West Hollywood’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Mobility Plan (2017) identified Willoughby Avenue, Kings Road and Vista-Gardner Streets as providing a missing link in the City’s existing bike network.  The cities of West Hollywood and Los Angeles have proposed making these streets more comfortable and inviting for people of all ages and abilities who choose to walk and bike.

On Thursday, August 22, 2024, West Hollywood hosted a Community Meeting to discuss plans to install protected bike lanes on Vista/Gardner Streets and options for reducing parking to make room for them. The purpose of this in-person event was to provide detailed information regarding the plan and next steps moving forward.  Thank you to everyone who spoke in favor of bicycling at that meeting!

Thanks to everyone who showed up and wrote emails in support of this plan at the City Council meeting on Monday on March 18, 2024! We are one step closer to making this plan a reality!

What’s there now:
Willoughby is a narrow residential street with significant cut-through traffic from nearby Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue. Because of this, there’s twice as much traffic on Willoughby as there is on the nearest blocks – Romaine and Waring. This traffic can be especially dangerous given the parks, schools, and homes on Willoughby. 

What’s proposed:
The city is recommending that several steps be taken to slow down and discourage cut-through traffic on Willoughby between Kings Road and Vista/Gardner Street. Some notable recommendations:

• Improvements to every intersection along this portion of Willoughby including either traffic circles with green space or widened sidewalks with green space at the corners of intersections (called “curb extensions” or “bulb outs”).
• Speed humps with bicycle cut outs all along Willoughby Avenue.
• Green-backed shared-road markings (“sharrows”) on the street itself to show motorists that this is a lane that bikes and scooters use.
• Bike crossing push buttons and in-ground bike detectors at Crescent Heights Blvd. and Fairfax Avenue.
• The Council also directed city staff to study installing a traffic diverter at Fairfax and Willoughby to divert cut-through traffic at its source.

There are also recommendations for Vista/Gardner Streets and Kings Road:

At Kings Road – Creating a widened sidewalk (bulb out) at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, and bike crossing push-buttons and in-ground bike detectors where it intersects Santa Monica Boulevard.

At Vista/Gardner Streets – The city council voted in favor of Option 1A – Creating parking-protected bike lanes on Vista/Gardner from Willoughby all the way to Fountain Avenue. This provides a safe, protected bike lane from Willoughby all the way up to the bike lanes being proposed on Fountain Avenue. This will remove some small amount of on-street parking, so City Council directed staff to reach out to neighbors near Fountain and Gardner to get input and investigate ways to minimize parking concerns, including potentially creating a permit parking zone there as it currently doesn’t have one. 

(Note: This is a partial list of the proposals. For the full concept plan, click here.)

Additional details on the Plan can be found on the City of West Hollywood’s webpages here and here.

 

What’s next?

• The Concept plan will be going to Public Works/Engineering for the design and construction phase. After that it will go back to City Council for the funding phase.
• City staff will study putting a diverter at Willoughby and Fairfax and will report back to City Council.

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