Bicycle Boulevards

LADOT upgraded the Rosewood/La Brea bike/ped crossing - adding green pavement, additional markings, bollards, and signage

Cyclists and pedestrians can now safely cross La Brea at Rosewood. Drivers get a right turn only.

LADOT hosted pop-up traffic calming installations in Koreatown and Westlake - hopefully these will lead to permanent upgrades

Sharrows on 4th Street in Hancock Park - missing last month - are back!

A new West Athens bicycle boulevard under construction on Budlong Avenue features traffic circles and bulb-outs

At today's Metro Sustainability Committee, Metro CEO Art Leahy mentioned that he had visited Portland, Oregon. While there, he saw an "interesting treatment" for low volume streets making them better for bicycling. Leahy stated that cars hadn't been removed from the streets, but that they were diverted in some places. He said that these low volume streets carry hundreds of bicyclists every day.

In March of 2011, then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law the city's Bicycle Plan, a list of some 1,600 miles of bicycle lanes, routes, friendly streets and paths scheduled for the next 30 years. In some ways, implementation is going exceedingly well. The pace at which new bicycle lanes are being added exceeds even that of New York City. In other ways, the plan seems stalled as many of the projects that make up the "Backbone Bicycling Network" connecting neighborhoods, are being delayed or canceled as nervous City Councilmembers put up roadblocks to bicycle progress.

It's been nearly four years since the "Streets Summit" called together many of the city and county's leading bicycling advocates to discuss advocacy, safety, and how the Livable Streets Community can move forward. While the movement has made great strides in this time, I miss the camaraderie and fun an event similar to the 2010 Street Summit and 2009 Bike Summit created.

In September of 2012, my son and I took a field trip to Hollywood not to see the tourist sites, but to ride on my bicycle back and forth on the .8 miles of Yucca Street, Los Angeles' first Bicycle Friendly Street. Earlier today, Los Angeles City Council Members Mitch O'Farrell and Tom LaBonge hosted a community bicycle ride to celebrate Yucca Street.