Streetsblog Los Angeles

During the offseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers promised improved bicycle access and parking at Dodger Stadium as part of the stadium renovations  With CICLE and the Eastside Bike Club promoting their annual Dodgertown Bike Ride this Saturday, now seems to be as good a day as any to check in.

Photo: Baseball Pilgrimage

In 2008, Streetsblog completed a series on biking to Dodger Stadium that ended with sad results. Despite our pleas, the situation didn’t improve while the parking lot capitalist owned the team. With new leadership, would we see new results?

The answer is a profound “not yet.”

Streetsblog reader Tenney Hood tested the improved bicycle parking and found it lacking:

Although the bicycle parking map provided on the Dodgers official website shows bicycle parking at all of the Stadium entrances, these parking racks do not actually exist. I have asked many security guards at multiple games; the only rack any are aware of is on the Top Deck, which on the map is the bicycle rack in Parking Lot P. This in it of itself is a problem–I have to carry my bicycle up to the Top Deck, lock it, then walk back down to my own level to the enter the field. At the end of the game, I have to return to the Top Deck, against the traffic of thousands of people. Additionally, Stadium staff will not let you access the stairs or the elevator closest to the Top Deck, making this even more difficult.

Yikes, so there’s quite a bit of room between the Dodgers and their rivals in the bay who have a functioning bike valet system. Read more…

Moments ago, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a new bicycle parking ordinance into law which requires more bicycle parking at new developments and even allows a small swap of car parking for bike parking in certain approved development plans. The ordinance was on the verge of being signed last year before a series of small technical changes were added and the legislation had to go back through the City Council Committee structure.

Villaraigosa at the bike plan signing, March 2011. Photo:LACBC Blog

“The city is undergoing a transportation renaissance and we are changing the way Los Angeles moves,” said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, before signing the bill. “We have made unprecedented investments in the city’s bike infrastructure, with more bikeways and bike parking spaces than any time in the city’s history. The bicycle parking ordinance is another step in making it easier for Angelenos to navigate the city on two wheels.”

The ordinance  goes into effect on March 13, 2013.

Under the new law, up to 30% of auto parking can swapped for bicycle parking within a commercial nonresidential  project and 15% of auto parking can be swapped within a residential project that is near a major bus or transit station.  This could be particularly crucial for the transit oriented developments that pop up as a result of the new train lines that are coming online as a result of Measure R.

The ordinance also provides a mechanism to add more bike corrals to city streets.   These on-street public bicycle parking spaces offer an opportunity to provide ample bicycle parking without taking up pedestrian space on sidewalks. Bike corrals have been proven to increase bicycle usage in areas where they are installed, as they encourage residents to travel by bicycle around their neighborhoods to do their shopping and errands.   Read more…

(Update, January 17: The City Council passed the ordinance without any discussion at yesterday’s full meeting. It now awaits the Mayor’s signature to become law. – DN)

It’s been over 15 months since it seemed the city was poised to enact a progressive bike parking ordinance that would dramatically increase the amount of bicycle parking required in new developments. In that time, the ordinance was sent back to City Planning for a handful of technical corrections, before it re-appeared in front of the City Council Planning and Land Use Committee hearing earlier today.

Ed Reyes and the rest of the City Council are still waiting for their chance to pass the city's bike parking ordinance. Photo: LADOT Bike Blog

With Committee Chair Ed Reyes not in attendance, acting chair Jose Huizar put the motion on the consent calendar. THe ordinance could be voted on by the full City Council as early as later this month. The transportation committee already waived consideration of the ordinance after holding hearings last year. The Council also passed a “negative declaration” last year, meaning the city found that increasing bike parking would have no negative impact on the city’s air quality.

“This is a huge milestone in further establishing cycling as a legitimate mode of transportation in this City,” writes Bill Rosendahl, Chair of the City Council Transportation Committee.

“If you were to travel by car and knew at the end of the trip there was a high probability that your car would be vandalized or stolen you would think twice about making that trip.  The same rule applies to those who travel by bicycle.  And just as we have automobile parking standards for private development, we will now have bicycle parking standards for private development.  It’s about equity and encouragement.  You simply can’t expect people to travel by bicycle unless you provide safe, secure and available bicycle parking at the end of the trip.”

Read more…

Santa Monica Spoke Board Member Cynthia Rose and Bike Center Manager Ron Durgin "toast" at the Bike Center member lunch last week with vegan cupcakes Rose provided. For more pictures from the event and of Bike Center, visit Gary Kavanagh's Flickr Page.

This weekend, Santa Monica Bike Center, the largest bike parking facility in the country, celebrated its one year birthday.

Bike Center is recognized by the League of American Cyclists as a "Bike Friendly Business," not an honor that one receives just by selling or parking bicycles. Photo: Gary Kavanagh

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. As regular readers of Streetsblog know, Bike Center has become not just a fixture in Santa Monica and a national model on how a space dedicated towards cyclists can grow movement for bicycles and provide a sustainable source of funds for the investor and host city.

And they do it while making money. In its first year of operation, Bike Center has over 200 paying members, operated a year-round bicycle valet program which parked over 1,800 bicycles, and provided nearly three dozen bicycle education classes (free to members with a small fee to non-members.) In addition, Santa Monica allowed Bike Center to put some bicycle retail space on the corner where Bike Center resides. At the Orange 20 website, Richard Risenberg breaks down what this means in economic turns both for Bike & Park who run Bike Center and the City of Santa Monica who rents them the space and worked with Metro to provide a $50,000 grant to refurbish.

The Bike Center pays the City of Santa Monica a base rent of $1500 a month, plus a percentage of its income.

In one recent month of operation that percentage came to $17,000 over the base rent!

Yes, that $50,000 in seed money was a good investment for Santa Monica, who is now receiving a healthy income from the Bike Center.

As Streetsblog said in a recent post about Long Beach, such an investment is “Good for Bikes, Good for Business.” A recent article by Gary Kavanagh, published in response to an article in the Los Angeles Times, discusses in-depth how Bike Center could be a regional model for providing bicycling parking near transit centers. Bike Center is located near the end of the Expo Line, which could be completed in 2015. Read more…

On-street bike parking being installed in Key West, Florida. Photo: Brad Aaron

Brad Aaron, back down in Key West for spring break, files this update from South Florida’s bike-friendly isle.

Spotted these guys installing a bike corral just off Duval Street, Key West’s main drag, on Monday afternoon. Parts of historic Old Town, at least, have recently been converted to muni-meter parking, but from what I could tell this facility was taking the place of a metered spot.

See the finished product, already getting use as of Tuesday, below.

The same bike corral in use, just a day later. Photo: Brad Aaron

Santa Monica Spoke's Cynthia Rose and Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom cut the ribbon in front of Peet's Coffee Shop on Main Street. Photo: Gary Rides Bikes/Flickr

(Do you crave more Santa Monica coverage?  If so, join us tomorrow at The Library Alehouse where we’ll be raising funds and raffling off cool prizes.)

This Saturday, Santa Monica Spoke gave the three new Main Street Bike Corrals the opening they deserved. If the city wasn’t going to program a ribbon cutting ceremony, that doesn’t mean that a ceremony won’t be had, or a ribbon won’t be cut.

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Between the recently launched Bike Center, the largest bike parking facility in the country, and the trio of corrals, Santa Monica is becoming the bike parking capital of Southern California.  To celebrate, a couple dozen bike advocates biked from Bike Center to Peet’s Coffee, home to one of the corrals in an event organized by Santa Monica Spoke and Richard McKinnon of the City Planning Commission and.  There, there were joined by  Mayor Richard Bloom to cut a ribbon and make Saturday’s celebration the most official un-official opening in history.

“We at Santa Monica Spoke have strongly advocated the importance of abundant, convenient and safe parking for bicycles.  Good bike parking is an essential feature of a bikeable urban landscape and a crucial component in encouraging and enabling people to ride. It’s an important and valuable investment for cities to make.” Cynthia Rose said to the crowd.

A  bike corral is created when a city removes a car parking space and replaces it with a series of bike-parking spaces.  In Santa Monica, the corrals on the east side of Main Street have seven bike racks with space for fourteen bicycles and the one on the west side has four racks for eight bicycles.

For more coverage of Saturday’s ceremony, visit SM Spoke or Santa Monica Beat.  For more pictures, click on after the jump. Read more…

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…

If someone were visiting L.A. Streetsblog today for the first time, they would think that we are in the midst of a bicycling renaissance.  Our Mayor is pushing our famously progressive Governor to sign a three foot passing law for cyclists.  CicLAvia, the largest car-free block party North of Bogota, is coming up this weekend.  Sharrows are popping up all over the city.  And on Friday, the City Council moved one step closer to finalizing a progressive new bike parking ordinance.

Ed Reyes' PLUM Committee gave the first green light to an ordinance that changes bike parking requirements for new buildings, and the full Council jumped on board last week. Photo: LADOT Bike Blog

“When you get on that bicycle, you want to feel the same comfort that someone in a car feels,” explained Bill Rosendahl, the Chair of the Transportation Committee and a freshly re-trained bicyclist himself.  ”You want to know that when you park your bike is safe, and isn’t going to get vandalized.”

The City Council passed a “negative declaration” meaning that the final ordinance will not undergo a CEQA or environmental review and that city staff should draft the ordinance based on the principles outlined by Planning Department Intern Rye Baerg.

The ordinance, once signed by the Mayor, also includes a swap of car parking for bicycle parking at commercial and residential developments.  Up to 30% of auto parking can swapped for bicycle parking within a commercial nonresidential  project and 15% of auto parking can be swapped within a residential project that is near a major bus or transit station.  This could be particularly crucial for the transit oriented developments that pop up as a result of the new train lines that are coming online as a result of Measure R.

The ordinance also provides a mechanism to add more bike corrals to city streets.   These on-street public bicycle parking spaces offer an opportunity to provide ample bicycle parking without taking up pedestrian space on sidewalks. Bike corrals have been proven to increase bicycle usage in areas where they are installed, as they encourage residents to travel by bicycle around their neighborhoods to do their shopping and errands.  The corral at Cafe De Leche in Northeast L.A. was part of a pilot program that was succesful enough that the LADOT and City Planning are comfortable enough to let them flourish city-wide.

In related news, the city will receive funds from Metro’s Call for Projects to help fund more bike corrals as well as parking at Expo transit stations.  In a city where too-often the best place to park a bike is on a car parking meter, the tide might finally be turning towards more safe parking spaces available at more desirable places.