Taking a walk on the wild side with the pedestrians of downtown San Pedro

For the first time in its history, the Los Angeles City Council met in San Pedro last week. And in a city where the sound of footsteps has been all but drowned out by the rumble of mufflers and the jingling of car keys, what did the council members do?

They enacted an ordinance that promotes walking.

The council approved a 6-month experimental ban on bicycles and skateboards in a 4-block section of downtown San Pedro, after complaints that riders pose hazards to pedestrians.

So who’s walking these days?

In San Pedro, Julianna Ghete does. Jeffrey Pinckney does. Jose Zazueta does. Karen Benoit tried it out for the first time in San Pedro and said never again.

These four were interviewed along Pacific Avenue after the council enacted the ban. None had arrived there by car.

Ghete, dressed in a gray skirt and jacket, gray felt hat and Reebok tennis shoes, was the picture of an experienced walker, not unlike any number of women in East Coast cities where people walk all the time.

Ghete, who lives in Long Beach, says she could drive but prefers to take the bus to San Pedro, where she walks for exercise while doing errands. She was headed toward a Norwegian bakery.

Pinckney has lived near San Pedro’s business district for two years. He says he’d rather drive--”It’s easier to get from point A to point B”--but he doesn’t have a car. So he finds himself walking. For fun, he ambles over to Ports O’Call Village or Cabrillo Beach.

“This is a very entertaining place,” he says.

Zazueta, a retired machinist who says he “used to sleep in the street,” takes the bus from Wilmington to downtown San Pedro, where he walks to his church, Mary Star of the Sea. Sitting on a bus bench at Pacific Avenue and 7th Street, he peered out from under a baseball cap and said: “Sometimes, lady, I’d walk from here to Wilmington when I was broke.”

Benoit, who moved to the area so recently that she could not remember the name of her street, was taking her first walk through downtown San Pedro, pushing a stroller that held her two children--a 15-month-old and a 4-month-old. She said she didn’t think she’d try it again because too many men shouted at her from passing cars.

Benoit said she never walked when she lived in Torrance. “It was too dangerous,” she said, adding that she moved to San Pedro after her car was stolen.