Road Is Still Rocky for Bicycle Commuters

You would think that a city clogged with cars would coddle bicycle commuters.

If lots of people bicycled to work, pollution levels would go down, freeway congestion would be relieved and Lycra outfits would make power breakfasts more colorful.

Alas, biking to work in Los Angeles, as well as most other major cities, is not easy. For the commuting cyclist, drivers in cars at rush hour can be divided into two groups: those who don’t see you and those who pretend not to see you.

The solution, according to bike commuting advocates, is bikeways--paved urban trails where no cars are allowed and intersections are rare.

The Los Angeles area has only a few of these bike-only trails, and almost none of them lead to the major commuter destinations.

“It is just not easy to get these things going,” said city bicycle coordinator Michelle Mowery, who is a former bike racer.

Her office, overseen by the Los Angeles Planning Department, has been working for seven years on its major project--a bikeway along the Los Angeles River--with not so much as an inch of it constructed.

“For that project, we have to first get agreements with all the agencies that control the access roads already there,” Mowery said. “Then we have to widen it to bring it up to state code, repave and design ways to avoid crossing major streets--sometimes you have to go under them, sometimes over, sometimes neither is possible.”

All the negotiating, planning and design work is going to finally reap some real-world results in 1997, if all goes well.

Construction is scheduled to begin soon on the first section of the Los Angeles River Bike Path, as it is officially known.

In the spring, Mowery said, that phase--designated 1A--will be ready for its first bike commuters.

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They will not be able to get a very long workout on it. Phase 1A will stretch from Riverside Drive to Los Feliz Boulevard, a distance of 3.15 miles.

The entire stretch of Phase 1, which totals eight miles, will probably not be complete until 1999, Mowery said. It will then stretch to Spring Street downtown.

Plans also call for the bikeway to be lighted for morning and evening commuters.

“It will be the first lighted commuter bike project we know of in the nation,” Mowery said.

Mowery hopes that connecting bikeways will fan out into the San Fernando Valley and other directions. “The goal of the master city plan,” she said, “is to have the Valley connected with Long Beach Harbor.”

Also slated for this year are a few county bikeway projects, most of which are east of the city.

“We are just finishing a project to resurface and improve much of the San Gabriel Bike Trail,” said Greg Jaquez, bikeways coordinator for the county Department of Public Works.

That trail, which runs along the San Gabriel River, is about 38 miles long. All but eight miles are overseen by the county.

A bike trail is to be built next year near the Pomona Freeway, from Workman Mill Road to 7th Avenue, a distance of about two miles.

Plans call for it to continue east to Pomona for a total distance of 14 miles. Along the way, it will link up with the San Gabriel trail.

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It’s not likely that any construction will take place next year on one of the grandest of bikeway projects--which will link the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to Union Station downtown.

There is historical precedent for this scheme. An elevated wooden bikeway was constructed on part of this route by entrepreneurs in the 1890s. It was a tollway, which is what modern-day biking evangelist Dennis Crowley envisions for the new project.

“We distributed surveys at major bike rides and asked people if they would be willing to pay a toll,” said Crowley, who has been working on the project for several years.

“Everyone said they would pay $1, even though we propose the toll be 50 cents.”

It would take a lot of 50-cent pieces to pay for the project, which is budgeted at $20 million.

“People tell me it would be the most expensive bikeway ever built.” he said.

“I say, ‘No, it will be the cheapest mass transit project ever.’ ”