We’re extending Green on the Ground Week in featuring green bike lanes and infrastructure across L.A. County. In a bonus feature, Ely Lester, a member of local chapter Walk Bike Glendale, writes about the green bike lanes on Sonora Avenue in Glendale, which connect to Riverside Drive by the L.A. River Bike Path.
Ely Lester
I love the new green lanes on Sonora. My office moved from north Burbank to the southern edge last year, so my commute now takes me from northwest Glendale to Burbank and back via Sonora and Riverside. I started using this route just before the lanes were painted, so I had the chance to experience the conditions before and after.
The addition seemed particularly fitting and has made a positive difference to the riding experience. Sonora skirts the northwest edge of Disney’s Creative Campus, a place zoned as a single-use, car-centric industrial park. Motorists commonly speed through the area with little to slow them down. Since the lanes have been added, it feels safer (especially just to the north between San Fernando and Glenoaks). I’ve always felt that the more car-centric a place is, the more sense the high visibility green lanes make. I see Disney/Dreamworks employees riding in the lanes, and even more commonly, cyclists using them to access the river paths.
It’s an enjoyable ride. I like smelling the bread baking at Freund Bakery, seeing the freight and Metrolink trains, and can’t help thinking of the airplanes that once skimmed over Sonora to touch down at the Grand Central Air Terminal, and their famous pilots like Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart.