Valerie Watson works for the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) as an urban designer and transportation planner. Valerie, along with her colleagues in the LADOT Active Transportation Division, works to promote implementation of pedestrian- and bicycle-focused design, develop active transportation plans and policies, establish effective partnerships within the City and with advocacy and community organizations, and secure funding opportunities to enhance safety for people who walk, bike and access transit. Her work has created the foundation for the City’s first ever Safe Routes to School Strategic Plan, shoring up a Complete Streets Engineering Toolbox, infusing a data-driven approach into the department’s activities, and – in 2015 – launching Mayor Eric Garcetti’s citywide Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. She now serves as LADOT’s Great Streets Coordinator and focuses on managing signature street reconfiguration projects. From 2012-2015, Valerie led the inter-disciplinary team effort resulting in the formalization of People St, a city-wide application-based program that offers communities a process for installing plazas and parklets, low-cost and quickly installed design treatments that reallocate road space as public open space and demonstrate the benefits of investing in the public realm.

More info: peoplest.lacity.org and visionzero.lacity.org