Earlier this week I shared the latest on the Wilshire BRT and Gateway Plaza busway station projects.

Several of the commenters posed questions about the length of time the city says is needed for completing the Wilshire lanes. For example, Allison M asked “I’m trying to understand why it will take 2 years to do the upgrades and testing after the engineering is complete? Is this normal for BRT? It seems unnecessarily long.” I passed these queries along to the L.A. Dept. of Transportation, which is taking the lead on the project. Bruce L. Gillman, LADOT’s Director of Public Information, was kind enough to confer with the city staffers working on the project and passed along this response:

The schedule for the Wilshire bus lane project involves multiple City departments that work on the design, construction of the street widening, pavement reconstruction, engineering surveys, analysis and traffic management plan. None of which can be completed in a short period of time. That said, LADOT is working with our partners to expedite this project and will continue to push ahead to make Wilshire bus lanes a reality as soon as possible.

My thanks to Mr. Gillman for the prompt response.