Still harping on stalled North Figueroa road diet this week on Orange 20, telling CM Cedillo that there's No Nice Way to SayThis, but all his arguments against the project are ignorant at best, and often outright falsehoods.

But at Flying Pigeon LA, I celebrate, in a snarky way, the sudden appearance of a bike corral right on Figueroa, wondering How on Earth Did This Happen?

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:31:19 -0800 [link]  

Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles is the centerpiece of one of the busiest commuter corridors in the US. The corridor includes the nearby Santa Monica Freeway, Interstate 10, but Wilshire itself serves many of the destinations those commuters are crowding towards: office buildings, shops, schools, and parks and museums as well. It stretches from Downtown through Pico-Union, Koreatown, Hancock Park, the Miracle Mile, the stuffy provinces of Beverly Hills, through Westwood (where it skirts UCLA), through West Los Angeles, to Santa Monica.

Throughout all this long route, so far, the only bicycle amenity one can find is a short bit of bike lane through "Condo Canyon" just east of UCLA, and a scattering of bike racks ont eh sidewalks here and there. Mostly here, in the Miracle Mile, since I live here and have called in a couple of dozen of them.

But that's about to change….

A few years ago traffic surveys showed that Metro's buses actually carried 25% more passengers up and down Wilshire at rush hour than all the private cars put together. So, in an entirely unexpected display of good sense, LADOT decided to build a dedicated rush-hour bus lane down the length of that long street, as far as the border with Santa Monica—and in fact to make it a shared bus/bike lane, at least for those busy hours morning and evening when parked cars are shooed away to let commuters through.

Of course there were "issues": Beverly Hills didn't finish its planning for the lanes in time to apply for the grant that's apparently funding them, and the residents of the aforementioned Condo Canyon wrestled their council member into submission (easy to do when you're wealthy) and made him oppose the project for the mile or so between Beverly Hills and Westwood. They were afraid that their entry into the street's legendary traffic james might be delayed a few seconds by a passing bus.

This opposition was based on nothing more than ignorant stupidity, but that plays well in LA, especially, as I've said, when the idiot in question is rich.

But good sense and a love of cleaner air won out as far as the eastern border of Beverly Hills, and the lanes are already built through Koreatown.

Now they are coming to the Miracle Mile, which sees lots of bike traffic, but which unfortunately sees most of it on the equally-busy sidewalks, where it is decidedly incommodious.

Here's a crew hard at work, just around the corner from my apartment:



Can't wait to try them out! With the subway coming soon, and Sixth Street a block north tentatively scheduled for a road diet with bike lanes, the Miracle Mile will soon be LA's transportation paradise.

Stay tuned for more news soon!

Note: This post originally and erroneously stated that Beverly Hills opposed the bus lanes, when in fact the city simply didn't bother to apply in time to be included in the project grant.

Richard Risemberg on Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:55:56 -0800 [link]  

Orange 20 Bikes this week sees Wilshire Boulevard Get Real, then follows up with a list of Solstice Cycling events.

Meanwhile, I post yet another fulmination on the manufactured controversy over North Figueroa's proposed bike lanes on the Flying Pigeon LA site, asking What Part of "Traffic Calming" Don't You Understand?

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:36:11 -0800 [link]  

This week on Orange 20's blog we glance at LA mayor Garcetti's "Great Streets" program, and the Great Expectations it sets up.

While at Flying Pigeon LA we find a local politician Caught in a Lie as he tries to stonewall an ambitious program to turn North Figueroa into…well, a "Great Street."

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 22:58:10 -0800 [link]  

This bike corral at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is most often, sad to say, nearly empty. But one can see why: it is just inside the gate from Sixth Street, in a typically deserted corner of the park behind the museum. The museum itself is far off in the distance near Wilshire, and so, of course, are most of its patrons. So the rack stands by itself, out of sight of guards and art lovers…but not of thieves. I have seen stripped bikes there all too many times.

But Sundays are different! Every Sunday through most of the year the museum sponsors Latin jazz concerts at a usually-deserted amphitheater a minute's walk from the Sixth Street gate and the bike parking. A good crowd always shows up, and a good portion of the crowd shows up on bicycles. With music lovers and nattily-dressed but very serious guards milling about, it becomes a safe place to park a bike…and people do just that.

A wonderful test of what makes a good bike parking location: not the hidden, out-of-the-way corner traditionally designated for the storage of two-wheelers, but someplace giving access to facilities close at hand, and one with plenty of foot traffic to keep things civilized.

The intentional architectural equivalent of a dark alley does not fit those criteria.

The modern cliché of "Build it, and they will come" is only half true. "Build it right, and they will come."

Sooner or later even America will figure that one out.

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 22:54:36 -0800 [link]  

Divergent posts on my two local blogging victims this week, with Orange 20 Bikes presenting an article on how It's All About Connections, and Flying Pigeon LA breaking an exposé of bike-riding Riff Raff casing the helpless city of San Marino prior to the establishment of a nefarious bicycle plan!

Meanwhile, my second weekly post for Orange 20 recounts my delight as the deputy of a council member framing bike lane issues as a generational conflilct that plenty of us gray-haired folk love and support bikeways. Not All Old White Guys spout made-up nonsense about the horrors bike lanes will bring to the neighborhood.

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:07:20 -0800 [link]  

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