Want to get from Park La Brea to the eastern edge of Koreatown — while enjoying the gorgeous SoCal weather without fighting traffic? Then get behind the 4th Street Bike Boulevard Campaign, a grassroots effort to turn the 3.6-mile stretch of 4th St. from Cochran to Hoover into a haven for cyclists and pedestrians.
Bike boulevards are basically streets that favor bike and ped traffic — but allow cars too. If such a street’s hard for you to envision, it’s because we don’t have bike boulevards in Los Angeles. Not yet, at least. If the 120 or so Angelenos who showed up for Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition‘s Walk and Ride for a Safer 4th Street event on Saturday have their way — and more people (that would be you!) join the clamor calling for a safer 4th St. — we could have our first one on 4th St. within the a few years.
What would a 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard look like? I got a sense on Saturday, when I joined the dozen or so fellow Angelenos on the 4th Street Walk (the Ride proved much more popular, attracting about 100 cyclists). LA County Bicycle Coalition volunteers had drawn extended curbs, mini parks, and car diverters in chalk to help us envision a greener, saner 4th Street, and LACBC volunteer (and river activist and artist, below in white T-shirt) Joe Linton explained these proposed features as we walked along.
Basically, the 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard Campaign calls for a revamp of 6 intersections, adding traffic-diverting mini-parks, extended curbs, and extended medians as well as traffic-slowing roundabouts. Those changes would reclaim big chunks of the road for cyclists, pedestrians, and neighborhood residents while reducing the number and slowing the speed of cars on 4th Street. See what these new, revamped intersections would look like (only 5 of the 6 intersections are pictured), thanks to Joe Linton’s design blog.
4th Street’s already considered a more bike-friendly street — especially now, since it’s got hard-won bike sharrows painted on them — which makes the street a good spot for L.A.’s first bicycle boulevard. The challenge now is to get the City of Los Angeles to commit not only to turning 4th Street into a bicycle boulevard, but also to making that bicycle boulevard a meaningfully different one that incorporates the bigger proposed structural changes — versus one that just gets a few extra bike-friendly signs.
What’s the next step to turn 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard Project into reality? According to Joe Linton, the City of Los Angeles needs to submit the project to Metro’s Call for Projects in order to get some funding. Joe estimates that the project will cost $1 million to $2 million and take a couple years to implement — though that rosy timeline assumes that many stars align for cyclists and pedestrians.
Still, now’s a good time for cyclists, since we have a mayor whose elbow may not have fractured into 8 pieces had more bike boulevards been around. To get involved with this campaign, join the LACBC — or at least follow the blog and sign up for its email list to hear about future Bicycle Boulevard events like the one held on Saturday. Beyond seeing friends, meeting new cyclists, and hearing Councilmember Tom LaBonge (above) wax lyrical about cycling, we also all got a delicious free lunch (in my case, a gigantic red velvet cupcake), courtesy of Larchmont Bungalow.
Top illustration of the proposed changes for the 4th and Normandie intersection by Joe Linton
Great write up–I’d love to see this concept take hold here in LA. My kids play out on the sidewalk (and sometimes in the street), and I’m shocked at how fast drivers seem to go (even on my small side street). Everyone seems to be in such a hurry when they get behind a wheel to get where they are going.
I’ll bet this will also tend to increase property values, too.
Comment by Ross — July 26, 2010 @ 3:10 pm
In Santa Monica, I’d like to see Arizona turned into a bike blvd — perhaps overly influence by the fact that Arizona’s the street I bike down most often. It’s got a bike lane all the way through now and honestly isn’t dangerous to bike down because the city’s done a good job with traffic calming on that street, but it would be nice to have at least 1 road with lots of greenscape where bikes really are the priority mode of transport –
Comment by Siel — July 26, 2010 @ 5:29 pm