Bike Lane Installation Underway on Main Street in Venice

Photo by Rebecca Joyce/@sevenphoto via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

Main Street in Venice is going on a "road diet" and today crews began the work of removing one car lane in each direction to make room for new bike lanes. The new bike lanes will run between Windward Circle and Marine Street at the Santa Monica border.

"Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the district and chairs the council's Transportation Committee, said the project will likely cause some traffic back-ups during rush hour, but will be mitigated by the center turning lane," notes City News Service.

The project involves the re-striping of the lanes, and does not affect parking lanes. The work will be done by the L.A. Department of Transit, and is expected to cost just over $50,000.

The bike lanes on Main took just about a year to become reality, after a proposal was first presented in January of last year.

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By Lindsay William-Ross in News on January 20, 2012 4:01 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Liam Bean

Traffic is usually backed up around there anyway. This is a good idea though; as long as the cyclists actually use that lane that is.

David Huntsman

Liam, cyclists have the bike lane reserved to them but you shouldn't automatically assume a cyclist is supposed to be in the bike lane. It is not expected or required under California law. There are many practical and safety reasons why a cyclist rides outside of a bike lane. All legal. In fact, the California law regarding the use of a bike lane is written only for those situations when a cyclist is traveling "at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic" and, as you say "traffic is usually backed up around there anyway..." I ride through there at about the same speed as motorists drive cars there. Consider also that cyclists are, in fact, traffic and if many cyclists are on the road, their speed is, in fact, "the normal speed of traffic" on that road.