Anthony Cafarchia grew up in Eagle Rock, where his family has owned the Eagle Rock Bakery and Deli since the 1960s. The shop withstood the loss of his mom and dad, the pandemic and the stress of the Eaton fire, which destroyed his brother’s home.
He fears a bus lane may be its undoing.
“I don’t know how we’re going to benefit with this big change,” he said. “I think it’s going to kill the business.”
A 19-mile bus route that would connect North Hollywood to Pasadena will slice through the Eagle Rock community along a high-traffic portion of Colorado Boulevard’s Historic Route 66 as part of Metro’s goal to enhance public transit ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
Metro’s plan to shuttle hundreds of thousands of fans to the Games across L.A. County hinges on a massive bus network. The route through Eagle Rock is one of a handful of the agency’s bus projects in the construction or design phase that’s slated for completion ahead of the 2028 Games from Northridge to Long Beach, Pasadena to Mid-City.
The route won’t deliver riders directly to an Olympic venue but has been lauded by transit advocates as a car-free alternative for people to travel between the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. For years, though, many residents and business owners in this enclave of Los Angeles have questioned the designs, believing they will bottleneck traffic in the area, hurt small businesses when already limited parking becomes even sparser and degrade Eagle Rock’s small-town charm.
The plans have also been subject to pushback beyond Eagle Rock. Burbank blocked Metro from obtaining permits for construction on a portion of the route the city believes would affect traffic for residential areas. After Metro sued the city, a judge sided with Burbank and questioned Metro’s argument that a delay on this part of the route would affect the plan for the Games.
But public transit advocates have argued that the updates will improve traffic overall for the Games and beyond. Roughly 30,000 passengers could be moved daily along the entire route, Metro said at a recent community meeting.
“By giving people a reliable way to travel across the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, Metro is investing in greater mobility and providing travelers with more choices for getting around the region,” Metro said in a statement. “The BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) will operate primarily in dedicated bus lanes, helping to improve bus speed and reliability, coupled with enhanced bus stations, all-door boarding, frequent service and connections to the Metro A, B and G Lines.”
The project costs nearly half a billion dollars, according to Metro board reports, and is largely funded through Measure M. Construction is underway in Pasadena and is expected to start in Eagle Rock in the coming months.
The path through Eagle Rock would run along what is now a median and eliminate one car lane to create a dedicated bus lane. It would prevent cars from making left-hand turns onto more than 10 streets from Colorado Boulevard, creating dedicated left-hand turn lanes on remaining streets instead. Some street parking would be reduced in the area where there is currently a single public parking lot.
Cherryl Weaver, a longtime Realtor in the area and a former Eagle Rock resident, said she supports public transit expansion but questions the current plan when an earlier option that would have created a shared bus and bike lane would not have so significantly affected vehicle traffic. She said the current project is already affecting residents.
“These people that have lived in this community for decades, who have been the backbone of creating Eagle Rock into the beautiful neighborhood that it is, that have put their roots down, raised their kids, wanted to raise their grandkids there, are now saying just because of this project, they’re moving,” Weaver said.
Nadine Levyfield lives on the Eagle Rock property where she grew up. Her street will remain open to left-turn traffic from Colorado Boulevard while streets to the west and east of her close off, raising concerns for her that an influx of traffic will be diverted into her quiet neighborhood and the area around her child’s nearby school.
“I want to think about safety on my street and the walkability of how I can get to school with my kids,” said Levyfield. “We’re exasperated and frustrated because we’re also not transit experts. We’re working people who live here, who have had to add this to our list of things that we’re doing just to feel like there’s some accountability.”
Levyfield and other residents have repeatedly raised concerns with Metro, the city’s department of transportation and local leaders for years and have asked officials to consider ways to mitigate the traffic, such as adding speed humps to side streets that will see more activity. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who oversees the district, said in a statement that her team has regularly met with the transit agency to advocate for Eagle Rock’s needs. The councilmember supports the project and its goals, while also believing that residents and small-business owners have raised “legitimate concerns” that “deserve concrete answers and solutions.”
“We will continue pressing Metro, LADOT, and other responsible departments to respond to community feedback and communicate clearly before each phase of work begins,” Jurado said. “Eagle Rock deserves both better transit and a project that respects the community it serves.”
The Los Angeles neighborhood, which gets its name from a massive boulder in the hills that resembles the face of an eagle, is sandwiched between Pasadena and Glendale and two major freeways.
On the main drag, Colorado, longtime eateries and small businesses bustle with business and motels, churches and office buildings dot the street; bungalows, Craftsman and Spanish-style homes fill the neighborhoods to the north and to the south, where it bumps up against Highland Park.
Michael Schneider, of the bike lane and safe streets advocacy group Streets for All, believes the project could transform the area and bring more people to the business district. In his experience, fears subside after the plans are in place.
“There’s generally a mismatch between how business owners think they have to preserve parking and how their customers actually arrive,” Schneider said, adding that people may be more receptive to the idea of a multimodal street if they saw it for themselves. “I think the idea that Angelenos just aren’t interested in that is false. They mostly just don’t have the infrastructure to be interested in it.”
Michael Sweeney, the former president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, has lived in the area for 12 years. He believes the project will significantly improve the area.
“A major thing we were advocating for was safety. Whether you ride the bus or not, safe streets are in everyone’s interest,” Sweeney said.
Tom Anderson has owned a neighborhood pub and wine shop at the edge of Eagle Rock for seven years and thinks that offloading commuter traffic could be helpful to the area in the long run. He doesn’t think the route will have a great effect on his business, Talon Tap and Wine, where the street changes would be minimal. But he worries the project could be detrimental to businesses at the center of town, where the area went through a revival in recent decades.
Many of those business owners are fearful. Mark Arnott, who moved his martial arts studio into an Art Deco building on Colorado Boulevard over a decade ago, wonders how the area will handle any influx of traffic since the neighborhood gets jammed when the 134 Freeway is backed up.
“I’ve got great reservations and deep doubts about the effect of the new plan to get rid of all parking and choke traffic down to one lane,” he said.
The owner of a nearby indoor playground says families who have to lug strollers and diaper bags alongside small tots typically won’t opt for the bus over a car. He believes that less parking will mean fewer customers.
“We’re really hanging on by a thread,” said Marcel Wittfeld of Peekaboo Playland.
“If this is really seriously happening, I think that could be the death blow for us.”
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