Drivers push back against losing lanes to bikes on Venice Boulevard
By Gary Walker
The removal of traffic lanes to accommodate protected bicycle lanes on a mile-long stretch of Venice Boulevard is facing organized resistance from some of Mar Vista’s four-wheel commuters.
As part of the city’s pedestrian-focused Great Streets program, the number of eastbound and westbound lanes between Inglewood Boulevard to Beethoven Street recently dropped from three
to two.
Now, instead of bicycle traffic flowing between parked and moving cars, curbside bike lanes are now separated from traffic by bollards and parked cars.
As of Wednesday, a change.org petition titled “Stop Unsafe Streets Project on Venice Boulevard” had collected more than 1,000 electronic signatures calling on Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin to reverse the road diet.
The petition states concerns about increased traffic gridlock — one signer claims it took 45 minutes to reach Beethoven from Centinela Avenue — that could force more traffic onto adjacent residential streets.
Selana Inouye, who lives south of the boulevard on Coolidge Avenue, is concerned that gridlock could hinder firefighters and police from responding to an emergency.
“I’m worried that first responders will have a hard time being stuck in traffic now and response time might go up. So it’s also become a public safety issue,” said Inouye, who signed the petition.
“There should have been public hearings about this so we didn’t have to find out this way,” she said.
But Mar Vista Community Council member Robin Doyno, who sits on the council’s Great Streets Ad Hoc Committee, noted that Great Streets has already been one of the community’s most talked about initiatives in recent memory.
“It was publicized many times at numerous community meetings,” Doyno said. “My thinking is that any delay or inconvenience is aggravating, but that the problem is being exaggerated.”
Bonin’s office, various city agencies and the Mar Vista Chamber of Commerce have distributed surveys about possible changes to Venice Boulevard and held Great Streets pop-up forums throughout Mar Vista, including an information
booth at the Mar Vista Farmers Market for more than a year. In January 2015, Bonin and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti knocked on doors along the boulevard and adjacent streets to discuss the program.
But was it enough?
Inouye, for one, took the survey but didn’t hear back from anyone, she said.
“No matter how much notice you do, there are always some folks that don’t always hear about what you do,” Bonin said. “That just means that we have a responsibility to communicate the objectives about what the project will be.”
According to a fact sheet published at lagreatstreets.org, more than 48 bicyclists or pedestrians have been injured in crashes along Venice Boulevard since 2011. The city also recently installed lighted midblock crosswalks on Venice at Meier Street as well as Boise, Ocean View and Mountain View avenues.
In nearby Playa del Rey, recent traffic-calming lane reductions along Vista Del Mar and Pershing Drive — in part a response to crashes that have killed pedestrians — have also provoked the ire of South Bay commuters.
Bonin has described both efforts as pilot projects, with changes to Venice Boulevard to be reevaluated in three months. Meanwhile, the new bike lanes in Mar Vista will be painted green and traffic signals will be resynchronized to mitigate traffic congestion, he said.
“Feedback is going to be very important,” Bonin said. “Anytime that you make changes to traffic, it always takes 30 to 45 days for folks to adjust.”
gary@argonautnews.com
Councilmember Bonin and Mayor Garcetti’s survey was only distributed to a small percentage of those who use Venice Blvd. on a daily basis. The survey questions promoted the good elements of the program, without asking if lane reductions and increased traffic would be an acceptable trade-off. This allowed them to hear what they wanted to hear, while ignoring the fact that the community does not want already bad traffic to get even worse.
Agree 100% We are dealing with the same issue down her in Playa del Rey. This boils down to the Vision Zero plan that Bonin and Garcetti advocate. Venice and PdR are basically experiments and us residents are the lab rats. It would have been nice if they had included those most affected in the conversation before this was implemented.
This is a friggin’ disaster. Just like with everything that BONIN touches or gets involved with. I live in Venice and travel along Venice Blvd a lot. All of a sudden 3 lanes have become 2 and traffic is backed up in both directions, where before it used to run smoothly. This needs to be switched back to the way it was before.
I live right off of Venice Blvd and drive both to and from work during peak times. The person that said it took them 45 min to drive from Centiela to Beethoven is hog wash.
The max amour of time I have ever been stuck on this stretch is 15 min.
I think to uproar around this is really counter productive. If you want to complain about stuck in traffic, let’s talk about rush hour on Centinela between Venice and National.
I think it is awesome MarVista is encouraging bike and pedestrian traffic.
PS, I’m not a council member, a politician, an activist, or a business owner in the area. I’m a resident that has lived in this neighborhood for over 10 years.
I think this project is awesome!!!
“45 minutes to reach Beethoven from Centinela Avenue”
That’s half a mile. Never happened. Everyone wants more housing, but you cut one of the least used 3 lane sections of roadway to 2 and everybody freaks out. Ridiculous.
This is a terrible project that is so unfair to drivers especially in light of the enormous population density in this area. Bicyclists also need to remember that they too must follow traffic laws and are a very small percentage of those using the impacted streets.
There is also a change.org petition entitled “SUPPORT THE Great Street Project in MAR VISTA” for people that want to voice support in favor of the recent changes.
Stupidest idea ever. Reduce lanes where traffic is already gridlocked. Venice Blvd and now all the roads around Playa del Rey. Were these people on drugs when they decided this?
Like most the neighbors, not all businesses wanted this lane reduction and reconfiguration of parking and bicycle lanes. This was just supposed to be the installation of crosswalks and then all of the sudden in morphs into the complete rearragemnt of Venice Blvd.
They should have phased this out. First complete the installation of the crosswalks and play with the tomi g to slow the traffic down whileallowing the flow to adjust to give people time to absorb it. This alone would have acheived most of the calming. Then discuss and implement phase 2 and so on.
This was never discussed that this was going to happen. It was just an idea. They had meetings at times when most were working and couldn’t make it.This has hurt local businesses. People who used to commute down Venice are finding other routes to get back and fourth which has effected almost everyone.
Just walk down the street and talk to them. Like Mia at Sunny Grill. What they did to her business is totally out of line. Yes the crosswalks were needed to calm traffic so we dont have another fatal head on collision like we did a year ago when a motorcyclist was speeding to beat the light at Venice and Grandview. Because of that incident, when they closed down the intersection it had a major impact on the entire Westside with gridlock everywhere.
Now you want to choke “A major artery that supports large volumes of traffic and acts as major entry and exit points for Mar Vista” to calm Venice blvd down?
If you realty want to know what’s driving behind this just follow the push that led to the take over highway 187, the amount of tax payer money paid for it, the real reason behind Vision Zero and the Great Streets Initiative. Besides all that… The people (pawns) that really pushed for this that are in hiding. They are heads organizations, chair boards and sit on commitees that have way too much time on their hands and make decisions on our behalf that affect all of our lives.
I have 2 names. BONIN & GARCETTI. Dumb and Dumber.
I think the project could have been done in Phases- the additional crosswalks and a painted bike lane may have been sufficient for making pedestrians and bicycles safer- if the stats didn’t improve then the next phase could have been the current layout which I feel is now less safe by reducing visibility of the bike lane- My solution – avoid the area-
Sorry folks. We went to a Dodgers game this last Tuesday. From Beethoven up Palms to Sepulveda, over 40 minutes. Usually takes 5-10. I have two other witnesses who were in the car. Been here 30+ years. This was an idea created by a few, for a few, spending an awful lot of money that could be put to better use, if only to fix our miles and miles of broken, unsafe sidewalks and streets.
The Great Streets initiative web site touted “buffered bike lanes” for Venice Blvd, but never explains that that means removing two traffic lanes! I have been stuck in the traffic there as well trying to get to my home in Venice; it creeps along. Epic fail.
Sign the petition and come to the following meetings to reverse this.
Petition: https://www.change.org/p/mike-bonin-stop-the-unsafe-streets-project-on-venice-blvd?recruiter=53907516&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition
Mar Vista Community Council
Board of Directors Meeting
Tuesday June 13th, at 7:00 P.M.
Mar Vista Recreation Center Gymnasium
11430 Woodbine Street, Mar Vista, CA 90066
Mar Vista Community Council
Great Streets Ad Hoc Committee
Wednesday June 14th, at 6:30 P.M.
Mar Vista Branch Library
12006 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066
Mar Vista Community Council
Transportation & Infrastructure Committee
Thursday June 29th, at 7:30 P.M.
Location TBD
Does anyone else see the irony that in reconfiguring Venice Blvd, the people who actually use the real public transportation (the bus) are now getting stuck in the traffic gridlock that was created by narrowing the street? Also, anyone trying to parallel park effectively turns the street in to one lane. The westbound intersection at Centinela is a nightmare and since when is it safe to expect people with mobility issues to gain access to their vehicle by stepping down off the curb and crossing a bike lane. Nothing like realizing that our elected officials lack any sort of common sense!
They did this downtown on Grand (s/b ) and Olive(n/b) 4 lanes to3 and it messed up traffic especially at 17th where one gets on the freeway. Leaving between 6 and 6:30 I see 1 or 2 bikes a week in the bike lane…why,why.
I am a playa Del Rey resident and I for one do not agree with the changes. It seems like there were many more options to solve the problems. Instead the city has chosen the nuclear option…collateral damage be damned. Pushing traffic from one area to another simply cannot be tolerated. Performing a study without baseline data, pass fail criteria simply cannot be tolerated either.
Absolute insanity to do this in a city that does not have adequate public transportation options. To take away lanes without better options for commuters is not the solution. A commute from Playa del Rey used to take 45 min and now takes over 1 hour to the valley. The overflow to residential streets has greatly increased and people are speeding and not obeying laws. the increase in pollution is already being felt and seen in the air from an increase in cars idling. For a city that claims to care about the environment, this is not being seen.
Culver blvd losing ONE lane has rendered residents in Playa del Rey to be trapped as prisoners in their own homes with no safe way to get in and out. Police and medic cannot get to people in a timely or safe manner.
Please put it back. And fix the public transportation option. Rarely in LA do people live where they work – until that changes, we will have commuters. This was ill thought out and not widely surveyed in neighborhoods.
In this time of budgetary constraints, it is a costly “trial run” without more extensive reach out to the affected communities (by US Mail–not everyone, especially is a devotee of internet communication systems). The Westside’s public transit system is unable to meet the needs of most of us who live miles away from place of employment; reducing lanes before placing other important improvements in place; increasing density of population by permitting massive building followed by REDUCTION of transportation infrastructure makes no sense.
This is the worst and most ridiculous plan ever- I don’t even need to give one of the million reasons why this idea is horrible- all you need to do is sit back and watch the disaster unfold.
I live in PDR so that I can have a short commute to work. It now takes more than double the amount of time that it used to take to do my 4 mile commute to work, What used to be 20 minutes is now 45-50. Councilman Mike Bonin does not seem to understand that people need to drive on the streets to get to work and that we all need to be at work around the same time of the day. The councilman is out of touch with the majority of his constituents and is listening only to those with special interests.
So true. Bonin is a disaster for the Westside
Bonin is a bonehead. A recall effort is taking shape and gaining much momentum.