Letter to the Editor: Addition of bike lanes would harm Westwood traffic, community

Your recent editorial on bicycle lanes on Westwood Boulevard trivializes the Westwood Neighborhood Council’s concerns about the safety of bicyclists and adverse impacts resulting from such lanes.

The WWNC knows the statistic regarding bicycle collisions with the implementation of bicycle lanes. Westwood Boulevard’s traffic makes it a dangerous place for bicyclists. Bicycle lane markings will not alter that fact. Many cyclists avoid cycling on this street, being more realistic than proponents who feel protected by paint. Protected lanes interfere with the necessity to load and unload bus passengers at curbside, and bicyclists would need to go around buses which are loading and unloading, placing them between a stopped bus and moving vehicles.

You refer to prolonged traffic delays as a “temporary inconvenience.” Adding bicycle lanes necessitates modification of traffic signal timing and the narrowing, or loss, of traffic lanes, causing ongoing traffic slowing, which Ryan Snyder, developer of the “Remove Nothing Plan” for bikeways on Westwood, has acknowledged. Slowing would affect Village traffic, traffic from Beverly Hills to Brentwood and increase the production of greenhouse gases.

Westwood Village’s economic viability is marginal, and the statement that “concerns about parking are overblown” is seriously out of touch with reality. The WWNC believes that its position on bicycle lanes is appropriate, reflecting the best interests of its constituents. Bicycle lanes on Westwood Boulevard would be detrimental to Westwood and areas beyond.

Dr. Jerry Brown

President,

Westwood Neighborhood Council

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