LAist: Gold Line Not Helping The Cause

Glen B.

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:34:30 -0800

Did you know that the LA area's first "freeway" was a freeway for bicycles? It was an elevated wooden track built just before the turn of the century by Horace Dobbins, a wealthy resident of Pasadena. It connected Pasadena to downtown LA, running down the Arroyo Seco, along the path of today's Pasadena Freeway.The Federal Highway Administration's web site has a reprint of an article about the Cycleway, first published in the November, 1901 issue of Good Roads magazine.The Los Angeles Public Library's Historical Photographs collection also has a nice photo of the Cycleway.There has also been a proposal to construct a modern version of the Cycleway alongside the Pasadena Freeway following much the same route as the Dobbins' original.

Will Campbell

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:25:53 -0800

I like Andrew's idea to make the Pasadena Freeway a bikes only proposition. Some of the best fun I've ever had on a bike was a morning back in June 2003 when the entire freeway was shut down to vehicles in both directions from its end all the way to Avenue 26 and given over to cyclists to enjoy.

joseph

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 14:47:00 -0800

The five minute reduction doesn't sound like a lot, but in truth it's about fifteen, as the Gold Line's local run is rarely optimal. Besides, 5% under the thirty-four minute optimal route is actually about a 14% time reduction, pretty good. The Gold Line does not suffer utter indignity, as people imagine---it fetches over 1,000 riders an hour, which is not so bad. Like so many other rail transit lines, it would be optimized if the bus service on either end of it were optimized--the lack of appeal, as it so often is, is the failure of last line connections, so many of which run only once an hour as you get out into the suburbs. If there were better bus service between the Santa Anita racetrack and the Pasadena terminus, for instance, that would be very helpful for three months of the year, anyway. And better service to Lake Avenue would be helpful too.