The television and film industry apparently doesn’t like green-painted bike lanes. The Los Angeles City Council Entertainment and Facilities Committee yesterday discussed a motion that would limit the colored bike lanes because they limit location shooting on L.A. streets. According to Streetsblog, the green reflects light, making it difficult to get a clear shot, and conflicts with “green screens” used in production.
Representatives from the city’s Department of Transportation (LADOT) has been meeting with representatives of the film industry for over a year to find solutions that work to support street safety and filming. In particular, they are working to find a specific shade of green paint acceptable to both parties. Apparently the magic color is Pantone 349 c with chromaticity coordinates x-0.2801, y=0.4736.
In addition to determining the color, the working group examined the overlap of places where LADOT plans bicycle improvements and “high filming” locations. For almost 70 miles of high filming street segments without existing or planned bicycle lanes and that aren’t on the High Injury Network, LADOT committed to a three-year moratorium on the use of green colored pavement. For other high filming streets, LADOT committed to notifying FilmLA in advance before adding green paint.
In response, the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition says “the film industry should not be designing our streets; the DOT should.”