How to Avoid the 6-Month Construction Messing up Your Commute

For many Eagle Rock residents, commuting out of the neighborhood through surface streets has turned into something of a nightmare lately.

Try going to Silver Lake, Atwater Village or anywhere Mid-City and you’ll find that Fletcher Avenue—that otherwise brisk, two-lane street perpendicular to Eagle Rock Boulevard, near the 2 freeway—is backed up to San Fernando Boulevard and beyond.

Reader's Commute Half-Hour Longer

An Eagle Rock Patch reader e-mailed us the other day to point out that the reason for this traffic mess is the closure of Glendale Boulevard between Riverside Drive and Waverly Drive (see attached Google map and photo).

The reader said she couldn’t find anything online about the closure, and that her morning commutes had become longer by half an hour because of the street closure’s impact on traffic. “I have some co-workers going through the same thing and none of us are happy,” she added.

CD 14 Inquires

We referred the matter to Council District 14’s Northeast Area Director Zenay Loera, whose office is in . Zenay very kindly offered to inquire into the issue from her counterparts in Council District 13, where the road construction is underway. Here’s what Zenay found out:

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is installing a large-diameter water pipeline within the Silver Lake and Los Feliz communities. The work, currently centered on Glendale Boulevard, between Riverside Drive and Waverly Drive, requires a full street closure of that short but critical stretch of Glendale Boulevard, which began on October 3. (Glendale Boulevard goes downhill from Rowena Avenue to Riverside and is a key conduit to the 5 freeway.)

This construction phase is expected to continue for about six months until April 2012. Detour routes for bus lines and vehicular traffic are posted at the construction project website, along with the project background, which can be viewed by clicking here.

Zenay also suggests that any further queries or concerns be communicated to the LADWP's contact person for the project: Sabrina Y. Tsui, Project Management, who can be reached at (213) 367-3331.