Oct 28 '09 - 834 W, 2 I - Vote Good + 5 :: Bad - 10 LA's Draft Bike Plan is a Step Backward on Bike Lanes
Published October 28, 2009 by C.I.C.L.E.
By Joe Linton
C.I.C.L.E. has been analyzing of the city of Los Angeles' proposed Bicycle Master Plan update. This article is a bit wonky – it's about statistically comparing the new draft to the plan currently in effect. Scroll down to the bottom if you just want to see the summary of our findings. Thanks to the generosity of our volunteer Ramon Martinez for invaluable help on this somewhat tedious analysis.
As a starting point, we looked with the bike lane facilities listed in the city's current Bicycle Master Plan (from 1996 and currently in effect.) Using the numbers from that plan, from the new proposal, and what we were able to glean from maps and other on-line sources, we compiled this spreadsheet.
We've scrambled to put this together quickly. We think it's correct, but there may well be some mistakes (either from our work or from the bike plan numbers that we're using), so if anyone sees things that are wrong on our spreadsheet, please let us know – email to info@cicle.org.
Here's a detailed explanation of each column of the spreadsheet:
•The two left columns of the document are copied directly from the list of bike lanes in the 1996 plan.
•The third column is a corrected mileage – it's nearly the same as the second column, but sometimes the new numbers (from the 2009 update) don't all add up exactly the same. In order to compare like with like, we calculated corrected mileage and we used the corrected mileage to calculate subsequent percentages.
•The fourth column shows the number of miles that were completed for each facility. This column is taken from the 2009 plan, except for Reseda Boulevard for which we had more recent data.
•The fifth column shows the number of miles that were designated in the 1996 that have been carried forward into the 2009 update. These are listed in the 2009 update as “proposed.”
•The sixth column shows the number of miles that have been downgraded in the 2009 update. These are listed as “potential” bike lanes or (in a very few instances) as lesser designations: bike route or bike friendly street.
•The seventh column shows the number of miles that have been omitted from the 2009 update.
•The eighth column is the total of the fourth through seventh, which we used to calculate the corrected mileage. It should be exactly the same as the third column.
Here are the results :
Overall the 1996 Bike Master Plan specifies 315 miles of bike lane. 88 miles of these were already built prior to 1996, so the 1996 plan designates 228 new miles of bike lane. Of those 228 miles, the city completed 37 miles, which is 16%. For the past 13 years, on an annualized basis, the city completed an average of 2.84 miles of planned bike lanes (the city also completed some bike lanes that were not in the plan – including Myra Avenue) which is 1.25% percent of the planned lanes completed annually. Projecting that rate into the future, the city can be expected to complete the 1996 planned bike lanes in 2076, 80 years after the plan went into effect.
Unfortunately, if the 2009 draft goes into effect, it may take even longer, because 78% of the planned lanes have been downgraded (62%) or are completely missing (16%). Only 6% of the unbuilt lanes from the 1996 plan have been carried forward.
C.I.C.L.E. sees this as a problem. According to the 2009 plan update document itself (on page 41, the first page of chapter 4 ), when compared to the 1996 totals, the new draft will result in a net reduction of 57 miles of designated bike lanes. We're still verifying that net reduction number, but what's clear from our analysis is that the city's new draft removes designation for 177 miles of bike lanes (177 = 140 downgraded + 37 eliminated.) The city's draft adds some bike lanes, and the city has striped some bike lanes not on plans (including Myra, mentioned earlier), so the overall net loss is significantly less than the 177 miles removed.
The new bike plan should be a step forward for making Los Angeles more bike friendly. C.I.C.L.E. urges the city not to retreat from the 1996 plan, but to move forward – to add more miles of bike lanes. We'd rather see the 1996 plan remain in effect than to see the current draft supersede it. The current draft moves backward on bike lanes. We urge the city to revise its draft, so that the new plan contains significantly more bike lanes than the old plan.
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joe, we need to be able to totally shut down the counter argument we were getting tuesday discrediting the 96 plan and the idea to continue it forward. First, we as bicycle advocates should not in anyway be giving up on the victories we’ve already won; let the other side go through the trouble of proving that peak lanes legally supersede bike lanes. And the argument, as was said, that the 96’ plan leaves people with “false hope” about having lanes everywhere is ludicrous, cyclists already have those lanes designated to them and therefore should be incensed and motivated to take back those projects and it will only inspire them to be more strategic to chose more feasible projects over non-starters when they learn about how easily squashed their projects are. Further, if it’s true that CEQA is trumped when a plan is ten years out, the challenge that that random engineer made for the one minute he bothered to mozy in and act like he owned the place, is completely null. It might be a shit storm to put lanes on Fletcher, but who’s gonna sue us! Is that engineer guy gonna sue us? Probably not, and maybe people will just gripe with it until they see the huge number of cyclists on it and start riding it themselves. We wont know until we try it! I know I know, they’ll never do it and we’ll have to organize and do all the work for them, but man I wish I could have said all that to him. Just so crazy to be in a room of supposed bike advocates and have to listen to them about why it’s a good idea to eliminate lanes and almost the whole ‘96 plan because some punk engineer in the valley decided to just rob us of them…”blaknet statements!?” The city is the one making the blanket statement! eliminating all those lanes without actually going through and seeing which ones are truly hopeless and which ones are just being eliminated because they hate the idea of non-commercialized, healthy, independent people and places that don’t consume and destroy everything in sight. We’re doing their damn jobs for them and how dare they have the audacity to put us down for that, they should be thanking us! Again, let to opposition do the work of denying us lanes…god, I just realized the enemy is in the gates, the fox is in the hen house, the dot is in the bike plan! (hahaha, maybe that’s how they see us! sitting in their deathstar with our ratty clothes and crazy bike love! hahaha) And I don’t think I can say enough about how awesome it was to see you stand up to that whole group and literally shift the whole tone of the discussion from five people yelling, seriously, yelling “no!” to silent scratching of heads and conceding that they need to talk about it more. YOU THE MAN JOE!
ramonchu (Email) (URL) - October 29 '09 - 00:31
I just want to express my thanks to you and C.I.C.L.E. Your input and courageous efforts will definitely affect how Angelenos regard the increasing importance of a bike-friendly society in our great city.Maybe we can be the next great bike city!
Dale Fernandez (Email) (URL) - October 29 '09 - 10:13
I am so happy that Joe and Co. stuck to their guns. Having a relatively low-level, non-personally threatening, bureaucrat give your data and research the brush-off is unacceptable at this stage of the game. Keep up the good work!lesterlute (Email) - November 01 '09 - 23:56