Bike Wash at LAEV Next Saturday!

Hey ridazz! Come get your bicycle washed at Los Angeles Eco-Village! For real. It’s a fundraiser for the Westside Invite L.A. – a bike messenger organized bike race, open to all cyclists.

Bike Wash!

The Bike Wash takes place 10am-5pm on Saturday Septmember 1st 2012 at L.A. Eco-Village 117 Bimini Place, Los Angeles 90004. There will be food and drink for sale – come hang out even if you don’t get your bike washed! Bike washes are available at a scaleable cost from ~$10-30 – ten gets you basic cleaning, twenty better, and for thirty: you may need to bring sunglasses because your bike will be too shiny for the unprotected gaze.

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LADOT Lies About Cypress Park Bike Lanes

Maybe some folks have already read about the Cypress Park bike lane issues that have been reported elsewhere… but it’s been sticking in my craw this week, I think it bears some attention. It’s been really disheartening to me to read city responses to implementing approved bike lanes on Cypress Avenue and Avenue 28 in the city of Los Angeles community of Cypress Park. 

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New Bike Lanes on National Place in West L.A.

New bike lanes on National Place

Work took me west today. In addition to riding the excellent recent bike lanes on Main Street in Venice, I checked out the new lanes on National Place in West Los Angeles. 

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Bike Lanes Extended on Vineland in NoHo

New bike lanes on Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood

The city of Los Angeles has been quite implementing quite a few new miles of bike lanes lately. This year I’ve seen more new mileage implemented than any year (calendar or fiscal) since at least 1996. I rode some of city’s newest bike lanes today. They’re on Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood – 0.2 new miles of bike lanes extending from Chandler Boulevard to Burbank Boulevard. 

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New Bike Lanes on Rampart Boulevard Earlier Than Scheduled

New bike lanes on Rampart Boulevard at 6th Street

About a week ago, Rampart Boulevard received 0.6 miles of new bike lanes – from Beverly Boulevard to 6th Street. These are about a half-mile east of Los Angeles Eco-Village, and connect from very near LaFayette Park to the original Tommy’s Burgers. 

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Main Street Bike Lanes Coming to Downtown L.A.

Former striping has been cleared from Downtown L.A.'s Main Street - in anticipation of bike lanes to be added this weekend

In anticipation of new bike lanes, the old lane markings have been scraped away from Main Street in Downtown Los  Angeles. It’s the second Main Street that the city is adding bike lanes to – after Main Street in Venice a couple weeks ago. This project extends the recent Spring Street bike lanes southward 0.7 miles – from 9th Street (where Spring merges onto Main) all the way to Venice Boulevard – through Downtown L.A.’s Fashion District.

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New bike lanes on Main Street in Venice

New bike lanes on Main Street in Los Angeles' Venice neighborhood

The city of Los Angeles Transportation Department (LADOT) has finished striping some snazzy new bike lanes on Main Street in Venice. The Main Street bike lanes extend 0.8 miles from Windward Circle (the traffic circle at Grand Boulevard and Windward Avenue) all the way to the city limit border with Santa Monica, just northwest of Rose Avenue. 

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Some Easy Bike Lane Projects L.A. Can Do Right Away

I’ve been pretty critical of the city of Los Angeles Transportation Department’s (LADOT’s) August 2011 announcement to implement lots of sharrows instead of actually implementing the bike plan the city approved in March 2011. Sharrows are wimpy. Bike lanes are proven effective.

The city should be fulfilling its pledge with 40 miles of bike lanes - like these lanes recently added to Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard

Some folks have said: “OK, Joe, you don’t like the city’s sharrows – but what should they be doing?” Generally my answer is: BIKE LANES!

This blog post is a more long-winded response to the question of what projects I think L.A. should be implementing right now. Below I list bikeway projects that I think are good – and that I think that the city of L.A. could move forward with quickly.

I tend to favor easy “low-hanging fruit” projects. I’d love to see protected bike lanes, bike boulevards, road diets… but I think that these will take a relatively long time. Under current city biases, these ambitious projects can take years; so I tend to favor the easier bike lane projects. The good news is that the city is already doing quite a few of these easy projects – for example, recent lanes on Vermont Avenue and Washington Place.

My list below (sorry the framing is getting long, and it’s not over yet) are all EASY bike lane projects – aka low-hanging fruit – specifically:

• Bike LANES – not sharrows, not bike routes, not “bike-friendly streets.”
• NO CAR LANE REMOVAL – Bike lanes that can be implemented in the existing roadway without impacting through-traffic-capacity.

The list below are the cheap, easy, quick projects that can get the city to its pledged 40 miles this fiscal year. My sense is that if the city can actually complete more easy painless bike lane projects, L.A. drivers will see more bike lanes and will come to expect them. Soon, with greater public acceptance, the city can move on to doing additional and more ambitious projects.

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New Bike Lanes in East San Fernando Valley

New bike lanes on Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood

For New Year’s Day I headed up to the San Fernando Valley to check out two new bike lane segments. Bike lanes striped recently:

• Tuxford Street – 1.3 miles from Lankershim Blvd to Glenoaks Blvd – in Sun Valley
• Chandler Boulevard – 0.9 miles from Woodman Ave to Leghorn Ave – in North Hollywood (near Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks)

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New Vermont Ave Bike Lanes in L.A. Harbor Gateway

Cyclist headed north on Vermont Avenue at Knox Street, utilizing the new Vermont Avenue bike lanes

The city of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) recently striped new bike lanes on Vermont Avenue. The new bike lanes extend 0.6 mile from Del Amo Boulevard to Knox Street in the L.A. City neighborhood of Harbor Gateway. 

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Analyzing and Mapping L.A.’s 5-Year Plan for Bikeway Implementation

In March 2011, the city of Los Angeles approved its new Bike Plan. Overall the bike plan has 1600 miles of bikeways that will take, oh, the rest of my lifetime or so, to implement… if we’re lucky. Approved with the plan is what’s called the “Five Year Implementation Strategy” which I will call just the “5-Year Plan.”

Below I’ve explained the 5-Year Plan, posted my corrected version of it, and posted maps of the bike lane facilities planned.

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New Bike Lanes on Washington Place

New bike lanes on Washington Place in Mar Vista

Thanks, Vicki Karlan, for taking some great photos of folks riding the new Washington Place bike lanes. The lanes, which were explained in detail at this earlier post, were striped by the Los Angeles Transportation Department (LADOT) last weekend, Saturday December 10th 2011. They extend 0.77 miles – from Albright Avenue to Grand View Boulevard – in L.A.’s Mar Vista neighborhood, adjacent to Culver City. 

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Some Good Bicycle News – from Culver City and Mar Vista

New bike lanes on Washington Place in Culver City - alongside Tito's Tacos on Washington Place just west of Sepulveda

I was on the Westside yesterday for L.A. Streetsblog‘s end-of-the-year party (at the wonderful, yummy Earl’s Gourmet Grub on Venice Blvd), so I got the opportunity to ride on Culver City’s new bike lanes on Washington Place and Bentley Avenue. Apologies that it was late at night, hence the really poor photos. 

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Boyle Heights Green Bike Lane on First Street

I think that this is one of the best bicycle photos I've ever taken - fixed gear rider on First Street in Boyle Heights

I got a chance to ride the new green bike lanes on First Street in Boyle Heights. The city installed green pavement markings there last Saturday, November 18th 2011. The First Street lanes are different than the new Spring Street green bike lane downtown in a few ways… but I think that both of them are excellent high-visibility bike projects. 

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Beautiful New Buffered Green Bike Lane on Spring Street

Awesome new buffered green bike lane on Spring Street in Downtown L.A. - not a photosim - actual unretouched photo

Before today’s  rain got going, I had the chance to ride the new green bike lanes on Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The green-colored buffered bike lanes were described and discussed quite a bit in this earlier post. They extend 1.5 miles one-way from Cesar Chavez Avenue to 9th Street. 

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Green Bike Lane Preliminary Markings on First Street

The squares in the foreground will soon be green - one of Los Angeles' first green pavement bike lanes. First Street at State Street in Boyle Heights.

This seems to be the week for announcing the preliminaries appearing on the streets for some good green bike facilities in Los Angeles. Earlier, we showed off the preliminaries on the new green buffered bike lanes on Spring Street downtown. Today it’s the green… well almost green (think Bruce Banner) …preliminaries painted onto First Street in Boyle Heights. 

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Spring Street Green Buffered Bike Lane on the Way!

Spring Street between 6th and 7th in Downtown Los Angeles. The two right/west lane markings have been scraped away in order to re-stripe with a brand new green buffered bike lane.

I noticed yesterday that the city has “erased” some of old lane markings on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. The two right-side (west-side) lane markings have been scraped off… in preparation for an awesome new buffered bike lane. 

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How Long Does It Take LADOT to Install a Sharrow?

Sharrows on Fountain Avenue. What happens to a bike facility deferred? Do they dry up, fester, or explode? apologies to Langston Hughes

The city of Los Angeles’ Transportation Department (LADOT) seems to operate at two speeds. Both unhealthy. The difference in how long it takes LADOT to implement sharrows is instructive. Just how long does it take LADOT to install a sharrow?

Let’s say that a bunch of bicyclists push for implementation of sharrows. Well… then it takes LADOT about five years to paint their first sharrow.

Let’s say that a bunch of councilmembers, planning commissioners, city departments, a mayor, and a bunch of bicyclists agree to a bike plan for implementing bike lanes instead of sharrows - and LADOT figures it can hoodwink them all by doing sharrows instead of what’s actually in the approved bike plan. Well… then sharrows are done in just 34 days.

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Thoughts on ThinkBike L.A.: 4 – Process

On September 22-23 2011, Dutch bicycle facility designers came to L.A. and worked with Angelenos to create great designs. The ThinkBike event was covered at LADOT, and L.A. Streetsblog, but the coverage didn’t include too much in the way of sharing actual designs, like S.F. Streetsblog coverage of their ThinkBike did. I figured that I would do a series of three posts (1 – Downtown, 2 – Pacoima, 3 – South L.A.) showing off more of the great work. The designs are posted at LADOT, but they’re big pdfs, difficult to search, find, and share. I’ve broken them out into place-specific entries and tried to run a lot of images and text, to make this excellent work more findable. In addition, I’ve done a fourth blog post about the overall process, which I did find a bit disappointing.

THINKBIKE 4 of 4 – OVERALL PROCESS

When a Dutch bicycle experts come to L.A. and preach the bike gospel, it’s a great thing. Orange 20, LADOT, LACBC and L.A. Streetsblog loved it. I loved it. The designs are awesome, and I hope that any and all of them get built. Then why did BikeSide, L.A. Weekly, CityWatch, and The Engaged Observer express concern over folks not being included in the process? Why wasn’t this an unqualified success that brought together L.A. bicyclists and inspired us all?

I think that some of ThinkBike’s critics  focusing a bit much on fairly small detail. Caltrans’ local bike point-person Dale Benson and Rock Miller (engineer who designed many of Long Beach‘s awesome bike facilities) were sent out of the room during the design sessions. The sending off is not a good thing, but I think it’s more of symptom. In my opinion, the more fundamental issue is that ThinkBike was done in a way that has been divisive to L.A. bike communities.

You're invited to ThinkBike, but go away while we experts do actual design work for your community

As soon as I read the ThinkBike announcement, I could see it was an exclusive event. The public was invited to the opening and closing sessions only. Immediately I antcipated that this would be a contentious event that would sow divisions in the bike community.

L.A. is a big place. There are lots of great bike groups. Not everyone can be in the room at the same time… so there should have been some sort of transparent, open process by which participants were selected/invited. To this day, I still don’t know who picked whom. Was it the Dutch? the Mayor? the LADOT? the LACBC? I don’t know. 

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Thoughts on ThinkBike L.A.: 3 – South L.A.

On September 22-23 2011, Dutch bicycle facility designers came to L.A. and worked with Angelenos to create great designs. The ThinkBike event was covered at LADOT, and L.A. Streetsblog, but the coverage didn’t include too much in the way of sharing actual designs, like S.F. Streetsblog coverage of their ThinkBike did. I figured that I would do a series of three posts (1 – Downtown, 2 – Pacoima, 3 – South L.A.) showing off more of the great work. The designs are posted at LADOT, but they’re big pdfs, difficult to search, find, and share. I’ve broken them out into place-specific entries and tried to run a lot of images and text, to make this excellent work more findable. In addition, I’ve done a fourth blog post about the overall process, which I did find a bit disappointing.

THINKBIKE 3 of 4 – SOUTH LOS ANGELES

The South L.A. ThinkBike team included folks from Bikes Belong, City Planning, CROW, LACBC, LADOT, SCI-Arc, TRUST South L.A., and USC. The pdf of their full slide show is on-line at LADOT.

Overview of the South L.A. ThinkBike Area Planned

The geographical focus for the team was the area that surrounds the USC Campus and Exposition Park, especially Jefferson Boulevard, Vermont Avenue, University Avenue and 36th Place. This area has the highest percentage of bicycle commuting for all of Los Angeles County, largely due to USC students and staff bicycling to campus. The near-campus neighborhoods also have large numbers of working class bicyclists, mostly black and Latino. 

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