Mystery History -- Solved

Margaret wins with her 8:37 a.m. Tuesday guess "An early Pasadena Bicycling club taking a break from riding down in the Arroyo."

The photo description does not tell us the precise location, but sure enough these young men are members of the Pasadena Bicycle Club taking a break during one of their rides in 1887.

Pasadena has been a city of bikes since before it was incorporated!

Here's Arthur P. Smith (front) on a tandem with a friend.


And an early pioneer, Dr. Hiram Reid, and his wife Rachael heading to church with their grandchildren.


When Pasadena was incorporated in 1886, Dr. Reid was on the very first ballot for the City Commission (now known as the City Council). He also took the lead in the successful campaign to ban the sale of liquor in Pasadena, but I'll save that story for another time.

The elevated Dobbins Bikeway was awe-inspiring in its day.


And now here we are in 2010, and the Bicycle Master Plan has been updated in draft form.

The plan calls for increasing the proportion of people using bikes, decreasing the number of bicycle-involved accidents, making bike parking more secure and convenient, and creating a network of bikeways so every neighborhood will be close to an effective route.


So take a look, then plan on attending a community workshop Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber (room S249) at Pasadena City Hall. Your comments will be included in outreach for the update of the General Plan’s Mobility Element.

The last such meeting we had was well-attended.


Go here to see our "Pasadena: Geared for Bikes" video, the latest-greatest map of bikeways, a map of bike parking locations and more.

No Mystery History next Tuesday because I'll be out of the office all week.


Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library and the Transportation Department.

What Do You Think?

As Pasadena’s General Plan is updated, it's important to include the perspectives of everyone in the community.

The City of Pasadena is making it easy for you! From Aug. 22 through Sept. 27, you can take one or more MoveAbout Tours and share your thoughts with city planners.

Each of the six self-guided tours has been designed to highlight specific issues such as residential density, walkability, bikeability, architectural design, open space, re-use of historic buildings and more.


Guidebooks with simple instructions, background information, questions to consider, maps and more are available at locations throughout Pasadena including City Hall, public libraries and community centers.


Look for this poster -- the MoveAbout guidebooks will be nearby.

Take one or more of the tours on your own, with friends, family or co-workers. Be sure to get your guidebook stamped by merchants along the way so you'll be eligible for free prizes at a General Plan community open house in November. (You'll need to turn your guidebook(s) in no later than Sept. 14 at any of the locations where they're available.)


The ARTS Bus and Walking Tour combines a ride through Pasadena’s biotechnology and health care district and a walking tour through one of the community’s oldest residential neighborhoods.


On the Bicycle Tour you'll experience a variety of streets designated or soon-to-be designated for bicycle travel, visit several parks and see the city’s latest solar installation.


Driving? On the Driving Tour East you'll experience a neighborhood that's transitioning from residential to industrial uses, a group of suburban-oriented residential and commercial developments, and some of Pasadena’s ethnic commercial business districts. You can also choose the Driving Tour West to experience the diversity of Pasadena’s built landscape as you drive from the health care and biotechnology corridor to a thriving transit-oriented urban center and historic northwest neighborhoods that are in transition.


If you haven't traveled via light rail lately, go on the Gold Line Tour! You'll visit four of the six stations in Pasadena and experience some adjacent mixed-use housing and commercial developments.


If you love the great outdoors, you'll love the Open Space Tour that includes a full range of Pasadena’s parks, community gardens and more.

The MoveAbout Tours are part of a community outreach effort that has been launched to help Pasadenans speak their minds about four of the most important elements (chapters) of the General Plan: Land Use (where different types of buildings should be located), Mobility (how we get from place to place), and Open Space and Conservation (how open space and natural resources should be preserved). These critical elements will guide how Pasadena grows and changes, how parks and open space are prioritized, and how people will move around town in the future.

Now get up and go!

Mystery History -- Solved

Petrea wins with her 12:04 p.m. Tuesday guess "Could it be the early bicycle way that was meant to go from the Raymond Hotel to downtown?"

In the photo above, a portion of the Dobbins Bikeway, also known as the Arroyo Seco Bikeway and the California Cycleway, crosses over Bellevue Street. (The Pasadena Grand Opera House was at Raymond Avenue and Bellevue Street.)

Horace Dobbins, chairman of the City Board of Supervisors (precursor to City Council) from 1900 to 1901, had the vision for a tollway that bicyclists could take from downtown Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles.

Here's his portrait in the Hall of Mayors:

In 1897 Dobbins formed the California Cycleway Company. The vice president was former California Governor H.H. Markham, a Pasadena resident, and together they championed the cause, took it to the California legislature twice, provided the start-up funding, supervised construction and were the cycleway's most ardent promoters.

Construction began in 1899. It was quite an ambitious undertaking and an engineering feat. The toll was 10¢ one-way or 15¢ round-trip.

The first mile and a quarter, from the Hotel Green to Raymond Hill, opened on Jan. 1, 1900.


Note the toll booth at the bottom of this photo:


Here are some passages from the November 1901 issue of Good Roads Magazine:

On this splendid track cyclists may now enjoy the very poetry of wheeling. At Pasadena they may mount their cycles and sail down to Los Angeles without so much as touching the pedals, even though the gradient is extremely slight. The way lies for the most part along the east bank of the Arroyo Seco, giving a fine view of this wooded stream, and skirting the foot of the neighboring oak-covered hills. The surface is perfectly free from all dust and mud, and nervous cyclists find the track safer than the widest roads, for there are no horses to avoid, no trains or trolley-cars, no stray dogs or wandering children...

...Throughout the entire distance from the center of one city to the center of the other it has an uninterrupted right of way, passing over roads, streets, railway tracks, gullies and ravines. At its highest point, the elevation of the track is about fifty feet...

...At present, the cycle-way is wide enough to allow four cyclists to ride abreast, but its width may be doubled presently...

...From the engineer's point of view, the road is a triumph. No fewer than 1,250,000 feet of best Oregon pine were used in its construction. The wood is painted dark green. At night, the cycle-way looks like a gleaming serpent, for it is brightly lit with incandescent lights on both sides.

But eventually a practical invention -- the horseless carriage -- caused the demise of the bikeway.

Dobbins used the bikeway as a backdrop as he posed on his new-fangled wheels -- a decision he may have lived to regret!

The cycleway was dismantled due to disuse and all that lumber was sold (early recycling!). Later the Arroyo Seco Parkway (now the Pasadena Freeway) was constructed on the same route, and Dobbins became known as the grandfather of the scenic freeway.

Pasadena has been a bike-friendly city for well over 100 years. You can learn more about current City of Pasadena bicycle programs here.

Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena Museum of History and U.S. Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration for information and photographs included in this posting.

Bicycling in Pasadena: Tell Us What You Think!

Riding a bike is a great way to exercise and save on gas while getting a closer look at our beautiful city. The more people who ride bikes, the closer Pasadena comes to meeting its green goals.


By updating the “Century of Bikes” bicycle master plan this year, the Transportation Department wants to make Pasadena one of the most bike-friendly communities in the nation, and you can help!

Whether you ride regularly, would like to ride more or plan on becoming a rider in the near future, take a minute to fill out this simple, eight-question survey.

All input will be reviewed by the Bicycle Master Plan Advisory Committee – a group of local cyclists, advocacy groups, bike shops and city commissioners with a goal of updating the plan by December 2009.

We’ve made lots of progress since the plan was first created in 2000. Sixty lane-miles of bike routes have been created citywide, and a bike map promotes available routes, parking and safety. More than 500 bike racks line the city’s major streets and hundreds more can be found at retail areas, schools, parks, community centers, libraries, the Rose Bowl Stadium, shopping centers and Metro stops, including a new storage area at the Allen Avenue Gold Line Station.

Pasadena’s Green Building Ordinance even encourages developers to include bike racks and showers in their designs.

Even with these successes, more can be done! The team is looking for more innovative ideas for helping beginning and experienced bike riders feel more visible, safe and well connected with the regional bike network.

Get involved! For more information call Rich Dilluvio, our resident expert on all things related to bikes in Pasadena, at (626) 744-7254 or email him at rdilluvio@cityofpasadena.net.

You'll find lots more information about biking in Pasadena here.

The Future of Bikes in Pasadena

If you're thinking about taking a bike to work or to do a little shopping, or if you're already pedaling around town, or even if you're a die-hard aficionado who bikes miles at a time, you'll want to help shape an update to Pasadena's Bicycle Master Plan.


The update will kick off with a community meeting Tuesday, Feb. 17, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Council Chamber, room S249 at Pasadena City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave.

The meeting, hosted by our Transportation Department and the newly formed Bicycle Master Plan Advisory Committee, will be open to the public, and comments and suggestions will be welcome.

See the existing master plan here or call (626) 744-7254 or email rdilluvio@cityofpasadena.net for more information.

Rich Dilluvio is a senior planner in our Transportation Department, oversees all the bike-related programs and is a pleasure to work with.

You'll find more info about bike programs here, including a video that tells the story pretty well.