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Though a major part of Downtown and with some of the best and most beloved restaurants and tourist attractions in the city, the Chinatown and El Pueblo areas feel disconnected from the rest of Downtown because of several anti-pedestrian factors: the 101 Freeway slicing through the district but also because of the streetlife black hole that is the Civic Center after working hours.The Civic Center and the 101 Freeway act as a physical and psychological barrier to the pedestrian trying to reach Chinatown, Olvera Street, or Union Station from more walkable districts like the Historic Core/Broadway, South Park, and the Financial District. Hill Street is used as a traffic funnel through the heart of Chinatown to get workers onto the 110 Freeway and out of the city as fast as possible, while for a pedestrian the roar of the freeway combined with uninteresting, unfriendly sidewalks act as barriers to increasing the number of walkers who make the trip north (or south, whichever the case may be).

That being said, the city is undertaking some significant pedestrian improvements to this part of Downtown, and I’ve been pleased to watch the progress of some of these streetscape improvements since I’ve moved here.

Click image for full size

For starters, cracked, broken, and utilitarian sidewalks on streets leading to El Pueblo are being replaced. This program is already complete on North Main just past Arcadia Street, and is mostly complete on North Los Angeles past Arcadia Street as well. These improvements include widened sidewalks, planting of Brazilian pepper trees, coordinated street furniture such as benches and trash bins, way finding signs and vine planters.

Sidewalk improvements including street furniture and shade trees, El Pueblo, North Main Street.

To enhance the pedestrian’s passage across the 101 Freeway, extra-wide sidewalks are being installed on North Main and North Los Angeles, taking up former vehicle and auxiliary lanes. These sidewalks have doubled in size; former “wide” sidewalks are now quadruple the width of standard ones.

This recently poured sidewalk on Los Angeles Street is more than double the width of a standard sidewalk.

New sidewalk island with unimproved sidewalk in the background.

But the improvements don’t end at the sidewalk. New medians have gone in on North Los Angeles where it meets Alameda; improvements include new landscaping with flowers, trees and palms as well as softer curves instead of sharp angles for turning vehicles.

New median with landscaping and softer curves.

It remains to be seen whether this sidewalk replacement program will be continued to other parts of the El Pueblo/Chinatown area. So far only the eastern side of North Main and the western side of Los Angeles Street have received these sidewalk upgrades. With the pending arrival of the Eastside extension of the Gold Line in 2009, some improvements should be made to Alameda Street. That will require taking a lane from traffic and using that to expand sidewalks, which might piss off some commuters, but the city is trying to focus more on getting people out of their cars and onto the street more, so that fits with Item No. 1 in Do Real Planning (PDF file).

The other wildcard is North Spring Street. That’s the poor, neglected stepchild of the area with minimal building frontage and many cars speeding south.

Check out these related posts:

1. plaza de cultura y artes coming to el pueblo
2. inaugural taiwan festival at el pueblo this weekend
3. more improvements coming to 9th and olive
4. pedestrian quality of life requires activism