Bicyclist turning onto the new Main St. bike lanes
Updated by Nate Baird. See the striked out phrases and italicized insertions for clarification. This past weekend, LADOT work crews installed two new bike lanes in South Los Angeles. The two projects – Vermont Ave. (N/B) between the 105 (Century Freeway) and 88th St. and Main St. between 92nd St. and 108th St – bring total lane miles installed this fiscal year to nearly 30 miles. The Vermont Ave. northbound bike lane (southbound is under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County) stretches for a little over two miles, extending from the Vermont Ave. Metro Green Line Station to 88th St. (near the intersection of Manchester and Vermont). Plans are already in the works to extend for an additional section of northbound Vermont Ave. bike lane further south for an additional 2.2 miles, from 120th St. to Redondo Beach Blvd. The new Main St. and Vermont Ave. bike lanes create a north-south backbone for the South Los Angeles bicycle network, complimenting existing facilities on Hoover St. (between 98th St. and 120th St.) and connecting with existing bike lanes on 98th St. (between Avalon Blvd. and Western Ave).
With the completion of these two projects, the City of Los Angeles now has over 200 miles of striped bike lanes – a major milestone to celebrate for Bike Month 2012. Speaking of Bike Month, be sure to pledge to ride for Bike Week LA: May 14 – 18. Visit the website to “Pledge” to ride on “Bike to Work Day” or to sign up to host a “Pit Stop.”
Could you please share the lists you used to come up with the “nearly 30″ and the “over 200″ miles?
With a bicycle commuting modal share of .9% per the 2010 American Community Survey results, Los Angeles now has 200 miles of bike lanes, which is slightly less than 8% of the 2,600 centerline miles of non-residential streets.
By comparison Portland Oregon had the highest bicycle commuting modal share of the largest cities in the U.S. at 6% ,on the 2010 ACS results, and bike lanes are on slightly less than 15% of their primary streets.
Davis California has the nations highest bicycle commuting modal share at 22% of the 375 cities listed on the League of American Cycists 2010 ACS results and 95% of their primary streets have bike lanes.
It would take 390 miles of bike lanes to have bike lanes on 15% of the center lane miles of non-residential streets in Los Angeles. So, that would be 190 more bike lane miles to reach the same ratio of bike lane miles to primary street miles that the city of Portland now has.
At the pace of fiscal year bike lane installations that LADOT is going at now, 390 bike lane miles could be achieved by the end of the first 5 years of the 2010 Bike Plan. What that would mean in terms of bicycle commuting modal share when that is reached remains to be seen, but this rate of installation should return some impressive percentage increases on the ACS results in the next few years.
New York City installed an impressive amount of bike lanes over a four year time period, starting in 2007. That pace has slowed considerably with 15.4 miles of bike lanes installed in 2011 and an expected 10.8 miles in 2012. That would be a total of 271.4 miles of bike lanes installed in six years, starting from the year 2007.
Chicago installed 29 miles of bike lanes in 2011 and the city is planning to install 20 miles of buffered or protected bike lanes this spring.
It will be interesting to compare the rate of bicycle commuting increases for Chicago compared to Los Angeles in the next four years, with Chicago installing higher quality facilties and Los Angeles going after quantity. If higher quality buffered or protected bike lanes make a big difference in the quantity of cyclists, then the growth rate of bicycle commuting in Chicago should outpace Los Angeles.
[...] Read More: New lanes take L.A.’s total bike lane mileage over 200 [...]
Hey Joe, We’ll be compiling and sharing a number of lists for review as we finish up the fiscal year. Stay tuned.
Why do you announce 200 miles, then don’t back it up with the list?? Dubious…
[...] L.A. Says We’re Over 200 Miles in Bike Lanes (LADOT Bike Blog) [...]
[...] lane extends from the 105 Freeway to 88th Street, two blocks south of Manchester Avenue. This was reported earlier, on May 2nd 2012 at the LADOT website. Today, Bikas got a chance to head south and ride the new [...]
Using the year one bike lanes completed–in the bike projects tab at the top of the page–which was last updated 5/2, I came up with a total of 25.97 miles of bike lanes completed. Adding in the 1 mile completed on Main st. (Vermont ave is on the one year list) brings the total to 26.97 miles of bike lanes completed, which is almost 27 miles. If there were some year zero bike lane projects that were installed after July 1st of 2011, then these should count for the current fiscal year.
The final 2010 Bicycle Plan report for L.A. lists 167 miles of bike lanes installed. Adding on the 26.97 miles of bike lanes that I mentioned in the previous paragraph brings the total to 193.97 miles.
Hey Dennis,
I just updated the Bike Lane Projects page to include 2.1 miles of Vermont Ave, 1.01 miles on Main St., 2.4 miles on White Oak, and .81 miles on Weymouth/13th. = an additional 6.32 miles, which would bring your running totals to 30.18 miles thus far, but to reiterate what Nate said previously, we are currently in the process of compiling the numbers to give you a more accurate total soon.
If LADOT can’t substantiate LADOT’s claim of 200 miles, then you shouldn’t claim 200 miles. It’s this kind of lack of transparency that gets LADOT in trouble. When LADOT undermines the public trust, LADOT’s work becomes more difficult. LADOT needs to be transparent, not opaque.
[...] midst of a transportation renaissance, with new bike lanes bringing the total mileage to over 200 (http://ladotbikeblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/new-lanes-take-l-a-s-total-bike-lane-mileage-over-200/), paradigm-shifting programs like CicLAvia (ciclavia.org), the announcement of a forthcoming Bike [...]
Please release the list of 200 miles already. It lends very little credibility to this claim when LADOT continues to withhold the list.
[...] new bike lanes were reported in a May 2nd 2012 post at the L.A. Department of Transportation website. The Main Street lanes were approved in the city’s “2010″ bike plan, but [...]
Joe and Kay, we’re not withholding the list. We’ll have it ready for publication very soon.
If the list isn’t ready, how did you get the 200 mile number?
Agreed – publishing the list of where exactly the miles of bike lanes are would be very helpful, and should be coordinated with this announcement. Thanks.
[...] Cyclist turns on to new Main Street Bike Lane and Road Diet. Photo:LADOT Bike Blog [...]
An easy to follow, organized list would be great to see in conjunction with this article!
[...] be implemented prior to plan approval.) This project was reported as “in the works” in this article at the LADOT website. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Tagged: bike_lanes, [...]
[...] be implemented prior to plan approval.) This project was reported as “in the works” in this article at the LADOT website. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Tagged: bike_lanes, [...]
[...] LADOT website has made unsubstantiated and false claims. Some lists change with no advance notice or explanation (sometimes for the [...]