County's space odyssey keys on more greenways.

Program envisions hundreds of miles of linear parks

When it came to designing Los Angeles County during its rapid post-war growth, one thing was left out: open space.

Only 4 percent of the Los Angeles area is dedicated to public space, according to Bill Fain Jr., managing partner of Johnson Fain & Pereira Associates, an architecture and planning firm in West L.A.

In contrast, New York has 17 percent, Seattle has 15 percent and both Boston and San Francisco have 9 percent of their land devoted to public parks.

But plans to develop more open space in L.A. County are gaining momentum.

One of the more exciting ideas in the genesis stage is to convert abandoned and seldom-used rail lines, river courses and land along Metro Rail rights-of-ways into an interlocking labyrinth of 400 to 600 miles of greenways or linear parks. The greenways would snake through L.A., connecting neighborhoods and historic and cultural sites from the beach communities to the mountains.

"The riots occurred because neighborhoods don't understand each other," said Fain, an urban planner who is very involved in promoting the greenway concept. "I want the community to wake up to the fact that they have this tremendous asset and need to reinvent 'connectiveness.' ...We're an isolationist city that promotes isolationism."

The vision for greenways is more than just a mere pie-in-the-sky idea.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission hired the nonprofit Mountains Conservancy Foundation this summer to develop a conceptual greenway-corridors map for the county, identifying specific sites on rights of ways owned by the LACTC and trails along flood-control channels, which are candidates for conversion into green space.

The map, titled "Preliminary Greenway Corridor Opportunities," identifies 85 miles of trails from Long Beach to the Angeles National Forest, connecting neighborhoods to universities and historic and cultural points of interest.

A couple of trails even connect into the developing 65-mile trail through the Santa Monica Mountains, which joins Will Roger State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades to Point Mugu in Ventura County. That trail, the brainchild of the conservancy foundation, is 90 percent completed, said Ruth Kilday, executive director.

The conservancy presented its plan for developing 13 greenway sites, covering 85 miles, to the LACTC Oct. 14. In November, the commission will select which sites should be developed immediately, said Nick Patsaouras, director of the Southern California Regional Transit Authority, an LACTC commissioner and long-time cheer-leader for "bringing the country back to Los Angeles."

Two of the sites being considered for greenways include the 12.2 miles of abandoned rail beds stretching from USC to Santa Monica and 25 miles running between Burbank and Chatsworth.

The commission already broke ground on its first greenway site last month.

That greenway, called the Watts Urban Greenways Project, consists of a 60,000-square-foot vacant lot owned by the LACTC, adjacent to the Metro Blue Line tracks. Development of that site began Sept. 14 and should be done in six months, said Patsaouras.

The project will connect the 103rd Street Metro Blue Line Station to the historic Watts Towers. The commission allocated $90,000 in fiscal year 1991-1992 Proposition A Rail Program Development Funds for the design and installation of the project.

Despite severe budget shortfalls at all levels of government, Patsaouras said the greenway project is a "very viable project."

"In fact, it is one of the most viable projects in the city," he said. He said the city already has the real estate because LACTC owns close to 500 miles of transit rights of way. He said the greenways could be adopted by the communities they go through and could be maintained by high schools and neighborhood groups.

The LACTC's 30-year plan does not specifically provide money for maintaining LACTC-owned rights of way, nor does it budget any money for the LACTC's Urban Greenways Program. Some specific LACTC project budgets, including its electric trolley bus program and transit station enhancements, however, provide for some landscaping. But the LACTC is counting on a large amount of state grants for environmental enhancement and, Patsaouras said, the commission will be identifying further funding sources.

One such source could be money from Measure A, a proposition on November's ballot. The measure would provide $540 million to rehabilitate and build parks, protect open space areas and build senior citizen centers. It would earmark $5 million for river restoration, trails and greenways, said Corey Brown, legislative director with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.

Along with funding questions, the greenways plan has also met with some grassroots resistance.

Cyclists and homeowner groups have both opposed plans to turn the Santa Monica-to-Exposition Park corridor into a greenway. Cyclists want to see commuter trails, not recreational trails; and homeowner groups insist the proposed trails will increase traffic in their neighborhoods bringing more crime and lowering property values.

A bill authored by state Sen. Art Torres, D-Los Angeles, would have established a seven-member commission to develop a plan for transforming 58 miles of the Los Angeles River into parkland, with wildlife habitat. That bill was vetoed by Gov. Pete Wilson in September. It was also opposed by officials in Long Beach and Downey, who argued it would interfere with their plans for flood control. Torres has not announced whether he will reintroduce the bill.

Meanwhile, urban planner Fain said he does not see how the LACTC can build on pieces of land it does not control, or how it can find the money needed to finance its grandiose greenway plan, which he says would take 20 to 50 years to complete.

Instead, it might be more viable to develop a regional commission to oversee the project, Fain suggested, similar to the commission in Boston.

He said Boston's 1915 Metropolitan District Commission handles the upkeep and security for a series of parks in the city called the Emerald Necklace.

Patsaouras does not dismiss the idea of a regional commission, if the project takes off. But he said he favors less bureaucracy.

He said his idea is to generate excitement among the agencies that own the Los Angeles River and flood-control channels, as well as residents and elected officials of the communities through which the LACTC's proposed greenway system would run. The idea of developing greenways in L.A. County is far from new; it has been brewing for a few years.

Under a federal law enacted in 1988, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of the Interior must encourage the conversion of unused rail beds into trails.

A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit conservancy, called Rails-to-Trails, has helped communities throughout the U.S. convert more than 6,300 miles of railroad rights of way into trails.

Patsaouras said he made a motion in 1990 for the LACTC to turn railroad rights of way into greenways and to start developing a countrywide masterplan.

Meanwhile, Fain and his associates, while masterplanning the 1,200-acre Warner Center and 400-acre Central City West, noticed the severe dearth of parkland in L.A. County. At that time, Fain and his firm began doing their own research on open space.

In August 1991, Fain's office started working on a greenway masterplan. Earlier this year, he enlisted five people from his office to spend eight weeks mapping out the greenway plan. Fain estimates his firm has invested $105,000 worth of labor into developing the masterplan. The maps resulting from that effort now surround a conference room. Fain said he has also logged hundreds of miles in his car and bike, riding around the city, taking photographs of potential greenway areas.

Fain said he presented his comprehensive greenway plan to Patsaouras at a brainstorming session in February.

Patsaouras, a potential mayoral candidate, gathered together five Los Angeles "visionaries" to discuss ideas for improving L.A. Those "visionaries were: Fain; Frank Gehry, world-renowned architect; Michael Rotondi, director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture; Kurt Meyer, former chair of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency; and Kevin Starr, nationally acclaimed author on L.A.

"Our main priority is establishing connectivity," said Patsaouras. "We are going to bring the country back into the hard, asphalt concrete of Los Angeles."