Spring Street has sprung a brand new, buffered green bike lane. This past weekend, city crews put the finishing touches on the new 1.5 mile Spring Street facility.
“It’s very exciting,” said Bikeways Engineer Tim Fremaux, the manager for the project. “It represents a significant step toward making this city more bicycle friendly. We really hope that this facility will encourage more people to get out on their bicycles to enjoy Downtown.”
Spring Street is one of L.A’s first green bike lanes and is the first designated Downtown bikeway from the city’s much heralded 2010 Bicycle Master Plan to be implemented. Running through the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, it connects a diverse array of eclectic Downtown neighborhoods including the Historic Core, Civic Center, Olvera Street and Chinatown.
Inspired by September’s ThinkBike L.A. workshop, the Spring Street bike lane has successfully re-imagined a previously under-utilized Downtown street and re-purposed it into a multi-modal thoroughfare that now not only serves cars effectively, but bikes and transit too.
Spring Street green buffered bike lane near LAPD HQ
The Downtown Network
The 2010 L.A. Bike Plan envisions a robust bikeway network for the city’s Downtown core. Spring Street was an ideal candidate for bike lanes due to existing high bicycle use, and low vehicle traffic volumes. A travel lane was re-purposed in order to provide a 6′ bike lane with a 4′ painted buffer.
To further enhance the separation between bicycle and motor-vehicle travel lanes provided by the buffer, the Spring Street bike lanes were also greened. The buffer, along with the colorization, are intended to increase bicyclist comfort and motorist yielding behavior. At merging areas and bus zones, the solid green lanes become dashed to denote the shared space characteristics of the facility at those particular locations.
Downtown Bikeway Network; Red= Bike Lane, Blue = Bike Route, Light Blue = BFS, Green = Bike Path
In the future, Spring Street bike lanes will provide direct access to many of Downtown’s newest open space and recreational centers, including the (currently under construction) 12 acre Civic Center Park and 0.7 acre Spring Street Park.
Within the next few months, LADOT will be looking to add bike lanes on Main St. to create a north-south couplet for Downtown bicycle travel. Further down the road, we will continue to build out the Downtown backbone network through the continuation of the very successful 7th St. bike lanes to Boyle Heights, in addition to bike lanes on Figueroa and Flower.
Many thanks go out to the Downtown L.A. Neighborhood Council and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) for their support of this project. Also, special thanks to the Downtown ThinkBike L.A. participants Kent Strumpell, Tonny Bosch, Hilary Norton, Jorge Mutis, Emily Duchon, Jennifer Klausner, Steve Gaur, Valerie Watson, Tim Fremaux, Lynne Goldsmith, Harden A. Carter, Richard her Avest, and Nick Marichich for dreaming big and getting the conversation started.
Hearing complaints that some of the paint has already come off.
Hi Evan,
We are aware of the issue. The rain may have washed some of the paint away. We will be retouching soon.
Can’t wait to ride those. We have them in Long Beach, and they are great. Currently rehabilitating using the rip 60, but as soon as I can get on a bike again, I am up there.
-Jason
Had an opportunity to ride both the Spring St and 1st St. green bike lanes this weekend. Clearly the material used on 1st St is more durable than the already fading paint on Spring St. On the other hand, I find the Spring St. colorization of the entire lane to be much preferable to 1st St colorization only in “conflict zones”. Anywhere a cyclist rides in an unprotected lane is a potential conflict zone. To that end, while I think these efforts are a step up from striped lanes with no colorization (not to mention the ultimately useless “bike route”), I suspect they won’t encourage new cyclists. For that, we have to get serious about protected cycling lanes.
The material on 1st St is Flint Tradings Premark material. It is preformed thermoplastic that is heated to the surface.
Learn more @ http://flint.agilesite.com/gallery/premark.aspx
[…] touch up work that will be coming soon to Spring Street. Last Monday, we celebrated the opening of Downtown L.A.’s first green bikeway. The green colorization is intended to increase bicyclist comfort and motorist yielding behavior. […]
[…] Los Angeles, one that predated Metro’s Gold, Orange, and Silver rapid transit lines; the buffered green bicycle lanes in Downtown and Boyle Heights; the passage of an extensive Bicycle Plan; and the launch of LADOT’s dynamic […]
[…] conducting bikes counts on Spring Street – both before and after the installation of the green-buffered bike lane project – the numbers are in. Results show that more people than ever are biking on Spring Street. […]
[…] conducting bikes counts on Spring Street – both before and after the installation of the green-buffered bike lane project – the numbers are in. Results show that more people than ever are biking on Spring Street. The […]
[…] right to downtown’s doorstep. Then in late November, the highly anticipated southbound Spring St. green bike lane brought the first true bikeway to the heart of downtown Los Angeles, connecting Chinatown, the […]
[…] facility right to downtown’s doorstep. Then in late November, the highly anticipated southbound Spring St. green bike lane brought the first true bikeway to the heart of downtown Los Angeles, connecting Chinatown, the […]
[…] facility right to downtown’s doorstep. Then in late November, the highly anticipated southbound Spring St. green bike lane brought the first true bikeway to the heart of downtown Los Angeles, connecting Chinatown, the […]
[…] of the Los Angeles St. bike lanes (where conditions permit) will have a 4′ painted buffer similar in design to the Spring St. bike lane. The buffer will be comprised of painted chevrons that designate visual separation between motor […]
[…] Ha habido, y todavía hay, una constante lucha entre la industria del cine, las autoridades de la ciudad y los residentes del centro de Los Ángeles sobre el carril verde para ciclistas de Spring Street. […]
[…] Los Angeles, one that predated Metro’s Gold, Orange, and Silver rapid transit lines; the buffered green bicycle lanes in Downtown and Boyle Heights; the passage of an extensive Bicycle Plan; and the launch of LADOT’s dynamic […]