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Negative! This is Belmont Shores, lots of $$$$ there. It gives the impression that this is how it got to be done, which is completely false. You don't need a freakin green lane on the road.
User1 responding to a comment by Joe Borfo
06.25.09 - 6:28 pm
I get your point about cost, but visually speaking, that green lane makes a powerful statement to motorists. I'm curious to see how effective that treatment ends up being.
angle responding to a comment by User1
06.25.09 - 7:08 pm
However, this rare occurance will help make the Sharrow pop out and stick into peoples minds. That's why I am bothering to repost it and telling others to do the same.
Yes it could be done cheaper without the green, but getting bike lanes, sharrows, or anything else isn't about the $$$, it's about the political will. The political will of Los Angeles is move cars, so no dice for sharrows and very few bike lanes, but the DIY bike lane got painted over black within days. It's not the cost of paint, it's the politics that keeps bike infrastructure off the streets.
I love the green. It reminds me of the netherlands bike lanes which are a separate color from the car roads.... either way in any way... PAINT ON THE EFFIN MOTHER EFFIN STREETS.
operation kill them with glue coming soon.
Roadblock responding to a comment by GarySe7en
06.26.09 - 8:57 am
somehow some way, there needs to be a way for a directive to be given to the LADOT, for as Ubrayj has said, the LADOT to count people moved not vehicles moved.
Sharrow Cam Tells the Story of Long Beach’s Green Shared Lane
from Streetsblog by Damien Newton
Russ Roca, the photographer and bike activist who has taken the lead on promoting Long Beach's world-class shared lane, brings us a video on people's first reactions to the lane. For anyone that missed Friday's story, Long Beach painted a travel lane green and installed Sharrows on 2nd Street, one of the busiest streets in the city for both bikes and cars.
Longe Beach's sharrows policy is groundbreaking both locally and internationally. As far as I know, this is the first time that anyone, anywhere has colored a lane with Sharrows and the world is watching to see the results. An email thread of the Caltrans' District 7 Bike Advisory Committee posits that these are the first Sharrows on public streets anywhere in Los Angeles County, although there is some question about whether or not the Sharrows on Westwood Boulevard are on the campus of UCLA.
While there has been some debate on whether or not painting a shared lane in a similar way that other cities paing bike lanes will confuse people; the early results show cyclists esctatic cyclists whizzing past parked cars well outside the door zone. Long Beach residents don't seem confused, they seem ecstatic. Of course, there will always be some malcontents, but the early returns are happy returns.
As an Angeleno, I'm certainly jealous of Long Beach for making such a dramatic statement when Los Angeles won't even have a plan to make a plan to install Sharrows until next year. However, the end of the video when L.B. Mobility Coordinator Charles Gandy is encouraging two young cyclists to ride in the center of the lane because "it's the safest place to be" is such a far-cry from "ride to the right or you'll be bug splatter" attitude at LADOT that it sort of makes me want to cry.
Roca has more videos on the Long Beach Sharrow experience at his YouTube page.
I like the painted lane. It gives a clear path for drivers and bikers to understand they share the road. To me Sharrows and signs are not enough. Most drivers don't pay attention to signs.
Russ Roca's been awesome for the bike community here in LB. He puts some great videos together and he's instrumental in developing a scene here. Sad for LB he's going to be gone for two years traveling South America with his gf. Should be quite an adventure for them.
Yeah if you guys come to LB for CM we'll definitely plan an epic ride! Either take the last train back to LA at 11:21pm or ride till 5am! Who's up to ride for 10 hours on a nice warm summer night? That would include bars, awesome beach spots all the way to Huntington Beach, port, Queen Mary, and some secret locations I'm keeping just that, a secret.
This is nothing more than a useless publicity stunt.
Ever ridden this stretch of 2nd? Its the one of the only places in LBC where a bike will regularly outpace a car.
There is a full blown traffic light at every block. And they are short blocks. And they are timed to stop traffic.
Its less than a mile packed full of restaurants and boutiques designed to slow down traffic to let cars park and peds cross safely.
What happen when you ride through this strip?.... You ride with traffic (I'm usually going below my cruising speed behind a car) until you get to a red (which you will hit 95% of the time), lane split up to the red, run it, and then outpace traffic until the end.
Now maybe this green stripe will help ignorant cyclists take a lane when they need to (according to California law, any time the right lane isn't wide enough for a car and a bike at the same time), or keep idiots off the sidewalk (which is illegal in most of LBC, and which I think is the real reason they put this lane in, to keep idiots from running down peds on the sidewalk with their big ass beach cruisers), but it's not making anyone safer, sharrows are needed when a cyclist has to coexist with traffic which is going faster than the bikes, cars don't care if you're not getting in their way.
Long Beach has some very good east-west bike routes, both 4th and 10th are 2 lane+center turn lane their whole length, perfect for bikes.
North-south is another matter. You have 3 choices, residential streets without signals at major streets, major 2 lane streets with large sections where a car cannot pass you (eg Cherry, Junipero), or 4 lane thoroughfares with right lanes too small for a car and a bike to be in safely (Atlantic, Redondo).
You want to do something for cyclists in LBC?, put sharrows on Atlantic.
LAfixed says 7pm at the pyramid
bikeboom says 7pm at the bikestation
critical-mass.info says 6pm at the bikestation
craigslist bikefo says it doesn't happen anymore
I was out of town for June, but I was at the bikestation at 7pm in may an no one showed up.
Now I know it'll be nothing like good old Chicago, but I miss me some CM goodness.
Although this 7pm BS pisses me off, its timed for rush hour for a reason.
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Ridazz Roulette!
what? I can't hear you Allan. Speak up!