City plans meetings on Olympic-Pico traffic plan

City plans meetings on Olympic-Pico traffic plan | L.A. Now | Los Angeles Times

City plans meetings on Olympic-Pico traffic plan
3:38 AM | March 30, 2009

Olypico Plans to ease traffic along Olympic and Pico boulevards will get a public airing in a few weeks as the city begins an environmental review process for the changes it wants to make to Westside traffic conditions.

If the city gets its way, parking during peak traffic periods would be restricted on Olympic and Pico, and signals would be timed in a way that would favor westbound traffic on Olympic and eastbound on Pico.

Ken Husting, a senior transportation engineer for the city, said that the EIR became necessary after a group of Angelenos challenged the city’s plans for Olympic and Pico.

“The initial study found that there could be impacts as far as air and traffic,” said Husting. “We decided that if we are going to go through the environmental documentation, it’s prudent to do the most comprehensive job.”

Huisting said that current parking restrictions are “a hodge podge” of times and locations. He said that the city has dropped plans to change the number of west-bound and eastbound lanes on both of the major thoroughfares.

In preparation for the EIR, the LA DOT is holding a series of public meetings on the Westside next month.

* April 1, 2009 6:30–8:30 p.m. at Westside Jewish Community Center, 5870 W. Olympic Blvd.
* April 2, 2009 7:00–9 p.m. at Temple Beth Am, 1039 S. La Cienega Blvd.
* April 7, 2009 6:30–8:30 p.m. at Stoner Recreation Center, 1835 Stoner Ave.

At the meetings, officials will present an overview of the project, in anticipation of a draft EIR that would be issued later in the year. Husting said they expected the entire EIR process to take a little less than a year—which means that you’re going to have to sit in traffic a little bit longer.

A summary of the Olympic-Pico plan can be viewed here.

--Cara Mia DiMassa