UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Bicycle boulevards, also known as neighborhood greenways, are low-speed, low-volume residential streets with traffic calming measures designed to help pedestrians and less-confident bicyclists feel comfortable sharing the road with vehicles. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) aims to incorporate best practices from other cities’ bike boulevards to incorporate into their “Stress-Free Connections” project, an effort to enhance the bicycle and pedestrian network citywide. This research analyzed the bike boulevard planning and implementation process in three cities, Long Beach, Minneapolis, and Albuquerque, by conducting nine interviews with practitioners and community advocates in combination with a review of associated plans, city council minutes, news articles, blogs, and social media posts. This research found that popular design treatments for vehicle speed and volume management as well as the facilitation of safe crossings included mini traffic circles, traffic diverters, and pedestrian hybrid beacons. Commonly cited challenges across the three case study cities included consistent data collection and evaluation of the effectiveness of design treatments on bike boulevards as well as community pushback. This research provides several recommendations for LADOT, such as assessing the feasibility of incorporating popular design treatments in their South LA project area, evaluating the effectiveness of design treatments at regular intervals, and supporting group bicycle tours after design treatments are implemented.