Bass hit brakes on new bike lanes near Forest Lawn. Raman is now slamming her for it

A long-running dispute between cemeteries and bike-lane and safe streets advocates in the San Fernando Valley has escalated to become a campaign issue in the Los Angeles mayor’s race.

The fight revolves around a one-mile stretch of Forest Lawn Drive — a commuter route linking the Valley and Hollywood — and the main road serving Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills and Mount Sinai Memorial Park.

In May, Mayor Karen Bass scrapped a plan to take away a traffic lane in each direction on the stretch between Zoo and Memorial drives to make room for road safety measures including an improved bike lane, one that would be shielded from motor traffic by a physical barrier.

The cemeteries, neighborhood councils and clergy leaders had opposed the loss of motor vehicle lanes, saying it would cause a traffic nightmare. Citing the community opposition, Bass directed city traffic engineers to come up with an alternative plan.

That decision came under fire from City Councilmember Nithya Raman this week in the wake of a recent fatal crash on Forest Lawn Drive, with the mayoral challenger saying that the road is too dangerous and that the protected bike lanes and other measures are needed to improve safety.

“Forest Lawn Drive remains dangerous,” Raman said at a news conference Tuesday. “It has now been the site of multiple deaths. The city developed a plan to make it safer. My council district helped to push that plan forward. It is on the verge of breaking ground, and then Mayor Bass has so far stopped it.”

Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said the mayor acted in response to widespread opposition to the loss of traffic lanes.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass shelved plans to take away motorist lanes on Forest Lawn Drive.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“Nithya Raman’s plan is opposed by local businesses, faith leaders and community members. So Mayor Bass is moving forward with a plan that improves bike lane safety without negatively disrupting people’s ability to attend funeral and church services,” Stack said. “Nithya Raman is trying to distract from her failure as that community’s council member, which is why Mayor Bass had to step in with a plan that the community will actually support.”

There have been more than 95 car crashes on Forest Lawn Drive since 2013, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. The crashes have included four fatalities, including one on Aug. 13.

The driver — a 70-year-old man — died in a solo crash just before 2:30 a.m., according to the L.A. County coroner’s office. It’s unclear what factors led to the crash and a medical examiner’s report is still underway, but safe street advocates are pointing to the death as one reason the road improvement project is overdue.

A cyclist rides along Forest Lawn Drive.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I can prove that that project would have saved his life. Nobody could prove that about a single crash,” said Michael Schneider of Streets for All, a group that advocates for bike lanes, bus lanes and pedestrian safety measures. “What I can tell you is what every traffic engineer in the country knows: Narrower roads slow drivers down, and slower crashes are survivable crashes.”

The safety project on Forest Lawn Drive is part of a citywide mobility plan intended to revamp roads, update bike lanes to include protective barriers and reduce speeds. The street, which winds adjacent to the L.A. River and drops off near Griffith Park, was included in a 2016 city planning report as one of the city’s designated scenic highways.

Raman, whose district encompasses the street, pushed for the safety and mobility initiative in 2023, which aimed to decrease speeds on the road and reduce vehicular lanes to create a protected bike lane and a center turn lane.

When she halted the project in May, Bass directed the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Street Services to develop new designs to address community concerns.

“I am firmly supportive of improved traffic safety and infrastructure for the mobility community, especially protected bike lanes. However, LADOT’s own outreach reflects significant community opposition to the final redesign plan of Forest Lawn Drive,” Bass wrote in a May 7 letter reviewed by The Times. “I would like to see more effort to find a resolution that maintains the existing traffic lanes while supporting protected bike lanes.”

Traffic along Forest Lawn Drive in the San Fernando Valley.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The mayor’s deadline to finalize a new plan was July 10. Bass said Thursday that transportation officials are proposing different designs for Forest Lawn Drive that will be “more appropriate for the area.”

The mayor’s office said the plans would include protected bike lanes without the elimination of lanes and would “implement signal modifications to increase safety.”

“I think that the best way to deal with issues like Forest Lawn is to deal with the community [and] get their involvement as well, not just the councilwoman proposing something that the community rejected,” she said. “And so I think that the Department of Transportation will be forthcoming with that very soon.”

Anastasia Mann, the president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council, said a repaved road would be beneficial but questioned the need to remove motoring lanes when there are already bike lanes along Forest Lawn Drive.

“Why would anyone want to do this to that current road with the current traffic flow issues, which is at a standstill during rush hour?” she said. “It’s not a logical issue.”

The road is traveled by hundreds of thousands of cars annually. An LADOT study found that roughly half of the cars on this stretch of road exceed the 45-mph speed limit and that changes could help slow drivers, while adding less than two minutes of travel time.

But every minute counts for those in mourning, said Randy Schwab, the general manager of Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries.

“This is a cemetery. People are already emotional,” Schwab said. They all have to be there at exactly one time, because the service starts and nobody wants to walk in late to a funeral. And then they’re all going to leave at the same time when the service is over. … There’s just no thought put behind this.”

Schwab said there are multiple services nearly every day at Mount Sinai and nearby Forest Lawn, which see hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Processions often include dozens of cars that line up along Forest Lawn Drive and funnel into the parks. He believes a reduction in lanes would only make congestion worse.

A vehicle passes by Forest Lawn Memorial Park along Forest Lawn Drive.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

These concerns were shared in 2023 with Raman, Schwab said. He and others were surprised to learn that the designs had not taken community comments into consideration. According to Schwab, multiple attempts to connect with Raman’s office after the initial meeting went unanswered.

Raman’s website shows that she met on-site at the cemeteries once in 2023.

In a December 2024 letter to Bass, the Rev. Mark Hopper of the Evangelical Free Church expressed similar concerns and asked the mayor to stop the project.

“This proposal is a bad idea and short-sighted. Have city traffic engineers and planners considered the negative impact this will have on both cemetery services and visitors and those who use Forest Lawn Drive for their daily commute to work or home,” wrote Hopper, who has held several services at Forest Lawn.

Damian Kevitt of Streets Are for Everyone told The Times that the improvements are necessary for all travelers’ safety — not just drivers.

“We need to start thinking proactively and not reactively,” Kevitt said. “You’ve got a tremendous number of cyclists and pedestrians. There’s no sidewalk. Anything that we can do to reduce potential harm to the people that use it — this is a multiuse road. This is not just cars.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.