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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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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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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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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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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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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Thoughts on ThinkBike L.A.: 2 – Pacoima

On September 22-23 2011, Dutch bicycle facility designers came to L.A. and worked with Angelenos to create great designs. The 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 2 of 4 – PACOIMA

The Pacoima ThinkBike team included folks from LA BAC, LACBC, LADOT, and Pacoima Beautiful. The pdf of their full slide show is on-line at LADOT.

ThinkBike Pacoima team focus: Van Nuys Blvd and Pierce St

The Pacoima ThinkBike focus was specifically on Van Nuys Boulevard (and the parallel Pierce Street) in the North San Fernando Valley communities of Pacoima and Arleta. Historically, Pacoima was the only neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley where African-Americans could own property. Today these neighborhoods are population-dense primarily Latino and working class, with relatively large numbers of folks who don’t have access to a car, hence many residents get around by transit, walking and bicycling. 

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Thoughts on ThinkBike L.A.: 1 – Downtown

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 1 of 4 – DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

The Downtown L.A. ThinkBike team included folks from DLANC, FAST, LACBC, LADOT, and Metro. The pdf of their full slide show is on-line at LADOT.

Map of the Downtown L.A. ThinkBike plan - mainly Main Street and Spring Street from Cesar Chavez Avenue to Venice Boulevard

The Downtown ThinkBike Team focused mostly the one-way couplet of Main Street and Spring Street, from Cesar Chavez Avenue to Venice Boulevard. 

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