Chandler Bicycle Connection Breaks Ground in North Hollywood

Construction crews broke ground last week on the Chandler Bicycle Connection, a project that will add 3 miles of protected bike lanes along Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood, closing a long-standing gap in the San Fernando Valley’s cycling infrastructure.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is leading the effort, which upgrades existing 5-foot-wide bike lanes by adding physical barriers including bollards to separate cyclists from vehicle traffic. The core goal is connecting the Orange Line Bike Path and the Chandler Bike Path into a single, continuous corridor.

For Burbank residents, that matters more than it might first appear. Chandler Boulevard runs roughly parallel to the Ventura Freeway corridor and feeds directly into the street grid that connects North Hollywood to Burbank’s southern edge near the Media District. Cyclists commuting from Burbank toward the North Hollywood Metro Station or the NoHo Arts District currently navigate a patchwork of protected and unprotected stretches. This project fills in one of the more significant gaps.

Beyond the bike lanes themselves, the project includes 33 upgraded crosswalks, 15 bike signal intersections, and 35 bike crossings. That kind of infrastructure investment signals a more comprehensive rethinking of how the boulevard functions, not just a paint-and-pray bike lane retrofit.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who represents the area, made the case for the project in practical terms at the groundbreaking. “Protected bike lanes work,” he said. “They reduce crashes, they slow traffic, they make it clear where everyone belongs on the road.”

Nazarian pointed to the connection between safe cycling infrastructure and transit ridership, arguing the two are inseparable. “If we want people to use public transit, we have to make it safe and easy to get there,” he said. The North Hollywood Metro Station serves as a regional hub on the B Line, and easier bike access to that station expands its practical catchment area considerably.

The project has been years in the planning stages, which is fairly standard for municipal infrastructure at this scale in Los Angeles. LADOT describes the finished corridor as intended for “people of all ages and abilities, not just experienced riders,” a framing that signals the city is trying to appeal to a broader cycling population than the current infrastructure attracts.

That framing is worth taking seriously from a Burbank perspective. Burbank has its own active-transportation ambitions, including ongoing conversations about improving connections along San Fernando Boulevard and through the Downtown Burbank corridor. A protected cycling link that makes the North Hollywood Station more accessible by bike extends the effective range of those local riders who would otherwise drive to park-and-ride lots.

The completion timeline is measured in years rather than months, which is standard for a project of this scope involving signal timing upgrades, crosswalk reconstruction, and new barrier installation across a 3-mile stretch of a busy arterial boulevard. LADOT has not announced a specific completion date.

For Burbank commuters who already use the Orange Line Bike Path to reach the NoHo station, the connection piece has been a consistent friction point. The existing Orange Line path is a well-maintained, separated facility that sees steady use. The Chandler Bike Path covers additional ground east of Laurel Canyon. The gap between the two has functioned as a de facto barrier for riders who aren’t comfortable sharing space with fast-moving vehicle traffic on an unprotected stretch.

Closing that gap with physical barriers and upgraded signal infrastructure does not guarantee a surge in ridership, but it removes one of the most concrete reasons casual cyclists give for not making the trip.

Nazarian framed the larger ambition at the groundbreaking: “I want to build a city where you don’t have to get in the car for every single trip, where families feel comfortable biking together, where seniors feel safe crossing the street, where infrastructure actually reflects how people live.”

Whether the Chandler Bicycle Connection moves the needle on Valley-wide cycling rates will depend on what happens at either end of those 3 miles, including what cities like Burbank do with the connections that feed into it.