City Recommends Keeping Rowena Road Diet, Adding Rush Hour Turn Restrictions

The Rowena Road Diet, implemented after a 2012 pedestrian death, reduced traffic lanes on Rowena Avenue and added bike lanes.

The Los Angeles Dept. of Transportation (LADOT) released a report yesterday recommending the Los Angeles City Council vote to keep Silver Lake’s so-called “Rowena Road Diet” intact, albeit with additional pedestrian safety and cut-through traffic mitigations.

The road diet, implemented by then Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge after a pedestrian was killed in 2012 while crossing the 2800 block of Rowena Avenue, removed a lane of traffic in each direction and added bike lanes, leading to an intentional slowing of traffic speed in the area.

Residents have long been split on the road diet, with some claiming it has dramatically increased safety and reduced collisions, while others say it has only served to create gridlock and create new safety hazards on small residential streets, such as Angus Street and Waverly Drive, as frustrated drivers use those streets as a “cut through” to avoid rush hour traffic on Rowena Avenue.

For years, arguments were mostly anecdotal as no formal traffic analysis had been conducted comparing collisions and traffic speed on the street before and after the implementation of the road diet, leading Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu to fund a nearly $90,000 study on the issue, released last August by independent contractor Kimley Horn.

However, while many had hoped the Kimley Horn report would provide conclusive recommendations for the road diet’s future, it instead described all possibilities for the street’s configuration–from leaving the road diet intact to removing it entirely, save for one left turn lane–and presented before-and-after collision data that could not be compared on an apples-to-apples basis.

Yesterday’s LADOT report clarifies some of Kimley Horn’s data and adds its own, as well as offering additional recommendations for safety improvements.

“I’m happy with the conclusions in the Department of Transportation’s report and appreciative of their analysis and input on making Rowena Avenue and the surrounding streets safe for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike,” said Councilmember Ryu in a statement. “Safety on Rowena Avenue and the surrounding streets has been a top priority for me, and I look forward to discussing the Department’s report and recommendations with community members in the coming weeks as we work to make Rowena Avenue, Angus Drive and Waverly Drive safe for all road users.”

Locals seem to be happy with the report as well, like Matlock Grossman, who made headlines in 2016 for speaking in favor of the road diet at a public hearing when he was just 11 years old.

“I’m … pleased that we are looking at the data and not just anecdotal evidence,” said Grossman, who now chairs the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council’s Transportation and Mobility Committee. “Three years ago it was such a contentious issue, but with the advent of scooters more people will be using proper bike lanes than ever.”

Among LADOT’s findings are that the road diet has reduced collisions, from an average of 12.4 per year in the five years prior to the road diet’s installation, to an average of 7.8 in the five years after.

The city agency also found that mid-day traffic speeds went from 39 miles-per-hour both east and westbound pre-road diet to 36 miles-per-hour eastbound and remained at 39 miles-per-hour westbound post-road diet.

This was measured using the “85th percentile speed” standard, which refers to the speed that 85% of drivers travel at or below, and is often used by cities to decide what legal speed limits should be.

Traffic volume on the street has remained consistent both before and after the road diet, according to the LADOT’s report.

Additionally, the department found, “Adjacent residential streets Waverly Drive and Angus Street … experienced no discernible increase or decrease in collisions after the implementation of the road reconfiguration.”

However, LADOT still recommended the inclusion of cut-through traffic mitigation measures, such as peak-hour turn restrictions at Griffith Park Boulevard and Angus Street, and the addition of continuous sidewalks on both Angus Street and Waverly Drive.

Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Co-Chair Anne-Marie Johnson, who had previously expressed frustration that the road diet was implemented without proper study, and said she was speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the neighborhood council, said she felt LADOT’s recommendation was a “win-win” for the community.

“What [the city] should have done in 2013 is what we did in 2018, [which was] to get a traffic analysis. Had it been done properly, these mitigation elements would have been installed to begin with,” said Johnson.

According to Johnson, she would like to see pedestrian safety precautions taken even further.

“I personally would like to see a pedestrian bridge that can carry children from West Silver Lake Drive and Rowena Across the Street to Herkimer and Rowena [where Ivanhoe Elementary School is],” she said.

Additionally, Johnson said, the city should hire additional traffic police to patrol the area and ensure mitigation measures are followed.

“There’s a perfect way of generating revenue to pay for additional motor officers, and that is to allow residents an exception sticker on their cars to allow them to waive the turning restrictions,” said Johnson. “I would encourage the [city] to allow residents with a 90039 zip code to pay $100 a year to be exempted from the turning restriction. … Let it be a pilot test for a year and let’s see what happens.”

The LADOT report additionally found an increase in bicycle traffic post-road diet and recommended improvements be made to the existing bike lanes, such as adding a protective curb or buffer zone, noting such improvements would not impact the current traffic lane configuration.

“As someone who wants biking to be safe for all ages, I love this idea,” said local bicycling advocate Sean Meredith, though he said there is still a lot to be done to improve safety and access for bicyclists in the area.

“The ironic thing is that we fought for years to save this half mile road diet,” Meredith said. “The bike lanes are great but they don’t connect to anything. And there’s no DASH or Metro connecting that area to the Red Line without a long walk. If we want people to be able to get from point A to point B safely without getting hit by a car, we’ve still got to do a lot better.”

Overall, Meredith said, he is pleased LADOT has thrown its support behind the road diet and hopes the city implements additional safety measures mentioned in the Kimley Horn report.

“The city doesn’t have enough LAPD resources to make enforcement the the solution. So we need to design our streets differently to curb speeding,” he said.

According to the LADOT report, the agency has not yet identified a funding source for its recommended safety improvements, which are estimated to range in cost from $10,000 for the least expensive improvements–such as installing high-visibility crosswalks and improving traffic signal phasing–to $2.748 million for the most expensive suggestion of installing “bulb outs” at key intersections along Rowena Avenue between Hyperion and Glendale boulevards.

Requests for comment from additional Silver Lake residents who previously went on the record both for and against the road diet were not immediately returned.

[UPDATE: This story was updated April 11, 2019 at 5:08 p.m. to include comments from Sean Meredith.]

[CORRECTION: The original version of this story incorrectly named the LFNC’s Transportation and Mobility Committee. We regret the error.]

[UPDATE: This story was updated April 12, 2019 at 1:18 p.m. to include a statement from Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu.]