Cyclists’ Not-So-Little Secret

Biking in the big city doesn’t get much better than this.

The pavement is smooth and flat. It’s entirely off-road. Overhead lights beckon you to ride early or late in the day. A river flows gently nearby, with birds and little islands of trees.

L.A.’s newest bicycling venue, the Los Angeles River Bikeway near Griffith Park, is by all accounts no ordinary bike trail. It cost a million dollars a mile to build this five-mile path stretching from Burbank to Atwater Village. It’s part of an ambitious plan to pave a 52-mile “bike freeway� from the mountains to the sea along the L.A. River.

But on any given day, riders pedaling along the lonely asphalt lane might find themselves wondering: Does anyone even know this bikeway is here? Even on weekends, there are so few cyclists that its name might as well be Hidden Trail.

“It does seem to be kind of a secret place,� muses Lorelei Pepi of Silver Lake on a biking-perfect Saturday morning during one of her occasional rides on the bikeway. “I haven’t even seen 10 people out here today.�

She ponders this a moment, then laughs. “If people knew about this place, there would be flocks of them coming here, and that would probably ruin it.�

OK, popularity can mess up a good thing. It’s the curse of the beach bikeways: There are so many bikes, pedestrians and skaters trying to occupy the same space that the fun meter dips for everyone. Still, lots more people could be using the L.A. River Bikeway and it wouldn’t seem crowded at all.

“It’s just taking a little time for the word to get out,� says Ron Milam, executive director of the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition and one of the bikeway’s biggest drumbeaters. “Just the other day, I went riding with someone who lives only a mile from the river, and she didn’t even know it was there. But her eyes just lit up when she saw it. It’s slow, but it’ll catch on.�

That the bikeway even exists on the river is an urban miracle. In its former life it was a dull, dirty, anonymous service road. Today it’s a user-friendly greenbelt. It took 10 years of work by a mind-numbing array of public agencies and organizations to build just the first three miles, which opened three years ago, from Victory Boulevard to Los Feliz Boulevard.

A two-mile extension from Los Feliz Boulevard to Fletcher Drive--where the awesome Heron Gate announces to the world that something truly different is going on next to the river--opened in early August.

Construction of the next three miles, south of Fletcher Drive, will bring riders within shouting distance of downtown L.A., and Milam thinks that will significantly boost the bikeway’s popularity. Work could begin as soon as next year and be done by 2002.

While bicyclists are getting up to speed, other people are checking out the L.A. River Bikeway and finding that it’s a grand new place for exercise on foot or self-propelled wheels. There are joggers, skaters, moms pushing strollers, kids on scooters, skateboarders, bird watchers, people in wheelchairs and folks ambling along on foot.

“You see all kinds of people that were not there before, like children and families and groups of older women,� says Lynne Dwyer, one of the bikeway’s movers and shakers. She is the executive director of a group called North East Trees, a beautification organization that is given much of the credit for the L.A. River’s cleaner, greener look.

Concrete’s Still There, But Also Birds and Trees

Many Angelenos are accustomed to thinking of the L.A. River as ugly, even toxic. Years ago, this lazy stream that provided an oasis for early settlers was fenced off and channelized for flood control. But now along the new bikeway you can see flocks of birds fishing and soaring. Trees and shrubs are flourishing. Garbage has almost disappeared. It is actually starting to look park-like.

Visitors like bicyclist Pepi, a 35-year-old creative director for an Internet media company, are thrilled to have this recreational niche in the middle of L.A.’s vast concrete jungle. It’s one of the few places in the city where bicyclists can ride without the hassles of car traffic, intersections and hills. “Some friends of mine were training for the AIDS ride, and they had to travel miles and miles out of the city to find anything like this,� she says.

And now that nature is creeping back to the once-sterile river, the wilderness setting is a huge plus. “I love this place,� Pepi says, gazing happily toward a knot of ducks navigating a placid pool.

To be fair, some people may find the L.A. River trail and its setting a disappointment. The riverbed is hemmed in by steeply sloping concrete. Mammoth transmission towers loom overhead. The bike path roughly parallels the Golden State Freeway, and in places the roar of traffic is distracting. Getting to the bikeway by automobile requires a strategy session on where to park. (The best bet is to leave the car in Griffith Park and enter the bikeway where Zoo Drive meets Riverside Drive/Victory Boulevard.)

But cyclist Don Vincent, an assistant city attorney who lives in the Atwater Village area, doesn’t even notice these drawbacks. “I think this is a beautiful place,� says Vincent, pausing during one of his recent rides to lean on his handlebars and survey the water tumbling over boulders. “You come down here and find out the river has a lot of charm. I think they should put more money into making this thing happen faster.�

In fact, some bicyclists aren’t waiting around for construction crews to build the next section through Elysian Valley.

At the Heron Gate on the south end of the river trail is Rattlesnake Pocket Park, a cool resting place. There’s nothing stopping the curious and/or adventuresome from riding on the riverfront maintenance road that begins at the edge of the tiny park. The road is a bit bumpy, so is not advisable for kids. But it adds three more miles to the bikeway and reveals a river panorama that is far more picturesque and natural-looking than the completed bikeway.

At unexpected turns on this route, several immaculate mini-parks pop into view, with shade, water fountains, benches and delightful wrought-iron artworks that play upon the Heron Gate’s wildlife motif. Several plaques are already in place that explain the river’s features.

Bikeway Winds Through Industrial L.A.

Another major attraction: It’s more distant from the freeway, so the traffic din that blights the developed trail disappears. The trade-off is that the pathway passes the rusting back-end of industrial L.A. This setting can be weirdly fascinating, with the river on one side of the trail and heavy-duty heaps of manufacturing debris, aging metal Quonset huts and mysteriously humming machinery on the other.

A word to the wise: Some of the area is eerily deserted, so riding with a buddy or a group for safety is a good idea.

The new bikeway is a part of a much bigger long-range plan: the “greening� of the L.A. River.

A mighty grass-roots effort, spearheaded by Friends of the L.A. River, is under way to rescue this forgotten, disheveled part of the city landscape and turn it into a vibrant recreational “greenway,� with river access, picnic tables, wildlife habitat and native landscaping. A first-class bikeway is seen as vital because it will connect the flowing stream with many communities and give thousands of people a way to enjoy it in an up-close-and-personal way.

“As the bikeway opens up piece by piece, it will link the cities along the L.A. River and bring these communities together,� says Dwyer of North East Trees. An urban bikeway puts transportation on a human scale, the theory goes, making it far easier for people to interact than if they were in their cars. This may be especially true in Los Angeles, where freeways can do more to isolate neighborhoods than to link them.

If it seems a supreme irony that a top-of-the-line bikeway is being built in what is probably the nation’s most car-addicted city, there’s really no mystery. The existing five-mile trail is the backbone of a future 52-mile (what else?) “bike freeway� on the river that will supposedly feed into Los Angeles from the suburbs. City Hall types predict that 5,000 daily bike commuters will use it, thus removing an equal number of cars from the road.

In fact, several pieces of this off-road cycle expressway already exist, in a disjointed way. The Lario/South County River Trail stretches from Long Beach to Vernon. The Rio Hondo Trail links South Gate to the Arcadia area. The Arroyo Seco Trail starts and ends in the Pasadena area but dangles tantalizingly within reach of downtown L.A.

Don’t be looking for the bike freeway any time soon. It will take years to finish--no one knows how many. Nonetheless, Michelle Mowery, bicycle coordinator for the city of Los Angeles, looks down the road and sees one of the nation’s premier cycling paths taking shape in L.A.

The amenities being worked into the plans include scenic views, mini-parks, drinking fountains, public art, lighting and call boxes. Instead of just slapping down a piece of asphalt, planners are boldly paving new ground, she says. “Building a bikeway of this magnitude in a city this built-out is pretty unusual. We’re trying to do it right.�

If the L.A. River Bikeway’s popularity booms as hoped, the non-cycling forms of recreation already on it could become a problem. Because of fences, landscaping and the steepness of the river channel, everyone has to share the same asphalt lane. Years ago, when the much-admired Santa Barbara beach bikeway was built, cyclists complained loudly about all the skaters and walkers getting in the way on “their� bike path. The powers that be fixed the problem by declaring it a “beachway� for everyone’s use. Today, many experienced cyclists prefer to whiz right past it and join the cars on the adjacent boulevard.

Technically the L.A. River Bikeway is being designed, funded and built for bike commuters, and it’s sort of a happy coincidence that it has recreational appeal. Mowery admits she’s a bit conflicted about this. “We’re building a commuter facility. That’s why we’re doing lighting. We know we’re going to have some multiple use out there. My greatest fear is that we’re going to have a beach bikeway situation.�

She’s the first to admit that it wouldn’t be at all practical to discourage recreational dabblers from being on the bikeway. But her goal, after all, is to get commuters out of cars and onto bikes. “I rationalize it this way,� she says. “The bikeway abuts a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of people can just get right onto it. And if they want to do that on a Sunday afternoon for some recreation, well, then that means they’re not out using their cars.�

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Ride and Walk Along the River Three grass-roots groups --Friends of the L.A. River, North East Trees and the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition--co-sponsor quarterly bike rides on the L.A. River Bikeway, tied to the changing of the seasons.

The rides are not strenuous and are for people of all ages. Docents talk about natural and historical features of the river.

The next ride is Jan. 14 at 10 a.m., beginning at the L.A. River Center and Gardens, 570 W. Ave. 26 (near the intersection of the Golden State and Pasadena freeways). Rain cancels. For information, call North East Trees at (323) 441-8634.

Friends of the L.A. River also sponsors river walks in various communities on the third Sunday of each month. The next walk is Nov. 19 at 3:30 p.m. Meet at the end of Garden Street, near Paula Avenue, in Glendale. For information, call (213) 381-3570.