Friday News Briefs: Olympic Blvd Bus Lanes, Metrolink Cuts, Hollywood Blvd Results, and Pacoima Wash Bridge

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Here are a few news briefs for your holiday weekend reading.

Metrolink Board to Vote Today on Service Cuts

The Metrolink board will meet this morning at 10 a.m., with significant service cuts on the agenda.

Find detailed analysis and take action via Californians for Electric Rail action alert. According to the alert:

[Metrolink’s proposed] new schedules cut 29% Weekday service and 40% Weekend service compared to 2025 schedules, for an overall cut of 32% coming as soon as November 16th.

Cuts indicate a return to “commuter-style” peak-only service that is not responsive to post-pandemic trends and costs more per passenger to operate. Since the pandemic Metrolink has seen much higher weekend ridership growth, but Metrolink is ignoring this growing market in favor of chasing commuters. […]

The cuts are most severe in Orange County… [where the] Orange County Line receives 50% weekend cuts (only two roundtrips per day) and 38% weekday service cuts.

Additional service cuts are proposed throughout L.A., Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego Counties.

Read more at Californians for Electric Rail, and if you’re reading this first thing Friday morning October 9, dial in to listen to the 10 a.m. Metrolink board meeting.

Metro Planning Seven Miles of Olympic Blvd. Bus Lanes

Metro is planning peak-hour bus-only lanes on Olympic Boulevard.

Metro map of proposed Olympic Boulevard bus lanes – via project fact sheet [Nitpicky note to Metro: to improve the map you could fill in most of that dotted Purple D Line, show the K Line as a rail line in pink, and map the J Line.]

The new Olympic bus lanes would extend seven miles between Figueroa Street (downtown L.A.) and Robertson Boulevard (the L.A./Beverly Hills city limit). The project would convert the curbside lane in each direction into a bus-only lane in effect weekdays from 7-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m. The entire Olympic bus lanes would serve Metro Line 28 and LADOT Commuter Express 534, with portions also serving LADOT Wilshire Center/Koreatown DASH and City of Commerce Transit Line 600 (and temporarily Metro Line 30 – during Convention Center construction).

Find out more about this bus lane project at Metro’s project page, fact sheet, and/or attend Metro’s virtual community meeting next month on Tuesday November 10.

Hollywood Boulevard is Safer, More Multi-Modal

A press release from the office of L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez reports that one year after the Hollywood Boulevard multimodal safety upgrades were installed, bicycling, walking and transit use are up, and no fatal injuries have taken place.

Comparing data from April 2024 (pre-project) to August 2025 (one year post-project):

Bicycling increased: 66% near Western Avenue, 44% near Vermont Avenue, while sidewalk cycling decreased
Walking increased 44% near Vermont Avenue, and 34% near Western Avenue
Ridership and operational performance on Metro Lines 180 and 217 improved [SBLA reported that some of the increased riders are likely due to a Metro line reorganization]
No fatal injuries were reported along the project corridor, though as of August 2025, there had been six collisions resulting in severe injury (two involving a driver and a pedestrian, two involving just drivers, one involving a driver and bicyclist, and one involving a motorcyclist and a driver).

“The goal of this project was to save lives and give people more options to navigate L.A.,” wrote Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, “data shows it’s working.”

The DOT has continued to upgrade the bike lane protection, adding rigid plastic features, even very recently. Anecdotally (as observed by this Streetsblog editor) bicycling/scootering there appears to be continuing to grow.

Unfortunately, outside of the project, parts of Hollywood Boulevard remain deadly. Earlier this week, a drunk driver killed a pedestrian on Hollywood at Cherokee Avenue – three blocks east of the earlier project.

Soto-Martinez and LADOT have announced plans to extend the Hollywood project both eastward and westward. LADOT recently announced that, in early 2027, they expect to install an additional short extension from where Hollywood becomes Sunset Boulevard (at Virgil/Hillhurst Avenues) to Fountain Avenue.

New Bike/Ped Bridge Coming to Pacoima Wash

The Los Angeles City Bureau of Engineering (BOE) and City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez are collaborating on plans for a new bike/walk bridge over the Pacoima Wash at Telfair Avenue in Pacoima.

L.A. City rendering of planned Telfair Avenue Multi-Modal Bridge

Learn more about the bridge project from 4-8 p.m. on Friday, October 30 at the BOE booth at HalloweenFest at Ritchie Valens Recreation Center at 10736 Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

The city’s press release notes that the bridge will create a safe and accessible connection for people walking and bicycling between neighborhoods, schools, parks, trails, and future recreational destinations, including the planned El Dorado Park.