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.

Add Olympic lane

The LA Times announced today, "Villaraigosa unveils traffic plan for Pico and Olympic." Here's what it would do:

The first step in the mayor's plan would be to immediately begin to eliminate parking on both streets during rush hour. Then, beginning next year, traffic lights would be re-timed so that those traveling west on Olympic and east on Pico would be rewarded with longer green lights. Those driving in the other direction might see their rides take longer.

This makes a lot of sense, to synchronize the signals in the favored direction, without the expense and disruption of Allyn Rifkin's Olympic-Pico one-way proposal last spring. I'd look at it differently, though, rather than take their next step in the one-way direction:

If those two steps speed up traffic, mayoral aides say the city might take an additional step and restripe both streets, so most lanes on Pico would be for eastbound motorists, while westbound lanes would predominate on Olympic.

Think of I-405 as a north-south wall across the Westside, with limited openings that have become major bottlenecks (map, right). Once east of the 405 in the afternoon you find traffic frees up.

This leads to a simple short-term bottleneck-reliever, while we wait for completion of the Expo Line and Wilshire subway. Olympic Boulevard has four lanes westbound but three lanes eastbound between Century City and two blocks west of the 405, presumably from when Century City was a bigger commuter destination than Santa Monica.

The simple bottleneck-reliever is to add a fourth eastbound lane to Olympic from west of Barrington to Sepulveda, as shown below (original map). This section has the same 110-foot right-of-way and 86-foot pavement, but only three lanes in each direction plus curb parking. (To fit nine lanes under the 405 could require a slight narrowing of the sidewalks, but Santa Monica Boulevard fits nine lanes in a 100-foot right-of-way and 88-foot pavement under its I-405 bridge).

Olympic-Pico update

Allyn Rifkin presented his Olympic and Pico Boulevards one-way study at the CD-11 Transportation Committee Monday evening. (See my earlier post for an introduction.)

He set the stage well, saying, "Think of this as someone's first idea ... now let's go out to the community about it." His main points were:

• Olympic and Pico are major Metro and Big Blue Bus corridors. Because they're mostly more than 1/4 mile apart, he rejected pure one-way roadways in favor of contra-flow bus lanes.
  
  
• Left turn arrows eat up a lot of intersection capacity. The one-way direction would be clockwise — east on Olympic, west on Pico — so changes in direction would use right turns.
  
  
• His "5/2" (5 lanes one-way, 2 contra-flow) diagrams are here — off-peak with parking and left turns above, peak without parking or left turns below.
  
  Without peak-period left turns capacity would increase by 20%; with peak left turns capacity would only increase by 6%. A questioner was concerned about banning left turns, which would require many to drive around a the block through neighborhoods.
  
  
• The roadways would not become "freeways" because speeds would be regulated by synchronized signal timing.

Zev Yaroslavksy's transportation deputy Vivian Rescalvo emphasized this is about improving transit in the corridor, not only for automobiles, and that it's "absolutely not" an alternative to the Expo Line, but that is eight years away.

Rifkin agreed with my question that Santa Monica's section of Olympic is difficult, long blocks west of Centinela with many west-bound cars headed to the freeway at Cloverfield, and with the median's coral trees and Expo Line west of Cloverfield. Pico is also narrower in Santa Monica. But switching from one-way to two-way would require a large connector street. Could Barrington do that? Bundy is already jammed.

The next step is more study and public process. Will we end up deciding to just synchronize signal timings in the dominant direction?

Olympic-Pico one-way?

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's April 15, 2007 "Olympic/Pico One-Way Pair Initial Feasibility Report" (4.7 MB pdf) by Allyn D. Rifkin P.E. describes a range of options. The Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee will consider a motion by Weiss, Greuel, and Rosendahl this Wednesday (4/25 at 2:00 p.m.):

In January 2007, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky hired a traffc consultant to analyze the feasibility of turning Olympic and Pico Boulevards into oneway streets from downtown Los Angeles to the City of Santa Monica. The traffc consultant has completed a preliminary analysis.

The potential impact to residential neighborhoods of any proposal to convert major thoroughfares into one-way streets necessitates a thorough analysis and consideration of all potential community impacts.

Such analysis must include a thorough assessment of the potential impacts to residential neighborhoods as well as a quantitative analysis of potential benefis in terms of reduced travel times and congestion relief. Analysis of this proposal must also include broad community input.

I THEREFORE MOVE that the City Council direct the Department of Transportation to report back in 60 days with a review and analysis of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavosky's consultant study on the feasibility of turning Olympic and Pico Boulevards into one-way streets from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica. The report should address potential impacts to surrounding streets and neighborhoods. In addition, LADOT shall engage in comprehensive community outreach during the preparation of their report.

I'll also highlight Kent Strumpell's letter to the LA Times (4/21):

One-way streets prioritize moving cars rather than moving people, perpetuating the traffic problems we face. Instead, we need solutions that help people meet their needs without having to drive.

Unfortunately, one-way streets make our urban boulevards more like freeways, with hazardous speeds, noise and lack of landscaped medians. This works against the strategy of improving our boulevards as inviting public places conducive to walking, transit use, cycling and successful businesses. Creating vibrant, multimodal shopping streets near residential communities is a critical strategy for reducing automobile trips.

It is time that we stop sacrificing the important public space of our roads to the degrading domination of cars.

In a similar situation I served on the Lincoln Corridor Task Force Citizens' Advisory Committee in 2002-4. We faced the question of whether to attempt to move more cars on Lincoln Boulevard -- knowing it wouldn't solve traffic congestion and would further impact its neighbors -- or to focus on moving people. We recommended the latter, taking advantage of the curb parking lanes in Venice and Ocean Park to propose dedicated peak-hour bus lanes first, and potentially light rail later. See SCAG's LCTF webpage for detailed LCTF reports.