bike lanes

Although a few state parks will close on July 1, Shuntain Thomas, the Real Rydaz, and We Are Responsible People (WARP) want you to know that the streets of South Los Angeles will be open for riding.

For the second time in just over a month, the Los Angeles Times devoted a good portion of its real estate to hitting the Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lane. A lot of the piece hits the same points as last month's editorial on the same topic, but transportation writer Ari Bloomekatz goes into greater detail and includes interviews with Film L.A. and even a brief recap of Carlos Morales' run-in with a film crew last week.

Two weeks ago, while researching a story on LAPD "bike lane stings" for Streetsblog, Carlos Morales came upon a television film crew blocking a bike lane.  When Streetsblog posted pictures and commentary, some readers were angry at the crew for "Ringer" and others were annoyed that Streetsblog was wasteing time writing about something that "real Angelenos" have learned to accept.

On Thursday, March 1, 2012, the LAPD Central Traffic Division deployed eight motorcycle officers to Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) in what was called a “Bike Lane Sting.”  The LAPD's mission was to educate and issue traffic citations to motorist, cyclist and pedestrians whose actions infringed on the rules of the road.   The focus was on bike lanes violations.  The task force deployed along both the green striped bike lane on Spring Street and soon to be striped Main Street.

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial earlier this week entitled L.A.'s bike lane blooper. While the Times was generally supportive of L.A. City bike plan implementation, it did come out against green bike lanes in downtown Los Angeles stating that "the green lane spoiled the shots that made Spring the perfect stand-in for Anytown, USA."

Back in September of last year, the LADOT persuaded the Venice Neighborhood Council to give conditional support to a plan to shrink Main Street in Venice from a five lane street to a three lane street with bike lane on each side.  The LADOT announced the plan would be on the ground "in the next couple of weeks."

The good news: the city of Los Angeles is implementing more bike lanes than ever before. From July 2011 through December 2011, the city of Los Angeles has implemented 12.5 miles of new bike lanes. This is by far the highest total for any six-month period since at least 1996, and probably the most ever. For the past decade or so, the city has averaged roughly two-to-three miles of new bike lanes every six months.

In October, the day after CicLAvia, I pedaled west from Downtown to the Westside on Exposition Blvd. to test the bike lane that run parallel to Phase I of the Expo Line.  I was surprised by the absolutely terrible state of the road and the impact it had on the quality of the ride.  Less than two months later, the city repaved a lot of the route.  Details of the repaving can be found on the Bureau of Street Services website.  For a chart of what segments of the route were repaved, see the chart at the bottom of this article.

For years, residents surrounding the Slauson Avenue Corridor between La Brea and Angeles Vista have argued that the sad looking street needs an upgrade.  What form that upgrade takes is up to debate, some residents want the street changed to allow more cars to move through the corridor while most others want to see the four lane road improved to allow for a better environment for all users.