Could Downtown L.A. Transform From Parking Lot to Park?

"Thirty-eight years after Joni Mitchell penned her lyrics about paving over paradise with a parking lot, two dozen summer interns—gathered by planning and design firm EDAW—have helped plan a landscaped park over the mother of all parking lots. Namely, a bleak stretch of the 101 Freeway that slices through a trench in downtown Los Angeles, dividing some of the city’s most walkable and historic areas like Olvera Street, Chinatown, and Union Station from the downtown government and business districts.

The interns presented their plan, which they call Park 101, to a large crowd in front of the Caltrans building in late June. The scheme proposes placing a two-thirds-mile-long deck, or “cap,” on the 101 Freeway between Alameda and Grand avenues to the east and west and Temple Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue to the north and south. This would facilitate a 100-acre park, as well as 1.9 million square feet of mixed-use development on land lining the freeway that would help pay for the project’s infrastructure. Within the park itself, the interns designed an amphitheater, a folded landscape with a ridgeline trail, and several winding walkways."