Bike to Work Day is this Thursday!

Walk Bike Glendale – in partnership with the City of Glendale, several area bike shops, and the Glendale Community College – will be hosting 7 pit stops around the City on Bike to Work Day this Thursday, May 17.  The pit stops will be in the morning, generally running between 6:00 AM and 9:00 AM.  See the map below for the exact details on each pit stop.  Stop by a pit stop on your way to work for snacks, refreshments and goodies.  We want to make your trip to work as enjoyable as possible on Bike to Work Day by having these pit stops.  A Google Map with all our pit stop locations is also available here.

And when you’re done with work that day, we’ll be hosting a “Bike from Work Happy Hour”.  Stop by the Tavern on Brand at 208 N. Brand Blvd for a drink and/or food.  We will be there between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM.  There will be a 2 for 1 beer special as well as 15% off any food purchase.  The happy hour is not a City cosponsored event.  You can RSVP using our Facebook event page here.  

We hope to see you at both the pit stops in the morning and for drinks in the evening at Tavern on Brand.  

Bike-to-School-Day is Tomorrow, May 9!

Tomorrow is National Bike-to-School Day and Walk Bike Glendale parents Kara Sergile and Ross Hirsch will be organizing a bike train to R.D. White Elementary School.  Also participating will be R.D. White Principal Risse and Glendale Police Officer Josh Lunah.

The bike train to R.D. White will start at 7:30 AM from Dryden Street and Geneva Street.  For more information, contact Kara at kara.kwsconsulting@att.net or phone at (818) 637-2872.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any bike trains organized at the other schools.

Volunteers Needed for Bicycle Skills Safety Rodeos !

Walk Bike Glendale, Glendale Council PTA and the Glendale Safe Routes to School have been awarded a small grant through the California Department of Public Health – Safe and Active Communities Program. The grant is designated to fund bicycle skills safety events for elementary school age children.  We have planned two bicycle skills safety events for the month of May, during National Bike Month!

We will need many volunteers to fill various shifts and positions for two upcoming Bicycle Skills Safety “Rodeos”. The first rodeo will be held on Saturday, May 5^th at Fremont Elementary in Glendale.

The second rodeo will be held on Saturday, May 19 at R.D. White Elementary in Glendale. There will be two volunteer “shifts” for each date….9:00am-12:30 pm and 12:00N-3:30 pm.

We will need help with all of the stations…..set-up, registration, helmet check station, bike check station and on the skills course. Please let me know what date, time slot and what type of station you would be interested in working.

We need to finalize volunteer support by Monday, May 1st, so that we can adequately prepare and train our wonderful volunteers …so your quick reply is greatly appreciated!  Lunch and waters will be provided for ALL volunteers. 

If you have any questions or would like to sign up, then please email WalkBikeGlendale@gmail.com

Honolulu Avenue Road Diet Community Meeting – Thurs. April 26 @ 7PM

There will be a Community Meeting this Thursday at 7 PM for the Honolulu Avenue Road Diet project. The Honolulu Road Diet is a test project that the City will conduct on Honolulu Avenue between approximately Whiting Woods Road and Orangedale Avenue.  The project, starting in June, will replace two travel lanes with a left-turn-center-lane and buffered bicycle lanes going each direction.  After 9 months, the City Council will make a decision to make permanent the road diet, or reverse back to the existing street design.

In a previous post, we highlighted the benefits a road diet can result for a community.  Most importantly, we highlighted the increase in safety that has resulted in previous road diet projects across the country.  Honolulu Avenue is a street that could produce similar benefits since it’s relatively flat and contains a low traffic volume compared to most major streets in Glendale.  If you’ve ever walked, biked or even drove on that portion of Honlulu Avenue, then you know yourself how dangerous it can feel to be on that street!

The meeting will be a great opportunity to learn more about the project and get your questions answered. It will also be a good opportunity for the Traffic & Transportation staff to find out the level of community support for the project.

For more information on the project, please visit the City’s website at: www.HonoluluRoadDiet.com

We have setup a Facebook event page here you can use to RSVP to or to share with your friends and neighbors.  We’ve also established an online petition here that you can sign in support of the project .

If you can’t attend the meeting, then you’re encouraged to send an email to the City stating your support.

Please contact us at WalkBikeGlendale@gmail.com for any more information.

Below is a “before” and “after” diagram of what Honolulu Avenue will look like after the project is completed.

Montrose History Bike Ride – May 12

We are pleased to announce our first Montrose History Bike Ride to be held on Saturday, May 12 at 10 AM.  Starting location will be at the Montrose Bike Shop at 2501 Honolulu Avenue.  The ride is co-hosted by Walk Bike Glendale, Montrose Patch, Glendale Historical Society, Montrose Bike Shop, Glendale Community Services & Parks Department, and the Glendale Public Works Department.

Join us for a family friendly bike ride in Montrose as we make stops and learn about historical landmarks along the way. The ride will go at an easy pace and be fun for all ages and skill levels!

For more info or to RSVP, email WalkBikeGlendale@gmail.com

We also have a Facebook event you can RSVP at here.

CicLAvia Ride from Glendale

This Sunday, April 15, is CicLAvia! (Check out their website and Like them on Facebook for more information on what CicLAvia is).

There will be several groups meeting up in Glendale to ride down to CicLAvia together. Check out the map and the times of departure (we’ll keep updating this until Sunday), and join the Facebook Event!

View Larger Map

Important Upcoming Meetings

There are two important upcoming meetings that you should know about.

Draft Glendale Bicycle Transportation Plan

The City Council is reviewing the proposed Bicycle Transportation Plan in a special study session on Tuesday, March 27 at 3:00 PM.  The meeting will be held at City Hall Council Chambers at 613 E. Broadway, Glendale, CA.  It is CRITICAL that community members share comments that support progressive bike friendly treatments. Biking is on the rise in all the major cities but the Glendale’s City Council must see support from the community to make it happen here.

You can review the Bicycle Transportation Plan at www.bikeglendale.com

If you can’t attend the meeting on Tuesday, then there are a few other ways to share your thoughts with the city.  Please take a moment to submit your comments and ask your friends and neighbors to do the same.

1)    BikeGlendale.com 

The City has set up a comprehensive website — www.bikeglendale.com — with a link to the full Bicycle Transportation plan along with updates and summaries. Scroll to the bottom and there is a field there to add in your comments.

2)    E-mail us 

Walk Bike Glendale will be submitting a compilation of comments to the city. E-mail us at WalkBikeGlendale@gmail.com  by March 26 at 5pm and we’ll be sure the city staff and council members get them.

3)    Contact the City Council directly

Like all politicians, the council is elected to represent the voice of the people, and sometimes the best way for them to hear that voice is to get a phone call or an e-mail.  Below is the list of all five Glendale City Council Members.  Use their emails to send them your comment.

Laura Friedman    lfriedman@ci.glendale.ca.us
Ara Najarian      anajarian@ci.glendale.ca.us
Rafi Manoukian    manoukiancouncil@gmail.com
Frank Quintero    fquintero@ci.glendale.ca.us
Dave Weaver   dweaver@ci.glendale.ca.us

Remind the city that the importance of the plan is for the betterment of the community, not just for cyclists. Pedestrians, drivers, business owners, visitors, EVERYONE will benefit. Safer streets provide a safer community, a pleasant driving experience, plenty of parking when visiting the city’s jewels and amazing shopping/dining experience.

Community Outreach Meeting for Honolulu Road Diet

The second meeting next week will be a Community Outreach Meeting for the Proposed “Road Diet” Pilot Project on Honolulu Ave. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 28 at the Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Way, starting at 7:00 pm. This will be an informational meeting about what is being proposed and how the City plans to execute the project. This will be the first of two meetings scheduled. If you are interested in this project or if you support it, we urge you to attend. We do expect opposition at this meeting. The City has set up a special web-page for this project, which you can review here.

For more background about the Honolulu Ave. project and the concept of “road diets” in general, Walk Bike Glendale has compiled a bunch of links and information on the Walk Bike Glendale website.

Road Diet Approved!

If you haven’t been following our Live Tweeting of the City Council meeting, great news! Council (with the exception of Mr. Weaver) has voted yes for a road diet. It will happen along Honolulu from Ramsdall to Las Palmas!

There were many speakers in support of the road diet, and about two or three people not in support. Some of their concerns were not well founded, such as:

• Bicyclists should ride on the sidewalks (the CA Vehicle Code 21200
  says that bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as drivers of vehicles. Bicyclists have a right to ride in the roadway. Also, Glendale Municipal code prohibits riding on the sidewalk in any business district)
• Taking away lanes would cause heavy congestion (Data from previous projects has proven that there is no significant increase in congestion for taking away two through lanes on roads with such a low ADT)
• Drivers pay taxes and hence that money should go towards improving roadways for cars and drivers (Cyclists and pedestrians all pay taxes just the same, and California legislators have already passed the Complete Streets Law in 2008, making it required to consider all road users when designing roadways)
• Transportation and Traffic Engineering has always been concerned with making it easier to travel via car (that may have been true several decades ago, but no longer holds true, transportation research centers such as UC Berkley and other universities such as MIT and Cal Poly Pomona are constantly researching how to make roadways more accessible and to move away from vehicles as the major mode of choice. Large Engineering Companies such as Stantec and Fehr & Peers have been working on projects to improve cyclist and pedestrian access to infrastructure)
• Concern over community outreach and possible opposition (this is very much an important aspect of successful projects, and we are putting in the effort to reach out to everyone, especially those who will be directly affected, and making them aware. There will be opposition, not everyone likes everything, but we are doing our best along with City Staff to make sure that we do as much as possible in providing the evidence for this project, without censoring it, so that anyone can draw their own conclusions. Realize that there are actual engineers behind this project, making it possible, it’s not a group of random people throwing out ideas)

It is absolutely necessary to point out that though we support projects that improve cyclist and pedestrian mobility, our Mission and Vision we don’t have blinders on and want to “inspire the community to get involved and make a difference.” So, if you have a comment, a concern, or a suggestion, either in support or against road diets or anything else we are involved in, let us know! We want to work with you in making Glendale better, we are citizens of Glendale, just like you, who want to help make our community better for all.

Road Diet Outreach Effort

Thanks to Glendale Safe and Healthy Streets for spreading the word!

The Glendale City Council will be discussing potential streets for a pilot “road diet” at their regular meeting on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 6pm.  Last month City Staff presented La Crescenta as a potential street since it will be resurfaced later this year. Council instructed staff to come back in January with additional streets for consideration.

A road diet is intended to make streets safer and more livable for all road users and people who live, work, or go to school on those streets. Road diets have been successfully implemented in Burbank on Verdugo Ave. and the City of Los Angeles on 7th Street near downtown. As a pilot project, a road diet is reversible and such projects are consistent with Safe & Healthy Streets Plan Policy 5.2f- “Pursue inexpensive and experimental pilot projects for pedestrians and bicyclists that can be made permanent whenever a pilot project is successful or dropped when it is not.” (chapter 5, page 60) For more information about what a road diet is and how it works, you can read a past Safe & Healthy Streets blog post (click here). For even more information about road diets, here is a post with even more links.
In short, the potential and compelling benefits of a road diet are:

• Reduced speeding (especially the most egregious speeders)
• Reduction in traffic collisions and injuries (motor vehicle collisions and collisions involving motor vehicles and pedestrians/bikes go down)
• Safer for pedestrians due to shorter crossing distances
• Improved efficiency with addition of left turn lanes (if they previously didn’t exist)
• More mobility choices (if adding transit stops, bike lanes, sidewalks, ADA or crossing improvements)
• Wider travel lanes (in some cases, depending on road width)
• Improved livability and quality of life. Better environment for those living along the street
• Improved bicycle, pedestrian and transit  conditions , especially for seniors and children
• May allow for wider sidewalks and parkways

Here’s what you can do!

1. We are looking for people who live or work on or near La Crescenta , Honolulu, and Verdugo Rd. who would support a road diet.  If that’s you, please contact us.
2. We will be conducting community outreach this weekend; walking the neighborhoods and knocking on doors, and tabling at the Montrose Farmers Market. If you can help with this effort, please contact them.
3. You can attend next week’s City Council meeting and voice your support for road diets as a measure to ensure safer streets for everyone: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and residents. The meeting agenda should be posted on Friday here.

If you can’t attend the meeting, please send an e-mail to please send an e-mail to City Council voicing your support.

Safer Roads Through a Diet

With the upcoming Glendale City Council meeting on January 31st to review road diet options, we’d like to start our first post by explaining what a road diet is and the benefits of including them in our community.

In the simplest terms, a road diet takes a multilane roadway, –typically two travel lanes in each direction, with parking on both sides–and replaces one travel lane on each direction with a center left turn lane and a bicycle lane on each side.Road diets help to increase the attractiveness of bicycling and walking in a given area and also increase the overall safety for all road users, including drivers. Studieshave found that road diets have helped reduce 19-47 percent of all auto related collisions (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/10053/index.cfm) on streets where they have successfully been implemented.

A road diet was first proposed to City Council by the  Traffic and Transportation staff onDecember 13, 2011 (Glendale News Press Coverage, we also live Tweeted it). It was proposed to install a test road diet on La Crescenta Avenue, between Honolulu and Canada Boulvard.  The City Council directed staff to come back on January 31 with more options on which street to include a road diet on. The roadway selected DID meet all requirements for road diet implementation, but  council members thought there are other more viable streets in which to test the city’s first road diet.

Check the video below which explains the concept of a road diet in more detail, and the references below that for well established reviews of the topic:

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Road Diets from Streetfilms on Vimeo. (via StreetsFilm)

• Federal Highway Administration Summary Report
• Wikipedia Article
• Safe and Healthy Streets Blog Discussion
• Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center
• Los Angeles Department of Transportation Discussion
• New Partners for Smart Growth Presentation
• Walkable Communities Report
• Parsons Brinckerhoff Presentation to ODOT
• Safe Routes to School Discussion

There will be another discussion on road diets in Glendale at the end of January, check the calendar for more information.