City Council Unable to Review Bike Transportation Plan, Local Group Galled

After months of expectation, City Council was unable to review the previously scheduled bicycle transportation plan at Monday’s meeting and the delays have left some residents concerned.

The Municipal Services Committee made the decision to send the plan back to staff for reworking last week after meeting with the Complete Street Coalition,  who complained the plan was too weak to properly protect bicyclists.

“Our number one priority is safety; we have decided to look into the matter further so all avenues can be explored,” Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said Monday night.

The outcry by the coalition is in response to both the recent death of a 25-year-old bicyclist along Del Mar Blvd. just north of Caltech campus in June as well as the head-to-head two-bicyclist collision on July 14 that left a 20-year-old in the hospital fighting for his life.

The Municipal Services Committee sent the Pasadena Bike Plan back to the drawing board to add protected bike lanes to the plan and to make the plan “more ambitious.”

A protected bike lane would be between the line of parked cars and the curb, necessitating a large renovation to the current infrastructure.

“As it is, bikes and cars are forced to ride together in the same lanes of travel and it can be dangerous for cyclists when the rules and expectations and the predominant way of doing things is all centered around the auto,” Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association Director Jonathan Edwards said.

Currently in downtown Pasadena no complete, well-designed and safe east-west routes exist for bicyclists, as every street is busy with domineering automobiles.

The Complete Street Coalition would request a design that makes the street safe for all users of all ages and abilities including cars, bikes, and pedestrians, bicyclist groups say.

“The thing that’s so galling is that a lot of cities elsewhere are doing this and Pasadena has fallen behind. Temple City, our little neighbor to the east, is putting protected bike lanes on Rosemead Boulevard,” Edwards said.

Edwards also said the whole city of Los Angeles is putting in 2,000 miles of bike lanes. In Eagle Rock, the Neighborhood Councils held public meetings and hearings with opposition, but now will be implementing protected bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard.

“It’s happening all across the region, Pasadena has just fallen behind. That’s what we said [at the meeting], we could do a whole lot more. We have a serious problem here and something needs to get done,” Edwards said.

He said the Council listened and the agreed with them, and told the department of transportation to go back to the drawing board and put protected bike lanes in the plan and make it much more efficient. Now the plan needs to happen and the city needs to fund it, he said.

“Not only has the plan been inefficient, but the city of Pasadena has shelled out peanuts to actually fund the plan. Other cities are spending a lot more money on actually building these bike lanes than we are,” Edwards said.

Edwards hopes the plan will be revised within 6 months and that the funding might be in place within a year or two so they can be on the road to their 10-year plan, making the full impact for all street users felt overtime.

“Nothing happens quickly in the city of Pasadena. They have been talking about this since the 70’s. But I think the Council does listen to the people,” Edwards said.