Since early Saturday morning, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has been putting in new bike lanes in Boyle Heights. The lanes are 1.6 miles long and start at Boyle Ave and finish off at Lorena. Not a bad start, but Boyle Heights still needs more lanes. The 7th street bike project will add more bike lanes in the future, but what Boyle Heights needs is lanes on Chavez. That would be the ultimate commitment in making BH bike friendly. Joe Linton has a write up and a map of the route here tambien. With more and more bike riders taking to the streets, I’m glad the city is, slowly but surely, meeting the demand for safer roads. Even with the new lane, riders still gotta be cautious because there are some crazy drivers in BH, believe you me. Hopefully folks will now ride down 1st street vs Chavez.
LA EASTSIDE
Life Beyond The River
Great article! BH definitely needs more bike lanes but NOT on chavez. That street is too narrow, too busy, has too many busses, riding up and down chavez is super sketchy putting a bike lane on it directs more bicycles to navigate down an already busy street. I’ve seen 3 separate incidents where someone was hit or doored on chavez. It’s too busy I avoid riding it at all costs. IMO 1st, 4th, Whittier and Olympic should all have bike lanes that start at the dtla side of the bridges and continue into ELA and Euclid/evergreen should have a lane that would intersect the other lanes. NOne of the bridges have bike lanes and everyone who drives on them does 50mph. Most of the bridges dont have handicap/driveway ramps so you’re forced to ride with speeding traffic, not to mention the road conditions on the bridges suck, especially 4th. Glad to see new lanes hopefully the city plans intelligently so the lanes are safe, effective and convenient for cyclist.
Excellent post! The meager “bike lane” that runs from Gerhart and Pomona (Southbound only) “all the way” to Beverly Blvd is an absolute joke!!! We need many more and much longer bike lanes in all of East Los Angeles. I would like to see a bike lane on Whittier Blvd between Atlantic and Eastern for starters, but I won’t hold my breath on that one!! They say that bicyclists have the same right to the road as people in cars but they sure don’t act like that!!, recently I was almost taken out by a woman putting on her false eyelashes, as well as by men talking on their cell phones!!