Following up on my
pledge to donate $1,000 to Childrens' Hospital Los Angeles (Edit: now
Tree Musketeers) if El Segundo addresses the pedestrian problems at the intersection of Utah and Douglas, I have another similar pledge to make. This one also deals with Douglas Avenue. Care to take a guess what route I commute to work on foot every day? Yes, it includes Douglas Avenue.
Douglas Avenue used to be a one-way street. When it was recently converted to two-way, some parts were left half-baked. The Los Angeles Air Force base subsequently spent quite a bit of time and effort beautifying their Douglas entrance and the sidewalk along the west edge of the property—the sidewalk I routinely use. It looks like this:
Aside from the imposing spikes saying, "Keep Out," this is an otherwise inviting, safe sidewalk. Thank you, LAAFB!
Just north of this patch is an awkward parking lot adjacent a power substation and the new LAAFB parking structure. The lot is awkward because it's paved at a slight wedge-like angle and, as far as I can tell, isn't used by anyone. But no matter, it's easy to just walk across this lot.
The trouble is this stretch of sidewalk after that power substation lot:
It's about 4 feet wide and sloped at a 15-20 degree angle toward Douglas Avenue. Vehicles moving at 40+ MPH are immediately to my left.
I grew up walking on worse. I used to walk to school in South Torrance in the bike lane of PCH. There was no sidewalk at all. But I'm no longer quite as sure-footed as I was in high school. While I've not once lost my footing on this stretch of Douglas, it sure would be reassuring to have a regular sidewalk rather than deal with this:
I'm not precisely sure who is responsible for this property. I think it may be Northrop Grumman, whose parking lot is immediately inside the chain-link fence. But it may be the city of El Segundo.
In any event,
I will donate $1,000 to El Segundo's own
Tree Musketeers if whomever is responsible replaces this with a proper sidewalk.
This is the second such large bounty I have put on a task at my site,
the El Segundo Taskforce. I'm hoping that I can get the powers-that-be to take notice and act on one or more of these things that is of particular interest to me.
So far, El Segundo has not been very receptive to my pressure, but that's the purpose of the bounties to charity. If they attend to these matters, they can consider themselves responsible for a major charitable donation.
If you agree with me, or have your own idea for how to improve El Segundo (or elsewhere), please join me at
Brian's Taskforce.