The city of West Hollywood has launched The Sunset Experience, a pilot project aiming to celebrate the history of the Sunset Strip and to make the often traffic-saturated area more walkable.

Using extended sidewalks, colorful light poles, signage detailing historical facts about Sunset Boulevard and a screened parklet in front of Book Soup, The Sunset Experience pilot project looks to make the famed boulevard more people-oriented. (photo courtesy of city of West Hollywood)

“Sunset is maybe one of the most notoriously car-oriented places in Los Angeles, but we all know it as the place where we live and hang out,” said Bianca Siegl, long range and mobility planning manager for the city of West Hollywood. “We’re really excited to do these projects to really test how we can make Sunset a better place for people to hang out and to feel comfortable and enjoy their experience here.”

The six-month pilot project, which began with a kick-off ceremony on Dec. 4, is a partnership between West Hollywood and urban design and planning firm Gehl Studio and features three components: light poles wrapped in brightly colored vinyl, painted sidewalk extensions and new seating areas.

The colorful light poles will serve as wayfinding guides throughout the Strip, with many hoisting small posters providing directions to restaurants, shops and famous spots within walking distance, as well as detailing the history of the boulevard. The hang-out spots of the female band The Go-Go’s around the San Vicente and Sunset intersection, the “hippie riots” protesting against curfews in 1966, and the former location of the Finlandia Baths, a bathhouse frequented by famous actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson, are just a few snippets of history highlighted in the posters.

“The historical moments and wayfinding are meant to activate the pedestrian realm, encourage walking between destinations, enhance the identity of Sunset Boulevard, and provide visual and aesthetic connectivity between pilot sites,” said West Hollywood Associate Planner Garen Srapyan.

The sidewalk extensions, created by street artist The Art of Chase, at the intersections of Sunset at Holloway and Horn, Larrabee, San Vicente and Sherbourne Drive, give more room on sidewalks on the Strip’s western end, which receives the most foot traffic each day, according to Srapyan. Originally part of the street, the zones are now painted red and decorated with whimsical dots, eyes and other patterns.

“There’s places to sit, there’s invitations to cross the street and the lanes are narrowed down a bit to make that experience [of crossing] better for people,” said Blaine Merker, managing director and partner at Gehl. “Really, this is all about seeing how this works.

The Sunset Experience pilot project also includes a new parklet, or screened seating area, in front of Book Soup. The new communal spot replaces an on-street loading zone, a move Merker hopes will promote the bookstore and the block’s other businesses.

“I helped the city of San Francisco start its parklet program,” Merker said. “When we first rolled out the first parklets 10 years ago, a lot of business owners said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to take parking spaces away from the people who come to my store.’ After about a year of seeing what those parklets did, every business was saying, ‘We’ve got to have a parklet in front of our business,’ because it’s about creating place. It’s not parking that attracts people, its places that attract people and other people that attract people.”

In order to evaluate the pilot project, during these next six months, The Sunset Experience team will be surveying pedestrians along the boulevard in terms of Gehl’s data on “what makes a successful public place,” Srapyan said.

“These criteria focus on how people can use the space, how long they stay, how comfortable the spaces are for users, and whether there were opportunities for interaction and an array of activities,” he added. “These criteria are both qualitative and quantitative and will aid in future decision-making, helping to identify priorities for future improvements on Sunset.”

Once the pilot finishes, the team members will recommend to the West Hollywood City Council that either the installations be modified, removed or made permanent in a new Streetlife Action Framework Plan. If the pilot project proves to be a success, the planning team already has a few ideas on how they would expand upon the installations, including adding colored light poles and sidewalk extensions to create a gateway on the eastern side of the Strip, according to the project’s brochure.

“Seeing how this kind of streetscape intervention has kind of expanded to multiple cities and created a network of cities that are taking their streets back to a people-focus is really inspiring,” Merker said. “I want to commend the city of West Hollywood for stepping into that community and being a part of that network of cities that are creating streets for people.”