Costly Changes Proposed for Lincoln

Reeve T. Schley
Mirror staff writer
  
   The first phase of a study of ways to alleviate traffic on a five-mile stretch of Lincoln Boulevard between Manchester Avenue in Playa Del Rey and the Santa Monica Freeway was released to the public last week.
   Prepared by the Lincoln Corridor Task Force (LCTF), an independent consultant group hired by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the study proposed changes to the overburdened thoroughfare that ranged from ad-free new benches to a major overhaul of the intersection of Lincoln and the Santa Monica freeway.
   The LCTF is also considering an elevated light rail system that would run the length of the corridor and could cost as much as $500 million. However, such a system would not be completed for ten to twenty years and would require the myriad of agencies with rights to the boulevard to agree on it and procure the necessary funding.
   In the next ten years, LCTF predicts that traffic will double near the Playa Vista development in Playa Del Rey and increase by 15 to 20 percent on other spans along the boulevard, making an already bad situation worse.
   “The project proposes not just to make traffic move better, but for the corridor to move better for all modes of transportation,” said Viggen Davidian, Principal at Meyer, Mohaddes Associates, one of the companies involved in making the study. Denying that the Playa Vista development, with its 3,000 residential units, forced the study, he said, “Issues and problems along the corridor were recognized long before Playa Vista.”
   The goal of the study was to create a “conceptual corridor” on Lincoln’s path, incorporating a range of transportation options and urban design improvements.
   If approved, spokesmen said, short-range improvements would occur in the next seven to ten years and would include, among other things, median landscaping, decorative crosswalks, new benches, trash containers, and bicycle racks.
   Long-term improvements would occur in the next ten to 20 years and would include, among other things, “undergrounding” telephone and electric wires, the addition of traffic lanes, roundabouts at such intersections as Rose/Lincoln and the Santa Monica Freeway/Lincoln, and a new bus line or light rail system.
   Right now, many of the boulevard’s intersections in Venice and Santa Monica are perpetually jammed on the approaches to the Santa Monica Freeway during rush hour.
   According to the report, stretches of Lincoln near Marina del Rey and Playa Del Rey have the highest daily volume of cars at 67,000, but intersections there are less congested than in Venice and Santa Monica where the daily volume of cars is about 50,000.
   During non-rush hours, the average car speed along the corridor is highest in Playa Del Rey at 40 mph and slowest in Venice and into Santa Monica at 15 mph.
   LCTF stated that each of their four proposals is designed to make traffic in the corridor from Playa Del Rey to Santa Monica flow more freely.
   The first alternative calls for the installation of a landscaped median between intersections to limit left turns onto the boulevard. The second alternative would open the parking lane to traffic in peak periods, shrinking sidewalks to 10 feet and incorporating a new 13-foot bus lane. The third alternative shows five-foot bicycle lanes on either side of the boulevard, eight vehicle traffic lanes, and the addition of a Rapid Transit Bus line. The fourth would replace the bus line with either a street level or raised light rail system. Light rail stations would be located at the same intervals as bus stops are now.
   The LCTF estimates that the new bus lanes would cost $10 million, the street-level light rail system $50 million per mile, and the elevated light-rail $100 million dollars per mile. Constructing a roundabout at the Rose/Lincoln intersection would cost between $1 and $5 million, and a roundabout at Lincoln and the Santa Monica Freeway would cost in the neighborhood of $10 million.
   The implementation of any of the four alternatives would require an agreement between Playa Del Rey, Marina Del Rey, Venice, Santa Monica and the County of Los Angeles, all of which own pieces of the five-mile corridor. Caltrans, the California Coastal Commission and the MTA would also have jurisdiction over certain aspects of the project.
   “The big question that remains is how to find the money to do all of this. All of the agencies would have to come together and agree on it,” Davidian said.
   Funded by SCAG, the first phase of the project cost $100,000. Davidian said the second phase, which SCAG will not fund, will develop the concepts in more detail and will cost in the neighborhood of $400,000 to $500,000, and could be financed by state and federal grant monies, but only if the five entities agree to proceed.