Some residents in a Sawtelle neighborhood took matters into their own hands back on July 23rd when they painted a crosswalk near Stoner Park. A couple of days later, the city painted over it.
Councilwoman Traci Park told KNX News’ Craig Fiegener that while the residents did a good job on it, the crosswalks posed some legal problems for the city.
“The paint has to be a certain color,” she explained. “You have to have a curb ramp at either end of it, and that's ultimately the problem with where these community-led crosswalks were installed. Installing the curb ramps is extremely time-consuming, and that is required under the federal [Americans with Disabilities Act]. Look, I don't want to be the bad guy and have to come out and say ‘no, you can't keep your crosswalk,’ right? If it was up to me, the crosswalk would have stayed.”
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Jonathan Hale, a resident who helped organize the painting, told KTLA he wanted to protect other residents from speeding drivers.
“It’s one thing to have things like stop signs and signs to tell cars to watch out for pedestrians,”he told the outlet.. “But it’s another thing to actually have the infrastructure in place that alerts cars that there are people crossing.”
Park told Fiegener it won't happen overnight, but she's working on getting more "official crosswalks" for the area.
