Running in LA

Just got back from a week-long conference in LA. I stayed downtown, where there were no good running routes. Lots of wide roads, cars, litter, and freeways. I eventually found a loop through Chinatown to Elysian Park, which offered some nice views of the city from the hilltops. But despite the scenic vistas, the park seemed underutilized and a little run down. I also found a small state park near some railroads and an underpass that had a circular dirt path -- good enough for Wednesday's 1,200 meter repeats. If I had rented a car, I could have taken advantage of some of the other area parks. (Like Griffith Park, where I hiked up the hill to the observatory on Sunday afternoon. In the observatory rotunda is one of the coolest murals I have ever seen: The March of Science Through the Ages by Hugo Ballin. ) I heard that planners are working on a scheme to make the LA river more of a welcoming public space. In general, they need more greenways to connect the core to the outlying parks. That's really hard to envision in a place that is so spread out and auto-dependent (and in a state that is flat broke).