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By Guest Editorial by Ray Klein, Nancy Freedman and Lauren Cole  |  May 20, 2011


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.

Comments to date: 4. Page 1 of 1. Average Rating: Greg    West LA 7:49am on Thursday, June 9th, 2011  It is interesting that the Brentwood News article identifies and then ignores the real cause of the problem for the Wilshire Bus route. Most of the article talks about the infeasibility of running express routes down certain sections of Wilshire in the city of LA due to traffic concerns, but in the beginning actually notes that “Beverly Hills and Santa Monica have chosen not to participate” AT ALL in the Wilshire Corridor bus route. If Beverly Hills and Santa Monica had chosen to participate, there wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe then, the problem is Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Doesn't anyone see that these uncooperative self interested municpalities are the real source of the problem? They utilize Los Angeles streets and infrastructure, give nothing in return, and stunt the development of Greater Los Angeles, making LA as a city the laughing stock of the major cities of the world. If Los Angeles could incorporate all of these cities into itself, turning them into "neighborhoods" it would become the greatest city in the country and the world. Jay Ross    West L.A. 10:27pm on Monday, May 23rd, 2011  The Brentwood C.C. is obviously not concerned about deaths from cancer and asthma, soldiers being killed in Wars for Oil, lost economic productivity from gridlock, or the expensive costs of global warming. The bus lanes also help the frail elderly, handicapped persons in wheelchairs, mentally ill war veterans, low-income service workers and students who cannot afford the high cost of cars, parking and gasoline. I wish the Brentwood C.C. would care about someone other than themselves driving around in their cars. They're the ones creating the traffic, not the buses. Carlton Glüb   Location unknown 10:42am on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 You definitely do not want to mention the tremendous time savings and reliability improvements for bus riders that this project would bring in. And you definitely don't want to mention that during rush hour, there are more people riding in buses than there are riding in cars. And you definitely don't want to mention that encouraging transit ridership -- which rush-hour bus lanes in Brentwood would do -- supports our collective goals of decreasing carbon emissions and improving air quality. You also should not mention all the Westside residents who are clamoring for this project. Because if you did any of these things, you'd have to admit that excluding Brentwood would be a pathetic and selfish move that would benefit *fewer* people -- richer, whiter people -- than bus lanes would. Andres    Los Angeles 10:21am on Monday, May 23rd, 2011  Let's not forget that the idea of mobility is to move the most amount of people in the most efficient manner possible. More people travel down Wilshire Blvd. via bus than those in cars. Just because you own a car does not mean that your mode has or should receive priority. Bus lanes would, if anything improve overall mobility. In this city we are all spoiled thinking that streets belong to cars when in fact buses and bikes have just as much of a right. Build the bus lanes and better serve the majority. Thats the Democratic thing to do after all, right??? Your Name: Your Location: Vote: Choose 1 - Dreadful 2 - Poor 3 - Fair 4 - Good 5 - Excellent Your Comment: Security check *