L.A. Green Bean

Poor kids. L.A. should get with the mass transit.

From the L.A. Weekly

On a recent afternoon in the Eastside neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, Fay Green stands in the hallway of her apartment complex, which sits just feet above the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the I-5 freeway.

A soft-spoken black woman, she lives with her five kids and one grandson in an urban planner's idea of perfection: the dense, "Avenue 26" master-planned community, touted by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the city's Department of Housing as an environmentally smart "transit-oriented development" in the city's core, efficiently served by light rail.

From the outside, the stylish-looking village of 156 condos, called Puerta del Sol, and 378 other apartments squeezed between Avenue 26 and the thundering I-5 gives off a Crate & Barrel vibe. But Green's four-bedroom unit, in the building dubbed Tesoro del Valle Family Apartments, is regularly dirtied by a heavy film of what she calls "dust." She explains, "I clean the place up, and in two or three days, I have to wipe again."

The bedroom of her young son, who has a sinus problem, requires extra attention so he can breathe; Green herself suffers from asthma. She says these sicknesses started before she moved to Avenue 26, erected less than 100 feet from one of the world's busiest, and filthiest, freeways, used by 285,000 vehicles per day. But when the weather is hot, or other conditions create smog, Green notices that many of her kids start to cough. She won't feel well, either. More

L.A. Weekly

Photo Source: EcoVelo