LA’s First Official Bike Corral coming to Cafe de Leche

Matt Schodorf's rendering of Cafe de Leche's bike corral.

Matt Schodorf's rendering of proposed Cafe de Leche's bike corral.

According to the Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch:

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation will cut the ribbon on the city’s first bike corral on Friday, February 18 at 9 a.m. in front of Cafe de Leche at the intersection of York Blvd. and Ave. 50.

The inspiration for the bike corral at Avenue 50 and York Blvd was captured in an article written by Joe Linton and Ramon Martinez for LA Streetblog:

Matt Schodorf is a bicyclist and a small businesses owner. He and his wife own Cafe de Leche – a coffee shop at the corner of Avenue 50 and York Boulevard in Highland Park. York Boulevard, a former streetcar right-of-way, features old-school Main Street type buildings – very walkable with very little car parking. Schodorf noticed that many Cafe de Leche customers (and staff) arrive by bike and by foot. He got the city (LADOT) to install three of their standard inverted-U bike parking racks. Those racks fill up, with both bikes and dog leashes, so Schodorf kept thinking about how to increase the supply of local bicycle parking.

Matt’s brother, Marc Schodorf, a car-free New Yorker, introduced Matt to Streetsblog. Matt learned about bike corrals from this Streetfilms video. Further internet research showed internet images of a bike corral in front of a Stumptown coffee shop in Portland Oregon.

Since being proposed in early 2010, the bike corral at Cafe de Leche has been tied up in a bizarre, ritualistic, ceremony of interdepartmental blaming and worry.

Finally, it was decided by the City that the owners of Cafe de Leche should pay $7,000 for a piece of public furniture, being installed by public employees, on public property, to benefit all the businesses near the corner of Avenue 50 and York Blvd.

“Thanks for the good idea Cafe de Leche! Now pony up some cash.”

In either case, the corral is set to go in, and we can finally start to measure, in Los Angeles, the benefits of fitting 12 10 customers in the space of one car. According to Richard Risembergs “Bucking the Cycle“, bike corrals and traffic calming help grow retail foot traffic and goose sales in the urban core of cities – something we hope will happen at this intersection in North East Los Angeles.

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6 Comments

  1. Posted February 8, 2011 at 10:44 am | Permalink

    Yay for bike corrals! Though I should point out this corral will have space for 10 bikes, not 12. The racks will be slanted so to create a foot of space between parked bike wheels and the bike lane. Putting the racks on an angle meant we had to go from 6 racks to 5.
    We’ll have more information up (hopefully) today.

  2. Posted February 8, 2011 at 10:56 am | Permalink

    Chris, despite all the vitriol I’ve directed your way over the last year I want to thank you for staying on top of social media and at least giving voice to some of the issues bouncing around the LADOT office these days. The bike lane on York and the bike corral at Cafe de Leche are just the beginning!

  3. Posted February 8, 2011 at 11:30 am | Permalink

    Josef – you’re a master writer – especially when it comes to summing up the peregrinations of city project implementation. Loved “…tied up in a bizarre, ritualistic, ceremony of interdepartmental blaming and worry.”

  4. Posted February 8, 2011 at 3:26 pm | Permalink

    Fantastic! Thanks.

  5. Posted February 8, 2011 at 6:10 pm | Permalink

    This is rad for many reasons, but the biggest reason for me is that I just had a meeting yesterday about doing some bike corrals in Burbank. We even have the money for them, so whats the hold up? “bizarre, ritualistic, ceremony of interdepartmental blaming and worry.” Yep… that pretty much sums it up! So to you I say, well said!

  6. Posted February 9, 2011 at 12:42 pm | Permalink

    Hey folks: Here’s the specs on the brand new bike corral, with snapshots straight from the engineering plans
    http://ladotbikeblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/back-from-the-dead-bike-corral-on-york-boulevard/

4 Trackbacks

  1. […] a free bicycle inspection and safety check workshop at the Bike Oven Wednesday night. The city’s first bike corral will be officially unveiled Friday morning in front of Café de Leche in Highland Park. CicLAvia […]

  2. […] a tentative date of February 18th at 9:00 AM has been set for the corral’s grand opening.  Flying Pigeon and CicLAvia have also posted jubilantly about the impending bike corral.  But before jumping into […]

  3. By Lizblogsla.com · 2nd Saturday by Bicycle Anyone? on February 11, 2011 at 9:04 pm

    […] Corrals: Flying Pigeon Bike Corral & Bike Corral on […]

  4. […] Flying Pigeon will host a ride starting at their shop at 3714 North Figueroa St. Meet up with them at 8:00 AM, […]

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