Streetsblog Los Angeles

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Los Angeles Streetsblog is hiring a writer to contribute a weekly column covering transportation and livability issues in the city of Santa Monica. The winning applicant will have a knowledge of progressive urban planning and transportation policy as well as a familiarity with Santa Monica city government. Stories can cover new transportation projects, political and community leaders in the area, transit oriented development, open space and parks and other issues that impact the public health and access to public space – all specific to the city of Santa Monica.

The position is a freelance contractor, publishing at least once a week. Funding is secure for at least one year at this time. Depending on Streetsblog raising additional funding, there some possibility for extending and/or expanding the position.

Anyone interested in the position should contact Damien Newton at damien@streetsblog.org.  All applications should include a letter of interest and two writing samples.  Applications are due by the Close of Business on February 7.

Signage at Santa Monica Boulevard and 14th Street in Santa Monica. Thanks, Andrew Ellis Miller

After years of being considered the most bike-friendly city in the Southland, Santa Monica fell behind Long Beach in recent years both in terms of infrastructure and cyclists imagination.  However, in recent months, the city once known as the People’s Republic of Santa Monica for embracing many of the most progressive ideals imaginable (at least in America) is playing catch-up.

First, there was the widely-praised release of a Bike Plan that promises miles of new bike lanes and more progressive designs to rival Long Beach.  Next was Bike Center.  Today, cyclists are noticing signage, on the street and on the poll, that give bikes a chance to be counted at intersections and get their own greens.

Reader Andrew Ellis Miller sends the picture to the right and reports that he’s noticing bike markings at intersections along Wilshire Boulevard.

Giving cyclists an equal chance to cross the street is one of the signs of a bike friendly city.  Not only does it increase safety, it decreases the number of times drivers will witness a fed up cyclist, frustrated at a long wait, choosing to cross against a red light.

This week’s been a big one for bike parking in L.A. County with the opening of Bike Stop in Burbank and Bike Center later this morning in Santa Monica.  Meanwhile, the Culver City Bike Coalition is looking at plans for the Expo Line stop in Culver City and wondering “what about us?”  Streetsblog presents a quick tale of three public cycling centers:

Santa Monica, Bike Center:

The outside of Bike Center. Photo via The Source

We start with today’s opening of what might be the largest bike parking facility in all of the United States of America.  The mammoth $2 million full-service “Santa Monica Bike Center,” is a joint product of the People’s Republic and Metro.  Bike Center is actually two locations (Parking Structure 7 at 320 Broadway and Parking Structure 8 at 215 Colorado) in the center of downtown with a combined 5,300 square-feet of space and nearly 360 secure bicycle parking spaces.  To the best of my research, the next largest bike parking facility, Chicago’s McDonald’s Cycle Center, has “only” 300 spaces.

The Center will provide secure bike parking, retail, bike repair, bike rental, attended bike parking, and could serve as a center for other bicycle related activity in the same way Long Beach’s Bike Station hosts classes and is the starting point for bike stores. For more information, check out the Bike Center web site.

Anticipating the light rail that is on it’s way, Bike Center is also built close to the future terminus of Phase II of the Expo Line.  Metro staff talks about riders being able to bike to their closest Expo stop, take the bike with them on the train, and then having a safe and convenient place to park if their plans don’t include taking their bike with them when the line is completed.

A grand opening event is scheduled for later today and will be followed by an all-weekend open house featuring free bicycle parking, free bicycle rides and tours of the facility.  For more information on the events, click here.

Burbank, Bike Stop: Read more…

Some Neighborhood Council Members wanted separated bike lanes, similar to the ones pictured here, for Main Street in Venice. LADOT wouldn't commit to that design, and the NC gave a conditional go ahead to go forward with standard bike lanes.

Last night, the Venice Neighborhood Council agreed  to the Main Street Road Diet/Bike Lanes plan proposed by LADOT.  The new road striping ought to be on the ground “in the next couple of weeks.”  Despite its approval, the Neighborhood Council had some concerns with the project and wanted LADOT to return with more safety measures to protect cyclists and calm traffic.  The Road Diet will run on Main Street from Navy St. to Windward Circle, and will extend the Santa Monica bike lanes and road diet into Venice.

There was a minor change from the original plan.  Currently, Main Street has four eleven foot through travel lanes with seven feet on each side of the street for car parking.  The original road diet changed the configuration to two eleven foot travel lanes, one eleven foot turn lane, two 5 foot bike lanes and two seven foot car parking areas.  Some cyclists, notably Alex Thompson at Bikeside, complained the new configuration had cyclists planted squarely in the door zone, especially since many vehicles in today’s world are larger than seven feet wide.

LADOT  responded that eleven feet was the minimum for the car travel lanes because Main Street is a regularly traveled route for both the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus and Metro buses.  However, the new design does take a foot out of the turning lane to make the bike lanes five and a half feet larger.  This 10% increase will give cyclists more room to maneuver when car doors are (illegally) opened in their path, but doesn’t completely solve the problem of door zone bicycle lanes.

As we saw back in January, the debate over the plan was because members of the Neighborhood Council wanted a more progressive plan for Main Street than LADOT was willing to provide.  Questions about extending the lanes all the way south to the Venice Street Bike Lane or separating the lanes as they did on 3rd Street and Broadway in Long Beach and in Portland were dismissed.  The Main Street Road Diet is designed to link up with the three lane with bike lanes configuration of the road north on Main Street. Read more…

All our rowdy friends are here on Monday morning. Photo: Metro

Sometime in the late 1980′s, the last Southern Pacific Freight train rumbled along Exposition Boulevard in West L.A. and Santa Monica before voters passed Proposition C and the newly formed Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority purchased the entire right of way.  What followed was two decades of studies, public hearings, lawsuits, Phase I of the Expo Line going through what seemed an infitinte amount of delays and passage of a new transit tax (Measure R).

Earlier today, a groundbreaking ceremony in Santa Monica, at the terminus (or start, depending your point of view) marked the beginning of the end.  The Expo Line Phase II, from Culver City to Santa Monica is under construction.  When it’s completed, transit riders will be able to hop a light rail in Downtown Santa Monica and travel to Downtown Los Angeles or vice-versa.

We’ve talked about Expo Planning, Expo Construction, Expo Lawsuits, the Expo Bike Lane, Expo Crossings, Expo Phase I delays, and probably one hundred other Expo subjects in the three and a half years that L.A. Streetsblog has published. For today, we’re going to take a cue from Darrell Clarke, the founder of Friends for Expo Transit. Clarke might not be in the above picture holding a shovel, but he’s done more than anyone to push the line from an idea to construction.

Read more…

In the fall of 2007, a pair of high school students in Santa Monica High School (Samohi), decided to organize their own Bike to School Day.  Somewhere between 80 and 100 high school students took part that first year, which is a respectable number for a student-run event with no budget, but nobody could have0for seen what’s happened since.

To see last spring's flyer in English and Spanish, click here.

In 2008, the event doubled in size.  In 2009, so many students walked or biked to school, that the school’s bike racks were overflowing not just on what was then called Bike It! day, but everyday and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District vowed better bike facilities.  In 2010, Bike It spread to schools throughout Santa Monica and in June the event (the event is held twice annually in the Fall and Spring) had over 3,300 students from thirteen different schools around Santa Monica.

“Since 2007 it’s grown into a bigger success with just about half of the school participating,” explains Charlotte Biren, co-president of the Samohi Solar Alliance, a super-group that is responsible for solar panels warming the school pool and for programming Bike It! .  “We’ve also expanded the program into walking, and taking the bus.”

Santa Monica doesn’t have a school bus program, increasing the pressure on parents to drive students to schools, so a Bike to School Day is an important exercise to show parents, and students, what is possible.

“Simply put, the goal is to get people out of their cars,” adds Jenna Perelman,  the other Solar Alliance co-president.

100 students is good enough to get the attention of the local school board.  3,300 is enough to get the attention of the President.  This summer, the Office of President Barack Obama awarded Biren and Perelman an Official Presidential Commendation for their work programming Bike It! Read more…

The author's beleaguered Nishiki road bike awaits help from Bikerowave volunteers.

On Saturday afternoon, the City of Santa Monica hosted its 20th annual Santa Monica Festival. The wholehearted embrace of biking at this year’s event was, it seemed, both an embodiment of the city’s early successes in encouraging biking and a hopeful harbinger for an even more bike friendly future.

To set the stage, I’ll refer to an article written by Gary Kavanagh in Santa Monica Patch titled, “How SM Could Become the Cycling Envy of the Nation.” Of a recent trip to Portland, Kavanagh wrote: “Given how much more ideal [Santa Monica's] city scale and weather are for bicycling, it was kind of embarrassing how far ahead of Santa Monica they are up there in the Northwest.”

Santa Monica Spoke hands out literature about bike planning.

And that’s basically where Santa Monica stands today: So much potential, but a lot of work to be done. The signals coming from the city — whether it’s planning the Expo Line to be bike accessible or giving biking top billing at the festival — suggest that they understand the challenge and are embracing it.

At the festival, the embrace of bicycling took the form of various stations and activities that dealt with a range of bike issues, including political advocacy, rider education, consumer advice and maintenance help.

Featured prominently at the festivals entrance were two booths hosted by Westside bicycling mainstays, local advocates Santa Monica Spoke and neighborhood co-op Bikerowave.

The former was encouraging Santa Monica residents to get involved in the city’s five-year Bicycling Action Plan process, which is ramping up very quickly (especially when compared to the City of L.A.’s bike planning process). The next planning meeting is May 16 at 7 p.m. in the East Wing of the Civic Center Auditorium at 1855 Main St.

Bikerowave was helping on the repairs front, giving free advice and assistance to anyone who wanted it. The city itself was holding training sessions for children who wanted to learn how to bike safely. And local shops were there to provide tips for finding the right bike, depending on its intended use and the rider’s physical parameters.

Bike valets -- a common feature at Santa Monica events -- takes the stress out of bike parking.

Amidst the bike emphasis, it’s important to note a couple other livability initiatives that were present. From transit to water recovery to street trees, a panoply of complete streets issues were given voice.

The challenge for the City of Santa Monica going forward will be to balance these disparate issues, which sometimes can work against one another, but just as often can work together in synergistic manner . A perfect example is the city’s Ocean Park Boulevard Green Streets Project, which seeks to turn a stretch of city streets into a vibrant ecosystem, of flora as well as transportation modes.

This sort of vision, applied city-wide, could go a long way towards making Santa Monica the jewel of bicycling in Los Angeles County — a title Long Beach’s mobility coordinator Charlie Gandy probably won’t let away easily. And then, maybe Portlanders will head south to check out the latest innovations in bike parking, street treatments and safety measures.

The plan: Before and After for Main Street. Image via LACBC

Cyclists riding South on Main Street in Santa Monica are “welcomed” to the City of Los Angeles by a bike lane that disappears at the city border.  For no other reason than switching sides of a political boundary, cyclists who were riding in a bike lane in Santa Monica are moved in to the rest of traffic in Los Angeles.  And, the two-lane Main Street doubles to a four-lane one as well.  Welcome to Los Angeles!

All that might be about to change.  Tonight, at the Venice Neighborhood Council Board Meeting, the LADOT and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition will present a plan to put Main Street on a diet by reducing its car travel lanes from four to two and a turn lane, and connect new bike lanes to the ones in Santa Monica.  The meeting begins at 7:00 P.M. at Westminster Elementary School Auditorium, 1010 Abbot Kinney Boulevard.  Get more details, here.

A current view of Main Street, in Santa Monica

Providing bike lanes on Main Street from Navy to Windward Circle will create, in the words of the Bicycle Coalition, a “Complete Main Street”. The proposed bike lanes will rebalance the street and provide
more road safety for all road users whether they be on bicycle, foot, or in a car.  Creating a “Complete Main Street” will require removing a travel lane in each direction in order to accommodate the bike lanes and a two-way left turn lane in the center of the road.  All on-street parking will remain. Read more…

It’s official, many Westside neighborhood leaders really don’t want bus-only lanes.

After reading a letter from the Brentwood Community Council, which can be read after the jump, exhorting residents to protest the inclusion of Wilshire Bus-Only lanes in the area “West of the 405,” I made the above map.  It contains all of the areas of Wilshire Boulevard that residents want excluded from the popular project that would set aside a travel lane for buses and bikes from Downtown L.A. all the way to the sea.  Except the areas in blue have either opted out or are pressuring the Metro Board for an exclusion.

So much for Westsiders wanting better transit options.

But not all Brentwood residents agree that removing “their” section of Wilshire Boulevard is a good idea.  Huffington Post columnist Joel Epstein blasts back at the Neighborhood Council in an open letter addressed to his rabbi who has aligned himself with the opponents of the bus-only lanes west of the 405.

Your opposition to Metro’s plans for the BRT through Brentwood says to the community, yes we support bus rapid transit so long as it is not in our backyard.  Every community along Wilshire needs to be part of the solution, including Brentwood and the Condo Canyon, or there is no solution.  Your opposition manifests a level of old school Westside thinking about mobility in LA that I would have hoped had long since died.  For example, instead of seeing the bus lanes as a barrier to car traffic, as a community leader, you could promote greater use of public transportation by encouraging religious school families to commute by bus.

The full text of Epstein’s letter can be found after the Brentwood Community Council letter after the jump.

Let’s look at the map above.  Going from right to left, we start with Beverly Hills, where residents have claimed they really support transit, as long as it doesn’t run at-grade or below its streets.  Beverly Hills has opted out of the project from the beginning. Read more…

Note: If you choose to share your thoughts at the bottom of this article, I would also urge you to “make it count” and put it on the official public record by sending your comments directly to Metro by October 18^th 2010.  Instructions on how to comment can be found at the end of the article.

Relishing the fact that evening ocean breezes were taking back the air from the day’s stagnant heat, a packed audience filed into the downtown Santa Monica Public Library auditorium on Wednesday night to review the status of the planned Westside subway extension and to make official public comments on it.

Just two days ago, the prevailing aim of comments at Metro’s subway hearing in Beverly Hills was to slam a proposed route that would tunnel under a residential area, which would occur if a station were built in the heart of Century City at Constellation Boulevard.  By contrast, at Wednesday’s hearing each person who commented on the proposed Century City station supported locating it at Constellation Blvd., citing that location’s improved access to jobs and entertainment, as well as the higher projected ridership.

More broadly, the comments in favor of the Westside subway extension advocated building as much subway west of the 405 Freeway as soon as possible.  Under the current schedule, an extension of the subway would only reach Westwood or the VA in the next 30 years (assuming no 30/10 project acceleration).

Alignment 5. Alignment 3 is the same thing for Santa Monica residents, but loses the spur through West Hollywood.

Undeterred, several speakers urged Metro to push forward on subway Build Alternatives 3 and 5 (PDF: EIR Executive Summary, pp. 15-21).  Both of these would have the Purple Line continue down Wilshire from Westwood and terminate in downtown Santa Monica at 4^th Street.  Although Metro currently lacks the funding to build the line past a Westwood or VA station, adding a “segment to the sea” would boost ridership on the whole extension by 28 percent and likely add an four more stations.

In contrast to those who commented on how they want the subway to be built, six speakers from the Bus Riders Union voiced strong support for the two non-subway alternatives for transit on the Westside, the “no-build” and “Transportation Systems Management” options.  The former is literally what it sounds like, and the latter (TSM) entails increasing the frequency of existing bus service on the Wilshire Corridor. Read more…