The Low Down on the Los Angeles St. Protected Bike Lane

While the protected bike lanes on Los Angeles St. opened without a formal ceremony, these lane conversions have already become highly celebrated.

If you’re an infrastructure nerd, your twitter feed was flooded with pics of cyclists making the pilgrimage downtown.

Although I work near by, I rarely ride on Los Angeles St., as I normally take the adjacent buffered lanes on Spring and Main, except when I ride to Union Station.

Since I was seemingly behind the curve, last Thursday I decided to have a look so I could give my usual “let me confuse you more” take.

First of all, while I knew there were new lanes on Los Angeles St., I didn’t have any particulars exactly where they were other than in front of the former Parker Center.

Leaving work, I decided to cut up Los Angeles St. at 4th figuring that would be as far south as they’d start.

Even though the street is wide enough further south, I had to mozy up to 1st Street until I finally found those protective impediments spring from the ground.

If you follow CiclaValley closely(and I know you do), you’ll remember my video from early 2015 showing:

Yuck.

Now, there is an obvious great improvement, but even for cyclists, there will be an adjustment period:

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Coming up to 1st Street, Hark! What light on yonder breaks?

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What a difference a few months makes, although maybe they could have squeezed a few more bollards in there…

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Coming up to my first specialized traffic signal, I was caught off guard what was happening, especially when the first signal is blocked by a sign.

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I had seen early photos of theses traffic islands being scared that the lane was dangerously too narrow. It’s not great, but passable when I can feel safe going a regular speed. I just hope pedestrians watch as they cross.

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Looks like you better grab a spot on these traffic sensors if you ever want to cross.

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We get our own signal. Huzzah!

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Coming up to Arcadia, an extra bollard at the intersection would be nice to keep cars getting onto the 101 from merging early.

 

 

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Right before you reach Union Station, you get some extra greenage and bollards.

LABL09On the return, the bollards start a little back so cars can unload. Just something to keep an eye on.

LABL10This is the closest I’ll ever get to playing Plinko.

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One thing to that’s a bit confusing is guessing if bikes aren’t allowed to make right turns.

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..you don’t have that problem when there’s a one-way street coming from your right.

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Beware of cars inching out from the culinary paradise that is the Los Angeles Mall.

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On thing to be aware of is the bike signal stays green for a very short time.

LABL14Before you know it, you’re back to roaming free on 1st Street. Maybe that’s not a good thing…

While the novelty is great, the one thing I fear is having to rest on the traffic sensors at every intersection to trigger a green light. This works great when you have to take pictures, but I imagine having to wait at every signal may get tiresome after awhile.

Still, I’m pretty happy these buffers were created and it sets a great precedent for the future. But I’ll still be taking Spring Street.