Last year, a vehicle heading down Fiji Hill veered off the road at the intersection between Townsend Avenue and North Avenue 51, Aug. 31. The vehicle crashed through the wall of a home and into the living room, where the homeowner, Sara Lov, and her son were sitting. In the year following the accident, community members in Eagle Rock and Highland Park have been calling on CD14 to address safety concerns on the intersection and the nearby stretch of road to prevent further accidents.
Boulevards Director on the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, Talha Aamir, said the layout of the intersection makes it particularly difficult for drivers to navigate, increasing the risk of accidents.
“You’re going down a steep incline coming down from Fiji Hill, so that paired with the tight curves can make it very difficult to navigate, especially at night,” Aamir said. “There is a stop sign coming down on Townsend, but it’s right behind the curve, meaning that you don’t see it until a second or two before you pass it.”
Aamir said many residents have felt frustrated by the lack of municipal action on what they perceive to be an important and ongoing problem.
“The house next to the one that was hit last year had a car crash into it about two decades ago,” Aamir said. “The thing that makes this a little bit frustrating is that although we understand that the LA City Council is facing budgetary issues, this really shouldn’t cost that much money.”
At-Large Director of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Adan Martinez, said the community wants to see the city take more action to increase car safety in the neighborhood.
“It seems that every year we get piecemeal solutions to this overall concern,” Martinez said. “While things have improved slightly, there’s still an urgent need for action.”
Lov said that she and her family are doing great one year after the accident, and that they’ve moved into a larger house nearby in Eagle Rock. However, according to Lov, she has felt the need to take things into her own hands to ensure that similar accidents don’t happen again.
“I was very disappointed to learn that the city isn’t doing anything at the moment,” Lov said. “The way that intersection is right now, it’s just not safe. So what I’ve done is that I’ve put up these steel and concrete bollards, which are designed to prevent trucks from going through something.”
Lov said she is confident that the house will now be safe to live in, but she feels that putting up barriers should have been the city’s responsibility, rather than hers as a private individual.
“My insurance isn’t covering the fence,” Lov said. “I’m paying at my own expense because I want to make sure that whoever lives in that house next can feel at ease.”
She said that her neighbors were a big help in the aftermath of the accident while she and her son were getting back on their feet.
“My wonderful neighbors have all been going to city council meetings to try and get this problem solved,” Lov said. “Right after the accident happened, I wasn’t in shape to deal with any of that. I was just trying to move and manage things in my personal life. My neighbors really stepped in by going to the city council, trying to figure out a way to make this intersection safe for everyone.”
Martinez said that he and other residents envision a range of different additions to the road, which could make it safer for people living in the neighborhood. These include crash barriers on the intersection between Townsend and N Avenue 51, speed bumps to decelerate cars coming down the hill, as well as a crosswalk on the intersection of Eaton Street and N Avenue 51.
“It‘s a complex problem that requires a multi-step solution, so as of right now our approach has been to identify what needs to change, and then to go from there in terms of exploring what is actually possible given the fiscal deficit that the city is facing,” Martinez said.
Contact Adam Pildal at pildal@oxy.edu.
The beginning stage of building the fence around Sara Lov’s house at the intersection of Townsend and Avenue 51 in Los Angeles, CA. Sept. 16, 2025. Lila Weiner/The Occidental
