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Politics & Government

Westwood Segment of Wilshire to Be Exempt from Bus Lanes

The portion from Comstock to Selby avenues will not be included, the City Council decides in approving the lanes Tuesday.

The Los Angeles City Council, in an extended contentious debate, voted on Tuesday to reserve lanes on a 7.7 mile portion of Wilshire Boulevard for buses only during rush hour, and to widen the street by narrowing the sidewalk. A segment of the boulevard that runs through Westwood between Comstock and Selby avenues will not get the lanes, and neither will the part of Wilshire that runs through Beverly Hills.

The portion of Wilshire that will get the lanes will start at MacArthur Park, near downtown Los Angeles, and go to Centinela Avenue, on the eastern end of the city of Santa Monica. 

Santa Monica and Beverly Hills will not get the reserved lanes because those cities have not agreed to put them in. The original proposal also included the approximately 1-mile Westwood stretch and was described as option A or 8.8 miles, reflecting the length of the route. A third proposal, known as A-2, ended the lanes at the eastern edge of Beverly Hills, creating a 5.4 mile segment.

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Residents from Westwood and Brentwood as well as members of numerous bicycling and transit advocacy groups came to the meeting Tuesday to recommend their preferred proposal, with Westwood residents preferring the 7.7 mile or A-1 proposal that ultimately passed. Brentwood residents favored the 5.4 mile option, while transit advocates wanted the 8.8 plan.

"This bus lane impacts us directly," said Marilyn Krell, president of the Brentwood Residents Association, citing her concerns that the segmented lanes would create more traffic problems as buses were forced to move from reserved lanes into regular traffic ones and back. "We are against gridlock."

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Stephen Resnick, president of the Westwood Homeowners Association, told the council that he wanted the 7.7 mile option because if the bus lanes were retained through the exempted section, it would be a hardship on the largely residential neighborhood along that stretch of Wilshire known as Condo Canyon.

"Removing this will cause a loss of 100 parking spaces," he said.

Bart Reid, of the Transit Coalition, pointed out that because buses carry far more people along the Wilshire corridor than cars do, the 8.8 mile plan was crucial.

"We have to look at what moves the most people," he said.

Councilman Paul Koretz, who represents Westwood/Century City, told his colleagues that he was concerned that because the plan needed the support of both the Metro Transportation Authority board and the county board of supervisors, both of which had already passed the 7.7 mile plan, the project would be in danger of not receiving crucial federal funds if the council voted to change it.

"I ask that you not jeopardize the whole project," Koretz said.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Brentwood, spoke earnestly against the 7.7 plan, insisting that Beverly Hills and Santa Monica needed to participate in the plan for it to work.

"That is really bad politics if they can't get ... Beverly Hills to play ball with us," he said, laying the blame for most of the traffic problems in his district on the residents of Santa Monica.

In the end, Rosendahl's was the lone no vote against the 7.7 mile plan. He urged the MTA board to consider the full 8.8 mile plan.

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