Which Road Diet Should La Crescenta-Montrose Request?

Walk Bike Glendale advocates encourage Montrose and La Crescenta residents to speak up about proposed road diets in the foothills at Tuesday's Glendale City Council meeting. 

The council didn't approve the , between Verdugo Road and Montrose Avenue in December, and asked for Glendale Public Works to develop alternative road diet options, according to a Glendale City Council report. A road diet narrows or eliminates travel lanes to make way for bicyclists or pedestrians. 

"Because the candidate streets vary in length and amount of work required to remove existing paint striping and install future paint striping, the cost to conduct the road diet test case vary considerably among the seven candidate streets," according to the report. 

About $125,000 of state funding for bicycle lanes, racks and pedestrian traffic signals is available for a proposed road diet, according to Glendale officials. 

There are now seven alternatives for Glendale City Council to review, five of which are located in Montrose and La Crescenta:  

• Honolulu Avenue between Boston Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue: Creates a three-lane wide road (one lane running east, another west and a center turn lane), a 2-foot wide buffer lane between vehicle lanes and bicycle lane, 5-foot wide bicycle lane, 8-foot wide parking from the curb. Costs about $125,540, including the installation of road diet pavement striping and signage. 

• Honolulu Avenue between Whiting Woods Road and La Crescenta Avenue: Adds an 11-foot wide center turn lane, two 13-foot wide vehicle lanes, 2-foot wide buffer between vehicle and bicycle lanes, 7-foot wide bicycle lane and 8-foot wide parking from the curb. Costs about $89,300 including the installation of road diet pavement striping and signage. 

• La Crescenta Avenue between Montrose Avenue and Verdugo Road: This 1.6 mile road was proposed in December and would restrip La Crescenta Avenue to eliminate two of the four existing car lanes. This will leave one car travel lane for both directions. Street parallel parking will still remain under the proposal, which also adds a bike lane in each travel direction along the 40 mph road. Costs about $70,000, including the road diet pavement striping and signage. 

• Pennsylvania Avenue between Honolulu and Whiting Woods Road: Adds 10-foot wide center turn lane, creates two 12-foot vehicle lanes, adds 2 foot wide buffer between vehicles and bicycles, 5 foot wide bicycle lane and 8-foot wide parking from both curbs. Costs about $35,480, including the road diet pavement striping and signage. 

• Verdugo Road between Honolulu Avenue and La Crescenta Avenue: Keeps the 12-foot wide raised median, gets rid of one 18-foot wide vehicle lane, adds 7-foot wide bicycle lane with 2-foot buffer. Also, retains 8-foot wide parking from curb. Costs about $94,140, including the road diet pavement striping and signage. 

City council could approve a case study Tuesday, Jan. 31 at the Glendale City Council meeting at 6 p.m. at 613 E. Broadway, Glendale. 

Walk Bike Glendale works with city officials to make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, Erik Yesayan. The group will support all the road diet proposals, he said. 

"Our main goal is to encourage and make bicycling and walking in Glendale attractive," Yesayan told Patch. "It's a really walkable city."

Although people do like their cars in Glendale, a road diet can reduce crash rates, but might be hard to convince car-lovers, Yesayan said. 

"I think a lot of times a road diet is a really hard sell in Glendale, where people are attached to their cars," Yesayan said.

Walk Bike Glendale, a Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and Glendale collaboration, spent Sunday talking to Montrose and La Crescenta locals about the proposed road diet, Yesayan said. 

"The reason why we're trying to push [a road diet is] that it's more than just bicycling," Yesayan said. "Pedestrians can cross through less lanes, it reduces speeds."

The proposed road diet options are included in . See how to check out Glendale's draft Bicycle Master Plan .