| Expo Bike Path | |
|---|---|
 Path between La Cienega/Jefferson and Culver City stations | |
| Length | 12[note 1] mi (19 km) |
| Location | Los Angeles County, California, United States |
| Established | 2012 |
| Completed | 2016 |
| Trailheads |  La Cienega/Jefferson 17th Street/SMC |
| Use | Active transportation, road biking, walking, dogs on leash |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Right of way | E Line |
| Maintained by | Metro |
The Expo Bike Path is a 12-mile-long (19 km)[note 1] rail with trail bicycle path and pedestrian route in Los Angeles County, California that travels roughly parallel to the Los Angeles Metro Rail's E Line between La Cienega/Jefferson and 17th Street/SMC stations.[1][2] The Expo Bike Path is one of two major bicycle routes in Los Angeles that share dedicated rights-of-way with public transport, the other being the G Line Bikeway in the San Fernando Valley.[3]
The Santa Monica Air Line used the right-of-way from 1909 to 1953.[2] The track was last used for freight in 1988; the county transportation agency bought the route from the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in 1991.[4]
Rails-to-trails advocacy groups quickly began agitating for a bike route along the Exposition corridor, with one 1992 Los Angeles Times article prophetically headlined: “A Better Path: There Are 12.2 Miles of Abandoned Rail Beds That Could Be Turned Into a Trail for Bikers, Joggers and Walkers From USC to Santa Monica, but There Is Resistance.”[4]
Twenty years later, in 2012, the first section of the Expo Bike Path opened to the public.[5]
The Expo Bike Path connects to the Ballona Creek Bike Path (and Park to Playa Trail) at National Boulevard in Culver City. The connection between the two paths is at the Bike Path Bridge over Ballona Creek; the bridge originally carried the southbound lanes of National until the construction of the E Line overpass and a new four-lane National Boulevard bridge.[6] Between the new and old road bridges, a historic Pacific Electric rail bridge remains intact but fenced off and unused.
Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Chandler, Jenna (June 7, 2016). "Ride your bike to Santa Monica on a new paved bike path". Curbed LA. Archived from the original on June 22, 2022. Retrieved June 22, 2022.
- ^ a b Hawthorne, Christopher (May 21, 2017). "Toward wholeness; The Expo Line uses space once occupied by streetcars. Its run from downtown to the ocean helps put L.A. back on track". Los Angeles Times. pp. E1.
- ^ "Los Angeles Metro Bikeways Map". metro.net. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
- ^ a b Cart, Julie (October 7, 1992). "A Better Path There Are 12.2 Miles of Abandoned Rail Beds That Could Be Turned Into a Trail for Bikers, Joggers and Walkers From USC to Santa Monica, but There Is Resistance". Los Angeles Times. pp. A1.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Ballona Creek construction". www.friends4expo.org. Archived from the original on July 19, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2022.