East Olive Avenue Reconfiguration Project

Project Purpose:

As part of the City’s Complete Our Streets Plan, Olive Avenue from Glenoaks Boulevard and Sunset Canyon Drive is being reconfigured to make it more compatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood.  The purpose of the project is to address speeding and crash concerns, improve pedestrian mobility, and reduce potential conflicts. 

Project Background:

• The purpose of the Complete our Streets Plan is to improve roadway safety for all users, ages, and abilities.
• Repaving East Olive provides a good opportunity to reconfigure the roadway to operate in line with City policies, to enhance safety, and to address complaints.
• The project implements the Citywide Complete Our Streets Plan adopted by City Council in 2020.  The short-term restriping implements roadway changes before committing to a large capital improvement.

Project Objectives:

• Narrow lanes to reduce speeds.  Travel lanes were designed and installed within federal, state, and local engineering standards for city streets and are comparable to other streets in Burbank. 
• Decrease crossing distances of Olive where pedestrians come into conflict with cars.
• Provide a center median as a refuge for cars to turn into driveways, to help people cross the street, and facilitate emergency vehicle access.
• Below Seventh, reduce lanes from 4 to 2 to align street geometry along entire street segment.
• Reconfigure Olive Avenue so that it is more compatible with a residential neighborhood.
• Retain on-street parking.

Before the Project was Implemented:

• In November 2023, postcard notices about the project were mailed to all residents on Olive, Orange Grove, and Angeleno between Glenoaks and Sunset Canyon, as well as any addresses on the side streets (Fifth, Sixth, Kenneth, etc.) between these three streets.
• In December 2023, two community meetings were held to provide information about the project.  Meetings were also advertised in the notice as well as the City’s social media. The presentation from these community meetings is here (PDF).
• In December 2023, the Transportation Commission received information about the project.
• Vehicle speeds, multi-year collision data, and complaints were analyzed for the design of this project. Data showed that collisions on Olive Avenue are higher than comparable hillside streets, like Magnolia Boulevard.

Project Benefits:

• Olive will become more compatible with the neighborhood.
• Complaints of speeding and difficulty of crossing the street as a pedestrian will be addressed.
• Roadway design will address causes of crashes on Olive, which are higher than comparable hillside streets. 
• The City will test a possible long term Citywide Complete our Streets Plan project that could construct a landscaped median in the middle of Olive to achieve safety goals while also improving aesthetics and potential stormwater capture. 

Next Steps: 

• City staff will collect data, gather feedback, and analyze the effectiveness of the restriping versus the conditions before the project.
• The Transportation Commission will receive an update on the project in the summer of 2024.