Anyhow, I was upset to see no Bike Plan presentations scheduled for the East/NorthEast side, and so I’m thinking about going ahead and setting up one of these “requestable” workshops at the Bike Oven.

A couple responses to items above:

- the maps weren’t released accidentally. They were released intentionally in advance of the text

- the “infeasible” designation (“PCI – Proposed but Currently Infeasible” which was on the initial draft maps released in May) has been replaced by “potential bicycle lane” … which is definitely a semantic improvement… but not the end of the discussion.
The plan now has “proposed lanes” and “potential lanes.” Proposed is apparently a sort of medium-strong-maybe and potential is sort of a weak-maybe.
I would suggest that many of the streets designated potential (formerly-known-as-infeasible) should actually go in the proposed category.
For example, Reseda Boulevard, (a portion of which was actually just painted with bike lanes last week – yay!) is still just listed as potential (in May, listed as “infeasible”)… all that to say that I think bicyclist might do well to push for a lot of the now “potential” lanes to be moved into the “proposed” category.

One bit of positive news I want to dig more into in the document is it looks like they actually have some good ideas for the “Bicycle Friendly” street designation. When I first saw the map I thought it was going to be PR fluff like Class III bicycle routes. If they actually do things like round abouts and other traffic calming and alternatives to constant stop signs which suck for bicycle travel, then there could be some good things coming, hopefully if the document goes into action this time around.

The infeasible designation really needs to go though, even if not labeled for bike lane, at least something less self defeating than infeasible. What an up hill battle it would be to fight for bicycle improvements on a corridor with an infeasible label hanging over it.

I don’t disagree with you at all about how bad things can be on the road, or how bad LA’s track record has been when it comes to bike infrastructure. Certainly there is room for skepticism — but I just think there’s still space for cautious optimism. The plan, albeit v. late, is finally here. And I’m hoping we’ll still all have enough cautious optimism and energy to stay involved with it and take action — via working to get more meetings set up, etc. — to make it as strong as it can be.

I plan to go through the document and write a more detailed post about the bike plan soon, but the LADOT track record on bicycle issues does not inspire confidence as much as I would like to be optimistic about things. Some communities in the nowhere zone of meetings have lobbied for meetings and presentations and been denied. The LACBC started lobbying for sharrows in the absence of being able to secure bike lanes on many streets 3 or 4 years ago. It got pushed back, pushed back, promised for this year, pushed back some and maybe next year we will see paint on the ground. When it takes a department 4-5 years to put some stencils on the ground despite Long Beach going from concept to paint in half a year, it’s not hard to view anything the LADOT says concerning bikes with a load of suspicion that any action will follow. They seriously said the sharrows might be slippery as an excuse for delays, despite their wide spread application in Portland and Seattle, where it actually gets wet.

Things might not seem so bad riding around Santa Monica, but that isn’t what most people in Los Angeles have to deal with, it’s a different world in places like Hollywood, Downtown, and East and South LA. Maybe try riding in it and you’ll relate to the pessimism that creeps up on bicycle advocates from time to time. It’s a constant battle to try and be positive about things when you are periodically honked at, cut off, nearly clipped by mirrors and having trash thrown at you riding in some parts of LA. Then you come home and read on the forums someone you know or a friend of friend is in bandages and having to replace a bike after being hit by a hit and run driver to cap off the evening. Sometimes the only way for me to stay positive is to not read what is going on, because the more you know, the worse things are out there.