On Ventura Place, the short commercial block off Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City, the restripe meant to cut down on double-parking also lets one double-parked car stop traffic.
The angled stalls that now run along the north side added 19 parking spaces. They came from the room the street used to give to a second lane. That lane was what let drivers get around a delivery van or a rideshare stopped at the curb. The parking shortage is mostly solved. Double-parking remains, and it now stops traffic in a way it couldn't before.
Where the 19 spaces came from
The project started as a listening exercise. Council District 4, Councilmember Nithya Raman's office, says that toward the end of 2024 it met with Studio City and Ventura Place businesses and community stakeholders to hear their priorities. The same issues kept coming up: more parking, double-parking, and street safety. The office brought those concerns to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and LADOT suggested restriping the street for diagonal parking.
When the Studio City Neighborhood Council posted the plan in April 2026, it was blunt about the starting point:
"Trying to park on Ventura Place has become something of a nightmare."
The plan changed the count on each side of the street:
- North side: parallel parking became mostly angled stalls at 60 and 45 degrees, doubling capacity from 24 spaces to 48.
- South side: parking stayed parallel but dropped from 12 spaces to 7 to fit the new street geometry.
- Net: 19 more spaces on the block.
- Details: the plan kept the turn lanes at intersections. It also called for wheel stops to keep car bumpers off the sidewalk, ADA-compliant angled stalls on the north side, and updated meters and signs with a two-hour limit from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The two-hour limit matters as much as the stall count. A space that turns over every two hours serves more people across a day than one held by a single car from morning to evening. That's why the notice described the meter change as a way to help local businesses.
Council District 4 announced in its July 2, 2026 newsletter that the new layout was fully operational. The office credited the Studio City Business Improvement District, the Chamber of Commerce, the Neighborhood Council, the Beautification Association, and local business owners for backing it.
The lane that went with them
Council District 4 writes that by "reconfiguring the existing lanes of traffic," the street now has "one travel lane in each direction." The office says this makes Ventura Place safer to cross, calms traffic, and reduces double-parking.
Most of that holds up on paper. A narrower street is shorter to cross on foot, and drivers tend to slow down when there's less room. More legal spaces should mean fewer drivers stopping in the travel lane because they can't find one.
The trouble is with the drivers who double-park anyway. On a wider street, a car stopped outside a café blocked one of several lanes and traffic went around it. With one lane each way, the same stop fills the only lane in that direction. The redesign made double-parking less necessary and, by the same change, made each case more disruptive.
What the Neighborhood Council asked for in September
By late September, the Neighborhood Council had put that tradeoff on the record. A Transportation Committee motion heading to the board asked Councilmember Raman and the LAPD Traffic Division to step up enforcement of double-parking on Ventura Place. The motion's wording described the mechanics plainly:
"The welcomed newly striped diagonal parking means there is now only one lane of traffic in each direction, so double parking now effectively blocks the entire street causing drivers to go around in the opposing lane of traffic."
The motion calls the new parking "welcomed." The Council's complaint is about how the street gets used now that the parking layout has changed, and it doesn't ask for the layout to be undone. At its September 23, 2026 meeting, the board approved the enforcement request on its consent calendar, 11 yes and 0 no, with 2 members not present and 2 ineligible.
The topic came back weeks later. The Transportation Committee's October 15, 2026 agenda listed a further update and discussion on double-parking enforcement under "the new Ventura Place street configuration." It was scheduled as a brief discussion item, and no new motion was attached. No outcome from that meeting has been published so far. For now, enforcement is the city's answer to the problem, and the street layout itself isn't changing.
Who the block is parking for
The pressure makes more sense once you look at who is on the block. Ventura Place is a short stretch of daily stops, most of them open early and most built around quick visits. That is exactly the kind of trip that leads to a two-minute double-park. In order of address, from the official listings:
- Hide & Seek, the vintage and home boutique at 12047 Ventura Place.
- Tuning Fork, the venue at 12051 Ventura Place, which promotes regular Monday and Tuesday events.
- Joan's on Third, at 12059 Ventura Place, open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Alfred Coffee, at 12077 Ventura Place, open daily from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Ggiata, the Studio City deli at 12080 Ventura Place, serving breakfast and lunch daily.
- Great White, whose own location page lists 12103 Ventura Place, open daily for reservations and walk-ins.
A morning coffee run, a sandwich pickup, or a quick look through a boutique is the kind of errand where a driver weighs a two-minute stop against circling for a space. With 19 more legal spaces and two-hour turnover, circling should pay off more often than it used to. Those spaces cover a lot of the demand on the block, but not every quick stop.
Sunday morning on the same block
Once a week the block takes on a different job. The Studio City Farmers Market runs Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Ventura Place between Radford Avenue and Laurel Canyon Boulevard, rain or shine. The market lists a children's section with Bilyana Face Painting and Non Stop Fun among its activities. Animals are not allowed, except service animals.
On Sundays the new angled stalls aren't really where market visitors are supposed to park. The market sends them to free parking at the Sater Garage at 4200 Radford Avenue, inside Radford Studio Center.
The next change on the block is lighting
One more improvement is already approved for this corridor. Council File 26-1053 requested $316,000 for sidewalk downlighting on Ventura Boulevard from Carpenter Avenue to Coldwater Canyon, plus a short segment of Ventura Place. The work would go through the Board of Public Works' Office of Community Beautification and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative. According to the City Clerk's record, the City Council adopted the item on August 11, 2026, and recorded final action on August 24, 2026. No installation date has been announced.
The lighting is meant for the block after dark, once the two-hour meters stop at 8 p.m. In the meantime, Ventura Place has more parking than it did a year ago and one lane in each direction. Whether that lane stays clear depends on whether drivers use the new stalls instead of stopping in it.
If you follow Studio City at this level of detail, down to how a single restripe changes a block's daily rhythm, I'd be glad to compare notes on the streets you use most. Amanda Watkins keeps track of these changes across the Westside and the Valley, and a conversation is always welcome. Let's Connect.
