bike lanes

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.

Regardless of one's feelings of the LAPD, it's hard to argue that they're not trying to become a more bike friendly law enforcement agency in recent years. From actively supporting group bike rides, to new internal policies and training regarding cyclists and cycling rights and even occasionally appearing at public hearings to testify in favor of smart transportation design the LAPD has been slowly becoming a force for bike safety.

In 2011, the City of Los Angeles passed a new Bike Plan which included a  “5 year bike network implementation plan.” The implementation plan focued on a handful of “core” areas to focus the bulk of the new bike facilities. One of those areas is Downtown Los Angeles. A year and a half later, checks in on how Downtown Los Angeles has changed in the past year and a half and what is in store in the coming years.

(We've gotten a lot of complaints about bike lanes being blocked by cars/film crews/police cars/trash bins/etc. We're proud to introduce a weekly series explaining what a cyclist should do when he sees a blocked bike lane. Today we're discussing film crews. Next week, we'll talk LAPD cars.)

In January 2011, consultants for the South Figueroa Corridor Project unveiled three different visions for the soon-to-be Living Street.  The visions were labeled "Good," "Better," and "Best."  A recent presentation to Caltrans, made available on their website, shows current thinking on the legacy project from the project team and the new lead agency, LADOT.

South Los Angeles has three new bike lanes. Maybe it's the celebrations of bike week. Maybe it's the push to meet the mayoral directive for 40 new miles of bikeway by June 30th 2012. Maybe Mayor Villaraigosa, City Councilmembers Bernard Parks and Joe Buscaino pushed hard enough. Maybe it's just good livable streets attitudes taking hold.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition released "2011 City of Los Angeles Bicycle & Pedestrian Count Report" and a separate study on bicycling on Spring Street in the Green Buffered Bike Lane.  The result?  Cycling in the city is on the upswing, as positive press, CicLAvia and new infrastructure are encouraging more people to embrace two-wheeled travel.

One of the major obstacles to building a truly bike friendly city isn't in the engineering and design of a street, it's in the enforcement and respect given to all modes of travel. In the above picture, a truck is blocking the new bicycle lane on Sepulveda Boulevard. Sadly, this not an unusual occurrence in this part of the 1.2 miles of bike lanes.