“The Santa Monica Boulevard Transit Parkway Project is the reconstruction and reconfiguration of 2.5 miles of Santa Monica Boulevard between I-405 on the west (Beloit Avenue) and the Beverly Hills city limit on the east (Moreno Drive). The new boulevard will have three eastbound and three westbound travel lanes. Neighborhood access roads on the north and south sides of the main road are planned. The project will include a new street lighting and traffic signal system, a landscaped median, bicycle lanes and bus priority features. Additionally, the on-ramps to the northbound and southbound I-405 Freeway will be improved by adding High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) bypass lanes onto the freeway.”-LA City.org
In reality, the new boulevard is strange looking. Ornate lampposts and street trees are placed amidst Ryan Seacrest billboards and Jamba Juice and Pier 1 strip malls. The junky, sprawling, crappy gas stations, nail salons and Dim Sum palaces that lined the old Santa Monica Boulevard still line the new Santa Monica Boulevard.
The $68 million dollar project has certainly improved the roadway itself. But as a total urban renewal project it has not changed the character of the surrounding area. This section of Los Angeles is not Central Park West or Les Champs-Elysées (top photo). There is not one distinguished or classical building along the entire route. Why then did they design a boulevard that looks like it comes out of 19th Century Paris? The street furniture of benches, lighting and trees bears no relationship to its context.
And finally….. what is the feature that they forgot to put into the street? Answer: a streetcar, monorail or subway that would truly transform and improve West Los Angeles.
Here in Van Nuys 
OK. We will.
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“Undergrounding them is cost prohibitive.”
And unlike those folks in New York City or Paris, we’re just too poor to do what they’ve somehow managed to accomplish.
And notice how Andrew’s photo of the Vicveda district is another image of a street that’s all too common in this world’s most beautiful metropolis.
Hey, you out there, stop snickering.
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Maybe when they rezone Santa Monica Boulevard to permit buildings over three stories tall, they will assess the new properties a tax to pay for undergrounding the wires.
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The power lines behind the buildings are high tension lines. Undergrounding them is cost prohibitive. (Talk about being over budget!) They won’t be visible when taller buildings are constructed and when the landscaping grows in. The other lines are temporary service while construction is underway.
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Good catch on the power poles Maus2. I thought about mentioning it but it would be like beating a dead horse…..who was electrocuted by above ground wires.
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I don’t know about the wall mentioned in the comments above, but based on the photos of Santa Monica Blvd there is something else that hasn’t been pointed out, but that makes me think of what was described in one of Andrew’s earlier blog entries: power poles! Now those are things you’d see on or near Central Park West or Les Champs-Elysées. Yep, uh-huh.
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Maybe the new roadway and streetscape improvements will inspire new development that is more compatible and more attractive.
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JZY-
Actually I drove past the wall which I did like. But I was driving and couldn’t get a photo of it.
Reminds me of a rock climbing wall in a sports store.
Andrew
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check it out:
Santa Monica Boulevard post from 2/5/06
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At least the billboards are honest. The faux-classical lamp posts are surely stupid. I think they were chosen to appease tradition-minded people, who already would be ired by the retaining wall design part of the corridor. (Andrew, I can’t believe you missed the best part of the project!)
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Andrew, now you know the way an earlier generation felt when dealing with areas like Bunker Hill over 50 years ago, which had more than its fair share of “garbage”, or buildings that, worse of all, were outright dilapidated and probaby termite-ridden.
The billboards and strip malls occupied by Jamba Juice or Pier One outlets on Santa Monica Blvd are cheesy, but they’re at least not as slum-like, ugly or miserable as what unfortunately passes for the street environment in many other parts of the city.
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