Northridge Jumpstarts Great Streets

Monday night, I attended the Great Streets Open House to familiarize myself with the proposed makeover of Reseda Blvd in Northridge.

Boy was I unprepared.

This isn’t just another proposal. This is going forward!

If you’re a cycling buff, about 98.6% of meetings you attend involve planned bike infrastructure you’ll never see. Wel, this not only happening, but will be up and running by April 14th. Hearing this, I could only paraphrase the famous quote from “Return of the Jedi”:

“…I’m afraid the cycletracks will be quite operational when your friends arrive…”

Maybe I spooked a few people by not using my inner voice, but it was a needle off the record moment.IMG_20150323_180859

The event started with people taking in the many presentation boards with the help of representatives from the Mayor’s Office, LADOT and Mitch Englander’s staff.

Shortly after the official start time, Englander took control by kidnapping a chair, using it as the room’s smallest stage, to give the best(and only) speech of the night.

He hailed how this project would be the first of the Great Streets rollout to be completed. He mentioned that the makeover doesn’t just help cyclists, but also calms traffic to also protect the many drivers and pedestrians that share the IMG_20150323_180757space as well.

While the project eliminates 62 parking spaces, the team pointed out that there are already three thousand spots just off the street, making it only a 1.9% reduction in parking.

When the Mayor made his initial Great Streets last June, he promised he would efficiently coordinate between the many departments involved to make these projects happen. Since Reseda was up for repaving, the time to restripe it was now.

The resurfacing has already been completed and the painting will be done in time for the first State of the City speech ever given in the valley(oh yeah, that’s why I mentioned April 14th).

Needless to say, this is an exciting development that come to fruition in an extremely short time frame. Furthermore, Los Angeles is supposed to have ten miles of cycletracks by the end of the year(I can’t remember if they said fiscal). The force is strong with this one.

For more information, check out Joe Linton’s Streetsblog piece, where he covers it in much further detail, although I’d appreciate it if he’d explain the photobombing!