> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Council approves $3.2 million Coastal Traffic Improvement Project for Westside relief
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/081707-story/
- Published: 2007-08-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:35:55.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Government & Politics, Venice, #archive-import

*By EMILY SKEHAN Special to the Daily Press*

COUNTYWIDE For commuters who moan about traffic flowing from LAX, or all throughout the Westside for that matter, some relief may be imminent.

The Los Angeles City Council voted on Wednesday to approve the allocation of $3.2 million to a Coastal Traffic Improvement Project, one geared towards easing congestion from Playa del Rey to Venice.

“Our gridlock is past intolerable,” said Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, sponsor of the project.“It is a real problem and calls for immediate action. We are moving in the right direction, but this is only the beginning. We must do more.”

The project aims to provide traffic relief in the southern half of Rosendahl’s 11th district, which includes areas spanning from LAX to the Pacific Palisades. It is part of Rosendahl’s greater Westside Anti-Gridlock Plan, with which the councilmember pledged to ease traffic burdens and promote public transport on the crowded Westside.

Planned improvements of the Coastal Traffic Improvement Project include the installation of traffic flow-controlled signal timing, 10 new left-turn phases, communication interconnect along Imperial Highway, and the replacement of outdated traffic lights with state-of-the-art controllers at 160 intersections.

> “Los Angeles is getting so overpopulated that the only way to fix the problem is to get less people driving.”

“As LA residents,we’re just so accustomed to traffic now,” said LA resident Soha Ebneyamin on Thursday. “My favorite is how people say that it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere in LA, and yet it takes me over an hour to get to work.”

Ebneyamin thinks improvements like new traffic signals and added lanes are a good first step towards solving the problem, but they aren’t enough to banish Westside traffic woes.

“What we really need are more transit projects like they have in New York — underground subways and better public transport,” she said.

The Coastal Traffic Improvement Project is a sister project to the West Los Angeles Traffic Improvement Project, which also won support on Wednesday. The latter provides many similar improvements to be applied in the West Los Angeles area.

Last December, Rosendahl unveiled a comprehensive anti-gridlock plan into which these projects fit. The total expenditures for the Westside total more than $11 million and require formal LA City Council approval.

“When it comes to fighting traffic grid-lock, we need a coordinated, comprehensive strategy that addresses transportation issues in specific communities,” Rosendahl said.

“We can no longer have a piecemeal approach to traffic congestion.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 17, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081707.pdf?ref=smdp.com)