Now You’re Talking!

This week I am privileged to heap unmixed praise on LADOT for what they did in the southeast corner of Highland Park. For yesterday, on my way to South Pasadena (as usual for a Tuesday), I pedaled along the nearly-finished extension of the York Boulevard bike lanes. And part of them will be buffered lanes, as you can see in the first photo, though the markings aren’t quite done yet.

They now continue southeastward from Figueroa past Avenues 63, 64, 65, and 66, and San Pascual Avenue, and continue right over the York Boulevard bridge over the 110 freeway and the Arroyo to the border with South Pasadena.


The new bike lanes on York between Fig and the bridge…


And on the bridge itself….

Where that little city’s own bike lanes take over, albeit after a gap of a hundred yards or so.

This is great news for both local riders and commuters, as there’s a good deal of bike-borne traffic between Highland Park and South Pasadena, what with roadies, students, shoppers, and folks going to work and back.

I was told by a DOT engineer a couple of years ago (when I raised this issue to my contacts in the agency) that York (specifically the bridge) didn’t actually see much motor traffic there, and was over-engineered, with lanes to spare. This, of course, led to speeding and other forms of scofflaw driving, so the narrowing of the curb lane on the wide parts of York, and the removal of one motor lane on the bridge, will make the passage safer for all—drivers, cyclists, and folks trying to cross the street on foot.

Equally important is that it will further connect residential and commercial neighborhoods in that part of NELA with nearly door-to-door bicycle facilities, enticing the less-bold among us out of their fossil-fueled armor and back into the community.

Now the formerly isolated lane on San Pascual makes a bit more sense.

The big lack here is, of course, the missing lanes on Figueroa Street. But that’s not the DOT’s fault: the lanes had been funded, designed, and scheduled, but when Gil Cedillo replaced Ed Reyes as council member a few months back, he put many of his predecessor’s projects on hold, in an apparent frenzy of petulance. Now he has graciously scheduled a whole new round of community meetings to duplicate the dozen or so we went through over a year ago to win approval from both stakeholders and bureaucrats. Time (and public money) wasted….

Nevertheless, with lanes on Eagle Rock/Cypress from Fig to Colorado, fresh new lanes on Colorado, the now complete lanes on York from Eagle Rock Boulevard to South Pasadena, and lanes on Avenue 50, San Pascual, and other smaller streets, we have an actually usable if not quite complete set of bikeways serving both local and long-distance riders in and through the area.

And that’s worth talking about!

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3 Comments

  1. David
    Posted April 16, 2014 at 7:14 pm | Permalink

    Your bike lane will have cyclists riding in a door zone. Unsafe and poorly designed.

  2. Posted April 16, 2014 at 7:55 pm | Permalink

    Agree that it could be better, but it fits right in with almost every bike lane in this country, despite the recent and relatively tiny trend towards protected bike lanes here and there.

    For that matter, the vast majority of bike lanes in Portland, and the Bay Are, are also in the door zone. But they increase ridership and lead to more extensive and better-designed bikeways.

    What people want is separation from moving cars. Let’s get the bike lanes we can get in, and grow the numbers that we can use to demand upgrades. Anyway, even a DZBL is safer than no bike lane.

    Another intermediate step would be to paint in door zone indicator lines, such as Santa Monica is adding to many of its DZBLs.

    It took the Netherlands over thirty years to develop the bike network it now has.

  3. Ryan
    Posted April 17, 2014 at 1:10 pm | Permalink

    Looks great. I like the little buffered zone between the bike lane and the car lane.

    Bummer about Gil’s fresh round of meetings.

3 Trackbacks

  1. By Today’s Headlines | Streetsblog Los Angeles on April 17, 2014 at 10:00 am

    […] Pigeon Loves the New York Ave. Bike Lane, Hates the […]

  2. […] York Blvd Bike Lane Gap: Earlier this month, LADOT extended the York Boulevard bike lanes to the edge of South Pasadena. Though the extended York lanes connect with bike lanes on Avenue 66 and San Pascual Avenue, Flying […]

  3. […] York Blvd Bike Lane Gap: Earlier this month, LADOT extended the York Boulevard bike lanes to the edge of South Pasadena. Though the extended York lanes connect with bike lanes on Avenue 66 and San Pascual Avenue, Flying […]

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