Westwood Boulevard Project

As blog readers will know, there is a plan to rejigger traffic on Westwood Boulevard from UCLA all the way to the light rail station on Exposition Boulevard.* The changes involve carving out bus lanes and bicycle lanes. A Zoom meeting last Thursday evening which yours truly attended provided more detail.

City staff on the Zoom call referred to a ballot proposition passed by voters that required certain elements at a minimum. These included bus lanes between UCLA and Wilshire and a protected bicycle lane between Ohio and Santa Monica Blvd. Between Santa Monica Blvd. and the light rail station at Exposition Blvd., bicycle lanes (apparently not protected) are required.

However, the City plans to go beyond the minimums and will install protected bike lanes over the entire route. Bus lanes will extend from Santa Monica Blvd. to UCLA. Bus lanes will be earmarked for buses 24/7.

It was said that emergency vehicles, such as ambulances going to UCLA hospital, would be able to use the bus lanes. (It wasn't clear to yours truly how this would work. Normally, when an ambulance siren is heard, vehicles are supposed to pull over to the right to allow passage. But the bus lane will be at the right against a protected bike lane. If there is a bus in the lane, how would it pull over for the ambulance?)

In any case, the goal is to get all this work done before the 2028 Olympics. However, City staff indicated that the work might not be complete by then. If it isn't complete, construction equipment, etc., would be removed. (It wasn't clear how a half-done construction job wouldn't adversely affect traffic flows in the UCLA area during the Olympics.)

City staff said their models of traffic flow would only increase travel time by a minute and a half at peak hours and directions.

There is information about the Westwood Project at:

https://ladotlivablestreets.org/projects/westwood

City staff said the slides from the Zoom would be available there and maybe a recording. As of the writing of this posting, they weren't there.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/changing-westwood.html.