I'll chime in here since I bike this corridor multiple times per week as a commuter to the UC med center, and have been for years prior to the installation of the sidewalk "trail" along MLK. It's a correct statement that it's a terrible excuse for a cycle path and is regularly covered in debris and broken glass (but then, so are many of our city's bike lanes).
Prior to that existing, I took a route from Madison-MLK and turned left on University just past Victory Parkway, and used Highland to access the med center. This is not a bad route and not too out of the way to access the med center, but could use at least a bike lane to make it more friendly. Also, waiting out the stop lights at both Gilbert and Reading is always very time consuming. This is still my preferred route if I'm going to main campus, but this also requires merging into traffic on MLK from the bike lane and then making the left turn.
The biggest two problems with the MLK trail in its existing state are:
1) It's completely unsafe to travel Eastbound on this given the large percent of cars that illegally turn right on red onto MLK from the highway ramps. Many pull up, block the crosswalk/trail crossing, and never bother to look right before continuing onto MLK.
2) The trail just ends at Gilbert. So in order to get back into the bike lane, you have to either use both cross walks, or use the first crosswalk on MLK and loop back into traffic at the red light.
Both of these problems seem like relatively easy fixes with a little colored paint and signage, but as a result of these, I use alternate routes to get home Eastbound (usually down Forest/Rockdale to Victory Parkway and up Dana to hop on the Wasson Way trail at Xavier).
However, I think with the completion of the Wasson Way trail from Xavier to the MLK/Reading intersection, very few bike commuters from the East side neighborhoods will continue to use the MLK path. I'll also say that while these opinions are largely my own, I've talked to other bike commuters that generally feel the same way.
I'll chime in here since I bike this corridor multiple times per week as a commuter to the UC med center, and have been for years prior to the installation of the sidewalk "trail" along MLK. It's a correct statement that it's a terrible excuse for a cycle path and is regularly covered in debris and broken glass (but then, so are many of our city's bike lanes). Prior to that existing, I took a route from Madison-MLK and turned left on University just past Victory Parkway, and used Highland to access the med center. This is not a bad route and not too out of the way to access the med center, but could use at least a bike lane to make it more friendly. Also, waiting out the stop lights at both Gilbert and Reading is always very time consuming. This is still my preferred route if I'm going to main campus, but this also requires merging into traffic on MLK from the bike lane and then making the left turn. The biggest two problems with the MLK trail in its existing state are: 1) It's completely unsafe to travel Eastbound on this given the large percent of cars that illegally turn right on red onto MLK from the highway ramps. Many pull up, block the crosswalk/trail crossing, and never bother to look right before continuing onto MLK. 2) The trail just ends at Gilbert. So in order to get back into the bike lane, you have to either use both cross walks, or use the first crosswalk on MLK and loop back into traffic at the red light. Both of these problems seem like relatively easy fixes with a little colored paint and signage, but as a result of these, I use alternate routes to get home Eastbound (usually down Forest/Rockdale to Victory Parkway and up Dana to hop on the Wasson Way trail at Xavier). However, I think with the completion of the Wasson Way trail from Xavier to the MLK/Reading intersection, very few bike commuters from the East side neighborhoods will continue to use the MLK path. I'll also say that while these opinions are largely my own, I've talked to other bike commuters that generally feel the same way.
