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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