Bus-Only Lanes Are A Bad Idea West Of Beverly Hills

Metro is proposing bus-only lanes on Wilshire Blvd. However, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica have chosen not to participate. And Metro has exempted 1.3 miles of the 2.3 mile segment in Westwood between Beverly Hills and the 405. Most of the 1.4 mile segment between the 405 and Centinela (Brentwood) was part of a trial bus lane several years ago that was a horrible failure, but Metro wants to re-institute bus lanes in Brentwood.
In 2005, LADOT said: “The Department’s field observations and data collection have confirmed that traffic has diverted from Wilshire Boulevard. Eastbound traffic on Wilshire Boulevard normally destined for the northbound 405 Freeway appears to have diverted up to Sunset Boulevard to avoid congestion and delays resulting from the reduced capacity on Wilshire Boulevard.†An attached table said that the eastbound 4-7 PM travel time in the car lanes from Centinela to Federal increased 53%.
Metro and LADOT’s current answer to the prior failed experiment is to widen Wilshire to create an additional eastbound lane between Barrington and Bonsall (about midway between Federal and the 405). This won’t work. Even after widening, LADOT estimates that bus lanes would cause a 30% increased delay in year 2012 on Wilshire at Bundy going eastbound at 4-7PM. In 2020, the increased delay caused by bus lanes would be 45%. This increased delay at Bundy will motivate more traffic to get off Wilshire and go north through Brentwood streets to Sunset and the 405.
Moreover, widening Wilshire between Barrington and Federal should not, and probably cannot, be done. There are 5 trees in the sidewalk area on the south side of Wilshire and 4 trees on the north side. There are 3 bus bench and kiosk areas on each side (total of 6), and the distances from the back of the bus bench to the building line is as little as 4’3†and no greater than 5’6†. Tens of children from Uni waiting for a bus after school already spill over into the 7-Eleven parking lot (an even more narrow sidewalk will create an extreme safety hazard). There is a medical office building at the SW Federal corner and another at the NE corner of Barry (halfway between Barrington and Federal). Even if legally possible under Federal and State laws governing access by disabled in wheelchairs, narrowing these sidewalks would create an unsafe and unattractive condition for a major Boulevard such as Wilshire.
Councilman Rosendahl supports contiguous bus-only lanes in the 5.4 miles from the MacArthur Park area to the east side of Beverly Hills. That is a worthy project. The surrounding communities support that project area, and Federal dollars could be used to fix the curb lanes.
Under Metro’s proposal, the bus-only lanes west of LaCienega would not exist in 3 segments (Beverly Hills and two areas in Westwood), they are not supported by the surrounding communities, and the fragmented, on-again-off-again bottlenecks would result in delays, unsafe conditions and more pollution at each squeeze of the bottle.
You can make a difference. City Council will hear this matter on Tuesday, May 24, at 10:00AM, Room 340 at City Hall (entrance on Main Street between 1st St. and Temple). Small but organized and vocal groups from other areas will lobby for bus lanes in Brentwood for misguided reasons based on faulty assumptions. The Brentwood Community Council, the Brentwood Homeowners Association, and the South Brentwood Residents Association support bus-only lanes that are only east of Beverly Hills (Alternative A-2) – – the alternative with the fewest significant adverse impacts on traffic. Sign a “speaker card†at the hearing and make your voice heard. We all complain about traffic – now is your chance to do something about it. If it is not possible for you to be at City Hall, state your position in an email to councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org with a copy to info@brentwoodcommunitycouncil.org.