July 29, 2025 • 9 mins
Jonathan Hale, photographer joins the show to talk to Gary and Shannon about how a group of West LA residents, frustrated by speeding traffic near Stoner Park, painted DIY crosswalks to improve pedestrian safety. The city, however, removed the markings.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before I was going to sleep.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
At seven pm last night, I was looking at social media,
which is a stupid idea. Don't do that, but I did,
and somebody sent me a video of up close tarantulas.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Not cool, don't do that. Not cool.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
After yesterday I talked about fear of tarantulas.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And we went through the whole thing. Let's not cool,
don't enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Down in what I call a little pocket neighborhood where
the ten and the four h five come together, that
sort of northwest corner of that is a beautiful little
park called Stoner Park. And we used to work with
somebody that lived nearby the ridge right there. Yeah, yeah,
And one of the problems around Stoner Park is a
lot of kids, a lot of foot traffic.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Not a lot of well marked crosswalks.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the people who live there said, you know what,
the city's not going to do anything. Let's take matters
into our own hands and protect our children. Jonathan Hale
is one of those people. He's a photographer. He joins us. Now, Jonathan,
how are you hey?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
As a gun I'm good? How are you good?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You recognize there was an issue on the streets right
around Stoner Park. How did you go from recognizing the
issue to pulling the trigger and making something happen about it.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, for sure. So there are a lot of moving
pieces here. I live in the area. I love walking
my dog to the park. I'm there almost every day.
I talk to my neighbors about issues. A lot. A
lot of people use those streets to cut through to
get around from the traffic getting on the four or
five and the streets like Olympic. I knew there was
a group doing this sort of work elsewhere in La
(01:42):
called the Crosswalk Collectives. I reached out to them. They
really helped me with this process. I talked to my
neighbors about it, organized a group of community members and yeah,
and then we went out there and did it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
You'd think that the city would be happy about this.
It removes liability. Really, somebody got or something. What was
the response you got?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yeah, so I guess. You know. To be clear, this
was about safety, but this was also a protest to
demonstrate the fact that the city cares more about process
over outcomes at the expense of people's safety and well being.
And I think the city demonstrated that when they removed
the crosswalks on Friday, They removed the crosswalks last Friday,
about seventy two hours after the first news media story
(02:25):
broke about this. The crosswalks have been in place since May,
and you know, I was out there on Friday. I
tried to talk to some of the workers and they
ignored me. I've basically given the city until next week,
and I'm saying, hey, look, I would really appreciate the
opportunity to collaborate. We should be talking about how we
can work together to make our streets safer and just
(02:46):
make it easier today get stuff done around here. But
so far I've reached I've gotten no response from the city.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So far, I was just going to say, a Tracy
Park is your city council representative, right, yes?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And radio silence from her and her office.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah. So we're pressuring her office to make an official statement.
I've been in contact with some of representatives from her office,
but I think they're kind of waffling on taking an
official position as of yet. But I'll give them a
few days. I would love to be clear. I would
love to work with them. I think this is something
where we have a lot of common ground. Like everybody
(03:25):
knows that it's impossible to get stuff done in the
city of la and we want to work together to
change that.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Was there inquiries to the city about, hey, can you
do something about this area.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Kids running around, can you do something to make it safer?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Before you took matters into your own hands.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
When it reached out to the Crosswalk Collective to do this,
they talked about having been met with hostility from the city.
The Crosswalk Collective has a form on their website and
people have submitted intersections to request crosswald from this like
underground group because they've gone through the official process, the
city channels and it's been like years and then the
(04:08):
city tells them that they don't have enough in the
budget for it. And so I figured, you know, we
know what's going to happen if I go through the
official channels. It's going to be we need to study,
we need to do a process of finding contractors, this, this,
and this, and then at the end of the day,
they're probably going to tell me that they don't have
the money for it. And you know, I didn't reach
out to the city. I reached out to my neighbors,
and I felt that that was more important.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You know absolutely, and you know, it's sad that it
gets to a point where you.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Know it's going to go nowhere that you're they're not
going to respond to you.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It's going to be years, and why put the kids
in the neighborhood at risk for waiting for all the
people with their heads up their asses at city Hall
to get.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Around to answering you.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And that's unfortunate because that is why these people are elected.
This is one of their main reasons for being there
in that position, is to keep the citizens safe in
the simplest ways possible, by the way, in the form
of a crosswalk outside of a city park.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing about the crosswalks is that
you know, legally there's crosswalks there regardless of whether they're marked,
because as a driver, you have to yield to pedestrians
in front of a stop sign. So putting the marketings
there doesn't change any of the viability stuff, and it
only makes drivers more aware that you know, it's an
area where there might be people crossing, there might be kids,
(05:27):
which it is. It's a park.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You used actual traffic grade marking paint, didn't Where'd you
get that?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah? I got it at Low's. Oh it's the valsh
bar zone marking paint. I paid for this out of pocket,
and I put out a call for fundraising on my
social media and people covered the costs pretty much instantly.
It really was a community effort.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Has anybody been hurt, you know in this area where
before you put in the crosswalks?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
You know, there was a liability settlement a few years
back that the Westside Current reported on anecdotally. I know
people who have been hit by cars nearby, not at
these exact corners, but you know, I've had my share
of close calls walking my dog. It's you know. We
didn't want to wait until that happened. Yeah, did.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And the reason I asked is just because the city
should know that by painting over these, they are opening
up themselves to even more liability should something happened. I mean,
they add a few more Not that I'm asking for
something to happen, God forbid, but add some more zeros
to whatever it would have been before they came in
and painted over these, or remove the paint.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I'll also note that the city didn't paint over them.
The city pressure washed them off. They had like a
skid steer, which is like kind of like a forklift
looking thing with an industrial pressure washer, and they, I mean,
they scoured them off the asphalt. If you go to
the park, there's clearly like you can see where the
(07:06):
pressure washer dug up the asphalt and where there used
to be the crosslock bars. And then after that they
sent in a street sweeper to like smooth out the asphalt,
but they probably took off like a quarter inch of
asphalt where each of the bars.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Are, so they made it worse than it was before.
And you're going to continue doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
You've you've already basically dedicated yourself to doing this regularly
and in order to keep pressure on the city.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean, I dude, I want to. I don't
want to. I would rather go back to my normal
life and be able to wake up late on Saturday mornings.
But you know, I plan on going out there this
Saturday with my friends and neighbors, and people are people
are excited about it. I've invited folks out, and you know,
that's unless the city offers to work with us or
(07:55):
issues some sort of statement basically explaining why it was
such a power already to remove the crosswalks. Instead of
working with neighbors who wanted to improve their community, and
if the city does that, then we can talk about,
you know, speeding up these bureaucratic processes and taking steps
to make our communities better. And then you know, we
can put this to the side. But all go out
(08:17):
there and then the city is probably going to say like, oh,
you shouldn't be doing that, You're you're wasting money. And
when it's when it's their choice, the balls in the
city's court. If they respond to me, I'll drop the issue.
But you know, if not, I'm prepared to take it there.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, we support you flipping the double birds to Tracy
Park and the rest of the city council and the
Department of Transportation, because that's.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And nothing brings the neighborhood together like a common enemy
like Jack coyote or a crosswalk or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Thanks man, you know I do, of course, I really
hope to find the common ground. I hope we can
make the neighborhood better and safer.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, Jonathan, you're doing great work. Thank you for that.
Jonathan Hale. There again, he was the guy who helped
spearhead this effort to try to put crosswalks around Stoner
Park before the city came in erased them
Before I was going to sleep.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
At seven pm last night, I was looking at social media,
which is a stupid idea. Don't do that, but I did,
and somebody sent me a video of up close tarantulas.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Not cool, don't do that. Not cool.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
After yesterday I talked about fear of tarantulas.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And we went through the whole thing. Let's not cool,
don't enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Down in what I call a little pocket neighborhood where
the ten and the four h five come together, that
sort of northwest corner of that is a beautiful little
park called Stoner Park. And we used to work with
somebody that lived nearby the ridge right there. Yeah, yeah,
And one of the problems around Stoner Park is a
lot of kids, a lot of foot traffic.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Not a lot of well marked crosswalks.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the people who live there said, you know what,
the city's not going to do anything. Let's take matters
into our own hands and protect our children. Jonathan Hale
is one of those people. He's a photographer. He joins us. Now, Jonathan,
how are you hey?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
As a gun I'm good? How are you good?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You recognize there was an issue on the streets right
around Stoner Park. How did you go from recognizing the
issue to pulling the trigger and making something happen about it.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, for sure. So there are a lot of moving
pieces here. I live in the area. I love walking
my dog to the park. I'm there almost every day.
I talk to my neighbors about issues. A lot. A
lot of people use those streets to cut through to
get around from the traffic getting on the four or
five and the streets like Olympic. I knew there was
a group doing this sort of work elsewhere in La
(01:42):
called the Crosswalk Collectives. I reached out to them. They
really helped me with this process. I talked to my
neighbors about it, organized a group of community members and yeah,
and then we went out there and did it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
You'd think that the city would be happy about this.
It removes liability. Really, somebody got or something. What was
the response you got?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yeah, so I guess. You know. To be clear, this
was about safety, but this was also a protest to
demonstrate the fact that the city cares more about process
over outcomes at the expense of people's safety and well being.
And I think the city demonstrated that when they removed
the crosswalks on Friday, They removed the crosswalks last Friday,
about seventy two hours after the first news media story
(02:25):
broke about this. The crosswalks have been in place since May,
and you know, I was out there on Friday. I
tried to talk to some of the workers and they
ignored me. I've basically given the city until next week,
and I'm saying, hey, look, I would really appreciate the
opportunity to collaborate. We should be talking about how we
can work together to make our streets safer and just
(02:46):
make it easier today get stuff done around here. But
so far I've reached I've gotten no response from the city.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So far, I was just going to say, a Tracy
Park is your city council representative, right, yes?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And radio silence from her and her office.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah. So we're pressuring her office to make an official statement.
I've been in contact with some of representatives from her office,
but I think they're kind of waffling on taking an
official position as of yet. But I'll give them a
few days. I would love to be clear. I would
love to work with them. I think this is something
where we have a lot of common ground. Like everybody
(03:25):
knows that it's impossible to get stuff done in the
city of la and we want to work together to
change that.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Was there inquiries to the city about, hey, can you
do something about this area.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Kids running around, can you do something to make it safer?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Before you took matters into your own hands.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
When it reached out to the Crosswalk Collective to do this,
they talked about having been met with hostility from the city.
The Crosswalk Collective has a form on their website and
people have submitted intersections to request crosswald from this like
underground group because they've gone through the official process, the
city channels and it's been like years and then the
(04:08):
city tells them that they don't have enough in the
budget for it. And so I figured, you know, we
know what's going to happen if I go through the
official channels. It's going to be we need to study,
we need to do a process of finding contractors, this, this,
and this, and then at the end of the day,
they're probably going to tell me that they don't have
the money for it. And you know, I didn't reach
out to the city. I reached out to my neighbors,
and I felt that that was more important.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You know absolutely, and you know, it's sad that it
gets to a point where you.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Know it's going to go nowhere that you're they're not
going to respond to you.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It's going to be years, and why put the kids
in the neighborhood at risk for waiting for all the
people with their heads up their asses at city Hall
to get.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Around to answering you.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And that's unfortunate because that is why these people are elected.
This is one of their main reasons for being there
in that position, is to keep the citizens safe in
the simplest ways possible, by the way, in the form
of a crosswalk outside of a city park.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing about the crosswalks is that
you know, legally there's crosswalks there regardless of whether they're marked,
because as a driver, you have to yield to pedestrians
in front of a stop sign. So putting the marketings
there doesn't change any of the viability stuff, and it
only makes drivers more aware that you know, it's an
area where there might be people crossing, there might be kids,
(05:27):
which it is. It's a park.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You used actual traffic grade marking paint, didn't Where'd you
get that?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah? I got it at Low's. Oh it's the valsh
bar zone marking paint. I paid for this out of pocket,
and I put out a call for fundraising on my
social media and people covered the costs pretty much instantly.
It really was a community effort.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Has anybody been hurt, you know in this area where
before you put in the crosswalks?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
You know, there was a liability settlement a few years
back that the Westside Current reported on anecdotally. I know
people who have been hit by cars nearby, not at
these exact corners, but you know, I've had my share
of close calls walking my dog. It's you know. We
didn't want to wait until that happened. Yeah, did.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And the reason I asked is just because the city
should know that by painting over these, they are opening
up themselves to even more liability should something happened. I mean,
they add a few more Not that I'm asking for
something to happen, God forbid, but add some more zeros
to whatever it would have been before they came in
and painted over these, or remove the paint.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I'll also note that the city didn't paint over them.
The city pressure washed them off. They had like a
skid steer, which is like kind of like a forklift
looking thing with an industrial pressure washer, and they, I mean,
they scoured them off the asphalt. If you go to
the park, there's clearly like you can see where the
(07:06):
pressure washer dug up the asphalt and where there used
to be the crosslock bars. And then after that they
sent in a street sweeper to like smooth out the asphalt,
but they probably took off like a quarter inch of
asphalt where each of the bars.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Are, so they made it worse than it was before.
And you're going to continue doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
You've you've already basically dedicated yourself to doing this regularly
and in order to keep pressure on the city.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean, I dude, I want to. I don't
want to. I would rather go back to my normal
life and be able to wake up late on Saturday mornings.
But you know, I plan on going out there this
Saturday with my friends and neighbors, and people are people
are excited about it. I've invited folks out, and you know,
that's unless the city offers to work with us or
(07:55):
issues some sort of statement basically explaining why it was
such a power already to remove the crosswalks. Instead of
working with neighbors who wanted to improve their community, and
if the city does that, then we can talk about,
you know, speeding up these bureaucratic processes and taking steps
to make our communities better. And then you know, we
can put this to the side. But all go out
(08:17):
there and then the city is probably going to say like, oh,
you shouldn't be doing that, You're you're wasting money. And
when it's when it's their choice, the balls in the
city's court. If they respond to me, I'll drop the issue.
But you know, if not, I'm prepared to take it there.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, we support you flipping the double birds to Tracy
Park and the rest of the city council and the
Department of Transportation, because that's.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And nothing brings the neighborhood together like a common enemy
like Jack coyote or a crosswalk or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Thanks man, you know I do, of course, I really
hope to find the common ground. I hope we can
make the neighborhood better and safer.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, Jonathan, you're doing great work. Thank you for that.
Jonathan Hale. There again, he was the guy who helped
spearhead this effort to try to put crosswalks around Stoner
Park before the city came in erased them
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