South Pasadena Approves Complete Streets Concept for Huntington Drive

South Pasadena approved a complete streets design concept for Huntington Drive last week. It will remove a vehicle travel lane in each direction and replace them with side-running protected bike lanes. Huntington’s revamp will run for 1.5 miles and is part of the Huntington Drive – Fremont Avenue Corridor Improvement Project. Fremont’s improvements will extend 1.8 miles.

City council unanimously approved the concept, and is submitting a request to the L.A. Metro Board to reprogram $30 million (Measure R funds) from a freeway ramp project at the 110 and Fair Oaks Avenue, and to instead fund what City Manager Todd Hileman says the community really wants: bike lanes and traffic calming on Huntington and Fremont.

Design consultants also presented a preferred concept for Fremont, but that is temporarily in the lurch. A few subsections of Fremont may not quite fit with the general proposal for the street. City staff will return to council in June with additional designs.

On Fremont, a two-way cycle track is recommended to replace on-street parking on the east side of the street. Overall support from the council for the project appeared strong, with a few caveats about parking.

Mayor Sheila Rossi said, “Fremont is not a consistent street. Different pieces of Fremont have different conditions. You have the section that is from the train tracks up to Columbia, and that section already doesn’t have parking on one side of the street, and it would be hard to have a bike lane put in.”

“The piece that is from Mission Street to not just Monterey [but] past the high school and Holy Family – I’m concerned about removing parking for that side of the street, because I don’t know where those people would park,” Rossi added. “There isn’t any available parking right now, it is slam packed.” 

Design firm Kimley-Horn’s project manager Maya Bouchet shared parking data which suggested that the daytime peak demand for parking around South Pasadena High School and Holy Family Catholic Church could be accommodated on side streets.

Councilmember Michael Cacciotti said that this is basically what already happens.

“There’s only five [on-street] parking spaces on that side, so that’s not a problem,” Cacciotti said. “They can park inside the parking lot or on Oak Street. If I go there and it’s busy on a Sunday for church, we just go down Oak Street, 50 yards.” 

Rossi, for her part, spoke out of concern for increasing density in the future, as well as from personal experience of having been hit by a car recently.

“I want to see protected bike lanes on Fremont, specifically, because I actually live on Monterey Road and Fairview Avenue and have watched kids walking to school, getting driven to school, and I think it will help reduce a lot of our vehicle traffic if the kids had a safe route to be able to ride their bikes,” Rossi said.  

Bouchet’s presentation included a conservative (and quite standard) projection that the proposed Complete Streets enhancements will boost bike ridership in the city by a mode change of 5%. However, Bouchet seemed optimistic due to South Pasadena’s highly engaged cycling community and the student bike bus to Arroyo Vista Elementary School.

Take the example of the Pumphrey-Neuberger family, who kicked off public comment.

Mom Kristen Pumphrey, is one of the co-leaders of the Arroyo Vista Bike Bus. She and other parents took their kids to participate in Sacramento’s Cal Bike Summit. 

“We asked, how do you build a city for an eight year old,” Pumphrey said, “and we had the kids themselves answer, and what we came up with is that you build it so that they can make mistakes and it doesn’t cost them their life.”

Daughter Poppy said, “When I’m older, I want to be able to ride all the way to middle school and high school too. But riding by cars can feel scary […] Sometimes I’m afraid I could be hit by a car. Protected bike lanes would help kids like me feel safer riding our bikes.”

And bike dad Thomas Neuberger, a member of the advocate group South Pas Active, said that getting rid of some of the on-street parking by Arroyo Vista worked out okay. “People found somewhere else to park.”

Several commenters echoed City Manager Todd Hileman’s sentiment that after 5 years in development, it was time to get this project moving before money starts disappearing. The city has about 18 months remaining to begin construction, Hileman said.

The Complete Streets project already has $16 million allocated in Metro grants (Measure M Active Transportation and funds from the abandoned 710 Freeway). The total price tag for Huntington and Fremont is $46 million. 

Now, with the council’s approval, Hileman’s office is requesting Metro allow the city to reprogram $30 million from the $70 million programmed for the 110 and Fair Oaks Ramp project to these Complete Streets enhancements.

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