Eyes on the Street: New Bike Lanes on Avenue 19 and First Street

There are a couple of new bikeways in central Los Angeles: on First Street in downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo/Arts District and Boyle Heights, and on Avenue 19 in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park.

LADOT had announced the Avenue 19 bike lanes back in 2019, but they were blocked under the area’s overtly anti-bike City Councilmember Gil Cedillo. Cedillo recently lost his seat to pro-bike Eunisses Hernandez, who takes office next week. In October, the city re-announced that Avenue 19 lanes would be installed, this time as part of the new BLAST program which ups coordination between the city Transportation Department (LADOT) and the city Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA).

StreetsLA recently repaved Avenue 19, and now LADOT has installed the delayed bikeway.

The Avenue 19 bike lanes extend three quarters of a mile from San Fernando Road to North Broadway. At San Fernando Road, the lanes connect to the L.A. River bike path, via a bikeway on the Riverside-Figueroa Bridge.

The Avenue 19 bike facility is mostly plastic bollard-protected, with some unprotected stretches at the southern end. South of Barranca Street, Avenue 19 had a one-way northbound bike lane forming a couplet with Avenue 18. LADOT added a new southbound bike lane there, so now both sides of Avenue 19 have lanes.

Avenue 19 had been one of three remaining gaps in connecting the L.A. River bike path into Chinatown and downtown Los Angeles.

About two miles south of the new Lincoln Heights lanes, Metro completed the installation of a 0.6-mile long eastbound bike lane on First Street from Alameda Street to Mission Road. The new bikeway is part of Metro Little Tokyo/Arts District Eastside Access Improvements being implemented as Metro Regional Connector subway construction wraps up. First Street’s westbound bike lane opened in April. The new eastbound lane extends Little Tokyo’s other new First Street bike lanes, located west of Alameda.