I’m on my bike every single day.
It’s the perfect way to get around WeHo. I ride for work, for exercise and for fun.
The bike lanes that the city wants to install on Fountain Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard seem intended for people like me … but honestly I don’t really need them. And I don’t think they’re what’s best for everybody who lives, works or drives here.
Currently, the only bike lanes of note are the ones that start at Gelson’s on Santa Monica and continue west toward Beverly Hills. You feel a little safer riding on these but they’re often blocked by Metro buses, delivery trucks and cars trying to parallel park.
So you’re usually left with two choices: street or sidewalk. Getting anywhere in WeHo requires a combination of the two.
(West Hollywood allows bikers to ride on sidewalks when there is no bicycle lane available. Bikers must ride with traffic [not against], yield to pedestrians and ride safely. As of June, you can ride your bike on the sidewalk anywhere in unincorporated L.A. County, too.)
There are many streets that are simply not made for bikes — Fountain is one of them. It’s too narrow, even for vehicular traffic. You don’t want to ride on Fountain unless you absolutely have to.
Santa Monica isn’t as bad, even the parts without bike lanes.
But when I plot my routes through town, I take the back roads. Willoughby, Waring, Rosewood, Norton, Hawthorne, DeLongpre — all of these offer a calmer, safer east-west passage than Santa Monica or Fountain.
No, it’s not the unbroken speedway that the city is proposing, but it’s good enough for me.
What the city wants to do with Fountain and Santa Monica will disrupt the lives of too many people who depend on those roads to get across town. Who depend on those parking spaces for their guests or their customers, or whose leases don’t include a parking spot.
Up to 37,000 cars travel down Fountain every day. At most, there are 145 bicycles that use it daily.
The city expects the removal of two lanes on Fountain to reduce traffic by 900 vehicles every hour. 600 of those will be diverted onto Santa Monica or Sunset. The drivers of 250 cars per hour will simply decide not to make the trip, the city oddly believes.
And how exactly are more bottlenecks in traffic going to reduce emissions?
The plan, at present, is short-sighted and half-baked.
Perhaps the “streetscape enhancement” City Council is now aiming for will make the massive upheaval of Fountain and Santa Monica worth it for the average WeHoan.
But the reality right now is there are many more drivers than cyclists who need the roads, and they need all the road they can get.
Bro needs to touch grass. Needs to learn about the concept of induced demand, and how cars are the single largest contribution to climate change, and how car infrastructure has displaced and impacted Black communities not just in LA but all across this country. Wanna fix LA’s traffic? Make it easier not to drive.
Huh?
Spot on. Weho is really good at making this worse. This is a perfect example
Dutch who stumbled on this article via reddit, is this what you call “american exceptionalism”? “Journalist” writes articles without a single reliable source
“And how exactly are more bottlenecks in traffic going to reduce emissions?”
Within our city, Fountain has one lane of vehicles from the East @ La Brea and one lane of cars entering from the West @ La Cienega. It is only between these two points the road widens to two lanes in each direction. Please explain how reducing the entire segment of Fountain down to one lane in each direction will create a bottleneck?
While it may not look like a bottleneck, it will appear as an unending crawl W to E and E to W.
It is not Weho’s responsibility to provide a freeway on fountain, through the middle of our city, so people from Pasadena can get to Century City or Santa Monica. Fountain is, or was, a beautiful street that has been hijacked by cars. Consequently, there is no street life. Data proves protected bike lanes make the car traffic-flow smoother and the result is the road is safer for everyone… including drivers. Two lanes of traffic with no left turn lane encourages reckless driving. Spending a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk is so 20th Century. The world is… Read more »
I agree with this article. Removing 2 traffic lanes on Fountain is a terrible idea. The road is already bumper-to-bumper in morning rush hour (west bound). Our city is heading in the wrong direction on this item. Most roads expand…eliminating 2 of the 4 lanes is a short-sighted, terrible idea and will bottleneck traffic. If speeding is an issue, get police to issue speeding tickets.
It’s a disgrace to real journalists that you can pass this piece of writing as “op-ed journalism”. No research cited for backing these claims, no sources, no data just “here’s an opinion I have and it’s true because I believe it”
its a disgrace that you want to take away somebody else’s thoughts or opinions. If you have an alternative view submit your op-ed but he does not have to do research to have an opinion because I see him riding his bike every single day.
“ its a disgrace that you want to take away somebody else’s thoughts or opinions”
Nowhere did I claim this. I would like to see Mr Garcia back up his proposal /opinion with reliable research / facts.
“ but he does not have to do research to have an opinion”
Ummm yeah he does, that’s like the most basic thing you can do to form an opinion??
his research is his on the road training on a bike daily. where are bike lanes working? they are all over.. a super failure on san vicente, — where are they working, post your photos not your projections.
A majority of those bikeriders are like those people who bring their dogs into the supermarkets, both have this sense of entitlement.
You clearly have not rode a bike on a city street with a vehicle around you or attempted to walk across a street at an un-signalized intersection during rush hour, because if you had, you’d realize who truly exudes a sense of entitlement.
Wehoville is REALLY against the safety of bike riders in Los Angeles, it’s disgusting.
thats pathetic, Brandon is a bike rider and entitled to his opinion. Arent you projecting that your against cars? Or are you entitled to your opinion too?
“And I don’t think they’re what’s best for everybody who lives, works or drives here.”
“What the city wants to do with Fountain and Santa Monica will disrupt the lives of too many people who depend on those roads to get across town. Who depend on those parking spaces for their guests or their customers, or whose leases don’t include a parking spot.”
Unpopular opinion: Life is better when you can walk and bike everywhere. Ya’ll care about cars way too much and don’t care when bike riders get hit or worse, die.
Im not for removing the car lanes for the bike lanes, so hard to understand your post.
Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, but opinions aren’t really worth anything when research and history disagrees with them.
Mr. Garcia, based on his opinion piece, seems to be unaware of what has been internationally known by experts for quite sometime. Namely, that car-dependent infrastructure has been a major mistake of the last century. Information on this topic is widely available to laypeople through the internet. I strongly believe that if he was
right, that is your opinion.
LA is very spread out. Bike lanes are not going to see me riding my bike to work from Weho to West LA. Get real.
Baloney
I want to know who paid for this article. It is clearly a “hit piece.” The best lies are also ones founded in truth. This person may use a bike “everyday” or maybe it is almost everyday, or just on regular convenient days, and the same for the other “opinions” in the article. Some is funding/donating for this, it’s blatantly obvious. No idea if they will even let this comment post, as WeHoVille does have a history of censorship and corruption. If anyone knows who is putting up the money, please let us know.
now that’s funny … lemme know if you find any envelopes of cash addressed to me lying around
“Up to 37,000 cars travel down Fountain every day. At most, there are 145 bicycles that use it daily.”
That’s because it’s so unsafe and unwelcoming.
I bike 4 miles on Willoughby every day to get to work, and it’s a dangerous experience.
The *Car brained* author of this Op/Ed has no idea what he is talking about. More bike lanes are the solution in 2023, not endlessly expanding our roadways to accommodate more private vehicles.
I’m glad you’re able enough that you don’t feel you need bike lanes. I’d only been bike commuted a couple months when I was doored across from the Troubadour (25 yards before the start of the bike lane). The door opened into my bike, my shoulder hit the door, and I was thrown into traffic. Luckily the car behind me was able to screech its brakes and not run me over. For five years i bike commuted through WeHo. It was a harrowing, dangerous experience. Anyone who isn’t reckless or pigheaded about it, would NOT bike WeHO from end to… Read more »
Get a car. Sheesh