Figueroa For All!

(Screenshot from Figueroa For All’s website– the Cypress Park Neighborhood Council meeting for Tuesday has been cancelled.)

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with Take Back The Boulevard (TBTB) – Eagle Rock’s community initiative to revitalize Colorado Boulevard through transforming the street to create a more pedestrian friendly environment. However, readers may be unaware there is a similar grassroots movement afoot to do the same for North Figueroa Street– Figueroa For All (or fig4all as it is known on twitter).

Figueroa For All, as its recently launched website states, seeks to make North Figueroa a more livable street– this includes advocating for bike lanes on the street between Colorado Boulevard and San Fernando Road. Figueroa For All’s website will be the go-to place for anyone wishing to keep up with or support the initiative’s efforts.

Are you interested in helping Figueroa For All and bringing bike lanes to North Figueroa? Here are four things you can do:

1) Write an email addressed to bikes@asnc.us and cypressparknc12@gmail.com sharing your support for buffered bike lanes on North Figueroa Street. Your email can be brief, here’s a sample letter:

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is (insert your name), I live in (insert your zip code). I support the implementation of buffered bike lanes on North Figueroa Street as a measure to improve safety for all road users on the street. Figueroa is a dangerous street, especially for pedestrians, and buffered bike lanes will make it easier to cross the street safely.

Thank you for your time,

(Your Name)

(Your Address/Zip Code)

Feel free to cc Council Members Ed Reyes (councilmember.reyes@lacity.org) and Jose Huizar (councilmember.huizar@lacity.org) in your email.

2) Attend public meetings and speak in favor of bike lanes.

The Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council will hold a meeting TONIGHT, May 20th. The meeting will start at 7 p.m. and the meeting location is Ramona Hall, 4580 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90065.

(The Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council will hold a meeting as well in the near future but a specific meeting date and location has yet to be determined.)

If possible, bring someone with you to the meeting– every voice will have an impact.

3) Sign this online petition which will be delivered to the local neighborhood councils by the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition

4) Pass on this information to anyone you know that may support bike lanes on North Figueroa Street.

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Addressing Concerns With Implementing Bike Lanes on Colorado Boulevard

(“Creating bike lanes by reducing the number of lanes available to motorists will hurt businesses,” one of the many arguments presented against bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard. See “Bike Lane Concern #4″ below to find out if bike lanes are really likely to hurt local business)

Bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard, as planned in the Los Angeles Bike Plan, are coming closer to being a reality– a meeting on March 27th hosted by council member Huizar’s office will be held to determine based on community input how to move forward, if at all, with bike lanes on Eagle Rock’s main street.

During on-going opportunities for community input throughout phases of the Bike Plan formation, the Bike Plan’s environmental impact review, and most recently at a public hearing regarding the results of the environmental impact review comments have been mostly positive. However, now concerns about the potential impact bike lanes may are popping up in growing numbers. There is nothing wrong with this, concerns are well warranted for any proposed changes in town and a change to Colorado Boulevard’s public right-of-way will affect daily travel for many.

To gain a clearer perspective of what the current circumstances are and what may possibly change as a result of bike lanes being implemented, it may be beneficial to have the recurring concerns and questions people have regarding bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard actually be addressed. That’s what this blog post will attempt to do– address concerns that have been raised in conversations about bike lanes in the community.

Bike Lane Concern #1: “Shouldn’t we spend money on (insert priority here) instead?

• With city services getting cut left and right many rightfully feel bike lanes should not be a priority for the city. Some say we should spend the money on something more important, like police officers, keeping libraries open, after school programs, paving streets, etc. Important as these services are, the money that would be spent installing bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard would come from a portion of the 2008, voter-approved, Measure R specifically intended for bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements. Also,  re-striping streets to create bike lanes is relatively cheap– even if the money could go elsewhere there are few services that it could substantially fund.

Bike Lane Concern #2: “Reducing the number of lanes available to motorists will cause a traffic nightmare!”

• It seems intuitive– removing the number of lanes available to motorists will cause traffic to back up, especially during peak-hours, so much so that drivers will move at a near crawl. According to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s (LADOT) own estimates, converting one lane in each direction to create bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard will only impact peak-hour travel (morning and evening rush hour)– adding no more than about 3 minutes to the time it takes to travel the three miles from Eagle Rock’s border with the City of Glendale to Eagle Rock’s border with the City of Pasadena. To put things in perspective, this is the equivalent of listening to one extra song on the radio during one’s commute, and this is under the LADOT’s “worst-case scenario” estimate. The reason for the minimal impact bike lanes are projected to have on Colorado Boulevard is likely because the street carries very little traffic relative to it’s engineered capacity. The street is engineered to carry between 30,000 to 50,000 trips per day yet for traffic counts conducted over the past 15 years seldom has the street carried above 35,000 trips per day. Colorado Boulevard’s relatively low levels of traffic become evident when there are unexpected lane closures during rush hour and traffic manages to move just fine.

Bike Lane Concern #3: “The street is just fine the way it is– no need for bike lanes.” and  ”If the street isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

• This concern with bike lanes is entirely subjective, though because the street carries little traffic relative to it’s engineered capacity and because an average of a crash a week occur on Colorado Boulevard there is reason to believe that the street is not fine and that it is broken, statistically speaking. Year after year the leading causes of crashes along Colorado Boulevard are speeding, failure to yield right-of-way, and running red lights– all these things happen when a street is engineered poorly and encourages dangerous, illegal behavior. Following a horrific crash in 2008 caused by an illegal street race over 600 tickets were issued to people for speeding on Colorado Boulevard. The crash, but especially the 600 speeding tickets issued in the wake of the crash, demonstrate the street is surely broken if so many people are unable to adhere to the current 35mph speed limit.

Bike Lane Concern #4: “Bike lanes will be bad for local business”

• Nobody wants to hurt local businesses– they make Colorado Boulevard the attractive, interesting street that it is. Without local businesses, Colorado Boulevard would be indistinguishable from any other business corridor lined with big box retailers and chain restaurants. Why bike lanes would hurt local businesses any more than maintaining the status quo of daily unsafe speeding and weekly crashes is unclear, though the logic seems to go something like this: “Bike lanes will slow down traffic on Colorado Boulevard so much so that people will stop patronizing local businesses because it will take too long to make a quick visit to their favorite restaurant or boutique.” There could be merit to this argument though there is not hard evidence to suggest that reducing the number of lanes available to motorists will be bad for business. A case study of the business corridor along York Boulevard in Highland Park, just south of Colorado Boulevard, by UCLA student researcher Cullen McCormick demonstrated that reducing the number of lanes available to motorists to create bike lanes on York Boulevard did not hurt business. Meanwhile, a growing number of studies in other cities show bike lanes are actually proving to be beneficial to local businesses. Perhaps worst for local business is relying on people to drive to there in the face of escalating gas prices and limited amount of convenient parking. Why not make cycling a pleasant, viable option so people don’t have to spend money in gas and parking to patronize their favorite local business?

Bike Lane Concern #5: “Reducing the number of lanes available to motorists to create bike lanes will hurt emergency response times!” and “We need to maintain the number of lanes available to motorists so that we don’t delay emergence responders!”

• Naturally nobody wants to delay emergence responders and potentially risk losing lives because people can’t get medical attention quickly enough. It is very understandable and commendable to have safety be a prime consideration. However, perhaps this concern is a little overstated, let’s explore why.Firstly, the local Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Station on York Boulevard has not raised concerns to the LADOT about being able to respond to emergencies. In Downtown LA, at the request of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the LADOT will remove a bike lane on 1st street. If there were a significant impact on the ability for emergency responders to reach their destinations because of bike lanes on York Boulevard, the LADOT would remove the bike lanes immediately.
• Also, as noted by Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do and What It Says About Us, generally speaking any time saved by emergency responders by not implementing a traffic calming measure is negligible. In fact, Vanderbilt notes the status quo is likely more dangerous– as he succinctly puts it “speeding cars have surely claimed more lives than speeding responders have saved.” If we turn to York Boulevard again, we see what bike lanes may mean for Colorado Boulevard. The number of crashes on York Boulevard went down following the implementation of a “road diet” that reduced the number of travel lanes available to motorists. Part of York Boulevard went on a “road diet” in 2006 and utilizing traffic collision data available through UC Berkeley’s Traffic Injury Mapping System one will note that from 2002 to 2005, there were 92 crashes on the section of York Boulevard that would eventually go on a “road diet.” From 2006 to 2009 that same stretch of York Boulevard saw only 61 crashes. Comparing pre- and post- “road diet” data on York Boulevard show additional safety benefits.  The number of misdemeanor and felony hit-and-runs are on a decline and as are the collective number of visible, severe, and fatal injuries. Collision data from York Boulevard suggests there is reason to believe that reducing the number of lanes available to motorists will make Colorado Boulevard safer and reduce the need for emergency responders to go to the scene of preventable crashes.

Bike Lane Concern #6: “Are there enough people cycling to warrant reducing the number of lanes available to motorists?” or, “do bicyclists really deserve bike lanes until they constitute a significant proportion of daily travel on Colorado Boulevard?”

• There are a number of ways to approach this though the LADOT’s simple response to this concern is that the bike lanes are intended to increase the number of people the choose to cycle for local trips. People sometimes respond to this by saying “Eagle Rock Boulevard has bike lanes but hardly anyone uses them.” This is true, and this is most likely because the bike lane does not provide sufficient subjective safety for the average person to feel comfortable cycling in it. Many people who oppose bike lanes say “I wouldn’t feel safe riding in a mere painted bike lane, drivers can still veer into it.” This is why the proposed bike lane design on Colorado Boulevard is a more substantial, a design called a “buffered bike lane,” that has has demonstrated to have vastly increased the number of journeys made by bicycle on Spring Street in Downtown LA. The Eagle Rock Boulevard bike lane is a good example of what a low quality, minimal bike facility produces– low levels of cycling.  Additionally, the LADOT has frequently stated at public meetings that the more complete a network of bicycle facilities there is, the more people will cycle. Part of the reason why few people use the bike lanes on Eagle Rock Boulevard is that in addition to providing low levels of subjective safety, the Eagle Rock Boulevard bike lanes only connect to the one other bike facility– the bike lanes on York Boulevard (which did not extend beyond Avenue 54 until recently).
• Though perhaps a better way to address this concern is to compare it with curb cuts on sidewalks. Relatively few people actually benefit from curb cuts, intended to allow people with disabilities to cross the street. More often on Colorado Boulevard one will see a person pushing a stroller than someone in a wheelchair utilizing a curb cut to cross the street.  This concern asking if there are enough bicyclists to warrant bike lanes is ultimately an ethical question, something which is entirely subjective– some say “yes” while others say “no.”  However, because we live in a democracy, and the bike lanes would be installed in public space, it seems that the percent of traffic bicycling constitutes should not be a prime consideration of whether or not to implement bike lanes. While few people currently cycle in Eagle Rock they are just as entitled to safe, pleasant travel as motorists and pedestrians are– aren’t they?

(An older man doing some utilitarian bicycling approaches Colorado Boulevard from Townsend Avenue)

Bike Lane Concern #7: “Removing lanes available to motorists to create bike lanes only benefits a small minority”

• Related to Bike Lane Concern #6, this concern is that reducing the number of lanes available to motorists to create bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard will only benefit a small margin of the local population and therefore is unfair or unacceptable. While this concern is again largely subjective, there is some reason to suggest that more than a “small minority” would benefit from bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard. First, the proposed buffered bike lanes are likely to improve safety for all people on Colorado Boulevard– whether they travel by car, foot, or bicycle. As has happened on York Boulevard, safety improvements benefit everyone – not just cyclists – who travels, lives, and patronizes businesses along the street . Fewer emergency responders are sent out to clean up crashes when safety improves. Fewer people get into crashes when a street becomes safer. People are less likely to be delayed by crashes if a street becomes safer. And so on… Also, because buffered bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard are likely to increase the number of people cycling to destinations along the street, people who continue to drive will benefit from reduced competition for scarce parking spaces. Because buffered bike lanes will likely reduce the number of people cycling on the sidewalk, pedestrians will benefit from a not having to negotiate limited sidewalk space with bicyclists. Because bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard will likely slow down motorized traffic to be in better compliance with speed limits, pedestrians will benefit from being able to cross the street easier. Because gas prices continue to rise year after year, anyone unable or unwilling to keep up with the price of gas will benefit from having bicycling become a more viable, safe, and pleasant option for local trips. The reality is that maintaing the status quo on Colorado Boulevard is worse than any perceived negative impacts implementing bike lanes will have. Nobody benefits from the dangerous speeding the current situation encourages. Nobody benefits from feeling compelled to drive a mile to the grocery store because bicycling is seen as unsafe and unpleasant. Nobody benefits from parents chauffeuring their children to school by car during rush hour. Perhaps a better question is– what are the benefits of maintaining the status quo?

Closing Remarks

Proposed bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard seem to be of high contention but there is little reason for this to be so. Let’s recall that the LADOT projects no more than an additional three minutes to travel time if traveling the three mile entirety of Colorado Boulevard during peak-hours. In other words, bike lanes will only have a minimal impact on a small number of trips being made during the rush hour and most of the time bike lanes will have have virtually no negative impact on travel times of motorists. Because there are a lot of potential impacts – both positive and negative – how about we still move forward with buffered bike lanes but do so provisionally for a year to evaluate the impacts of the bike lanes? What is being proposed on Colorado Boulevard is not radical– it’s a simple re-striping of the street, it can easily be reversed or adjusted (with funds from Measure R) if necessary. Long Beach recently installed a pair of physically separated bike lanes (which reduced the number of lanes available to motorists) on a year trial to study the impacts and the findings have been quite positive. See the video below to learn what kind of an impact separated bike lanes had in Long Beach, skeptics may be pleasantly surprised and perhaps be willing to give bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard a chance.

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Can Separated Bike Lanes Save Colorado Boulevard?

Colorado Boulevard, the commercial center of Eagle Rock, will undergo a transformation if the initiative Take Back The Boulevard can maintain the momentum it is experiencing at the moment. A lot of ideas about how to improve the boulevard are being circulated– everything from angled parking to sidewalk extensions, to increased greenery, to bike lanes, and more! Just the other day Eastsider shared the idea of reversed angle in parking as solution.

While there are many popular ideas, I feel that it is important to reflect on the mission of this worthy effort to reclaim our main street from the dangerous freeway it currently resembles. Take Back The Boulevard seeks to transform Colorado Boulevard into a safe, sustainable, and vibrant street in order to stimulate economic growth, increase public safety and enhance community pride. Given that we cannot accommodate all the possible ideas being discussed due to limited space on the street I would like to share why I believe a solution that includes protected bike lanes, also known as cycle tracks, could fulfill as many of the desires of this initiative and is perhaps the most promising solution available.

Protected bike lanes essentially place a bike lane along the curb and place car parking to the left of the bike lane as a buffer separating motorized traffic  and bicycle traffic. To read more about protected bike lanes concept check out the Los Angeles Department of Transportation Bike Blog’s recent post explaining these facilities.

So, installing protected bike lanes along Colorado Boulevard would result in what is known as a ‘road diet’, the removal of one travel lane in each direction. The new found space would be used to accommodate the proposed cycle tracks. Road diets have been proven, nationwide, to increase safety for all users. They have also been known to better the flow of traffic. Read about them here.

However, before I continue, let me share a couple rough drawings I made of what these protected bike lanes just might look like on our boulevard.

This first image is supposed to a rendering of Maywood Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, looking East.

Current Appearance

Via Google Maps Street View

Sketch Including Separated Bike Lane

(From left to right) Sidewalk, separated bike lane, bus stop island, motorized traffic

Now what does separated bike lane do to fulfill the mission of Take Back The Boulevard? Well if one examines my rough sketch there are a few things being accomplished

1) Most obviously a safe space is created to allow travel for cyclists that doesn’t force cyclists to mix with pedestrians or automobiles. This facility will encourage more than just young fearless people to cycle. There is no pressure to ‘keep up’ with motorized traffic and provides an environmental, sustainable means of traveling along the boulevard

2) The bus stop is moved to an island that frees up space on the sidewalk and allows for speedier bus service as buses won’t have pull up to a curb. Bike racks can be placed on this island to again free up space on our precious sidewalks. This bus island also reduces conflict between bicyclists and buses– often bicyclists and buses ‘leap frog’ each other as a bicyclist passes a bus that is stopped then the bus passes the cyclist once in motion again. This removes such conflicts.

3) Crossings for pedestrians is made shorter by allowing them to wait at a refuge alongside the bus stop island.

4) While the moved bus stop frees up sidewalk space, the former bus stop space could also be used to plant trees to provide more greenery.

5) Greater buffer between pedestrians and automobiles, making outdoor dining (where it is available) or mere strolling more pleasant as the increased distances makes the sidewalks less noisy from cars whizzing by.

6) Cars will not be allowed to travel as recklessly as in the past since they will only have two lanes. This will likely result in more civilized speeds and careful, conscious driving. As Tom Vanderbilt notes in his book Traffic, when we make roads forgiving to motorists (like by allowing excess number of lanes), motorists tend to drive sloppier. It’s these kind of excessively wide streets that encourage illegal speeding, and unfortunately result in deaths too.

Here is an other view of the separated bike lane looking West on Maywood Avenue and Colorado Boulevard

Current Appearance

Sketch with protected bike lane

This remains a very rough sketch but I would like to highlight the benefits of this proposed configuration

1) Again a safe space for people of all ages to cycle is created

2)Pedestrian crossings become shorter by allowing the creation of a small refuge

3) The protective barrier between bicyclists and automobiles allows an opportunity to plant trees and other greenery in what is currently just plain asphalt

I realize it may be difficult to completely understand these drawings, however there are also existing examples of where similar spaces have been created. Take a look below where Colorado Boulevard could look for inspiration

Better bus boarding, reduced conflict between cyclists and buses. Photo via Paul Krueger’s flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/pwkrueger/5133809157/

Protected bike lanes can accommodate many parking spaces for cyclists. Given that protected bike lanes are proven to increase the number of trips by bike this would likely be good for business along Colorado Boulevard’s storefronts. Photo via Paul Krueger’s flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/pwkrueger/5134416434/

Protected bike lane in Long Beach. Photo via Waltarrrrr’s flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltarrrrr/5650654370

Unlike other proposed solutions to fix Colorado Boulevard, configurations similar to what I share in this post consider all users– pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and motorists.

Pedestrians get more spacious sidewalks by moving bus stops to islands, shorter crossings through the refuges, greater buffer from automobiles through the separated bike lane

Bicyclists get safe travel space away from automobiles and pedestrians

Transit users get loading platforms that will make getting on and off the bus, easier and faster

Motorists get safer streets that make traveling at the speed limit easier to do, they won’t have to change lanes to pass bicyclists. Potentially shorter waiting times at lights as pedestrians will be able to cross faster thanks to the pedestrian refuges.

Everyone gets a safer configuration, everyone will benefit from increased opportunities to plant greenery by some of the pedestrian refuges. This solution allows flexibility in space. Since bus stops will move to islands sidewalk space formerly used to accommodate the bus stop can be now used to plant trees, install benches, or simply allow a wider space for pedestrians. Colorado Boulevard is currently flooded with cars, this solution will make cycling, walking, and taking the bus more attractive than they currently are and reduce the demand for car parking, one of the problems of the way Colorado Boulevard is configured today.

I’d like to compare this solution to the proposed ‘reverse angle in parking’ that the Eastsider shared the other day. The angled parking creates more parking spaces for cars and could potentially create curb extensions at intersections for pedestrians. This solution also claims it could reduce conflict between bicyclists and cars pulling in/out of parking spaces but if cars stop suddenly to start parking bicyclists will have to swerve around– a not so safe action to take.

While it is an attractive solution in some respects it is awfully car centric. This design will do little to encourage more people to cycle or make bicycling safer. It seems to do nothing to make bus travel easier either. It also, while it will create a buffer between pedestrians and moving automobiles, will rather confine the sidewalk space. I have experienced firsthand that cars tend to pull in to angled parking spaces so that part of the car hovers over the sidewalk, making pedestrian space feel cramped. It also seems that by creating more parking spaces this solution will only encourage driving and wouldn’t be very sustainable, nor make the street more vibrant, in complete contrast with the goals of Take Back The Boulevard. On the other hand, encouraging multiple modes of travel as a thoughtfully constructed cycle tracks can do, the street will be less car centric (and more sustainable) and filled with people rather than cars (and be more vibrant). Because we have limited space I support a solution that will accomplish as many of the goals of Take Back The Boulevard, and implementing separated bike lanes seems to be a promising solution.

Further readings about Colorado Boulevard:

Some Reasons I Support Separated Bike Lanes

A post where I share additional reasons why I support separated bike lanes: “ In making the case for a calmer, more bike friendly Eagle Rock sometimes those who oppose the idea contend car traffic will slow down too much. However, as local resident Jack Burnett-Stuart points out

‘ It is 1.6 miles from the post office to Swork [via Colorado Boulevard]. If the average speed was reduced through a variety of traffic slowing measures (including changing the speed limit, but does anyone pay any attention to that?) from say 40 mph to 20mph, that would add 2 minutes 24 seconds to the time the trip takes ‘ “

Some Facts and Thoughts About Colorado Boulevard

Specific facts detailing current traffic levels of Colorado Boulevard: “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 Simple Facts

Some simple, yet unfortunate facts about the danger of a car centric Colorado Boulevard: “…there has been approximately one reported accident a week over the past five years. More than half of the accidents involve injuries.

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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.

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A More Pedestrian and Bike Friendly Yosemite Drive: Part 2

Note: In my part one post for how to make Yosemite safer I suggested some kind of barrier for private auto use yet still allowing buses and emergency vehicles to pass.  If that is wanting too much, I still think there is much which can be done to improve the safety of the many pedestrians that use this street. Simply lowering the speed limit is about the cheapest way LADOT can promote safety for all. Here in part two I would mainly like to address speeds along Yosemite Drive.

What comes to mind when you think of Yosemite Drive?

Eagle Rock High School? Yosemite Park? Bilo’s Liquor Store? The Teen Rock Center? Fraternal Order of Eagles Center? 181 bus route? Rockdale Elementary? Connects North Figueroa Street to Eagle Rock Boulevard? Adjacent to Eagle Rock Elementary? a predominately residential street?

I personally have memories of cross country and track practice, running along Yosemite before navigating other streets to get to ideal streets for running, like Hill Drive or La Loma. I also think of walking or biking to and from a friend’s house.

Do you think of the street as one suitable for a 35mph street limit?

The reality is rather unfortunate. Despite so many qualities which would make Yosemite an ideal neighborhood street – housing a park, a couple corner stores, a cafe, churches, two bus routes and a great connector to all of Eagle Rock’s major streets – one of the major factors detracting from this is a 35mph speed limit on this predominately residential street. Despite being a narrow street only accommodating one lane of travel east and west, cars are encouraged to go the same speed as they would on parallel street, Colorado Boulevard. Colorado Boulevard of course is Eagle Rock’s widest commercial street and holds not one, but three lanes of travel east and west in addition to planted medians and left-turning pockets.

Perhaps it is unfair to say 35mph is Yosemite’s speed limit, while it is mostly 35mph, there are two, albeit brief, 25mph zones by Rockdale Elementary and Eagle Rock High. And naturally, the only way one knows if they are in a school zone is signage.  However, those speed limits are only ‘enforced’ though when “children are present”. And if a car encounters a child outside of the school zone, yet heavily residential street? The car can continue zooming at 35mph.

But why isn’t all of Yosemite a ‘school zone’ with 25mph, or lower, speed limits? Children are abound all over this street everyday and surely more would have a greater degree of subjective safety if cars were slower, and feel more comfortable walking along Yosemite. As conditions are kids are still running to the corner store, waiting at one of the many bus stops along the street, going to Yosemite Park, Saturday school, Sunday church, PTSA meetings or other school-related gatherings at one of the nearby schools, participating in Students Run LA on weekends between 6:00-8:00AM and between 3:30-5:30PM on weekdays ( in recent years Eagle Rock High School has had one of the largest SRLA groups in all of LAUSD with 70+ students participating), going to a friend’s house, going to the Eagle’s Landing Cafe and the Teen Center… Children are not contained to the two school zones and safety should not be compromised outside of school zones, especially when the street is heavily used by kids.

In the 70′s, when the below photo of Yosemite Drive was taken, the street had a speed limit of 30mph. In addition to a lower speed limit you see three girls with bicycles, an almost unthinkable sight for Yosemite today.

 

Speed limit is displayed in the far left of the photo. Credits: LAPL Photo Collection

Google view of Yosemite today, the speed limit is posted in approximately same location, at 35mph

 

Though naturally, LADOT has a strange way of assessing speed limits. It seems it would be much more reasonable, considering Yosemite’s conditions (narrow street, heavily used by children, services a park,etc…) that the speed be set  so students, people living along the street, park visitors have a greater feeling of subjective, and physical safety.

If the speed limit cannot be lowered, perhaps the locations along Yosemite that have traffic lights could be converted to traffic circles? Considering children constantly cross the street throughout the week, a raised crosswalk might be in order…

The bottom line is, in my opinion, that 35mph with zero traffic calming devices on this very community, residential, and family oriented street is unacceptable and unsafe.

There is reason to be optimistic though, the most recent draft of the LA Bike Plan calls for Yosemite Drive to be converted to an “Enhanced Bike Route”. Current bike routes consist simply of a green sign on a pole that reads “Bike Route”. This practice does not increase physical or subjective safety, and is widely acknowledged as useless among cyclists, and LADOT staff alike. So, it is hoped that an ‘enhanced’ bike route may do more to increase safety, and encourage cycling. I will try to keep Eagle Rock updated on LA Bike Plan progression and specifically how The Plan relates to Eagle Rock.

Fun Fact: Did you know Colorado Boulevard is a designated Bike Route? It’s unbelievable but it is true, the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Eagle Rock Boulevard has one of the bike route signs.

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Part Two: Metered Parking vs Free Parking

Since writing ‘part one’ I have realized that there is only so much that can be said of the metered parking vs free parking without sounding terribly redundant or requiring a good bit of time to set aside to study certain curbsides or parking lots. Nevertheless here is my ‘part two’.
On today’s adventure I tried getting the numbers of all the parking meters that are not functioning. A meter is determined broken if the screen is completely blank, flashes ‘FAIL’, or says ‘dEAd’ (about five meters in Eagle Rock have this on the screen). I may have missed some meters, in fact I am almost certain I did though I scanned Colorado from Ellenwood to Eagle Vista (it was unnecessary to go that far though I didn’t want to miss a single meter). I went down Eagle Rock Boulevard from Blockbuster to Fair Park Ave, with the few pockets adjacent to ER Blvd. Here are the meters I noted as not functioning:

9  14  47  50  55  56  58  60  62A  65  67  68  69  72  80  85  86  93  98A  103  105  108  110  123  124  125  127  129  130  131  133 134  135  139  140  142  143  146  150  152 155  156  157  159  160  162

To have the meters fixed, call 1-877-215-3958. You will be forwarded to a live person, when they go on the line say you want to report over 30 broken meters in Eagle Rock or any of the ones I have listed. Before hanging up be sure to get the person’s name for reference in case we have to call again in a couple of weeks.

I forget how to engage in these kind of phone conversations so I probably didn’t play my call all that well. I did not get the woman’s name and she stopped me after I named about 15 meters and said she would put in a request for the area. She asked where I was parked and I told her I wasn’t parked anywhere but was simply reporting broken meters. She sounded a bit exasperated throughout the conversation, but I assume she just isn’t used to getting calls for broken meters since everyone enjoys the socially implied free parking a broken meter provides.

Sure free parking is great but we need to realize it comes at a high cost and that frankly cars should pay for parking because of the sheer amount of space they take up. Here’s the now famous poster illustrating the problem of car dominated cities and why we can’t sustain more cars on the road each year.

Credit: Press Office City of Munster, Germany

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Part One: Metered vs Free Parking in Eagle Rock

This is part one of a series of posts I will do on parking/ parking meters in Eagle Rock. I have not yet decided whether to stick to Colorado or venture onto Eagle Rock Blvd, and Figueroa Street.

The blank meter

Eagle Rock: 134 Freeway to the North. 2 Freeway to the West. Widest part of Colorado Boulevard is in our town, three lanes wide, which formerly served as part of Route 66. Eagle Rock Boulevard too alternates between two and three lanes. Figueroa, one of the longest streets in Los Angeles ends in Eagle Rock. Cars have several unofficial reasons to have a crush on Eagle Rock with so much freeway-like access through the town. This is not the residents’ decision however as the community actually fought extensively against the freeways cutting our neighborhood. Eagle Rock’s main streets are wide as a result of previously accommodating trolleys.  Also, contrary to other parts of LA, Eagle Rock has managed to preserve a significant amount of its historic architecture in the face of an era of strip malls and ‘plazas’ through efforts of groups such as TERA and ERVHS. 1992′s Colorado Specific Plan, part of which included restrictions on future auto-related businesses is a testament to the community’s desire to remain “small town” as its origins and limit ER from becoming a town run by cars– the “car town” which communities such as Cypress Park have been unfortunate enough to fall victim to. In a “car town” the community loses opportunities to connect the neighborhood through pedestrian havens and instead becomes dissected, servicing automobiles over people for stretches on end with auto shops and drive throughs. However, despite Eagle Rock’s holistic and direct efforts to resist the car through combating freeways and strip malls, cars still have a reason to love Eagle Rock– free parking! I think most residents are aware of the failed meters on Colorado, here is a detailed look.

People take free parking for granted and rightfully so as the city Los Angeles itself reluctantly adopted parking meters in 1949. Nowadays people more or less know what to expect: parking lots often have free parking while curbside parking in front of shops have limited hour parking and/or meters. Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock features a mix of lots and metered curbside though don’t worry about paying curbside.

Between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Glen Iris, heading East, 19 of 26 parking meters are failed. This results in meters flashing “FAIL” or blank screens and plastic bags over meters (some of which appear on functioning meters as well). This also means a lot more free parking. Don’t want to pay for curbside parking? Move up a space or two and you are bound to find a non-functioning meter. In fact, as the numbers easily show, you are more likely to encounter a failed meter than a working meter.

On the same stretch, between Glen Iris and ER Blvd, heading West the situation is better or worse depending on how one looks. There are less meters though this is because there are more free parking lots. Going west towards Eagle Rock Boulevard of 14 meters 5 are failed.

Of a grand total of 40 meters between ER Blvd and Glen Iris 24 are not functioning. This is more than the city average of 1 in 10 meters not functioning. In such times of financial distress it seems like one logical place to allocate money would be to fix broken parking meters, because when functioning, meters are a consistent source of income for the city.

Broken meter....

A common sight along Colorado

Out of order

This person really wants the meter functioning "pls fix!"

This is unusual, it says "dEAd" instead of "FAIL"

Somebody doesn't want the meters fixed, the call number has been scratched

For broken meters, call 1-877-215-3958

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