Status: Poor; Trend: Stable
If you are wondering how we are doing in the bicycle friendly community, here is an update: It dates from August 2009, and it resides here
Transportation Indicators: Bike Lanes
Proportion of Arterial Streets with Bike Lanes – 2007
INDICATOR
Percentage of arterial streets which have bike lanes;
Total miles of bike paths, lanes and routes.
DESCRIPTION
This indicator tracks the percentage of arterial streets which have designated bike lanes and number of miles of bike paths in the city. The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) conducted a study which found that separated bike paths like the South Bay Bicycle Path that runs along the beach in Santa Monica are generally perceived by the public to be “the safest bikeway facility,” but concluded that despite that perception, separate bike paths do not promote commuter cycling.
The FHA study found that the public consider bike paths useful in facilitating RECREATIONAL, not COMMUTER biking. Evidently bike lanes within commuter arteries and not separate bike paths can potentially attract commute users. For this reason, the city has identified a target of 35% of arterial streets to have bike lanes AND for there to be an increase in the number of bike paths. To illuminate this discussion, please see the definition of Bike lanes, paths and routes in the section below.
PERFORMANCE SUMMARY
There are 130 miles of arterial streets in Santa Monica. Bike lanes are designated on 13 total miles of roadway. Of these, 3.78 miles of designated bike lanes are on arterial streets. That means less than 3% of Santa Monica’s arterial streets have bike lanes, a figure which falls short of the city’s 35% target for 2010. In addition to designated bike lanes, there is one bike path that is 3.11 miles long and 20 bike routes covering 18.78 miles.
STATUS
Poor
TREND
Stable
These statistics show a dire need for more bicycle paths, lanes and routes, but don’t provide any measure of the level of bicycle ACTIVITY which is what really makes a city sustainable. The performance measure needs to be rethought..while important, the number of bike lanes on major arterials is only a small part of the problem, which includes lack of lanes on streets paralleling arterials, lack of bike parking, and lack of bike encouragement programs and most important, lack of significant levels of bicycle use for local transportation needs. If Samohi was able to hit 10 percent bike mode use with a couple years of popsicles and hype, then many other local groups should be able to show results!