Stella Vaughan-Verk and Councilman Mike Bonin lead the way during a community bike ride she helped organize
Thanks in part to the work of one local student, more than 100 people recently joined L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin for an exploratory community bike ride around Del Rey and Playa Vista.
As part of her sixth-grade Environmental Stewards Project earlier this year, 12-year-old Westside Neighborhood School (WNS) student Stella Vaughan-Verk wrote to Bonin about challenges for bicycle and pedestrian access in the area.
The project, developed by WNS sixth-grade dean and science teacher Kaitlin Lester, has two guiding questions for students: (1) How can I make a difference in my community? (2) What impact do my actions have on the environment?
The work offers students the opportunity to focus on environmental issues close to their hearts. From making small changes at home to participating in restoration work or beach clean-ups and writing letters to government officials, students realize they can have a direct role in improving their environment.
“Everyone was planting a tree; I wanted to do something different,” said Vaughan-Verk, who enjoys biking — when she has the time — with family, friends and her pet boxer Roxanne.
Vaughn-Verk’s letter led to a meeting with Bonin, and later she and father Jonathan Verk co-coordinated the ride, which launched from the WNS campus just south of Ballona Creek.
“We couldn’t be prouder of Stella for demonstrating great initiative to inspire and help with such a successful event,” WNS Head of School Brad Zacuto said.
Supporters included Bike Attack, the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition and L.A. Metro Bike Share as well as TOMS Shoes, Priority Bicycles, Deutsch, Wiredrive, Maser Condo Sales and CTRL Collective.
Before the ride, Bonin acknowledged the risks associated with biking on Centinela Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard, the only access points for bikers crossing Ballona Creek on their way to Playa Vista.
Community members have long been requesting a safe route connecting Playa Vista and Del Rey to the Ballona Creek bike path. Last year local architect Paul Howard proposed a pedestrian/cyclist bridge which might reuse the existing concrete supports of the former L.A. Pacific Electric Red
Car crossing.
Bonin included a bridge in Metro’s Active Transportation Strategic Plan (adopted in June 2016) so the project’s design and construction could be eligible for Metro and grant funding.
”Providing access to regional bike paths like this encourages more biking and walking, helping to take cars off the road and move Los Angeles toward a more sustainable and less-congested transportation future,” Bonin said.
— Regan Kibbe
Everyone should be clear about the history of why this unsafe biking access from Jefferson Blvd. to the Ballona Creek bike path still confounds us.
Page 92 of the Playa Vista Phase II EIR explains why we do not have a separate bridge connecting the Ballona Creek bike path to the south, even though one was originally proposed:
“With the completion of the sale to the State of California and the relinquishment of the rights to construct the Playa Vista Drive Bridge and road, the baseline conditions as reflected in the Traffic Study exclude the bridge and road from the street system analyzed in the transportation model.”
Playa Vista sold all the land and development rights to their planned northern expansion east of Lincoln Blvd., which was a good thing, as it preserved vacant and formerly historic salt marsh acreage for future habitat restoration and open space. That was a good thing. Thank you, Friends of Ballona Wetlands, whose successful settlement of a prior lawsuit with the Coastal Commission concerning the area west of Lincoln mobilized community pressure on the developer to also abandon their east of Lincoln plans. However, those plans and rights to the bridge (which for cars, would no longer be needed without a development project) also dissolved with the land sale to the State.
Let’s fill the gap now somehow and get a bike path connection south of the creek, either along Lincoln or via a stand-alone bridge. Bravo to Stella Vaughan-Verk and Councilman Bonin, and all the cycling advocates supporting them.
Reference: City of Los Angeles/EIR No. ENV-2002-6129-EIR, State Clearinghouse No. 2002111065
Totally agree David and thanks for the perspective. Might there be a way to engage the companies south of the creek whose employees bike commutes would be safer with a bridge? I work at one of them, in the Reserve next to Home Depot and would love to bike to work without crossing the creek at Lincoln or Centinela.
Stella for congress
slightly revisionist history, David.
Outrage by the community, in that the Friends of Ballona’s 1989 lawsuit settlement allowed about 300 acres of functioning or restorable coastal uplands plus fresh and saltwater marsh areas to be developed, mobilized thousands of locals to protest the developer’s plan and demand a better deal. When California State law was changed by the landmark court decision in the 1998 Bolsa Chica case (involving Orange County’s last major wetland), Playa Vista no longer had much hope of successfully evading the state’s wetland protection law and developing this 300 acres. The Playa Vista developer defaulted on their bank mortgage, with Chase Manhattan foreclosing on the loan. Chase then sold the land to Goldman Sachs which very soon made a deal to sell to the State of California the 300 acres saved by the Friends in 1989 plus the additional 300 acres which thousands of us fought for after the Friends cut their deal. The Friends repeatedly badmouthed the citizens who wanted all 600 acres saved, until, of course, the landowner came around to our view.
Granted, the Friends worked hard for the first 300 acres; we worked hard for the other 300 acres.
The reason the bike path extension has been up in the air is because the State Highway department wanted to double the width of the Lincoln Blvd bridge over the creek and destroy some wetlands. This was rightly rejected by the Coastal Commission in 2003. The community has long supported a bike-path only plan, but not when wrapped into a dubious plan which has existed for 30 years to widen Lincoln Blvd to freeway width (10 lanes wide) from LAX to Santa Monica, chopping off the fronts of 100’s of local businesses for the benefit of LAX and Playa Vista development plans. Given that LAX ‘s own development plans at its Northside 350 acres has been cut in half, and that Playa Vista has eliminated more than half of their original planned mega-project, the turning of Lincoln Blvd into a freeway is unneeded.
Bring on the bike-bridge.
The “Friends” of the Ballona Wetlands lawsuit ended in to a settlement agreement. That agreement was not enforced. It provided a full or partial tidal salt marsh would be created to help cleanse water before it reached Ballona Creek and to provide for flood control.
The Coastal Development Permit for the project required an entity named the Ballona Wetlands Foundation would apply for two Coastal Development Permits. The first one was completed for the development South West of Lincoln. There was never an application for the second.
The settlement agreement and the Coastal Development permit mirrored the terms and conditions of the CDP which run with the land and are reflected on the deed now held by the State of California.
The FOB have failed to enforce the settlement agreement for over twenty years. The Ballona Foundation did not provide a financial instrument to guarantee it would manage the flood control project per CDP requirements, nor has it managed the project, ever.
The Army Corp Flood Control Permit also had the same requirement for a second phase, however, it too was ignored.
As a result, the flood control project for the entire Playa Vista Project, appears to stand incomplete today, placing the public and infrastructure in harms way.
There is no current legal manager for the flood control project West of Lincoln. The Coastal Commission has not approved any entity except a non profit called the Ballona Wetlands Foundation to manage it. That business abandoned its obligation.
It is all part of the bigger picture for public access to public property and public safety.
John Davis