The West LA Sawtelle Neighborhood Council, at its next meeting, will consider sending the following letter to the VA/County/City regarding VA Station First/Last Mile access. Hopefully these government entities will coordinate and make some improvements in the next 2 years because the current active transportation infrastructure around the station is so inadequate.

>**Background**

>LA Metro is currently building the D Line subway from DTLA through Koreatown, Mid-Wilshire, Beverly Hills, and Westwood ending at the VA Hospital. This latter station will be very convenient for Veterans and VA staff accessing the VA Hospital and other facilities on the VA Campus. However, it is also well-positioned to serve people who live, work, and visit Sawtelle and Brentwood. Since the station is surrounded by VA land, roughly a half-mile in every direction, facilitating access between the station and Sawtelle/Brentwood points-of-interest must be actively designed and constructed.

>The half-mile-radius FLM area of this station comprises the jurisdiction of multiple layers of government: the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and the VA/Federal Government. We request that these entities coordinate with urgency, clarify responsibilities, and develop a plan to construct FLM infrastructure (including the proposals in this document) *before* the station opens in 2027.

>**South Access: Shared-use, straight-line path connecting Sawtelle Blvd and Bonsall Ave**

>Nearly all residences and businesses in Sawtelle are outside the half-mile walkshed of the station. Because of this, and since there will be no dedicated car parking for the Metro station, we anticipate that a large portion of transit riders will use bikes and scooters to access this station. We urge the City/County/VA to facilitate these modes to the fullest extent.

>LADOT is already making progress on adding critical protected bike lanes on Ohio Ave. For the remaining half-mile from Sawtelle/Ohio to the station, **we request a wide shared-use path be built in a straight-line through the center of the Dowlen Dr loop**, as illustrated in the LA Metro FLM Plan (*Figure A*).

>The straight-line route is the safest, fastest, and most intuitive route for micromobility users (*Figure B*). The alternative routes, along either side of the loop, add 30-60% more distance, put riders in mixed traffic with cars and buses, and the east side is uncomfortably close to the I-405 freeway (*Figure C*).

>**West Access: Shared-use path from Federal/Wilshire**

>The Wilshire corridor between Federal and Granville is a high-density area with 5 office towers, 4 residential towers, and blocks of medium-density apartments - all within a 0.6-mile walk of the station (*Figure D*).

>Currently, the path for pedestrians from this corridor to the station is a narrow, overgrown, unbuffered sidewalk alongside three lanes of traffic on Wilshire (*Figure E*). This infrastructure is grossly inadequate, particularly for the number of transit users this station will serve, and likely fails to meet ADA sidewalk width requirements.

>We request a wide shared-use path be built through the palm grove and South Campus Lawn to minimize the distance pedestrians must walk on Wilshire (*Figure F*). We also request that the remaining portion of the sidewalk on Wilshire be widened and buffered (*Figure F*).