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Mayor Pulls the Curtain on Pico/Olympic Plan |
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LA Traffic
By Sara Epstein
With Councilmembers Weiss and Rosendahl and the Beverly Hills Mayor in tow, LA Mayor Villaraigosa unveiled a new traffic plan … “Olympic-West Pico-East” … on Monday and promised dramatic improvement of traffic and traffic times along two of the city’s most congested corridors.
 The plan falls short of County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s proposal to
turn the two thoroughfares into one-way streets. Some observers see the
plan as a compromise designed to placate many of the businesses and
some of the neighborhood councils who opposed the one-way concept.
“This is a new way, a smart way and a safe way to reduce traffic congestion,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “We are going to prove that it works here at LA’s gridlock epicenter, and then we are going to take this model citywide.”
Developed by Mayor Villaraigosa and the LA Department of Transportation (LADOT), “Olympic-West Pico-East” is a three-phase project that will speed up the flow of traffic and reduce congestion on Olympic and Pico Boulevards along the seven-mile stretch between La Brea Boulevard and Centinela Avenue.
Phase 1 ensures consistent rush hour parking restrictions along both Olympic and Pico, and boosts enforcement efforts of parking rules by LADOT officers. Phase 2 creates preferential flow signal timing to allow commuters to move more quickly along Olympic heading west and Pico heading east.
After evaluating the results of these initial steps, the City plans to re-stripe Olympic and Pico in Phase 3 of the project, adding more westbound lanes on Olympic and more eastbound lanes on Pico. The plan also seeks to protect Westside neighborhoods by limiting left turns onto residential streets and reducing cut-through traffic on local roads.
More than 100,000 cars travel along Olympic and Pico Boulevards every day, with approximately 60,000 of these vehicles on Olympic and 40,000 on Pico. This high number of drivers creates heavy congestion and extends commute times throughout the City’s Westside and Beverly Hills. _
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