Eyes on the Street: Santa Monica’s Newly Concrete-Curb-Protected Broadway Bikeway

Streetsblog rode the city of Santa Monica’s Broadway Safety Project yesterday. Find SBLA’s brief project construction coverage earlier this year, see post or video. The project is open and appears complete.

Added 10/6: A city representative responded that the project was “substantially completed” in September, thought a few final changes for pedestrians (RRFBs – Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon crosswalk lights) and for parking are still underway. The project is expected to be fully complete in November/December.

Map showing Broadway project – via city presentation

The city added 1.6-mile of concrete-curb bikeway protection along Broadway from 5th Street to 26th Street. The project included resurfacing, reconfigured parking, pedestrian signals, crosswalk upgrades, and more.

Santa Monica is a leader in curb-protected bikeways, with similar top-notch concrete-protection on 17th, 26th, and 28th Streets, and Colorado and Ocean Avenues. The city’s concrete extrusion machine – which quickly installs bike lane protection – has earned viral praise. Broadway now has the longest continuous stretch of concrete-curb-protected bike lanes in L.A. County, besting Pomona’s 1.5-mile facility along Valley Boulevard.

This Broadway project connects to the city’s earlier curb-protected lanes on both 17th Street (with a full protected intersection) and 26th Street. It also connects to a half dozen unprotected bike lanes. The Broadway project runs parallel to the Metro E Line, just one block north in and near downtown Santa Monica, so it provides needed first/last mile transit connections.

And here’s what it looks like.

Newly curb-protected bike lanes on Broadway
In addition to the one fully protected intersection where two protected bikeways intersect (Broadway and 17th), at numerous intersection the project utilizes rigid plastic bumps in “corner traffic calming wedges” to help drivers make safer (slower, more right-angled) turns
At 19th Street, the city installed concrete islands that prevent drivers from cutting directly across Broadway
Another view of the diverter islands on Broadway at 19th Street

Broadway protected bike lanes

Author

  • Damien Newton

    Damien is the executive director of the Southern California Streets Initiative which publishes Santa Monica Next, Streetsblog Los Angeles, Streetsblog San Francisco, Streetsblog California and Longbeachize.