It’s not as scary as you think!
This post is about how I came to be a regular at biking for transportation around Los Angeles. But you can skip my story and jump down to the maps I’ve shared if you would just like to see what streets I bike on. This post will start with my part of town, and grow as I add more areas. Hopefully I will get speedier at creating the annotated maps.
When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1996, I saw the crazy streets filled with aggressive drivers and no space for bikes and thought, well, I guess I won’t be riding my bike here. But I was not too worried back then, as I couldn’t imagine that I would stay in L.A. for more than 2-3 years. I was just going to pick up some good work experience and then move on. Or so I thought.
It didn’t take long for the place to grow on me. I started to make friends. I loved the great weather. I was blown away by the kindness of strangers. I had long held this notion that Los Angeles was full of shallow airheads more interested in plastic surgery and looking good than connecting with other humans. I was wrong about that. I learned rather quickly that this city is full of all kinds of people: nice folks, jerks, airheads, intellectuals, jocks, and people from all kinds of different cultures. The variety made me smile. I began to realize that, with so many different kinds of people, I don’t have to conform to anything. I can just be myself here.
The first few years, my biking was limited to either taking my bike somewhere outside the city to ride, or joining a group ride. But I wanted to bike to the office, so I figured out a way. I could do part of my commute on the Ballona Creek Bike Path, then get on some quieter streets up until the last few blocks. That last part, however, was absolutely insane. In those days, I worked at the Howard Hughes Center and that make it necessary to bike along Centinela to Sepulveda. Centinela is like a speedway there, and there was absolutely no way I would ride my bike on it, but it has a decent sidewalk, so I rode that. The short stretch of Sepulveda from Centinela to Center Drive does have a skinny little bike lane, but it runs alongside 3 lanes of fast-moving traffic, and I would have to make a left turn onto Center Drive. I opted instead to continue using sidewalk and stay on the side of Sepulveda where the office building was.
Then I changed my workplace and the new commute, while only 2 miles, was even more frustrating. The most logical route was along Barrington, heading north out of Mar Vista. There are two lanes of traffic in each direction. The motorists drive fast and they have zero interest and making space for cyclists. I could feel the hostility in the air as they whizzed by me. I came up with a jiggle-jaggle alternative to avoid that part, but it was quite a compromise.
The biggest game changer for me came after I moved to the mid-city/Koreatown area and moved my office to a place just a mile away. That’s when it dawned on me that biking to work called for more than just a short route and alternative streets. Koreatown has lots of lower-stress alternative streets to choose from. But I came to realize that it made no sense to commute on the Specialized Dolce Comp bike that I had. In the garage, not being used by anyone, was a cheap hybrid bike with fat tires and a more upright seating posture. I put a big basket on the rear rack to make it easy to carry my stuff without needing a back pack or pannier. I also started making Bikie Girl Bloomers, some cute, comfortable, unpadded bike shorts that I could wear under skirts and dresses. Jeans are great, but harder to pedal in. I love the freedom of movement I feel in a skirt, but like having something suitable underneath for when the wind picks up.
But the other effect of the new side gig was the realization that I needed to get out there and meet other women cyclists if I’m ever going to sell any of these, right? I needed to let go of my tendency to only ride solo and start looking out for social rides. That’s when I started joining the Sunday Funday rides put on about once a month by the local bike coalition (sadly they don’t do this anymore). Not only did I meet lots of other cyclists, I discovered lots of great places to ride in the Los Angeles area. Soon I was experiencing a whole variety of new-to-me neighborhoods, pretty parks, historic buildings, public art, scrumptuous bakeries. I even learned some Los Angeles history.
These social rides took us on all kinds of streets I had never seen or noticed before. When you navigate L.A. in a car, you mostly use a lot of super heavily trafficked streets that you’d never imagine biking on. But there are often parallel streets that are much quieter and less stressful, and that is the key. You still have to figure out which of these lower stress streets will allow you to safely cross the big streets. And when I can’t find a traffic light to help me cross one of those, I have learned how to cross one side of the street at a time, riding in a double-left turn lane until I get to a safe place to cross the second side, or wait in a median (like on Highland).
Through those social rides, I developed some great friendships with other women, more or less close to my age, who also prefer to get around by bike. They have become my favorite ride buddies, and are often willing to explore yet another new route or neighborhood together. The more I rode my bike, the more I hated driving. I noticed how cranky I feel when I drive, and how happy I feel when I bike. Any time I have a place to go, I first pull up my navigational tools and start exploring how best to get there on a bike. Then I look into where I would be able to safely park my bike. This trip planning has become a beloved sport for me.
Somewhere along the way, one of my bike friends encouraged me to apply for a position on the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee. I have been serving on this committee now for 8 years. I often wonder if this group of volunteers who spend countless hours in meetings ever makes a difference. It can be hard to figure out what we can do beyond voting on motions to send letters of support to the City Council that seem to fall on deaf ears. But I did think of one thing I could do: share some tips on biking in this big beautiful city.
I started with my own Council District, CD10. I know this area well, and bike around it all the time, so why not share my preferred bike roads with others? First I devised a bike ride that passes through the various parts of CD10: Koreatown, Leimert Park, West Adams, Mid-City. I created the route using ridewithgps and then did a test ride. I took a whole bunch of photos, thinking I could make the route more interesting and enticing by showing off all the cool places you can see along the route. I’m still trying to figure out the best thing to do with the photos. The full route also turned out to be about 30 miles, which I realize is probably much farther than most folks are wanting to ride. So I broke it up into 3 segments, each starting from El Cholo, which is close to where I live and an easy landmark right along one of my favorite bike-friendly streets.
Here is the Koreatown segment (the route is about 5 miles):
While these are presented as routes, forming a loop, they are offered as a guide to creating your own desired route by noting some good streets to choose from. Note that, if you choose to make use of the ridewithgps route, it will include cues to guide turns and also note areas where extra caution or guidance might be helpful.
Next up is the Leimert Park / West Adams portion (14.6 miles if you start & end at El Cholo). Note there are lots of great ways to extend the ride from various places on this route, such as accessing the Ballona Creek Bike Path from Jefferson, exploring the View Park area, or heading into Culver City from the west end of the West Adams Blvd bike lanes. Speaking of West Adams Blvd, note there are many places to eat along this bike lane. You can also continue on to Exposition Park by following the Expo Bike Lanes east. That will also take you to USC. I used an orange line on 25th Street to point out how I like to get from the 4th Ave bike lanes to West Adams Blvd near Crenshaw. This gets me to the bike lane portion of Adams Blvd while avoiding the stressful part where there are no bike lanes.
And here is the Mid-City route (about 15 miles). I show how I take advantage of the new bike lanes on San Vicente while minimizing my exposure to (or avoiding completely) Pico Blvd.
At some point, I plan to do a blog post about biking to and from LAX. But for now, since we are on the topic of CD10, I offer this route I recently tested for accessing the new LAX transit center from CD10’s more central and southern portions:
Click on the map to be linked to the ridewithgps route for turn-by-turn directions.
I plan to continue adding to this blog post with other parts of Los Angeles. Let me know if you have any requests or suggestions for future maps for this purpose.
WeLove2Bike! 