What Comes After the Back-In Parking on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills?

If you have ever pulled past four empty spaces on Ventura Boulevard, checked your mirror and then backed into a diagonal spot outside Wheel World, have you wondered whether the street will stay this way?

The city has an answer, and it reaches well beyond the paint. The back-in parking between Fallbrook and Royer avenues was the first phase of Reimagine Ventura Blvd. That phase handled the parking. The second phase, which adds trees, medians and new sidewalks, is the part meant to make the parking work, and it is now behind the city's own schedule.

A parking experiment that started with a drive to Lancaster

The reverse-angle spots went in on Aug. 14, 2023, along a half-mile of Ventura Boulevard. The Los Angeles Times reported that Councilmember Bob Blumenfield called them the first parking of this kind in the city of Los Angeles. According to the Times, the diagonal spaces run along the north side between Ponce and Fallbrook avenues, and along the south side between Royer Avenue and Rigoletto Street and between Fallbrook and Ponce.

The idea came from the neighborhood, not from City Hall. The Times traced it to Scott Silverstein, a former longtime member of the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborhood Council, and Dennis DiBiase, an architect and the council's vice president at the time. Silverstein had driven through The BLVD in Lancaster, a 0.6-mile district lined with diagonal parking, and came away convinced Ventura Boulevard could work the same way. The two presented their plan at the council's April 2015 meeting. They argued that back-in parking is safer. Drivers don't swing doors into cyclists or step out into traffic, and pulling back out into the boulevard is easier.

The Times also reported that Blumenfield secured $1.5 million for Phase I through a City Council vote in April 2021.

What Phase I actually put on the street

Phase I is finished, and it was more than paint. Council District 3 lists four pieces. The first is restriping, with reverse-angle parking on both sides of Ventura Boulevard between Fallbrook and Royer. The second is a signalized pedestrian crossing at Ponce Avenue, and the third and fourth are a new traffic signal at Royer Avenue and the street reconfiguration itself. A City Clerk project record adds curb ramps and resurfacing. It describes the reconfiguration as a way to slow traffic and add parking.

None of the city's Phase I records list trees, medians, benches or a neighborhood sign. Anyone waiting for the boulevard to feel greener after 2023 was waiting on Phase II.

The businesses that lived through the changeover are still open. Wheel World lists its Woodland Hills store at 22718 Ventura Blvd. Mane Idol takes appointments Tuesday through Saturday at 22845 Ventura Blvd. Business Machines Center has been in business since 1971 and still repairs typewriters. Mane Idol's owner, Tara Barker, told the Times in 2023 that the new spaces opened up "valuable spots for everyone," and that "the problem is the reversing."

The medians are the missing half of the parking plan

Phase II is officially called "Greening the Boulevard." StreetsLA's project page defines it as Ventura Boulevard from Woodlake Avenue to Sale Avenue, with five elements:

• Sidewalk improvements
• Curb ramp upgrades
• Driveway approach reconstructions
• New street trees
• Placemaking

The page says the existing driveways are cracked or lack a pedestrian access route, and that the existing trees are dead or in poor condition.

The newest piece is also the one that matters most for the parking. On July 22, 2026, the Blumenfield office presented proposed designs to the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization. Valley News Group reported that the designs include two 125-foot medians between Gomeres Road and Rigoletto Street, with room for shade trees, meant to cut down on speeding. Those medians would block left turns into and out of some commercial driveways along that stretch.

That is where the two phases connect. Back-in parking works when drivers pull past an open spot and reverse into it. A driver who cuts across traffic and noses in has defeated the design. The homeowners group said so directly in its written response:

"Medians and physical barriers that prevent turning and improper entering of the reverse diagonal parking are important safety mitigation measures, not maintenance."

That line comes from WHHO's comments, published by Valley News Group on Sept. 4, 2026. In WHHO's view, the medians are the physical fix that tells drivers how the parking is meant to be used. The distinction also bears on funding. WHHO suggested that safety-related work could qualify for the city's 523 Fund, which does not cover work classified as maintenance.

The July designs also included ADA upgrades to curb ramps and driveways, plus a possible 10-foot steel monument sign for Woodland Hills, set in a median or on a sidewalk.

What the homeowners group asked for instead

WHHO backed the two medians in principle and asked for two large trees on each, set 30 feet apart. It also asked for a maintenance plan and a decision on where the irrigation water would come from. It liked the signs much less. WHHO called the steel renderings likely to look dated quickly and suggested stone or concrete for a look of "quiet elegance."

The group also wanted the signs moved. It suggested a "Welcome to Woodland Hills" sign set well back on the Corbin Avenue median on the east side. On the west side, it proposed a spot near the Valley Circle, Mulholland Drive and 101 interchange, where drivers arrive from Calabasas and the beach communities.

Two items WHHO wanted were missing from the July presentation. The first was enhanced crosswalks, especially at the Phase I pedestrian signal and the new traffic light. WHHO noted they could connect to curb ramps that already meet ADA standards. The second was landscaped bump-outs, which WHHO said the diagonal parking layout leaves plenty of room for. It also asked for more median locations.

The schedule the city wrote, and the one it's on now

The plain timeline shows how far the second half has slipped behind the first.

The City Administrative Officer's five-year capital plan for fiscal 2024-25 through 2028-29 put Phase II, from Royer to Sale, at an estimated $3 million. It planned $400,000 for fiscal 2024-25, $600,000 for 2025-26 and $2 million for 2026-27, with completion estimated for September 2026. That date has passed with designs still at the proposal stage.

Part of the delay can be traced in the paperwork. A City Clerk record shows $400,000 for Phase II in the fiscal 2023-24 capital program. That money was swept at the end of the fiscal year by mistake, and the record asks for it to be reappropriated to StreetsLA for design. In its September response, WHHO said more than $3 million had been allocated and that much of it was expected to go to ADA improvements. It asked for a full accounting of schedule, budget and scope, noting the project began in 2014. "It's time to finish it," the group wrote.

StreetsLA's page still lists design as running from summer 2024 to winter 2026, and construction from winter 2026 to winter 2027. At that pace, the parking that arrived in summer 2023 could get its medians and trees more than three years later. The medians themselves are still proposals, and WHHO has asked for bigger trees, different signs and more crosswalks before work begins.

Where the conversation goes next

The last big public meeting on the project was held on Jan. 30, 2025, at the Woodland Hills Library, 22200 Ventura Blvd. WHHO says it gathered strong turnout and useful input but got no further response until the July presentation. Comments on the median and sign designs go to Councilmember Blumenfield's office at (818) 774-4430 or [email protected].

The way your corner of Ventura Boulevard looks, parks and walks affects daily life, and it is part of how buyers see Woodland Hills. If you'd like to talk through what the Reimagine Ventura work could mean for a home near this stretch, the team at Malibu Premier Homes is glad to share what we're tracking along the boulevard. Contact Us.