Santa Monica Spoke joins LACBC and Los Angeles Safe Streets Advocates to call on Councilmember Ryu to Make 6th Street Safety Improvements

Walking or biking on 6th street between Fairfax and LaBrea feels like walking next to a highway. Cars, encouraged by the design of the roadway, consistently speed, and crashes are a frequent occurrence. Children and families who walk and bike to school, work, museums, and health centers must traverse broken glass and metal detritus left behind by vehicle collisions.

In 2012, a 74-year-old woman was hit by a car and killed while walking near the intersection of 6th and Hauser. Since then, two more of our neighbors’ lives have been taken by dangerous roadway conditions on 6th street between Fairfax and La Brea. The time for redesigning this section of 6th street is now.

For the past five years, community leaders have been focused on this problem, completing community walks, town halls, and meetings to work out a traffic design solution that would make the street safe for all to use. This ultimately led to the September 2016 unanimous vote by the Mid City West Council’s Board of Directors to implement a reconfiguration of 6th street between Cochran and Fairfax.

This would slow traffic by reducing the road to one lane in each direction, and allow for bike lanes and enhanced pedestrian crossings. Despite this vote, and the fact that the project is shovel-ready, Councilmember Ryu has consistently delayed taking action.  He has now proposed an alternative plan for 6th street, which would merely install left-turn pockets at certain intersections, leaving other dangerous intersections untouched.  

Please call, tweet or send a letter to David Ryu asking him to take action on safety and infrastructure improvements on 6th Street. On Saturday, October 21, we encourage folks to attend a community meeting about the project to make your voice heard.