North end of the new Van Nuys Boulevard bike lanes, Metro Orange Line station on the right.
Continuing Bikas’ journey through Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley’s recently-installed bikeways: 0.7 mile of new bike lanes on Van Nuys Boulevard. The new lanes extend south from the Metro Orange Line bikeway/busway to Chandler Boulevard.
This portion of Van Nuys is one of L.A.’s crazy-excessively-highway-wide streets. I’ve been known to joke that it’s so wide, the city should build housing down the middle of the street. Bike lanes were easily added without removing anything else.
The project has plenty of connectivity. The south end connects with existing lanes on Chandler Boulevard (a recent portion of which I wrote about here.) The north end of new lanes connects with the Metro Orange Line Busway and Bike Path. Someday, hopefully soon, they’ll extend just north to the Van Nuys City Hall and a bit further north to, the true center of power in the Valley, the Valley Bikery – located on Victory Boulevard, just east of Van Nuys Boulevard.
These lanes were approved in 2011 in the city’s Bike Plan and in the city’s 5-Year Implementation Strategy. Their implementation was announced via a list of the City Department of Transportation (LADOT) website, which states that they were completed on April 15th 2012.
walkeaglerock
05/30/2012
3 lanes in each direction with center turning lane and curbside parking– that’s all? It’s no worse than Colorado Boulevard or portions of Eagle Rock Boulevard (see the intersection of Eagle Rock Boulevard and Verdugo Road)
Joe Linton
05/30/2012
@walkeaglerock – I agree – there are lots of L.A. streets with lots of excess capacity.
(I haven’t measured but I think that this part of Van Nuys Blvd feels wider than Eagle Rock Blvd – maybe due to actual street width, maybe due to patterns of development. VNB surrounded by large off-street parking lots, ERB more traditional zero-lot-line Main Street buildings.)
walkeaglerock
05/30/2012
The widest part of Eagle Rock Boulevard is 130ft, with other portions at about 120ft I just checked Van Nuys and it is coming in at about 105ft. (this is all according to google maps). A couple of observations off google that support idea Van Nuys feels wider– the center median seems to be rather wide (and painted as opposed to ER Blvd’s planted media) and yes, definitely land-use too)
Herbie Huff (@meekadjustments)
05/30/2012
Nice! I feel great about these lanes, having gotten off the Orange Line to ride the frightfest that is Van Nuys Blvd. many times.