The streetscape plan includes multimodal upgrades to five Westside street segments. Map via city plan
The Coastal Transportation Corridor Specific Plan was updated to include a Livable Boulevards Streetscape Plan which specifies improvements for five street segments:
Pico Boulevard - from Centinela Avenue to the 405 Freeway ("Pico Green")
Pico Boulevard - from the 405 Freeway to Patricia Ave ("Pico Patricia")
Motor Avenue - from the 10 Freeway to Venice Blvd
Centinela Avenue - from Washington Blvd to Jefferson Blvd
Venice Boulevard - from Lincoln Blvd to Inglewood Boulevard
WLANN's press release contends that the streetscape plan would extend the Venice Boulevard Great Streets road diet and would bring road diets to Pico, Motor, and Centinela. Folks who advocate for safer, more walkable, more bike-able streets would welcome needed road diet improvements to these corridors, but WLANN is lying. There are no road diets planned for these streets. No road diets. The streetscape plan will make these streets somewhat safer and better for walking and bicycling, but without removing any car lanes.
The plan does include some non-road-diet upgrades to existing bike lanes on Motor and Venice. According to the plan's cross-section diagrams, the existing conventional bike lanes on these streets will be converted into protected bike lanes, though without reducing existing car lanes.
Streetscape plan cross-section for Motor Avenue would improve bike lanes without removing existing car lanes - from plan document
Streetscape plan cross-section for Venice Blvd would improve bike lanes without removing existing car lanes - from plan document
The update to the West L.A. Transportation Improvement and Mitigation Specific Plan (WLA TIMP) would establish that expanded Transportation Impact Assessment (TIA) fees on new development pay for the above streetscape improvements. In the past, the TIA fee had been paid by only a limited subset of new developments, basically industrial and commercial development. The WLA TIMP update would expands the TIA fee to a broader range of new development, including residential.
These plan updates have been in process for a couple of years, including various community outreach meetings and various hearings at the City Planning Commission, the Board of Public Works, and the City Council.
The streetscape plan was approved by the Board of Public Works in May.
In June, the L.A. City Council approved the WLA TIMP plan outline. The City Attorney will now draft the outline into an ordinance which will return for council approval.
The city completed the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) required Environmental Impact Report (EIR) determining that the plans essentially does not adversely impact the environment, and hence would be granted a categorical exemption. The City Planning Commission approved the EIR and exemption. The full City Council is expected to approve the environmental studies when approving the final ordinance language.
The WLANN lawsuit alleges that the city did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving these plan updates.
(Editor's note : Leadership with Keep L.A. Moving, Westside Neighbors and Restore Venice Blvd emailed and commented to complain about the above article. In an email, WLANN President Inouye wrote that RVB "is a now a project of the newly formed" WLANN and that RVB "is not backed by" KLAM and that WLANN "is not a 'child' organization of" KLAM. In a comment, Keep L.A. Moving's John Russo, who is an administrator of RVB's Facebook page, states that KLAM "supports" WLANN and "supports" and "work[s] with" RVB but has "not backed" WLANN. Without access to Joe's notes while he is on a much deserved vacation, I don't want to speculate on his meaning. It's certainly clear that the leadership of Keep L.A. Moving have helped Restore Venice Blvd. with their setup and research, I haven't been able to find further formal connections between the three organizations. I have not changed the text of the story. - DN)
L.A. County needs to embrace physically-protected bikeways, robust traffic calming around schools, and similarly transformative, safety-focused projects