West Hollywood will work with Beverly Hills to install a crosswalk with a flashing warning light on Doheny Drive at Elevado Avenue.
The City Council last night approved a proposal to create the crosswalk in response to requests from those living in the Norma Triangle area.
Doheny Drive is a two-lane, 50-foot-wide street that forms the western border of West Hollywood and is shared by the cities of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. It is designated a “collector street,” which means it provides a means for residents to travel to more major traffic arteries. On-street parking is permitted on both sides of Doheny, which has single and multi-family housing on both sides.
An evaluation of the idea by the City of West Hollywood notes that Doheny Drive has no marked crosswalks between Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. The distance between the marked crosswalks on Doheny Drive is 3,400 feet (approximately 11 blocks), the evaluation notes, adding that the typical distance between uncontrolled and/or signalized crosswalks on arterials and collector streets in the City of West Hollywood is 300 to 1,200 feet. “The crosswalk spacing on Doheny Drive is nearly three times the typical crosswalk spacing on other arterial and collector streets in the city.”
“Doheny/Elevado was determined by staff as a good location to install a marked crosswalk and a (flashing light) because it is the closest four-way intersection to the midpoint of Doheny Drive between Santa Monica and Sunset and provides a convenient connectivity point for pedestrians and bicyclists,” the staff evaluation says. “Cynthia/Doheny is also a four-leg intersection, but is too far from the midpoint of Doheny Drive. “
The city’s Long Range and Mobility Planning Division has been discussing the concept with the City of Beverly Hills, which has said it is interested in the project and will incorporate the recommendation as part of its preparation of a streets program.
“Pending the progress towards a joint agreement for the final design and cost sharing between the cities, design phase and construction scheduling, the enhanced crosswalk could be installed by the fall of 2018,” the evaluation says.
FANTASTIC! We have been asking for this for years!
Much needed! But the police need to monitor speeders, this could be a disaster and turn ugly pretty quickly.