Should we turn Olympic and Pico into one-way streets? Last night, a good crowd of about 50 Santa Monica residents turned out to find out just that — and to opine about it — at an informative meeting.

Allyn Rifkin, former LADOT planner, kicked things off with his presentation. Allyn’s the guy who conducted a study on the issue for LA County Supervisor Zev Yarolslavsky, who’s put the proposal on the table.

So first, the skinny on the proposal as it now stands:

* Olympic and Pico would be converted into 1-way streets with contraflow lanes (more on that later), with Olympic heading west and Pico east, creating a clockwise direction effect.

* Both Olympic and Pico would have 7 lanes for most of their length — 5 lanes going their respective main directions, and 2 lanes for contraflow.

* Contraflow lanes would be reserved for buses and vanpools (NOT carpools) during peak hours, and open to all during off hours.

* Street parking would be prohibited during peak hours; during off hours, parking would basically take up one of the contraflow lanes.

* Left turns on the main direction lanes may or may not be prohibited, but if they were, they’d only be prohibited during peak hours. Left turns would always be prohibited on contraflow lanes.

The benefit: Most importantly, we’d have dedicated bus lanes, even if they’re infringed upon a bit by off-peak hour parking and left turn lanes in some areas.

As for the traffic in general: Preliminary calculations — as of yet done WITHOUT traffic simulation programs, as Allyn carefully pointed out — show a capacity increase of 20.5% if left hand turns are prohibited during peak hours, or 5.7% if left turns are accommodated.

The cost: Allyn said the cost analysis hasn’t been completed yet, but the project’s estimated to cost “10s of millions” — certainly a lot of money, but in context, not such big a sum for transportation projects.

Some background: 106,000 cars pass through Olympic and Pico a day, carrying what’s equivalent to about half the traffic on the 10 freeway. The traffic, as we all know, is horribly gridlocked. It’s also heavy in both directions, meaning reversible lane operations that change a road’s direction to put more lanes in the direction of heavy traffic won’t work. (A historical aside: Olympic used to have reversible lanes until the 10 freeway opened in 1966)

What now?: The proposal’s being presented in meetings with communities and local traffic engineers. Then, the proposal will be adjusted, responding to the comments from those meetings. To move forward at that point, the proposal’ll need approval from each city — namely Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. We’re looking at “quite a number of months,” Allyn said.

Next post: What the proposal means for Santa Monica specifically.

Update: Post re: what the proposal means for Santa Monica’s now up.

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