Hasta La Ideas

One of the smartest conventions urban planners have adopted in recent years is protecting bike lanes with rows of parked cars. It increases both safety and bicycle uptake. However, here’s a prime example of how good design can be undone by a lack of coordination and communication.

In downtown Los Angeles, a protected bike lane was recently added–along a stretch of Grand Avenue that already had curbside EV charging stations installed. That has resulted in this incredibly foolhardy arrangement, spotted by Reddit user TezzDonut:

On the thread, fellow Redditor and good Samaritan maskdmirag wrote “Thanks for the post and the location, I got this to the attention of some people who run the car charger program and will get it moved.”

Good on him, but the question is, move it how?

What is your suggested fix for this situation, assuming we’d like to keep both the protected bike lane and the EV charging station? My first thought (assuming digging into the asphalt and/or physically moving the post is untenable) was an overhead lamppost-type object that suspends the cable and hangs it down closer to where it needs to go, but I realize that brings a host of new problems. Am hoping one of you can do better.