$5-Million Commute Bikeway Backed : Transit: The route would run next to the Los Angeles River between North Hollywood and Elysian Park.

A plan to build a $5.1-million bike path from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles--and encourage a new breed of two-wheeled commuters--won the endorsement Wednesday of the City Council and county transportation commission.

Both groups, meeting separately, urged state transit authorities to allocate $300,000 for preliminary planning on the 16-mile project, which would attempt to divert commuters from clogged freeways onto a 12-foot-wide route for bikes next to the Los Angeles River.

“It has the most potential of any of our bikeway projects to get commuters out of their cars,” said Richard Jaramillo, senior city transportation planner.

His answer to those who predict that very few would ride a bike to work, much less alongside the intensely urban landscape of the Los Angeles River, is quick.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg sort of thing,” said Jaramillo. “If we provide the bikeway, we think people will use it.” He could not predict, however, how many people would use the route.

“Maybe it’ll be a pipe dream, but I think we’ve got to try it,” said City Council President John Ferraro, who represents much of the area that would be crossed by the proposed bike path. “As traffic gets worse and fuel costs get higher, maybe there’ll be sizable numbers of people who would use it.”

A major deterrent to bike-commuting is that cyclists must compete with motorists on the city’s congested roadways, Jaramillo said. If they did not have to experience often-dangerous travel alongside automobiles, many bike owners would prefer commuting on two wheels instead of four, he said.

Alex Baum, 68, who chairs the Mayor’s Bicycle Citizens Advisory Committee, agreed.

“Building this route along the river is a dream for us bike riders,” said Baum.

The bike path would follow the river north from Elysian Park to Riverside Drive in Griffith Park. From there it would pick up an existing bike lane along Forest Lawn Drive, join the river again west of Universal City and follow the East Tujunga Wash flood control channel to Strathern Street in North Hollywood.

Not only transit planners, but those who have dreams of revitalizing the Los Angeles River have endorsed the bikeway project.

Mayor Tom Bradley’s Task Force on the Los Angeles River recently backed the project, Jaramillo said.

The task force sees the bike path as a way to bring new life to the riverfront without incurring major capital costs or opening up the debate about whether the concrete-banked river channel should be turned into a recreational greenbelt.

The bikeway would be built alongside the service road that already parallels the river, Jaramillo said.

One major obstacle would be obtaining easements from private property owners across whose land the bikeway would have to traverse. The city recently completed an unreleased study estimating the costs of acquiring these easements.

“But the easement costs are not going to stop this project,” Jaramillo said. “Obtaining them is just part of the process.”