My Review of the Santa Monica Bike Lanes in 2025

Protected bike lane in Santa Monica next to the E Line Station

A few years ago I wrote about a car-free trip in Santa Monica. I wrote about it here. Since then I've moved to Portland and was eager to come back to Santa Monica and enjoy the sunshine, visit my favorite deli in the area and explore the area by bike. I only had a few hours to be in Santa Monica so I know my review here is limited to my experience north of the I-10 freeway and south of Montana Ave.

Santa Monica has been making improvements in their bike infrastructure and I wanted to see what, if any, has been done since I left in 2023. So here's my review of the Santa Monica bike lanes as we wrap up 2025.

On the positive, the 17th St protected bike lane and the Dutch-style intersections (I think I saw two?) are complete. On the downside, anything outside of the boardwalk on the beach, Ocean Ave and a few blocks on Colorado still requires some courage if you normally don't bike. There are still many gaps that do not connect the protected bike lanes next to the beach to more inland destinations.

So, back to 17th St. After riding around, in my opinion, the 17th St protected bike lane is way too narrow. Half of the bike lane is part of the gutter. The Dutch style intersection is also too narrow. I understand there's space constraint along with the fear of inconveniencing drivers. But, if Santa Monica is serious of getting people to bike in order to reduce traffic and curb pollution from cars, these intersections and protected bike lanes aren't very useful if someday ridership actually picks up. But I'm not sure if ridership can pick up if the city is constraining how many people can ride in the bike lanes at the same time. What I mean is the current 17th St protected bike lane in my opinion is meant for people riding single file and does not accommodate for faster or slower riders to be able to safely pass each other because of how narrow the lanes are. Also, the weekend roadies will just take the lane.

Looking northbound on the 17th St Protected bike lane

Anyways, I started my journey from the Expo station at 17th and Colorado. At the moment there isn't a safe way to get from 17th St to the beach. I searched the city website and there is a planned project estimated to be completed in 2024 that will build a protected bike lane from 17th St on Colorado to 5th. However, when I was there, I did not see this completed. If it is complete, I wasn't able to find any wayfinding signage guiding me to 5th St. Currently, there is a protected bike lane on Colorado that extends a couple blocks down to Colorado and Ocean, which brings you to the Santa Monica Pier.

A Dutch-style intersection going northbound on 17th St approaching Arizona

So I rode up 17th St to California and headed towards the beach. Much of the painted bike lane on California looks faded and sometimes it's hard to tell if there was even a bike lane there. As I went up and down different streets, I rode on familiar streets I used to be on to see if there had been any changes. I also rode on a few of the streets on Santa Monica's Bikeway Network Vision, to see if any of their planned projects have come to fruition. Most of the bike network north of the 10 freeway is still just paint but several are at least green paint.

After riding around, I had to check out my favorite deli in Santa Monica which is Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery. This was also a good opportunity for me to see how I could bike there. Basically from the beach I took the painted bike lane on Broadway to Lincoln Blvd. Once on Lincoln, I rode on the sidewalk which was probably only 100ft. Lincoln Blvd is not a street you want to bike on.

The counter to order your sandwich at Bay Cities

Caprese sandwich I ordered at Bay Cities

After lunch, I rode along Colorado between 4th and Ocean, which was the city's first bidirectional protected bike lane. I headed north on Ocean and then down and up the California incline.

Riding up the California Incline on a cargo bike

All in all, not much seems to have changed since I left a few years ago. I guess it doesn't surprise me. We can rebuild a freeway after a fire in 8 days, but when it comes to anything other than car infrastructure, the timeline is always shifting...further out.

I'll head back to Santa Monica in a couple more years to check on the progress. Santa Monica seems to be the most progressive city when it comes to biking in Southern California. The city of Santa Clarita and Irvine are also great, but the biking there is meant for recreational riding.