In one of those rare infrastructure surprises, the Los Angeles Riverfront Greenway segment from Whitsett to Coldwater Canyon is open to the public.

How long it has been live is still a question for me as the project seemed to be sitting at 99% completion for months to the point I wouldn’t look over, but on Wednesday afternoon, I noticed the railing on the western portion was finally cleared so I had to grab some cameras and head out.

This .55 mile connection connects two other segments bringing the path’s length to about two miles.

The main issue is that the greenway is interrupted every half mile by a major street with no at grade crossings at the access points.

We’re years and millions of dollars away from addressing this problem, but with all the businesses right behind the Greenway, this is the most ideal way of solving the parking issues that exists on Ventura Blvd.

As I brought up in the video, Weddington Golf Course to the north was recently sold to Harvard-Westlake to be used as athletic field after a stunning reversal to vacate their attempt to build a massive parking structure across the street from the school.

This path can be important link for students going back and forth between campus on Coldwater Canyon roughly a mile away as traffic clogs heavily especially around rush hour (trust me, biking is faster).

Another point that I brought up in the video is that there are no bike lanes running north-south that connect to any part of these two miles.

Only Laurel Canyon is slated to have bike lanes in Mobility Plan 2035 (page 162), but Whitsett would be an excellent choice to mirror the configuration on Colfax to connect up to the Orange Line Bike Path.

Since this path is new, how it will be used remains to be seen, but when the Sportmen’s Lodge development is completed, I’m sure we’ll see a larger uptick in usage.

In the meantime, I’ll try to spread the word a half mile at a time!