How This LA City Is (Slowly) Turning Into Amsterdam
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2023
- Santa Monica (an independent city within the greater LA area) built its painted bike lane network over the last 12 years, and is now beginning to construct concrete barriers on many of the existing lanes. When everything is done around 2026-2030, thousands of new bikers will be converted from new apartments that will open here. Although the city already has more daily bikers than anywhere in LA, as it grows denser will begin to approach something like Amsterdam...
A great start to what could be one of the best examples of bicycle lane infrastructure in North America. Emphasis on, "...could be...". Culver City's recent decision to remove bicycle and bus lanes shows the incredibly strong addiction Americans have to personal cars.
wait, what??? they’ll remove bike and bus lanes???
@@nicelol5241 yup spent the money to start modernizing and now thrashing it away
@@cancerino666 oh no, this country it’s a mess, it’s not just we have an addiction for cars but now cyclists will not ride without being ran over by a SUV
Do you guys þink ðere's someþing different about Santa Monica's population ðat made it politically possible (i. e. political candidates/laws supportive of bikes were chosen over non-supporters) to build all ðis bike-centered infrastructure?
Not just a strong addiction but an utter dependency!
Great work! Please continue to slap the shit out of Culver City NIMBYs!
There’s a in theory simpler solution which would be abolishing Euclidean zoning but that’s easier said than done
@@Mr.Nyashty non-Euclidean? Would ðat be overarching?
@@xxichikokoxx If you guys lost weight then more people would ride bikes. All they do in Culver is eat and hoard wealth.
Those people should be offered some weed and a tour on trikes. That should loosen them up, they seem to have forgotten how to enjoy themselves.
I lived in LA for 13 years and this is great to see. I now live in DC and I see how more bike lanes = more bike usage. But I've always felt that LA (and SM) could really be the best bike city in the USA. Because the weather is perfect for it.
It's so weather dependent, it's also the people that live in certain areas like to bike. I rarely see kids biking in Cleveland or suburbs. Here we have Metropark's throughout the city/suburbs aren't utilized that much by bikers. You basically have dedicated lane the width of a sidewalk going through the woods, no barrier but it is further from the road.
@@zlatkojerkovic9456oddly some of the most bike friendly places are cold. I lived in Madison WI and ppl will bike all year (not as many in the winter of course) but still ppl would bike in what LA would consider very bad weather. I’ve heard the same for Minneapolis and Chicago. Basically I think when it comes down to it, infrastructure matters more than weather.
@@tb5124 Weather really doesn't have to be a determining factor. I'm Dutch. As you may know, the Netherlands is well known for its proliferation of people riding bicycles. Few other countries even come close to the level of bicycle usage that's perfectly ordinary here in this country. But when it comes to the weather, the Netherlands is about as far from having an ideal climate for bicycling as it gets.
Rain is pretty much a constant around here. Some seasons may be a little bit better or worse than others, but frequent rain can be expected pretty much any time of year. And when it isn't raining, it's windy. Or, quite commonly, it's both at the same time. Heavy snowfall is admittedly not very common around here, but pretty much every winter there's at least a few days where we do get a fair amount of snow. Temperatures below freezing are not rare in the winter and make for a wonderful combination with the ever present drizzle and high winds. And even when it is warm and sunny in the few weeks of summer we get, it probably won't be a fairly comfortable dry heat. No, it'll be oppressively muggy.
And yet, people on bicycles are everywhere, at every hour of the day, in any weather and at any time of year. Because even in bad weather, it's just _convenient_ to take your bicycle to work, or school, or the grocery store around here. Because you're right. Infrastructure _does_ matter more than weather. And (at the risk of sounding overly nationalistic) we've got the best bicycle infrastructure in the world.
@@rdevries3852 spent a day in Amsterdam, one of my favorite places ever, so many bikes! And yes it was middle of winter. Can’t wait to go back and spend more time, place is like a fairytale compared to the US infrastructure lol.
NYC has more lanes than this, but your right about the weather.
2:38 I can confirm the concrete barrier do works fine, last year I had a large flight stopover at LAX and decided to take the bus to Santa Monica, as soon as I got out of the bus I saw this magnificient bike infrastructure and also heard a car who turned on that road without paying attention to the concrete barrier and damaged under their car 😅 That was a pretty good proof that those works well against cars.
We don't like them and most I know want them removed. They are creating way too many issues. Green paths for bicycles are just fine.
@@oumchar Bike paths only work well when they are physically separated from traffic or else you don't feel safe.... Those concrete barriers are fine and being used a bit everywhere now like Paris, etc...
@@oumchar It just takes some time to get used to
@@oumchar cry about it
@@oumchargive me a good reason why we shouldn't add barriers to stop millions of people from dying? Do you want millions to die? Especially children?
Amazing video, I will be using this when people tell me that LA is a "car city" and it would be "literally impossible" to change that.
05:22 WOW! A protected island for cyclists crossing the road. Reducing the change of a right hook accident. I love to see that Dutch bike infrastructure is used in Santa Monica.
I didn't even notice while watching. Seems like a great idea, alðough I guess car drivers are really mad
@@tomasbeltran04050 Yes indeed, I always angry drivers that every cyclists takes one car of the road, so reducing congestion. And 1 less car looking for a on street parking spot. That calms them down.
@@mardiffv.8775 cool :)
@@tomasbeltran04050 "alðough" 😂
@@HipHopIsUnderground Thank you very much.
Good video! The footage is crystal clear. I appreciate the focus on future projects and identification of the opposition (nimbys).
I hope more locals in the city will see us and feel encouraged to support further growth of the bike lanes.
Awesome video. So happy to see such a quality video focusing on supporting bike infrastructure in LA.
Thank you! More to come.
@@lej_explains There is a typo in the name of the video. LA is the abbreviation for Louisiana. L.A. is the abbreviation for Los Angeles, California. I was born in Santa Monica and grew up in Los Angeles. Show some respect and use the correct spelling!
I'm from the UK, so I'm pretty used to seeing cycle infrastructure and pedestrian-friendly streets. When I left the E Line to visit Santa Monica, I was really impressed with what could actually be done in a North American city if properly executed. It reminded me of home as well as the Third Street Promenade looked like a typical, nice British high street, well done Santa Monica!
my euro friend had the same sentiment
Not trying to be funny, where in the UK has decent infrastructure? Times must have changed since when i lived there.
@@cramptonschemistry5132 it's like the special relationship with the US in that.
@@cramptonschemistry5132 Everywhere. London Manchester Liverpool Newcastle and lots of more cities but im too lazy to name
are you serious? England has some of the worst bicycle infrastructure out of all the EU countries i saw, denmark, germany, and obviously amsterdam far outclass you. sorry but just what i saw when i visited.
england seemed to be about equal to US to me when it comes to car dependency, so im kind of at a loss at your comment.
Hot damn this was a good video. More cities need to start renovating like this, and not like Culver city. Get bike lanes and walkable paths in. Then plant some greens, and it'll look amazing.
this is an example of how LA can become the best city in america
with some areas like santa monica and culver city showing that bike infrastructure can work
also with the many projects of the metro i feel like in many years if they put in the work, la can become a world class city
Best city in America? Lol. Yeah i am sure every city in America yearns to have their streets and sidewalks covered with homeless criminal meth addicts taking shts on theird yards lol
culver city? the place that just decided to remove bus and bike lanes?
Have you ever ridden the metro? It's infested with mentally ill homeless and drug addicts. It's extremely dangerous to ride and only the dregs of society use it. Anyone who can afford a car avoids public transport.
@@maythesciencebewithyou Right, the mayor and two city councils voted to remove bike/bus lanes is incredibly mental. Bordering on retardation.
It’s part of the vision zero convention of mayors held in Sweden
Visited Los Angeles in 2016 one of the highlights of my visit was taking the Expo line from Downtown LA to Santa Monica. "This is dangerous." Those NIMBY's and that councilman would have a heart attack visiting Amsterdam and other European cities.
Santa Monica planners have been watching Not Just Bikes videos on Dutch urban planning perhaps.
It is awesome seeing the positive changes we desire in cities so close to me. As an occasional Santa Monica visitor, it has been awesome to see these changes unfold in real-time.
I spent the summer in Santa Monica in 2022. Thought I’d bring my bike for fun, but the infrastructure made biking my primary transportation. Since I worked remote, I only ever used my car to travel out of town or go to a dodgers game.
Great stuff man! Santa Monica has really gone a long way and hope it showcases to rest of SoCal how much you can do with some investments in alternative transit.
Now that's a city! With real people walking/biking around. It's great to see.
I live a few blocks west from that protest location in Santa Monica (Broadway & 17th in the video). The fact is that Downtown Santa Monica (so closer to Broadway & 3rd) is already much nicer and more bikeable now compared to even 5 years ago. As a local, I feel safe walking. In downtown, they've also installed bollards separating the bike paths when they can't yet fit in concrete dividers; it's not perfect, but I'm so happy for all these incremental improvements.
And the thing is, as a resident, it's improved even the car traffic, when I have to occasionally drive. Five years ago, it would've taken me a good 20-ish minutes to get out of the neighborhood and onto the freeway. Now it's closer to 5 minutes even during the busiest weekends. I can't wait for more places to be connected by train and by safe paths, and be able to get rid of my car completely.
That makes zero sense logically. Less lanes of traffic = more congestion. Traffic is way worse since they put in all the stupid bike lanes
@@tjblackmore7863 cant tell if you're being sarcastic, or if you really are THAT stupid
I agree with it being better for driving as well! I almost always cycle and walk but do drive when absolutely necessary. It's amazing how so many streets can be made better for bikes and pedestrians while also functioning better for cars.
@@tjblackmore7863 Traffic flow adapts to new layouts. If people know about the change they'll take alternative routes or straight up won't take the car. The same way congestion increases with more lanes, it decreases with less.
@@CityWhisperer Your statement defies basic logic. Cutting the number of lanes in half, with the same number of cars, doubles traffic. Basic math.
Go out to a busy road with those fancy bike lanes, and count the number of bikes vs. the number of cars. On the sunniest beach days you might see 100 cars for every bike that comes by. At night you'll see very few and on rainy or cold days you might see zero. So on average you might have say, 1000 cars for every one bike.
Speaking from a transportation perspective, please explain how this "helps traffic" when you have completely empty bike lanes transporting almost no one, while 100 cars sit in bumper to bumper traffic on a 2 lane road (which used to have 4 lanes).
Thanks for highlighting these improvements. It's good to know that SM is being proactive and planning for the future and at the same being an exemplary. They realize the answer to a better quality of life is not more parking structures.
Looking great! I guess it's still too hard to fathom for some politicians that getting people out of their cars and onto bikes actually _benefits_ the remaining motorized traffic.
Gives me hope. Do you think this will encourage other parts of LA to get their act together? It could be such a beautiful place to bike
It's really going to take the youngsters in politics to make it happen. I wish that they'd fight for this stuff vs the defund the police bs.
@@Evettecord I think a lot of young people like myself are way more aware of stuff like this. For instance I found out that one of my close friends also watches urban planning videos, and channels like this are starting to pick up on social media
@@theonlyalecazam2947 good, I’m glad. Walkable & bikeable cities are just better for all involved
@@Evettecord agreed
Yes, Santa Monica and open streets events like CicLAvia are opening up ppl's eyes to new possibilities and alternatives to car travel.
excellent city planning. i am so impressed that LA is evolving so positively.
Thanks for making this! Really well thought out!
Keep it up. Love the videos
Thank you so much for posting this! I am a huge biking enthusiast and absolutely love what the city has done.
Great video! I'm new to LA and your videos have made it easy for me to learn about the local state of urbanism
As someone who lives nearby Santa Monica I’ve become very jealous of their bike lanes quite quickly
I'm an avid cyclist and I love living in Santa Monica! The cycling community here is fantastic and it's a delight to run errands and commute around on bike - it's WAY faster than driving in traffic and looking for parking. The video does a great job of highlighting how helpful the green-painted & protected lanes are in making cycling feel safe. Keep it up SM!
Yes, unlike Culver City NIMBYS, SM is very proactive in building great bike infrastructure.
So do teslas and bmws try to run you over
@@Noneofyourbusinessbro Not in Santa Monica. I almost got hit by a white model 3 last week when I was in the bike lane, but that was in Beverly Hills *eyeroll*
Do you ride your bike at speeds above 15 mph? On the protected bike lanes do you have to slow at every intersection to make sure you don't get hit by someone turning right?
@@danielfirestone2086 15-20mph. I stay aware at each intersection and have never had an issue with a car turning right.
I wish they had this infrastructure when I lived there 20 years ago. It was a scary place to ride a bike. Kudos to the city. Keep on, Santa Monica!
As a tourist who just staying in Santa Monica I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the infrastructure. My only complaint is that the 7 different bike share options aren't easy to figure out or use. Veo wanted to scan my id but that wasn't working. Something was up with the metro bike share servers and despite buying a pass I was never able to log in and get it to work either. I did rent a bike when I was there from an actual shop. The lovely service workers didn't have any glitches. I've never had issues with bike share back in Denver, so that was quite the disappointment
Yeah the bikeshare system is janky enough that I just skip recommending it unfortunately. And this is coming from someone who commuted almost exclusively by bikeshare in two other cities I've lived: NYC and Montreal.
awesome video homeslice!
Excellent presentation. Glad you called out Phil Brock for his disinformation. Santa Monica is paradise for bikers!
Another great video!
Need more trees. Still looks like an asphalt dessert
Great vid - if only I was closer to Santa Monica to utilize their infrastructure. I'm near Culver and pretty bummed about the city doing away with the protected bike lanes.
Great reporting! Thank you.
I moved to Santa Monica back in December. Both of my bikes were stolen within a month, both were in a secure parking area, both were locked. Santa Monica is indeed a great place to bike - if you can keep your bike !
There a team of bike thieves and they are equipped just like thieves that steal catalyst converters.
Of course this unethical liberal vid creator can’t address the truth. 😂
Great video, super well done
Can't thank you enough for the Amsterdam cycling tour - I play it on loop while on the treadmill, and it keeps me going!
Great video!!!❤
One other reason as to why Santa Monica is very walkable and bike-able is because of its design. Most of Santa Monica is very compact and dense while still not having that many highrises, which also helps increases activity and discourages car use as many things can be easily reached by walking or cycling.
Dude you're doing great work, thanks! I watched your culver city video.. Can't believe they voted to remove 😢
So nice to see this island of hope in car centric LA. In ten years time Santa Monica will be reaping the benefits from making their city a place for people and that Culver City will have only regret making their city a place for cars.
Bravo, thanks for sharing. I'm in the Hollywood area where we paint stripes for bike lanes and consider it an amazing piece of cycling infrastructure. Sometimes for add protection they'll paint a bicycle in the lane too.
LOVE seeing this progress. More please.
This channel SLAPS
I live in Huntington Beach we have decent bike lanes and people on bicycles everywhere
Yeah but the city has stopped doing anything to improve biking. The recent beach path renovation is very amateurish.
Great work!
Great to see all this infrastructure, plus it works & bicycle riders are using it 😎
Fantastic video! I thought Santa Monica was doing great things transport/planning-wise when I visited a couple years ago, so seeing someone who knows what they’re talking about agree and make a video about it is very validating, haha. Those concrete barriers are game changers.
Awesome video. Santa Monica isn't my fave because of how touristy it is but I do love skating in Santa Monica because of all the bike lanes.
I'm a Santa Monica resident. You need to get away from the beach/pier/downtown out into the neighborhoods where it's not touristy. Lots of lovely areas of Santa Monica full of "real" people going about their daily affairs.
Great content!!!
Kinda cool how LA has so much potential in regards to bikes/e-bikes
Can you do a video like this about Long Beach's bike paths? A good portion of our residents bike, and I would consider 10th street and under walkable, but the only bike lanes that aren't terrifying are below 7th street. It's very frustrating. :/
This is awesome, adds a lot of optimism after the bizarre decision in Culver City. Thank you!
Just road from Santa Monica to Long Beach via mainly bike paths. I was amazed how good it was. It’s great to see them do this.
Thanks for sharing this - I just spent a month in the area on vacation and greatly enjoyed the pedestrian and other non-car infrastructure. Now, I know why!
Nice Vid!
I miss Santa Monica. My
Favorite place
i've heard that long beach is also beginning to turn their bike lanes into concrete protected ones like santa monica, i wish la would do the same, and all the other cities around here because there's a lot of potential bikers that just don't feel comfortable with the (lack of) infrastructure we have
Back in the late 1800's, Pasadena had built a wooden Bike path that began from the Green Hotel, and only made it out 1 or 2 miles, which they had hoped to build into Los Angeles.
You might want to take a look at Pasadena. They have begun installing bike lanes and some of them are surprisingly well thought out for a SoCal city. There is a new bike lane down Union Street (a one way street) that has parking in between the bike lane and vehicular traffic which means parked cars shield the bike riders from moving traffic. Vehicles that want to turn left across the bike lanes have to wait for a green arrow to turn.
Use to run down Colorado to SM and the pier! So happy to see these changes to SM!
Just imagine being able to afford to live in Santa Monica!
You know what the best part of SM is? There are TONS of compact, high density, affordable parking structures. Which means you can leave your car and walk or bike EVERYWHERE when visiting. Walkable cities are only as good as their systems that allow you to leave your car.
Parking is a scam. Get rid of it. If you can afford a car you can afford parking.
I live in Hoboken right now so I just assumed all cities were bikeable lol
Awesome video dude! I ride this area often on my channel!
This is really wonderful; great video. I am really impressed by what Santa Monica is doing! It reminds me a little of how bicycle infrastructure has dramatically improved. Both Jersey City and Hoboken, which are much nicer now than they were 20 years ago.
Great video
"If you build it, they will come"
At least it worked out that way in my Netherlands and next door Germany and Belgium
Funny thing is that Culver City which is just down the road is removing bike lanes when it realized vehicle traffic is heavily impeded.
It actually improved traffic flow, but ok.
Hi! I love your videos! Could you do a video on Davis, CA’s greenbelt and show how something like that could be possible in a city?
Great video! I would love to hear your thoughts about Long Beach and their budding bike network. There’s a really cool interactive map they have online that’s really fun to nerd out on
Just came across you today, and omg, your contect is awesome 👌 I hope you can come by san fernando once the light rail their planning to build is finished.
Ah I wish it was done sooner! As far as I can tell, it'll be a 2028-2030 finish date for that line. But more valley content is coming in the future!
looks really nice there. great weather to ride a bike.
Thanks for the video. I regularly use the bike paths of Santa Monica and glad to see them evolve. I must point out there are a lot of poor engineering involved in planing the bike paths. I'm tempted to produce my own video to point out some of the dangers on SM bike paths.
Pls produce a video. Many of us would love to see it. I love what they've done but I wish that they would just copy the Dutch.
@@Evettecord If you're familiar to with SM, my main complaint would be at the top of the California Incline. Pedestrians and Cyclist are bottlenecked at the bike lane and crosswalk entrance/exit. This is an accident waiting to happen, especially with tourist cyclist and pedestrians alike, who are not familiar with this challenged intersection.
My other complaint is that, many of the protected bike lanes, have cars traveling in the same direction as bikes. There's a car lane to drive on, next to the drive lane are parking spots for cars. Next to the curb is the protected bike lane. What's dangerous are the cars that want to turn right into a business parking lot, can't see the bikes traveling and hidden behind high profile parked cars. Add the fact that most drivers are looking forward, not off to the side. They need to remove a street parking spot close to the driveway to allow better driver visibility of cyclist.
If you like what the Dutch have done, you may wish to see biking videos from Finland. Their bike paths are maintained through out the year. Snow removal is common during the Winter. People ride no matter the season.
...I feel like a wimp. I have a hard time getting on my bike in modestly cool weather.
looks like heaven
Love it~!
This is amazing but at the same time the rents there are unaffordable. So living like this has a huge premium in the US.
Yes... and... living like this in the rest of the world also has a huge premium. The great European cities are outrageously expensive. High quality infrastructure is expensive.
@@sayimjustadreamer High quality infrastructure is cheap if they weren't giving tens of billions to Ukraine they could do this in half the cities in the country in less than 10 years.
Amazing. Can't even dream on affording to live there though. Maybe in a different life.
Wow! What a breath of fresh air for LA
Very impressive!
I biked this route once, it was very awesome. My friend lived near 2:02 I use to visit him.
Its a great start to LA becoming a bike city, the people protesting are the kind that would never hop on a bike and hate seeing people riding them. I talked to a local here in my city (Issaquah) who shut down the idea of a bike lane in a council meeting because it would cost the city "millions" of dollars.
Honolulu and portland have been like this for decades. But this is impressive for LA
Awesome!
That is beautiful! The car infrastructure could look so much nicer but it is objectively ugly. Cycling lanes and the kind of planning here makes a city look and feel decidedly human and relatable. Great work!
Have you shown this video to those nimbys yet?
Really seemed like you could have obliterated that demonstration within a minute.
Great video!
Oh i’m sure they’ll find this if the algorithm takes off and start commenting soon!
I was in Copenhagen last year and was impressed on how the millions of parked bicycles were not locked.
Never thought I'd see that in LA!
Looks like things are improving! Nice! The concrete divided bicycle path has a few dangerous elements to it ( 5:27 ). A 45° angled curb on the cycling side would be safer. A cyclist can hit such a forgiving curb and stay upright. If the cycling floor was raised a bit, your pedals won't hit a curb. Move the huge gutter (and trash collector) to the car side of the divider, and you don't have to plow through puddles after it rains. With the 1/3 of the path wide car gutter, this path is only a one cyclist wide path. Remove the car gutter and this cycle lane would be wide enough from curb to curb to overtake another cyclist.
Bike infrastructure or no, Los Angeles is still a concrete wasteland with zero of the charm that Amsterdam or any other city built up before 1930 has. Part of the reason you'd want to walk or bike anywhere comes from the fact that the surrounding areas are beautiful. Sure you've got the nice landscape and the mountains near the beach, but the city itself is so ugly.
Native Angeleno--I agree!
next step is bike/ped signals. Need to make walking/driving faster without long waits at streets for cars. and maybe some 'street sweeping' for all those fake ficus leaves in the new gutter...erm bike lane
Or raised bike/ped crossings perpendicular on the street, so drivers have to slow down without going into orbit around earth. The Dutch have done that.
More LPIs are on the way, and the city purchased a new sweeper for this bike lane and other upcoming ones!
Long beach has bike signals on some streets mostly downtown.
@@Jesus.X Well, that is good news. Thank you for sharing.
@@mardiffv.8775 I like how the Dutch started figuring all of this out in the 20th century and here we (the U.S.) are in the 21st acting like cavemen when it comes to bicycle infrastructure.
I went to college in Santa Monica for a little less than 2 and a half years, and their transit and bike infrastructure was really enjoyable
So even before they started doing all this extra work it was good then. That sounds good . After my 10th dui maybe I’ll consider moving there haha jk 😅
Gonna have to visit Santa Montica soon
Cool video! But, since LA isn't a state, the title should probably be "How This California City...." Especially since there is a state that already uses the LA abbreviation!
I'm going to ride all over that lovely town on my new e-bike Thursday
Your bike will be stolen…on Thursday. 👍
What about Venice will they also do the same since they aren't that far away from Santa Monica
Well done.
This kind of development may convince me to move back to Cali, and ill be happy(ish) to pay additional state taxes.
As someone who worked in Santa Monica and lived there 20 years, Santa Monica is not like Europe at all. So many homeless people and tweaked son the street. There are bike lanes, but drivers continue to refuse to share the road to this day.
Not saying the city is literally Europe (our streets are much wider and too many areas are zoned for single family homes), I focused on the bike angle of this, and how the city's plan to build a network of concrete lanes will eventually get them to Amsterdam's league if it is fully built out as planned.