Sepulveda Pass (elevation ) is a low mountain pass through the

Santa Monica Mountains The Santa Monica Mountains is a coastal mountain range in Southern California, next to the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges. Because of its proximity to densely populated regions, it is one of the most visited natural areas in ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. It is named after the

Sepúlveda family of California __NOTOC__ Sepulveda or Sepúlveda may refer to: Places California * Sepulveda Boulevard, a major street in Los Angeles * Sepulveda Dam, a flood control dam in the San Fernando Valley which regulates the Sepulveda Basin * Sepulveda Pass, a pass ...

, a prominent Californio family that owned the land where the pass lies. It connects the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountai ...

to the San Fernando Valley via the

San Diego Freeway The San Diego Freeway is one of the named principal Southern California freeways. It consists of the following two segments: * Interstate 5, from California State Route 94 in San Diego to Interstate 405 (El Toro Y) in Irvine * Interstate 405, in ...

( I-405) and

Sepulveda Boulevard Sepulveda Boulevard is a major street and transportation corridor in the City of Los Angeles and several other cities in western Los Angeles County, California. The street parallels Interstate 405 for much of its route. Portions of Sepulveda Bou ...

. The crossing experiences heavy traffic (over 330,000 cars a day) on a regular basis, commonly experiencing major traffic slowdowns lasting hours. I-405 was widened by

Los Angeles Metro The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), commonly branded as Metro, LA Metro, and L.A. Metro, is the state agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the transportation system in Los Angeles ...

, the county's transportation authority. The project took three years to complete and concluded in December 2016."Drivers on the 405 Ask: Was $1.6 Billion Worth It?"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', December 20, 2016. Additionally, funding has been secured to construct an expansion to Los Angeles's public transportation system through the Sepulveda Pass in the form of a new subway line or monorail, but the plan has not yet been finalized. The Sepulveda Pass on Interstate 405 begins just south of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley, climbing to just south of

Mulholland Drive Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. The western rural portion in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties is nam ...

, then descending to just north of Sunset Boulevard, where I-405 and Sepulveda Boulevard enter the Brentwood and Westwood areas of

West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped differently by di ...

. Northbound I-405 has five lanes and a carpool lane (plus a seventh as the Ventura exit is approached), while southbound I-405 has four lanes plus a carpool lane (although on the ascending portion there is a climbing lane). Sepulveda Boulevard has two lanes in each direction and runs west of I-405 until the middle of the pass, where it crosses under and runs east of the freeway. Bel Air Presbyterian Church, founded in 1956, opened its church on

in 1960."History of Bel Air Presbyterian Church"
at Bel Air Presbyterian Church website (accessed March 22, 2010). Beginning with The Westland School in 1965, a number of other educational and cultural institutions have located in the vicinity of Sepulveda Pass, creating an "institutional corridor" as an exception to the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan's general prohibition of such development along the crest of the mountains. The institutions along Mulholland Drive now also include Stephen S. Wise Temple,

American Jewish University American Jewish University (AJU), formerly the separate institutions University of Judaism and Brandeis-Bardin Institute, is a Jewish institution in Los Angeles, California. Its largest component is its Whizin Center for Continuing Education in ...

, the

Skirball Cultural Center The Skirball Cultural Center, founded in 1996, is a Jewish educational institution in Los Angeles, California. The center, named after philanthropist-couple Jack H. Skirball and Audrey Skirball-Kenis, features a museum with regularly changing e ...

, Milken Community High School, The Mirman School, Berkeley Hall School, and The Curtis School.Jon D. Markman
"Culture Shock Many Object to the Growing Sprawl of Institutions Atop Sepulveda Pass"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', May 21, 1995. To the south is the large campus of the Getty Center. File:Sepulveda Boulevard Tunnel, Los Angeles.JPG, Sepulveda Boulevard Tunnel File:Metro Red Line, Sepulveda Pass, San Fernando Valley.JPG, Sepulveda Blvd., Sepulveda Pass File:View of the Valley from The 405.JPG, View of the Valley from The 405 File:American Jewish University, Bel Air, California.JPG,

, Bel Air File:Milken Community High School.JPG, Milken Community High School File:Sepulveda_Pass_20071231.jpg, Eastern hillside of the Sepulveda Pass, east Skirball Center Drive overpass

References

{{Reflist Mountain passes of California Santa Monica Mountains Sepulveda Boulevard Landforms of Los Angeles County, California San Fernando Valley Transportation in the San Fernando Valley

See also

References