Eyes on the Street: Culver City’s Renovated Culver Blvd Bikeway

Last week, Streetsblog got the chance to visit the recently reopened portion of the Culver Boulevard bike path in Culver City. The half-mile long refurbished portion of the facility extends along the east side of Culver from Sepulveda Boulevard to Elenda Street. The northeast end connects with the Elenda protected bikeway that opened in 2021. The path, located on a former Pacific Electric streetcar right of way, continues southwest along Culver Boulevard another mile and a half to McConnell Street in the L.A. City neighborhood of Del Rey.

Culver Boulevard’s recent bike, walk, and landscaping upgrades were part of the city’s project Culver Boulevard Realignment & Urban Stormwater Project, which was completed earlier this year. According to the city website, that project:

• continued the widening of Culver Blvd that was initiated by Caltrans in 2009 as part of the widening improvements to the 405 Freeway (It is not clear where any further widening took place recently. That earlier widening – circa 2007-2008 – narrowed the bike/walk median in order to flare six-lane Culver Boulevard to eight lanes at Sepulveda. That lane configuration persists today. It appears that the new project added/widened median spaces, not spaces for driving.)
• resolved traffic issues, improved pedestrian safety, and enhanced aesthetics
• installed a raised bikeway and walkway, landscaping, and new median separating the eastbound and westbound lanes of car traffic
• installed underground water features to detain rainwater and other urban run-off, for both infiltration and for use for irrigation

Truth be told, the improvements in the bikeway itself are not night-and-day different than what had been there earlier.

The paths’ surfaces have been redone. The parallel decomposed granite walk path and the asphalt bike path are further separated from each other. The small architectural relics (from Culver City’s 1928 City Hall building) are still there, in new display fixtures. There is new lighting and extensive new native landscaping – including removal of some palm trees, replaced by shade trees.

Below are Culver Boulevard project photos taken last Friday afternoon.