L.A. is actually bikeable and one cyclist is riding every street to prove it

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Set us as preferred It’s a few minutes after 10 a.m.on a recent morning and the thermometer is closing in on 95 degrees, but Marc Papas isn’t fazed.

“The heat doesn’t bother me much,” he said, unloading his bicycle — a blue and yellow 1989 Trek 400 — from the trunk of his car on a side street in Reseda.“I just keep going.”Papas adjusted the heart monitor underneath his T-shirt, checked the bike computer attached to his handlebars, then set off on the day’s ride; he’s taken it upon himself to bike every public street in Los Angeles.

The Phoenix native has completed over 78% (about 5,840 miles) after two years.He calls it “The Project,” and says there’s about 7,516.07 miles in total, when you include various enclaves and adjacent cities like Beverly Hills or Burbank.

Today he’s headed toward the longest continuous bike lane in Southern California — a stretch of Reseda Boulevard.It’s an unexpected amenity in a part of the city that seems otherwise hostile to pedestrians and cyclists, but one Papas wants incorporated around more of Los Angeles.“Somebody once asked me on a Reddit Ask Me Anything what is one street you think needs a bike lane,” he said.

“I wrote him a whole essay in response, because I can’t just say one street.”After a few blocks on Reseda, Papas turned back into the neighborhood centered around Etiwanda and started tracing loops across the blocks.It’s his standard pattern for covering any area he rides for the Project.

“I base my routes on a math theory called the Eulerian Path,” said Papas, a mechanical engineer by training.Each new segment of the city he rides is generally a rectangle bound by major streets.

“Then, I start with loops around the edges and work my way in,” he continued.“It’s the most efficient way to cover an area without overlapping....