Long Beach, Hermosa Beach Install Sharrows, L.A. Lags Behind

The idea of putting sharrows on Los Angeles streets has been on the books since Council President Eric Garcetti introduced a motion in June 2008. The motion was simply for a pilot program--not even citywide--to see how they work. The original motion asked for them to be along Vermont Avenue between Hollywood Boulevard and 4th Street as well as Fountain Avenue between the 101 freeway and Hoover Street.A year and a half later and nothing. "If LADOT can't commit to a timeline to put paint on the ground, we should just dust our hands on working with the Department because they're clearly stone walling us," snipes Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA.

He's right. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation under the leadership of Rita Robinson is failing the bicycling community. The simplest of things that every other city seemingly can do, Robinson can't. Bay area cities have had them for years. Long Beach and Hermosa both recently painted them with conception to implementation in months. All Garcetti asked for was two streets to be test streets. Some 18 months later, it's still stuck on committee agendas with staff reports. Hear the next staff report at next week's transportation committee meeting where the proposed Bicyclist Anti-Harassment Ordinance will be discussed.