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# Supervisor urges leaders to back bus-only lane on Wilshire Blvd
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/supervisor-urges-leaders-to-back-bus-only-lane-on-wilshire-blvd/
- Published: 2005-02-18T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:07:36.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Government & Politics, Downtown, #archive-import

*Plan is sure to stir controversy, but could significantly shorten the time it takes to travel around the Westside, says Zev Yaroslavsky*

CULVER CITY — A proposal to restrict one lane of Wilshire Boulevard during rush hour for buses only from downtown Los Angeles to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica was put forward Thursday by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky at a quarterly meeting of Westside city leaders pressed for simple and effective solutions to the region’s growing traffic problems, despite an anticipated backlash from commuters and Wilshire Boulevard merchants.

“I don’t think there’s any question in anybody’s mind that traffic is the No. 1 issue in this area,” Yaroslavsky said during a meeting held at City Hall in Culver City. “It’s particularly acute between the 405 and the ocean... It is insane.” While transportation officials seek funding for a $650 million light rail line to connect downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Yaroslavsky said more immediate, “bite-sized” efforts to reduce traffic on the Westside are critical.

He proposed extending a pilot program in place for nearly a year on the one-mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Federal and Centinela avenues. That program restricts one lane of traffic during peak travel times for use by buses only. The buses cover that mile an average of two minutes faster than cars do, according to Yaroslavsky.

“For that (program) to have any meaning, it’s got to go east and it’s got to go west,” Yaroslavsky told the city leaders. “It’s got to go to Santa Monica.”

Yaroslavsky said he had encountered apoplexy among transportation officials at Santa Monica City Hall, who were concerned about a negative reaction from commuters and merchants along the heavily traveled east-west corridor.

To temper the anticipated political backlash, he suggested officials study limiting the bus-only lane to where traffic is worst, perhaps ending it at 15th Street or 20th Street instead of extending it all the way to Ocean Avenue.

Yaroslavsky added a similar program in Sydney, Australia, had been hugely successful, despite early resistance. On-street parking spaces were removed in Sydney to create a lane exclusively for buses and taxis, Yaroslavsky said.

City Councilman Richard Bloom, one of two dozen regional city leaders attending Thursday’s summit of the Westside Cities Council of Governments, said he understood the resistance to the proposal, but added that permanent lane closures that are part of the transit mall on Santa Monica Boulevard and Colorado Avenue in downtown Santa Monica had been successful.

Echoing a statement from Yaroslavsky that sacrifices need to be made to increase traffic circulation, City Councilman Bobby Shriver said he personally would be interested in riding the bus if he could move through the Westside more quickly.

“My office is in Beverly Hills,” Shriver said after the meeting. “If I could ride a bus from Ocean Avenue, where I live, to Beverly Hills in 15 minutes, I would be very interested in it, myself. Now somebody will say, ‘Shriver will never get out of his Mercedes,’ but I would. I just spent an hour driving from Beverly Hills to the Ken Edwards Center.”

The suggestion to close a lane of Wilshire Boulevard, which is being studied by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, is expected to be researched in great detail by staffers in all of the affected cities. Officials said the idea also might require synchronizing stop lights, a complicated undertaking.

Yaroslavsky said he knew the idea would stir controversy, but encouraged community leaders to remember it would be a pilot program that could be dropped.

“I’m asking you, really, to go back and get excited about this,” he said. “I’ll back you up. I’ll give you political cover... I’ll take the heat for this.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 18, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021805.pdf?ref=smdp.com)