The Los Angeles River watershed, Green Streets 2025, ENLARGE
GREEN STREETS
Converting 2000 miles of boulevards to Green Streets
within the Los Angeles River basin produces the parkland distribution
illustrated by the above map. If the Green Streets are available as parkspace
3 days of the week, it yields the parkland ratios in the following comparison.
| (non-mountainous area) |
Population Density
|
Parkland Ratio
|
| Green Streets 2025 |
7000 people / sq mi
|
195 sq ft / person
|
| Negligence 2025 |
7000 people / sq mi
|
122 sq ft / person
|
| Present |
5625 people / sq mi
|
152 sq ft / person
|
Conceptual Green Street section through a typical 100-foot wide Los Angeles area boulevard, used to determine Green Street parkland ratios
The right-of-way configuration represented in this diagram is:
8 feet of sidewalk
8 feet of flexible parking lane, surfaced in grass
pavers
8 feet of flexible traffic lane, surface in porous
asphalt
22 feet for two dedicated traffic lanes
8 feet of median and left-turn lane
22 feet for two dedicated traffic lanes
8 feet of flexible traffic lane, surface in porous
asphalt
8 feet of flexible parking lane, surfaced in grass
pavers
8 feet of sidewalk
Rendering by author
Considering the sidewalks and flexible street lanes as parkland generates 5.5 acres of park for every mile of road. Adopting this model for 2000 miles of roadway adds 18 square miles of potential park to Los Angeles River basin. Although as noted above, determining the resultant parkland-to-person ratio assumes that time restrictions would limit the use of Green Streets as parks to 3 days per week. Thus 2000 miles of Green Streets would generate a net increase of 7.5 square miles of parkspace.
Grassroad Pavers and Invisible Structures are two companies that manufacturer grass paving systems suitable for constructing Grass Streets. Porous Pavement describes porous asphalt in non-technical detail.
Green Street from the car window
Rendering by author