Supporters, Skeptics of Bike Lanes Heard at Public Forum

As many as 120 people attended a community meeting on proposed bicycle lanes along Colorado Boulevard Wednesday, and about a third of them voiced their support or opposition for the idea that is part of the 2010 City of Los Angeles Bicycle Master Plan encompassing 469 square miles of L.A.’s roadways.

Held at the Norris Hall of Chemistry at Occidental College, the community forum followed a Feb. 13 public hearing at the Los Angeles River Center to gauge community support and opposition to proposed bike lanes on Colorado and Figueroa Street. (The Feb. 13 event became necessary after last fall’s signing by Gov. Jerry Brown of AB2245, a bill that allows city planners to substitute environmental impact reports with public hearings in the case of bike lanes likely to cause significant traffic delays.)

Wednesday’s forum lasted for more than two hours, ending well after 9 p.m. It included a question-and-answer session as well as a lengthy public comments period during which several speakers accused city planners of conducting insufficient outreach about the proposed bike lanes on the Eagle Rock stretch of Colorado Boulevard.

A few speakers went so far as to say that the community meeting was a charade and that city authorities would proceed with their plans to transform Colorado into a bike-friendly thoroughfare regardless of the compelling arguments of opponents.

Community members filled out comment forms before the meeting, which were read out by Council District 14 representative Kevin Ocubillo. An analysis of the sign-in sheet conducted by CD 14 staff showed that 48 percent of those who attended the forum were from the 90041 Eagle Rock zip code, while 15 percent were from the 90042 zip code that largely encompasses Highland Park. The 90065 zip code that applies overwhelmingly to Glassell Park and Mount Washington (but also to parts of Eagle Rock) was entered by 11 percent of attendees. (See attached pie chart for details of other zip codes in the sign-in sheet.)

The meeting was hosted by the office of Councilman José Huizar in partnership with the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council , the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, TERA (The Eagle Rock Association), and Take Back the Boulevard, the homegrown initiative to make Colorado Boulevard more amenable to pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

‘Backbone Bikeway’

The event began with a PowerPoint presentation by Nathan Baird, a bicycle outreach and planning coordinator for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

Baird pointed out that L.A.’s so-called Backbone Bikeway Network, a connection of major boulevards that the city’s Bike Plan is committed to making encouraging and safe for bikers, has more than doubled from 300 miles in 1977 to 719 miles in 2010. Meanwhile, the network of neighborhood side streets targeted under the plan has swelled to 825 miles.

L.A.’s Bike Plan revolves around a Bicycle Plan Implementation Team consisting of city staff, members of the existing Bicycle Advisory Committee, and representatives from the city’s bicycling community, Baird’s presentation noted. Besides supporting project implementation and providing oversight for programs, BPIT members would also liaise, when necessary, with the County of Los Angeles, Metro, LAUSD and other municipalities to monitor project activities and provide technical support for issues and projects that cross city and departmental boundary lines.

Bicycling, said Baird, is on the rise in Los Angeles, and youth are increasingly using bicycles more than cars for getting around in the city. For the population as a whole, a lot of trips—as many as 41 percent in L.A. County—are less than three miles, making bikes a preferred mode of transportation, Baird said.

Safety Issues

On the flip side, 6.3 percent of road collisions nationwide involve a bicycle—and the figure for Colorado Boulevard is as high as 16 percent, Baird said, adding that 6.3 percent is a “disproportionate share” of bicycle-related collisions to begin with.

Asked by an audience member how many bicycles pass through Colorado Boulevard on average daily, Baird admitted that “we don’t do a great job of counting bike trips for specific street levels” and that there’s no data on bicycle traffic for Colorado Boulevard.

Tim Fremaux, a DOT bikeways engineer, clarified, however, that “we’re not necessarily building facilities in response to demand but trying to induce demand.”

Traffic on York

One questioner commented that he has lived in Highland Park for 54 years and in all that time there he has never seen so much traffic on York Boulevard as in recent years, with bicycles conspicuous only by their relative absence. “Are city officials giving up their cars for bicycles?” the questioner added to considerable applause.

Without a robust network of bike lanes, “an individual facility will never realize the ridership it can,” Fremaux responded. “York is great for now in terms of bicycle connectivity, but it’s not where it needs to be, and adding all the other pieces will help increase ridership.”

While traffic does queue up somewhat along York, “it’s pretty orderly—it flows pretty smoothly and if feels safer,” Fremaux added, admitting that his was a view “from a motorist’s perspective.” In the end, “we’re talking about a little inconvenience for motorists versus safety increase, that’s the balance.”

Other Benefit of Biking

There are obvious public health benefits to biking, given the adult obesity epidemic sweeping the city, Baird said, pointing out that businesses along the Highland Park section of York Boulevard have experienced economic benefits since bike lanes were installed in the historic street in 2006. The effect of York’s “road diet,” Baird noted, has been documented in a Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition study led by UCLA student researcher Cullen McCormick.

“Businesses often underestimate the number of people who bike and walk to their stores,” Baird said, prompting mock laughter from some members of the audience evidently opposed to bike lanes. Sales tax data analyses do not show any negative impact on businesses from the presence of bike lanes, Baird added.

Although bike lanes encourage people to venture out and the extra space gets people interested in biking, safety concerns are always a priority for both bikers and planners. On balance, bike lanes not only make streets safer but help decrease both vehicular collisions and pedestrian fatalities by lowering traffic speed, Baird said.

Studies show that 40 percent of pedestrians hit by vehicles traveling at 30 miles per hour succumbed to their injuries—in sharp contrast to 80-percent pedestrian fatalities at 40 mph and 100-precent fatalities at 50 mph, Baird said.

Colorado’s Proposed Diet

The L.A. Bike Plan proposes removing the third lane on Colorado Boulevard as well as on Eagle Rock Boulevard, and replacing them with buffered bike lanes, Baird said adding that it would take four to six weeks for planners to come up with the final design for the project and another four to six weeks to implement it.

If all goes well, Colorado Boulevard’s road diet would be in place by June 2013, Baird said, adding that he and his colleagues would be in a better position to return in a few years and share with the community which aspects of the plan worked and which didn’t.

Stay tuned for short video clips of forum speakers on both sides of the issue.