Huge Ped-Friendly Figueroa Makeover Set to Start in January

It's been a while since anyone's heard anything on MyFigueroa, LADOT's ambitious but delayed plan to remake Figueroa Street, between Downtown and Exposition Park, into a bike-friendly, multimodal transit corridor. The lawsuits against the project were cleared last year and work was supposed to begin in early 2015; it's now March, and we haven't heard a peep, but things take time—public infrastructure programs especially—and MyFig is still coming along. Ground will be broken in January 2016, with work wrapping up in December 2016, according to LADOT engineering associate Tim Fremaux.

Fremaux says the plans are still being finalized, but should be finished this coming June. The project will go out to bid shortly thereafter, giving the selected contractor ample time to prepare for construction.

MyFig will run from Seventh (where Fig meets the Red and Purple Lines) to Forty-First Street (just past the Expo Line), with feeder spurs east down Eleventh to Broadway and west down Martin Luther King to Vermont. The eight existing lanes of traffic will be reduced to five to accommodate the city's first cycle track (separated completely from car traffic), bus platforms, and a dedicated peak-hours diamond lane for the Silver Line and other express bus service. Safety will be improved with the installation of continental crosswalks and pedestrian-focused lighting and signage. Preparations are being made for the Downtown Streetcar as well, assuming that ever breaks ground.

Things looked grim for while there—conditions of the Prop 1C grant that funds MyFigueroa initially called for an end to construction by 2015 (whoops!). Matters were complicated further when the owner of several car dealerships along the proposed route challenged LADOT's environmental studies. But the state granted the project a two-year extension, and the city managed to placate the carman, who was less concerned with environmental impact than with access to his car dealerships.

The very, very first MyFig steps have already been taken now—the Bureau of Street Lighting finished installing pedestrian-focused streetlights last month. —Ian Grant
· MyFigueroa [Curbed LA]
· Here's the Newest Look For Huge Figueroa Street Overhaul [Curbed LA]
· MyFigueroa [LADOT]