Garcetti Issues His First Executive Directive: A “Great Streets” Initiative

Mayor Garcetti greeting reporters outside the event.

Earlier this afternoon, Mayor Garcetti delivered the keynote address at the Urban Land Institute’s “Transit Oriented Los Angeles” conference. A few minutes after taking the stage he announced that today—on his 102nd day in office—he would be issuing his first Executive Directive: the implementation of a “Great Streets” program for the city. This announcement was greeted with raucous applause from the crowd, and Garcetti went on to explain that program would focus on improving the quality and livability of streets around the city.

Speaking of the initiative, he said “Their first priority will be to make sure streets projects are coordinated. No more Bureau of Street Services paving a street on Monday, DWP digging it up on Tuesday. Let’s also combine a DWP pipe project with some street furniture funds and with a sidewalk repair project all at the same time.”

He also made sure to bring up his trademark emphasis on design, saying “as your mayor I believe that good design matters, and our Great Streets initiative will reflect this.”

According to Garcetti, streets make up approximately 13% of the city, or 60 square miles, and are the city’s largest open space resource. Interestingly, all that land intended for automobiles is only occupied by cars 5% of the time. He also quoted Rebecca Solnit, saying “the magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.”