The Valley

The LADOT is proposing to install bike lanes on both sides of Reseda Boulevard for a half mile, between Roscoe Boulevard and Parthenia Street. This gap closure project will connect existing bicycle lanes to the north and south on Reseda and is the last remaining gap in bicycle infrastructure.

For eight months now, the LADOT has been taking shots in the Valley over the a two mile road diet on Wilbur Avenue.  Between Nordhoff and Chatsworth, Wilbur went from two lanes in both directions to one lane in each direction, a left turn lane, and bike lanes on both sides.  Last night, representatives of the Northridge and Porter Ranch Neighborhood Councils, in an official and deciding vote, voted to leave the current road configuration as it was instead of repainting the road to a compromise plan created by the LADOT and a Wilbur Working Group.  There's a lot of potential headlines from this meeting, so I'll do my best to give each of them their due.

City Councilman Dennis Zine served as master of ceremonies at the groundbreaking for the West Valley Los Angeles River Bike Path yesterday.  Construction has begun on this first phase of the path, a 2.2 mile stretch that extends from Vanalden Avenue to Corbin Avenue.  The path won't just be a stretch of concrete, but will also have some landscaping, access some mini-parks and have overhead lighting.

Late last year, Councilman Greig Smith and the LADOT convened a four-part Wilbur Working Group to address the concerns created when the LADOT re-striped Wilbur Avenue last August.  The "new" Wilbur features two mixed-use traffic lanes, two bike lanes, and a turning lane.  The "old" Wilbur had four mixed-use traffic lanes.

Yesterday, the LADOT Bike Blog announced two new bike lane projects that were completed in the Valley this weekend.

This past weekend, the city of Los Angeles striped two additional miles of bike lanes on Reseda Boulevard. The new 2-mile stretch of lane, reported in-progress here last week, extends from Devonshire Street to Parthenia Street. This stretch is nearly complete with lines fully striped, bike symbols added, but directional arrows missing and hopefully coming soon. It's great to see relatively rapid progress on this formerly-controversial project.

This past weekend, city of Los Angeles work crews were out scraping and putting down preliminary bike lane striping on Reseda Boulevard. The final thermoplastic striping isn't there yet, but the preliminary lines are down. The lanes extend from Devonshire Street to Parthenia Street - a total of 2 miles. Streetsblog readers will recall that these lanes were approved in 1996, but remained unimplemented until bicyclists caught city staff lying about planned peak-hour parking lanes, which would have precluded the approved bike lanes.

This weekend wasn't just a good one for cyclists.  On Saturday, while I was still sleeping off Critical Mass, groundbreaking occurred for the Gold Line Foothill Extension in the San Gabriel Valley.  The rail line was always a popular project with Valley residents, but until Measure R was passed, a measure opposed by several prominent politicians in the area, funding for the project was not approved.  Now, with cash in hand and shovels in the ground, officials are predicting the extension will open in 2014, before the Expo Line will be completed all the way in to Santa Monica. 

On March 24, the City Council Transportation Committee, partially at the urging of Councilman Paul Krekorian, tabled three proposals to increase speed limits for three streets in the San Ferndando Valley.  The increases for Arleta Avenue, Sheldon Street and Hollywood Way were previously discussed in this Streetsblog article.  There's nothing new to report on these proposals, they're the same as they were three months ago, another limit proposal has found its way onto the Council agenda for this Wednesday's meeting.  This proposal would set the speed limit for Hatteras Street., between Hazeltine and Sepulveda, at thirty miles per hour.