The Fight to Make North Figueroa Street Bike Friendly, pt. 3

The Bike Working Group's "Backbone Bikeway Network" for Central Los Angeles ca. February 2010 by Mihai Peteu.

Yesterday afternoon, KPCC’s Patt Morrison had a 20 minute segment on a map for a Backbone Bikeway Network created by the all-volunteer Bike Working Group in a segment called “A cyclers’ paradise—a private highway?“.

In Morrisons’ show, Dr. Alex Thompson (co-founder of the BikeRoWave, co-author of the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights, and PhD. in Mathematics) stated that, using the LADOT’s estimate of $28,000 per mile of Class 2 Bike Lane (taken from the current draft Bike Plan), the 200 mile Backbone Bikeway Network designed by the Bike Working Group would cost $5 million to design, plan, and paint (some of that mileage already exists).

The network designed by the Bike Working Group includes a long stretch of bike lane on North Figueroa Street all the way to Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock (connecting eventually to Pasadena). In a consultant’s report to the LADOT for the current draft Bike Plan, North Figueroa Street was recommended for a road diet – which a bike lane would achieve nicely. The LADOT turned the consultants down, and scratched the bike lane on North Figueroa Street in their drafy Bike Plan. Completing this Backbone Bikeway Network would change that, and would make North Figueroa Street very bike friendly!

Yet where will the $5 million come from to pay for this Backbone Bikeway Network?

The network can be paid for with money set aside for bicycle, pedestrian, or “clean air” uses the City gets and is prohibited from using to plug general budget holes. If a portion of the special funds the city receives for bike projects annually were pooled with money won by applying for grants from the County, State, and Federal government this Backbone Bikeway Network would be funded in no time.

Some sources of these funds and their approximate annual value:

Local Transportation Fund
.025% of Sales Tax goes to planning bicycle and pedestrian facilities
2007-2008 Total Revenue: $4,687,411

Prop C Anti-Gridlock Transit Improvement Fund
LA gets a cut of Prop C sales tax money to “improve transit service and operations, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, efficiently operate and improve the condition of streets and freeways utilized by public transit, and reduce foreign fuel dependence.”

The City receives funds from a 20 percent share of the revenues collected based on a per capita allocation. Funds may be used for public transit, paratransit, and repairing and maintaining streets used by public transit.

Total collected 2007-2008: $83,182,491
Total that went to projects with bike in the name: $780,000
Unallocated Balance: $579,949

Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Trust Fund
$4 per vehicle fee collected by the state, allocated based on population, to go to programs to reduce mobile source air pollution.
Total Revenue 2007-2008: $5,417,766

Portions of these funding sources can be pooled and spent in coordination with grant applications the City could apply for (from the County, State and Federal government) to build this $5 million Backbone Bikeway Network. The City of Long Beach has shown how effective a good bicycle grant-writing team can be – they’ve kick started a bike friendly construction boom. L.A. can do this – and we can fund a bike friendly North Figueroa Street!