Over the Christmas Holiday, Santa delivered a Go-Pro Camera to the LADOT! Nate and JoJo took the new camera out for a ride on the newly repaved Exposition Line bikeway. If you’re wondering why Nate and JoJo are biking so fast, it’s not due to their super human strength! I compressed the 15 mile bikeway into a 3 minute video, slowing down at various points to highlight a few points of interest. We hope you enjoy the video, expect more in the future! Feel free to comment and share.
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Fast riders!
When I did this route myself, I found a very bad spot in the lane design. It’s at 3:30 in the video near the end. It’s where the Eastbound lane crosses the tracks. It deficient ( for safety) because: there’s no stop line to stop you from riding into a train on the tracks, nor any warning device. If you don’t look both ways and see the train coming – you could become an unfortunate statistic! Second, the lane does not cross the tracks at a perpendicular angle. My skinny tires can barely make it over the rail – when it rains or it’s wet…no way! I’d be on the ground on top of the tracks. The track crossing needs to be re-positioned to a right angle to the tracks for safety.
Who do I send a letter about this to get it fixed? I don’t know whom to contact in Expo about this.
Thanks for showing that one bad spot amongst all the good parts of the new lanes. And the curtains are a nice touch. Nice Video – make some more! Maybe you can ride all the lanes in LA!
I like the idea of posting videos of the new facilities, or perhaps only ones of particular importance or displaying innovative designs. The facilities do of course prove that our design standards just aren’t good enough at capturing the majority of people who would like to ride but don’t. Workers are blocking the bike lane at times with no direction or coned bike lanes for cyclists to use around those parts. And sure it was city workers blocking the bike lane, but this also proves nothing stops a regular motorist from blocking the bike lanes. And while the Boyle Heights bike lanes have green in ‘conflict’ zones, they did not receive green thermoplastic through intersections– there were moments in this video where I felt cyclists might get lost staying on the facility because they don’t know where to go, I think perhaps LADOT should try having sharrows or green paint through intersections to better connect the bike facility, if only visually to the new riders who don’t know to make all these random left and right turns.
Wow, yeah gotta concur about the crossing at 3:30. holy johnnies! that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. great video otherwise. I’d like to see better signage (or any signage?) at :38 where the bike lane ends and you need to go right to reconnect. Also, I rode this route last week with some friends and we had to cross over going the opposite direction to get to a destination at Rodeo and Cimarron… one of the riders ate it on the tracks in a similar conflict. seems like it’s going to be nuts for cars too….
I want to work for LADOT you guys are having a lot of fun out there.
I’d suggest varying the speed of the video more by slowing it down when the bike infrastructure changes, then speeding it up when the features remain the same and lengthen the total time to about 7 minutes. This would make it more comfortable to watch and you would be able to pick out the high or low points better. Don’t worry if the video is 7 minutes long, the viewer can skip the parts they do not want to see. Here’s a 7 minute video of Amsterdam bike infrastructure made by Mark Wagenbuur in which he speeds it up while still making it comfortable to view:
One of the most attractive parts of the Expo line bike route is the smooth road surfaces. The bike lane treatments are sometimes bad to dreadful with little room given to ride on.
It’s great to find out that you now have a video camera for the department. This makes it easier to illustrate the bikeway improvements.
Having sound of the ride, rather than music, would make the viewer feel more like they are riding along with you and they could experience the sounds of traffic.
Thanks for the suggestion Dennis. We’ll keep that in mind for future videos.
I agree that posting videos is a great way to give people an opportunity to see facilities before attempting to ride them. I think it would be especially interesting to show this to potential riders who currently don’t bike and ask them for their feedback. Will they now ride along this route? I’m guessing that except for the stretch of a separated bike path, this bikeway will win over few converts. Most people just don’t feel comfortable riding along with vehicular traffic separated only by a stripe of paint. Those of us who ride appreciate it, but we need to be building infrastructure that encourages non-riders to get out of their cars.
It would be interesting to gauge how potential riders would react to this video. Thanks for providing your input Darren.
Wow, that rail crossing looks fatal. Tire stuck in rail = rider falling = rider under pickup truck tires.
Is there a loop detector on the island seen around 3:30? I see what looks like a loop detector pattern in the concrete? Is there signage instructing cyclists to ride as you two did? I can imagine some cyclists riding to the sidewalk on the other side and then riding on the sidewalk to the next cross walk and then re-entering the bike lane just as a car passes. A lot of people ride as pedestrians at intersections as I assume you know. On a regular basis, when riding the new cycle tracks in downtown Long Beach I see cyclists ride in the cross walk at intersections. I’ve even seen people people leave the bike lane and get on the sidewalk to wait for green. The intersection at 3:30 may need some additional road markings to show people where to ride.
In a city that is already bicycle friendly a less well designed intersection may not be such a problem, as a lot of cyclists would know what to do. But at this stage in LA’s development most people are not that skilled, experienced or confident to use these less well thought out facilities as you intend them to be used.
Thanks to all for the comments. The crossing at Redondo is indeed a difficult intersection for all users. In the next few weeks, we’ll be adding a WAIT HERE marking and stop bar before the eastbound crossing, as well as additional bike lane, arrow, and loop detector markings. We are also looking at additional long term solutions. In the meantime, let everyone know to be sure to obey the signals; look out for oncoming trains; and be careful to cross the rails at 90 degree angles.
How about looking into getting Metro to add the rail/street gap foam treatment that Dutch engineer Hillie Talens mentioned to the USC area group at the Thinkbike workshop. It’s mentioned on page 7 in the above Thinkbike pdf final slide presentation of the USC workshop group. This treatment is supposed to fill in the rail/street gap to make it smoother for bicycles and yet does not interfere with the movement of the train. This should become a required safety installation for all of the Metrolink and Metro rail crossings.