Eyes on the Street: Budlong Bike Blvd Under Construction In West Athens

A new West Athens bicycle boulevard under construction on Budlong Avenue features traffic circles and bulb-outs

By Joe Linton

3:45 PM PDT on June 1, 2018

Eyes on the Street: Budlong Bike Blvd Under Construction In West Athens

This traffic circle on Budlong Avenue at 127th Street is part of an L.A. County bicycle boulevard under construction. Photos by Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A.

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Earlier this week, Streetsblog came across a new bicycle boulevard facility under construction and nearly complete. The bikeway is located on Budlong Avenue from El Segundo Boulevard to at least 120th Street, in the South L.A. neighborhood of West Athens, which is part of unincorporated L.A. County. The facility is immediately north of the city of Gardena, and a couple blocks from the Metro Green Line Vermont/Athens Station.

Bicycle Boulevards (sometimes called Neighborhood Greenways or Bicycle-Friendly Streets) are low traffic volume streets, generally with traffic calmed so that cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers can safely share space. They have been implemented in Berkeley, Portland, Santa Monica, and many other cities. Though many southern California cities have these sorts of quieter through streets that are attractive for bicycling and walking, this type of facility has not caught on much locally.

There is not a lot of detail online about the Budlong project, though one county document identifies it as a Safe Routes To School project to help folks walk and bike to get to 95th Street Elementary School, Woodcrest Elementary School, and West Athens Elementary School.

Below are photos of the under-construction bicycle boulevard.

Bike Blvd sign on Budlong at El Segundo Blvd

Additional striping underway to direct drivers around the traffic circles - photo at Budlong and 127th — Preliminary striping shows the center lines flaring to help direct drivers around the traffic circles – photo at Budlong and 127th

Small traffic circle at Budlong and 124th Street

Construction underway at Budlong and 120th Street. The crosswalks have been scraped. There's a new flashing red light signal above. — Some re-striping underway at Budlong and 120th Street where the intersection appears set to receive new crosswalks. Based on Google street view, for at least a few years, this has been a 4-way stop, with a flashing red light signal. 120th Street has buffered bike lanes, which were added as part of a road diet done at some point after June 2016.

Joe Linton

Bicycle Boulevards | Bicycling | Traffic Calming

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