Brentwood Expansion Could Boost Buses to Paul Revere

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

Brentwood School is one step away from sending plans for a significant campus development to City Council—and one of the project’s stipulations might bring more buses to Paul Revere Charter Middle School.

In order to minimize their development’s impact on traffic along Sunset Boulevard, Brentwood School could expand its bus services to include Paul Revere students.

“Because Paul Revere Middle School is a charter, LAUSD will not pay for busing,” explained David Graham-Caso, spokesman for Councilmember Mike Bonin. “Brentwood School would pay for the implementation and management of a busing service for [Paul Revere] students. In return, [Brentwood] would get a credit towards the busing and trip reduction requirements in the conditional use permit.”

Parent-sponsored school buses currently transport about 200 students to Paul Revere each day, including a bus that covers Pacific Palisades. For 2017-18, the middle school set a goal to increase that capacity by 50 percent.

A partnership with Brentwood could help the school achieve that goal, while taking pressure off Paul Revere’s fundraising efforts to sponsor the buses.

Shared buses would carry students from both schools along a single route with two drop-offs, significantly reducing the number of parent vehicles jammed into the Sunset corridor each morning and afternoon.

The strategy fits into Bonin’s larger effort to combat the gridlock that develops along Sunset on school days—some of the worst on all of the Westside.

While critics have accused the councilmember of rubber-stamping developments that clog his district’s streets, others have praised his “Sunset Standard” initiative: a promise that he will not approve any development that isn’t proven to ultimately reduce traffic along the corridor.

The Brentwood School appears to fit that bill, with promises to reduce traffic by 12.5 percent on day one of their project and by 40 percent over the life of their permit. To do so, they’ll need to vastly expand ridesharing, including the use of buses.

If they can successfully negotiate an arrangement with Paul Revere, it will be a boon toward meeting those stringent requirements—ones that carry financial penalties for failure in a twice-yearly evaluation.

Whether the project successfully implements the traffic-reduction strategies or not, some community organizations will likely protest any new development on Sunset.

An activist group called the Sunset Coalition is already suing the Archer School for Girls over a similar project—another development that met Bonin’s “Sunset Standard.”

Before he and the rest of City Council make a final determination on the project, it will need approval from the city’s Planning and Land Use Management committee. That hearing is tentatively set for early February.

If approved, the development would add new classrooms and common spaces on Brentwood’s East and West campuses while renovating others.