New Bicycle Parking in Malmö

Yesterday morning I received an email from my father, attached with photos of some new bicycle parking facilities in the city of Malmö– the cycling capital of Sweden. Previously he has sent me pictures of typical, everyday cycling in Malmö, which I shared in a post. This time it’s pictures of new bike corrals in central Malmö.

One of the benefits my father points out is that not only does the on-street bicycle parking provide space for outdoor dining on the sidewalk but the outdoor seating is also further away from noisy cars and their exhaust than typical outdoor dining with curbside parking we are familiar with.

The red silhouette of a car demonstrates how space efficient the bicycle parking is and provides a slight buffer from the adjacent traffic. The corrals are popular and service many more customers than the automobile parking spaces they replaced. Of course, we are lucky enough to finally have similar bicycle parking facilities in LA area now, Long Beach has a handful of bike corrals and LA got its first bike corral in Highland Park (pictured below)

A look at Highland Park's bike corral, and its space efficiency

As a Malmö native and current Angeleno its great to see both cities further embrace bicycling as a mode of transportation. With cycling representing 30% mode share in Malmö, they must be doing something right and if Los Angeles implements similar facilities concurrently it gives reason to be optimistic for the future of cycling in LA. Naturally there is more to Malmö than bike parking, and I plan to share what the city has to offer when I visit in June to see my Swedish relatives there for the first time in several years. That’s right– Walk Eagle Rock is going to Malmö! The trip is primarily to see my family but if I snap a few photos of ways the city encourages walking and cycling while providing safe facilities I’ll be sure to post them here.

Read Full Post »

The Struggles and Potential of Eagle Rock Boulevard

In my last post I explored some traffic information about Colorado Boulevard. The results were surprising, showing that Colorado Boulevard on average carried no more than 35,000 average daily trips (the street is designed to carry between 30,000 and 50,000 average daily trips). Unfortunately Colorado also proved to be a rather dangerous street, but when the street resembles a freeway in width and speed in a popular downtown, the many crashes that have occurred along the Boulevard may not come as complete shocks.

In this post I thought I’d look at Eagle Rock Boulevard – our other major boulevard – as it runs through Eagle Rock, and Glassell Park.

First I compiled counts of intersections that have been monitored more than once. The counts are all available from LADOT though I have turned the numbers into easy-to-read charts that show the observed volumes recorded between 2001 and 2009 for the various intersections. Eagle Rock Boulevard is a major class II highway like Colorado Boulevard, designed to carry between 30,000 and 50,000 average daily trips as shown on the map below from the LA General Plan Transportation Element.

(From LA General Plan Transportation Element Highway Map)

Description of street designations and their capacity (from LA General Plan Transportation Element)

All the observed intersections show that Eagle Rock Boulevard can barely carry the minimum 30,000 ‘average daily trips’ it is built for, this is particularly true for the street south of Verdugo Road. Sometimes segments of Eagle Rock Boulevard struggle to reach 20,000 ADT or ‘average daily trips’. The image left shows a description of how a Major Highway Class II should be designed.

Because Eagle Rock Boulevard fluctuates in the number of lanes it has, in showing the observed traffic counts I divided the street into 4 ‘segments’. As map shared earlier above indicates, Eagle Rock Boulevard is considered a Major Highway Class II the entire length south of Colorado Boulevard despite the changes in widths and number of lanes. I am sharing the counts in sequential order as the intersections appear if one were to travel South on Eagle Rock Boulevard.

Red= 2 lanes in each direction, no bike lanes. Green= 3 lanes southbound, 2 lanes northbound, bike lanes on both sides. Purple= 3 lanes in each direction, bike lanes. Blue=2 lanes each direction, bike lanes.

The traffic volumes have  many jumps and great declines but the picture across all traffic counts is rather clear. Rarely does Eagle Rock Boulevard reach its designed minimum, sometimes struggling to reach half of that when observing intersections in the Glassell Park portion of the street. The street is designed to certain widths and to provide certain number of lanes but if not enough cars are using it, the space simply is wasted as unused asphalt.

Do the low traffic counts result in a successful street? Unfortunately no. While cars may be provided with ample space, pedestrians and cyclists are left with close to nothing. Sidewalks exist though South of Verdugo Road they become very narrow and sometimes unnavigable as the occasional tree or telephone pole block the entire sidewalk. As one goes south of Eagle Rock Boulevard the bike lanes become narrower and narrower until they verge on bothersome and dangerous. Eagle Rock Boulevard is also a popular transit corridor, serviced by the Metro 84 line taking students to school and bringing people downtown. However, many of the bus stops lack bus schedules, benches, or shelters, again this is increasingly true and apparent as one goes south on Eagle Rock Boulevard. As a general observation, the street provides fewer accommodations in the Glassell Park portion of the street. This is rather unfortunate as this is where one sees the most walking, cycling, and bus use on a consistent basis.

And while cars may benefit from not encountering traffic jams, the street is not much better for motorists from a safety perspective. As with Colorado Boulevard I tried finding crash or safety statistics for Eagle Rock Boulevard. Perhaps as a relief, there was less information on Eagle Rock Boulevard. What I did find comes from LAPD Operations Central Bureau.

Top 5 Traffic Collision Intersections of past 6 months as of January 2011:

Los Feliz Blvd/Riverside Drive, Figueroa St/Avenue 26, Alvarado St/Reservoir St, Eagle Rock Blvd/Verdugo Rd, and Figueroa St/La Loma Rd

Top 5  Traffic Collision Streets of past 2 years as of January 2011:

Figueroa St, Los Feliz Blvd, Fletcher Drive, Eagle Rock Blvd, and Riverside Dr.

"# of T/C" means "number of Traffic Collisions"

Like Colorado Boulevard, Eagle Rock Boulevard is very dangerous and there is a lot of space on the street that could go towards improving conditions for all modes of travel.

While Colorado Boulevard receives a lot of attention from the community as a street that needs improvements it could be argued that Eagle Rock Boulevard is in much more dire need of help. There is no reason that cars should be given superfluous space at the expense of other modes of travel. When something so essential as decent sidewalks are lacking and the street itself is documented for its danger it seems fairly straightforward that changes need to be made– as the traffic counts show, there’s already plenty of space that could be used to create a more  safe, complete street– it just isn’t being utilized.

Read Full Post »

Some Facts and Thoughts About Colorado Boulevard

It is common to accept the automobile as the primary means to move along Colorado Boulevard, or to reach the many destinations that line our well-known part of town. However, I recently found myself asking why driving is the primary means and I found myself curious about the actual amount of traffic that passes by, and other statistics about the street. Colorado Boulevard is a large part of our community, why not be curious about it, right?

Colorado Boulevard is a major highway class II, projected to carry between 30,000 and 50,000 cars daily. Traffic counts available from the LADOT website from the past 15 years shows that Colorado Boulevard seldom carries above 35,000.

Some recent traffic counts along Colorado

Traffic counts of our famous Eagle Rock/Colorado Boulevard intersection over the years.

Where are these people coming from that drive along our Boulevard? In trying to solve this puzzle it may be useful to know that 40% of trips in America within 2 miles from the home and 61% of trips are within 5 miles of the home. This indicates that a considerable amount of traffic along Colorado is local. But perhaps most of us already figured as much; I can recall a recent issue of the Boulevard Sentinel a resident suggested most of traffic along Colorado was local. Determining the exact percent of traffic along Colorado that is local may be difficult, but it is largely acknowledged that a sizable portion is local– that is, the cars reaching destinations along Colorado are likely within 2 or 3 miles of their home if one were to ‘guesstimate’.

If it can go undisputed that a considerable portion of Colorado Boulevard traffic is local – especially considering that the 134 freeway lies parallel for people traveling greater distances – I also want to know why so many locals do drive to reach destinations along the Boulevard. Lately I’ve heard many complaints about the lack of availability of car parking for some of the more popular destinations. Eagle Rockers have also noticed a consistent rise in gas prices, which is increasingly taking a toll at our collective pocket books. If people are going to spend hard earned money in economically challenging times and personal frustration to reach a destination on Colorado by car and have a parking space it can be concluded that people mostly do so because the automobile remains the most pleasant and most convenient option. That or we love driving ourselves crazy. I prefer to believe the former is true.

So driving is the most pleasant and convenient option for most. However, the street is surprisingly unsafe if one chooses to motor. As pointed out at fellow Northeast LA blog, Bipediality, for approximately the three miles that Colorado Boulevard runs through Eagle Rock, 226 crashes occurred between 2005 and 2009– that works out to about one crash a week in that time period. Additionally, Colorado is among the top 5 collision streets in the LAPD Operations Central Bureau. Seeing as 600 speeding tickets were issued in the wake of the horrific 2008 crash, it may not surprise you that one of the top five collision factors in the Central Bureau in 2011 is unsafe speeding– like the freeway kind of speeding Colorado Boulevard invites daily.

In short, there isn’t much good that can be said of Colorado Boulevard – it does not provide  enough car parking, it carries relatively low volumes of traffic while providing 80% of the street to cars, traffic collisions and speeding are frequent, and the street remains unpleasant for those traveling on foot or bicycle or wishing to dine outdoors at one of our many eateries.

When locals could conceivably walk or cycle to reach the many hot spots along Colorado it seems driving is more of an endurance than choice people make freely when traveling along our main Boulevard because of its car-centric design.

This is why it is my firm belief that more people, most certainly locals, will choose to walk or cycle along Colorado if we can make it pleasant and convenient– but how do we achieve a street that truly encourages walking and cycling?

Because Colorado barely exceeds the minimum it is engineered for, the street could be made more efficient, safe and invite all modes of transportation if space were reallocated to pedestrians and bicyclists. Undoubtedly a street that is more pleasant will also be good for business. The reallocated space wouldn’t even be much of a loss to motorists as it appears cars have a superfluous amount of space to begin with. Protected bike lanes, sidewalk or curb extensions, more crosswalks… these are some of the things that have been demonstrated to increase foot and bicycle traffic where implemented. More bicycle and foot traffic means fewer people worrying about car parking and other frustrations associated with driving. Also, the space turned over to these modes of travel means cars are less likely to misbehave because the street won’t look or feel like a freeway through the neighborhood– the street simply won’t allow the degree of speeding and other unsafe behavior. Taking space from cars and giving it to pedestrians and bicyclists, a ‘road diet‘, has long been a proven safety enhancement on streets where they are implemented A street that gives people viable, pleasant choices in travel means transport can be more space efficient and our town will also be to accommodate more people and traffic in the future if necessary.

In Highland Park, with limited space a concern, this picture shows we can address the issue: 6+ bicycles in a spot only 1 car can fit.

Realizing the surprising low volumes of traffic passing by given Colorado’s width, the many collisions and dangers the street presents, the inability to adequately fulfill current parking demands, gas prices, etc… a redesign of the street that allocates greater space to pedestrians and bicyclists seems promising. In recent months Long Beach and San Francisco have shown that pleasant and convenient streets to walk and cycle on will increase the demands for these modes of travel. As far as Eagle Rock is concerned with piles of evidence at our feet it seems our community has nothing to lose, and so much to gain if we had a redesigned Colorado that favors people over the automobile. A transformed Colorado can made more efficient, more safe, more pleasant, good for business and truly reflect the small town feel of our community.

And as I’ve mentioned before, a more pleasant, convenient and safe Colorado doesn’t have to remain a dream. Please considering volunteering to or becoming a member of The Eagle Rock Association to aid their efforts in making a better Colorado a reality through their newly planted ‘Taking Back the Boulevard’ initiative.

Read Full Post »