What will the Willoughby/Vista/Gardner Greenway look like?

The Transportation & Mobility Commission is getting a first look at big changes proposed for the streets and sidewalks intersecting near Willoughby, Vista and Gardner.

The Willoughby/Vista/Gardner Greenway project, which was initiated by the city March 2019, was been identified as a priority project in the City’s 2017 Pedestrian and Bicycle Mobility plan. The project endeavor seeks to transform the corridor by prioritizing the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, and alternative modes of travel, while simultaneously reducing car volumes and speeds. Additionally, the project aims to increase shade cover, introduce more greenery and sustainable elements, and enhance safety at intersections.

The project area encompasses the bustling streets of Willoughby Avenue, Vista Street, and Gardner Street, which are shared by the City of West Hollywood and the City of Los Angeles. Willoughby Avenue, a two-lane residential roadway that spans east/west between Kings Road and Vista Street, covers a distance of approximately 1.1 miles. This road currently provides on-street parking on both sides and is regulated by stop signs at minor intersections and traffic signals at major intersections. The sidewalks within the study area are typically 4-foot wide, and the overall width of the roadway is relatively narrow, measuring 30-feet from curb to curb. Despite its narrowness, Willoughby Avenue acts as a popular cut-through route, with traffic volume estimated to be approximately twice that of adjacent streets such as Romaine Street and Waring Avenue. Intriguingly, analysis suggests that up to 60% of the traffic on Willoughby Avenue consists of cut-through trips that neither originate nor terminate within the neighborhood.

Gardner/Vista Street, a vital north/south artery, primarily serves residential areas, complemented by some commercial establishments near major intersections. The segment between Santa Monica Boulevard and Lexington Avenue offers two travel lanes and a combination of parallel and angle parking. As the street continues between Lexington Avenue and Fountain Avenue, it transitions to angle parking on both sides. South of Santa Monica Boulevard, the street seamlessly transforms into Vista Street, maintaining two travel lanes with a mix of parallel and angle parking until Romaine Street. From that point onward, Vista Street extends within the City of Los Angeles boundary. Notably, the Gardner/Vista corridor presents a relatively wide layout, spanning 64 feet.

Kings Road, another essential roadway within the project area, provides a north/south connection primarily serving residential and some commercial purposes at major intersections. Spanning between Santa Monica Boulevard and Willoughby Avenue, this segment covers a distance of 0.25 miles and offers two travel lanes, on-street parking, and sidewalks. Kings Road plays a crucial role in linking the bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard with Willoughby Avenue.

Recognizing the significance of community engagement, a community outreach event was organized in the summer of 2019, allowing residents from both West Hollywood and Los Angeles to provide input, share their perspectives, and contribute ideas for the project. This initial outreach effort facilitated the formulation of goals, vision, and potential treatments. Building upon the feedback received during the first event, the City’s staff and consultants developed a suite of potential treatments, including traffic diverters, traffic circles, curb extensions, and speed humps. In July 2020,  City Council approved a revised outreach approach and authorized temporary demonstration installations at several locations, serving as a tangible representation of the potential treatments.

The demonstration installations, which took place between April and August 2022, provided an opportunity for residents and users of the Willoughby Corridor to experience the proposed treatments firsthand.

The results of the demonstration project and the community feedback highlighted the community’s support for traffic circles and bulb-outs, while revealing less enthusiasm for the diverters. These insights, coupled with extensive collaboration between the community and design engineers, have culminated in a set of recommendations for the Kings Road, Willoughby Avenue, and Gardner/Vista Street segments within the project area.

For Willoughby Avenue, improvements include corner bulb-outs to reduce pedestrian crossing distances, neighborhood-scaled traffic circles, regularly spaced speed humps with bicycle cut-outs, installation of sharrows, wayfinding signage, infilling the corridor with street trees and landscaping, utilization of permeable paving in the parking aisle, and the inclusion of bicycle crossing push buttons and in-ground detectors at signalized intersections.

For Kings Road, the recommendations focus on enhancing wayfinding, incorporating corner bulb-outs at the Kings Road/Santa Monica Boulevard intersection, exploring the possibility of a mini-park adjacent to Kings Road Park, implementing regularly spaced large sharrow markings, utilizing permeable paving within the parking aisle, introducing sidewalk parkway landscaping, and installing bicycle crossing push buttons and in-ground detectors at signalized intersections.

For the Gardner/Vista Street segment, which presents ample opportunities for improvement, the recommendations center around creating protected bike lanes to establish a vital north/south connection between the future Fountain protected bike lanes and Willoughby Avenue. Specifically, these recommendations involve introducing regularly spaced, large sharrow markings, converting the existing front-in angled parking to reverse-in angle parking, enhancing wayfinding for pedestrians and cyclists, infilling street trees where feasible, incorporating bulb-outs at Romaine Street, and considering the establishment of a mini-park near Santa Monica Boulevard. Furthermore, the inclusion of bicycle crossing push buttons and in-ground detectors at signalized intersections is deemed essential to enhance safety for bicyclists.

The Transportation & Mobility Commission meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 21, at the Community Conference Room in West Hollywood City Hall, 8300 Santa Monica Blvd.