Safe & Healthy Streets

Pacific Community Center Main Entrance

There will be a Community Stakeholder meeting for the Safe & Healthy Streets Plan on Thursday, February 25, 7:00 pm at Pacific Park Community Center in the Sycamore Room. Many of you attended our stakeholder meeting way back in the spring of 2009. We’d like to update you about what’s happening with the Safe & Healthy Streets Plan and how you can get involved. We need your help! Food will be provided, courtesy of El Morfi Grill. Pacific Park Community Center is located at 501. S. Pacific Ave. There is a bike rack in the plaza in front of the main entrance. Car parking is located on Riverdale Drive and Kenilworth Ave. There’s a bus stop at the intersection of Pacific and Riverdale, the southeast corner of the community center and park (Metro and Beeline buses stop there). Click here for the Community Center website. Please RSVP to colin@la-bike.org if you can attend.

Glendale News-Press Article and Editorial

Last week the Glendale News-Press published an article about Bicycle Master Plans and the need for Glendale to catch up with neighboring communities such as Burbank, Pasadena, and The City of Los Angeles. If you missed the article, you can click here to read it. The News-Press followed up the article over the weekend with an editorial that you can read by clicking here. We’ve been told that the City intends to begin work on updating the Bicycle Master Plan this summer. We’ll be helping to publicize this effort which should include some community input meetings. Stay tuned for that.

We encourage you to write to the Glendale City Council and the News-Press that you support updating the Bicycle Master Plan. A short note that states who you are and that you’d like the city to update the plan is all that’s needed. Bike lanes are coming to Foothill Blvd. in Glendale this summer, along with more sharrows and bike racks in various parts of the City. If you’d like to add comments in support of these projects, that would be great.

Glendale Bicyclist and Pedestrian Survey

We have launched an online survey to collect information that we didn’t get from the community meetings in the fall of 2009. If you live, work, or go to school in Glendale (or if you sometimes walk or ride a bike in Glendale), we want you to complete this survey! The information we collect will be used to help draft the Safe & Healthy Streets Plan. Please take a few minutes and click the link below to take the survey. Thank you!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GlendaleBikePedSurvey

Quick Reminders

Glendale Downtown Dash Family Fun Bike Ride - Sunday March 14

LA Street Summit - Saturday March 20

10th Annual Los Angeles River Ride - Sunday June 6

Foothill Blvd. looking west. Photo: P.Rabinov

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works has recently striped bike lanes on the County stretch of Foothill Blvd. This is just the first section of Foothill to be striped for bike lanes. The City of Glendale is planning to stripe bike lanes on the Glendale section of Foothill (Pennsylvania to Lowell) sometime this summer as part of a resurfacing project. Pending the completion and approval of their updated Bike Plan, we’re hoping the City of Los Angeles will follow Glendale and the County by striping their section of Foothill leading into Tujunga. It would also be nice to see La Canada Flintridge stripe their section of Foothill with bike lanes, but it’s not clear at this time if that will happen.

New bike rack outside east entrance of main post office. Photo: C.Bogart

The City of Glendale has installed 27 more bike racks in the downtown Glendale area. Locations with new racks include additional spots on Brand Blvd., locations on Central and Wilson, as well as two racks outside the main Post Office on Broadway. Bike racks are an important part of encouraging and enabling people to travel by bicycle. By providing visible and easily accessible places for cyclists to lock a bike, the option of riding instead of driving becomes more viable. We look forward to seeing even more racks in the future.

If you support these new bike racks and bike lanes, and would like to see more, please send a message to the Glendale City Council and the Glendale News-Press.

Bicyclist and Pedestrian Survey Online

As part of the PLACE Grant: Safe & Healthy Streets project to make Glendale better and safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition and the City of Glendale are asking for responses to an online survey. We’re especially interested in responses from people who live, work, or go to school in Glendale, but these are not requirements for completing the survey. Information gathered from this survey will be used to complement information gathered from Glendale community meetings held in the fall of 2009.

Please complete the survey by going to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GlendaleBikePedSurvey

Reminder: RiverWalk Project Community Meeting

Meeting flyer

Thursday, February 18, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Pacific Community Center
501 S. Pacific Ave.
Glendale, CA 91204
Phone: (818) 548-4098

This meeting is designed to seek community input on all three phases of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk project including Phase I, which will include a small entry park, a multi-user trail for pedestrians and cyclists, a separate staging area for equestrians using local trails, another small park for walking and picnicking, and educational and interpretive exhibits; Phase II, which is currently being built as part of the Fairmont Avenue Flyover project; and Phase III, which plans to one day include a multi-user bridge across the Verdugo Wash from the Riverwalk to North Atwater, and multi-user bridge across the Los Angeles River from the Riverwalk to the Los Angeles Bike Path with connections to Griffith Park.
Residents of Glendale, North Atwater, and surrounding communities are invited to attend.

Pasadena Bicycle Master Plan Update

The City of Pasadena Transportation Department and ad hoc Bicycle Master Plan Advisory Committee will be holding a public workshop to discuss the draft Bicycle Master Plan Update. The Bicycle Master Plan Update is available on the City’s website for download and review. Hard copies are also available for review at the Pasadena Central Library and branch libraries.

The workshop will be held on Tuesday, February 23 at 6:30 pm in the Council Chambers. The intention of the workshop is to solicit public comments on the draft plan

For more information, please go to http://www.cityofpasadena.net/bikeplan or call Rich Dilluvio at (626)744-7254.

Metro Bicycle Roundtable

Metro is convening a series of Bicycle Roundtable meetings in 2010, and they welcome your participation! Doug Failing, Metro’s Executive Director of Highway Programs and Interim Chief Planning Officer, was active in the Caltrans Bicycle Advisory Committee. He will kick-off the first Metro Bicycle Roundtable meeting.

The purpose of the first meeting is to initiate a dialogue and identify issues of importance to cyclists in Los Angeles County. This will lead to a vision for enhancing Metro’s current program. The outcome of the first meeting will determine the frequency, next steps, and agendas of future meetings.

The first Metro Bicycle Roundtable meeting is scheduled for:

Friday, February 19, 2010
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Metro
One Gateway Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Windsor Conference Room, 15th Floor
Light refreshments will be served.
Sign-in and receive a visitor badge at the 3rd Floor security desk.

Please be on time. This meeting will start promptly at 2:00 pm.

Please RSVP by Friday, February 12, 2010 to Jennifer Gill at (213) 922-4224 or gillj@metro.net

Shine, Gandy, Friedman, Bogart, and Weisman in front of Long Beach City Hall. Photo: M. Stirdivant

As an opportunity to see and learn first-hand about bicycle and pedestrian facilities implemented or planned by other municipalities, the PLACE Grant: Safe & Healthy Streets Team coordinated a site visit to the City of Long Beach on January 28, 2010. Long Beach is another PLACE Grant recipient and has announced its intention to become the most bike friendly city in America. The Glendale group that visited Long Beach included Council Member Laura Friedman, TPC Commissioner Bill Weisman, Glendale Police Officer Sue Shine, Marc Stirdivant from the Community Services and Parks Department, and PLACE Grant Coordinator Colin Bogart. The tour of completed and planned projects was led by Charles Gandy, the City of Long Beach’s Mobility Coordinator.

Riding the green stripe sharrow lane on 2nd street, Belmont Shore. Photo: B. Weisman

Long Beach is in the process of implementing a range of bicycle and pedestrian amenities that have garnered national and local press coverage, including an LA Times article published two days before the Glendale group’s visit. The tour, conducted by bicycle, visited the Long Beach Bike Station, proposed locations for protected bike lanes in downtown on Broadway and Third Street, the East Village pedestrian and bike zone at First Street and Linden Ave., the new bike lanes on First Street, the green-stripe sharrows on Second Street in Belmont Shore, a proposed bicycle boulevard on Vista Street, and a section of East Third Street that will be reduced from three lanes to two lanes so that bike lanes can be striped. Mr. Gandy explained the community process of planning and implementing these projects as well as providing the background for funding and city approval. It was an educational and inspiring visit and the PLACE Grant: Safe & Healthy Streets Team thanks Council Member Friedman, Commissioner Weisman, and Officer Shine for their time and participation. You can watch video from the February 2, 2010 City Council Meeting in which Council Member Friedman comments about the tour and suggests that the City of Glendale consider a bike sharing program for City employees by clicking here (fast forward the video to 9 minutes for Friedman’s comments).

Community Outreach Meeting on the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk Project

LA River looking east towards Glendale

This meeting is designed to seek community input on all three phases of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk project including Phase I, which will include a small entry park, a multi-user trail for pedestrians and cyclists, a separate staging area for equestrians using local trails, another small park for walking and picnicking, and educational and interpretive exhibits; Phase II, which is currently being built as part of the Fairmont Avenue Flyover project; and Phase III, which plans to one day include a multi-user bridge across the Verdugo Wash from the Riverwalk to North Atwater, and multi-user bridge across the Los Angeles River from the Riverwalk to the Los Angeles Bike Path with connections to Griffith Park.

Residents of Glendale, North Atwater, and surrounding communities are invited to attend.

Thursday, February 18, 2010
7:00 p.m.
Pacific Community Center
501 S. Pacific Ave.
Glendale, CA 91204
Phone: (818) 548-4098

Glendale Parks Department Newest Sponsor of the Los Angeles River Ride

The Glendale Community Services and Parks Department has become the newest sponsor of the L.A. River Ride. As part of this sponsorship, the Department will distribute twenty free bikes to local youth, field a team of five riders in the event, and have the Department’s logo prominently displayed on all River Ride promotional materials and the 10th Anniversary jersey. The Ride is being promoted through the Department’s Leisure Guide and website to maximize the number of Glendale youth who will participate in the event.

The River Ride will be on Sunday, June 6, 2010 and will start at the Autry Center in Griffith Park. This year’s event will be the 10^th Annual River Ride and thanks to Glendale’s Parks Department, children 12 and under will be able to do the ride for free! Since the first River Ride, the LACBC has celebrated the completion of the Alex Baum Bridge over Los Feliz Blvd., improvements on the path between Vernon and Long Beach, and this year will celebrate the long-awaited completion of the River Path section in Elysian Valley and underpass at Fletcher Drive. For more information about the River Ride and to register, go to www.la-bike.org  The LACBC thanks the Community Services and Parks Department of Glendale for its support!

Don’t forget!

Glendale Downtown Dash Family Fun Bike Ride – March 14, 2010

LA Street Summit – March 20, 2010