City Councilwoman\u00a0Nithya\u00a0Raman on Tuesday criticized Mayor Karen Bass for delaying a street improvement project on Forest Lawn Drive, where 95 crashes occurred between 2013 and 2023, including incidents that seriously injured or killed three people.<\/p>\n
Raman, who is challenging Bass in the Nov. 3 election, joined street safety advocates to highlight findings from a report produced by the nonprofit Streets Are For Everyone, which advocates for reducing traffic fatalities through education, advocacy and legislation and supports crash victims and their families.<\/p>\n
“In May of this year, the final striping and design plans for safety improvements were complete, and construction was scheduled to begin in June,” Raman said. “Then Mayor Bass directly intervened.”<\/p>\n
Raman said mayors normally defer to council members on projects in their districts and called Bass’ intervention “unusual.”<\/p>\n
“I want to be clear: the directive that she put into the letter undermines the project’s most important goal, to increase safety along this stretch,” Raman said.<\/p>\n
The news conference came five days after a person was killed in a single-vehicle crash about 2:30 a.m. on Forest Lawn Drive near Mount Sinai Drive. The motorist lost control of the vehicle and struck a tree, causing the vehicle to burst into flames. It was unclear what caused the crash.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation initiated the Forest Lawn Drive Safety and Mobility Project to improve traffic safety and upgrade unprotected bike lanes in an effort to encourage ridership and improve connectivity in surrounding communities.<\/p>\n
The proposed project would reconfigure the roadway to calm traffic, reduce dangerous passing and lane changes, add separated bicycle facilities and improve conditions for people using the corridor. LADOT reported the redesign would have little impact on travel times for motorists.<\/p>\n
Bass directed LADOT and StreetsLA in a May 7 letter to pause construction and explore an alternative plan that would preserve all traffic lanes while also protecting bike lanes.<\/p>\n
“Nithya\u00a0Raman’s plan is opposed by local businesses, faith leaders, and community members,” according to a statement from Bass’ campaign. “So Mayor Bass is moving forward with a plan that improves bike lane safety without negatively disrupting people’s ability to attend funeral and church services. Nithya\u00a0Raman is trying to distract from her failure as that community’s Councilmember, which is why Mayor Bass had to step in with a plan that the community will actually support.”<\/p>\n
Forest Lawn Drive serves as an important connection for bicycle commuters between Griffith Park, Glendale, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, according to Streets Are For Everyone Executive Director Damian Kevitt.<\/p>\n
Approximately one mile of the corridor has no sidewalk or bicycle lane, a badly damaged shoulder and a posted speed limit of 45 mph. LADOT reported 95 collisions occurred along that section between 2013 and 2023, including crashes that seriously injured or killed three people.<\/p>\n
SAFE volunteers conducted more than 14 hours of independent speed surveys during the summer of 2026. The organization found that 53% of drivers exceeded the posted speed limit, with one in five traveling between 51 and 75 mph while passing close to people walking, running and bicycling.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit compiled its findings in a report titled “Forest Lawn Drive: Why a Fully Funded Road Safety Project Was Delayed,” which the organization said examines how a road known for speeding, serious crashes and a lack of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure became the focus of an intervention that stopped construction weeks before work was scheduled to begin.<\/p>\n
“Forest Lawn Drive is about much more than one road,” Kevitt said in a statement. “It is a case study in how difficult it has become to build proven safety improvements, even after years of planning, community engagement, environmental review, and secured funding. When projects like this can be stopped at the last minute, it sends a troubling message about how unimportant the safety of those using LA roads is.”<\/p>\n
Kevitt alleged that Bass’ decision to delay the road safety project followed lobbying efforts by Forest Lawn Cemetery and Mount Sinai Memorial Park, which opposed the planned lane reductions.<\/p>\n
Mount Sinai Memorial Park General Manager Randy Schwab told City News Service in an email that both “Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai are not able to comment at this time.”<\/p>\n
In April, Bass received a letter signed by Democratic state lawmakers representing Los Angeles areas — Assemblymembers Rick Chavez Zbur, Jessica Caloza, Mark Gonzalez and Nick Schultz, and state Sen. Mar\u00eda Elena Durazo — who expressed “deep concern” about the proposed street safety project, which would reduce Forest Lawn Drive to a single lane in each direction in front of Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai memorial parks.<\/p>\n
While recognizing that the corridor needs repairs, the lawmakers wrote that bike safety improvements should not come at the cost of eliminating two vehicular travel lanes on Forest Lawn Drive.<\/p>\n
“We have received significant input from the local residential community and the Armenian and Jewish faith communities stating that reducing lanes on Forest Lawn Drive would be disastrous to the operation of key cemeteries serving the Armenian and Jewish communities. We do not believe that the proposed lane reduction has been adequately reviewed, particularly the impact on those two important cemeteries,” the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers asked for 90 days to explore alternatives they said would be important to them and their respective communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Councilwoman\u00a0Nithya\u00a0Raman on Tuesday criticized Mayor Karen Bass for delaying a street improvement project on Forest Lawn Drive,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1009973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,25223,2961,224,5337],"class_list":["post-1009972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-decision-2026","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117120027220686075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1009973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}