Photo courtesy of Curbed Los Angeles

New and exciting things are happening in the 10951 Pico neighborhood! The Expo line will connect the area around 10951 Pico with transit to Downtown and Santa Monica, as well as providing 1,795 new parking spaces.  It will also feature a 250 space free Caltran commuter lot.  The Expo Station will be less than a half mile from the 10951 Pico Creative Offices (at Veteran Avenue and Pico Boulevard), making the walk just under ten minutes.  Compared to other cities, where a ten minute walk is nothing, LA Westsiders consider this trek an inconvenience.  Even a short five-minute walk borders as unbearable.  Los Angelenos just don’t walk from parking or transit to work.

Even now, there is plentiful free parking along the Expo line that is a five-minute walk from the 10951 Pico Creative Offices.  However, some tenants do not recognize such parking as convenient.

In Beverly Hills for example, some office deals hinge on parking spaces next to the elevator.  It can get that competitive.  More transit and parking is coming, but the big question is if employees will get used to walking back and forth from the parking located 5-10 minutes away from their respective work locations.  As office densities continue to increase beyond five per 1000 square feet, tenants and employees alike will need find locations near parking and transit, and learn to walk longer to work.  A University of Michigan survey found that teenagers in 2010 were much less likely to drive than teenagers in 1983, so maybe times are changing.

The mixed-use project proposed at the Sepulveda/Pico site includes on-site bike and car sharing facilities, bicycle parking, and will even offer transit incentives and free or discounted Metro Passes to residents and employees by the developer.  Once this project is finished, time will tell if those enticing amenities and incentives will encourage more people to use transit to get to work.To learn more, read about the proposed parking in this article.