I think this is still an excellent idea for a lot of areas, especially Los Angeles where the traffic is horrendous all the time. It wouldn't take much to build this alongside major freeways so that you won't have to claim eminent domain and go through private properties. This would take up a max of an extra 10-15 feet on the side of freeways. Now, in LA a lot of freeways are built out so much that there's not even 10-15 ft without hitting a building or house, but there are a lot of areas this could work. Sometimes it takes 3 hours to go 10 miles in LA during rush hour, and this could make everything better.
As an LA motorcyclist, I can tell you that almost no one would want to bike 10-15 ft. from the edge of the freeway. It's extremely loud and unpleasant, and there's a significant amount of debris that would need frequent removal.
The 237 bikeway in the South Bay runs on either side of a 6 lane freeway. Sometimes it's right up next to it (on the other side of a metal fence) and other times it's a few dozen feet away. It can be a little intimidating. I try not to think of those NASCAR crash videos where the cars go right through the (far stronger) fences and just pedal on.
Most of the good bikeways around here are their own routes which exist on their own merits and don't sync up with the roadways. The few which manage to parallel a highway and are still enjoyable have a decent separation.
Such a bike lane would be loud and unpleasant, but if separated from the road it would be similar in loudness and unpleasantness to the Williamsburg, Queensboro and Manhattan bridge bike lanes, which are widely used.
That said, it would likely not work because the distances are much further in LA, and following the path of the freeway is not going to be the most direct route on a bicycle.
No. The cars and semis will be going 55-70 mph, typically 5 lanes each way. It is incredibly loud. The bridges you mention don't have traffic like this.
Listing all the problems with any idea of a bike lane along a freeway will tire me out (starting with: there's no space, high barriers are regarded as ugly, there's no way to make the interchanges work, the freeway under road overpasses will permit larger road widths only with enormous expense, we can't even build carpool lanes and light rail, people won't stand for the construction delays). Let's not do this.
Agreed mturmon; an open-air LA-freeway-adjacent bike path poses many technical, aesthetic, scale-of-access, cost and possible health issues.
I do not think a freeway-adjacent bikeway would be popular with cyclists if open-air. LA has a freeway-adjacent bus rapid transit line (the "Sliver Line") which isn't very popular at 12K avg boardings in March 2013, compared to the far more successful rail-route-replacing "Orange Line" at 30K+ avg weekday boardings for the same month.
The Orange Line has a parallel bike lane which is popular with cyclists and pedestrians, even into the evening as it's well-lit and well-landscaped.
The barriers might be there anyways because of nearby housing. I'm not sure how it works in the LA area, but along 101 in the bay area had plenty of biking options (I used them personally), and it seemed to work out. However, although I could deal with it for commuting, its not something I would do for pleasure.
On the Manhattan Bridge bike lane, my current daily bike commute, you ride within a couple feet of incredibly loud subway trains. It's definitely louder than the segment of my old daily bike commute when I rode on Interstate 5.
Cycling right next to a freeway sounds gross. All you need to do is take some back roads, slap down some speed bumps, sharrows and other things to slightly annoy cars, and call it a day: http://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/348902
Nice and cheap, plus you get bikes away from cars entirely, not simply relegated to the side of a high traffic, high speed street. I think it's the best option for any city in the US where there just isn't the political will to do anything more.
Yes, that is a fantastic option, and why Minneapolis has such great bike path, I believe. But, you've got to have the tracks first, and I'm not sure many cities do. And even then, you can't choose where your paths go.
Are there any concepts where you can pave down the center and on the sides of tracks? To keep the track useful for later use, but to still allow cyclists to use them?
I'm not speaking of city tracks, where the rails are integrated with the pavement. I'm talking about tracks where they have ties in the center, and using concrete in the center between the rails to create a path.
Also, I'm not implying using it for high-speed trains and bike trails at the same time. I'm suggesting being able to go back to use of the paths for trains, and not tearing the tracks out.
3 hours to go 10 miles. It's amazing that people could let it get so bad. I remember watching shows as a kid in the 1970's about how you couldn't get Californians out of their cars. They're not the kind of people who believe in mass transit. They just thought you should make the roads wider.
LA is slowly improving its transit situation from what it used to be, though unevenly. A light-rail line from downtown to Pasadena was opened in 2003, and the subway system is finally being extended, it seems, through some of the more densely populated area of the westside: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_Extension
The Metrolink commuter-rail system also runs 500 miles of track, and is now a reasonable option if you commute during typical rush-hours. However, it has very little service outside traditional commute hours, and its overall ridership is not very impressive, especially given the size (it gets less daily ridership than the much smaller subway does).
The biggest issue with public transit in LA for commuting is the last mile problem. It's similar to the "last mile" problem of fast fiber optic cables to slow copper wires to homes. Here the issue is efficient and fast rail transit to extremely inefficient bus system for that last few miles from stations to work. I once tried to plan my commute using public transit and here's what I found:
1) Drive to rail station for park and ride? About 10 minutes, great.
2) Light rail to station nearest to my work place? About 30 minutes and covers 90% of the distance, awesome.
3) Station to my work place? About 1 hour using bus system...
I'll just drive instead since even with bad morning traffic I'll still get there faster because the bus system is really really bad.
I get a bit upset when I think about it because I can get there 90%, but that last bit is ruined by the stupid bus system.
In Europe they have these paths from a bygone era commonly known as sidewalks. In the US, we frequently have ditches which drivers treat as roadside garbage dumps.
Why don't you bridge the last mile with a bike? I have never been to L.A., but you should be able to just buy yourself a 7th hand old beater and park it somewhere next to the commuter station, then ride the rest of the way.
LA's MTA has a bike locker rental program, find out here [1]. It's worked for me; stash a beater bike at the "work end" of the train commute and ride the "last mile".
If the "work end" is in Burbank, here's the info on their bike locker rental program [2].
