Meeting_Body
REGULAR BOARD MEETING
FEBRUARY 23, 2023
Preamble
Motion by:
DIRECTORS SOLIS, DUPONT-WALKER, MITCHELL, HAHN, AND HORVATH
Improving Community Health and Safety at Westlake/MacArthur Park Station
Metro’s Westlake/MacArthur Park Station sits in the densest neighborhood in Los Angeles County. Since first opening in 1993, the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station has remained one of the most activated and highly used stations in Metro’s system and as a gathering place at the center of a culturally diverse and entrepreneurial community. Each day, tens of thousands of people move in and out of this regionally significant station served by all-day, frequent Metro Rail and Bus service to reach their bus or train, nearby businesses, and the surrounding public commons.
Despite these transit-supportive neighborhood characteristics, increasing instances of interpersonal harm and property damage at Westlake/MacArthur Park Station are impacting Metro’s ability to provide an attractive customer experience for transit riders and supportive working conditions for frontline employees who maintain this station. Recognizing that these challenges are manifestations of structural inequities, Metro must engage additional partners to go beyond the pilot design interventions identified in staff’s February 2022 report (File #: 2023-0079). Metro should take a holistic, equity-focused, and human-centered approach to improve customer experience and community health and safety at this station.
As such, Westlake/MacArthur Park Station is the most suitable location for Metro to pilot design and programming strategies that allow Metro to maintain well-designed, human-centered environments that meet transit rider needs. Metro should build on its initial planning to pilot care-centered strategies for Westlake/MacArthur Park Station and bus stops that improve the community’s sense of safety, well-being, and belonging, including but not limited to bathrooms, shade structures, on-site health and crisis support services, cultural programming, greening, public art, and local entrepreneurial activity. Metro can draw from lessons learned from previous activation efforts at this station and other station pop-up events, like the September 2022 Compton A (Blue) Line Station in partnership with the Alliance for Community Transit for Los Angeles (ACT-LA).
In line with the Board approved Metro Equity Platform and Strategic Plan, Metro should build on its ongoing Westlake/MacArthur Park station community outreach and engagement efforts, like Metro’s Joint Development Centro Westlake Project Advisory Task Force, to develop an implementation plan that enhances customer experience and improves community health and safety.
Subject
SUBJECT: IMPROVING COMMUNITY HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WESTLAKE/MACARTHUR PARK STATION MOTION
Heading
RECOMMENDATION
Title
APPROVE Motion by Directors Solis, Dupont-Walker, Mitchell, Hahn, and Horvath that the Board direct the Chief Executive Officer or her designee to provide a report back in June 2023 that includes a plan for implementing care-centered strategies to improve community safety and health at the Westlake/MacArthur Plaza Station and nearby transit stops. The report should consider the following:
A. Summarizing social climate insights and feedback themes from a review of past surveys, community meetings/workshops, focus groups, and/or socioeconomic data;
B. Conducting language-inclusive station customer experience (CX) research involving transit riders, frontline workers, and community members to identify their priorities and preferences for transit station and stop amenities and uses;
C. Identifying and comparing different pilot model options to bring care-centered strategies to this station by total cost, timeline, partnerships needed, and community benefit; and
D. Developing recommendations for implementing identified strategies at existing and future Metro transit stations and stops, including potential funding sources.