City Center North: Figueroa, Spring, and Main St. Conceptual Designs

During the June BPIT meeting, DOT engineers presented conceptual designs for three projects in Downtown Los Angeles: Figueroa Street, Spring Street, and Main Street. At the recommendation of BPIT attendees, the project on Figueroa Street had an additional option created that would also bring a bike lane to Flower Street.  The amended presentation was then given to the Planning & Land Use committee for the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council just last week, receiving warm support.

Together, these projects represent 5+ miles of new, dedicated bicycle infrastructure within the city’s urban core. Below the fold, we will explore the different design options that City engineers are working on – as well as details about various constraints such as roadway width, street parking, bus lanes, etc that impact the infrastructure options for these streets. As always, please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions for how you would like to see Figueroa, Spring, Main, and (maybe) Flower re-imagined with bicycle infrastructure.

Main, Spring & Figueroa Streets

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Downtown LA Bike Projects at the DLANC

This past Tuesday, LADOT Bike Blog and Bikeways Engineering staff spent their evening attending a meeting for the Planning & Land Use Committee for the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC).  Several members of the LACBC and the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee also showed up to lend LADOT their support.

LADOT presenting at the DLANC

Among other items, which included Master Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) for a few downtown developments and a measure to support “adult cabaret” uses at a nightclub out in the Industrial District, the LADOT Bike Program presented conceptual designs for bike lane projects on Figueroa Street, Flower Street, Spring Street, and Main Street.  Ably covered by the excellent Blogdowtown, you can read the specifics of our presentation there.   We plan to give these projects fuller coverage in the days to come, and we will make the powerpoint presentation given to the DLANC Planning & Land Use Committee available online along with it.

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BPIT’s “Top 10″: How Would You Build Bike Lanes Around NBC/Universal?

The BPIT (Bike Plan Implementation Team) has been quite the focal point of bike community controversy lately. Despite any disagreements over CEQA reivew, however, work still must be done; projects are moving forward even as we speak. In past months, projects like 7th Street and Venice Boulevard have come before the BPIT, had preliminary conceptual design work done, and were featured on the LADOT Bike Blog to get opinions of the public.

3 BPIT "Top 10" projects, spanning the Cahuenga Pass

Three more of the BPIT’s “Top 10″ projects have conceptual designs, and we’d like to present them to you for your comments and opinions. How would you build bike lanes on Cahuenga Boulevard, Barham Boulevard, and Lankershim Boulevard? These three streets surround the NBC/Universal project area and can serve as a vital link of bicycle infrastructure between the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. In fact, these projects were moved up to the BPIT’s “Top 10″ to make sure the NBC/Universal project, once completed, wouldn’t preclude implementation of bike infrastructure.

Below the fold we’ll cover the particulars for each street and some preliminary design concepts for new bike lanes. As always, all of your comments here go straight to City Planning and our Bikeways Engineers.

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BPIT Notes 4/5/11: 7th Street, Venice Blvd, Sunset Blvd, and More

This last Tuesday, folks from LADOT, City Planning, the Mayor’s Office, Council Offices, LACBC, Bikeside, and other concerned bicyclists all piled into City Hall Room 721 for the monthly meeting of the Bike Plan Implementation Team.  If you missed it, you can get the meeting notice and agenda here.

It’s becoming more apparent with each meeting that City Hall Room 721 may not fulfill the needs of the ever-growing BPIT: the 37 people who showed up this month were practically flowing out into the hallway.  It’s encouraging to see that so many members of the public and so many representatives from various parts of the City are committed to making the LA Bike Plan a reality.  Rick Risemberg weighed in with a very uplifting recap of the BPIT at the Flying Pigeon blog.  Dan Rodman, an excellent new writer for Bikeside, gave his own recap of the meeting.

Up on the docket for the BPIT were updates on current LADOT Bikeways projects, progress on 7th Street, the Wilshire Grand project, Sunset Boulevard, getting started on Venice Boulevard, and future program priorities for the City.

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Project Updates: Bike Lanes Moving Forward

The LADOT Bike Blog hasn’t done a full review of all the bike lane projects in the queue in quite a while. Sure, we covered the Woodman Avenue bike lanes and the latest on the Metro Orange Line extension bike path, but that hardly represents a comprehensive update.  At the April BPIT meeting, Planning and Bikeways engineering promised to provide a full update on all ongoing bike lane projects.

Well the wait is now over: LADOT Bike Blog is presenting a full update on all of our projects’ progress since our last update in January. As always, you can check out the full list of current projects on our Bike Lane Projects page, our Bike Path Projects page, our Projects map, and our BPIT map.  There’s also the matter of the remaining, and mysteriously named, “Year Zero” projects.  We’ll provide an explanation of what “Year Zero” is, and what projects are left, below the fold.  But first, the current projects update.

New Bike Lanes on Woodman Avenue

Project Updates

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Bike Parking, BPIT, BAC: Bike-y Meetings This Week and Next

Update: We were just forwarded the BAC’s agenda for their 4/5/11 meeting.  You can download it here.

The start of a new month always heralds plenty of new venues for hearing bike-related issues.  The slate of upcoming meetings and hearings relating to bicycling concerns, however, happens to be particularly robust in the coming two weeks.

• Wednesday March 30th: City Planning is holding a public hearing for the proposed bicycle parking ordinance.
• Tuesday April 5th: The Bike Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) meets at City Hall for their monthly meeting.
• Tuesday April 5th: The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) holds their bi-monthly meeting at Hollywood City Hall.
• Sunday April 10th: The first of three CicLAvias in 2011.

CM Reyes installing racks at CARECEN; in the near future, a revised bicycle parking ordinance should hit the streets (and inform new developments)

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March BPIT Meeting: 7th Street Bike Lanes and Beyond

Last Tuesday morning, bicyclists gathered at City Hall to watch the City Council adopt the LA Bike Plan into the City’s General Plan.  After a little celebrating and some quickly consumed lunch meals, some of those selfsame bicyclists sat down at City Hall to make sure the Bike Plan gets implemented.

Advocates, LADOT, Planning & City staff working together

In all, 30 people crowded in City Hall Room 721 on Tuesday afternoon for the second meeting of the Bike Plan Implementation Team.  (You can catch earlier coverage of the BPIT meeting at LACBC, Flying Pigeon (twice), and Orange 20.) The lead topic for the 2nd BPIT meeting was the proposed bike lanes on 7th Street (don’t forget, we’re still looking for your input on how to build them!).  The group then discussed the process to build new projects and which projects will be on the docket for the next BPIT meeting.

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