Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal talk to County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky & County Dept. of Public Works leadership

Earlier this month LACBC organized a bike tour of Long Beach with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. The Supervisor invited a team of LA County Department of Public Works (DPW) staff to join him including Deputy Director Pat DeChellis, John Walker, Head of Programs Development, Dean Lehman, Head of Traffic & Lighting Division, Sree Kumar, Head of Design Division and Allan Abramson who works in the Programs Development Division and is responsible for the LA County Bicycle Master Plan. Our goal with this tour was to show the staff of DPW the type of bikeways we want to see in the many unincorporated communities of LA County.

One of the best way for anyone, including engineers, to understand innovative infrastructure treatments is to experience them. And as LACBC members know, Long Beach has become the local leader for innovative bicycle infrastructure projects. The City was a generous host and we were joined on the tour by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, staff from their traffic engineering department responsible for helping design and implement the many innovative treatments, bike coordinator Allan Crawford and local bike mobility guru Charlie Gandy.

The tour included the protected bike lanes 3rd and Broadway, the Vista Bike Boulevard, the green sharrow lanes on 2nd Street, the beach bike path, and a number of other streets that have recently be upgraded with bike lanes, as well as stop at Bikestation and a few of the Bicycle Friendly Business Districts (BFBDs).

Charlie Gandy explaining to Supervisor Yaroslavsky & county engineers about protected bike lanes

The bike tour was a great opportunity for County engineers to experience the innovative new facilities in Long Beach, but more importantly it enabled them to experience the streets by bicycling, something many of these staffers have not done in years. There was a lot of good dialogue between the County engineers and the Long Beach engineers. Ideas were flowing about bike boulevards and traffic calming ideas. We hope that once the county bike plan  is adopted we’ll see many of the ideas discussed implemented in the many unincorporated communities the county plan covers. Already we’re hearing from DPW staff that they are looking for projects to enhance with some of the traffic calming treatments they saw implemented in Long Beach. As we recently reported, the county bike plan now includes an expanded design guide and language regarding innovative treatments, thanks to the leadership of Supervisor Yaroslavksy. We hope the Supervisor will continue his leadership and take an active role in improving the bike-ability of his district and the county.

In particular, we were excited to bring Supervisor Yaroslavsky on this tour because of his role on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACTMA or Metro) Board. As a Metro board member he is also responsible for deciding how much funding is allocated to active transportation projects through the Metro Call for Projects. The ‘Call’ has provided funding for many of the project Long Beach has implemented or will be implementing in the next five years, including a bike share program they hope to get off the ground in 2012.  We hope that the Supervisor will draw upon this experience and continue to increase the funding allocated to active transportation through the Metro Call for Projects. We have and will continue to encourage the Supervisor to ensure bikeway facilities serve people of all ages, abilities, and experience in LA County as well as make sure bike parking facilities implemented by Metro follow the lead of Long Beach and Santa Monica and account for the future growth of cycling in LA County.

View a video from the tour put together by Supervisor Yaroslavsky office.

We are pleased with the changes that have been made since the first draft. Many of your comments and ours were integrated into the Plan and the changes will provide the people living in or adjacent to unincorporated LA County communities more opportunities to bicycle for everyday transportation and recreation. Since the Plan was first released, the total mileage of projects increased from 695 miles of bikeways to 832 miles of bikeways (currently there are only 144 miles of completed bikeways in the unincorporated communities of LA County).We are pleased that 47% of the projects planned to be implemented in the next five years are in areas where the median income is $40,000 or lower, ensuring the mobility options for low-income residents, many of whom already cycle for everyday transportation purposes or to connect to transit, are improved soon.

One of our campaign goals was to see more miles of bike lanes included in the urban areas of the unincorporated county and that better treatments are provided for rural roads to separate cyclists from sharing the roadway with fast moving vehicles. While 55% of the bikeways in the Plan are routes –  73% of those bike route projects are in the mountain and rural areas of LA County. Many of the route projects in areas like the Antelope Valley will include creating paved shoulders that, thanks to the expanded design guidelines, can include buffers between the vehicle travel lane and shoulder.

We are also pleased to see additional policies and guidelines included in Plan regarding the  implementation of  innovative treatments such as cycle tracks/protected bike lanes, bike boxes, etc. We also advocated for an expanded description and toolbox for bike boulevards. This was also included in the plan, however the language we were hoping for to specify that all bike boulevards projects will include some form of traffic calming features was not as strong as we would have liked.

Next Steps
We will be working over the next few weeks to address one of the remaining issues we have with the plan. We are concerned with wording included in the Plan that calls for a plan amendment to upgrade a facility. We feel this creates a barrier to implementing “better” bike projects than the ones specified in the plan, particularly in regards to upgrading a bike route to a bike lane if there is existing right-of-way to do so. Since the design of the bikeways identified in the plan will happen at a later date, it is possible that some streets identified as bike routes may have the existing right-of-way to support bike lanes without removing vehicle travel lanes or parking. Doing a plan amendment can take up to six months and adds additional costs to implementing projects and can discourage the Department of Public Works (DPW) from completing the best project possible for a particular corridor.  While we want to ensure projects are not downgraded, we do want to see the best projects feasible  for a specific corridor when implemented.  We will be following up on this issue with the LA County Department of Regional Planning and the LA County Supervisors.

Additionally, the implementation of the plan is dependent on the ability of DPW to secure grant funding. However the county, like every incorporated city in the county, receives local returns from several sales tax initiatives including Measure R. We’re going to advocate that the County Supervisors allocate a percentage of the local sales tax return dollars to be used to fund projects and programs in the bicycle master plan. Similar to the campaign to secure 10% of the Measure R be set-aside for bicycle & pedestrian secured by LACBC, Green LA, and other advocates in the City of Los Angeles in 2010.  This funding will help implement the plan, but also provide greater ability to DPW to leverage those dollars for grant funding. Most state and federal grants require a 20% local match, having a dedicated source of funding for bike projects will provide DPW a greater ability to secure grant funding. We’ll be calling on you to help us reach out to your County Supervisors to let them know how important it is to fund the bicycle plan.

The Plan will be heading to the LA County Board of Supervisors in late February or early March. Thanks to everyone who submitted comments and attended County Bike Plan meetings! We’ll keep you posted on upcoming board meetings and ways you can help us address the issues we mentioned above.

Here are a few highlights from 2011 that we’re thankful for:

• January: Sunday Funday rides kick off with the Valley Pride Ride. (link)
• January: The Bike Wrangler begins wrangling up bikes. (link)
• February: The City of LA’s first bike corral appears in Highland Park in front of Cafe de Leche. (link)
• March: The City of LA’s Bike Plan is approved and signed into action by Mayor Villaraigosa. (link)
• March: LACBC receives the “Best Practices” Award from the Alliance for Biking & Walking for the City of Lights Program. (link)
• April: The second CicLAvia is a huge success. (link)
• April: Glendale’s Safe & Healthy Streets Plan passes. (link)
• April: Metro’s bikes-on-rail restrictions are lifted. (link)
• May: Everyone celebrates bike month around the County. (link)
• May: The Culver City Bicycle Coalition helps conduct another successful bike count.
• May: LACBC releases our first tri-lingual video for the 7th Street bike lane campaign. (link)
• June: LACBC’s 11 Annual LA River Ride attracts over 2,000 participants, and Grand Marshal Austin Nichols, LA Mayor Villaraigosa, and Glendale Mayor lead us all out riding. (link)
• June: LACBC holds a Korean-language press conference for the 7th Street bike lanes. (link)
• July: Carmageddon comes. The world does not end. The Wolfpack Hustle convincingly beats a JetBlue plane from Burbank to Long Beach. (link, link)
• July: LA passes the Cyclist Anti-Harassment Ordinance, the first of its kind in the country. (link)
• July: LACBC regional groups debut with the Antelope Valley Bicycle Coalition, Better Bike Beverly Hills, Culver City Bicycle Coalition, Montebello Bicycle Coalition, Santa Monica Spoke, South Bay Bicycle Coalition, West San Gabriel Valley Bicycle Coalition. (link)
• August: The West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition becomes the 8th local chapter to join LACBC’s regional partnership. (link)
• September: The 7th Street bike lane, which cuts through Koreatown and MacArthur Park, and touches on Downtown LA, breaks ground. (link)
• September: LACBC, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, conducts the City of LA’s 2nd-ever bike and pedestrian count. (link)
• September: ThinkBike workshop invites Dutch planners to re-envision LA’s streets. (link)
• October: Tour de Fat and CicLAvia headline LA’s bikiest weekend ever. (link)
• October: LACBC hosts the Alliance for Biking & Walking’s Winning Campaigns Training, bringing together our regional groups to make LA County truly more bike friendly. (link)
• October: The 2nd Annual City of Lights Dinner raises funds and honors Mayor Villaraigosa, Laura Torres, and Hector Tobar. (link)
• November: Spring Street green bike lanes in Downtown LA and 1st Street bike lanes in Boyle Heights open. (link)
• November: The South Bay and Santa Monica pass their bike plans on the same night! (link, link)
• December: Bike Count results reveal–not suprisingly–that cycling is on the rise in Los Angeles. (link)

Thank you to our members, donors, supporters, and partners for making this all possible! We plan on carrying this momentum into 2012 to truly make LA County better and more bike-able.

One of the many LACBC volunteers that helped count people biking & walking in September 2011.

This past September, over a hundred of you took to intersections all around the City of LA to help us collect data on people biking and walking. We’ve been tracking down count forms and weeding through the data, and we finally have some preliminary results to share with you!

First off a HUGE thank you to all of you who participated in the count! Because of you, we were able to collect more data at more locations across the city than our inaugural count in 2009. Counts were conducted on two days at 58 intersections. We attempted three counts at each intersection: a weekday morning, a weekday afternoon/evening, and a weekend at midday. Thirty-three of those intersections have complete counts for both days—eight more than the last count!

Overall, we counted 15,111 bicyclists and 76,740 pedestrians! The following graphs summarize what we’ve learned so far about biking and walking in Los Angeles this year.

In the graph on the left we see the number of people cycling and walking during each time period the Count was conducted. The proportion of people cycling to pedestrians remains about the same from the week to the weekend. Of special note is the fact that the number of people cycling counted on a weekday was not significantly smaller than the number of weekend riders, which suggests that many people use their bikes during the week for daily transportation purposes. The difference between the morning and evening weekday count can likely be attributed to the fact that more shops are business are open in the afternoon so folks are likely to be running errands, commuting etc.

We also collected additional information about the cyclists we observed. As with the 2009 Count, we recorded the gender and riding behaviors of people cycling. We collected data on gender as research on cycling has shown that women can be an indicator of how bike friendly a city is; the more women riding the safer the streets.

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.

Valerie Watson of the DLANC addresses the crowd on Spring Street. Photo: Andy Rodriguez/LACBC

Today we celebrated the opening of the buffered green bike lane on Spring Street and the green lane on 1st Street in Boyle Heights with Councilmembers Perry & Huizar at a press conference held at the corner of Spring and 2nd on grounds of the LAPD Headquarters.  This 1.5-mile buffered green lane stretches from Cesar E. Chavez to 9th St. on Spring St. and is Downtown LA’s first bike lane.  A crowd of about eighty people including many bicyclists, downtown residents, and workers gathered to hear city councilmembers Jan Perry and Jose Huizar, Tim Fremaux of LADOT, Valerie Watson of the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council (DLANC), and our own Jen Klausner.

Councilmember Perry spoke about how the new bike lane fits into Downtown’s role as a transportation and jobs hub as well as its increasing residential population.  She also emphasized that the green paint used on the lane was specially treated to provide traction in all weather.  Councilmember Huizar praised LACBC’s role in pushing for this and other bike infrastructure improvements and spoke about the work being done in his district including the green pavement treatments with the 1st Street bike lane, the city’s first bike corral, and other improvements he hopes to see implemented.

A mix of public officials, press, cyclists, downtown residents, and downtown workers came out for today's press conference. Photo: Andy Rodriguez/LACBC

Valerie Watson of the DLANC said that the bike lane had support from downtown businesses-owners many of whom display badges showing their support.  She also backed the implementation of additional bike lanes on 2nd, 7th, 11th, Main, Figueroa, and Flower by next year and looked forward to the Parklets that the DLANC is working to implement on Spring Street in 2012.

LACBC Executive Director Jen Klausner, sporting a shock of purple hair, joked, “I appreciate many of your suggestions that I dye my hair lime green to match the color of the lane.”  On a more serious note, she expressed hope that the lane would lead to more politeness between all users of the road saying, “Courteous riding, polite driving, I dig it.”

Councilmembers Perry and Huizar cut the ribbon on the Spring Street Bike Lane. Photo: Andrew Wong, WYTe Studios

Many of the speakers also noted how the Spring St. lane had been inspired by the ThinkBike LA workshop back in September.  Dutch bicycle planning experts visited LA to make recommendations on how to improve LA for cyclists.  We are really pleased that LADOT worked so quickly to take an innovative approach on Spring based on the efforts of the ThinkBike LA workshop. While LADOT was able to implement this project quickly, the rain over the weekend definitely didn’t help, so they’ll be back out on Spring Street in the coming days to touch up the green paint.

After the speeches, the lane was inaugurated with a green ribbon-cutting and a ride down Spring St. from 2nd to 9th St. led by Councilmembers Perry and Huizar and the many bicyclists in attendance. If you haven’t already ridden the bike lane, we encourage you to do so–the lane passes right by Olvera Street, LA City Hall, LACBC headquarters, and a bevy of other great eateries and shops!

Many thanks to councilmembers Perry and Huizar, Mayor Villaraigosa, the DLANC, and LADOT for making this all possible! And thanks to everyone who came out to the press conference today, the volunteers who did outreach leading up to the bike lane’s implementation, and the Downtown businesses and residents who supported turning Spring Street into a neighborhood street!

This is the first update to the County’s existing bike plan in over 30 years and should provide a real vision and commitment to greatly increasing the safety of our unincorporated communities’ roadways and encourage more folks to bicycle to school, work, transit, their daily needs, or for fun over the next 20 to 30 years. If realized, the implementation of the plan should link residential neighborhoods, schools, business districts, transit hubs and the unincorporated communities to neighboring incorporated community and would have a significant impact on the region’s air quality, public health and safety of the county.  However, the latest draft does not go far enough to create this network. We recommend the following:

Investment in Safer Infrastructure

The Plan should provide more bike boulevards and bike lanes and further enhance many of the proposed bike routes. The success of the County’s plan in increasing bike modal share will largely depend on its ability to make County residents who do not cycle now comfortable riding a bike on city streets, especially women, children and the elderly. Unfortunately the current draft fails to make use of the types of infrastructure that experience in other cities has shown are needed to convince these segments of the population that cycling is a safe and viable transportation option. While we appreciate that the County does not want to implement treatments that are still be piloted by other jurisdictions, we feel there is still more that could be done that is well within what is currently stipulated by the state.

Equitable and Rational Prioritization of Projects

In order to make best use of limited resources over time, projects should be prioritized in a manner that develops infrastructure in communities with the greatest need from a public health, safety, and transportation justice standpoint. The current project prioritization grading scale should be amended so that it scores safety (based on local collision data) higher, awards points to projects serving low-income, transit-dependent communities as was done in the recently adopted City of LA Bike Plan; and grants preference to projects in communities with the highest obesity rates. By awarding more points in these areas, the County can ensure that the roll-out of its plan over the next few decades will positively impact the unincorporated communities in greatest need of safer streets for cycling first.

Clear, Ambitious and Easily Measurable Goals

Clear and measurable goals need to be set so that the public and policymakers have a clear track of the success of the plan. Therefore there needs to be a mode share goal beyond the first five years of the plan and it should be an ambitious one. We suggest a 10% bicycle mode share by 2032 for all trips, as well as an intermediate goal such as a 5% mode share by 2022.

We are  encouraging everyone to write to the Regional Planning Commission by Monday November 14th so that all letters are in by the Wednesday November 16th. A template letter can be found here, we encourage you to personalize it and add your own thoughts, especially if there are roadways you feel would make ideal bicycle boulevards. We also encourage people to attend the public hearing Wednesday, November 16th and speak out for a better LA County Bike Plan.

You can view our previous letters and comments; LACBC_CommentLetter , LACBC_PolicyComments_land, and LACBC_CountyPlanEIRComments.

LA County Planning Commission

Where: Hall of Records - Room 150
320 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

When: Wednesday, Nov 16th – 9am

Rendering of the proposed bridge.

The City of Los Angeles has an opportunity to approve a new bridge for bicyclists, pedestrians, and equestrians that would connect Griffith Park and the LA River Bike Path on the west side of the LA River to north Atwater Village on the east side of the River. The project is being funding almost entirely by a private donation of $4 million for construction and donations are being sought to raise the remaining $1 million for this $5 million project. The donor is offering to give the bridge to the City when construction is finished. The City will have to pay an estimated $1 million over the first 10 years for maintenance of the bridge.

Map showing proposed bridge location.

This project would be a huge benefit to bicyclists as well as pedestrians and equestrians. For cyclists, all the access points to the LA River Path, from Fletcher Drive in the south to the north end of Griffith Park, are adjacent to freeway on/off-ramps, busy streets, or both. There are no bicycle facilities leading to any of these path entrances. The bridge entrance would be from a residential neighborhood in north Atwater Village, thereby making access to the River Path and Griffith Park by bicycle easy and safe for cyclists of all abilities, including families with small children. It’s worth noting that Brunswick Ave., a few blocks east of the LA River in Atwater Village, is designated as a Bicycle Friendly Street in the City of LA Bike Plan and could be easily linked to the bridge.

Cross section of bridge which varies end to end.

The Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation (RRC) is the lead agency on this project. A non-profit organization, they need letters of support from the community so that the City will expedite/approve the project and agree to maintain the bridge after it’s finished. There are other agencies that also must approve the project including the Army Corps of Engineers, County Flood Control, and LA DWP. Letters sent to the RRC will help them gain approval from the City and all the agencies with jurisdiction along the LA River. Here’s a copy of the letter sent by the LACBC.

LACBC support letter. Click to enlarge.

Please write a letter today supporting the bridge. Your talking points could include:

• Mention your personal experience with the LA River Path and what the bridge would mean to you.
• The bridge will provide safer access to the LA River Path and Griffith Park from a residential neighborhood in north Atwater Village.
• Atwater Village and south Glendale residents will be able to walk or bike to Griffith Park and the LA River Path instead of driving.
• The bridge entrance could easily be linked to Brunswick Ave., a designated Bicycle Friendly Street in the Los Angeles Bike Plan.
• The bridge will also be a destination since there are observation decks included in the design.
• The bridge could become and icon of the LA River revitalization as well as the City of Los Angeles.
• The bridge is designed to be safe for all users. The pedestrian and bicyclist section will be separate from the equestrian section.
• The bridge fits into the broader vision of making the LA River more accessible to everyone.

Send your letters via regular mail or e-mail addressed to:

Omar Brownson, Executive Director
Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation
Los Angeles River Center and Gardens
570 West Avenue 26 Suite 475
Los Angeles, CA 90065

E-mail address: info@larivercorp.com

LACBC staff and City of Lights volunteers present CoL co-founder Allison Mannos with a new wheel with a light. Photo: Jonathan Yee, WYTe Studios

Last night, over 100 people gathered at La Fonda Supper Club for the 2nd Annual City of Lights Dinner and Benefit Concert! Together, we celebrated the nationally recognized City of Lights program that works to outreach to low-income, mostly Latino people who ride bikes.

Emceed by actress Miriam Isa, we celebrated the work of the City of Lights program, the people making CoL possible, and those working to improve the lives of the local Latino community. Lisa Waring of event sponsor GEK Law addressed the crowd. Last year’s City of Lights dinner honoree Councilmember Ed Reyes, welcomed the audience in the pre-taped video and lauded the City of Lights program for their work advocating for the 7th Street Bike Lane. We then honored Laura Torres, a native of Boyle Heights, with the Streetlight Award for her on-the-street efforts organizing DREAM Riders’ rides. Next up, we honored East Hollywood native Hector Tobar, a writer and columnist for the LA Times with the Shining Light Award for shining a light on the struggles of Latino immigrants. Mr. Tobar also provided a signed copy of his new book The Barbarian Nurseries for the live auction. Other live auction items included artwork, bikes from REI and Tern Bicycles, and a one-of-a-kind pine cone chandelier.

Hector Tobar is presented with the Shining Light Award. Photo: Andrew Wong, WYTe Studios

We heard from day laborer and one of the stars of our 7th Street Bike Lane video Jose on his experiences with the City of Lights program. Mayor Villaraigosa then addressed the crowd by video as he accepted the Leading Light award for being a leader in local bike advocacy. The LACBC staff and City of Lights volunteers then presented CoL co-founder and former LACBC employee Allison Mannos with a wheel with a built-in generator hub and light to for the work she’s done at LACBC and with CoL.

We ended the night by picking up goodies from the silent auction, mingling, and dancing the night away to the music of the mariachi group Trio Ellas.

Special thanks to our sponsors: BioLogic and Tern Bicycles; GEK Law; Kim and Lester Mannos; Lourdes Lopez, Locke and Lord Law Firm; Councilmember Ed P. Reyes; El Maestro Bicycle Shop; Cinco Puntos; Abel Valenzuela; Jay Slater; Clemente Gomez; and Hector Rodriguez.

Attendees get their party on! Photo: Andrew Wong, WYTe Studios

Thank you also to our in-kind donors who made both the live and silent auctions possible: Mia Nakano, Steve Boyd, Aaron Kuehn, Harpal Sodhi, Lalo Alcaraz, Kristen Erickson, Gustavo Muniz, Ken Haber, Tim Smith, Rome Gee, Center Theatre Group, Laemmle Theatres, Orange 20 Bicycles, Ernesto Vasquez, Scoops Ice Cream Shop, Lourdes Lopez, Kelly Martin, the Bicycle Kitchen, Steve Mattson, Allen Bleyle, Brenda Yancor, Silver Lake Wine, REI, Michelle Quinones-Chino, the Ortheum Theatre, Big 5 Sport Goods, the BiciDignarios, Louise Marler, Kelly Cruz, Eric Almanza, Colin Bogart, Raquel Trinidad, and Margie Mannos.

Thank you to all who attended; the volunteers and City of Lights committee who put this together; the honorees; our emcee Miriam Isa; La Fonda Supper club; WYTe Studios photography; and all of City of Lights’ supporters. We’ll see you next year!

Read more about the night in Spanish in El Pasajero! See photos from the event on our Facebook Fan Page.

This is what Spring Street could look like by the end of this year! Photosim by Valerie Watson, Boardmember of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council

LACBC and the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council (DLANC) have been working since the ThinkBike Workshops this past September to see the vision developed in the workshops for protected bike lanes, also known as cycle tracks implemented on Spring and Main Street. We’ve been meeting with LADOT and thanks to the leadership of Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilmembers Huizar & Perry, Phase 1 of the campaign should be completed by the end of November!

This project will bring the first bike lanes to Downtown Los Angeles linking cultural and civic landmarks to the downtown business and residential core.  LADOT will implement a buffered bike lane on Spring Street between Cesar Chavez and 9th Street.  This first phase of the project will open Spring Street up for people on bicycles and help DLANC implement their plan for Parklets on Spring Street.

Currently Spring Street has five travel lanes during the peak hours (7 to 9am & 4 to 6pm) and three travel lanes during the off-peak hours. In order to secure space to create a protected bike lane, we’ve worked with DLANC and LADOT to maintain car parking and loading zones for local businesses on the west side of Spring Street 24/7 and turn one of the vehicle travel lanes into a 6′ bike lane with a 4′ buffer. This will mean Spring St. will only have two vehicle travel lanes in the off-peak hours (the bulk of the day) and three travel lanes during the peak hours. According to traffic studies done by LADOT, congestion levels on Spring Street will not be significantly impacted and travel times should remain the same for vehicles. The long term goal of LACBC and DLANC is to eventually see the car parking and bicycle lane positions swapped and a Dutch style protect bike lane implemented.

LADOT is still finalizing the design for the buffered bicycle lane but they plan to implement a green paint treatment with the bike lane so it will be more visible to motorists, thereby increasing the safety of people bicycling while also helping to encourage people currently bicycling on the sidewalk to ride in the street.

Traffic studies for Main Street are still being done, but the hope is to implement bicycle lanes on Main from Cesar Chavez to Venice Blvd in 2012. We will also be continuing our working on the 7th Street Bike Lane Campaign to create east/west linkages through Downtown Los Angeles to eventually link up to the Spring and Main projects. We want to ensure these routes are expanded to connect the many nearby communities, many of which have no existing bicycle infrastructure and are predominately low-income and transit dependent communities that rely on transit, bicycling and walking to access jobs in Downtown Los Angeles and meet their daily needs.

We are really excited to see this campaign moving so fast and hope you are too! If you live and/or work in Downtown LA and are interested in volunteering to help do outreach for this campaign please let us know. We are currently going door to door to local businesses and residential buildings to make sure everyone is aware of this exciting and innovative project.

Read some great coverage of this project on Curbed LA and BlogDowntown!