They discovered a brand new park hiding in plain sight in the midst of L.A.

Simply previous midday, a younger man appeared on the north aspect of San Vicente Boulevard, a block west of Hauser, and eyeballed the circulation of westbound site visitors.

When he noticed a gap, he slid throughout to the median strip, the place he waited for eastbound site visitors to let up earlier than crossing over to the south aspect of San Vicente to choose up some takeout meals. After which he retraced his steps throughout the 150-foot broad thoroughfare that knifes by means of the center of town alongside what as soon as was the Purple Automobile line of the Pacific Electrical Railway.

He ought to have used the close by crosswalk, however there aren’t sufficient of these on the boulevard, so pedestrians routinely skitter and scoot throughout the road like they’re in a sport of Frogger.

I watched this drama the opposite day from Dam Good Espresso, the place I met with two guys who reside within the neighborhood and, of their spare time, have been doing a number of pondering. They’re fine-tuning a pitch to reengineer the boulevard, cut back site visitors, enhance entry to 2 new transit traces and rework the Mid-Metropolis portion of San Vicente Boulevard — from the Beverly Heart on the west to only previous La Brea on the east — right into a 3-mile, 30-acre linear park.

Formidable. Outlandish. Insane.

Catherine Geanacouras, Oren Hadar and Michael Wacht, from left, of the San Vicente Park Foundation.

It’s all of that and a longshot endeavor, given the numerous obstacles that may derail their dream. However Oren Hadar, a sound engineer, and Michael Wacht, an architect, are severe, together with a small coalition of neighborhood believers.

“One of many issues I all the time say is L.A. must get again into the enterprise of taking huge swings,” Hadar mentioned. He’s motivated partly by the truth that his two younger children don’t have a close-by park to play in.

The large swing comes at a time when Los Angeles has simply fallen from ninetieth to 93rd by way of park acreage, funding and accessibility within the annual Belief for Public Lands rating of the 100 largest cities within the U.S. You’d assume a metropolis with nice climate and 1000’s of house dwellers with little or no outside house would battle its manner into the highest 10 relatively than accept sinking to the underside of the heap.

“What if L.A.’s subsequent nice park was already right here, hiding in plain sight?” a narrator asks in a video that seems on the group’s San Vicente Park web site.

Local resident Jo and her dog Elle carefully cross San Vicente Boulevard.

Solar-baked asphalt would give strategy to turf. Pedestrians and cyclists would have extra respiration room. There’d be far much less site visitors.

“You’ll be able to put in micro forests,” Wacht mentioned. “You are able to do farmers markets. You are able to do rising areas. You are able to do fountains. Playgrounds.”

Catherine Geanuracos, a CicLAvia board member who was an advocate for turning the Silver Lake Reservoir into an aquatic park, joined our dialog and referred to as the thought “eminently possible.”

“I feel that is what makes L.A. nice,” Geanuracos mentioned. She’s lived in New York Metropolis and San Francisco and thinks there’s larger alternative right here for engaged residents to advance their civic enchancment concepts.

The advocates mentioned they’d gotten some encouragement from Councilmembers Heather Hutt and Katy Yaroslavsky, whose districts embrace the world of the proposed park. Hutt’s workplace despatched me a press release saying she helps “effrorts to create extra walkable, inexperienced communities.” She mentioned she has inspired the group to maintain exploring the imaginative and prescient, and he or she appears to be like ahead to listening to enter from varied different neighborhood teams.

Hadar writes a weblog referred to as The Future Is L.A., which is a component love letter to Los Angeles and half lament on unmet potential.

“Nearly each different main American metropolis has a coverage and analysis assume tank devoted to pursuing concepts that would make town higher,” Hadar not too long ago wrote, calling for L.A. to have its personal.

I don’t need to say the park concept’s likelihood is slim, however let’s take a look at a couple of hurdles.

Traffic passes through the intersection of San Vicente Boulevard and La Brea.

L.A. metropolis authorities has bother managing current parks and even the open areas round Metropolis Corridor, so how can it construct and care for an additional 30 acres of greenery?

The fee can be within the hundreds of thousands, and the cup doesn’t runneth over.

After which there’s the largest pothole of all on the street to pastoral marvel:

Creating the park would imply squeezing off one or two lanes of site visitors in every path of San Vicente. That might dump extra vehicles onto surrounding streets and arrange one other street weight loss program conflict that pits automotive tradition in opposition to rising demand for a metropolis that’s safer and extra inviting for many who stroll, bike and use transit.

All of this might be examined in a feasibility research the advocates are elevating cash for. However the supporters declare San Vicente is calmly traveled in comparison with Wilshire, Pico and Olympic, so stealing site visitors lanes wouldn’t be catastrophic.

I discussed that I’d assume twice about sending children to play in a median strip park. However the supporters mentioned San Vicente would grow to be extra of a neighborhood service avenue than a thruway, with safer crossings into the brand new park, which by the way in which already has loads of full-grown timber.

Once I took a stroll and polled folks on the park concept, I acquired blended reactions.

“That’s a nasty concept,” mentioned a person who was strolling alongside the median strip. He mentioned he thought that after the addition of motorbike lanes a couple of years in the past squeezed vehicular site visitors, San Vicente grew to become extra harmful, and the thought of a park between lanes of site visitors sounded disastrous to him.

Miguel Lopez seemed like he was attempting to convey the park imaginative and prescient to life. He sat on the median strip studying a e-book and smiled when he was proven a rendering of San Vicente Park.

Blanca Vanburian practices tai chi in her yard along San Vicente Boulevard

Blanca Vanburian, who was doing a variation of Tai Chi on the garden exterior her house constructing, had a number of good questions, together with one about whether or not town might be trusted to take care of a brand new park. She mentioned a number of residents can be involved about new site visitors flows by means of aspect streets, and he or she puzzled if the park would entice extra homeless folks.

Hadar advised her the feasibility research would probe all of that, and the extra she heard, the extra Vanburian got here round to the thought of the park.

“It’s as much as us how we use public house,” Wacht mentioned, looking on a very unattractive stretch of roadway that generates a lot exhaust and serves as a barrier, dividing two neighborhoods. “I get disenchanted once I see a lot of it dedicated to this, and it’s retaining us from being extra of a cohesive neighborhood.”

Margaret Free walks three basset hounds along San Vicente Boulevard.

Margaret Free was strolling three Basset hounds — Bob, Doris and Ruth. She mentioned she and the canines might be counted as 4 votes in favor of the park.

A lady named Jo safely managed a Frogger crossing together with her canine, Elle. Jo mentioned she was completely in favor of a park and doesn’t assume dropping lanes of auto site visitors is a nasty factor, however she feared backlash from drivers who disagree and requested me to withhold her final identify.

Joshua Mock, proprietor of Dam Good Espresso, mentioned everybody would profit from the park, particularly neighborhood youngsters. “It’d be dope,” he mentioned, “and good for enterprise.”

For all of the doubters, the advocates level to a number of initiatives across the nation the place public areas have been repurposed, together with the New York Metropolis Excessive Line. They usually observe that a number of native initiatives are within the design or building section, together with the L.A. River grasp plan, the Broadway-Manchester streetscape venture and the park beneath the Sixth Avenue bridge.

In case you have concepts for remaking your neighborhood, ship them my manner.

And take huge swings.

steve.lopez@latimes.com