Olympic-Pico one-way

The LA Times reported yesterday, "Judge puts hold on L.A.'s Olympic-Pico traffic plan".

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's chief plan to speed traffic in Los Angeles was delayed Monday when a judge ruled that more study, which could take months, was needed before two Westside thoroughfares could be altered to work more like one-way streets. ...

In his five-page ruling, Torribio took particular umbrage to a claim by the city that the project didn't need to be studied because it wasn't a major change to how the streets were managed.

"In other words, the very purpose of the project is to expand the use of the existing streets," Torribio wrote. "To claim that the project will not expand the current use and is therefore exempt" from further study "seems inconsistent with the stated purpose." ...

Rather than creating major disruption for the questionable effectiveness of the city's plan, two simple improvements would help ease the bottleneck of getting east past the 405 freeway while we await major relief from completion of the Expo Line to Santa Monica:

• Restripe a fourth eastbound lane to Olympic Boulevard from Barrington to Sepulveda.
  
• Two lanes of Pico converge with two lanes of Gateway (Ocean Park) Blvd., narrowing to two lanes (photo above, click to enlarge) before widening to three lanes (past the big tree on the right). An obvious fix is to extend the third lane the short additional distance to the intersection. Street parking on Pico proposed to be removed farther west is much less the problem.