On the Sunday morning of October 7th thousands of cyclists and walkers came out to South LA to enjoy a great day out at CicLAvia. Major roads intersecting downtown LA were closed for the day, making it safe for people to ride or walk through the neighborhood with lots of entertainment along the way.
Our team with RideSouthLA seized this day to distribute our latest map (see our pictures), showing people exactly where they could find healthy food around the South LA area. Our healthy food map, which is available for download in draft form, also shows what routes are and unsafe to use to get to these destinations. We made the map based on data collected with a group of teenagers from local middle and high schools, who walked and cycled through the community and took pictures of healthy food places encountered along the way.
What did people think? On the day of CicLAvia, we handed out over 300 maps. Everyone was very engaged and we managed to collect feedback from 85 respondents from 60 different ZIP codes. The map below shows which parts of Los Angeles our respondents come from:
The overall common trends that were identified from the responses are that:
1) People think that you cannot get any or not enough healthy food in South LA. Surprisingly even some respondents that are born and raised in the area had this opinion.
2) Some responded that the healthy food you could find was restricted to fruits and vegetables but not actual healthy meals.
3) People were surprised at the variety of healthy food choices that the map provided.
4) People were not aware of the community and urban garden in the area.
5) When asked if they would find this map useful, most respondents agreed that it was useful and were surprised by the map’s findings.
It makes us really happy to see that the community finds our project of use and that we can help people find more healthy and affordable food options for themselves and their families.
We are still in the process of collecting more feedback and would love to hear your thoughts and comments on our map. So please share these with us in response to this post. We would also be delighted if you could join us on our next ride and walk on November 4th, where we will be further testing the map.
If you would like to come along, please meet us at Mercado La Paloma (3655 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90007) at 10am on Sunday November 4th.
We want to thank everyone that contributed to this fantastic day at CicLAvia and we are already looking forward to next year.