LA Once Had A Bicycle Freeway. What Happened To 1900's Cyclist Dream?

It's hard to imagine, but before Los Angeles went completely car-centric there was another travel obsession: Bicycles.

The craze took off in the 1890s, and the boom was so big that cities around the nation formed bicycle clubs, including ones in L.A. County. There were about 30,000 cyclists between L.A. and Pasadena, and the latter boasted its own track for riders to race on.

Bikes were great for short treks, but long-distance travel remained challenging. Traversing around the hills from Pasadena to L.A. was a bit of a time-consuming feat and the roads weren’t that safe for bikes. So one man had a big idea: A 9-mile elevated path for riders and other horse-less vehicles to get from Pasadena to downtown L.A.

The California Cycleway, as it was called, was hailed as a marvel of transportation design and believed to be the first in America. So with so much excitement, what happened? And why aren’t we cycling on it today?

Here’s how it went from a big dream to a forgotten “ride from nowhere to nowhere.”

How the California Cycleway began

The cycleway as it passes through a wooded area along the Glenarm Curve.

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Courtesy Pasadena Museum of History

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Pasadena Museum of History

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Millionaire Horace Dobbins, a former mayor of Pasadena, planned a bicycle tollway to stretch from the city’s Hotel Green to the historic L.A. Plaza.

The cycleway was to be a 9-foot-wide wooden path with fencing on each side. At its max height, it was expected to be upwards of 50 feet tall, and so smooth that a bicyclist could coast downtown without touching their feet to the pedals.

It also came with an estimated price tag of around $187,500 (roughly $7 million today). But this was during the bike boom, and when it came to "lovers of the wheel," money was no object. With plans for a casino along the route and two full stations at either end, the cycleway stirred a lot of excitement. But not everyone was on board with it.

Among the dissenters, several property owners along the route didn’t want the path and actively organized against it. They felt it would lower property values and hinder horse riders from traveling around the route.

The first rides

Nonetheless, Dobbins secured the right-of-way to start building. On New Year’s Day in 1900, the first 1.3 miles opened to the public, with riders paying a 10-cent toll for a roundtrip.

The first man to ride on it was Otis Bedell, a Quaker inventor, who brought a group of people to ride with. Other vehicles were allowed too, like motorcycles and horseless carriages; Dobbins himself drove an automobile on the cycleway and it was reported that the 500-pound machine “did not make the structure quiver.”

Horace Dobbins in his Oldsmobile on the California Cycleway circa 1902.

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Courtesy Pasadena Museum of History

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Pasadena Museum of History

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Ticket sales started off well. Reporters enthusiastically predicted the cycleway’s popularity, calling it “a literal sky route to Los Angeles.” There were a few accidents on the route through the months, but the cycleway was generally considered a safer route for riding.

So what happened to the cycleway?

After its successful launch, it looked like the rest of the cycleway would soon be constructed. But just nine months later, in early October, Dobbin’s company announced it was suspending construction. The route never got beyond Raymond Hill.

“Yes, I have concluded that we are a little ahead of time on this cycleway,” he told the L.A. Times.

The problem? There weren’t enough riders using it. With just a mile or so of track open, the grand experiment wasn’t as alluring as he’d hoped. The 9-mile plan was all about connecting two major cities, and without that, there was little need to regularly use the short cycleway.

The California Cycleway in Pasadena.

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Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

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Meanwhile, the automobile was slowly gaining popularity, so Dobbins said he made a decision to “lie still” until enough car drivers were on the road to make the freeway a reality. But the switch to cars was a slow roll. According to cartographer Eric Brightwell, L.A. motor vehicle registrations were as low as one car per 130 Angelenos in 1903.

“Pasadena was even less — further proof that neither Angelenos nor Pasadenans had yet surrendered themselves to car dependency,” Brightwell wrote.

The cycleway was all but officially abandoned. Dobbins held on tightly to his expensive right-of-way and denied reports in 1904 that he’d turn it into a monorail.

For the next couple of years, the cycleway would show up on delinquent tax lists. Residents urged the city to tear down the unused “eyesore.” Dobbins asked the city council for approval to tear the structure down and in December 1907, the California Cycleway Company listed the steel bridge for sale.

As years passed, cars did eventually gain dominance, so Dobbins later founded another transit company. He used this new business to acquire the right-of-way where the cycleway would have been. Dobbins planned to build a semi-underground electric railway for cars. But of course, we know what happened: The train wasn’t completed and the right-of-way was eventually sold off.

The idea of a separate path for bicycles had merit, and iterations have come since through plans like the L.A. River masterplan's greenway project.

But Dobbin's particular dream to connect Pasadenans and Angelenos is already a reality.

The Arroyo Seco Parkway took over much of where the cycleway would have been — and that 110 Freeway stretch is what Southern Californians have used ever since.