LADOT

"Bus Only Lanes"

One week ago, LADOT and city politicians opened the Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lane to a flock of media and the appreciative roar of the L.A.'s cycling community.  One week later, cheers have turned to grumbling as the green paint has dissolved in areas, gotten blotchy in others and basially looks like Long Beach's Green Sharrowed Lane after a year of wear and tear from cars and bikes.

As far as I can tell two recent agency reports with updated information on the status of important transit-related improvements went straight under the radar with nary a word in the blogsphere or mass media (much like the poorly publicized TAP cards sold by bus operator pilot project I wrote about previously). Belatedly let me share you the latest on the Wilshire Bus lane project and the Patsaouras Gateway Plaza busway station:

Bike Lanes are one of the most misunderstood elements of bikeways engineering, responsible for much confusion as they lie nestled peacefully between the noisy travel lane to the left and the quiet but dangerous door zone to the right.

Earlier today, Hillie Talens, a Dutch Bicycle Engineer, kicked off the two-day "Think Bike" planning workshop in Downtown Los Angeles with an interesting presentation at City Hall. The bicycle planners, which are different than traditional transportation planners who are focused on the automobile, will lead three groups in redesign exercises for Van Nuys Boulevard in the Valley, Jefferson Boulevard in South L.A., and parts of Downtown Los Angeles. The innovative program is sponsored by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and the LADOT.

Tomorrow night, the Venice Neighborhood Council will debate, and possibly approve or reject a proposal by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to remove travel lanes on Main Street in Venice in an effort to calm traffic and create space for bike lanes.

Yesterday, we featured a headline by our Joe Linton that pretty harshly criticized an LADOT Bike Blog posting from Monday about the LADOT's committment to increasing the number of Sharrows on L.A.'s streets.  We summarized Linton's post into a couple of questions and sent them on to the LADOT to get some clarification.  After all, the city is promising 20 miles of Sharrowed streets to be completed in the next year...what could be wrong with that?

Earlier this year, when the designs for South Figueroa's My Figueroa project were released, Josef Bray-Ali wasn't happy.  While many advocates celebrated designs that would, if implemented, result in segregated bike paths, transit-only lanes, pedestrian plazas (at a minimum), Bray-Ali saw another major investment in the Downtown and area around L.A. Live. Meanwhile, the portion of Figueroa where he worked and that he loved remained a traffic sewer, with five lanes of concrete and curbside parking blighting the area.

Yesterday, the LADOT and City Planning made their quarterly update to the City Council on the progress of the implementation of the Bike Plan.  The Council's Transportation Committee also moved a motion that would transfer $475,000 to LADOT's overtime account.  Between the somewhat confounding report offered by the agencies and the revelation that bike projects have to be built on overtime, it's no surprise that some advocates are anxious.