Another 4.6 miles of bike lanes have been added in Los Angeles, this time along a 2.3 mile stretch of road in the Valley. As identified earlier this month on the LA Eco Village Blog, Winnetka Ave, from Gault Street to Nordhoff Street, now has bike lanes striped. View Larger Map.
It's 2.3 miles from Gault...
...to Nordhoff
Called for in the 1996 LA Bike Plan, these bike lanes will help create better bicycle connectivity between the Orange Line and areas of Valley further to the north. Not only will the bike lanes create a better connection to the Orange Line, but it will also create a closer connection to Pierce College, one of LA’s nine community colleges. Additionally, the Pierce College station on the Orange Line is part of the Orange Line Bike Path, which extends eastward all the way to Coldwater Canyon Road in Sherman Oaks.
stretching into the distance
school-adjacent bike lanes
The Winnetka bike lanes will provide safe bicycle access to a number of vital neighborhood institutions, including the John Sutter Middle School and the Winnetka Recreation Center.
Encouraging kids to bike to school
... and to the playground
The newest draft of City Planning’s 2010 LA Bike Plan, much like the 1996 LA Bike Plan, calls for bike lanes to be extended on Winnetka from Devonshire to Ventura Blvd as part of a Citywide Bicycle Network. The present installation of bike lanes on Winnetka will only extend south to Gault Street, falling a little less than a mile short of the Pierce College Station on the Orange Line and 2 miles short of Ventura Boulevard. Sections of road south of Gault, often called “pinch points” by transportation engineers, are currently too narrow to place bike lanes without the removal of travel lanes or parking spaces. While the curb lane width of Winnetka Avenue to the north of Gault Street is 23 to 24 feet, the curb lane width narrows to 21 feet south of Gault Street – too narrow for parking, a bike lane, and a travel lane.
Preferred and minimum bike lane standards, straight out of the draft 2010 LA Bike Plan
In addition to narrower streets, however, LADOT would need to address problems caused by the narrow bridge spanning the LA River to the north of Pierce College Station and a narrow overpass of a railroad right-of-way to the south(one curb lane width being narrowed to 19.5 feet). There is a project underway to widen the bridge by 2012, hopefully removing one of the largest obstacles for the continuation of bike lanes.
Notice the curb creeping in for the bridge
Hopefully, one step closer to bike lanes
The other end of Winnetka Avenue, from Nordhoff Street to Devonshire, also contains challenges to bike lane installation. Several years ago, however, a stretch of Winnetka was fitted with TANSAT signs (Tow Away No Stopping Any Time), creating a 6 lane thoroughfare without any street parking.
Curb to curb traffic lanes will need to change to fit a bike lane
Other sections of Winnetka north of Nordhoff have peak hour lanes installed, which also preclude the installation of bike lanes. Bikeways is distressed to see this section of the street made ineligible for bike lanes, but the inclusion of this northern section of Winnetka in the 2010 LA Bike Plan gives LADOT Bike Blog hopes that priorities for this Avenue will change in the future to include bike lanes.
This is great. It’s always terrific seeing more bicycle-friendly lanes cropping up in the Valley.
Those minimums (from the bike plan) you show look car-centric and unsafe for bicycling and walking. Why should the “preferred” car-lane width be 12-feet? That’s a freeway width lane, designed for speeding cars. It’s unsafe! The 11-feet “minimum” is still too wide. The wider the lane, the faster cars will go.
10 feet is plenty – per engineering specifications minimums and 10-feet has been done on plenty of streets in L.A.
At Metro’s recent ped summit, one of the speakers mentioned a 9-foot lane width for places that are trying to promote walking and biking. It’s awful that the city is pushing so much unneeded space for cars, at the expense of the safety of more vulnerable users.
The higher the city sets the minimum car-lane width, the more bike lane project the city will declare to be infeasible. If the city of Los Angeles is serious about implementing bicycle lanes, then the specified minimum should be no more than 10-feet.
All good points, Joe. The smaller the minimums, the more projects become viable.
I hope you make your voice heard during the comment period and the public meetings for City Planning’s draft of the 2010 LA Bike Plan.
[...] a battle of biking infrastructure, LADOT stripes new bike lanes on Winnetka; Santa Monica counters with bike lanes on Arizona and raises by throwing down sharrows [...]
I’m still a bit confused as to what the difference is between a Bike Route and Bicycle Friendly Street. It seems to me the difference is traffic volume, which indicates the treatment a BR or BFS might receive. Is this about right? However, if there are increased traffic volumes, wouldn’t it seem that there should be more accommodations for bicyclists rather than less?
I don’t expect this to be answered, but Yosemite Drive in Eagle Rock facilitates two schools, a church, teen center, and a park in addition to close proximity to more churches, and schools. The bike plan says this will become a bike route but how do we know how intense the treatment will be? I think based on the many children the street serves it is safer to make the street resemble a BFS rather than sharrows + signage.
Thanks and keep us updated
-Severin
Severin,
My understanding is that City Planning wants to fit as many treatments onto Bicycle Friendly Streets without adversely effecting LOS. Therefore, when there are low traffic volumes, or a street isn’t meant to contain high traffic, more treatments can be applied without creating congestion. A lot of these streets are already being heavily used by riders – like 4th Street. Since Bicycle Friendly Streets are going to be exclusively used in the Neighborhood Bike Network, their treatments wouldn’t be applied to the high volume arterial streets that make up the Citywide Bicycle Network.
The CBN would instead have Enhanced Bike Routes augment the planned construction of new bike lanes, though their original name was the much cooler “Super Routes”.
As far as Yosemite Drive goes, the draft Bike Plan isn’t meant to specifically detail what happens for each street. As with many plans, it’s supposed to have some room to stretch. As implementation becomes more and more concrete, we’ll get a better idea of what will happen with each street. If Yosemite Drive is especially important to you, make sure to keep your eye on Bike Plan developments over the next few months.
Thanks for staying interested and focused on City Planning’s draft 2010 LA Bike Plan, Severin. We feel like it hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention since its release. LADOT Bike Blog hopes to do more analysis of what the draft plan contains in the next month of two.
Thanks ladotbikeblog,
Yosemite is important to me, as is all of Eagle Rock. I wonder why Ellenwood, which runs alongside Eagle Rock Blvd wasn’t marked as bike friendly street, seems like a no-brainer to me, aside from one hill it is a perfect alternative to ER blvd.
Also I have been honked at on Colorado Blvd twice, two days in a row. I certainly hope the bike lanes come soon. Separated bike lanes would be amazing btw.
Anyway, the main purpose of this comment, which I will write officially in response to the draft as well, is some of the reasoning behind “disadvantages” of non-standard treatment. For example, it is said a disadvantage of wide bike lanes is that cars may use it as a loading zone. Sounds somewhat valid, except, current bike lanes are already use as loading zones by cars. Also, cars park partially in bike lanes sometimes so they are comfortably away from curb to not scratch their car. Big vehicles take up part of the bike lane simply by their size. Wide bike lanes are superior to current bike lanes in all aspects and “may use this as loading zone” just doesn’t fly with me since current bike lanes are disrespected all the time.
The bike lanes hardest to disrespect are cycle tracks, raised bike lanes, and Long Beach style sharrows. Disadvantages of cycle tracks include:
price (this shouldn’t be a problem however if the infrastructure pays off, which we already know it does)
“unusual situation at intersection” (this is change, we have light rails no matter how ‘unusual’ that may be. Europe demonstrates intersections with cycle tracks are not all that complicated. Cycle tracks can increase ridership and thus reduce car travel making ‘congestion’ or ‘delays’ less valid of arguments if the goal truly is to increase ridership.)
Street cleaning access ( I have yet to see frequent and effective street cleaning. Most effective street cleaning is not mechanical or truck operated)
Left turns complicated for bicyclists ( left turns are already complicated without cars honking at us. Again, Netherlands and much of Europe demonstrates this ‘problem’ can be successfully addressed. A “bike scramble” is one such way or crossing pedestrian style is an other.)
Overall, without mentioning all cons as we can all take a look at page 222 of the plan on our own, it seems clear to me that pros far out-weigh the cons. More goals can be achieved with this kind of infrastructure.
LB sharrows have no cons other than maintenance which is a weak argument when considering the safety and awareness increase.
This is not hate towards the blog or your blogging, just expressing frustration with what appears to lack of will on behalf of ladot.
Happy early 4th of July
-Severin
I am planning on commuting with my bicycle from woodland hills to porter ranch area.
I am confused also with the “bike route” definition. Normally if i drive, I just take desoto ave north and east on devonshire until I hit Wilbur.
I see desoto has a “bike route” sign but there are no bike lanes. Can someone explain to me how it could be a bike route without lanes?
There is a long stretch of bike lanes on victory blvd and on devonshire which is GREAT but is there any bike lanes going north/south?
Today I saw this post and checked out the winnetka ave has a bike lane but it ends on nordoff . . . where do i go from here to reach devonshire?
Can anyone help me with my commute?!
I did order a bike map from the city but I heard they are outdated.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for the comment, Guinnesss.
A “bike route”, as defined by City Planning’s 2010 draft LA Bike Plan, is:
By nature, “bike routes” don’t have lanes. If they did, they would cease to be “bike routes” and would instead be called “bike lanes”.
For north/south bike lanes in the Valley, Winnetka, Reseda, Balboa, Woodley, and Laurel Canyon all have bike lanes, though none are complete north/south connections yet. For east/west bike lanes, in addition to Victory(the Orange Line Busway bike path) and Devonshire, Rinaldi, Plummer, and Riverside also have bike lanes, though only the Orange Line Busway bike path is a complete east/west connection currently. In the east valley, there’s also a long stretch of bike lanes along Glenoaks.
While the Winnetka bike lanes currently end at Nordhoff, Winnetka does become a bike route once it intersects with Plummer.
A good map for bike infrastructure is the LA Metro Bike Map. While it doesn’t contain the Winnetka bike lanes, the new San Pedro bike lanes, or LADOT’s pilot sharrows, it’s the most up to date. LADOT is currently updating our own LA bike map, and we hope to have it available soon.
Also, requesting bike maps from LADOT is free. We mail them out to you gratis.
Best of luck on your commute. With 11 miles each way, you’ll be in phenomenal shape.
@Guinness – In addition to what DOT blog guy says, you might try using Google bicycling directions. See this video for instructions:
Also you might ask local bicyclists, who tend to know what streets work best. Perhaps check with the folks at the Valley Bikery – email them at valleybikery [at] gmail.com
@ Joe – great advice! Though I wouldn’t rely on google maps alone. It seems like they’re still working out the kinks.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/feeling-lucky/2010/03/11/grading-google-bike-maps?obref=obnetwork
Thank you ladotbikeblog! All was very useful information. I can’t wait to start biking next week :)
I think winnetkah would be the best for me to commute. Victory East to Winnetkah North, Devonshire East!
Oh and I did request a map online a month ago and never received it. I called and requested it by phone today so that one should arrive soon . . i hope!
Asking a near by bicycle shop is a great idea. The google maps is terrible. I’ve done it a few times but each time they take me in direction I don’t even know! I think I’ll stick to the winnetkah streets for now. Thanks for all the suggestions.
You have no idea what I went through yesterday. My bicycle was stolen when i returned home on Wednesday. That same night, i found my bike on craigslist. Did an sting operation with the help of topanga police and by the end of the day, got my bike back and they arrested 2 guys! crazy right?!
i also got my doggyride in the mail finally so I’m off biking on the roads of SFV come Monday! woo hoo! “Drivers please don’t hit us!!!!”
http://www.doggyride.com/
[...] educate the community on the benefits of a road diet on Main Street. After the brouhaha over the road diet and bike lanes on Winnetka Avenue in the Valley this fall, the LADOT Bike Program redoubled our efforts to reach out to [...]