“It is essential that the City Council address this issue that is considered by residents to be the biggest threat to the quality of life in our city,” Duran said. “As much as 45 percent of our morning and evening traffic is pass-through commuter traffic. This is an incredibly important regional issue that our creative city has the opportunity to take the lead on.”
Duran and D’Amico plan to present to the full council on Nov. 18 a proposal that would station traffic control officers between 4 and 7 p.m. weekdays at the intersections of Santa Monica Boulevard at Doheny, San Vicente, La Cienega, Crescent Heights and La Brea, and Sunset Boulevard at Doheny and La Cienega.
“Conventional approaches to traffic congestion, like street widening, aren’t feasible in West Hollywood,” Duran said. “So, we need to look for more innovative solutions to the problem. The recommended intersections have not only heavy vehicle traffic, but typically lots of pedestrians as well. We believe that traffic officers can get cars moving through our City at rush hour while simultaneously ensuring pedestrian and cyclist safety.”
Both D’Amico and Duran have said proposed new development in the city will exacerbate existing traffic problems. They propose the traffic control officers be used for six months while the city works to synchroniz traffic lights to improve traffic flow.
Just try to get out of you driveway on many weekday rush hour afternoons/evenings if you want a challenge. It is often bumper-to-bumper from Cynthia up the hill to Holloway/Sunset Blvd.
D’Aamico has no credibility. He’s just a pro-developer (architect?). He’s just part of the WEHO 5. As for the planning commission – this is a group of political cronies who have as much taste and skill as someone designing a WalMart.
very well put, lynn russell.
the latest at large appointment to the planning commission seems to have no experience or expertise in planning matters whatsoever, while the appointment before that was also a political move based on a campaign promise by mr. d’amico.
I’ll add myself to those who agree that this is a good idea. However, there are a couple of other idea that I think should also be considered, and while they may be novel ideas, they might dramatically improve the traffic flow in the city: 1) Implement red/green signals for PEDESTRIANS at some of the crosswalks along Santa Monica pedestrians willy-nilly daring traffic to stop for them and causing huge backups. Something that might time the signals so that they go green for pedestrians to use… 2) If not outright BAN, develop a program to help reduce people blocking traffic… Read more »
@ Lynn….so insightful. Thank you, perhaps planning could be in your future?
What a concept. With all of John D’Amico’s head scratching we have this as a solution to a problem that entire lack off foresight on the planning commission failed to contemplate? As for Councilmember Duran’s pronouncements about such and such percentage of cars “are just traveling through”, I wonder when that possibility occurred to him. Yes, Santa there is a compounded problem here that requires more than head scratching and grandiosity to solve. Perhaps enlightenment would do the trick. Too many of the resumes on planning are and have been apparently unscrutinized and too thin at best . Planning requires… Read more »
This is NOT a good idea. Traffic cops always slow all traffic down. They need to sync the lights for one, and they need to have timers for crossing the street in the pedestrian crosswalks. I sat for about 3 minutes waiting for each and every person to cross by Starbucks one day. Just went the coast looked clear, another person would come and cross. So wrong. They should have built a sky bridge like in Vegas.It should not take 10 minutes to get from La Cienega to Doheny, that is just silly.
Enforcement is a key word in most of these situations. There is absolutely none. Both drivers & pedestrians simply do as they please and STOP signs as well as some red lights may as well not exist, in fact the color of the light is usually irrelevant to both.
Evening eastbound traffic on both Sunset and Santa Monica is ridiculous, and is greatly exacerbated by some of the most clueless, least self-preserving pedestrians I’ve ever seen in my life, who feel it’s their God-given right to saunter blindly (and SLOOOOWLY) into traffic while immersed in electronic activity, especially in the Sunset Plaza area. REMOVE the unregulated crosswalks. REGULATE the pedestrians Beverly-Hills-downtown-style (pedestrians get their own walk time, and DO NOT cross when cars are moving in any direction). Finally, ENFORCE the signals and lanes, and put the roundabouts back in place on Cynthia. Take charge of this problem!
There is only so much West Hollywood can do to fix this. Greater numbers of cars are on the road in LA. WEHO is centrally located in the heart of the city and smack in the middle of commuter paths from the areas where people live and work in the entertainment industry (Hancock Park and Hollywood on one side, Century City and BH on the other). It’s mainly a factor of our geography. Yes. It’s awful. But cops help prevent gridlocked intersections. That’s rarely the issue in Weho. I don’t see a lot of blocked intersections. It’s just the volume… Read more »
brilliant fix! but why not send the council members themselves into the intersections to mitigate the chaos they themselves helped create? none of the mega developments were deemed to have any significant adverse impact on traffic when approved.
Ideas need to be put on the table to solve the problem. Traffic cops, in my opinion, slow down traffic. When a cop is in the intersection everybody slows down. They can only face one way at a time– it takes them twice as long to stop people and turn to let the other direction go. Im glad the discussion is on the table but now the commuters will blame the cops and the city instead of just bad traffic. Ive asked some uniform officers their opinion and they said that parking enforcement will be the traffic cops. It falls… Read more »