Notes from the April 2nd BPIT Meeting

The Bicycle Plan Implementation Team convened at City Hall for the second quarterly meeting of 2013.

Twenty-seven advocates, stakeholders, and City staff were present at the last BPIT meeting on April the 2^nd. Discussion topics included the update to the General Plan’s Mobility Element, recently implemented bikeways, prioritizing plan programs, and Bicycle Friendly Streets.

Mobility Element Update

Claire Bowin of the Department of City Planning opened the meeting by presenting on the Mobility Element update. Currently in the Environmental Impact Report scoping phase, the update includes plans for a Bicycle Enhanced Network (BEN) in which a 180-mile subset of the City-wide bikeway system is identified for enhancements. The intensity of the enhancements will vary, with features such as right-of-way infrastructure improvements, signal timing improvements, and end of trip facilities. The bikeway inclusion criteria emphasize 1) connectivity between regional centers and major destinations; 2) locations with a higher presence of bicyclists and 3) bicyclist-involved collisions; and 4) designation within the backbone or Neighborhood Networks.

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Rundown of the 1st Year Bike Lanes Hearings

Bicyclists ride the York Blvd. bike lanes in Northeast Los Angeles, which would connect to the proposed N. Figueroa bike lanes.

Last Monday concluded the official comment period for a package of prioritized bike lane projects that L.A.D.O.T. and City Planning have been analyzing for implementation. We’ve been gauging the support for these projects at four public hearings across the city (in addition to a webinar), and taking in ideas regarding how best to install them should we move forward.

All of the proposed bike lane projects are expected to change — to varying degrees — how the involved streets currently function (in most cases, existing traffic volumes will be served by one or two fewer travel lanes). To that end, we’ve gone about fulfilling the requirements of the newly passed bike lane exemption law, AB2245, which exempts bike lanes from C.E.Q.A. (even if traffic is affected), but requires a traffic and safety impact report, public hearings, and measures to mitigate any impacts. In this blog post, you’ll find a summary of the presentations we made at our hearings, as well as an overview of where we’re at now with these projects and where we’re headed next.

Hearing Summary

Each of our public hearings consisted of two key parts. We began each meeting with a presentation explaining how and why these projects have been selected, how we expect them to be installed at this point (including travel lane removal, and in some cases, limited parking removal), how much vehicular travel delay the proposed changes are expected to add to studied intersections (based on existing volumes and post-project lanes available), and what benefits we expect to receive.

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First Year Bicycle Lanes EIR Hearings Start Today

MyFig Cycletrack Rendering via Architect’s Paper

City Planning’s David Somers filled us in a couple of weeks ago on the release of the draft EIR for the First Year Bicycle Lanes project. While AB 2245 exempt bicycle lanes from CEQA, it still requires a public hearing process and traffic/safety assessments in order to file the exemption.

Those hearings will be occurring as follows:

Northeast Area

February 13, 2013, 6 pm to 8:30  pm

Los Angeles River Center & Gardens

California Building

570 West Avenue 26

Los Angeles, CA 90065

Central Area

February 14, 2013, 6 pm to 8:30 pm

Caltrans District 7 Building, Room 01.040 A, B and C

100 S. Main St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012 

West Area

February 19, 2013, 6 pm to 8:30  pm

LADOT Western Parking Enforcement Office,

11214 W. Exposition Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90064

Valley Area

February 21, 2013, 6 pm to 8:30 pm

North Hollywood Regional Library

5211 Tujunga Ave.

North Hollywood, CA 91601

As a refresher, the First Year Bicycle Lanes project includes the city’s first protected bicycle lanes as part of the MyFig streetscape project, a continuous bikeway from Hollywood through Silver Lake and Echo Park to Downtown, and strategic gap closures in the existing bicycle lane network. Somers also discusses the approval process going forward in another blog post.

Make sure to attend the meetings and have your voice heard on this exciting process.

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Complete Streets Networks, Part 4: Meet Our Draft Bicycle-Enhanced Network

Reblogged from LA/2B:

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We previously introduced our draft Transit-Enhanced Network and plans for pedestrian enhancements. Here's our proposal for the draft Bicycle-Enhanced Network. We are asking you to tell us if the candidate streets should receive enhancements or if a different street should be chosen for enhancements. Take our draft Bicycle-Enhanced Network Survey here.

Our outreach participants consistently cited safety concerns as the primary deterrent to bicycling in Los Angeles.

Read more… 1,002 more words

LA City Planning had a great post last week about its draft Bicycle-Enhanced Network plan. Check it out above if you're interested in what enhancements will be hitting the streets of Los Angeles in coming years.

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Bicycle Parking Ordinance Has Passed!

Expect to see more of this!

The LADOT Bike Program is happy to report that the Los Angeles City Council has passed the long awaited Bicycle Parking Ordinance. This will mean improved bicycle parking standards citywide at commercial, industrial and residential-type locations. The ordinance includes a number of forward-thinking changes  including:

• Formal definitions for different types of bike parking 
• New standards for different types of bike racks including long-term and short-term bicycle parking
• Improved standards for where bike racks are located on a property
• Clearer  requirements for short-term and long-term bike parking.
• New provisions allowing bike parking to be substituted for car parking for up to 20 percent of  the total automobile parking required for non-residential uses or up to 30% of the auto parking required near Transit Oriented Developments (TODs). Residential buildings will be able to swap up to 10% of their car parking, and if located within 1,500 feet of a transit facility, up to 15%. This exchange would occur at a rate of four bike parking spaces, per automobile space.
• New standards requiring properties with  20 or more long-term bicycle parking spaces to also include 100 square feet of bicycle repair and maintenance space for residents and employees.
• A Permitting process for allowing bike corrals to be installed in the public right of way.

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Announcing the Release of the First Year Draft EIR and More

City Planning’s David Somers has two blog posts today to explain how these prioritized bike lane projects will be moving forward. This post  goes into more detail about the Draft EIR, while his previous post covered the public hearings scheduled for the project and the approval process afterwards.  - Nate Baird

The Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) of the First Year of the First Five-Year Implementation Strategy (First Year) and the Figueroa Streetscape Project was released to the public on Thursday, January 17^th.  As all proposed bicycle lanes included in the First Year Draft EIR include the reduction of at least one mixed-flow travel lane, the main focus of the Draft EIR is the projected increases in travel delay (expressed in Level of Service (LOS)) anticipated as a result of the reduction in auto flow capacity. The result of the LOS analysis can be found in the Traffic Section of the Draft EIR (see Table 4.5-5).

Sunset Blvd. Traffic and Safety Assessment

A stand alone Traffic and Safety Assessment was also released for one mile of bike lanes along Sunset Blvd. west of Figueroa St. The Sunset Blvd. bike lanes were recently proposed and will for the first time provide a direct connection to the neighborhoods of Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Echo Park to Downtown by a continuous bikeway.

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Notice of Public Hearings for the First Year Bike Lanes

City Planning’s David Somers has two blog posts today to explain how these prioritized bike lane projects will be moving forward. This post covers the public hearings for the project and the approval process afterwards, while his second post goes into more detail about the Draft EIR.  - Nate Baird

The City Planning Department has scheduled four public hearings to hear public comment on the First Year bicycle lanes. The projects include the nearly 40 miles of bicycle lanes that were evaluated in the recently completed Draft EIR in addition to one mile of bike lanes along Sunset Blvd. west of Figueroa St. The 40 miles of bike lanes include the first proposed protected bicycle lanes or ”cycle tracks” in the City as part of the MyFig Streetscape project, as well as strategic gap closures such as Venice Blvd. along with the introduction of critical bikeways in all major geographies of the City. The Sunset Blvd. bike lanes were recently proposed and will, for the first time provide a direct connection to the neighborhoods of Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Echo Park to Downtown by a continuous bikeway. The Traffic and Safety Assessment for the Sunset Blvd. bike lanes is available here.

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