A ceremony held on March 26 marks the grand opening of new bus priority lanes on Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.

The project, delivered through Metro and LADOT, spans 5.6 miles of Sepulveda Boulevard between the neighborhoods of Panorama City, Van Nuys, and Sherman Oaks. The lanes will speed buses which move more than 50,000 weekly riders (including 9,000 daily passengers on Line 234) by 15 percent, according to LADOT, while also allowing for more frequent service.

Bus priority lanes on Sepulveda BoulevardLADOT

The project corridor also hits destinations including the Sherman Oaks Galleria, and also intersections with the G Line's Sepulveda Station.

"Angelenos deserve a Metro system that can get them where they need to go reliably, quickly and safely. Infrastructure improvements like the Sepulveda bus priority lanes help us make progress towards those goals," said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who also serves as Metro Board chair. "These are the solutions we must continue pursuing, and I want to thank the Metro Board of Directors, Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and all partners for working together to make the Sepulveda bus priority lane a reality."

The completion of the bus priority lanes in the San Fernando Valley brings the amount of total citywide bus lanes within the City of Los Angeles to 51 miles, according to LADOT. An additional 46 miles of bus lanes are expected to be built in the coming years.

Full-time bus-only lanes are now in service along northbound Sepulveda between Ventura Boulevard and Rayen Street, taking the place of what was previously the rightmost traffic lane. For southbound Sepulveda, the bus-only lanes stretch from Rayen to Magnolia.

While the focus on the project was on the north-south corridor of Sepulveda, it also implements an approximately .9-mile bus-priority lane along westbound Ventura Boulevard between Sepulveda and Vesper Avenue, which will be in operation from 7 am to 9 am on weekdays.

Project corridor for Sepulveda Boulevard Line 234 Bus LanesMetro

Bus-only lanes may not be the only transit infrastructure coming to Sepulveda Boulevard. Metro is also looking at the possibility of a heavy rail subway line along the corridor as part of a massive project which would connect the Valley with the Westside via the Sepulveda Pass.

Additional upgrades to bus service are planned elsewhere in the Valley, including peak-hour lanes on Roscoe Boulevard. That plan was downgraded from an earlier proposal to implement an east-west bus rapid transit line along multiple corridors following community and political backlash.

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