Pedaling His Bikeway Plan
San Gabriel bicyclist wants to reconstruct the old Arroyo cycle-way into an elevated highway from Pasadena to Downtown.; NEXT L.A.: A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis.
SUSAN MOFFAT. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 29, 1995. pg. 2
Bits and pieces of paths exist that could be connected into a smooth, easy ride into Los Angeles, roughly paralleling the Pasadena Freeway, but separated from the noise and fumes by the Arroyo Seco flood channel. The route is 10 relatively flat miles--a reasonable ride even for a sedentary office worker. At an easy pace, it would take 30 to 40 minutes.
The right of way is already largely in public hands--a big hunk of it lies in the green strip of parkland that hugs the 110 Freeway through South Pasadena and northeastern Los Angeles. And 6 1/2 miles of the route already exists or is under design. The only way to get people to use those currently fragmented paths, argues [Dennis] Crowley, is to make them go somewhere--namely Downtown.
That bridge is already being planned under prodding by Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who is pushing to extend the existing Arroyo Seco bike path across the river to meet the planned Los Angeles River bikeway, now under construction and scheduled to be completed within a year.
Dennis Crowley does seem a bit of a bike nut. There are the 17 bicycles he keeps at his home in San Gabriel. There are the flyers he hands out featuring historic photos of old bike paths.
And there is the gleam in his eye as he describes his dream: a bicycle freeway from Pasadena to Downtown Los Angeles.
"Imagine!" he exhorts. Imagine a sycamore-shaded bikeway hugging the curves of the Arroyo Seco, no SigAlerts, no stoplights, just the fragrance of eucalyptus and the sound of your own breath.
Imagine whizzing past motorists stuck in traffic as you glide from the Rose Bowl to Union Station. Take a shower at work, put on your tie and you've finished both your daily workout and your daily commute.
"You could get there faster than a car at rush hour!" enthuses Crowley. Less smog! Less fat! More muscle!
Take a closer look at his vision, and it looks less and less crazy--and begins to seem, well, obvious. For one thing, a bikeway once existed here--along the right of way that now carries the Pasadena Freeway. Several miles of bikeway were built as a toll road by 1890s investors.
They were capitalists in high-collar shirts, not granola-munching environmentalists. Bicycling was the high-tech transport of the time, and they expected to make a profit. Then along came Henry Ford.
Now Crowley, a construction manager by trade, wants to revive the cycle-way as a precedent-setting elevated bike highway, with on-ramps fitted with electronic tollbooths, breakdown lanes, call boxes, drive-through refreshment stands and all the amenities automobile drivers now enjoy. Whether his futuristic vision of an ideal bikeway ever comes to fruition, though, the makings of a more modest bikeway are largely in place.
Bits and pieces of paths exist that could be connected into a smooth, easy ride into Los Angeles, roughly paralleling the Pasadena Freeway, but separated from the noise and fumes by the Arroyo Seco flood channel. The route is 10 relatively flat miles--a reasonable ride even for a sedentary office worker. At an easy pace, it would take 30 to 40 minutes.
The right of way is already largely in public hands--a big hunk of it lies in the green strip of parkland that hugs the 110 Freeway through South Pasadena and northeastern Los Angeles. And 6 1/2 miles of the route already exists or is under design. The only way to get people to use those currently fragmented paths, argues Crowley, is to make them go somewhere--namely Downtown.
Build it and they will come, he says. It works for auto freeways, which generally fill up as soon as they are built--why not for bikeways? In fact, many other cities have found that their bike trails are jammed with riders as soon as they are constructed.
Boston's 11-mile Minuteman Bikeway, which also runs from the suburbs toward the center of town, got 9,000 riders a day even before it was paved. The Washington and Old Dominion trail in the suburbs of Washington gets 2 million users a year, including many bicycle commuters.
In Orange County, the Santa Ana River Trail carries 500,000 bicyclists a year. Southern California beach bike paths are jammed beyond capacity on weekends.
Crowley guesses the Pasadena bicycle freeway would attract 3,000 to 10,000 round-trip riders a day, boosted by Pasadena's active cycling community. Admittedly, 20,000 trips on bikes instead of cars is a tiny dent in the smog. But it would mean a 14% reduction in traffic on the Pasadena Freeway.
All that is needed to turn a bunch of disconnected, primarily recreational bike routes into a rudimentary bike freeway is 4 1/2 miles of asphalt through Montecito Heights and a bridge across the Los Angeles River.
That bridge is already being planned under prodding by Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who is pushing to extend the existing Arroyo Seco bike path across the river to meet the planned Los Angeles River bikeway, now under construction and scheduled to be completed within a year.
Crowley figures his bikeway will cost $10 million, and he hopes to attract private investors, just like the original. But if you give the bikeway a more modest design, it could actually cost less than that, say experienced bike trail builders.
Boston, for example, built its Minuteman Trail in 1992 for just $2 million, including the renovation of 11 bridges. The 45 miles of Virginia's Washington and Old Dominion trail were built for $13 million in the late 1980s.
Crowley argues that $10 million is peanuts for a 10-mile trail--that's the cost of about 250 yards of the planned Blue Line light rail along much of the same route. Moreover, there are millions in federal funding available for bikeways under programs designed to reduce street congestion and air pollution.
Last spring Crowley took his idea to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the chief funder of bikeways in the county, with the blessing of the three cities involved. The MTA turned him down. But Crowley did get the Arroyo Verdugo Subregion, a consortium of five foothill cities, to include his bike freeway in their bicycle master plan.
Now Crowley needs to mobilize bicyclists--and would-be bicyclists--to support his plan. Will many of the thousands of recreational bicyclists and current auto commuters in Los Angeles get behind bike commuting?
Dennis Kneier is one former bicycle commuter who says he would use a bicycle freeway if it were available. He used to ride from San Marino to his office job Downtown until he got sick of fighting the traffic on surface streets and started driving again.
Kneier is a partner at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche, and president of the Los Angeles Rotary Club--the kind of guy who might have been among the investors in the original California Cycleway. Kneier likes Crowley's general idea, but--he's a CPA, after all--he still needs to be convinced of its financial feasibility.
So does Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan--an avid bicyclist and entrepreneur. Crowley tagged along on one of the Mayor's regular public rides and handed him a flyer touting his bikeway.
The mayor's official response is that it's "premature" to give the idea a thumbs up or down. But a spokesman relates that the mayor thinks "the concept is a good one."
Riding Around L.A.
There are about 175 miles of off- road bike paths and more than 200 miles of on- street bike lanes in Los Angeles County. Dennis Crowley's vision of a dedicated route from Pasadena to Downtown Los Angeles is the most ambitious of several proposed bikeways being discussed by riders or officials.
Current paths
- Brown Creek Trail
- Sepulveda Basin Bikeway
- La Tuna Canyon Trail
- Santa Monica
- Ballona Creek Trail
- South Bay Trail
- Laguna Dominguez Trail
- Lario Trail
- Shoreline Trail
- Coyote Creek Trail
- San Gabriel River Trail
- Los Angeles River Trail
- Arroyo Seco Trail
- Upper Rio Hondo Trail
- Duarte Bikeway
- Walnut Creek Trail
Planned / proposed paths
- A. Chandler Boulevard Path
- B. Extension of beach bike trail
- C. West L.A. Veloway and Santa Monica Boulevard Median Path
- D. Culver Boulevard
- E. Exposition Boulevard
- F. Pasadena / Los Angeles Path
- G. Extension of Los Angeles River Trail
PHOTO: COLOR, Dennis Crowley's proposed bike path is overgrown in many areas with brush.; PHOTO: COLOR, Dennis Crowley uses Arroyo Seco as makeshift bike path, as do some Highland Park youngsters. Below, Pasadena- to- L.A. cycle way at turn of the century.; PHOTOGRAPHER: ALEX KOESTER / For The Times; GRAPHIC-MAP: COLOR, Riding Around L.A.
Credit: TIMES STAFF WRITER
