INTRODUCTION OF PROJECT The Boulevard is an effort by three UCLA urban planning master’s students to engage the public in the process of revitalizing Culver City’s Washington Boulevard. Our project is an extension of the West Washington Area Improvement Program (WWAIP) started by Culver City in 2007 (link to program website). The WWAIP has thus far accomplished landscaped medians to beautify the commercial corridor, a commercial facade program to upgrade building facades, and an identity banner program to symbolize the area’s renewal and regeneration. The program is divided into six phases, of which the first three (Beethoven St. to Centinela Ave.) have been completed with the aforementioned improvements. In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the urban planning master's degree, 15 students are partnering with Culver City to study possible improvements for the last three phases. The purpose of The Boulevard is to create an online platform to showcase the work of these students, and, through blog entries and updates to the website, keep the public up-to-date with the improvements being proposed. The students have been studying the area for four months through market and demographic analyses, and field observations, and have begun to produce their final recommendations. The Boulevard will show students’ findings and recommendations and allow the public to navigate to their topics of interest by clicking on our tabs (General Land Use, Retail Classification, Pedestrian Collisions, and Bicycle Collisions). We envision this online platform as a place for people to hone in on their areas of interest, instead of having to leaf through a hard-copy plan. Through our maps, graphs, and images we can tell a story from existing conditions, to analysis, to recommendations, making it a revealing and entertaining experience for the public. GENERAL LAND USE The West Washington Area Improvement Program study area is Washington Blvd., between Walnut Ave. and Atlantic Ave. The area encompasses the street, and one block north and south of Washington Blvd. In this area there are a total of 284 businesses/residences. More than half of these (154) are retail land uses. The second largest land use in the area is office, comprising 21% of all the land uses. Residential land uses comprise 10% of the land use classifications. Nine percent of the businesses are vacant and the remaining 6 percent are either institutional, hotel, or raw land. RETAIL CLASSIFICATION More than half of the land uses (154 of 284) in the West Washington Area Improvement Program are retail. We have classified retail land uses into 12 different categories: Apparel, Automotive, Bank, Beauty, Electronics, Grocery, Health & Fitness, Home Décor, Liquor & Tobacco, Neighborhood Retail, Regional Retail, and Restaurant. Neighborhood retail and restaurants make up a large portion of the retail land uses, 22% and 21% respectively. Neighborhood retail includes businesses such as laundry and dry cleaners, print shops, tailors, spas, etc. Automotive and beauty businesses follow, each making up 14% of the retail classification. Health & fitness businesses also make up a substantial amount of the retail classification (nine percent). Costco is the only business classified as regional retail. BIKE COLLISIONS Looking at bike-motorist collisions on Washington Blvd., most collisions concentrate on the western portion of Washington Blvd., from Walnut Ave. to Atlantic Ave. Between 2003 and 2007, there were 79 reported bike collisions in Culver City. Some notable clusters emerge along Washington Blvd., leading toward the Costco area. Between 2008 and 2012, there were a total of 164 reported bike collisions in Culver City. Bike collisions have overall increased in the past 10 years, which could be due to the increasing Culver City biking population. Recurring bike collisions from 2003-2007 and 2008-2012 are in the intersections of Washington Blvd. at Glencoe Ave. We are in the process of looking closer at these intersections and recommending improvements. PEDESTRIAN COLLISIONS Looking at historical data regarding the areas of high pedestrian-motorist collisions, it is clear that the most problematic area is near the Costco. This area sees high levels of vehicular traffic for most of the day, on both weekdays and weekends. Between 2003 and 2007 there were 115 pedestrian collisions in Culver City, while between 2008 and 2012, there were 108. Pedestrian collisions have somewhat remained constant over the past 10 years. This means that pedestrian collisions per capita have gone down. We are in the process of looking closer at intersections of recurring collisions and recommending improvements.