On Tuesday night, the South El Monte City Council was presented with two alternatives for a 1.4 mile long bike and pedestrian improvement project on Tyler Avenue/Santa Anita Avenue (from Klingerman Street to Merced Avenue). It’s called the Interjurisdictional Bicycle Lanes Project.
The Council voted for neither option, tabling the decision until March.
Option 1 called for protected, curbside bike lanes. It would provide the highest quality bike facility, with the trade-off of eliminating 99 of 204 on-street parking spaces. Most corridor businesses rely mainly on off-street parking, so generally on-street parking is around half empty. Nonetheless the parking removal for option 1 would be significant.
Option 2 called for basic unprotected painted bike lanes alongside parked cars, largely in their door zone.
In any case, due to California’s recent intersection safety "daylighting" law (A.B. 413), the city plans to remove 21 of 204 on-street parking spaces. So, even adding unprotected bike lanes would trigger some modest parking loss unrelated to the project.
Some portions of the unprotected alternative include a painted buffer. A section of the route’s north side - on Tyler - is too narrow from curb to curb to accommodate either Option 1 or 2 (without removing car facilities), so its design lacks a buffer, while preserving curbside parking.
After the presentation from the City Manager’s office and Transtech Engineers, Mayor Gloria Olmos joked, “Can we get Option 3?”
“Obviously we can't lose that much parking, you're going to kill us here,” said Olmos. “People are going to be calling us even more than we get called already.”
Yet the Mayor remained concerned about implementing a project that does protect cyclists, not wanting to throw full support behind installing a bike lane between parking and traffic lanes.
“Having the bike right there, that's dangerous,” Olmos said. “I mean, someone opens their car door, they're going flying. And also, I don't know how you're protecting them, because you see the way these cars drive. If they're trying to get around that car next to them, they don't care. They're just going to do it anyway, which might hit someone.”
The project’s stated goal is to “transform the Santa Anita Avenue corridor between HWY-60 and Tyler at Klingerman Street into a business Civic Center corridor that would include shopping, public services and events.”
The corridor is mostly industrial/commercial, but it also has a city hall, middle school, library, several churches, and a skate park. It’s close to homes, and it’s one of South El Monte’s main arterials with access to the 60 Freeway. Sidewalks are somewhat thin, and crowded in some places with large lamp posts and trees. The speed limit is 40 mph.
Bike lanes could improve safety, but reallocating limited space means trade-offs.
Warehouses and townhouses increase demand for on-street parking. Several council members were wary of reconfiguring the roadway following negative resident feedback to the nearby Merced Avenue Greenway.
Councilmember Hector Delgado remarked, “I have gotten beat up on that project over on Merced [...] Walk up and down that corridor, and you ask any one of those residents - they are upset.”
Councilmember Larry Rodriguez agreed. “We have three corridors to the freeway. We have Durfee, Santa Anita and Merced. We already eliminated two and made a lot of congestion by putting in bike lanes. I don't see how taking our last one, which would be Santa Anita, would be a smart thing to do.”
It must be noted however, that the project does not take away driver access to the freeway. None of the alternatives presented for Tyler/Santa Anita call for removing travel lanes. Drivers retains two lanes in each direction, as is the case today.
Delgado also noted that he was worried about inconveniencing IMS Limited, a major employer on the corridor that manufactures medical devices. “I would hate to inconvenience them in any way, particularly with a lot of their employees who use that off-site parking there,” said Delgado.
It is not clear what employee off-site parking Delgado is referring to. While on-street parking removal could impact some businesses, this is unlikely to be the case for IMS, which is adjacent to the project, but fronts the northern part of Santa Anita slated for neither bike lanes nor on-street parking removal. One of a couple IMS loading dock areas is located on part of Tyler where bike/ped upgrades are proposed.
“Frankly, I'd say no to this project. There's no fiscal impact to us, there's none,” Delgado said to the Mayor. The project is expected to be completely funded by Measure M in the amount of $9,171,500 following approval by Metro this year.
Olmos steered the conversation back towards retooling the alternatives, emphasizing her support for preserving parking.
“Let's redo something, perhaps create an Option 3, where it's still safe for the residents that are biking, but more importantly, that serves our community that we have now presently, and the businesses,” Olmos said, “because we hear all the time that there's no parking here in South El Monte.”
“We don't want to lose the money if we have to do it anyway,” Olmos added.
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