LA County Bicycle Coalition www.la-bike.org

Driver Who Hit and Killed Alan Deane to Be Sentenced

Alan at the Pasadena Farmers Market, January 2010

On September 22, 2011, Alan Deane was struck and killed by Sidrath Misra in Pasadena. Misra turned left in front of Deane at the intersection of Colorado Blvd. and Terrace Dr. as Deane was traveling east on Colorado. It was Alan’s 61st birthday that day and it’s believed he was on his way to a forum being hosted by radio station KPCC, where Alan was regular attendee and considered a member of KPCC’s extended family. Alan was a talented musician and a gregarious, inquisitive individual known and loved by many. He was a volunteer for the LACBC and helped with many of our projects including the Safe & Healthy Streets initiative in Glendale. Alan didn’t like driving and chose to travel by bicycle most of the time.

We’re told by Alan’s family that Misra is to be sentenced on November 13th for Alan’s death. The Deputy Prosecutor’s office initially filed a vehicular manslaughter charge, but  has since arranged a plea bargain with Misra which is expected to include a lesser charge of Reckless Driving. The penalties are expected to be community service and some sort of fine. The hearing to be held on November 13^th is to confirm or modify the sentence.

Alan’s Ghost Bike at the collision site

Alan’s family would prefer harsher penalties for Misra. We’d like to see harsher penalties as well. At the least, the revocation or suspension of Misra’s driver’s license should be a key feature of the sentence. Driving is a privilege, not a right and penalties for drivers who kill bicyclists in a case like Alan’s should include the revocation or suspension of the driving privilege. The hearing will be public. We encourage anyone who can to attend the sentencing hearing to show support for Alan’s family and to demonstrate with your presence that we care and want to see justice done. If you go, please bring your bicycle helmet into the courtroom so the judge, prosecutors, and Misra will know the bicycling community is present.

The sentencing hearing will be at the following location and time:

When: Tuesday, November 13; 1:30 PM

Where: Los Angeles Superior Court - 300 East Walnut, Dept. N, Pasadena

Judge Steven Monette presiding.

UPDATE: We are also organizing a short bike ride in support of Alan Deane’s family to the court house. Meet us at 12:30 PM at the southwest corner of Colorado Blvd. and Terrace Dr. in Pasadena, and this ride will travel one mile to the Los Angeles Superior Court at 300 East Walnut in Pasadena for the sentencing. See the Facebook Event for more details.

NBC Universal Agrees to Fund Bike Path, Lanes

Bicycle projects in vicinity of NBC Universal to be funded through development agreement.

A week ago, we blogged about the NBC Universal Evolution Plan, a $1.6 billion investment in our region’s film and entertainment industry.  LACBC, along with our allies in the River Family, was greatly concerned about the project’s failure to include the LA River Bike Path along its northern edge.  LACBC was also concerned about the lack of on-street bicycle infrastructure in the project’s traffic mitigation program.  We issued an action alert and you responded.  Earlier today, the Planning Commission heard you loud and clear.  The result is that NBC Universal will invest $3,875,000 to study, design, and construct bikeways in the vicinity of Universal City, including the following:

• $3,000,000 for LA River Bike Path construction to the County Flood Control District (who controls the right-of-way along the River).  This money will become available when the County has designed and environmentally cleared the bike path project, but no earlier than June 2016. While we will pursue opportunities to accelerate this project, we are in this for the long haul.

• $500,000 for a LA River Bike Path study also to the County Flood Control District to do a feasibility analysis and preliminary design for the bike path from the existing endpoint in Griffith Park to the 101 Freeway.

• $375,000 to the City’s newly created Bicycle Plan Trust Fund for study, design, and implementation of on-street bicycle infrastructure on the Bicycle Backbone Network in the project vicinity.  This money would be used for lanes on Cahuenga and Lankershim currently under review and to study lanes on Barham.

While the project is not perfect, we were heartened to hear the Planning Commission passionately discuss the need to integrate bicycles into our transportation system, even taking Planning Director Michael LoGrande to task for outdated CEQA standards that only address automobile Level of Service. Moreover, the Commission understood the importance of creating a bicycle network, not just a river path, and retained the funding for on-street infrastructure.

Our work is not done.  We will carefully watch the details of this mitigation and community benefits package as the project moves forward to City Council.  Additionally, while funding for the bicycle lane projects was included, these lanes are independent of the NBC Universal project and will require separate approval from City Council.  That approval is far from assured and will require a big push from the bicycling community.  If you are interested in making these bike lanes (and others) happen, please join your local Neighborhood Bike Ambassadors group.

A big thanks to the River Revitalization Corporation, Friends of the Los Angeles River, and six other nonprofits in the River Family that co-signed our letter and spoke at today’s hearing requesting more support for the LA River.  We are all stronger with one voice.

Grassroots Support Grows a Bike Network in Northeast LA

In this post, LACBC planning intern and Walk Eagle Rock blogger Severin Martinez gives us a tour of bike infrastructure in his community of Northeast Los Angeles.

The City of Los Angeles has an ambitious Bicycle Plan which seeks to provide a 1,680 mile network of bicycle infrastructure by the year 2045. While 33 years is a long time to wait for a citywide network, the Northeast Los Angeles community will see a significant localized backbone network realized in the City’s 5-Year Implementation Strategy.

Planned bicycle facilities for Northeast LA. Light purple lines represent the City’s planned “Backbone Network” and gold lines represent a “Neighborhood Network”. Image credit: Los Angeles Bicycle Plan

The Role of Advocacy

Almost all of the community’s major streets – Eagle Rock Boulevard, Colorado Boulevard, North Figueroa Street, York Boulevard, and Cypress Avenue – have been prioritized in the Bicycle Plan, undoubtedly thanks to the tireless effort of local advocates. Residents have led several campaigns for bicycle infrastructure over the past few years, including:

• The “Four Corners” Campaign kicked off by Northeast LA based non-profit C.I.C.L.E. in early 2010; this campaign sought the prioritization of bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard, North Figueroa Street, York Boulevard, and Eagle Rock Boulevard. Bike lanes on these streets would form a rectangular network of bike lanes, thus the name “Four Corners”. The campaign caught the attention of Council District 14 representative Josè Huizar, who has been a vocal supporter of the campaign, frequently mentioning “the four corners” when speaking about improvements needed for the community.
• The ” ‘New’ York Vision Plan” initiated by Council-member Huizar’s office in late 2010 was a response to local residents’ and businesses’ desires for improvements along York Boulevard. Seeking to implement short-term and long-term pedestrian improvements to York Boulevard, Huizar notes that the campaign, coupled with the Four Corners efforts, was instrumental in prioritizing a speedy implementation of bike lanes along York Boulevard between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Avenue 54.
• “Take Back The Boulevard”, or “TBTB” for short, has perhaps been the most publicized Northeast LA based campaign for local street improvements that includes efforts for better bicycling conditions. The campaign came to life in 2011 as the culmination of a longstanding desire of local residents and community groups to calm traffic along Eagle Rock’s main commercial street. The initiative has shown such great promise that it has been called one of the most exciting community streetscape proposals in the city by Bill Roschen, President of the Planning Commission for the City of Los Angeles. With the adoption of the City’s Bicycle Plan in 2010 community members were able to push council representative Huizar’s office to request the street be included in the City’s first environmental impact review package of the 5-Years portion of the Bicycle Plan to study the conversion of a conventional traffic lane into a dedicated bike lane.
• Conceived in the latter half of 2011 and spearheaded by local bike advocates, “Figueroa for All” is the newest Northeast LA campaign for re-envisioning a local commercial street and improving safety conditions. Figueroa for All, much like neighboring campaign Take Back The Boulevard, is advantageously pushing for bike lanes included in and funded through the City’s Bike Plan as a means to help make immediate improvements to calm traffic and safety along North Figueroa Street. The initiative has even sparked the potential for providing buffered bike lanes on North Figueroa. As the initiative develops, involved community members will continue to strive for conditions along Figueroa so that the street is safe and pleasant for all.
• In mid 2012, the most recent push for bicycle improvements came from students at Nightingale Middle School in Cypress Park. Students wrote letters to their local Council representative Ed Reyes, explaining why portions of Cypress Avenue and Avenue 28, streets adjacent to Nightingale, need bike lanes. According to the LA Department of Transportation, Reyes’ office requested the bike lanes be prioritized and the streets will see bike lanes sometime during the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

All these initiatives illustrate that community effort does make a difference. The role of local advocacy cannot be overstated. After environmental review and approval by Council, Northeast LA could soon have bike lanes on most major corridors. The area’s grassroots advocacy around specific campaigns is a model for other communities to follow. If you are interested in helping make your community’s streets safer, and bike-friendly, consider becoming a Neighborhood Bike Ambassador to help grow the kind of support for cycling seen in Northeast LA.

What’s Next?

People cycling on North Figueroa Street as part of Flying Pigeon’s monthly Spoke(N)Art Ride. Photo credit: waltarrrrr

Unlike other parts of the City, Northeast LA does not have a grid system that allows one to bypass it’s major streets due to geographical conditions, as noted by urban planner James Rojas. Instead, all utilitarian travel – by bike or other modes – must occur on major boulevards. Making Northeast LA bike-friendly requires re-prioritizing street space on the boulevards, which the bike lane projects propose to do. With the development of the area’s backbone bicycle network on these major streets, it will be particularly interesting to observe (and easier to document) the expected increased rates of bicycling. While portions of Eagle Rock Boulevard, Cypress Avenue, and Avenue 50 already had bike lanes prior to the recent community level advocacy, after the 5-Year Implementation Strategy the area will have the beginning of a real, connected network of bike facilities. LACBC’s recent 2011 bicycle traffic counts are encouraging, which showed a significant increase in bicycling rates on York Boulevard between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Avenue 54 after the installation of bike lanes. Once the bones of a Northeast LA bicycle network are in place, we hope to see a continued boom in the number of bicyclists on the streets. And if those bike facilities are buffered bike lanes, or – even better – cycle tracks, then we expect to see more women, children, and elderly people bicycling around the community.

Update: LADOT confirmed yesterday that the York Boulevard bike lanes will be completed extended from Eagle Rock Boulevard to North Figueroa Street after utility work is completed this month.

Two Projects Moving Forward on 4th Street!

The 4th Street Bicycle Blvd. will be another step closer to reality as two mini-roundabouts are projected for installation on 4th Street by the summer of 2012. One will be located at 4th Street and Norton, the other will be at 4th Street and New Hampshire. Recent meetings with the Windsor Square Homeowner’s Association and the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council resulted in support for the mini-roundabouts. LACBC is reaching out to the community through additional local organizations in an effort to further build support for the roundabouts and 4th Street as a whole. We’ve  had a roundabout at 4th and New Hampshire in mind for a long time and LADOT chose the two locations because they are the intersections of “Bicycle Friendly Streets” in the LA Bike Plan. Each mini-roundabout will benefit two “Bicycle Friendly Streets” since 4th, Norton, and New Hampshire are all designated BFSs.

Photo of 4th and New Hampshire as it looks now

Rendering of how it could look, by Joe Linton

Mini-roundabouts will improve the safety of everyone passing through the two intersections. They will slow motor vehicle traffic, reduce the potential for collisions, and will enable people on bicycles to maintain forward momentum since the roundabouts will be 4-way yield instead of 4-way stop. You can read more about mini-roundabouts thanks to a recent blog post by Richard Risemberg here, and there’s additional information on the FHWA website here.

LADOT rendering for 4th and Norton

The 4th Street Bicycle Blvd. campaign calls for multiple improvements on 4th Street and the roundabouts are two steps in the right direction. We’re working to build additional support for the roundabouts to help ensure implementation and that the roundabouts include attractive, appropriate landscaping.

There’s plenty more to do on 4th Street to make it a neighborhood greenway that will benefit people on bicycles, people who walk, and people who live in the area. If you’d like to get involved, please contact Colin Bogart at colin@la-bike.org.