Notes from the July 2nd BPIT Meeting

Approximately forty advocates, stakeholders, and City staff were present at the last BPIT meeting on July the 2^nd in the California Bear Credit Union Community Room. The workshop included discussion on the  Bicycle Plan program prioritization and Bicycle Friendly Street (BFS) implementation.

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Introducing “Bicycle Friendly Street” (BFS) name signs

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.

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Yucca Street BFS Construction Update

Construction of new traffic diverters at Yucca St. and Cherokee Ave.

We are excited to report that construction has begun on Yucca St.’s new traffic diverters. When the project is complete, there will be three new traffic diverters (at Las Palmas Ave., Cherokee Ave., and Whitley Ave.) designed to prohibit vehicle through movements, while allowing for bicycles to pass through. The new bicycle friendly traffic diverters are part of the Yucca St. Bicycle Friendly Street (BFS) project, that aims to create an attractive, calm, and safe street for bicyclists. Yucca St. is slated to become one of the city’s first Bicycle Friendly Street (BFS) facilities when it receives its full slate of treatments including sharrows (SLMs), wayfinding signage, in addition to  the aforementioned traffic diverters. The project’s boundaries stretch for two-thirds of a mile from Highland Ave. to Cahuenga Blvd. Construction is on-going and is expected to be completed by late August 2012. Check out the before and after photos below and be sure to tell us what you think about the project in the comments section.

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Anatomy of a Bicycle Friendly Street: Chicanes

(Ed Note: Most of the information on Bicycle Friendly Street treatments in this post  comes  from the new Bike Plan’s Technical Design Handbook.  Though we are happy to present it in bite-sized pieces, we highly recommend you download it yourself and have a good read.  You can download the Technical Design Handbook here.  For a refresher on Bicycle Friendly Streets generally–read our introductory post here.)

An example of a chicane from Austin, TX

It’s time for yet another installment in our ongoing series that details the specific treatments that go into making a Bicycle Friendly Street (BFS). Today, we will examine chicanes – a traffic calming device. Traffic calming devices are considered “Level Four” BFS applications based on level of physical intensity. It is important to note that BFS applications are site-specific, and that not all streets require the highest application treatments. The Bike Plan Technical Design Handbook (TDH) recommends gathering community input along with the necessary engineering and design work to determine the level of application necessary for each individual street. In case you were wondering, there are five different application levels – varying from signage to traffic diversion.

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