Thread started by shotgun_mike at 10.11.10 - 8:33 pm

TUESDAY NITE !!!There is a Northridge West Neighborhood council meeting discussing newly implemented bike lanes on Wilbur Ave. Many of the residents north of Chatsworth hate them because Wilbur is no longer as desire-able to cut through now that it has bike lanes and less room for cars (as they see it).

Tuesday the 12th 7 pm
Beckford Avenue Elementary School
19130 Tulsa Street
Northridge, 91326

PLEASE RIDE YOUR BIKE THERE AND SPEAK OUT FOR YOUR COMMUNITY !!
WE MUST FIGHT AGAINST THE CAR CULTURE OF NORTHRIDGE!!
WE DO NOT NEED WILBUR TO BE A SPEEDWAY BETWEEN NORDHOFF AND DEVONSHIRE!!
WE NEED PEOPLE TO
GET OUT OF THEIR CAGES
AND GET ON A BIKE

SHOW UP PLEASE

KEEP THIS THREAD HIGHLIGHTED

GIVE COMMENTS !!

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To those that want to show up.....
Turn in a card to speak. They will give you two mins.
POINTS.
We already have many streets allocated for cars.
People speed down this street that has 2 elementary schools.
We need safer streets for kids to ride their bikes on.
Cars pollute the valley with smog.
Cars give kids asthma.
Cars and gasoline fund wars that kill our young.
mainly
the people that are complaining need to LEAVE THEIR HOUSES 10MINS EARLIER AND THERE WOULDNT BE A PROBLEM

thanks.....




shotgun_mike
10.11.10 - 8:45 pm

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I would suggest you ride them and then drive them. Those bike lane are overkill. The street didn't even need to be done with those bike lane. It was great to ride and drive on before the new bike lanes where put on. Everything flowed great and it was a fun street to bike on. Now there is such a back up at the light that as a cyclist you are dealing with more cars at the intersection. I'm not a expert on the statistics, but almost every collusion I ever had with a car while on a bicycle was in or close to the intersection. From my experience on this street for many years prior to the new bike lanes and since they have redone them, I like the way the street was.

If your in the neighborhood I would suggest you ride and or drive it to see. You may not like my opinion on this matter, but I have had much experience riding this street.

I think this type of paint setup would serve better for major busy streets. This has caused more traffic on Wilbur. Time will tell if people will avoid it while driving on it.

Remember we need to share the road too.

Press Reply & Let the hate beginning!



sexy
10.11.10 - 9:36 pm

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Hey, no im not hatin on your opinion.......basically, what i think is.......Make a few streets in the Valley "bike friendly" streets....two lanes with wide bike lanes and no parking......so we dont have to ride Reseda or Ventura blvd.....ya know what im sayin? We are traffic. We need our area. No i dont drive that street....anything that is within 3 miles radius of my pad, i ride. (i live off nordhoff/reseda).



shotgun_mike
10.11.10 - 10:45 pm

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Sexy are you high? Nice seeing you at Ciclavia. Oh you didn't go? Cause Wilbur was blocked?

My son went to Cleveland HS off Wilbur and yes as a car driver Wilbur was our "secret" N/S freeway. The lights were always green and we could zip through it at 55mph.

I understand that those who have been using it as a freeway are getting upset.
Has anyone asked the residents of Wilbur?

Wilbur is 100% residential and if I lived there I wouldn't want my street to become a freeway again. They should put even more obstacles like those roundabouts to discourage commuters from using it as a freeway.

Don't make it a bikes vs cars issue. Make it a quiet residential street vs speeding commuters issue.




marino
responding to a comment by sexy
10.11.10 - 11:17 pm

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Marino is spot on.

Also good talking points shotgun.

For bike lanes to get implemented it will need the buy in of homeowners. And the obvious talking point is SAFETY. Residents and homeowners don't give a damn about cyclists but if they understand that road diets and bike lanes create a safer street to live on they are interested.

Honestly this meeting shouldn't have a lot of bike talk from cyclists. It will just reaffirm the suspicions of the residents that an external bike lobby is meddling in their local affairs. Rather, if you come, try to show you have a stake in the neighborhood somehow and that you support safer streets for all. Maybe a cousin or relative lives in the area. Maybe you commute in the area or go to CSUN.



Sexy has lost his mind being cooped up in that house being a very caring and very repsonsible and loving son to his father. But still cooped up.

Wilbur was a drag strip before the road diet was put in. The road diet not only calmed speeders it added bike lanes and a turning lane through the entire 2 miles of restriping.

Some want it repealed and have 4 lanes restored. Another talking point is a compromise of stop signs and crosswalk at mayall superior and prairie. That would kill Wilbur as a viable cut through and people would hate it more. But it would make the street safer and calmer.

The key is that speeders are calmed and that increases property values. A house that does not have cars speeding in front of it offer a better quality of life.



Roadblock
responding to a comment by marino
10.12.10 - 3:31 am

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I agree roadblock...........i rode that route again tonight.....i will come with the safety aspect.......and as soon as the "holders of the secret pathway" realize that their little secret sucks, they will go back to driving reseda or tampa, or maybe leave their houses a bit earlier. The home owners will have their slower street. I will ride it again tomorrow to look for points for speed bumps and stop signs......i was also thinking that they could go back to two lanes, but have "no stopping any time" signs along the corridor and put the bike lane where the cars would park.



shotgun_mike
responding to a comment by Roadblock
10.12.10 - 5:22 am

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Joe Borfo
responding to a comment by sexy
10.12.10 - 5:25 am

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HERE IS AN LA TIMES EDITORIAL THAT WAS LINKED IN ANOTHER THREAD:


"I couldn't help but wonder, as I sat idling through one traffic light, then two, then three, whether the mayor's broken elbow had anything to do with the ruination of my favorite street.

For years, Wilbur Avenue had been a free-flowing community secret, a commuter street that bypassed the congestion of Northridge's main routes. Then a "street improvement" project last month turned our speedway into a parking lot.

The street was repaved, restriped and reassigned.

A "road diet," the city planners call it, aimed at slowing autos down and creating bicycle paths. Four traffic lanes were whittled to three — one in each direction and a center turning lane. Curbside bike lanes now hem in the cars. ....."

Read the rest .....

The people who resent the loss of "a free-flowing community secret" and a private "speedway" are going to try and use bikes as a scapegoat to undo a critical improvements. If we come in ranting about bikes, without appreciating the concerns of the locals, it will only re-enforce the spin they are trying to use to regain a automotive uber alles approach to city planning.

I wrote the following letter to writer of this editorial to try a put the situation in the proper perspective. If it is 98% of valley residents vs. 2% cyclists ... we lose.

If it is residents who want a safe street in front of their homes vs. the right of speeders from adjacent neighborhoods to use the street as a cut through ... then there is a good chance the local cyclists and the local residents can win.

MY RESPONSE: -----------------

What you call the "runiation of my favorite street" is what many others are considering a welcome reprieve from from the ruination of a once quiet residential street that has been increasingly abused by speeders as a major thoroughfare . Does your desire to zip through another's neighborhood supersede the desires of locals to live in a safe environment?

The purpose of the changes on Wilbur are to make a "road diet"
a conscious decision to make wilbur the street people DO NOT pick when they are trying to blast through the valley as quickly as possible.

Yes a road diet does make room for bicycles. And it does have the effect of slowing down traffic,. But its main purpose is to make the road safer for residents, pedestrians, dog walkers, stroller pushers, cyclists, and all other vulnerable road users.

Its hubristic to assume your convenience supersedes the safety and well being of the residents who live in the neighborhoods that you use as a highway.

- Patrick Miller



trickmilla
10.12.10 - 9:04 am

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Homeowners want parking in front of their houses so taking out parking is not an option. Again, not many people will care about the bike lanes portion of the road diet.

I've walked and talked to people from nordhoff to devonshire and I found that Quite a few people like the bike lanes simply because they provide a safe zone for people to get in and out of their cars.



Safety, property value, and calmer streets. That's what the road diet provides. Oh and hey it's a bonus that there are bike lanes that will eventually connect and serve the anticipated influx of students as The Northridge vision plan (turning northridge into a college town) becomes a reality.








Roadblock
responding to a comment by shotgun_mike
10.12.10 - 9:40 am

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Awesome letter!!



Roadblock
responding to a comment by trickmilla
10.12.10 - 9:42 am

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If they adjusted the light timings so the N/S greens lasted a little longer, it would get rid of most of the traffic problems that the bike lanes created. It is pretty annoying to have to wait through two or three cycles because the stoplights are still timed for a two-lane road.



mitch
10.12.10 - 12:03 pm

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i happen to live by a cut-through street. it sucks. there are kids that play and ride bikes in my neighborhood. all the traffic fucks up our roads. we can't get speed bumps because the road doesnt qualify.

the people that want to speed by our homes are all assholes. this isn't about cars vs. bicycles, it's about assholes vs. people who have respect for life.



tortuga_veloce
10.12.10 - 12:23 pm

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The traffic is not "caused" by the bike lanes.
The traffic is caused because the road has been adjusted to accommodate an appropriate flow of traffic for a residential street. That change has made room for a bike lane. The bike lane accompanies the road diet, the traffic is not caused by the bike lane. The traffiic is caused by too many people trying to cut through on a residential street.

Please lets not continue to spread this fallacy.

............

The first time I drove the new Wilbur some ass-hat passed me on the right, by weaving into the bike lane, because he thought 35 was not fast enough to drive on a residential street.

Then he got caught at the next light...
But dude he looked really fucking cool racing up to that red light.
.............

If Wilton in my neighborhood was give a road diet, I'd be frustrated too, at times. Its a street that I use when Western is clogged with traffic.

But I would just have to think back to the still warm body of a neighborhood cat i picked up off of Wilton a few months back (to prevent its corpse from getting ground into the pavement), to remind me that the street I use to get to work is also a street where people live their lives, raise families, and care for pets. That street belongs to them, their families, their friends, and their pets, more so that it belongs to me, and my fellow travelers ... we share that road, and we should respect our rate and mode of travel affects their quality of life.

A driver's license doesn't come with a MR style credo, but it should.



trickmilla
responding to a comment by mitch
10.12.10 - 12:43 pm

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I drive that street at least 2 times a week on the very stretch that
people are crying about. I have yet to wait for more than one cycle of lights. I thought for sure I would get caught up at a light this morning for over codling parent school kid drop off rush hour.... I didn't.




Roadblock
responding to a comment by mitch
10.12.10 - 12:50 pm

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The rest of the time it's just calmer driving speeds.



Roadblock
10.12.10 - 1:00 pm

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FUCK I MISSED THIS!!! how did it go?? I live at Wilbur and Plummer and I have used that street before for my car craziness and I'll admit it was a hell of a secret freeway..With that being said, I don't mind the road diet cuz I'm not out there causing the same rukus like I used to... Those drivers that need Wilbur can leave earlier and continue to do what they do..just look the fuck out for cyclists.



FIXMYLIFE
10.14.10 - 5:17 pm

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Rode down Wilbur a little bit earlier today. It's really nice. Good pavement, wide bike lane.

I hope they give it enough time for cyclists to find it -- and for drivers to realize that there are tons of other big, wide streets up in the Valley -- before they ruin it.



theroyalacademy
10.16.10 - 5:33 pm

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I still believe that speeding-activated speed-bumps would be a good remedy.
The offender will either get shaken up or shaken out depending on how fast over the limit they were hauling.
Like fixed-gears, you want to race your store-bought muscle you threw some stickers onto, take it to the track.



bentstrider
10.16.10 - 8:01 pm

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I love it when you use the word "hubris". LOVE IT.

Sandy Banks is an idiot. Her column has always been terrible. She should stick to human interest stories and leave the hard thinking to people willing to take a critical look at details and facts and actually perform real journalism.

Hubris...seriously.



danceralamode
responding to a comment by trickmilla
10.16.10 - 10:43 pm

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My main issue with drivers is that they seem to think that it's actually possible to get anywhere they want in LA County in 20 minutes. They are totally delusional about the time it takes to get to work, school, cross town, etc. They refuse to take into account normal parts of driving with any rationality and factor that into their drive time such as traffic lights, stop signs, yielding to other road users, traffic, and/or emergency vehicles. They give themselves 20 minutes to drive a 45 minute route, then get pissed when there's anyone else on the road, thus taking an hour to get there.

I swear every time I have a conversation with a non-cycling or non-mass transit user about transit they say the most idiotic things. Does a DL come with a lobotomy these days?



danceralamode
10.16.10 - 10:47 pm

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And my point on that rant is that it's exactly what Sandy Banks is doing.



danceralamode
10.16.10 - 10:47 pm

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party for your right to fight !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



shotgun_mike
10.17.10 - 4:47 am

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Bike lanes on Wilbur have been extended all the way up to Rinaldi.

Also, there are now bike lanes on Corbin from Lassen to Rinaldi.

Thanks to all those who have helped out along the way. :)



jeshii
04.24.13 - 3:32 pm

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