From L.A.Streetsblog.org
Two recent bike lane stripings in El Monte’s downtown area near the Valley Mall offer the area’s working class cyclists a safer ride to the the El Monte Transit Station off Ramona Boulevard, as well as the Metrolink Station on Tyler Avenue.
The lanes were installed on roads already heavily used as alternates to the town’s hectic arteries (Valley Boulevard and Santa Anita Avenue): Tyler as the north-south route, and Ramona, as an east-west proxy for Valley. Of course, the two meet just south of the Valley Mall, providing an opportunity for transit commuters to get off Santa Anita on their way down to Ramona.
Both of these roads are highly traveled by cars too, and thankfully the striping took this into consideration, marking separate car parking beside Tyler’s mom-and-pop markets, and buffering stripes and bulbouts (both striped and cement) along various parts of the two routes.
Local El Monte mobility non-profit Active SGV’s executive director David Diaz told SBLA he’s very pleased with the lane designs. “We’re happy to see the recent progress the City of El Monte is making on implementing the 2014 approved El Monte Bike Master Plan. The Ramona Blvd and Tyler Ave (N of Ramona) project designs contribute to improved multi-modal connectivity and safety for people biking. Designs even included considerations of the door zone! Personally, I travel along Tyler and Ramona multiple times a week and have never felt safer while riding my bike in El Monte. Excited for the future complete street projects in El Monte that include Valley Blvd, Merced Ave, Parkway Drive, and Garvey Ave.”
Photo by Andrew Gook on Unsplash
