Paris Greens the Seine while L.A. — well, what does L.A. do about the river?

Posted: August 8th, 2012

PARIS . . . Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who has pushed the use of bicycles and now electric cars in Paris while increasing the number of bus and bicycle lanes, has wanted to return long stretches of the banks of the Seine to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. . . .

Mr. Delanoë . . . also started the summer “Paris plages,” shutting down parts of the roadway in the summer to cover them with sand, creating urban beaches for citizens and tourists to get tans and eat their lunches. . . .

Mr. Delanoë . . . has moved ahead with the project, estimated to cost about $43.4 million to $49.6 million.

“We are committed to transform the road along the riverbank into a place of life, beauty and culture,” Mr. Delanoë said, noting that Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has placed the banks of the Seine on its World Heritage List. . . .

Similar efforts to take back rivers have been made in other French cities, like Bordeaux, a pioneer . . .; Lyons; and Toulouse, which has a major project to create a riverside park about the size of New York’s Central Park [840 acres].

Read the article in the N.Y. Times . . .

The City Project has covered how Madrid and New York City have also completed major river revitalization projects to create world class places of life, beauty and culture within the past ten years.  In contrast, while community allies support restoring Griffith Park on the East Bank of the Los Angeles River, the General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department blocked a site tour there by the Mayor’s office and The City Project on August 3, 2012. Why?