Celebrating Walk to School Day 2021 with LAUSD

Today, officials from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the Los Angeles Unified School District joined parents, teachers, administrators, and students at Magnolia Avenue Elementary to celebrate International Walk to School Day. Walk to School Day is an annual event to promote the healthy practice of students walking along routes that provide safe access to school.

This year's Walk to School Day event highlighted the importance of traffic safety with the by transforming Orchard Avenue, New England Street, and 17th Street at Magnolia Avenue Elementary School as part of a pop-up demonstration to enhance the predictability, comfort, and safety of people walking, rolling, and driving to and from the school and surrounding neighborhood. The pilot also included a partnership with USC’s Earth Sciences Department to install air quality monitors to measure how closing a street to cars impacted air pollution near the school.

LADOT and Safe Routes to School invite all school community members and families to participate in this year’s event. For more information about Walk to School Day events nationwide, please visit walkbiketoschool.org.

Zero Emission Zone & Clean Air Day 2021

In celebration of California Clean Air Day on Wednesday, October 6, LADOT installed the first Zero Emissions Delivery Curb Zone. This is the first such enforceable zone in the country, as other known programs are voluntary. These new zones use new specialized zero-emission signage, in addition to stenciling on curbs to indicate that they may only be used by delivery vehicles and bikes that generate zero emissions.

This is the first of five zones for the pilot program, the four other zones will be installed later this month throughout Los Angeles. The locations were selected by analyzing 1100 separate locations and determining those which were most impacted by air pollution and deliver demand. The purpose of these zones is to prioritize zero-emissions delivery vehicles and bikes in communities disproportionately burdened by air pollution. The Zero Emissions Delivery Curb Zone pilot program and evaluating zero-emission commercial loading zones is one of several strategies to reduce air pollution recommended in the LADOT Strategic Plan and LA’s Green New Deal.

LADOT formed a partnership with LA Cleantech Incubator and other agencies that allowed the department to secure a U.S. Department of Energy grant that allows our department to ramp up and accelerate this pilot program. LADOT plans to install about 100 more Zero Emissions zones countywide starting next year.

CicLAvia to Host Anniversary Event on October 10

On Sunday, October 10, CicLAvia will host its second event of the year with CicLAvia: Heart of L.A., which will see participants take to the streets on a course that passes through notable locations such as MacArthur Park, Chinatown, Civic Center, and Mariachi Plaza. A celebration of car-free and open streets, the upcoming event will also bear the distinction of taking place on the 11th anniversary of CicLAvia's first-ever event in Los Angeles, which occurred on October 10, 2010.

For more information about CicLAvia, please visit ciclavia.org.

Central LA: Connect the Green

LADOT will be hosting a community bike audit in central LA neighborhoods of Koreatown and Greater Wilshire on October 9, 2021, in partnership with Council District 4, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI).

For additional information visit the Connect the Green event page. 

This Week in Photos:

LADOT, in partnership with StreetsLA, has been moving forward with the Adams Boulevard Safety Project. The latest phase begun over this past weekend is the application of slurry seals to Adams Blvd. The City of Los Angeles, along with LADOT, is improving Adams Blvd with traffic safety and accessibility elements. For more information, please click here.

 

 

LADOT by the Numbers:

As Los Angeles continues to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, LADOT will continue its support of public health measures, programs that promote transit accessibility, and projects that facilitate safe street environments.

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