Work on the Orange line extension bike path is nearing completion. Work is about 80 percent complete, with most of the heavy construction already done. There remains some paving work to be done towards the northern and southern ends of the path, along with fencing and landscaping to construct before the path’s official debut sometime later this summer. The 4-mile northward extension will parallel the new Orange Line busway as it heads towards its terminus at the Chatsworth Metrolink station.
Orange line extension bike path project manager Steve Gaur explained to me some of the new features of the path. Most of the extension’s new intersections will have dual access ramps, which will better direct pedestrian and bicycle movements through intersections. The ramp areas will also be wider – 6 feet instead of the more conventional 4 feet – providing more room for bicyclists to maneuver into and through intersections. The new path will also have L.A.’s first thermoplastic striping application on a bike path, which will better designate space between bicyclists and pedestrians.
Portions of the new path will have solar powered L.E.D. lighting, similar to the new lights on the L.A. River Bike Path. Metro will be providing bicycle parking in the form of racks and lockers at all of the new Orange line stations – Sherman Way, Roscoe, Nordhoff, and Chatsworth. We at the LADOT Bike Program have also begun a concerted effort to add additional bicycle parking at destinations near the stations. Back in December, we targeted downtown Canoga Park near the future Sherman Way station. Just this week, we went out and marked an additional 13 racks east of the future Sherman Way station and around the future Roscoe station. If you know of any locations that need additional bicycle parking, feel free to send in a request via our sidewalk parking program. For more information on the Orange line extension, visit Metro’s Orange line extension website.
Will there be loop detectors in the path approaching the signalized intersections as recommended by bicyclists? One of the criticisms of the existing path is that cyclists have to push an inconveniently located pedestrian button and wait several minutes for the “walk” cycle to initiate.
Also, what security measures are being taken? There are currently the partial remains of four bicycles at the Canoga station locked to the inverted U racks, and that’s with a Sheriff’s substation being located a few feet away.
Glenn, I did a parked bicycle count from the Red Line station to the Warner Center last Monday and I noted the stripped bikes at both the Sepulveda station and the Canoga station when I e-mailed my count to Tony Jusay at Metro.
I’ve ridden the Orange Line bike path extension a couple of times in the last week and so here are a few of my observations:
The use of thermoplastic should last much longer than the very faded east/west bike path and it will cut down on maintenance. The street sweepers are probably a main reason why the old bike path markings are so faded, I can’t imagine it would be the bikes or pedestrians causing it to happen in only six years.
The intersection ramps are a much improved design with what seems like a less steep transition from path to street. That reduces the chance of a sharp jolt if you hit it at a reasonably fast speed.
The pedestrian push buttons were again placed beyond arms length from the ramp, which I am at a loss to understand why that was done. But even with this, it is much easier to move from push button to ramp compared to many intersections on the original bike path. On some of the original ramps, you have to do a complete circle on your bike in order to position yourself to be in the crosswalk and not out towards the moving vehicles when you exit the ramp.
For some reason the resurfacing of asphalt roadways seem to be a much smoother riding surface than these Orange Line bike paths. I thought perhaps that I was imagining this difference, but after riding down the bike lane on Chandler, it seems to be true. Are the street resurfacing crews and the bike path construction workers using different types of machines? The quality control of the bike path surface is also not up to the level of street resurfacing either. There are blobs of asphalt that were dropped on the bike path extension as there was on the original path.
I also noticed that there are several ramps between intersections, that are wide enough for a car, which connects the Orange Line Bike path to Canoga Ave. Its a long way between intersecions and so these ramps could be helpful for a cyclist wanting to get across the street to the bike path or a business.
There are no loop detectors that I could see on the bike path.
[…] The LADOT Bike Blog has details on the bike path running adjacent to the four-mile extension of the … Wide intersection ramps–six feet across– allow cyclists to speed through street crossings with ample room to avoid walkers and joggers. Solar-powered lights will illuminate portions of the path, while thermoplastic striping was installed to offer clear delineation between the walking and biking areas (painted striping often gets worn away by time, weather, and street sweepers). The busway and bikeway, running from Warner Center to Chatsworth, hopefully open next month. [LADOT Bike Blog] […]
[…] look at L.A.’s lowrider bike club. LADOT offers a list of new bike rack locations, while the new Orange Line bike path extension is nearing completion; oddly, without having to content with an environmental lawsuit from over-privileged homeowners. […]
Another observation about both the original Orange Line bike path and the extension is the remarkable effort that was put forth to control traffic. As long as you follow the pedestrian walk signal that alerts you that vehicles have a no right turn signal,, then the odds of a conflict with vehicles are greatly reduced over a typical intersection.
To a lesser degree this also holds true for the bike lanes on Chandler Blvd. Vehicles that turn across the bus path have a separate signal from the green light for through traffic..
Riding along the Balboa Park bike path highlights the difference in the amount of potential conflicts when crossing intersections compared to the Orange Line bike path.. Crossing the street from the Balboa Park bike path to the bike lane on White Oak is usually a very risky proposition when drivers are trying to turn right. The drivers frequently are not bothering to look to the right to see if there are bikes or pedestrians wanting to cross.
Going through the crosswalk on Woodley Ave has similar problems. A female driver recently yelled for me to walk my bike across the street.
Crossing the street on the Balboa Park bike path is more like it typically would be if riding through a crosswalk from a sidewalk, which is to say you have to be extra careful that a vehicle is not going to turn when you are crossing.
Another observation is that the major street crossings on the Orange Line extension bike path seem to have a shorter wait time compared to some of the intersections along the east/west Orange Line bike path. It can be exasperating to wait more than a minute to cross the street on the original Orange Line bike path and at the Cahuenga Blvd intersection for the Chandler Blvd bike path.
Is there going to be any landscaping in the median between the bike path and Canoga Avenue? When ? What? Or has that been conveniently forgotten, so bicyclists can fry on the path while passengers on the air conditioned, tinted-windows buses enjoy the trees and plants already in the ground on both sides of the busway?
Hi Dave,
There will be landscaping along the Orange Line Extension Bikeway.
The trees planted will be saplings and it will take 20 years, or more, before the trees reach full maturity. Its been about 7 years since the original Orange Line bike path had trees planted and they still do not provide much shading.
For those of you that are not aware, the west end of the San Fernando Valley has the hottest temperatures for Los Angeles in the summer time. The computer on my bicycle has a very accurate temperature gauge and last summer, on several different days, it read as high as 125 degrees when I took it off of the Orange Line bus at the Canoga Ave station at 1:30 PM in the aftertoon. The hot asphalt increases the temperature well beyond what the reported highs are for the area.
So, to answer your question Dave K, yes, you will fry in the middle of a hot summer day on the Orange Line extension bike path up until the time when you become much more wrinkly after having to wait 20-30 years for the trees to mature enough to provide you with some shade.
It’s too bad the they took out ALL the pepper trees up at the north end of the bike route. Now that the path and the busway are in, doesn’t looks as if it was necessary. But I’m not an engineer.
Hey Dave, neither are they. Otherwise, they would have installed loop detectors or at least placed the walk buttons further from the curbs!
To whomever moderates/updates this website. Most websites say “contact us” at the top or bottom. That would be helpful to get a message to you. May I suggest you have a tab for “bike path repairs”? That way, riders could alert you to areas that need maintenance. For example, I was riding the Orange line path last Sunday at 9am, as it runs parallel to Victory Bl in Van Nuys. As the path crossed Hudgens Way (I can’t find it on a map but that was what the street sign said. It’s near Blewett Ave and Victory) the path was completely flooded with a lake about 20′ across, from a broken sprinkler. People had to jump the curb and ride in the street and there is no ramp on the other side of the “pond”. This is not just an inconvenience, it’s a waste of water. Please fix!
We rode the entire orange line on Thanksgiving day. Once again, there were several flooded areas, in the Sepulveda basin section, as the route parallels Victory. Several of the sprinklers had no heads, just pipes shooting streams of water into the air. We had lunch in Chatsworth and then returned, only to see those same sprinklers still on, two hours later. Hey DWP, stop wasting water!
To the people in charge of the bike path:
Along the bike path between Balboa Park and White Oak Ave., there are Oleander bushes and palm trees/bushes that almost totally cross the west bound bike lane. I’ve had to stop completely in order to not crash head on into oncoming cyclists, joggers, baby strollers, dogs, etc. when forced to move into the eastbound lane because of the untrimmed bushes. They should be trimmed equal to the fencing and not impeding the bike path.
thanks…
Thanks Mysterioso for bringing this to our attention. We will talk to our path maintenance crew about fixing this issue.