draft LA Bike Masterplan released

[Alex Thompson]

The draft LA Bike Master Plan was released today:

http://www.labikeplan.org/

I've skimmed it, and it looks a lot like it used to - wishy washy commitments that haven't, and won't be followed through on.  Moreover, you have 6 weeks to read the 212 pages of the plan, 351 more pages of appendix, and then submit your comments - because November 6th is the deadline for comments.  That's almost 100 pages a week, for a plan that's 6 months over due.

http://www.westsidebikeside.com/the-draft-la-bike-master-plan-is-out-and-it-prevents-nc-participation-1100/

[E-Rock]

I'll have the cliff's notes available tomorrow....

[Joe Bayes]

I may be misremembering, but I see some progress. One major problem that I had with the last draft was that while it identified roads where bike lanes would be easy to put in, it did very little to indicate roads where bike lanes would be costly to add but are critically needed to provide access. This meant that relatively costly but necessary routes got no mention in the plan.

The addition of the "potential bicycle lane" designation (p. 42, or p. 56 in the pdf), along with 400 miles of roads thus designated, appears to address that. Instead of merely locating all the wide streets in the city and proposing to paint lines on them, it now looks like they have identified where we want to ride and are considering adding lanes there, despite the cost.

While they have developed a point-based system for prioritizing funding based on such factors as connections to the existing system, I have to confess I'm having a hard time understanding it. It seems like they give very high priority to streets near transit, community centers, and schools (7-12 points) but comparatively little priority to connecting "filling gaps" (whatever those are) in the existing network (3 points). I would think that providing a contiguous network would be one of the highest priorities. But maybe I'm just steamed that I can't ride from SM to Hollywood without resorting to the sidewalk.

I am pleasantly surprised by the mention of sharrows, colored bike lanes, bike boxes, and the need for reduced stops along bike paths. Though these are only mentioned in the technical section and they make no specific commitments to put them in, at least it shows that they are aware of them.

As to the length, much of the plan (over 100 pages) is design specifications which are cribbed from State documents and, while important, are relatively uncontroversial.