The SGV Greenway initiative – retrofitting the region’s flood control channels into protected active transportation routes – continues to roll out projects that benefit the community. This week SBLA visited another recently opened path, the Big Dalton Bike Path.
You may know it by it's project name: the Vincent Community Bikeway. That's how SBLA referred to it in past coverage. Now that it's finished and open to the public, the county has named it after the Big Dalton Wash. The path also sits on the San Dimas Wash, but mostly on Big Dalton, thus the name Big Dalton Bike Path. Not to be confused with this project along another stretch of the Big Dalton Wash, in Baldwin Park.
The three-mile route is part of 130 miles planned by the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments and Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Priced at $8.1 million, the project broke ground in Fall of 2023. The path opened quietly on Christmas Eve of 2024.
The path isn’t totally off-street, though. Protected bike lanes with delineators along Arrow Highway and Lark Ellen Avenue fit well both visually and functionally along these busy SGV roads.
There are also buffered bike lanes on Irwindale Avenue from Badillo Street to Cypress Street, leading up to the western entrance to the washes. A Public Works representative told SBLA that this segment is not wide enough to accommodate delineators.
The multi-use path goes from there to Lark Ellen, passing Irwindale’s Guadalupe Church, quarry pits, and a flood gate on the way. There’s a bike repair station just before this segment ends.
Then it’s on-street again, up Lark Ellen to Arrow, just past Azusa, before ducking off-street again onto the San Dimas Wash, behind some shops and apartments. There’s a quick crosswalk at Hollenbeck/Cerritos Avenue, and then we’re on the last and prettiest stretch, between the Citrus Spreading Grounds and a private plant nursery. The final terminus in the east is at Citrus Avenue.
To a non-local, this could seem a strange location for a greenway. These neighborhoods don’t have many parks or much shade. But in spite of the concretized environment, this part of the San Gabriel Valley has a robust bike and skateboard culture. During our visit, we observed numerous people of all ages enjoying the path on a weekday morning. It feels like a win for the area.
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