Downtown LA Installs Green Bike Lanes

The streets of downtown LA are going green--literally.

A 1.5-mile long stretch from Cesar Chavez Avenue to 9th Street has turned bright green just for bikers. It is the first downtown bike lane and the first full-color lane in the city.

The LADOT Bike Blog says the new bike lanes connect a "diverse array of neighborhoods including the Historic Core, Civic Center, Olvera Street and Chinatown."

The colorization is intended to decrease collisions with bikers, increase bicyclist comfort and motorist yielding behavior. Bikers must stay in the lane except for avoiding debris or turning left. Drivers, on the other hand, can only merge into a bike lane to turn after yielding to bicycles. If they want to turn into a driveway, they must turn from their own lane.

It is 6 feet wide with a 4-foot buffer zone. Adjacent to the bike lane on the west side of the street is an 8-foot parking lane.

The new lane is part of a 2010 L.A. bike plan, which will give bikers direct access to many downtown attractions. L.A.'s master plan includes a 1,680-mile bicycle network and more than 200 miles of new routes every five years in an effort to become more bike friendly.

LADOT is looking to add green bike lanes to Main Street to create a north-south bike traffic flow. Future plans also indicate that bike lanes will be installed in Boyle Heights, as well as on Figueroa and Flower.

Bike lanes may facilitate cyclist safety, but it is not cheap. Bicycle lanes tend to cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 per mile. The green paint added $50,000, according to the Department of Transportation.