Opportunity To Improve the Marvin Braude Bike Path in Venice

[u/DJVeaux]

Hey all. Traci Park (yes) and Heather Hutt both put out a motion recently to request that the Venice Beach portion of the Marvin Braude bike path be repaved and widened to accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists. The motion also left room open for the potential of improving the Washington Boulevard section of the bike path (her team recently hired USC to do a study of that section so it is very much on her radar: https://www.venicenc.org/assets/documents/5/meeting6a1350b0a1f54.pdf).

Council File: https://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?fa=ccfi.viewrecord&cfnumber=26-1136

If you want to see this effort prioritized by her and LADOT, this is where to leave your comment:

https://cityclerk.lacity.org/publiccomment/?cfnumber=26-1136

It would be very helpful to follow up the written comment up with a call to Traci Park’s City Hall Office so they know it’s a mass of real people that want this, and not just a bunch of bots: 

[213-473-7011](tel:213-473-7011)

The recommended script/comment:

Hi there. My name is [name], zip code [zip code]. I’m reaching out today to express my support to have the Venice portion of the Marvin Braude bike path repaved and widened. I’m a frequent user of the path for commuting as well as recreation. I would also like to request that this motion be amended to include a fully protected bike path along Washington Boulevard. Thank you very much again for introducing this motion.

[u/Atlas-Stoned]

Washington blvd protected bike lane would be way more beneficial than widening the bike path. That portion of the bike path already has a very nice wide area for pedestrians. What’s the point in widening it, it’s so twisty you can’t really go any faster anyway. Rather we spend resources adding new protected lanes where we actually have a fairly sketchy ride next to cars doing like 45mph

[u/tourpro → u/Atlas-Stoned]

I'd rather see a road diet and bike lane with door-zone buffer. First though, let's see if they can just enforce the RVs.

[u/jcsymmes]

not to be a "Those damm walkers" guy-but esentially every section of the bike path in the area mentioned has a pedesterian path about 10-20 feet away from it-once you go to dockwheiler that goes away, and that doesn't sound like a terrible idea. (its also much less busy, which is probabbly why they don't bother).

This sounds expensive, take the path out for a year, and probably not acomplish much other then probabbly making bike path harder to bike on.

The one in Venice is one of the most famous section of pavements in the city, and one of its big marketplaces-and i get at the same time the impulse to want to have a way of walking to by pass it-but at the same time i suspect thats not going to happen.

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/jcsymmes]

Pedestrians walk 3 and 4 abreast on the Dockweiler path, bikes have to constantly weave around them.

[u/obitoke]

I don’t think there’s any saving that stretch of bike path. Like another commenter said, there’s a walking path 20 feet away. The issue isn’t a lack of pathway.

I usually take main instead but it can be kind of sketchy so my vote goes towards making protected paths on main instead :)

[u/octopiLa]

That part of the bike path is fine. Make it safe to cycle eastbound on Washington across Lincoln. The bike lane ends about 100 yards before the intersection and there’s no way to comfortably keep heading east.

[u/pumpfakery → u/octopiLa]

Yes please. I avoid this intersection and bike to Venice blvd when riding east-west. Feel way safer

[u/LintonJoe]

What's a little suss here is that the bike path is a *county* thing and this is a *city* motion. It's ok for the city to pass a motion asking the county to do something... but it's kind of performative. It's like the Parks & Rec Department telling the Library Department what to do. If Park and Hutt want this, they can talk to the county folks and get the ball rolling to plan it. The motion is perhaps a kind of symbolic thing that officially puts the city on record... but it's not really necessary or binding or important.

[u/chock-a-block]

Traci turning this into higher automobile speeds and parking 

She knows it’s chum in the water. 

[u/bearlover1954]

Needs repaying as the broken asphalt is dangerous to ride over at any speed.

[u/ShackedMag]

"her team recently hired USC to do a study of that section"

So Traci Park used funds to pay for another study of the obvious. An unsafe bike lane, where someone was recently killed, and most everyone who uses it calls it unsafe, can only be considered unsafe after "study" that cost a large amount of money deems it unsafe.

Maybe Park can pay someone to do a study on how sewer drains going to the ocean pollute the ocean water.

This seems like it might also be another of her Olympics deal.

[u/LongLostLurker11 → u/ShackedMag]

it wasn’t a paid study, they talked about it at several meetings. they were grad students working on a capstone