Eyes on the Street: Extended Bus Lanes on Alvarado Street

This week, construction crews added new peak-hour bus lanes on Alvarado Street from Sunset Boulevard to the 101 Freeway. The new busway is a joint project of the L.A. City Transportation Department (LADOT), Metro, and Caltrans District 7. Though Alvarado is a Los Angeles City surface street, it is owned by Caltrans (the state transportation department) because it had been the planned route of the canceled Beverly Hills Freeway.

Metro’s NextGen Bus Study combined a couple of lines to make Alvarado a more prominent part of the bus network. Historically the Metro 2 bus continued on Sunset into downtown L.A. Just over a year ago, line 2 was combined with the former line 200 bus, so the 2 now runs on Sunset and Alvarado (continuing south on Hoover Street to USC and Exposition Park).

These new Alvarado bus lanes are the second and, for now, final phase of planned bus lanes there; the first phase opened in July 2021. The initial segment was about 1.2 mile from 7th Street to just south of the 101 Freeway. The full length of the Alvarado bus-only lanes is now about 1.6 mile, though there are short gaps at the 101 Freeway.

The new bus lanes are nearly complete. As of Saturday morning, bus lane street lettering and signage appeared complete, but some final thermoplastic lane striping was still pending.