Table view. Photo: Joe Linton See more of Joe's Parklet Pictures at the end of the post.

Last Friday, January 20th 2012, Long Beach opened its, and Southern California’s, very first parklet. It’s located in Long Beach’s Retro Row district, on Fourth Street just east of Cherry, directly across from the Art Theater. It’s right in front of Lola’s Mexican Cuisine at 2030 East Fourth Street, LB 90814 (map.)

The way parklets work is that a curb parking space is replaced by a platform that serves as a mini-park. It’s a bit like a Park(ing) Day temporary park becoming a longer term mini-park. Parkets are fairly common in San Francisco, and now spreading all over, including, soon hopefully, Downtown Los Angeles.

Long Beach’s Bicycle-Friendly Business District program was initially working with Retro Row businesses to look at more extensive, more permanent traffic-calming and place-making solutions, such as bulb-outs. The cost was prohibitive and the time frame long, so they settled on cheaper and more immediate measures.

Long Beach’s first parklet cost $20,000 to permit and install. The cost was covered entirely by the adjacent business, Lola’s, which has also agreed to maintain and insure it. Lola’s is betting that the additional dining capacity will increasing their revenues more than the lost 1.5 parking spaces. The small loss of parking was actually offset; as part of this project, the city reviewed existing parking zones in Retro Row and was able to revise curb designations to create four new spaces (offsetting two new parklets planned.)

The parklet was designed by architect Michael Bohn of Studio One Eleven and was constructed by the contractor Jan Van Dijs. Studio One Eleven is working with two other Long Beach businesses to install two additional parklets expected this year: Number Nine and Berlin Bistro, both restaurants on Fourth Street.

The platform is an adjustable off-the-shelf deck product from Bison Innovative Products. The flooring atop the pedestal is plans of sustainably harvested wood. Between the dining area and the street are a series of large planters, with alternating succulents and grasses. The design is simple and functional.

On a cool late Sunday afternoon, though Lola’s restaurant was bustling indoors, only a couple of diners were out eating in the new parklet. Retro Row has a lot of pedestrians and cyclists, and sitting in the parklet makes for great people-watching in the middle of it all. Occasionally a loud motorcycle or fast-moving car interrupts the ambiance, but overall the new parklet presents a pleasant and delicious new experience.

Parklets and sidewalks.

Orange cone included

New bike lanes on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood - among the 12 new miles of bike lanes implemented in late 2011.

The good news: the city of Los Angeles is implementing more bike lanes than ever before. From July 2011 through December 2011, the city of Los Angeles has implemented 12.5 miles of new bike lanes. This is by far the highest total for any six-month period since at least 1996, and probably the most ever. For the past decade or so, the city has averaged roughly two-to-three miles of new bike lanes every six months.

The bad news: according to Streetsblog’s accounting, despite the stepped-up efforts, the city is not quite on track to fulfill Mayor Villaraigosa’s directive “to build 40 miles of bikeways a year” beginning with Fiscal Year 2011-2012.

After the jump, this article will enumerate just what new bikeway mileage has been done, and how the city may be able to get the 40 new bikeways pledged.

First some background.

Where does that “40 miles a year” come from?

Included with the March 2011 approval of the city’s “2010″ Bike Plan was a supplemental document called the Five-Year Implementation Strategy. That document was initially called the Five-Year Implementation Plan, later renamed the 200 Mile Implementation Strategy, then approved as the Five-Year Implementation Strategy (abbreviated hereafter as the “5-Year Plan.”) In August 2010, L.A. Streetsblog reviewed the initial draft of the 5-Year Plan calling it “ambitious” and “a big improvement compared to past performance.”

The 5-Year Plan includes 253 miles of bikeways that the city will implement over 6 years. Even though it’s called “5-Year” there was a year zero through year five, which, in initial drafts, corresponded to years 2010 through 2015… though this was removed when the 2010 Bike Plan approval dragged out into 2011. Still, the 5-Year Plan includes 250 miles to be implemented in 6 years, so, doing the division, this means 40 miles per year.

When the bike plan was approved in March2011, the 5-Year Plan’s “40 miles a year” number was announced by city staff and elected officials. Mayor Villaraigosa put the forty-mile figure in writing in a July 1st 2011 Mayoral Directive which states the city’s “commitment to build 40 miles of bikeways a year.”

Though the 40 mile number appears to be taken from the 5-Year Plan, but there’s no explicit connection between mileage and plan in the mayor’s pledge. The pledge is to build 40 miles. Note also that the pledge is “bikeways” – a catch-all term that can include all the various types of bike facilities from bike paths to bike lanes to bike routes to bike boulevards, etc.

In July 2011, L.A. Streetsblog reviewed city bikeway implementation under the assumption that the 40 miles pledged pertained to calendar year 2011. Upon publication of that article, mayoral and City Planning Department staff contacted Streetsblog and clarified that the 40 miles pledge clock didn’t start until Fiscal Year 2011-2012: July 1st 2011 to June 30th 2012.

Photo of the new Sharrows on Arden: Joe Anthony/Bike Commute News

In August 2011, LADOT announced it would implement 20 miles of sharrows - shared lane markings. The LADOT’s list of sharrow streets did not correspond to the city’s 5-Year Plan nor the city’s Bike Plan, both approved only 6 months prior. LADOT implemented the sharrows in October 2011.

Do the sharrows count toward building “40 miles a year” pledged?

Streetsblog queried LADOT about the sharrows and whether they count toward the 40 mile pledge. LADOT responded that “it is the City’s intent to include sharrows as a part of the Mayor’s commitment to implement 40 miles of bikeways this fiscal year.”

There are a number of reasons why sharrows wouldn’t count.

First, by doing sharrow projects not in the city’s 5-Year Plan, the city falls behind on the 5-Year Plan implementation. If the city does only half (20 miles instead of 40) of its 5-Year Plan’s annual mileage, then the very notion of calling it a 5-Year document is ludicrous. At the rate the city is implementing it right now, the 5-Year Plan is looking like at least a 12-year plan.

Another problem with the sharrows is the sheer annual mileage compared to what was approved last March. Sharrows are worthwhile, less so than bike lanes, but worthwhile. Sharrows are so worthwhile that the Mayor and Council approved 7.7 miles of them in the 5-Year Plan… that’s 1-2 miles of sharrows each year (7.7 miles divided by 6 years.) In the initial year, instead of implementing 1-2 miles of sharrows, the city has instead done 20 miles.  If LADOT can get away with 20 miles in the first year of plan implementation, what’s to keep them from doing all 40 miles sharrows the second year? If LADOT consistently downgrades what’s already been approved, it looks like a cynical bait and switch, disrespectful of the nearly six years of public process that went into coming up with the Bike Plan.

Why is the city ignoring the 5-Year Plan so soon, and relying so heavily on sharrows? It’s not clear. Only LADOT knows the real answer. Sharrows are cheap and quick, so it appears that instead of implementing what was approved, and instead of actually analyzing what treatments make sense for the bicycle network, LADOT is eager to fulfill the easiest quickest 40 miles they can do to fulfill the letter of the “build 40 miles a year” pledge, without actually paying heed to its intent of building out a network of safe comfortable places to ride.

But do the sharrows actually fulfill the letter of the pledge? The pledge includes the word “build” not the word “re-build.” If the city has a mile of existing bike route and it adds a mile of sharrows on that existing bike route, it still only has a mile of bike route. No new mileage has been added.

Re-doing existing mileage should not be counted toward the 40-mile pledge. If the city re-does the Westholme sharrows, or re-paints the Venice Boulevard bike lanes after a developer erases them, it doesn’t add any mileage to the bikeway network, hence it shouldn’t count toward a pledge to “build 40 miles a year.” The mayor’s pledge to “build” implies new mileage.

How much mileage did those October sharrows add to the city’s bike network? The city implemented 20 miles of sharrows in October 2011. According to the mileage listed in the city’s Bike Plan, 12 of these miles were already existing bike routes (see this spreadsheet for totals.) So the city’s ill-considered sharrows binge “built” only 8 miles of new bikeways (routes), and re-did 12 existing miles.

For this article, L.A. Streetsblog  acknowledges 8 new miles of bike routes, and does this begrudgingly (because, as explained above, based on the 5-Year Plan, the city approved implementing only 7.7 miles in 6 years, so 8 miles in 1 year still disrespects the approved plan and the process that lead to it.)

What has LADOT built since July 1st 2011?

As mentioned at the top of the article, the city has had a very productive six months for the start of FY2011-2012. With 12.46 new miles of bike lane built, it’s the most productive six months in at least 15 years, probably the most ever.

LADOT has completed their first bike lanes in Boyle Heights, Downtown L.A., Hollywood, Koreatown, and Westlake. While the majority of the projects have been straightforward, with no reduction in car lanes, a few have successfully reduced car lanes, and, in one instance, removed two blocks of San Fernando Valley curb parking. Inspired by Dutch ThinkBike sessions, the city has implemented its first significant buffered bike lane, and its first two pilot green-colored pavement projects.

While the process hasn’t been perfect, more than ever before for bike projects, LADOT has worked with Council Offices, Neighborhood Councils, the city Bicycle Advisory Committee, bike non-profit organizations including the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, businesses, adjacent cities, and others – all resulting in new facilities being implemented with a minimum of backlash to date.

Since July 1st 2011, LADOT has completed the following bike lane projects, listed roughly in the order in which they were installed:

• Wentworth Street - Wheatland to Foothill 1.3miles (Shadow Hills)
• Woodley Avenue - Saticoy to Sherman 0.28 mile (Van Nuys)
• Jefferson Blvd - La Brea to La Cienega 0.99mile (South L.A.)
• 7th Street - Catalina to Figueroa 2.2miles (Westlake-Koreatown)
• 1st Street - Boyle to Lorena 1.6miles (Boyle Heights)
• Cahuenga Blvd - Odin to Yucca 0.6mile (Hollywood)
• Reseda Blvd - Roscoe to Parthenia 0.5mile (Reseda)
• Tuxford Street - Lankershim to Glenoaks 1.3miles (Sunland)
• Vermont Avenue  – Del Amo to Knox 0.54mile (Harbor Gateway)
• Spring Street - Chavez to 9th 1.5miles (Downtown)
• Washington Place - Albright to Grand View 0.77mile (Mar Vista)
• Chandler Blvd - Leghorn to Woodman 0.88 mile (Van Nuys)
• TOTAL 12.46miles COMPLETED BIKE LANES

According to LADOT reports, the following additional new bike lane projects are slated for implementation in the very near future, likely within the current fiscal year:

• Aviation Blvd – Imperial Hwy to Century 0.98mile (LAX – per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• Devonshire Street – Reseda to Hayvenhurst 2.49miles (Northridge source – per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• Foothill Blvd – Wheatland to Wentworth 1.5miles (Lake View Terrace – per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• Main Street – Grand Blvd to city of Santa Monica 0.9mile (Venice - per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• Main Street – 9th to 16th 0.7mile (Downtown – per DLANC website)
• Porter Ranch Drive – Rinaldi to Corbin 0.5mile (Porter Ranch – per LADOT website)
• Rose Avenue – Lincoln to 4th 0.47mile (Venice - per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• Vermont Avenue – I105 to 88th Street 2.1miles (South L.A. – per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• York Blvd – Avenue 55 to Figueroa 0.9mile (Highland Park - per Bike Plan Qrtly Report)
• TOTAL 10.54miles NEAR-FUTURE NEW BIKE LANES

All in all, based on what’s complete and what’s projected, the city of Los Angeles appears to be on track to reach a grand total of 31 new miles in its bikeway network in FY 2011-2012.

• Completed new bike lane mileage: 12. 46 miles
• Completed new bike route (sharrow) mileage: 8.04 miles
• Near-furure new bike lane mileage: 10.54 miles
• FY2011-2012 PROJECTED TOTAL BIKEWAYS BUILT:  31.04 miles

It’s a bit short of “build[ing] 40 miles a year,” but it’s a big improvement on past performance; and it’s making a significant difference in the commutes of Angelenos. While L.A. isn’t biketopia yet, bicyclists and drivers are seeing more new bike lanes and routes. The lanes make bicycling safer, and, overall, the infrastructure cues all road users to the fact that bicycling is legitimate and growing mode of transportation in Los Angeles.

Lastly, a gentle plea to Mayor Villaraigosa: if 31 new miles a year isn’t enough, and you really want to get to 40 new miles built this fiscal year, there are still quite a few relatively easy low-hanging-fruit bike lane projects out there awaiting implementation. Some are listed here. There’s still nearly six months left in the fiscal year.

Los Angeles City Councilmembers Jose Huizar, in blue shirt, and Jan Perry, in black jacket, leading yesterday's opening ride on Downtown L.A.'s new buffered green bike lane on Spring Street

City crews were literally greening Los Angeles streets over the past weekend.

Stretches of Boyle Height’s First Street and Downtown’s Spring Street received bright green pavement coloring. Though pavement color has been used in Europe, and various U.S. cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Long Beach, these two projects represent the city of L.A.’s first foray into colorization.

The Spring Street green buffered bike lane was celebrated at a press conference yesterday afternoon. Councilmembers Jan Perry and Jose Huizar praised the new lanes and the safety and visibility they bring. LADOT’s Tim Fremaux acknowledged the city council, mayoral, departmental, and community work that had gone into the rapid implementation of this project, inspired by Dutch planning ideas explored at the recent ThinkBike event. The Downtown L.A. Neighborhood Council’s Valerie Watson thanked businesses and residents for supporting the effort to convert Spring “from a raceway to a neighborhood street” and looked forward all the additional bike facilities approved for Downtown in the city’s Bike Plan and its 5-Year Implementation Plan. The L.A. County Bicycle Coalition’s Jen Klausner rounded out the program urging politeness among all road users from drivers to pedestrians to bicyclists. 

Continuous green-painted buffered bike lane on Spring Street

Downtown’s green lane is on Spring Street, extending 1.5 miles from Cesar Chavez Avenue to 9th Street. The lane is 6-feet wide, with a 4-foot buffer. To create space for the bike lane, one traffic lane was removed and one peak-hour parking lane was made into an unrestricted parking lane. The Spring Street lane is painted with green paint. The paint is continuous for the entire length, other than in merge zones, where it becomes intermittent. Unfortunately, perhaps due to the paint not fully setting during the past weekend’s wet weather, in some places the paint is already wearing off. This is the first LADOT project using this roadway paint, so they’ll be finding out what works well and what doesn’t.

Conflict zone green thermoplastic on First Street bike lanes

Boyle Heights’ green lanes are on First Street, extending 1.6 miles from Lorena Street to Boyle Avenue. The First Street green lanes differ from the Spring Street ones in a couple ways. On First Street, green has been used only in conflict areas, including driveways, alleys, turn zones, and at the beginning of each block. The First Street project uses green thermoplastic instead of paint. Nearly all of the striping and other markings on L.A. streets use thermoplastic, which is essentially a very durable, long-lasting form of paint. Thermoplastic is more expensive than paint, and lasts much longer.

L.A.’s streets are looking a little greener than they used to.

Existing Los Angeles River bike path in Elysian Valley. Photo: Joe Linton

Today’s Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting includes action on the Transportation Department’s (LADOT’s) proposal to seek $13million in federal funding for extending the Los Angeles River bikeway. The federal funding sought is part of a federal funding opportunity called Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER), a stimulus funding that encourages innovative and sustainable transportation.

While LADOT’s proposal, detailed at Council File 11-1781, is expected to sail through committee and council approval, it still needs to compete with other municipalities seeking limited TIGER dollars. Overall the city is asking the federal money to cover $13M of an $18M project. The city application is due October 31st 2011, and grantees are expected to be notified in January 2012. If awarded, construction is targeted to begin in 2013.

The L.A. River runs about 50 miles from Canoga Park in the West San Fernando Valley to the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach. About 32 miles of the river are in the city of Los Angeles. Of those 32 L.A. City miles, there’s an existing bike path for 8 miles in Northeast Los Angeles and an additional 2 miles currently under construction in the West Valley. That adds up to 10 miles complete, and 22 to go.

Bike path construction costs easily about one million dollars per mile, plus additional costs for grade separation, especially going under or over bridges. Grade crossings are especially difficult in east San Fernando Valley communities, including Studio City and Sherman Oaks, where vertical channel walls and low bridges require expensive under-crossings to create a continuous, uninterrupted path.  In Downtown Los Angeles, railroad infrastructure parallel to the river makes river access difficult and costly. With all these challenges, and only an $18M project budget, there isn’t quite enough to complete the remaining 22 miles for a continuous 32-mile bike path.

LADOT has smartly opted for an initial hybrid solution. The TIGER funding will create a continuous 32-mile bikeway, comprised of bike paths, bike lanes, and bike routes. The grant will build approximately five miles of off-street bike path and that will be complemented by about 20 miles of on-street routes and lanes. River path mileage will all be in the San Fernando Valley, with on-street facilities in the Valley and in Downtown Los Angeles.

Connecting with the existing 17-mile L.A. River bike paths downstream, extending from the city of Vernon to the city of Long Beach, the TIGER L.A. River bikeway project will result in a 50+mile-long L.A. River corridor bikeway, with a mix of paths and streets. As funding permits, additional segments of off-street bike path can be added over time.

For additional information on the city’s river bikeway TIGER application, see coverage at KCET and LADOT. See also ongoing L.A. River coverage by this author at L.A. Creek Freak.

Councilman Ed Reyes, put to work. Both Photos: Joe Linton

This morning, a crowd of about 200 celebrated the completion of the 7th Street bike lanes. These are among the first projects implemented under the city’s new bike plan. They’re also the city’s first bike lanes in the population-dense central Los Angeles neighborhoods of Koreatown and Westlake. And they’re the first bike lanes to reach downtown Los Angeles.

Riding down 7th Street...

An exercise from yesterday's gathering showing where "TOD's" are spread around the city. Photo: Joe Linton

Yesterday, Tuesday July 12th 2011, marked the first meeting of a fledgling coalition re-examining the way Southern California does Transit Oriented Development (TOD.) Over 100 people, representing nearly as many organizations, attended the Los Angeles Summit on Community-Oriented T.O.D. which took place at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center near downtown Los Angeles.

The event was organized by the Bus Riders Union, East L.A. Community Corporation, Green L.A. Coalition, Little Tokyo Service Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Counsel, Southeast Asian Community Alliance, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. Attendees included representatives from various local, regional, and statewide organizations focused on housing, transportation, health, the environment and more.

From the event announcement:

Transit-oriented development—or T.O.D.—is the new planning buzzword … but what does it mean for our communities?

The idea behind T.O.D. is promoting housing/retail development near LA’s new rail stations and other major transit points. Like “smart growth” and “new urbanism,” T.O.D. is being hailed as an answer to our cities’ traffic congestion problems and environmental pollution because it would encourage new people to live a car-free lifestyle …

But who would benefit from the new development?

How will we make sure that renters and low-income people of color already living near transit—and using transit every day— will not continue to be displaced?

How will we ensure that T.O.D. will include affordable housing and
other community-serving projects?

Join us as we learn about T.O.D. and create strategies to ensure that low-income people of color, and not the developers, play a lead role in state, regional and local decision-making around the kinds of development that take place in our communities.

Many of the groups in the room had struggled with proposed Transit-Oriented Developments that were not responsive to community needs, mostly where proposed TODs would foster gentrification and displacement. Some of those stories have been covered here at L.A. Streetsblog, for example the proposed Lorenzo Project. Though many of these campaigns have been successful in securing benefits for affected communities, the campaigns have been waged project by project. Participants expressed the hope that a new coalition could bring similar campaigns together to learn from each other, and to be able to develop broader and more proactive solutions.

Initial discussions focused around agreeing on a shared set of principles, and on building connections between participants. Will this new coalition be able to steer Los Angeles Transit-Oriented Development into a healthy and equitable place? Only time will tell.

The city of Los Angeles’ “2010″ bike plan was approved March 1st 2011. The overdue passage received praise from the media, who called it “comprehensive“, “historic” and “[if built, marks] one of the most lasting achievements of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s tenure.” The bike plan won an award from the Los Angeles section of the American Planning Association.

Are the new MLK Bike Lanes the exception or the rule?

Mayor Villaraigosa and others have touted the plan’s 1600 miles of bikeways, and pledged to implement 40 miles each year. Last week, the mayor released a July 1st 2011 Executive Directive on Implementation of the 2010 Bike Plan. The directive reiterates the 40 miles/year commitment, and commits other city departments to include bikes in various city projects.

With the new directive, and the start of a new fiscal year, Streetsblog takes a look at how the “2010″ plan implementation is going so far. Streetsblog readers will recall that the city bike plan includes a “5-year” implementation plan. As noted in the initial Streetsblog review of the implementation plan, the “5-year” plan, based on planned completion dates is actually an 8-9 implementation plan. The implementation plan online includes dates – ie: includes “Year 0″ for “Project Year 2010″, through “Year 5″ for “Project Year 2015.” Though in the final council file version, the dates have been scrubbed and replaced by priority 1 through 3, with no dates specified.

Given that it’s now July 2011, the “2010″ bike plan is, theoretically, a year and a half into its implementation plan timeline, which began with “project year 2010.” Just how many miles of bike lane is the city of Los Angeles implementing? Are L.A. cyclists seeing that “commitment to build 40 miles of bikeway a year” in themayor’s directive? How does recent implementation compare to past performance?

While, overall, the city has been exceeding its past (lackluster) performance, it appears that the 40 miles annually remains elusive.

From 1996 until late 2009, under the city’s 1996 Bicycle Master Plan, Los Angeles implemented a total of 66.7 new miles of bike lane. Dividing the 66.7 miles by the 13 years, the city implemented an average of about 5.1 miles of bike lane each year.

In 2009, the city implemented a total of 4.09 miles of bike lane: (Bike lane projects listings below are in rough date order, with from/to limits in parenthesis.)

• La Tuna Canyon (Sunland-Elden) 2.46 miles
• Myra Avenue (Fountain-Santa Monica Blvd) 0.44 miles
• Reseda Blvd (SF Mission Road-Devonshire) 1.19 miles

In 2010, the city did significantly better, roughly triple its yearly average with15.3 miles of bike lane:

• Hoover St (98th-120th) 1.6 miles
• San Pedro St (115th-120th) 0.4 miles
• Wentworth (Sheldon-Wheatland) 2.1 miles
• Winnetka Ave (Nordhoff -Gault) 2.3 miles
• Louise Ave (Lassen-Devonshire) 0.7 miles
• Reseda Blvd (Devonshire-Parthenia) 2.0 miles
• Wilbur Ave (Nordhoff-Chattsworth) 2.0 miles
• Reseda Blvd (Valerio-Roscoe) 1.1 miles
• Rinaldi St (Mason-Tampa) 1.3 miles
• WoodleyAve (Sherman-Saticoy) 0.5 miles
• York Blvd (Eagle Rock-Ave 55) 1.3 miles

In 2010, in addition to 15.3 miles of bike lanes, the city implemented 8.3 miles of “enhanced bike routes” (sharrows) and 2.6 miles of bike paths (L.A. River), for an overall 2010 total of 26.2 new miles of bikeway.

With 2011 halfway through, the city has so far striped 5.54 miles of bike lane.

• Woodman Ave (Oxnard-Vanowen) 1.0 miles
• Fair Park Ave (Eagle Rock-Maywood) 0.20 miles
• Martin Luther King Blvd (Rodeo-Marlton) 1.04 miles
• Exposition Blvd (Harcourt-Catalina) 3.3 miles

There are additional projects anticipated in 2011. These include 7th St, Vermont Ave (in South L.A.), additional mileage on York Blvd, Reseda Blvd, and Main St (in Venice),  and some others. Even if all those come through, it appears that the city is on a trajectory to fall short of 40 miles in 2011. To get 40 in 2011,  the city will need to implement bike facilities about seven times more quickly in the second half of 2011 than it has done in the first half… which runs somewhat counter to the city’s plan to subject many relatively straightforward projects to lengthy and costly environmental review studies.

In addition to quantity, quality is important. From 2009 through mid-2011, the city has striped two-thirds of its new bike lanes (~17 miles out of ~25 miles, listed above) in the San Fernando Valley, predominantly in the northwest Valley, arguably the city’s most suburban communities. Plenty of Valley folks bike, and bike lanes are welcome and needed in the Valley… but it appears that the city is not necessarily responding to increased levels of bicycling in the northwest Valley, but instead tending to implement bike lanes where there are excessively wide suburban streets that, often, accommodate bike lanes without removing any car lanes.

At the same time, the city has neglected to implement any bikeways in the urban core. The bike lane closest to Los Angeles City Hall (Hoover Street beginning at Venice Blvd) is just over 3 miles bike ride from City Hall. As has been advocated by the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, new bikeways are especially needed in population-dense core communities. In these neighborhoods, where shorter trips are conducive to cycling, many families lack access to cars and large number of working-class residents depend on the bicycle as their primary mode of transportation.

Another quality issue might be widespread downgrading of bike lanes to bike routes. If the city chooses to meet its 40 mile per year commitment primarily by merely posting bike route signage, or by merely adding sharrows, not only would this demonstrate a lack of commitment to safe effective facilities, but it would be a clear attempt to undermine the bike plan. The City Council’s approved implementation priorities include predominantly bike lanes, and some bike boulevards, called “bike friendly streets.”

While it’s good to see the city’s bike facility implementation trend upward, the overall totals don’t quite match city promises. If the mayor and council intend to make good on the 40 new bikeway miles per year they have pledged, it appears that the city needs to step up its bikeway implementation.

One slide from TransForm's Stuart Cohen's presentation yesterday. You can download the entire presentation here.

Streetsblog readers are likely at least somewhat familiar with many of the  connections between health and transportation; conference speakers explored those connections, with an emphasis on their impacts on underserved communities of color. This equity/transportation/health dialog was then tied into calls for action on local, state and federal campaigns.

After an introduction from CPEHN’s Ruben Cantu, speakers got underway with a presentation from TransForm‘s Stuart Cohen. TransForm is the kind of San Francisco Bay Area group that Los Angeles’ livability advocates should be jealous of - and should emulate. TransForm advocates for transit, walking, biking – focusing from local to regional to statewide. Cohen outlined trasportation/health connections, including somewhat familiar statistics: rising rates of obesity nationwide, declining rates of walking and biking to school. And some not as familiar: inadequate transit as a healthcare access issue (folks miss their clinic appointments when it’s difficult to walk or take transit to get there – more info here.)

Cohen expressed optimism over current initiatives from the Great Communities Collaborative to SB375 (CA’s greenhouse gas legislation), but stressed that strong coalitions, centered on health and equity, will be critical to success. Cohen also stressed that respected health professionals can be key in selling livability: when an environmentalist testifies about greenhouse gases, it’s generally not as effective as when a physician or nurse testifies about childhood obesity.

Next was a “panel of fierce women” (Ohland’s description) featuring Los Angeles based efforts toward transportation, equity and health – all of which have been covered at L.A. Streetsblog. Panelists included:

• Allison Mannos of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition – presenting on multiple bike advocacy campaigns, emphasizing the coalition’s innovative award-winning City of Lights program that organizes immigrant day-laborer cyclists, and how that program dovetailed with campaigns for planning and prioritizing bike facilities in Los Angeles’ immigrant neighborhoods.
• SunYoung Yang of the Bus Riders Union – presenting on BRU’s organizing successes in preserving and enhancing Metro clean-fuel bus service, and further campaigns for Bus-Only Lanes, Clean Air, and Climate Justice.
• Jocelyn Vivar Ramirez of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (and the L.A. Streetsblog board of directors) – presenting on EYCEJ’s coalition and community organizing work to combat the community impacts from international goods movement: from port pollution to 710 Freeway expansion to unsafe eastside streets.
• Gloria Ohland of Move L.A. (and occasional L.A. Streetsblog writer) – presenting on Move L.A.’s support of bus and rail and complete streets and complete neighborhoods.

A fierce panel: Ohland, Vivar-Ramirez, Mannos and Yang. Photo: Joe Linton

Break-out sessions followed, with a focus on how health, equity and transportation issues can inform legislative campaigns, including these current State Assembly bills:

• AB 441 (ensuring that health and equity are part of planning developent decisions)
• AB516 (ensuring state Safe Routes to School grants prioritize disadvantaged communities)

Conference details, including presentations, are available on-line at the CPEHN website.

Long Beach's cycletracks open this Saturday - all photos by Joe Linton

The city of Long Beach is Southern California’s undisputed leader in innovative infrastructure for safe and convenient bicycling.  They’re at it again this Saturday, April 23rd 2011, when they unveil the first genuine protected bike lanes west of New York City.

Opening festivities are from 11am to 2pm at the The Promenade - one block east of Pine Avenue. The dedication ceremony takes place at 12noon. Presiding over the event will be the leadership that brought this project to fruition: Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, City Councilmember Robert Garcia, Mobility Coordinator Charlie Gandy and Transportation rain-maker Sumi Gant. Additional details on event flier.

In the past couple years, Long Beach has implemented the United States’ second green sharrow lanes, Southern California’s first green bike boxes, and L.A. County’s first bicycle boulevard and first bike corral. Conventional bike lanes are becoming more and more common there. Playful bike parking hitching posts are ubiquitous in business districts. All this has contributed to bicycling becoming noticeably very common for all kinds of Long Beach residents: elderly, middle-aged, young, students, laborers, immigrants, citizens, Latinos, African-Americans, women and men, thin and not-so-thin. Sure there are still lots of cars, and some bicyclists still ride on the sidewalk, but the bicycle is visibly part of the fabric of urban Long Beach.

All that bike-wonderfulness takes a great step forward this week.

For readers unfamiliar with protected lanes (that would likely be most Angelenos), also called cycletracks or physically separated bike lanes or separated bikeways, they’re a roadway treatment that provides a buffer – an actual curb – between cyclists and car traffic. While popular and common in much of Europe and Canada and South America, these facilities are only beginning to be embraced in the United States. The basic concept is to take the on-street bike lane and swap it with the parking lane – so parked cars (and typically a small curb) protect the cyclists from adjacent traffic. The cross-section is: sidewalk, bike lane, parking lane, traffic lane.  A Streetfilm is worth more than a thousand words – to see protected lanes in action, watch Ninth Avenue Gets a Physically Separated Bike Lane (or the longer Physically Separated Bike Lanes.)

Protected bike lanes are for everyone, but do have great appeal to less intrepid cyclists - who can include novices, families and many women. Note that, despite their excellent safety record around the globe, cycletracks are not included in the United States’ car-centric officially-approved standard facilities (called the MUTCD – Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.) Long Beach sought and received Federal Highway Administration permission for an experimental facility. In this federal program, municipalities propose innovations (or at least non-U.S.-standard facilities), and the federal government approves and shields the locals from liability risks.

Long Beach’s new separated bike lanes occupy the left lane of a paired couplet of east-west one-way streets crossing downtown Long Beach. The streets are Broadway and Third Street. Both facilities extend from Golden Avenue (immediately east of the 710 Freeway) to Alamitos Avenue. Each is just over one mile long.

The cycletrack project subjected these streets to a road diet, reducing them from three car travel lanes to two. Nearly all of the on-street parking has been preserved – though a handful of parking spaces (approximately 20 out of several hundred) were lost in the reconfiguration. Conventional parking meters have been replaced by electronic parking kiosks.

The project cost about $800,000 – entirely paid for by developer impact fees. Approximately 90% of the project’s construction cost went to installing bike signals. You read that right: bike signals! Yes – bike traffic lights! Dozens of them. At intersections, left-turning cars cross the path of the cycletracks. To avoid collisions, bikes and left-turning-cars are given separate signal phases. Bikes go first, at a bike signal green light phase, coinciding with the green phase for proceeding straight. Cars turn left during a second phase – where they receive the left turn green arrow.

Southern California's first bike signals, shown masked prior to Saturday's dedication ceremony

The bike signals (bright yellow and proclaiming BIKE SIGNAL) have been installed, and are planned to be turned on today, Thursday, April 21st. The cycletracks have been in place for nearly a month. As visible in the accompanying photos, they’re definitely already in use. Despite the left-turn conflicts, there have been no incidents/collisions reported - according to Mobility Coordinator Charlie Gandy.

One concern commonly expressed regarding cycletracks is that where a protected facility crosses a driveway (or alley, or other unsignalized intersection) there is a likelihood of car-bike collisions, especially for novice cyclists who may think they’re securely away from all traffic. Though the Long Beach facilities are downtown, and don’t have huge suburban quantities of driveways, they definitely intersect with driveways and alleys, and even one unsignalized cross-street: Lime Avenue.

Green pavement indicates zones where cars cross the protected bikeway.

Long Beach has used color to draw attention to alert cyclists and drivers to the potential conflict in these zones. They’re painted green!

Protected bike lane on Third Street weaves at Lime Avenue

At the unsignalized intersection at Lime Avenue, the bike lane veers (or weaves) to the right, allowing cars to merge and turn left from the left lane. This treatment is bit less than optimal; it creates an additional point of potential bike-car conflict prior to the intersection – as compared to the bike signal treatment, where the only potential conflict is at the actual intersection (and that conflict is eliminated by separate signal phases.) Long Beach has minimized these weave treatments. Where there are about three dozen bike-signalized intersections, there are only five of these of these “weaves.”

Bikes weave to the right of left-turning cars at intersections where the cycletracks cross perpendicular to the Metro Blue Line train tracks.

As mentioned, one of the weaves is at Lime Avenue, and the other four are at intersections where the Metro Blue Line light rail runs in the middle of the street (on Pine Avenue and on Long Beach Boulevard.) Given the complicated signalization already involved in, and resolved for, complex car-train intersections, Long Beach did not implement bike signalization and merely added the weaves.

Planters add greenery and aesthetics, while drawing attention to the curb separating the bikeway from the rest of the street. Note also the decorative blue bike racks on the sidewalk to the left.

The cycletrack is mostly hardscape: asphalt curbs, stripes, signals. There are a series of large vases placed at the start of each block. The vases are decorated with mosaics, and are planted with flowers – adding a touch of art and a bit of green. In some cases, cycletracks can include additional street trees to create a barrier between the cyclists and the cars - but that would mean additional expenses ripping up the street. Perhaps additional trees will come in a later phase. For now the vases are a good solution, attractive and relatively inexpensive.

Another satisfied customer already using the about-to-open cycletrack.

All in all, Long Beach’s new protected lanes are wonderful to ride. They feel very safe and welcoming. Often bike  facilities (especially paths) are placed along right-of-ways at the edges of cities, ie: the beach, the Los Angeles River, etc. These can be great places to ride, and can connect with great neighborhoods, but they skirt the city’s heart. They don’t quite go where the action is: where people, stores, restaurants, and transit are plentiful.

Throughout Los Angeles County, some cities are beginning to get somewhat more serious about implementing facilities to better integrate bicycling into their transportation mix. Cities from Santa Monica to Pasadena to Burbank to Glendale, and, yes, even the city of Los Angeles, are adding facilities here and there… but generally those cities have shied away from their urban core – the very place where destinations are dense, and travel distances are short… hence perfect for bicycle trips.

L.A. implements most of its bike lane mileage to wide suburban San Fernando Valley streets… but implements no bike facilities, not even a sharrow, within a mile of downtown L.A. despite downtown facilities having been approved in plans in 1996, 2009 and 2011. (Hopefully this will change with the 7th Street bike lanes, tentatively some time after June 2011.) Pasadena does road diet bike lanes on Cordova Street… but nothing to get more bikes in the mix on popular Colorado Boulevard. Santa Monica’s bike lanes and traffic-calming, on streets including Arizona Avenue, peter out before they quite get to the happening Third Street Promenade.

Long Beach has taken a different approach. They don’t just squeeze conventional bike lanes onto their more suburban streets, where they can sometimes fit without pushing aside anything. Instead, Long Beach has taken a close look at their signature destination locations and come up with intelligent and innovative solutions that embed bicycling into the DNA of these places. Belmont Shore got its green sharrow lanes. Downtown is getting its cycletrack. Long Beach puts its facilities where they matter.

The Long Beach cycletracks feel very urban. They connect with restaurants, retail, farmers markets, beautiful historic architecture, and plenty of transit. Long Beach’s new facility strongly affirms and validates that bicycling is important, worthwhile and welcome in the heart of the city. The cycletracks invite cyclists in – cyclists of all ages and abilities. And they keep those cyclists protected and safe.

Go ride the Long Beach cycletracks this Saturday! And the Saturday after that…

1205 West 6th Street...from humble beginnings...Photo: Joe Linton

2011 is looking to be a great year for Greater Los Angeles’ do-it-yourself-do-it-together bike wrenching spaces. The Valley Bikery is moving into their new space at 14416 Victory Boulevard; that’s Victory at Van Nuys Boulevard. The Bikery has their grand opening party coming up on Saturday January 29th.

Jonny Green, Bike Wrangler

A veritable Bike!Bike! of seven (seven! count ‘em, seven!!) local wrenching spaces – the Valley Bikery, BikeRoWave, the Bike Oven, the Bicycle Kitchen, Pedal Movement Bicycle H.U.B., la Bici Digna, and Bikesanxs del Valle – have teamed up with C.I.C.L.E. and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition to create the County Cycling Collaborative’s Bike Wrangler.

The CCC’s wrangler supports the wrenching spaces, by rounding up abandoned and donated bikes and making them available to folks who need them. The bikes will go to the wrenching spaces, and will be distributed via workshops in low-income high-obesity risk areas. The CCC wrangler program is part of the L.A. County Department of Public Health‘s (LACDPH) obesity prevention program known as Project RENEW – for Renew Environments for Nutrition, Exercise, and Wellness. In recent years, the LACDPH had begun to focus on how to get Angelenos to do more regular healthy physical activity – including bicycling and walking. LACDPH started their Policies for Livable, Active Communities and Environments (PLACE) program which partnered with community groups and governmental agencies to promote changes to the built environment that will foster more walking and bicycling. LACDPH funded Project RENEW via a federal stimulus grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

LACDPH’s RENEW funds two CCC programs: C.I.C.L.E. (with wrenching spaces) hosts bike workshops and LACBC hosts the Bike Wrangler program. The LACBC advertised the wrangler job last year and hired Jonny Green, a Bicycle Kitchen volunteer ”cook”, to be the full-time Bike Wrangler. LACBC’s bike parking maestro, Bobby Gadda, also a Kitchen cook and president of the CicLAvia board, is also setting up the Wrangler program and space.

A first look at the inside...

Streetsblog got an early look at the Bike Wrangler space, still getting set up, but already accepting used bike donations. It’s a storefront at 1205 West 6th Street, a former liquor store storefront in L.A.’s Westlake neighborhood, right across from Good Samaritan Hospital.  Bobby and Jonny are looking to host volunteer parties to fix-up and paint the space, and wrenching events to fix-up donated bikes. If you’re interested in getting involved with the wrangler’s work of reclaiming abandoned bicycles, or if you have any tips or ideas on sources for bikes, or even an old bike in your garage that you’d like to donate to the program, contact the Wrangler at 213-629-2142 or  jonathan [at] la-bike.org.

A line around the block for Wetzel's Pretzels. Photo: Joe Linton

What are the most significant 2010 on-the-ground improvements for Los Angeles’ green transportation? At-grade Exposition Line rail crossings? The city of Los Angeles’ first sharrows? Sixty-thousand-plus Angelenos walking, biking and skating the first CicLAvia? Janette Sadik-Khan‘s visit for the L.A. Street Summit? A shattered elbow leading to another summit? The Backbone Bikeway Network making it into the city’s Bike Plan? Wilshire Boulevard Bus-Only lanes lumping along? 30/10 lumping along? Long Beach leap-frogging?

Take this with a grain of salt, perhaps affixed to a pretzel, but there’s another quiet transformation, nearly a hundred years in the works, that’s making a big difference for Angelenos who bus, bike, walk and ride rail. It shows that parking isn’t necessary. It proves public-private partnerships are viable. It demonstrates attention to detail. Arguably, it improves the lives of hundreds of thousands of Angelenos. It shows that public space can be great for the public to use and enjoy.

What is this little-heralded green transportation revolution?

Reasonable and reliable 24-hour retail has arrived at Los Angeles’ Union Station!

Streetsblog readers are likely to already be familiar with Union Station. If not, perhaps brush up by reading Dan Koeppel’s 2009 Bitter Ode to Union Station. The rail station was built in 1934-1939, guided by the Parkinson Architecture firm that did so many of Downtown L.A.’s landmark buildings. To make room for Union Station, the city tore out (later relocating) its thriving Chinatown; this displacement made much easier by racist laws not allowing Chinese-Americans to own property.

Union Station is an extraordinary historic place, with beautiful spaces both inside and out… though, as Koeppel describes well, in many ways, it hasn’t been especially functional. It has tended to be a place one passes through, not a place one goes to or hangs out in.

Rail travel, like driving or flying, has its uncertainties. Frequently not-thoroughly-planning-ahead travelers (this author included) will show up, having neglected to check and adhere to a schedule, and ask for the next train southbound. Most days, most times, the wait is not too bad, but it can easily be twenty to thirty minutes. At off-commuter-peak times, it’s frequently longer.

Sometimes it’s not the travelers’ fault. Twenty-minute delays aren’t uncommon for Amtrak. Sometimes they turn into 2+hour delays. Passengers find themselves with some time to kill, and don’t want to stray too far, for fear of a train departing and leaving one stranded.

In recent years, there have been a few options for grabbing a bite to eat. Inside Union Station, are Union Bagel, Traxx, and “the news stand.”  These options work in a pinch, but, frankly, leave something to be desired. The news stand has charged something between movie theater and airport prices for a very limited selection. Union Bagel has decent bagels (only by a west-coast bagel standard), but their $7-8 sandwiches are uninspired. Time-permitting, Traxx has been the best deal. Very good food, not cheap, not stratospheric, but really only a couple of dollars more than across-the-way Union Bagel. And entirely worth it.  Traxx is a place for feeling civilized, sitting down, and really dining.

Options nearby can also be factored in. Over-priced under-inspired institutional cafeterias ( …yawn… ) are very close by, at both Metro and at the Metropolitan Water District. MWD’s features outdoor seating in a relatively nice plaza – though go for Traxx’s outdoor dining first (in a much nicer historic Union Station space.) When one is certain that there’s enough time, a couple of very good options are a short walk (unfortunately across the dauntingly freewayesque Alameda Street) away: Philippe’s and La Luz del Dia. For late night fare, there’s the 24-hour Patsaouras-Plaza-adjacent Denny’s, more oriented to the freeway than the rails.

In October 2010, Union Station’s food options took a great leap forward with the opening of Famima. If you’re not familiar with Famima Convenience Store – it’s a Japanese chain, somewhat similar to a 7-11, but more compact, urbane, a bit cheaper, a bit healthier (not tooo healthy though), and… well… a bit more Japanese – in the best sense! (Disclaimer: this author does not have any financial ties to Famima.) Soon thereafter a Wetzel’s Pretzels also opened. Both are in a nearly impossible-to-miss location in old Union Station: the spot one passes to get from the Metro Red Line to the Metro Gold Line, Metrolink, Amtrak, or to Alameda Street. Along with places along MacArthur Park and on Broadway, this hub location sees the greatest volume of foot-traffic in all of Los Angeles.

Why didn’t anyone think to put serious retail here sooner? Well… there’s no parking. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for retail in the heart of Los Angeles or in civilized locations around the globe… but it’s probably a daunting prospect for many Los Angeles entrepreneurs to envision succeeding in places with plenty of foot traffic and no parking.

It’s a failing of Los Angeles’ transit landscape that its stations more resemble bombed-out craters than vibrant public spaces. Most transit stations in the rest of the known universe feature plenty of vending: from convenience stores, to news stands, to food, to musicians, to who knows. Rather than trying to draw folks in, Metro sometimes seems to favor adding rider-unfriendly features like baffling turnstiles. L.A. Metro’s misguided attitude seems to see its stations as pristine dead zones, fit only to, in the immortal words of beat cops and security guards, ”move along.”

(This is sadly true for other public spaces in Los Angeles: better neat, clean and sterile than actually used and useful. For example, State Parks would rather keep their temporary Los Angeles State Historic Park grassy field unsullied and pristine than allow visitors to wear cleated shoes to play pick-up soccer games. Do these agencies fear that the public might actually come to love and support these public spaces?)

Compare the MacArthur Park station footprint to the surrounding area. Where Alvarado and 6th Streets positively bustle, up to the very edge of the station, one can hear a pin drop in the vacant featureless station plazas. To some extent, these places have been kept clear in anticipation of  future transit-oriented development – but were 15+years of empty space really necessary? in the heart of Westlake? Instead of actively prohibiting space use, Metro could have just  “looked the other way” and allowed informal uses to creep in. Formally, some kind of revocable lease could have allowed temporary uses in the meantime. Metro could potentially pocket a bit of income (including offsetting current maintenance costs), while enlivening its station environs. Dangerous rape-friendly dead zones can be made safer through more of what Jane Jacob called ”eyes on the street.” Boring corridors become more human and more pedestrian-friendly.

The same transformation, so successful at Union Station, can and should be done throughout the Metro Rail system. Near-station parking spaces can harbor food trucks. Vast in-station open spaces could host magazine stands. Artists and performers could be permitted – maybe Metro’s arts program could take the lead on this?

Back to Union Station and Famima, though. Truth be told, Union Station isn’t quite public space. It’s privately owned and maintained, recently changing hands to a new owner Prologis. Many riders hope that the historic station’s retail will continue to expand. Subway and Peet’s Coffee were, a while back, announced to be “coming soon.”  Competition with Famima is driving improvement in other nearby eateries: both MWD’s cafeteria and Union Bagel have introduced new specials. Can improvements at the now-tranquil news stand be far behind?

What is making Union Station work is that it’s approaching a relatively good, balanced, diverse mix of uses. It includes public and private areas, chains and locals, higher end and lower end options. It could probably use additional features: maybe coffee/tea, a taco stand, bike parking/repair, etc.  Though private retail has improved things greatly, maximizing is not optimizing. Too much additional retail could easily become excessive; imagine removing lots of public seating to make space for a fast-food chain. Shudder. With Union Station listed on the National Register of Historic Places, that sort of excess should be unlikely, but the station’s mix is instructive in guiding future public-private partnerships.

Nothing in this article should be construed as supporting the wholesale kit-and-caboodle fire-sale privatization of L.A.’s public spaces! Adding retail to transit space should be done, and should be done with design, grace, access, mobility and utility in mind. The public has invested a great deal of public resources in these places and has generated a great deal of very valuable foot-traffic, hence the agencies need to negotiate to get the public’s monies worth out of these deals.  No shopping mall management would leave so much revenue-producing area so undeveloped. When public space remains unactivated, the public loses. When Metro keeps lots of real estate off the market, it loses quite a bit of opportunity cost. When the retail is added intelligently, though, everybody wins.

The public and private sectors each have important roles to play in activating L.A.’s transit stations. The process for leasing private space is a bit simpler than that for public space… but it’s not rocket science. The success of Union Station’s new retail shows it can be done. Local transit stations don’t need to be boring and strictly utilitarian. If Los Angeles really wants Angelenos to ride, then stations need to be vibrant and welcoming. Metro should take a cue from Union Station and activate its other stations. The city of Los Angeles can foster appropriate activation by revising station-area code requirements, including doing away with counter-productive suburban parking standards.

The big differences resulting from small changes at Union Station give us a glimpse of a future Los Angeles that’s mobile, convenient, diverse and alive.

(Author’s note: Huge thanks to the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council‘s Alex Kenefick and to Gelato Baby‘s Alissa Walker for contributing to this piece. Apologies that I appropriated their ideas and ended up not actually quoting them. Their praises were very positive, and I felt like it might not be appropriate to weave them too tightly into my disparaging critique. Nonetheless, thanks Alissa and Alex!)

Last time an army of cyclists descended on Van Nuys City Hall, it was in anger over the Bike v. Hummer Crash and the LAPD mis-handling of the case. What a difference a year and a half makes.

In November, the commission’s hearing was contentious and drawn-out, resulting in a vote to continue the plan, essentially sending it back to Planning Department for revisions. Yesterday’s hearing saw near-unanimous harmony between the bicycle advocacy community and the city staff backing the plan. Michael LoGrande and Amir Sedadi, respectively the General Manager of the Department of City Planning and the Acting General Manager of the Department of Transportation, opened the hearing praising city efforts toward greener transportation and the stressing the importance of bicycling in that mix. Commissioners and staff related that the month’s continuance had been productive, greatly improving the earlier draft in a number of important aspects. Those changes have been enumerated here and here in earlier L.A. Streetsblog articles as well as in this Bike Coalition aritcle.

Speakers in support of the plan included representatives from the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, Bikeside, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), the Valley Bikery, BikeRoWave, and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Nearly all of these speakers had testified against the earlier draft plan in November.

The only serious outlier concerned mountain bike access to city parks. More than a half-dozen hikers and equestrians rallied against the “extreme sport,” “inevitable conflicts” and threats to “public safety” involved in mountain biking. Speaking in favor of mountain bike access were representatives of Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA), the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA), and LACBC. Voices in opposition to mountain biking significantly outnumbered supporters. The anti-mountain bicycling contingent also took the serious step of hiring a lawyer to challenge the plan’s environmental review.

The commission took in the comments, concurred with staff to make a few small modifications to the draft, then voted unanimous approval.

During the last month, draft Bike Plan changes have been made at a rapid pace. These include quite a few significant modifications, including some that the cycling community had fruitlessly pushed for for well over a year. Much of this rapid turnaround can be credited to the green-transportation-minded Planning Commision (with credit to Mayor Villaraigosa for appointing them.) When it became clear that the Planning Commission was unwilling to approve a draft plan that a large contingent of cyclists didn’t support, Planning staff stepped up collaboration with many of most vocal bike advocates. The process resulted in broad support for a significantly stronger plan.

Next up for the plan will be mayoral review for the next 30 days. After that, likely in February, it goes before the City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee, then the full City Council.

The Backbone Bikeway Network, now part of the plan...

Since November’s continuance, the City Planning Department (DCP) has worked with the commission and with local cyclists and made additional modifications to the plan. The newly modified Bike Plan is anticipated to be approved when it is heard by the City Planning Commission this Thursday December 16th at 8:30am. The meeting will take place at the Van Nuys City Hall, 14410 Sylvan Street, Van Nuys 91401 – located three blocks north of the Metro Orange Line Van Nuys Station.

There are quite a few modifications listed in the staff report on the city’s Bike Plan website. A flurry of important changes were made during negotiations the day of the November Planning Commission hearing, and detailed in this earlier Streetsblog article: elimination of proposed/potential categories implying burdensome environmental review, specifying minimum lane widths, and others.

Perhaps the most prominent change in the latest proposed draft is the inclusion of the Backbone Bikeway Network. The earlier 2010 draft included a largely-arterial bike facility network that appeared to be based on the Bicycle Working Group’s Backbone Bikeway Network, but was watered down and labeled Citywide Bikeway Network. Bikeside‘s Alex Thompson worked with DCP to incorporate a full-featured Backbone, actually called the “Backbone Network.” The draft plan now includes a “707 mile Backbone Network [that] will enable access to major employment centers, transit stations and stops, and educational, retail, entertainment, and other open space and recreational resources.”

This Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition calls it A Plan We Can Support; their article outlines additional recent changes regarding: education, re-paving, accountability, safe routes to school, prioritization of low-income areas, and bike counts.

Once the Bike Plan receives Planning Commission approval, it goes to City Council Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, which is expected to hold a joint hearing with the council’s Transportation Committee. Not yet finalized/released for Planning Commission, but expected to be heard by PLUM and T-Committee is a new draft of the 5-Year Implementation Strategy.

After committee approvals, the plan goes to the full City Council, then to Mayor Villaraigosa. At that point, the hard work of implementation gets underway. An activated community can accelerate program and facility implementation, even going beyond what’s specified in an approved plan. Seemingly-visionary plans can also gather quite a bit of dust on city shelves. If Los Angeles’ livability advocates truly want to see needed changes on the ground and in the streets, then they will need to work with communities and city staff to ensure that the new Bike Plan is implemented without delay.

Tired but happy, bike advocates and planning commissioners take a moment for a group shot after a marathon meeting of the Planning Commission. Photo:Mark Didia

In a marathon meeting yesterday, the City Planning Commission sided with an unusually cohesive pack of Los Angeles bike advocates and decided not to approve the city’s draft bike plan. The commission voted to continue (delay) the bike plan decision until their December 16th meeting, directing staff to work with commissioners to continue to improve the plan.

The City Planning Commission meeting began at 8:30am, though the bike plan item wasn’t heard until around 12:30pm, and not resolved until just after 4pm. The long wait time led to quite a bit of caucusing in the hallways. These negotiations led to City Planning Department staff making quite a few significant plan modifications. There was a long list of last-minute changes, posted in hard-copy and described verbally. The details need to be confirmed (and sometimes the devil is in those details), but, verbally, City Planning’s Claire Bowin reported that they included:

• Strengthened commitment to more robust bicycle boulevards, though still called “bike-friendly streets.” When the draft plan was released earlier this year, the bicycle boulevard minimum appeared indistinguishable from bike routes; at a minimum they could have included merely signage and no other features. City planning staff later upped this to two features. Yesterday morning the ante was upped to three features of the following five: signage, sharrows, intersection treatments, traffic calming, and diverters.
• Changing the minimum car/travel lane width from 11 feet to 10 feet. This reaffirms current city policy, and makes more bike lanes feasible.
• Modifying project prioritization criteria (and a planned new draft of the 5-year Implementation Plan – which wasn’t on the table today, but received plenty of mentions) to favor implementation of projects in low-income areas.
• Removing the distinction between the plan’s “proposed” and “potential” bike lanes, and deleting references to “required” CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act.) review.  This is actually a very significant change. Instead of the plan dictating a requirement for time-consuming review on all 500+ bike lanes in the “potential” category, these projects can now be reviewed individually, with the easier ones now cheap and quick and the more difficult ones possibly necessitating additional expensive review. The amount of review will be dictated by project specifics, not by heavy-handed clumping. Cyclists will still need to push for these projects and generate support for them. L.A.’s livable street advocates will need to keep their focus on the Department of Transportation (LADOT) which will, lane by lane, determine when more or less rigorous review is needed. The current LADOT practice, though not visionary, is much more affirming of bike lanes than the standard that had been embedded in the draft plan. The LADOT has implemented road diet projects (car/travel lane removal for bike lane implementation) on Myra, Wilbur, Hoover and elsewhere.
• Focusing a revised 5-year Implementation Plan on streets only, with the city’s bike-dedicated portion of Measure R funding directed to street projects only.  (as mentioned above, the 5-year plan was alluded to repeatedly, but no revised version has been released to the public yet.) The city will continue to construct bike paths, but given these projects’ reliance on separate (grant) funding, they will be tracked separately from the 5-year plan.

This last-moment flurry of steps in the right direction met with an activated bicycle community whose battle lines were already drawn.

Though Planning and LADOT staff sounded a few wrong notes (including calling bicyclists an “undeground constituency”), they did respectfully acknowledge the importance of L.A.’s bicyclists in shaping and reshaping the plan. For the first time, planning staff acknowledged that the Bike Working Group’s Backbone Bikeway Network was indeed “the genesis of the Citywide Bikeway Network” in the plan.

More than 20 stalwart cyclists, from Bikesiders to LACBCers (factions of L.A.’s bike community that… let’s just say… don’t always agree), took the stand to decry aspects of the draft plan. Also assembled and testifying were folks from Midnight Ridazz, the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, C.I.C.L.E., the Valley Bikery, the Bicycle Kitchen, Pacoima Beautiful, and individual cyclists. Also commenting were equestrian and park advocates concerned about off-road moutain bike use in L.A. City parks.

Members of the Planning Commission listened to bicyclists’ concerns, and expressed a great deal of interest in a plan that would have “teeth” in making L.A. more bike friendly. The Villaraigosa-appointed City Planning Commission has been a very progressive force in supporting livable urbanism, including pushing the Planning Department in its struggle to shift from perpetuating a car-centric past to midwifing L.A.’s multi-modal future.

Late in the day, with multiple issues unresolved, the commission (tired from 8 hours of meeting) questioned senior Planning staff (tired from a year spent re-tooling the bike plan) and ultimately affirmed the concerns of assembled cyclists (tired from years spent watchdogging the bike plan process.)

While there’s still work to be done – for the commission, staff, and bicyclists - yesterday’s continuance marks an important victory. Cyclists flexed political muscles. Commissioners trusted and supported cyclists pleas for a better plan. Bike-sympathetic Planning staff respectfully brokered compromises and fixed flaws. The draft plan on the table jerked a few significant steps toward respectability.

City Staff, commissioners, cyclists and indeed all Angelenos look forward to a revised bike plan being approved by the City Planning Commission, hopefully in December… and the fruits of that plan ripening on the streets of Los Angeles.

An internet search didn’t find any other accounts of the proposed bike plan update turning Los Angeles into a world-class bike city. Critiques of the plan have been considerably less effusive than the staff report, calling it “an entertaining and inspiring experience that bears no connection to reality” (Bikeside) and “a bunch of phoney bloney jargon to hide the fact that there are no real plans [for bike lanes on major streets]” (Brayj Against the Machine.) Even supportive articles include qualifications “… a step in the right direction … we are requesting that Planning and DOT … show further commitment” (LACBC) and “I like a lot of what I see in the draft plan, though.” (Biking in LA)

Though the bike plan generally guides the city’s bike programs, many city bike programs are not in the plan. When the mayor’s collision instilled in him a support for bicycle helmet use, he didn’t turn to the Planning Department and say “we need to update the bike plan to support helmet use.” No, he merely advocated for policies, programs and legislation outside the plan. Similar recent out-of-plan policies and programs have included city support of CicLAvia, LAPD escorting of Critical Mass, and “Give Me 3″ awareness campaigns. Those are all ongoing city bike programs. None of them are in the current city bike plan approved in 1996.

Hence, while it’s good to have good policies in the plan, those policies tend to be limited more by political will than they are by the bike plan.

Other items in the plan are limited by funding. The plan may call for ambitious education programs and lengthy bike paths, but the implementation of those programs/facilities tend to not be limited by the plan specifics, but instead are limited by the city’s success in obtaining outside grant funding. Whether the plan contains 500 or 5000 miles of new bike path (the new draft has about 100 miles), generally the city can only implement 5-10 miles per year due to limited bike path funds available, mainly from the Metro Call for Projects.

Hence, while it’s good to have good paths and programs in the plan, those tend to be limited more by funding than they are by the bike plan.

On-street facilities are limited by the bike plan. (They’re what this author focuses inordinately on, too.)  Generally those on-street facilities are bike lanes. Bike lanes are very cheap; the extent to which bike lanes are implemented depends heavily on what streets are designated for bike lanes in the bike plan.

Here’s a quick score sheet on how the city’s commitment to bike lanes has waxed and waned through recent plan processes. (Follow the links for more details.)

The city has an existing bike plan: the 1996 Bicycle Master Plan. It’s currently in effect. The ’96 plan designated ~227 miles of new bike lane. Of those, the city implemented about 37 miles of planned bike lanes (and about 30 miles of unplanned bike lanes.) None of these planned or unplanned facilities necessitated any documented environmental review. Future approved bike lanes miles remaining in the 1996 plan: 190 miles.

About 5 years ago, the city decided to update the bike plan. In deciding what sort of bike plan was needed, the city formulated a bike plan scope designed to more-or-less dismantle the remaining approved but-as-yet-unbuilt bike lanes and to approve other bike facilities on quieter out-of-the-way streets.

The city hired bike plan consultants Alta Planning and Design, who have a reputation as one of the best bike planning firms in the nation. In late 2008, Alta turns in a draft plan – never made public, despite FOIA requests, but its outline is clear from the remnants of its dismantling. Future approved bike lane miles in the 2008 Alta draft plan: 125 miles.

In 2009, the city spends about half a year dismantling their consultants’ recommendations, and then publishes their initial bike plan draft to near-universal dismay. The plan introduces a new category of “speculative” bike lanes (about 400 miles) - initially labelled “infeasible” later called “potential” later called ”further study.” Future approved bike lane miles in the 2009 city draft bike plan: 28 miles.

In 2010, the city, having exhausted its consultant budget, decides to retool the draft plan in-house. The “speculative” bike lane category balloons to 500+miles. Future approved bike lane miles in the 2010 city draft bike plan: ~60 miles.

There’s a lot more to the 400+ pages in the current draft plan… some of it worthwhile, some of it questionable, some of it despicable… but a commitment to safe streets remains elusive. Many provisions in the draft plan make it more difficult for the city to implement bike lanes.

For the new bike plan to take effect, it must first be approved by the City Planning Commission. If they approve, it then goes before the City Council’s Planning and Transportation Committees, then to the full City Council, then to the Mayor. It’s scheduled to be heard at the City Planning Commission meeting tomorrow - Thursday November 4th 2010 at 8:30am in City Council Chambers – on the 3rd floor of City Hall, at 200 North Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles 90012. Public entrance and bike parking is on Main Street; easy transit access via numerous buses and the Metro Red Line Civic Center station.

Bicycle advocacy groups are encouraging folks to attend tomorrow’s meeting, and to testify - whether in favor of or against the plan. Once approved by the Planning Commission, the plan becomes more difficult to modify as it moves through approval processes, so tomorrow’s meeting is expected to be critical for pushing for possible improvements to the plan.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to extend the city’s current taxi franchise agreements. Existing city franchises are set to expire December 31st 2010, so today’s vote allows for L.A.’s dysfunctional taxi system to roll along for five more years.

Photo: Joe Linton

The vote was the culmination of more than a year of contentious debate over the future of the city’s taxi system. In 2009, in anticipation of the approaching deadline, the city commissioned a taxi study to guide future decisions. In either haste or impropriety, the city’s awarding of the taxi study contract was tainted by dubious processes, then terminated. Remaining  funding was deemed insufficient for the study’s completion. Taxi company interests pressured the council to extend lucrative franchises essentially unchanged. Taxi workers pressed for completion of the city study, expecting results to include steps toward labor and environmental reform.

In June 2010, Councilmembers Tony Cardenas and Paul Krekorian introduced council motion 10-0996 which proposed extending existing taxi franchises for five years, with environmental provisions for conversion to fuel-efficient vehicles. Taxi companies backed Cardenas’ five-year extension, which ends up more likely to be a seven-year extension, via a provision allowing the Board of Taxicab Commissioners to approve two one-year extensions. Taxi workers pressed for an alternative proposal, supported by Mayor Villaraigosa, for a two-year extension during which the aborted taxi study could be completed.

Two weeks ago, the City Council Transportation Committee approved the five-year extension motion, sending it to the full city council.

Yesterday, taxi companies packed the council chambers with hundreds of supporters, mostly taxi drivers wearing purple “Respect Me” T-shirts. A couple of these drivers admitted that they were paid $100 to attend the council meeting. Taxi drivers and passengers spoke in support of the company, er, Cardenas motion.

Speaking against the motion (and in favor of a two-year extension) were environmentalists, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Green L.A. Coalition, and a smaller unpaid contingent of taxi drivers, represented by the Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance.

While the council’s decision was cloaked in rhetoric of doing the green thing (and converting the bulk of the taxi fleet to cleaner fuels is a worthwhile tangible environmental benefit), the undertone appeared to be more-or-less relieved exasperation: pushing off a contentious issue for next five years so someone else can deal with it then. Why put a difficult item off for two years, what you can put it off for five?

One additional fig-leaf, tacked-on to the franchise extension, was an amending motion, initiated by Councilmember Richard Alarcon, which would urge Taxi companies “voluntary compliance” in not retaliating against workers who fail to toe the company line. While it’s worthwhile that Alarcon lends a bit of visibility to this serious issue (taxi workers have been fired for their organizing activities), any environmentalist understands the ineffectiveness of a regulator applying toothless voluntary measures to a regulated party.

As Los Angeles Times’ Christopher Hawthorne described recently, the transportation landscape in Los Angeles is shifting, arguably rapidly. Los Angeles’ changing demographics are intersecting with new rail lines, dedicated bus lanes, car-share options, and plenty of other livability projects that Streetsblog readers are familiar with. Los Angeles’ formerly cars-first cars-pretty-much-only approach appears to be firmly on a path toward more balance. A healthy taxi system will be an integral part of this emerging healthy and resilient transportation network. Taxis can be especially important for first-mile/last-mile connections and for bridging late-night transit service gaps.

While yesterday’s council decision took a small step forward on taxi tailpipe pollution, it sidestepped many larger issues that make L.A.’s taxi transportation system marginal and unsustainable. The system currently primarily benefits a select few, to the detriment of passengers, drivers and the broader environment. Under great pressure, the council had a difficult situation to untangle, leading ultimately to a difficult decision and a missed opportunity. Hopefully, in five to seven years (or sooner), when the taxi dilemma re-enters their chambers, the council may show greater courage.

Well, it’s finally here.  Sunday is CicLAvia!  Most people that read Streetsblog regularly already know how to have fun in the streets, as evidenced above. That makes it contingent on us to welcome anyone who appears to be playing in the street for the first time.

Joe Linton helpfully provides some links to activities happening around the CicLAvia area and beyond on Sunday.  Just click on the link…:

Where to eat at CicLAvia -

Damien at Park(ing) Day in 2009

A few more volunteers still needed – especially “Route Angels” – folks with basic bike repair skills to ride along specific parts of the route and help out http://ciclavia.wordpress.com/how-to-help/volunteer-dates-and-times/

This past weekend, the city of Los Angeles striped two additional miles of bike lanes on Reseda Boulevard. The new 2-mile stretch of lane, reported in-progress here last week, extends from Devonshire Street to Parthenia Street. This stretch is nearly complete with lines fully striped, bike symbols added, but directional arrows missing and hopefully coming soon. It’s great to see relatively rapid progress on this formerly-controversial project.

Looking at the numbers: this past weekend’s striping brings the total Reseda Boulevard bike lanes completed to 8.2 miles of the 10.8 miles approved in 1996. In the north San Fernando Valley, there are now 4.9 miles from Sesnon Blvd. to Parthenia St., and in the south Valley, 3.3 miles from Vanowen St. to Reseda Blvd.’s southerly terminus. A 2.4 mile central gap remains from Parthenia to Vanowen. In this gap, the city recently installed 0.75 miles of sharrows, some of
which may be removed as the approved bike lane is implemented. Cyclists look to the city to continue progress southward, implementing the remaining 1.6 miles from Valerio to Parthenia, listed as a Year 2010 priority project in the city’s draft 5-Year Implementation Plan.

Unfortunately, bike lanes partially striped on nearby Wilbur Avenue are not proceeding quite as smoothly. Reported here last week, the city began implementing a “road diet” on Wilbur, reducing 4 travel lanes to 2 travel lanes, and adding a continuous turn lane and bicycle lanes. U.S Federal agency research shows that  the “road diet” reconfiguration reduces crashes, thus generally creates a safer street for all users.

These unannounced unapproved unplanned lanes were striped preliminarily during street resurfacing in July, but appear to be on hold, and the subject of some criticism. Last week, both Valley Bikery and LACBC alerted their supporters encouraging Valley cyclists to write to Councilmember Greig Smith in support of finishing the new lanes.

The Valley Bikery’s Ayla Stern stated that local cyclists canvassed homes along Wilbur yesterday and found nearly-100% unanimous support for the new bike lane roadway configuration. Neighbors reported favoring a safer quieter street, with convenient left turns and less speeding.

The LADOT has not been forthcoming with information on the Wilbur project. Repeated inquiries by Valley-resident and City Bicycle Advisory Committee chair Glenn Bailey received cursory, uninformative responses.

Will these Wilbur Avenue preliminary bike lane stripes become permanent? Photo by Joe Linton

Complicating matters, a week or two ago, the city subsequently repaved an additional stretch of Wilbur (a half-mile north – from Devonshire Street to Chatsworth Street) and put down only markers in the center of the street, with no preliminary striping and no indication of whether bike lanes will be added or not. The decision appears to lie in the hands of Councilmember Greig Smith, who has expressed some skepticism on bike issues, but ultimately supported the completion of the portion of the Reseda Boulevard bike lanes in his district.

Kicking off the summit was a visit from former Mayor and recreational cyclist Richard Riordan and longtime former Bicycle Advisory Committee chair Alex Baum, presenting the current mayor with a set of training wheels as a gift from Lance Armstrong.

After brief remarks from the mayor, the meeting format quickly boiled down to about a hundred cyclists speaking for one minute each. This format is familiar to seasoned bicycle activists, but was unclear to a few cyclist speakers who expressed that it was indeed their first public hearing.

Attendees included a veritable who's who of Los Angeles' bicycling community. Included were representatives from the city's Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), BikeSide, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA), Bicycle Kitchen, CicLAvia, Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA), and many many others. Putting in an impassioned appearance was Los Angeles City Council Member Bill Rosendahl - chair of the Council's Transportation Committee.

Overall the mood was very upbeat, with cyclists expressing a great deal of gratitude to the Mayor for convening the summit and addressing bicyclists' concerns. Public comment topics ranged from cyclocross to potholes to obesity to resurfacing to the cruelty of biking with restrained pets. This article doesn't attempt to catalog all the concerns raised by cyclists, but focuses primarily on the Mayor's reactions and stated commitments.

Mayor Villaraigosa initially expressed his past support for Los Angeles cyclists based on his leadership in setting aside 10% of the city's Measure R transportation sales tax "local return" funding. This funding is expected to total $19M over the next five years, and will go to both bicycle and pedestrian projects. The mayor pledged to use this money as leverage in seeking additional Metro bicycle project funding. He also committed to improve cyclist access to Metro rail and to complete bikeways in conjunction with Metro's future Expo Line and Orange Line extension.

The strongest recurring theme in the mayor's remarks was support for bike helmets. Villaraigosa frequently recounted details of his recent car-bike incident. Avoiding colliding with the taxi, he fell from his bike, initially hitting the ground with his helmet-protected head. His elbow struck next and was "shattered in so many places" that it "swelled to the size of a grapefruit." His physicians stated that its severity more resembled a motorcycle injury, then a bicycling one. The mayor spoke with deep conviction that his helmet had likely saved his life. Initially he pledged to appear in a public service announcement to encourage riders to always wear a helmet.

As the meeting proceeded, Villaraigosa's helmet support grew stronger. To the audible dismay of many cyclists present, he further ardently pledged to push for a statewide mandatory bicycle helmet law - a controversial subject. (Helmets are not required for driving or walking - both activities arguably with similar or greater injury risk than that of bicycling. Bicycle helmet requirements also tend to result in less bicycling, hence inadvertently result in less "safety in numbers" and overall decreased physical activity and public health.)  The mayor's helmet mandate support was most articulately criticized in the comments of cyclist Road Block, who pointed out that nobody wears helmet in European cycling capitals including Copenhagen, and that a better focus would be to create safer streets.

Though strong, clear and steadfast on helmet issues, the mayor was more hesitant with other pledges. At times, Villaraigosa paused indecisively over his words, apparently not accustomed to speaking about bicycle issues. Similarly, LADOT GM Rita Robinson, who often speaks persuasively on budgetary issues,  faltered in trying to describe what bike projects her department was implementing. (The mayor subsequently pledged to make a bike project listing with scheduled dates available online.) While these officials appear genuine in their support for stepping up the city's commitment to bikes, they just don't quite sound well-versed in the issues that bicyclists face... yet.

Robinson did commit to staffing levels necessary for implementing the city's pending Bike Plan, which DCP GM LoGrande pledged to fully release soon. The mayor stated that his first response the city's pending new Bike Plan was "30 years?" - expressing disbelief that it would take the city so long to become truly safe for cycling.

The mayor expressed "frustration" over the "bureaucracy" in the city's plan to hosting CicLAvia - a car-free event modeled after similar events the mayor enjoyed in Guadalajara, Mexico. Councilmember Rosendahl went one further in expressing that he was "embarrassed" when he compares Los Angeles' progress to that made by other cities, including Long Beach.

Cyclists wished the mayor a speedy recovery, hoping that he will be back up on his bike long before he convenes his future bike summits on "at least a yearly basis."