Yucca St. BFS High Level Street Name Sign being fabricated at the LADOT Sign Shop
We’ve got some exciting news we’d like to share about new street name signage coming to Los Angeles’s Bicycle Friendly Street (BFS) facilities. LADOT is debuting brand new BFS street name signs on Yucca St. – a local street that parallels Hollywood Blvd. When designing our new street name signs (SNS), we specifically wanted to highlight the BFS facility’s designation to roadway users. The signs will come in two types; standard street name signs (signs attached to poles) and high level signs (hanging or attached to traffic signals). Our hope is that the new signs will draw attention to BFS streets, while still maintaining the familiar look of our signature blue street signs. These new signs will function as both general identifiers for BFS facilities, in addition to confirmation purposes for our [coming] wayfinding signage efforts.
Purpose
L.A.’s first Bicycle Friendly Street!
The new signs are intended to brand our BFS facilites, allowing all roadway users to better understand the purpose of our BFS facility designation. Motorists should expect a street with our new BFS street name sign to have a fair share of bicycles riding on it. Bicyclists and pedestrians can expect a street that is comfortable and safe to be on.
Precedents
Yucca St. BFS high level street name sign (SNS)
Cities all over the world have been using street signage to identify their key bikeway facilities. We have compiled a few of them here for your viewing pleasure:
Long Beach, CA
Long Beach Bike Boulevard (via Anaheim Outdoors)
Vancouver, BC
Vancouver bike boulevard signage (via Spacing Toronto)
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley Bicycle Boulevard signage (via Flickr)
Albuquerque, NM
Albuquerque Bicycle Boulevard (via Flickr)
San Luis Obispo, CA
Bike Blvd. sign from San Luis Obispo, CA (via bicycleslo)
Santa Rosa, CA
Santa Rosa, CA Bicycle Boulevard (via Press Democrat)
Madison, WI
Madison, WI bike blvd. (via digginginthedriftless)
Yucca St. BFS
Diverters with bicycle pass throughs on Yucca St.
In addition to the new BFS street name signs, we have also recently installed shared lane markings (sharrows) on the BFS stretch of Yucca St. from Cahuenga Blvd. to Highland Ave.. The SLMs, in conjunction with the bicycle pass through diverters and the new street name signs all make Yucca a calmer, safer, and more attractive street for bicycling.
Your Thoughts
A close up look of our new low level BFS street name sign
We’d love to hear what you think about our new BFS street name signs. As always, leave your thoughts in the comments section below! If you’d like to see more photos of Yucca St. BFS, check out our Flickr set. We’ll have continuing updates on the Yucca Street Bicycle Friendly Street project right here on the LADOT Bike Blog.
LADOT BIKE BLOG 
Love it. Stylish and obvious. Don’t like the subtle ones in some of the other cities. LA’s best by far.
Very nice! These will look great when paired with “Bikes may use full lane” signs.
[…] Visit link: Introducing “Bicycle Friendly Street” (BFS) name signs […]
Hmmmm… no bicycle helmet in photo #2 = Darwin at work… despite the California no-helmet-over-18 option . :) Great signage. Bicycles are good for you.
How do we suggest a street as being a BFS? Also, it would help even more if the city recognizes a street as being a BFS. More specifically,it would help if the signals along them would allow bicyclists to quickly get a green. That should be a requirement for the BFS designation.
Hey Sam,
LADOT has a 5-year implementation strategy for BFS facilities. You can provide your input via the blog or by attending the quarterly Bicycle Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) Meetings. BFS streets with traffic signals will have loop detectors that detect bicycles to trigger the green.
I like that the message is simple, easily recognizable and its the same symbol that is used on the pavement. No one has to spend time having to decifer what it means, unlike many of the examples from other cities.
Putting a symbol of a bicycle in the median area where a cyclist can travel gives a positive message to encourage cycling as a alternative to traveling by car.
Prominently displaying an image of a bicycle in a way that gets peoples attention can also help promote the use of bicycles in much the same way that advertising helps to sell cars.
Malmo Swenden decided to try something bold to get peoples attention in a campaign to promote cycling. They created a billboard in the middle of the city that had someone riding a bicycle. You can see this about 3 minutes into a video that was posted on Copenhagenize.com:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/09/no-ridiculous-car-journeys-malmo-sweden.html
Santa Rosa’s jumps out at me–different colour and nice large graphic, as opposed to Vancouver’s small riderless signage. Enjoyed the post-thanks!
[…] of him — the cyclist, not The Game — no word on how the rider got that way. LADOT introduces new street signs for Bike Friendly Streets. A Sierra Madre driver sees a girl riding her bike, but steps on the gas instead of the brakes; […]
The large size is good, but it should also have the word “Bicycle” somewhere on the sign!
When people are riding bikes, they will of course see the bike icon. But when people are driving cars, if they are textually oriented (common in our textual world), and not regular users of that road, the picture will not register!
For many, a picture is better than text, but even for them it could be seen as decoration, or as a generic “remember to drive carefully”, or something other than “this is a special road for bicycles”.
[…] bike signs have earned LADOT some positive press in social media after they were unveiled on the LADOT Bike Blog. Instead of the traditional “bike route” signs that even some members of LADOT Bikeways […]
next step…..street sweeping should clean streets designated for bicycles- FIRST!
Reblogged this on Be Active Decatur and commented:
Very cool street signs!
[…] the LADOT sign shop and the work crews from Central Yard who fabricated and installed the city’s new bicycle friendly street name signs on Yucca St. out in […]