Connecting the beach with one of Santa Monica’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, the Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway (MANG) is envisioned to be a tranquil bike route and livable street environment for people who walk, ride a bike, and drive. Following from the progressive City of Santa Monica Bike Action Plan, which outlined the need for a “bicycle boulevard” in the area, the City was awarded a Caltrans Environmental Justice Transportation Planning Grant to conduct robust community outreach, develop conceptual designs, and build support for the MANG.

Meléndrez, with IBI Group and Community Arts Resources (CARS), has been selected to work with the City of Santa Monica to bring the bike greenway to life, through technical analysis and feasibility, and through hands-on, interactive tactical urbanism interventions.  To build community support for the project and solicit meaningful feedback from the neighborhood, the project team will “test” one or more of the range of options through a temporary street installation event in which some elements of the preferred alternative are laid out spatially on the ground for all to see. Through this tactical urbanism approach, the team, City staff, and project stakeholders will see first hand how the street behaves with such interventions in place.

Santa Monica Mirror: http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Michigan-Avenue-Neighborhood-Greenway-Planned/35288

Curbed LA: http://la.curbed.com/archives/2012/08/new_way_to_the_beach_greenway_for_samos_michigan_avenue.php