South San Pedro and East 1st Street is a popular walking area. While a large part of walkability comes from the building development of the area, Little Tokyo activists are making efforts to guarantee the walkability is comfortable for all.
Little Tokyo is known as one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Besides being one of the smaller neighborhoods in Los Angeles, other factors impact what makes it so walkable. After all, walkability isn’t dependent on just one factor.
"Walkability is the level of comfort and accessibility an area provides, an accessibility means safe, comfort and interesting to people of all walking abilities," said Naomi Iwasaki, Special Advisor to the Great Street Program in Los Angeles Mayors Office. "If you can have a grandma walking around with a walker and feel safe, then that is a walkable community."
One factor that makes an area walkable is how well it responds to the needs of residents. According to the 2014 Los Angeles Census Tract, about 25 percent of Little Tokyo’s residents are ages 65 or older. The senior residents do walk around the area, using the local grocery stores and restaurants. But the large population brings to light some safety concerns the community has to deal with. Seniors often have a hard time hearing for movement behind them or moving out of the way quickly.
It became an issue when more bikers started biking on sidewalks. In order to bring awareness to seniors and bikers in the area about the rules of biking, the Little Tokyo Service Center this past summer organized a few biking and pedestrian workshops with the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.
Another step the Little Tokyo Service Center has taken towards making the area more walk-able for seniors is by doing a needs assessment with local seniors. The tour is a way for the community to assess crosswalks, sidewalk levels, shade, and bicycle paths with the seniors.
“Most seniors have a cane or a walker so even one gap makes it harder for them to walk around; it’s important we made note of where we had broken sidewalks,” said Yasue Clark, a community organizer at the Little Tokyo Service Center who completed a needs recent assessment.
In addition to accounting for the walking needs of a large number of senior residents, Little Tokyo has experienced a surge in popularity from visitors and developers the past few years. The influx has made it at times difficult for residents, bikers, and visitors to walk on the same narrow sidewalk.
However, what might be drawing new visitors to the area is just how walkable it is.
"People are now realizing it makes more sense to live closer to your job," said Takao Suzuki, Director of Community, Economic and Development at the Little Tokyo Service Center. "Developers are taking advantage of trend by using it as a marketing element when leasing out their building."
While the increase in visitors may be good for many of Little Tokyo’s small businesses, it’s led to a call for increased parking spots, more bike lanes, and development of over eight higher-income housing units. Often when more infrastructure is added, the amount of available space shrinks, making it less livable and thus less walkable.
Another factor that can affect an area’s walkability is how it was developed. Built in the 1880s, the ethnic enclave existed before the infamous sprawl, a time when urban development poured into undeveloped land outside of Los Angeles.
According to Kristin Fukushima, the project manager for Little Tokyo Community Council, Little Tokyo being built pre-sprawl played a huge role in how it became so walk-able.
"As the second oldest community in Los Angeles, we were built at a time when a lot of infrastructure and transportation didn’t exist," said Fukushima. "It was built with human pedestrians in mind."
With the advantage of being planned for pedestrians, Little Tokyo has been able to serve its people for the past 131 years by having the necessities residents need nearby. Local entertainment and businesses can make the difference between residents walking around the neighborhood versus traveling elsewhere.
"It’s just as much about the transportation as it is about land use in the neighborhood, there has to be people who want to come and walk around," said Deborah Murphy, founder of Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group.
While Little Tokyo has almost all components of walkability, it’s not perfect.
Murphy also emphasized that walking safety and pedestrian crossings are important components in determining walkability.
This past summer, the city of Los Angeles introduced Vision Zero, an effort to curb the number of pedestrian deaths in the city each year. Los Angeles currently has one of the highest pedestrian death rates in the country.
According to the High Injury Network, a data set of streets in Los Angeles where 65 percent of all deaths and severe injuries occurred in the last five years, at least two of the streets listed are in Little Tokyo (San Pedro Street and East 1st Street and East 1st Street and Alameda Street).
However, no plans have been made for Little Tokyo yet.
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