This is a sharrow.
There are no shovels required when laying down a sharrow.
It is a fairly simple process involving a stencil and some paint. Safety cones optional.
Since there has been such a lot of discussion from LA City Council about making Los Angeles a more bike friendly city, I thought I would take this opportunity to point out to LADOT just how easy it is to lay down a sharrow.
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Step One: Place sharrow stencil on pavement
Step Two: Apply Paint
Step Three: Allow paint to dry. Put on second coat of reflective paint for added visibility.
Step Four: Move down the road: Repeat Steps 1-3
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Without a culture change over in the upper reaches of the LADOT bureaucracy, we will continue to be frustrated at how desperately slow the City of Los Angeles can be to implement improvements to our bikeway infrastructure. Their traffic engineers are singularly focused on the movement of the automobile. A bicycle is hardly ever considered to be a viable mode of transportation.
As I currently understand it, the most effective person to address this problem is the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. He is currently also acting as the head of the MTA Board. According to this recent Streetsblog post, the City has realeased an updated list for the Obama stimulus package. While this is encouraging in one sense there is still cause for concern. Is there really any funding dedicated to bikeway and pedestrian projects? Are we going to see a portion of the local return money from the recently passed Measure R?
Completing Green Projects like a bikeway network in Los Angeles seems like an absolute no-brainer for the city. At a cost of appoximately $60 million, we could complete a fairly substantive bikeway network. I really wish that our Photo-Op loving Mayor could clue in to the Green PR Goldmine that is bike infrastructure.
- Fill a pothole = A safer road upon which to cycle
- Repave a road (4th Street) = 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard
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For all the discussion of “shovel-ready” projects on the MTA Project List
I can assure you :
NO SHOVELS are required to lay down a SHARROW.
Therefore, I encourage the Mayor and the MTA Board to act in concert with the LA City Council and the LADOT to fund an extensive sharrows program for streets all across Los Angeles. The sharrows program could then be dispatched to Neighborhood Councils. This cost-effective solution, if pursued, could help to better educate motorists in Los Angeles as to the Rights of Cyclists on the road.
A sharrow is a helpful tool in that it underscores the idea found in the California Vehicle Code (CVC):
- Every person riding a bicycle upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle.
Simply Put: Share the Road.
Tags: 4SBB, bike, bike infrastructure, LA city council, measure r, MTA, sharrow
