A staff report to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission offers a look at plans for streetscape improvements on five corridors connecting to Expo Line stations in Palms and Sawtelle.
The Expo Corridor Streetscape Plan endeavors sets a "coordinated palette" of improvements to five major corridors which serve as pedestrian access points to the Expo/Bundy, Expo/Sepulveda, and Palms Stations: Bundy Drive, Olympic Boulevard, Sepulveda Boulevard, National Boulevard, and Palms Boulevard.
The range of improvements includes the addition of new street trees, furniture, landscaping, enhanced paving, pedestrian lighting, curb extensions, mid-block crossings, and median islands.
Amongst other upgrades, plans call for the addition of a landscaped median along a roughly half-mile stretch of Olympic Boulevard between Centinela and Barrington Avenue.
Illustrated plans also depict Sepulveda Boulevard with median-running transit lanes, a project which is called for in the Westside Mobility Plan. However, any reconfiguration of Sepulveda Boulevard - to accommodate bus rapid transit or another mode of transportation - would require an independent environmental study, and is not proposed through the Expo Corridor project.
Implementation of the proposed improvements is expected to occur over time through publicly and privately financed developments within the plan area, though the City of Los Angeles could pursue grants that would finance construction.. The improvements could also be built independently by a non-profit organization or a business improvement district.
The streetscape plan is an element of the Exposition Corridor Transit Neighborhood Plan, which established new zoning rules for the immediate surroundings of Expo Line Stations in Palms, Rancho Park, and the West Los Angeles/Sawtelle area. The plan, which would accommodate up to 6,000 new residents and 14,3000 new jobs by the year 2035, is currently the subject of a lawsuit brought by the organization "Fix the City," which is seeking to overturn the new land use rules.
