Streetsblog Los Angeles

Photo: @jackNruth/Twitter via @MikeLydon

This Twitter photo of LeBron James biking to American Airlines Arena before facing off against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls last night has gone viral on sports news sites all over America.

There are some interesting sociological currents swirling around LeBron James, bike commuter. While the photographer labeled James a “manchild” for taking to Miami’s none-too-friendly streets on a bike, the prevailing sentiment in the ESPN comments section seems to be that the sight of LeBron riding to work will help rehab his public image.

After the Heat edged the Bulls, James told reporters in the locker room that bike commuting is pretty routine for him. In fact, he seems to enjoy talking about the bike ride more than the basketball game:

Read more…

The efforts that Long Beach has made to become a “bike friendly city” have earned the city praise from sources both near and far. Joining the chorus is Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky who recently completed a bike tour of the city with a film crew from his award winning “Zev Web” news blog.

The film features a lot of familiar faces, including the Bike Coalition’s executive director Jennifer Klausner, assorted members of the City of Long Beach’s bicycle team, Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal and eventually the Supervisor himself. “There’s a lot we can learn from Long Beach,” he asserts.

But most of the video is footage from the bike tour with narration provided directly from mini-talks given by Long Beach’s mobility coordinator Charlie Gandy. The charismatic Texan proves a good tour guide as he weaves the team through Bike Station, Downtown Long Beach, the Vista Street Bike Boulevard and the Long Beach Bike Path.

The video feels so much like a Streetfilm that it provides a smooth update to Long Beach Shifts Cycling into High Gear, 2010 Long Beach tour completed by Clarence Eckerson Jr. The most dramatic difference has to be the Vista Street Bike Boulevard. In 2010, Gandy was able to provide plans and renderings. Less than two years later, city staff is already touting the safety difference of their road treatments.

Safety data does a world of good when arguing for more infrastructure. Not mentioned in the film is that the success of Vista Street has led to Long Beach planning six already-funded Bike Boulevards around the city.

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. Read more…

LADOT Environmental Documents for Expo Phase II Bikeway

What a difference a few weeks make.

Before the Thanksgiving break, Streetsblog reported on how many Westside bicyclists were concerned about bike planning for Phase II of the Expo Line.  While planning for the second phase of the light rail portion of the Expo Light Rail project is nearly 60% complete, the bicycle planning hasn’t really begun.   One of the main reasons for the delay is that Caltrans had not certified environmental documents needed before the bike planning could begin.  To make matters worse, the Culver City Bicycle Coalition complained that a planned bike-transit center for the Culver City station seemed to be dropped from the plans.

But much of that has changed.  Caltrans has granted the Categorical Exclusion (CE) needed for bikeay construction to begin, a prerequisite for the Expo Construction Authority to begin planning the bikeway.  The Authority also announced that it will soon create a long-promised bicycle advisory committee to help with the bicycle plans for Phase II.

To top it all off, a bike parking plan for the Culver City Station was presented, although advocates want to see a greater commitment to bring a bike-transit facility to Culver City.

“Both the City of Los Angeles and City of Santa Monica have obtained environmental clearance for the bikeway project,” begins Gabriela Collins, spokesperson for the Expo Construction Authority.  ”Once the funding from both cities comes through, Expo plans to contract the bikeway design and construction to Skanska Rados, a Joint Venture, the current design-build contractor for the guideway.  The Bicycle Advisory Committee will be brought to the Expo Board for approval at that time.”

While many bike advocates cheered the news that the CE has been finalized, there are still some lingering concerns that the Expo Construction Authority wasted time waiting for environmental clearances for bikeways while the rail project planning moved forward.

Will this design ever become reality?

“The bikeway was inevitable, so it is unfortunate that preliminary engineering of the bikeway was not done at the same time,” says Jonathan Weiss, a member of the City of Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee.  ”How many bikeway options have been foreclosed because of this avoidable delay?  Thankfully, the City of L.A. has ramped up its support and unstuck the bikeway design.”

Federal funding for the bikeway project has already been guaranteed, so it would seem that the bikeway project could finally be moving forward.  However, there’s still one more hurdle that could be placed in front of the Bikeway.  There’s no guarantee that the group of homeowners that have sued to stall the bike project thus far could bring suit against the new CE as well.

Meanwhile in Culver City, a small campaign to urge the Construction Authority to bring a bike plan to the Culver City Expo stop has met with success. Read more…

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.

One week ago, LADOT and city politicians opened the Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lane to a flock of media and the appreciative roar of the L.A.’s cycling community.  One week later, cheers have turned to grumbling as the green paint has dissolved in areas, gotten blotchy in others and basially looks like Long Beach’s Green Sharrowed Lane after a year of wear and tear from cars and bikes.

Ugh. Photo: Joe Anthony of Bike Commute News via Instagram

The culprit appears to be an overanxious LADOT who wanted to have the lanes ready for the Monday press conference, even though the weekend preceding the Monday event was a wet one.   In the week preceding the press event, officials warned that the conference could be moved if weather didn’t allow the painting to occur over the weekend.  Quality of paint shouldn’t have been an issue as L.A. spent $50,000 for the green paint job (according to the Times) which is ten times what Long Beach spent on its Green Sharrowed Lane.

Meanwhile other commuters are grumbling that the green paint, where it does remain, masks some large and deep potholes.   One reader, who I do not have permission to quote by name, wrote of the potholes and paint:

These conditions suggest that the creation of this lane is about a DOT that isn’t truly committed to better bike infrastructure, but instead is about political PR.  Otherwise, basic standards of construction and user safety would have been employed.  While the lane’s design is strong, the execution is exceptionally weak.

For its part, the LADOT is guaranteeing that lane will be repainted soon.  ”Rest assured LADOT crews will be back to touch up spots on Spring St,” writes Bruce Gillman, the LADOT spokesperson.  ”We are awaiting new paint to be delivered and a stint of dry weather to assure second application gets put down without too much moisture present.”

At this point, there is no timeline to repave the road.

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…

It’s been a year since a group of Westside homeowners filed a lawsuit against the Expo Bike Path that would run adjacent to the rail line through the Westside into Santa Monica.  The homeowners alleged that the categorical exclusion (CE) granted to the bikeway (a technical term meaning that only a partial environmental review is necessary) by Caltrans was wrongly granted.  In response, Caltrans pulled the CE and the city went back to the drawing board. The bikeway opponents declared victory and bike advocates fumed.

The bike lanes for Phase I of the Expo Line was disappointing, but at least it happened...

One year later, the story hasn’t changed much.  The city is still involved in a back and forth with Caltrans over the city’s efforts to get an ironclad CE from Caltrans, but at this point there is no time frame for the documents to be approved.  A pair of anonymous sources has confirmed that Caltrans won’t issue it until legal issues with the local homeowners are resolved.

Needless to say, there is no timeline for that, either.

So while no timeline is in place for environmental approval of the bike path nor a timeline to hire a contractor to design it, ground has broken for Phase II of the Expo Line and the bike path remains in limbo.

“For some agencies, this is the old story about cycling being an afterthought,” fumes Jonathan Weiss, a member of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.

Perhaps even worse than the delay is that decisions are being made on the design of Phase II routing, crossings, and stations without bicyclists input.  Despite Expo CEO James Thorpe’s promise to Westside Councilman and Expo Construction Authority Board Member, Bill Rosendahl, that a bicycle advisory committee would be formed, none has.  Expo staff say that the committee will be formed when a contractor is brought on for bikeway design, but with design and construction work underway now for the light rail line, it seems as though cyclist input could be useful. Read more…

Near this Culver City entrance, the Ballona Creek Bike Path is pretty isolated, but other parts of the path run close enough to other streets that cyclists could be forced onto this path, regardless of the time of day. Photo: mo mo foto/flickr

Senator Barbara Boxer is receiving bi-partisan praise for managing to move a transportation policy and funding bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in a divided Senate, but she may be facing trouble from a usually supportive constituency back home.

Regardless of how one feels about the new funding formulas proposed in the bill, there is no doubt that a provision in the MAP-21 highway authorization bill entitled “bicycle safety” would dramatically change cyclists’ rights to the road and would force many cyclists to either break the law or put themselves in unsafe situations.  The language in question reads:

BICYCLE SAFETY.—The Secretary of the appropriate Federal land management agency shall prohibit the use of bicycles on each federally owned road that has a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or greater and an adjacent paved path for use by bicycles within 100 yards of the road.

“The provision requires no minimum standard of safety or mobility on the sidepath, and experience shows that such paths are often more dangerous or impractical than on-road bicycling,” explains David Snyder, the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition.  ”The provision may have been well-intentioned but its result is to reduce safety and it should be removed.”

Jim Baross, with the California Association of Bicycle Organizations explains further.  ”Most of our concern is that adjacent trails, paths or alternative facilities that bicycling might be detoured to do not provide anything near to the efficiency and safety provided by the shoulders of Federal highways,” Baross begins. “At a time when there are significant and important efforts to encourage Americans to use bicycling as a healthy, environmentally appropriate and economic transportation choice, it is ironic that a proposal for prohibiting bicycling, such as this, would be included in a transportation bill.” Read more…

(Note: Statistically speaking, riding a bicycle on a sidewalk isn’t a safe way to bicycle versus the street.  However, for many novice or otherwise inexperienced riders the sidewalk is the only place they feel safe riding.  The below piece discusses the safety concerns for pedestrians, but sidewalk riding poses some danger for cyclists as well. – DN)

With more and more people taking to the streets of Los Angeles on two wheels, the long-simmering debate over whether or not cyclists should be allowed to ride on the sidewalk is re-emerging.  The State of California Vehicle Code (CVC) bans sidewalk riding unless a municipality adopts an ordinance allowing sidewalk riding.  Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) 56.15 allows cyclists on sidewalks unless they’re riding dangerously or other meet other specific criteria, such as having a bike side-car.

Councilman LaBonge has long been a critic of laws allowing cyclists to ride on the sidewalk. Here he poses with cyclists before his office's "Positively 4th Street" bike ride in 2008. Photo: Tom LaBonge.com

A new report by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation reccomends that the city revise LAMC 56.15 to clarify what types of cycling are so dangerous that it should be banned from the sidewalk.  The LADOT report notes that cycling is on the rise and that the city network is not built out to the point where novice cyclists can feel safe on every street.  For these reasons, LADOT does not recommend discontinuing sidewalk riding.

Currently, the LAMC reads:

1. No person shall ride, operate or use a bicycle, unicycle, skateboard, cart, wagon, wheelchair, rollers kates, or any other device moved exclusively by human power, on a sidewalk, bikeway or boardwalk in a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property. (Amended by Ord. No. 166,189, Eft. 10/7/90.

Confusion over what is and isn’t “willful or wanton disregard” that has created confusion.  Over the years we’ve heard stories of police ticketing people for riding on the sidewalk if there are any pedestrians present, which seems an awfully broad definition.  Of course, we’ve also heard stories of police ticketing cyclists just for riding on the sidewalk because they are unaware that in the City of Los Angeles, and other major cities, such an activity is legal.

But to make sidewalk riding as safe as possible, LADOT lists several things that need to be further examined. Read more…