The Marina Del Rey Land Use Plan sets forth a strong vision for revitalizing the 804-acre harbor district. The port is North America’s largest man-made small craft harbor, home to approximately 5,000 boats. It also includes nearly 6,000 residences, as well as hotels, shops, restaurants, boat yards, aquatic facilities, and a ferry terminal. The marina’s 1960s-era design, however, separates these attractions with wide swaths of underused surface parking. The plan envisions transforming this excess asphalt into restaurants, shops, housing, public parks, and a wide, gracious promenade.
To help make this vision a reality, Los Angeles County engaged a consulting team led by Fehr & Peers to prepare a Mobility Plan. Patrick Siegman led the development of the plan’s parking strategy, while a Principal at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting. The plan adopts a “Park Once” strategy, making it easy for residents, workers, and visitors to arrive, park once, and then visit multiple destinations on foot, by bicycle, or via transit. Improvements to walkways, bikeways, shuttles, and the harbor’s Waterbus will facilitate this. As many parking spaces as possible will be operated as a common pool of efficiently shared, publicly-available spaces. As private leaseholds are redeveloped or expire, the plan will bring their parking facilities into the publicly-available pool whenever feasible. To balance supply and demand in each lot, the plan proposes restructuring parking rates, charging higher rates for the most convenient lots. On busy holiday weekends, added shuttle service will ease access to remote parking.
The plan’s transportation demand management measures, such as a deep-discount group transit pass program providing free transit to residents and employees, aim to improve transportation choices. Together, these parking and traffic reduction strategies help fulfill the California Coastal Commission’s twin mandate: maximizing public access, and protecting, conserving, and restoring the coast for use by current and future generations.
Images: Marina del Rey aerial by Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; boat slips by Alan Levine, CC BY-2.0; panorama by Howcheng, CC BY-SA 3.0; all via Wikimedia Commons