The city of Los Angeles and Metro Monday celebrated the completion of over four miles of safety and mobility improvements along Venice Boulevard.
The safety and mobility project includes new crosswalks, signal upgrades, parking-protected bike lanes and a 24-hour dedicated bus lane along Venice Boulevard between Inglewood Boulevard and National Boulevard.
In addition, the project creates a safer corridor, improving bus and pedestrian connections between Palms and Mar Vista for nearly 47,000 residents living with-in a five-minute walk of the project area, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
The improvements also provide greater access for pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders to and from the Metro E Line (Expo) at the Culver City Station on the eastern edge of the project area.
“Whether taking the bus, driving, walking or biking, Angelenos deserve to move around our city safely,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “The recently completed improvements on Venice Boulevard help make progress toward that goal.”
An average of 20,000 riders board the Metro 33 Line on Venice Boulevard every day, and 8,000 of them board or depart the bus within the project area, according to LADOT.
On Metro Line 33, 93% of riders are people of color, 84% live in households making less than $50,000 a year, 82% do not own a car and rely on bus service, and 98% take Metro at least several times per week.
“All Angelenos deserve to live in safe, liveable communities — where we don’t waste our lives sitting in traffic, or fear for our or our child’s safety every time we cross the street,” L.A. City Councilwoman and Metro Boardmember Katy Yaroslavsky said in a statement.
“Just think about what we could do if we brought this kind of infrastructure to communities across Los Angeles and created a truly connected bike network and made bus travel times faster,” she added. “It would fundamentally transform the way we live and move around in L.A.”
Ara Najarian, Glendale city councilman and Metro board chair, added the project is an “important step in building a safer and more equitable transit network for Los Angeles.”
Venice Boulevard is part of the city’s High Injury Network, approximately 6% of streets that account for more than 70% of severe and fatal injury collisions.
From 2012 to 2022, 1,203 collisions occurred on the section of Venice Boulevard west of Inglewood, according to LADOT. Almost 25% of those involved people walking or riding a bike, and 58 people were killed or severely injured.
LADOT targeted safety improvements along Venice as part of its efforts to combat the public health crisis of collisions and rising deaths on Los Angeles streets.
This project is one of the many recommendations resulting from the Bus Speed Engineering Working Group, authorized by the Metro Board of Directors and the Los Angeles City Council in July 2019. It is a collaborative effort between Metro and LADOT to identify, design, fund, and implement transit-supportive infrastructure to speed up transit service as part of Metro’s NextGen Bus Plan and the agency’s Vision 2028 Plan.
Prior to implementation, LADOT and Metro engaged with residents and riders to understand their experiences and gather insights on the corridor’s challenges and priorities. Over 250 businesses and 2,000 individuals participated in 28 separate engagement events.