The Failure of the New Sixth Street Viaduct Bike Lanes
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- Опубліковано 20 лип 2022
- Why everyone is so mad about the new Sixth Street Viaduct bike lanes.
Sources:
Bridge model photos by Model Center Inc/ Michael Maltzan Architecture/ HNTB: www.modelcenterinc.com/semi-d...
Michael Maltzan interview video from RISD: • Michael Maltzan | RISD...
Shots of bridge demolition/ construction and renderings of bridge from LA BOE & HNTB: www.sixthstreetviaduct.org/
Michael Maltzan presenting the model: • Sixth Street Viaduct R...
End video: www.reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgow...
Music: L'envie by Rrrrrose Azerty: chezmonplaisir.bandcamp.com/t...
Further Reading:
Stewart Hicks’s excellent video on the viaduct: • How This Bridge Is Abo...
Michael Maltzan’s LA times interview: www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Sahra Sulaiman’s twitter thread on the bike lanes: sahrasulaiman/sta...
Michael Schneider’s article on the bridge: / a-love-letter-to-los-a...
When road engineers state that they're following "state dot guidelines" it's like they're completely missing the point that our current guidelines suck ass and shouldn't be followed
wild Alan Fisher appeared!
I wrote a city engineer when I almost got into an accident which I even saw coming because of a big apartment sign by the road. He said he checked the viewing triangles and they were within specs, but barely. This comment makes me want to write back quoting this. Even better that the comment turns out to be from Alan Fisher.
Changing the state guidelines would require reforms if not revolution.
Agreed.
That's a refusal to take responsibility by the engineer. The most important word is "guidelines".
The bit at the end really shows how useless plastic flexi-bollards are. They're basically placebos but unlike placebos, they're counterproductive because it can give a false sense of safety
Since it just opened, and now a tourist destination, I saw many people parking their cars in the bike lane along the bridge on the Boyle heights side…
It's psycological separation, but not true physical separation.
Chicago uses the plastic bollards. They're a joke.
@@chrisjohnson7929
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False sense of safety works both ways. It still means that the average driver won’t run over the bike lane in a stress free environment the same way they don’t randomly drift lanes.
Rubber and plastic to protect cyclists from 2-ton death machines going 60 mph? That is not what the Vision Zero philosophy is about, but it is something you end up with when you have zero vision.
Sue the LADOT and change their 'handbook' immediately. How could this plan pass even the first view by the planning commission? Who is in it? Complete idiots?
"That is not what the Vision Zero philosophy is about, but it is something you end up with when you have zero vision." That there is an apt statement
Bike lanes are like this pretty much in public street also, 0 protection if someone runs you over going 50mph. Either way you are going to die. Idk what’s worst, getting run over by a car or getting shot riding a bike through the wrong block in LA
@@bootypirate69 In the Netherlands cars can mix with bicycles up to 20 mph, up to 30 mph separated bicycle paths are required, up to 50 mph a barrier (trees, grass, enough distance) is required, and above 50 a completely separate route far away from the highway.
Chance of getting shot while you are an innocent citizen are almost zero in the Netherlands, criminals kill criminals over here, and police hardly have to use guns.
Doesn't mean nobody gets killed, but usually it is within the family or small circle after years of quarrels and problems.
I completely agree. I feel like biking should have been prioritized over walking in this case. The bridge is so long and exposed it just don't see people wanting to walk across it. The concrete barrier also makes it seem even worse for biking, you have no way to escape or avoid a crash if a car comes into the bike lane. I'd probably just bike in the walking area.
Cyclists should absolutely ride in the walking area. No reason to risk your life because of a design mistake.
@@mariusfacktor3597 This wasn't a mistake, it was designed this way on purpose. The moment you 'design' a bike lane that doubles as an emergency lane for cars, you are way beyond making a mistake but enter the realm of negligence.
Cyclist are going to ride I the walking area and this completely disappointed it ended up being just another car centric block of concrete in the city !
@@dantegianoli3267 Agreed. The fucked up thing is the reason this even needed to be a bridge was to get over two freeways, the 101 and the 10. So the problem was too much car infrastructure and their solution was... more car infrastructure.
I can't see many people walking the length, biking however is a different matter.
"[Adding a bike lane into Boyle Heights] would require removing a travel lane"
Um sorry what exactly do they think cyclists are doing in that lane if not traveling?
What they mean by travel lane is _car/truck_ lane.
@@erkinalp Should have been a metro/tram/bus lane, what were they thinking when they put this monstrosity in place?
Because the people there are poor and have to use a car to drive VERY far away to their work places. So far that if you wanted the proper transit methods like the comments above are saying you would spend 100 billion dollars or more trying to instill the correct modes of mass transit.
I’m short people would complain because that would add additional traffic to their 12 hour long shift away from not seeing their spouse and children.
@@dutchman7623 Yes, exactly.
@@LeeeroyJenkins >price everyone out of the inner cities and then try to use them as virtue signalling for when you want to fuck over cyclists
America sure is a place lmfao
I gotta say I never understood how people are supposed to use the bridge. Crossing such a massive span of unshaded concrete is unacceptable as a “multimodal” solution.
Imagine walking across in the summer, the concrete makes it feel hotter too. No shade is crazy for peds
A lower deck solution for pedestrians and cyclists would have been cool ... literally cool. 😉
@@hendman4083 Yeah, it's surprising why they didn't do it that way. There's a highway bridge in my city with 3+3 lanes on top and below it is railway bridge with pedestrian walkway on one side and bicycle lanes on the other so they are nicely in shade and partially covered from rain. Everyone is separated from danger and everyone is happy/not restricted.
@@BASvist i think the reason for excluding the double deck design is because the city wanted to integrate all forms of transportation to each other, creating the feeling of community. The goal was to “weave” LA together.
@@EpicPlayer954 Pedestrians love the sense of 'community' with fellow vehicles at highway speeds
The worst part is they could totally convert the sidewalk at the end of the bridge to a multi-use pathway. Hell, take 1-2 feet from those oversized highway-width lanes, and you could install a sidewalk-height bike lane on both sides!
This is a failure of vision at all stages.
This just seems like corruption to me ..just install some half assed, expensive thing made by a friend of the mayor . Later it comes out that is shit and it gets rebuilt again by another friend in a year or two . Maybe I'm cynical cuz that's how corruption works in my country and it's just incompetence in this case
Narrowing the lanes will also slow car traffic down. There's tons of room on that bridge.
@@mariusvanc but for it to be effective there needs to be trees on the sides and/or a barrier so drivers feel less safe so they actually slow down.
@@mariusvanc yes. That’s the point. Slower cars means less high speed vehicle crashes and less traffic deaths. It also incentivizes the use of other modes. Slowing cars on these kinds of roadways is a good thing.
*sidewalk-height* will just cause pedestrians to walk in the bike lanes
It's fucking unreal that they spent over half a billion dollars with many years and many teams of people in planning, and STILL they treated cyclists as an afterthought. This would have been different if the lead architect stuck his neck out and said "NO, I will not compromise on protected bike lanes". Or if the LA mayor said that. Or if a high ranking engineer said that. Just ONE person needed to stick their neck out and nobody did. Nobody gave a crap in the end. Absolutely unacceptable.
This should have been a biking and pedestrian bridge only. Would have costed under $100M and actually provided something of value that wasn't already there (there's another car bridge literally one street over on 7th street). To remedy this, they should remove the car lanes entirely. Bus, bike, and pedestrian only.
This is LA's moment to demand change. We need to shut down this bridge until those bike lanes become protected. They cannot forgo basic safety for arbitrary guidelines. We will not put up with that any longer.
Nah.
LA's bridge project is abominable, and is very far out of line with the government's supposed goal of achieving carbon neutrality before 2050, but it is also not ethically right to hold millions of commuters hostage over the ignorance of a few engineers and politicians.
Target the people responsible for this issue, not the people who commute because they can't afford the $4k rent in LA.
@@99certain45 I respect that. But it's incredibly easy for cars to go between Boyle Heights and DTLA. Like I said, there's another car bridge just one street over on 7th street. There's also another one on 4th and one more on 1st. Not to mention, cars can just get on the highway that the new bridge needs to go over.
We can shut down the new bridge to cars (which will not inconvenience them in the slightest) and keep it open to bikes and micromobility. There's still no comfortable way to bike between Boyle Heights and DTLA.
@@99certain45 They can take the seventh st bridge. People who drive cars are in fact not people until the very moment their foot hits the ground again. Fuck em.
Seriously dude. The Romans could have built this thing faster. Edit* didn’t see you get buck wild crazy at the end right there. I’m with the other dude. Naaaaa
Someone referring to themselves as an "Avid Cyclist" is always a huge red flag.
The "I'm not racist, but..." "I'm not sexist, but..." of cycling
Yes, also that usually means they cycle on the weekends in a trail / park for fun recreational purposes, and don't even try to begin to understand the needs of bike transit in the actual city on a road. I cycle multiple times per week because it's a good form of transit in my city and I don't consider myself an "avid cyclist."
They are the ones wearing Lycra and driving their $3000 race bikes to ride the posted 15MPH mixed-use path.
People can't never be satisfied 😒
@@DeaconDee80 eating two Walgreens paper receipts does not a meal make.
The argument that vehicles should be able to pull to the side just shows the priorities. There are two car lanes, so cars should be able to go around a broken down vehicle. Instead bikers are forced into car traffic by the vehicle blocking the bike lane (which makes an already unsafe situation even worse).
Those drains seem like a real hazard to narrow bike tires as well.
Also, crossing that bridge in summer looks like a nightmare for pedestrians and bikers. No shade, lots of concrete - the heat must be unbearable. Why not employ a bi-level design, with well shaded bike and pedestrian paths below the car lanes. The bike paths pass under the bridge at the ends, so there seems to be enough height available.
Having a bike path under the bridge would have been more convenient than using a car path way. The city should not be slowing transportation; traffic is very expensive and cost billions per year.
There is not enough cyclist in that area for that demand. There is more people who walk and cross that bridge than cyclist.
@@jasonlewis460 supply and demand depend on each other. We have seen this with cars: build 8-lane highways and guess what: more people will be driving. That's called 'induced demand'. If you provide proper and safe bike paths then people _will_ bike more.
As for "slowing transportation": biking and walking _are_ modes of transportation. Forgetting that is exactly what caused the current mess, where everything is built for cars and cars alone.
It's LA, if there was shade - homeless would take over within 3 hours
@@kev2523 So instead of fixing one problem we create another one and let everybody else suffer as well.... sounds like a plan!
@@stephanweinberger sounds like you don't live in LA
So this ‘separated’ bike lane also goes from nothing to nowhere as there aren’t any dedicated / safe bike lanes after the bridge.
I understand the various constraints of the design, but maybe it’s a good idea for all those officials to pay a visit to the Netherlands and see that it’s perfectly possible to construct an entire system of safe bike lanes and paths.
Bike usage in LA (& the USA) won’t go up if the infrastructure is not safe and convenient enough
Also - fantastic videos!
Officials would get the funding to build bike lanes but would use all on an all-paid expense work vacation to the Netherlands and call it “study phase”😂
Just scooter it during the curfew, East LA foos don’t know how to act
They could have just extended the sidewalk a bit and painted a strip in the middle giving enough space for both behind the protectibe concrete
The US will never understand good roadway/cycle design
if you turn right off of the bridge headed west you literally turn into a bike lane in the arts district.
I know America is a long way from this, but in the future it would be sweet if bike and bus lanes counted towards travel lanes in federal funding analysis
No one is riding across a west coast state on a bike unless they are homeless. Because that would take multiple days in the middle of nowhere most of the time. Cities need bike lanes. There’s no point running a bike lane along every interstate. (It would be cool though tbh)
You can't incorporate European ways into American lifestyles, America is too vast of a country and no planning is put into business and industry in retrospective to travel time of persons locations. They plop anything anywhere. That's another reason passenger railroading went defunct. With no base network of anything from a to b in a daily basis random connections serve zero purpose.
@@LeeeroyJenkins not my point
@@jasonw833 nice word soup. Want to try again and make a point
@@LeeeroyJenkins LA *is* a city, you dolt.
Also it's possible to take cycling lanes out of the cities; bikes actually make the best sense at a somewhat lower population density than urban centers have. We have a lot of terrible suburbia that needs redevelopment, and bicycling might be a necessary intermediate step.
Exactly! The world didn’t fall apart when the bridge was unavailable and under construction, and it won’t if you only allocate one lane in each direction.
Guess what happened to the Colorado river while the Hoover dam was being filled? According to your logic. “We don’t have to worry about climate change affecting the Colorado river because it was almost nonexistent while the dam was getting filled up.”
Just because something was temporarily suspended doesn’t mean it’s a permanent fix.
@@LeeeroyJenkins Fortunately cars are driven by people, who can choose to bike, or choose to use public transit (when it's available!)
Water has to flow, cars are not the same.
@@strawwagen They aren’t rich or work in areas close to them. If they did do you think they would risk bankruptcy getting a 2005 used car? Look at the statistics. They are at or near the poverty line due to the high housing cost that eats away their income. They also don’t want to leave because they have lived their for multiple generations (back when it was cheaper).
Almost 40% of them work multiple jobs just to sustain their family. They spend enough time away from their family that they aren’t going to spend 3+ hours a day riding their bike to their workplace.
So if they got rid of two automobile lanes, that would mean that 60% of the cost of that boondoggle was spent on pedestrian and bike lanes. That would be a fiscal dumpster fire and enough to get elected officials recalled, imo.
@@LeeeroyJenkins public transit in the US is such a joke
It’s absolutely disgraceful that a brand new bridge construction would have bike lanes that look like they were a retrofit.
Over $500 million dollars. In Vegas the bridge would be less than half the cost.
Poor usa no matched to chinese infrastructure
Poor usa no matched to chinese infrastructure
@@darwinmagsino190 china infrastructure is sand and bamboo look up tofu dreg
"There is a lack of leadership" applies to all (most?) non car infrastructure. It's sad and maddening to see.
Someone will die in that bike line someday, and the designers/city know it. I really don't understand that lack of priority given. I understand the rest of the city is a joke for bikelanes, but at least make this the goal that you want the rest of the city to follow.
It's because they don't want a bike lane they really want a breakdown lane 😡🔥😡🔥😡
Since Bicyclists do not pay gas taxes that are used to build roads and bridges why the fuss. This bridge was a huge mistake. The car and motorcycles who pay the taxes are the last considered.
No because no sane cyclist would ride a bike along cars moving at 60 mph with zero protection. I can't see any reasonable person using that bike lane
Ah yes, bike lanes, otherwise known as the bad driver’s extra 4 feet of road, and in this context, with fun sounds and things to knock over
despite so much effort and money being put into the design of the bridge, it seems rather bland. it’s just a blank slate of light gray with some interestingly shaped supports across a pre-existing sea of even more concrete
Yeah it definitely will not age well either.
Its going to be Covered in Graffiti & homeless are going to be sleeping in the circular sidewalk leading up to the bridge. Oh yeah, & takeovers.
@@cmmartti In LA? With no shade? In the summer? I doubt there'll be many pedestrians using this.
This bridge should be just one big elevated green space with no vehicle access. That would really make a statement & benefit the well being of the surrounding community & of the city. I noticed that during the bridge’s construction, there was minimal impact to the vehicular congestion of the surrounding area. It was proof that a new bridge for the purpose of vehicular traffic was really not necessary.
How can this be possible in 2022 seriously. How much would've it cost to add a concrete wall between the bike the car lanes.
Literally nothing. All it costs is including it in the design in the first place. Change the barrier position from being between the pedestrians and cyclists to being between car lanes and both non-car spaces. And then a little bit of cost to pave the bike lane from there in red asphalt, at the same height as the sidewalk.
@@mrmaniac3 but they couldn't have done that since they needed a space for vehicles to pull over in case of an emergency.
San Diego updated both of its bridges over the SD river with concrete walls protecting the bike lanes with no issues...then again, they actually provide bike paths in the Mission Bay and Ocean Beach areas unlike LA's useless bridge
yikes video at the end . Now i am kinda scared. It needs to be repaired asap
People will die and nobody will care
Agree, living in other areas of the US proves that LA is just the backwards city that's behind 40 years of infrastructure. It's hard to have decisions happen, and hard for others to listen to change needed in communities that need it the most. I'm glad to be leaving soon.
Where are you moving to?
It doesn't even have to be hard. My town in exurban Florida is very conservative, exurban and blue collar, and yet we have no issue building dedicated bike infrastructure.
I really doubt LA is behind
Meanwhile its cousin down south, San Diego, is actually building out an okay bike network across the more urban neighborhoods, like Pershing bikeway to connect eastern neighborhoods with the downtown two-way bike paths, bike lanes on all roads in Balboa Park, and connecting the Bayshore bikeway with Barrio Logan and eventually downtown.
Why do cars need two lanes? If a car breaks down, stand in the right lane and turn on your god damn hazzards, everyone else can go around in the other lane. What makes it ok to reduce cycling lanes from 1 to 0 but not ok to reduce car lanes from 2 to 1? I refuse to understand that.
You must have never broke down on the freeway before.
@@frank8348 Yes, drivers going 70 while texting, making a phone call, and drinking a cup of coffee run into stopped cars all the time. And used to even before mobile phones and cup holders too.
A reminder that basically ALL bike lanes are expressly designed to be a "shoulder" for parking disabled vehicles as well as "errant vehicle recovery." But I completely agree with your idea to make the outer lanes bus-only as there's clearly no reason for that much space for cars given as you said, the fact that it was closed for several years and thus provided no lanes at all.
That’s because sidewalks exist. And as you can see based on obesity rates in the US people don’t use them except for in tourist areas(which usually already have a bike lane so people don’t get run over by bikes).
"Errant Vehicular Manslaughter" is a good name for a punk band and a terrible vision of the real purpose of your bike lanes.
@@LeeeroyJenkins people don't use sidewalks in the US because everything is so far apart you can't really do anything without a car in most places
Why not design it like the Golden Gate Bridge? Bike lanes on one side and pedestrian lanes on the other. That way everyone's behind a barrier and cars still have their shoulders.
Big problem with having a designer create a bridge. All renderite and functionally broken.
Strongly agree. The bicycle lane should not be used as an emergency lane.
You could also shown the New York Brooklyn bridge with the new bicycle design.
Great video! Too bad they basically built a stroad connection between two important areas of the city. This is what you get when a bridge is designed by auto-centric engineers and an architect who cares more about making an artistic statement (rather than understanding what design is most comfortable and safe). I totally agree that if people survived not driving that route for six years, then one lane in each direction should work just fine and would have been a driving improvement. These guys really just need a lesson from Dutch designers.
There are great examples of beautiful design, functionality for all modes of transport, and safety.
This is an LA Icon about how NOT to make a road.
Yes, it could've been done better. But considering for what passes for bike lanes here in LA, this is a big improvement. I ride across the bridge regularly and there is rarely much traffic, which goes to the "one lane would have been sufficient" theory. But the most dangerous aspect is the section just prior to the bridge where cars are entering the freeway and cyclists are really taking our lives in our hands to cross. After i make it past that part, the bridge bike lane is luxurious by comparison.
The Bridge still looks unfinished. It could do with either paint or a stucco color coat on some of the parts. Industrial concrete does not look finished.
Thank You, I was thinking the same, Bridge needs some decoration or something
Trust me the Taggers will have the bridge looking like crap in about 2 years. . Example what was it almost
2 years of wasted money and time cleaning the murals on the 101 thru downtown. Within 6 months loser taggers had murals destroyed again. So why bother painting the 6th bridge.
I know right? It only looks nice at night when the led lights turn on...
Washington D.C. has created some really dangerous bike lanes that double as left turn lanes. It's already bad that drivers making right turns do not look for pedestrians and bicyclists who are crossing that intersection. Now they have a totally new and unfamiliar lane where drivers cut in front of bicyclists to make left turns.
Just two or three days ago a young foreign service officer was killed on her way to work at the state department when a dump truck turned right into her path. And this was the second time in less than a month where a dump truck killed a bicyclist in D.C.
You should see some of the bike lanes they’re putting in Petworth right now. Some are decent, but others give cyclists a false sense of security in high risk intersections.
@@jamie7664 I still firmly believe pedestrians, bikes and cars should rarely if ever share the same space. Anytime they mix them together, people get hurt. Heck, I worked with a woman who was struck by a bicyclist while trying to cross the street near Franklin Square park a few years back. She was killed.
At least there aren't that many Barnes Dances in DC. The only one I know of is near Chinatown. And I think they added a new one at 14th and Irving.
I stumbles upon your channel and was hoping it had a ton of old videos I could binge. I’ll keep checking back :) It’s a great channel!
I’m currently exploring this topic on UA-cam so I don’t have quite the expertise on what channel I’m watching. I know NJB …
Anyway, I thought your channel was huge because the quality was actually really decent and the content was very informative. I wish more videos exaclty like this one! I enjoyed it very much!
We went through the same struggle in Boston with the Longfellow Bridge reconstruction and restoration. The WHOLE superstructure of the bridge was being redone, but since the project started in the early 2010s, just a few years after the 2009 transportation legislation reform unified all state transportation functions under a newly created MassDOT and all Charles River Basin crossings formerly owned (stupidly) by the Department of Conservation & Recreation (MassDCR) were transferred to MassDOT, there were a lot of things preventing shifting the guard rails to include the bike path-DOT mostly being a highway department, pre-existing requirements in the scope, etc. When I saw this being promoted proudly by the project account on Twitter, I facepalmed so hard because we had literally spent millions of dollars making the same mistake on a historic bridge less than a decade before... And this was NEW CONSTRUCTION. 😞
Exactly what I thought when I saw it. The crash that happened on the first day perfectly shows why this bike lane is a disaster. The car went right through it and hit the wall, luckily there wasn't anyone on the bike lane.
And there probably never will be anyone in the bike lane because of that sadly. 😔
outside of the car takeovers, there really isn't that much traffic on the bridge. I cross it several times a month and most cars are getting on the freeway - which is a FAR more dangerous place to ride than the bike lane. I wish they would address that.
"This bridge has been designed not with pedestrians and bicycles as an afterthough, but integrated from day one". Just sad. It's been designed for cars, and for cars only. Everything else is an afterthought. There's no question about it. What a wasted opportunity.
Didn't notice my headphones were not connected and watched the whole thing as a silent movie.
Thank you for making this video. I couldnt agree with you more. I wonder what ever happened to the stairs that were supposed to be on the arches.
When people who write requirements are out of touch with reality
Revolution?
Wow after a year of nothing you came out swinging with 2 really good videos in the past month. Keep it coming dude there's plenty of stuff about LA that would make great content.
just want to say i really enjoy your narrative style and am especially fascinated by your Los Angeles focus. I sincerely hope you keep making content!
There is a cheap and easy fix!
You don't need a footpath AND a cycle lane on BOTH sides of the bridge. Just put a bidirectional shared foot and cycle path on one side. Obviously, it needs to be much wider, but it can be at least twice as wide because you only need one, and you can eliminate the bollards on both sides, freeing up another foot or so. If I understand correctly, the highway connects to only one side, so I guess put the shared path on the other side.
Or you could just put a bidirectional bike path on one side and a bidirectional walking path on the other. You don't need walking paths on both sides.
Or ban bikes.
@@vancouver4sure Ban bikes 🤣🤣
@@jamestucker8088 nope. It's good to have it on both sides because then you can take pictures from both ends and different angles. Lol they thought about that!!! Heheh.
I think another issue will be the barrier separating the pedestrian and bike lane. For this bridge it seems if you want to stop and take a photo, or just rest while biking across the bridge this will be a problem. You either have to pull the bike over the wall, or leave it leaning on the wall in people's way. For such a large scenic bridge it seems a pretty big afterthought.
I ride across the bridge semi-regularly and did exactly this (stopped to take a pic) and leaned the bike against the wall. There really isn't that much traffic across the bridge because most cars are getting on the freeway before the bridge and there isn't much cycling traffic to begin with. Yes, it could've been better but compared to what we have throughout the majority of the city passing for bike lanes, it's definitely nowhere near the worst.
I like the idea in another video: If women don't feel bike lanes are safe for themselves and their children then they won't use them. In which case they aren't safe.
Big surprise - a few days after opening some ruffians racing their cars on the bridge at night crashed through the bollards. Thankfully nobody was using the bike lane at the time, but just imagine how tragic such an accident would have been if if happened during the day when more people would be cycling.
There's a clip of an incident -- probably the same one you're talking about -- at the very end of the video.
@@dreimer2112 yes i missed that lol. I have a feeling this won't be the last ...
Wow that’s terrible. I don’t live in LA I live in NY but we have a big concrete barrier on the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge. I wouldn’t feel safe riding next to speeding cars on that bridge. Definitely understand why ppl would be upset
They could have made a sidewalk for walking on one side only (kept the same width) and then two way biking lane on the other side. Problem solved.
In NYC, on the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges, one sidewalk is bikes only (both directions) and the other side is pedestrians only. That would be the best approach. There's no need for a pedestrian sidewalk on both sides of a very long viaduct.
@@danhardhat2 Exactly. Same on the Golden Gate Bridge in SF.
I love LA and really appreciate their efforts in building out the metro system to actually work. This project is really disheartening that they messed it up so bad, hopefully one day we can get over this car-centric thinking. Another group I follow is Sunset4All to turn Sunset Blvd. Into a proper multi-modal throughway. Efforts like these are what make me think one day LA may be a great place to walk, bike, and take the metro.
Chad go back to Missouri
Great video, really goes to show if infrastructure doesn't connect fully it can't be used
Who walks on this viaduct? I can't imagine there are more pedestrians than bikes.
And...it's clear that some people need to have their driver's licenses PERMANENTLY revoked.
Or life.
It's not just the unprotectedness of the bike lanes, it is the lack of continuity. The end of the video gets into it a bit. They recently painted some unprotected bike lanes west of the bridge, but there is nothing east of the bridge. The best bike lanes east of the river are on 1st street, and even they break up for a few blocks between that bridge and the Pico/Aliso station (the ones on the 1st street bridge only go west and they are less protected than the 6th street bridge).
There are so many routes in Central/East LA that I ride that have parts in it that make me uncomfortable to ride. The river routes are great, but getting to any of them can be very sketchy.
There is so much potential for LA to be a great biking hub, but I wouldn't really recommend it to a casual rider.
There’s something like 11 crossings in the vicinity of this bridge. There was literally no reason to build a traffic bridge for squillions of dollars after tearing the old one down.
I'm so glad to have found your channel! I love this LA centric infrastructure content!
It looks like there are pedestrian walkways and bike lanes on both sides of the bridge. Wouldn't it make sense to have 1 pedestrian walkway on one side and a bike lane on the other side so there's an option for both pedestrians and cyclists to be protected?
There are identical bike/pedestrian lanes on either side. The problem would be for pedestrians or bikes crossing to "their" side at the ends of the bridge - particularly the dangerous east side where cars are getting onto the freeway and there is no signal or crosswalk. Having ridden across the bridge, that is the most dangerous part of the whole project for cyclists.
Great video and great channel! Keep doing the good work!
underrated channel
amazing work!
Seems like a deck under the traffic lanes would have been a nice place to put a pair of bike lanes and a pair of flanking walkways
Wouldn't suffice because entitled bike riders want the view and scenery with their route.
I think it can be largely accomedated by the space beneath, plus it provides the shade needed to not roast atop the span today. Never have I been there though, so maybe?
You've gotta be kidding me. Thy worked on a bridge for 10 years and that's what they came up with for a bike lane. Just ride your bike on the pedestrian lane.
There are bike lanes where I am, but with how close everyone drive’s there can’t be any chances.
Nothing like riding your bike alongside semi trucks and catching a Metro rail in the middle of a freeway interchange. Never change LA...
If I had to bike across that blinding expanse you can bet I'd be riding up on the sidewalk. Terrifying.
I agree to an extent. I'm 32 and I ride a bike 5-10 miles virtually every day after work and on weekends with my wife. I own Multiple brand new vehicles so I choose to ride for enjoyment / exercise and not necessity. We do some errands, post office, gas station, convenient store, pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, sometimes we'll even stop for dinner at a restaurant. My town and surrounding towns have 0 bike lanes. I am usually forced to ride either on sidewalks (which I am aware is a violation) or literally with traffic 45mph with no shoulder.. sand, broken glass, sewer drain grates, hubcaps, parts of bumpers and fenders, and all types of hazards on the narrow 1-2 ft wide shoulders, where they DO exist. At the end of the day when you're on a bike you are considered a vehicle. I would take bollards and rubber bumpers with a clean, designated bike lane over most of what the rest of the country offers. I believe that a good amount of Americans don't ride bikes or walk and instead choose to drive because that's how the infrastructure is designed and not because they are lazy. I think more efforts should be made to encourage and support bicycles in general. All things being equal, I think the design could have been better, but everything can always be better, and at least an effort was made.
Just found your channel today and I have been enamored immediately
Ooof, that ending clip really drove home how there's no protection
Also the rubber curbs are angled so it makes it easier for an errant car to go over them.
I think the designer should have visited the Netherlands, we have thousands of bridges with different mobility modes, examples enough how you should do it.
I haven't been able to actually drive/walk/bike across that bridge yet because every time I go by there it's been closed due to all the takeovers and grafitti
I'm just staring at the shaded cavity under the bridge that would be perfect for travel in any form that doesn't get air conditioning.
It is absolutely right to question the thinking behind the lane count. If the city and residents can operate without the bridge, we should reconsider how many lanes become available to cars upon re-opening.
I'm not even a bike guy, but considering the amount of budget and planning they had for this bridge, they should have done a better job integrating safe bike travel.
Fascinating video. & the complexity of needing a breakdown lane for cars to pull over/out of traffic is important... since it's brand new, I hope these issues can be adjusted as needed....
A shoulder lane was probably always part of a redesigned bridge. Modern vehicle bridges benefit greatly from having a shoulder lane. Without a shoulder a disable vehicle has nowhere to go and can frequently create a cascade of accidents if it stops in the traffic lanes. Full width shoulder lanes are frequently meant for bicycle traffic whether marked or not for bicycle use.
In the last decade what started as talk of cycle tracks emerged into protected bike lanes. What appears to have taken place is the bridge's emergency shoulder lane was made to appear like a protected bike lane, but it is really not protected at all from misguided motor vehicles. The drainage grids are not encouraging for bicycle use. They'd be fine for an emergency shoulder.
What should have been done is ample space be provided for all known uses. There doesn't appear to be any tight width restraints nor would widening the bridge greatly changed its profile appearance. The bridge should have been made considerably wider to allow the shoulder lane to function chiefly as an emergency shoulder. Then a concrete partition barrier, bike lane and sidewalk.
Having all those pillions and wheel blocks looks awful. Its what is done to an old bridge that is really past its intended use. I also doubt that most people are going to run over these rubberized barriers if their motor vehicle is about to become stranded. There will likely be people that stop their disable vehicle in the traffic lanes. Police and rescue will know to run over these barriers, but the main hope for having emergency shoulder lanes on bridges is that seasoned motorists will have the good sense to move their motor vehicle onto the shoulder lane before it comes to a disable stop. Another use for bridge emergency shoulders is emergency vehicle access.
This does require thinking out of the box, just thinking.
i'm not a car owner so i bike every day here in montreal -- a big, dense city -- and looking at that bridge scares me. i'd be intimidated biking on that. i'm accustomed to all kinds of bike lanes, protected and unprotected, as well as biking on city streets with car traffic. but there's something scary about a 4-lane bidirectional road with freeway access, with merely a whisper of protection and little signage or even painted lanes. if they can't bring themseves to put up real barriers and keep cyclists safe, what exactly is stopping them from painting the bike lanes in a bright, unmissable colour and/or striping to visibly separate the bike lane from the rest of the road?
in my experience, you can't get drivers to wrap their minds around an unprotected bike lane unless you create a visual distinction.
I have been hit 3 times on the open road in 38 years of riding, each time doing exactly what a bicycle was supposed to do & obeying all traffic laws. 2 types of people hit bicyclists, those not paying attention, & those who want to show how much more powerful they are than a non person bicyclist. It is amazing what people will say & do when they are in a pickup & we are on a bicycle. Standing face to face on foot, they have nothing to say. The first time I was hit it was from behind & I would have died w/o a helmet because I went head first in to a steel grate. The woman told the cop, "I thought the bicyclist would get out of my way, but he didn't." The people who are observant while driving don't hit bicyclists, it's the people who just don't care. Stripes, pylons, & cones are great, but the people who don't care will keep hitting bicyclists.
The pedestrian fence design seems pretty hostile to motorcyclists as well.
I think that the wall only protecting the walking path was a good Idea as had it protected both bike an walking path, people walk would also walk on in the bike lanes. A prime example is Seal beach, has a designated bike and walking path yet there is always a group of people walking or even standing in bike lanes
Currently, people are doing burnout takeovers on the bridge. It was closed down after some guy crashed his rented Dodge Challenger and ran away from the wreck.
It's at the end of this video.
This is the best video on the bridge so far, it hits all the points clearly. Hopefully local leaders and the people involved in this design take notice. There should be a discovery phase post construction, where they take these shortcomings and adjust what can be changed. It's clear that not a lot of surveys were taken in advance by local residents in addressing the needs and actual wants of pedestrians, riders and automobile owners. It's as if they designed this in a bubble and transplanted the idea into a foreign place.
I guess those cars were squabbling cause that video at the end was straight WorldStar!
I was cycling in a bike lane in Camarillo, CA and was struck by a car. Most amazingly I was spared from severe injuries. Interesting to note that in CA the driver who hit me did not receive a moving violation. The Sheriff's officer who interviewed me at the hospital said that CA law did not allow him to issue a ticket to the driver unless they witnessed the event.......😳
If you make the Right Side Protected Walkway of the bridge Pedestrian Only and the Left Side Protected Walkway Bike Only and remove those ridickulas protrusions sticking out from the barrier on this side you would solve your problem AND! add another lane for cars in both directions.
We have a bridge here in Fort Worth with very similar arches, opened in 2013. The bike lanes on ours are outside of the arches. We do have bike lanes on the approaches at both ends, but no protection for those lanes, not even the plastic bollards. For about a mile from the bridge into downtown we have inconsistent bike lanes that appear and go away in several places. I think this is just because of road width not allowing for it, but my opinion is that it would be safer and more predictable to not have them at all, rather than have bikes needing to merge into traffic at several spots.
One problem I notice with cyclists is that they don't have awareness of what's around them -- their vision is limited to what's in front of them because they don't carry mirrors and can't easily glance behind them. You need that awareness as a basic survival skill because you can't rely on everyone always being in the right place doing the right thing all the time. This is something you learn very quickly on a motorcycle and its applicable to pedal cycles, e-bikes, scooters. We're all road users.
The flaw in the bridge's design was shown up shortly after opening -- it was taken over for burnouts, donuts and general motor mayhem leaving the pristine bridge in a rather sorry state for something that new. Traffic laws are useless if they're not enforced.
Laws enforced, 🤣🤣🤣🤣In LA
Don't forget, cyclist have an awareness advantage over other forms or transportation, hearing. We can hear cars on the road, gauge their distance away, the speed they're coming at. Plus our view is unencumbered by a metal shell. But you're right, the awareness level is such that we always assume no one sees us so we have to pay attention.
Great exclamation point at the end!
Given that they’re now considering installing a center barrier to prevent sideshows, my guess is that it will come at a cost to the bicycle lanes. The bridge is not wide enough to install that center divide while preserving all car and bike lanes. That would leave the pedestrian walkways as the only place for bicycle traffic. Not a huge problem if they borrow a page from the Golden Gate Bridge where one walkway is dedicated exclusively to bicycles (both directions of travel) while the other side is for foot traffic.
I just wanna say I think the bigger impediment to biking is the lack of safe parking. There's no bike lanes by my house but I can ride on the sidewalk most of the way. But I have nowhere to secure my bike once I get there
The bigger issue is a lack of safe infrastructure. Yes bike parking and security is important but we've got to work on the infrastructure to get people out of cars and on more efficient forms of transportation. The two efforts, safe bike infrastructure (which to me is the only way it can be called infrastructure) and bike parking, can happen simultaneously
They could have just combine the walkway with the bike lane and give the other section to cars.
Jesus fucking christ, that bit at the end. I moved to the Bay from NYC a couple months ago, and CA drivers are just on another level of dangerous. Not all of them, of course, but enough that I'm a lot more scared to bike here.
For the meantime, why not turn one sidewalk into a two-way bike lane? Will there be enough pedestrians (compared to potential cyclists) to warrant a sidewalk on both sides?
Sad to see what could have been a real step in the right direction take a turn like that. The final clip says it all.
As we have learned, bike lanes are the least of the problems with the bridge. Epic design fail.
Human life isn't so valuable when there is no money in protecting it. What a monumental fk up.
The hooning video at the end was a surprise and illustrates your argument well.
It would be interesting to see the math based on road data on the probability of a car breaking down and the negative impact of such event on traffic conditions comparted to building a barrier wall to accomidate safer bike lanes.
I fully understand, why the bridge looks like it looks. Its is great!
The biggest issue is, that it don‘t stop bicycles to drive on the car lane to overtake a slower bike.
And most likely, the bike crash will happen on a right turn of a car.
the crazy part...there is a concrete wall already there for the pedestrians, and the bike lanes could have easily been on the same side, had the width (and bicyclists' safety precautions) been planned that way. The Strand on the beach has ped crossing and bike passing all the time. We have to start thinking about the amount of e-bikes hitting the streets as well.
As someone who lives in LA the second I went to the bridge for the first time my first thought was this is a waste of money, and only a matter of time before it’s defaced and people act stupid on it. how the city Council did not anticipate the activities that took place on this bridge is beyond me.
It's the same kind of design of bike lanes that was used for the bridges of the "Panther Island Project" and that only makes my gears grinds even more.
So unfortunate that an engineered-by-an-architect bridge chose to sacrifice bicyclists via a bicycle-lane-as-buffer instead of a true buffered bicycle lane. Your last clip made me share on my twitter feed.
you don't understand, as an avid cyclist
i LOVE being the clear zone
i need my body to help bring a car to a safe and complete stop
I have seen articles talking about this bridge, that is has already become a long block party at night with street drag racing. Has been closed down at least 8 times in the first month from people blocking the lanes and drag racing.
Ah I see you showed some of that at the very end.
Anybody else notice that other bridge didn’t have an emergency lane?