Glendale Considers $5.8M Plan To Make Streets Better For Bike Commuters

GLENDALE (CBSLA.com) — The city of Glendale is considering an ambitious, multi-million dollar plan to improve its streets to increase the number of bike commuters from 1 percent to 5 percent in 20 years.

The city's Bicycle Transportation Plan will come before the Glendale City Council Tuesday night to propose the city spend nearly $5.8 million to install bike lanes, paths and routes, the Glendale News-Press reported.

The noble plan has drawn some criticism, however.

The most controversial part of the plan are the so-called "road diets," where officials would slim streets by one lane in each direction to add bike lanes. The first proposed road diet for Montrose 's Honolulu Avenue was strongly opposed by a group of residents, and plans for the project scrapped, according to the News-Press.

The report also notes that bicycle-involved crashes in Glendale are on the rise. The city has seen 155 bicycle-involved crashes between September 2006 and November 2010, including one crash in September 2008 where the bicyclist never regained consciousness and died nearly a year later, the newspaper reported.