the speed limit. To no surprise this has caused what many call speed creep and have made our roads more dangerous. 

Any approach to determining street speed must also incorporate the needs of local communities and those who walk, not just cars. Feel free to download and share with your elected officials!

In just a few days, it will be World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Violence and this year what better way to uplift our family stories than through poetry? Today we share the work of SoCal Families for Safe Streets* member and poet, Michele McLaren. Traffic violence is often seen through two tragedies: one for the victim and the other for their family and friends. Michele brings both to you today:

Nowadays it feels like we can all use a hero or shero. So we're happy to introduce Peatónito! He comes to us from Mexico City, where he began his masked work saving lives and slowing traffic. And Peatónito has traveled beyond, from NYC to Los Angeles, fighting against the crime of poorly designed streets & sidewalks and reckless driving through creative public demonstrations and street theater.

The pedestrian is nobody in this city, he has been forgotten by authorities and our own citizenry. The curious and paradoxical thing is that we are all pedestrians at some moment. As such, we have forgotten ourselves.
- Peatónito 

Ever wonder how your neighborhood was designed? How you can shape it?

Whether it's building a new grocery store, installing more crosswalks, or getting a bus shelter, community voice is critical for community design that will last for generations. But what happens when community input is, well, just a courtesy?

Welcome to Eagle Rock.

by Mehmet Berker, Board Member of Los Angeles Walks

A community block party, pre COVID-19, co-organized with resident partners to help neighbors reimagine a more walkable neighborhood.

As cities across the world respond to the public health emergency caused by COVID-19, some are making temporary changes to the public realm to ensure that people have adequate space to move around. Philadelphia, New York City, and more dramatically Bogotá, Colombia, are closing off some streets or parts of streets for people on bike and foot only. Should Los Angeles do the same?

We at Los Angeles Walks would answer yes, enthusiastically so.