County Bike Lanes Going on Fast Track

Slowly but surely, a far-flung network of bicycle lanes and bike paths is taking shape in Los Angeles County.

The latest step in linking diverse cities by bike paths and special lanes is a recommendation by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff to invest $21.6 million in 13 bicycle projects from Palmdale to Long Beach over the next three years.

Cities had requested twice that amount, according to MTA documents, a measure of interest that reflects the growing organization and political power of cyclists.

The $7 million a year that the MTA has earmarked for bicycle projects almost gets lost in its proposed $2.7-billion budget for the new fiscal year, a sore point among bicycle enthusiasts.

Cyclists complain they are given short shrift by the agency, and argue they should get a proportionate share of transportation dollars. With the MTA estimating that bike riders represent about 2.4% of all daily travel trips in Los Angeles County, that would add up to more than $60 million a year.

Still, some give the MTA credit for giving bicycling a sliver of the transportation pie.

“The MTA has come a long way,” said Ron Milam of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. “They have begun to show bicycles as a viable form of transportation.”

MTA officials acknowledge that they must find ways to ease the county’s notorious traffic congestion by doing more than building freeway lanes and buying buses. The MTA’s new long-range plan envisions bumping annual expenditures on bicycle projects up to $10 million, or $20 million if federal money becomes available.

Ultimately, the MTA’s goal over the next 25 years is to double the number of bike trips to 5% of all daily travel trips. The plan envisions 1,800 miles of bike paths and bike lanes in the county, up from 500 miles that exist today. Since 1992, when the program began, the MTA has put $62 million into 92 bike projects.

The newly minted list of recommended bicycle projects will keep efforts moving on the Los Angeles River Bike Path and provide money for other projects in Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Clarita, La Canada Flintridge, Whittier, Palmdale and an unincorporated county area off the San Gabriel River Freeway. The MTA board of directors is expected to vote on the recommendations in July.

Culver City, Long Beach Transit and Los Angeles Commuter Express buses would receive money under the new plan to put bike racks on their buses. Currently, 1,500 MTA buses are outfitted with racks that hold two bikes each.

Among the other projects on the list is $6.7 million for design and construction of a bike path that would be built in conjunction with an east-west San Fernando Valley busway linking Warner Center in the west to the North Hollywood Red Line station.

If built, the bikeway eventually would run 18 miles, extending beyond the busway. It would include a bike path from the Red Line station to Burbank, built by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, and then another link, built by Burbank, to connect the path to that city’s Metrolink station, according to Lynne Goldsmith, a bikeway projects administrator for the MTA.

Goldsmith said the new projects were funded on the basis of how they fit into the county’s transit system, not on their recreational value, a position at odds with many in the bicycling community.

“We fund bike paths for people who are riding to work, or people who might ride to do an errand or might be going to the corner store,” Goldsmith said. “We promote facilities that will get people taking those trips.”

Michelle Mowery, bicycle coordinator for the Los Angeles transportation department, took issue with the MTA’s method of evaluating projects and said the city will protest the staff’s decision not to fund an extension of the Pacific Coast Highway bike path from Temescal Canyon Road to Coastline Drive. Under the proposal, the MTA would have put up $4.6 million, the city $1.2 million.

Mowery said a fuzzy line exists between bike paths used for commuting and those primarily for recreation. Funding decisions, she said, should be based on which projects are most likely to get people out of their cars.

“No one asks the guy driving along the 405 Freeway in his Porsche with the top down whether he is riding for fun or going somewhere on business,” she added. “Yet they do it all the time for cyclists and pedestrians.”

The city of Los Angeles won approval for four other projects in addition to the bus/bikeway project in the San Fernando Valley. Those projects and their price tags are:

* A two-mile stretch of bike path along the Los Angeles River from the Barclay Street bridge to the Riverside Drive Bridge; $6.7 million.

* A quarter-mile segment of bike lane, requiring a street widening, on Gayley Avenue at UCLA; $872,000.

* Design of a nearly five-mile bike path on San Fernando Road from Branford Street to Cohasset Street in Sun Valley; $1.1 million.

* A 2 1/2-mile bike path from Venice and Robertson boulevards to Sepulveda Boulevard; $2.9 million.

Projects outside the city being recommended for funding are:

* Eight new segments of bike lanes in Pasadena, which plans a network of 24 miles of bikeways; $362,000.

* A one-mile bike path and bridge restoration project in Santa Clarita, near the Golden State Freeway and Magic Mountain Parkway; $1.8 million.

* A 3 1/2-mile stretch of bike lanes in La Canada Flintridge, running from the Glendale city limits on the west to Pasadena on the east, following a path along Descanso Drive and Berkshire Avenue; $81,000.

* Two projects in Long Beach: A one-mile bike path to connect Long Beach City College to the Willow Street Blue Line Station, and nine miles of bike lanes on various east/west streets; $4.7 million.

* A nearly three-mile bikeway in Whittier on an abandoned railroad right-of-way from the San Gabriel River Freeway on the northwest to Gunn Avenue on the southeast, roughly parallel to Whittier Boulevard; $5.5 million.

* A bicycle/pedestrian bridge over Metrolink tracks at Avenue Q in Palmdale; $931,000.

* Construction of a one-mile bike path and two bridges connecting the San Gabriel River Bike Trail to the San Jose Creek trail in unincorporated county territory; $1.5 million.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Taking a Different Path

Here are maps of five of the 13 bicycle projects in Los Angeles County that were approved for funding this year by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff. Construction on all 13 projects is scheduled to begin in 2005.

*

San Jose Creek Bicycle Trail: $1.5 million

City of Long Beach Bikeway: $3.4 million

Exposition Blvd. Bike Path: $2.9 million

City of Pasadena Bike Lanes: $362,000

San Fernando Valley East-West Bike Path along busway route: $6.7 million

*

Source: MTA