Last month when I first looked through the environmental documents for the proposed Phase II of the Expo Line, I was encouraged because the maps included with the Draft Environmental Impact Review required by clearly showed a completed bike trail connecting Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles. Appendix E of the DEIR actually includes a description of what facilities along the trail would look like.
However, according to the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition, the bike trail portion of the proposed Expo Line is currently endangered by a decision by the Expo Construction Authority. In an email to supporters, the Bike Coalition asks members to contact the politicians that makeup the Expo Board to pressure them to include the bike path in its final plan.
What's happened is that the Expo Construction Authority decided to refuse federal money for the project so that they can avoid going through the NEPA process or any other federal oversight. Unfortunately, the bike trail is completely funded by those federal dollars, so even though the money is available, the Expo Construction Authority isn't willing to do the work needed to procure those funds and build the bike trail.
Expo's solution is that "others" should be responsible for completing the trail. Whoever these "others" are, Expo, Metro, Caltrans are all possibilities, they would be responsible for completing the federal environmental review. If Expo won't consider moving forward with the bikeway and the federal review on its own, it would be preferable if the "others" committed to the project before the current state mandated environmental review is completed.
A complete copy of the bike coalition's action alert, including who to contact and how to comment, is available after the jump:
LAPD got approval from the Police Commission to extend their BolaWrap pilot on Metro in August, but hadn't advised Metro of their plans until after the fact.