1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: January 28, 2025
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director VIA: David Kriske, Assistant Community Development Director, Transportation BY: Marcos Fuentes, Senior Transportation Planner
SUBJECT: Update on the East Olive Avenue Reconfiguration Project
RECOMMENDATION
Note and file next steps of the East Olive Avenue Reconfiguration Project, which will include modification of the roadway striping to move the parking edge line away from the curb by approximately two feet and narrow the center turning lane by two feet on both sides of the street.
BACKGROUND
The East Olive Avenue Reconfiguration Project (Project) reconfigured the segment of East Olive Avenue on the City’s hillside, between Glenoaks Boulevard and Sunset Canyon Drive, to improve pedestrian safety, reduce vehicular speeds, and support a future Complete Streets Project . The Project involved restriping this segment to add a large center turn lane, narrow travel lanes, and retaining on- street parking (Attachment 1). A second travel lane in each direction was also removed between Glenoaks Boulevard and just east of Kenneth Road. In December 2023, staff conducted community meetings and presented the Project overview to the Transportation Commission. Following installation in February 2024, residents and community stakeholders provided feedback, primarily highlighting concerns about narrow travel lanes and the proximity of parked cars to moving vehicles. To evaluate the Project’s performance, staff analyzed traffic volumes, speeds, collision history (before and after the Project’s installation), and community input.
DISCUSSION
Alignment with Burbank2035 General Plan
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
2 The Project is an initiative leveraging the planned repaving of most of East Olive Avenue to implement striping changes for very little additional cost. Completed in early 2024, the Project aimed to test one of the long- term Projects listed in the Complete Our Streets Plan (North Olive Avenue Greening). The Project transformed a residential collector street connecting Burbank’s hillside residential neighborhood to Downtown into a configuration more compatible with its residential character. The segment previously included two travel lanes in each dir ection (with no turn lane) between Glenoaks Boulevard and Kenneth Road, with on- street parking on both sides, transitioning to one lane in each direction (with no turn lane) between Kenneth Road and Sunset Canyon Drive. The reconfiguration removed the two inner lanes between Glenoaks Boulevard and Kenneth Road, added a wide painted median between Glenoaks Boulevard and Sunset Canyon Drive, narrowed travel lanes, introduced a center turn lane, and retained all on- street parking. These changes align with the City’s Burbank2035 General Plan , Goal 9: Safety, Accessibility, and Equity to ensure that Burbank’s transportation network is safe, accessible, and equitable. Specifically, under this Goal, Policy 9.1 states: “ Ensure safe interaction between all modes of travel that use the street network, specifically the interaction of bicyclists, pedestrians, and equestrians with motor vehicles.”
These changes also align with the City’s Burbank2035 General Plan, Goal 6, Policy 6.2 :
Consider reconfiguring travel lanes and introducing reduced speed limits as part of comprehensive efforts to calm traffic , by addressing the mismatch between the existing roadway’s configuration and the characteristics of a typical residential street. By reducing the vehicular path of travel, decreasing pedestrian exposure time and conflict points, and encouraging lower speeds, the Project not only improves safety but also serves as a trial for roadway configurations similar to the North Olive Greening Project, a Complete Streets Plan priority.
Project Objectives
This Project aims to achieve these goals and policies by advancing the following three key objectives:
1. Enhancing pedestrian safety by reducing conflict points and exposure time through the reconfiguration to narrower lanes in each direction.
2. Responding to resident concerns about speeding by narrowing vehicular lanes to encourage reduced travel speeds
1,2.
3. Testing future Complete Our Streets Plan Project (North Olive Greening) with a low-cost striping solution, allowing the City to evaluate the reconfiguration before committing capital funds to long-term improvements.
1 Federal Highway Administration (n.d.). Road Design, 11. Roadway Narrowing. Retrieved from:
https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/saferjourney1/library/countermeasures/11.htm 2 California Department of Transportation (n.d.). Traffic Calming Guide, A Compendium of Strategies. Retrieved from:
https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/safety-programs/documents/traffic-calming/final-traffic-calming-guide_v2-a11y.pdf 3 Project Installation
The Project was originally installed as part of a larger Project: the Local Residential Street Improvement Project, Cycle 2, Phase 2, which took place between November 2023 and April 2024. Under the Local Residential Street Improvement Project , routine roadway maintenance was performed in the area generally bounded by Amherst Drive, San Fernando Boulevard, and the City’s eastern and northeastern boundaries.
The reconfiguration of East Olive Avenue (from Glenoaks Boulevard to Sunset Canyon Drive) capitalized on the larger street rehabilitation Project , creating an opportunity to align the roadway with City policies, enhance safety, and address community concerns.
By integrating this effort into the already -programmed resurfacing Project, the City was able to deliver a Complete Streets improvement at a minimal cost. Completed in February 2024, the reconfiguration involved resurfacing, restriping, removing two of the four existing traffic lanes, and adding a painted median to improve safety, reduce vehicle speeds, and establish a lane configuration better suited for a residential street. Following the Project installation, staff received, collected, and responded to comments received from residents and community stakeholders summarized under the Project Evaluation section of this report.
Project Evaluation
Evaluation of the Project incorporated a comprehensive analysis of before-and-after data on traffic collisions, speeds, volumes, and community feedback. This report summarizes staff’s findings.
For vehicle speeds, a speed analysis comparing data collected in November 2023 and October 2024 was conducted. Comparison of this data revealed mixed-results, with some segments seeing reduced speeds, some segments showing increased speeds, and some segments staying about the same . Overall, speeds between Glenoaks Boulevard and Seventh Street remained consistently below the posted limit before and after the Project.
However, between Seventh Street and Sunset Canyon, some 85 th percentile speeds
remained above the posted speed limit of 35 MPH. This shows that reducing vehicle lane width through striping did not have much impact on reducing speeds. Additionally, vehicle volume data indicated no major changes, with daily traffic remaining below pre-pandemic levels with no noticeable spikes or evidence of traffic diversion to other streets . Traffic levels remained well within the levels accommodated by a street with one lane in each direction.
For traffic collisions, staff’s analysis showed two collisions recorded between June 2023 and February 2024 before the Project’s installation, compared to one collision after the Project’s installation to June 2024 along the segment between Fifth Street and Sunset Canyon Drive. This suggests that collision rates remained unchanged before and after 4 the Project. However, more time is needed to effectively evaluate any changes to collision patterns along the Project area. Furthermore, anecdotal observations as well as some community feedback suggest that reducing the number of vehicle lanes below Seventh Street has had a positive impact to reduce conflict points between cars and pedestrians, with observations and feedback suggesting that it is easier to cross Olive Avenue on foot.
Staff will continue to analyze both to determine if anecdotal observations are reflected in collision data.
Community feedback consisted of more than 50 received phone calls and more than 70 emails highlighting several concerns about the new narrow travel lanes (41%), parking proximity to travel lanes (17%), and traffic congestion or bottlenecks (10%). Additionally, residents expressed appreciation for speed reduction efforts and safety improvements (7%).
Based on staff’s before-versus-after analysis, the Project has met two of the three stated Project goals. The Project has reduced conflict points at intersections, particularly at the intersections of East Olive Avenue with Fifth Street, Sixth Street, and Kenneth Road, though longer collision data observations are required to definitively confirm the effects of reducing conflict points and crash reductions. The Project also successfully tested a potential future implementation of the Complete Streets Project , allowing both residents and staff to evaluate how a future landscaped median may impact the street . However, achieving the goal of reducing speeding was mixed, as speeds on some segments are clearly lower than before and speeds on other segments remained about the same.
Moreover, speeds on some segments increased, which is contrary to the objective that narrower lanes would impact speeds . Furthermore, speeds higher up the hill towards Sunset Canyon remain well over the 35 MPH speed limit and much higher than would be expected on a residential street . This suggests other traffic calming treatments in combination with the ones introduces by this Project may be necessary to change speeds in these areas.
Next Steps
The main resident-concern identified during the Project evaluation was that narrow travel lanes are too close to parked vehicles. To address this concern, slight modifications to the roadway striping will be made to move the parking edge line away from the curb by about two feet and narrow the center turning lane by two feet on both sides to provide a wider separation between the travel and on- street parking lane to help drivers exit their parked cars. The resulting configuration will provide wider parking lanes (10 feet instead of eight feet) while still maintaining 11-foot travel lanes. The changes will also narrow the center turn lane by four feet (two feet on each side), which still provides ample space for a possible future landscaped median (Attachment 2).
5 Staff expects to modify the striping in March 2025 to address the primary resident concerns of narrow lanes too close to parked cars, while still preserving the other benefits of the Project. Any further and more permanent changes to the Project area, such as the implementation of a median like the one described in the Complete Streets Plan North Olive Avenue Greening Project, will be considered part of a separate capital Project that will require more comprehensive analysis, community outreach, funding source identification, and environmental impact analy sis. Moreover, this segment of East Olive Avenue has been identified as part of the draft Safer Streets Burbank Plan’s Mobility Network, which may present another opportunity to re- evaluate safety and roadway design in the Project area.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Prior to the Project installation, staff conducted two community meetings (one virtual and one in- person) and presented to the Transportation Commission in December 2023.
Notices alerting residents of the Project were mailed to all addresses on file along East Olive Avenue between the 400 block (north of Glenoaks Boulevard) and the 200 block of Country Club Drive. Additionally, door hangtags were placed at all residences on streets where roadwork took place during the Local Residential Street Improvement Program, including residences in the Project area.
At the request of the Transportation Commission, and after allowing enough time to gather data to assess the Project ’s performance, staff delivered a Project update to the Commission on December 18, 2024. The update consisted of reviewing the Project's background, purpose and objectives, data analysis conducted before and after the Project was installed, review community feedback received since the Project's installation, and discuss proposed modifications to the striping based on the top concerns residents have with the current striping.
The meeting was posted on City’s website and social media platforms, and an email blast was sent the week before the meeting to more than 2,000 email addresses on file, including all those who emailed feedback following the Project installation. Approximately a dozen residents attended the meeting, and another dozen called and emailed feedback before and after the meeting. The majority of comments received before, during, and after the meeting mirrored the feedback analyzed in the Project Analysis summary.
As part of their December 2024 update, the Transportation Commission adopted the following recommendation to the City Council: 1) the Commission support s staff’s proposed striping changes to be implemented sometime in early 2025, and 2) before proceeding with any permanent changes to the street (e.g., installing a planted median), staff should bring back a comprehensive analysis studying traffic patterns, pedestrian and bicyclist activities, traffic calming treatment options, potential for adding more on-street parking, and alternative concepts within the Project area for the Transportation 6 Commission to consider during a joint meeting with the Sustainability Commission. As noted above, staff would initiate more analysis and solicit feedback should the City Council wish to proceed to implement a more intensive Complete Streets Plan Project or other capital improvements on East Olive Avenue.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The Local Residential Street Improvement Project, Cycle 2, Phase 2, and the original Project (2024 restriping of East Olive Avenue), w ere activities determined to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) under CEQA Guidelines, Article 19 (Categorical Exemptions), § 15301 - Existing Facilities. This exemption applies because the scope of work for the original Project consisted of routine maintenance activities, specifically repaving and restriping an existing public street, and minor striping alteration of the existing public street, involving negligible or no expansion of existing or former use.
These activities fall within the definition of "existing facilities" under CEQA, which allows for exemptions for projects that involve minor alterations to existing public infrastructure.
Similarly, the proposed 2025 restriping changes to East Olive Avenue are also expected to be exempt under CEQA Guidelines, Article 19 (Categorical Exemptions), § 15301 - Existing Facilities. The proposed changes are limited to the modification of existing pavement markers and striping. These modifications are considered minor alterations to an existing public facility with negligible or no expansion of existing or former use, and do not constitute a new development or result in substantial changes to the ex isting environment. Therefore, to the planned restriping falls within the scope of the Class 1 "Existing Facilities" exemption under CEQA.
FISCAL IMPACT
Costs to install the original Project were minimal due to the striping costs already needed to restore the street as part of the repaving Project . Costs to modify the striping as described above are estimated to be $40,000. The cost will be paid with Measure R Local Return funds earmarked by the City Council for Safer Streets / Vision Zero Project implementation (370.CD33A.62450 General City Capital Projects ) and therefore, funds are available in the current Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget.
CONCLUSION
The East Olive Avenue Repaving and Resurfacing Project reconfigures a key neighborhood collector street to better match the surrounding residential character of the street. The Project met two of the three Project goals, which were to reduce conflicts and improve pedestrian safety, and to serv e as a trial for a future Complete Streets North Olive Avenue Greening Project. Mixed results were observed in meeting the third Project goal of reducing speeds, which remains a primary concern of residents. Vehicle speeds lower than the posted speed limit were recorded in some areas but fluctuate east of Seventh Street, with some segments showing speeds well above the posted limit. To 7 address the major community concerns regarding the narrow travel lanes being installed close to parked cars, staff will be adjusting the striping configuration, providing wider separation between travel and parking lanes while maintaining the Project ’s other core benefits. Installation of these modifications is scheduled for early 2025.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – Existing Alignment Cross-Section
Attachment 2 – Modified Alignment Cross-Section
Attachment 3 – November 2023 and October 2024 Speed Surveys