Metro and the city of Los Angeles are partnering to improve speed, frequency, and reliability for the over 12,000 passengers who ride buses that serve the La Brea Avenue corridor.
The La Brea Avenue Bus Priority Lanes Project is located along a 5.9-mile segment of La Brea between Sunset Boulevard and Coliseum Street. It would add bus priority lanes in both directions during weekday peak hours from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Street parking would remain available during midday, evening, overnight and weekend periods.
As a key element of the NextGen Bus Plan, bus priority lanes have been shown to improve bus speeds by 15 percent or more, thus increasing service frequency and reliability, and moving more people without having to add more infrastructure (i.e., additional traffic lanes). These bus lanes would complement the city of L.A.’s Vision Zero effort to reduce traffic injuries by reducing the need for buses to mix with vehicles in travel lanes, while also maintaining street parking for residents, businesses, and visitors to the area.
Join us for this virtual community meeting on Zoom:
Tuesday, November 16, 2021, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Meeting Link: bit.ly/3iweffd
Meeting ID: 879 6881 1301
Passcode: 5851
Call-in: 213.338.8477
Spanish interpretation will be available. For interpretation in a different language, please contact us by calling 213.922.4869 at least 72 hours in advance.
Mobile Technology Pop-Up Unit
To ensure opportunities for public participation in this virtual community meeting, a mobile tech pop-up unit with laptop stations and a screen will be available. This is a limited in-person event designed to provide opportunities for those without access to reliable internet or phone service to be able to participate in the meeting. This mobile pop-up unit is not an in-person meeting and Metro staff will not be onsite. COVID-19 health and safety protocols will be in effect and masks will be required to enter the unit.
Tuesday November 16, 2021, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
LADOT Public Parking Lot #614
728 S Cochran Av, Los Angeles, CA 90036
All Metro meetings are accessible to persons with disabilities. Other ADA accommodations and translations available by calling 213.922.4869 at least 72 hours in advance.
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
We could be in support of the bus only lanes but NOT the expanded service times. We are also not in support of ANY group that advocates for this bus lane only restriction to become 24/7. The loss of parking would cause MANY businesses on La Brea to either move or go under because they rely on street parking for their clients. Furthermore, the amount of cut through traffic that would go into the neighborhood would be immense along with all the people seeking parking in the neighborhood too. Please listen to the Mid-City West Board meeting that happened on 11/9/21 and HEAR what the business owners on La Brea had to say about this plan! Link here: https://bit.ly/3quSK36 Go to 1hour 50 minutes in the video for when the businesses began to make public comment, there were lots of very concerned business owners that made public comment at this meeting
NextGen gets rid of pretty much all the Rapid Buses, but there doesn’t appear to be any effort (or political feasibility) to put bus lanes in places outside of the city of Los Angeles, and a bit in Culver City and Santa Monica. The other 85 cities + County areas would probably just have to deal with no bus lanes and no Rapids.
This is a terrible plan that will cause gridlock on the corridor without actually speeding up bus travel. Buses already run faster on La Brea during rush hour thanks to the current anti-gridlock lanes that run 7-9am and 4-7pm. The current issue slowing buses down is the lack of parking enforcement and towing of parked vehicles illegally parked in these anti-gridlock lanes. When a bus comes up to an illegally parked vehicle in the anti-gridlock lane, it must stop, wait, change lanes, and then repeat that several times for each vehicle illegally parked on the corridor (which is often several). This adds several minutes to each bus trip. Fixing this is the number one way to speed up bus travel on the corridor, and it doesn’t negatively affect other vehicles on the corridor. Here is how I recommend fixing this issue:
-Enforce the current anti-gridlock lanes by sending several parking enforcement officers and tow trucks to ticket and tow vehicles illegally parked in the anti-gridlock lanes immediately at the start of rush hour and continue monitoring until the end of rush hour. This also generates money for the city, making the project actually cash positive overall rather than an expense.
-Expand the hours of the current anti-gridlock lanes (adding 9-10am and 3-4pm) as in your current proposal.
There are plenty of other simple improvements Metro can make to speed up bus travel along the La Brea 24/7. They include:
-Increase the speed limit from 30mph to 35mph on the northern part of the La Brea corridor to match the rest of the corridor.
-Make La Brea south from Jefferson to Obama a 24/7 no stopping area. This spot is the most congested on the corridor because you can only pass north/south at either La Cienega, La Brea, or Buckingham (each 1 mile apart) because of the Expo line. Removing these ~10 street parking spots will significantly reduce the backup on La Brea southbound through this area and speed up bus travel by a couple minutes.
These solutions will actually speed up bus travel on the La Brea corridor without causing any additional gridlock for the other vehicles that use the corridor. Please do not cause total gridlock on this corridor by creating these useless bus priority lanes that affects less than 10% of the people who actually use this corridor, and rather speed up travel for everyone (to include buses) but implementing the recommendations above.
Also, please fix the lie in your article.You state that the bus priority lanes will help the “over 12,000 passengers who ride buses that serve the La Brea Avenue corridor.” The 12,000 boardings per day on the La Brea corridor was a figure from before COVID-19. Boardings are currently less than 12,000 as they have not recovered to their pre-covid peak. Please change your article to say “less than 12,000 boardings per day”.
Source: Metro informational report presentation, Slide 6:
https://metro.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5135449&GUID=F310FE23-C1A5-460D-B5E0-5961B46FFB79&Options=&Search=
Most what you suggest is controlled by the city of Los Angeles. I would suggest contacting the office of the city council member whose district the lanes are in.
With the recent passage of Assembly Bill 917 cameras will soon be on buses to assist enforcement of bus lanes.
This is a good step forward, but these should really be all day bus lanes like other major cities have. Traffic is still an issue beyond peak hours. LA’s persistent reluctance to implement proper fully functional bus lanes that operate at all service hours is tiresome.
They need to be extended all the way to Slauson, but other than that, yeah, prefer to see this done in the next 2 weeks rather than the next 2 years.
Would a 300 or 700 series bus be added?
Hi James;
That’s to be determined. We need to get the bus lane planned and installed first.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
La Brea used to have limited line 312………
While I’m not against Bus Priority Lanes in most cases, I am against the inflated cost in creating them due to bureaucracy and other factors that private industry would never pay. Painting lines and amending the ” No Parking” signs should not cost millions.