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What if one way to make L.A. more people and less car friendly were to narrow the streets? What would tapered streets look like? How would a two lane road instead of a four lane one change the mood of a thoroughfare? How might they encourage/necessitate alternative transportation? What would it be like not to be “sunning at an outdoor cafe just steps from the edge of a six-lane, 50mph road”?

So asks David Yoon at Narrow Streets: Los Angeles. http://narrowstreetsla.blogspot.com/

And then he makes it happen. In photographs anyway.

Here’s Main and Hill in Santa Monica.

And here’s the same, but narrow.

It looks a lot more inviting to pedestrians and pedalers with sidewalk size in proportion to the street. And crossing now looks like a hop or skip versus a jog.  Here’s Sunset and Virgil by the Vista Theater.

And here’s the same, but narrow.

That vast expanse of asphalt has certainly shrunk as has the distance between destinations. Narrow Streets: Los Angeles takes requests if you have a street in mind that needs some shrinking.