bike lanes

Beacon Street in Somerville, just outside Boston, is perhaps the most biked route in the state of Massachusetts. It also has a terrible safety record. There have been 154 collisions involving cyclists on the corridor between 2002 and 2010, according to the state Department of Transportation [PDF].

As a cyclist, I do my best to avoid Vermont Ave. like the plague.

This weekend, the Bureau of Street Services will be repaving parts of 1st Street in Downtown Los Angeles. After the repaving, the street will be repainted. Part of the repainting will include removing the buffer from the 1st Street Buffered Bike Lane in front of LAPD headquarters between Spring and Main Streets.

"I'm lonely," a man half-jokingly testified at the LADOT's Public Hearing in support of the First Year Bike Lanes last Thursday night. "My friends find [riding in the street] terrifying."

When I think "Valentine's Day," I think "bike lanes."

Well, what do you see?

A week or so back, I was riding eastbound on San Vicente Blvd in Santa Monica, a block or two above Ocean Ave.

Amidst all the election news comes word that there is a small Bikelash brewing on the Westside from residents worried that the diet is creating spillover traffic jams on other local streets. The good news is that the proposed solutions seem to be about improving traffic calming measures on the streets parallel to Motor Avenue. The bad news is the complaints will be heard at tonight's meeting of the Palms Neighborhood Council which will feature local City Council Member Paul Koretz. The agenda for tonight's hearing is here.

The buzz started on Monday: an alert reader (and Wilshire bike commute champion) notified Streetsblog that the sharrows on Motor Avenue disappeared between Venice Boulevard and National Boulevard, a three quarter mile stretch of mixed residential and commercial development, during a recent repaving.