VAN NUYS >> Each day as he pedals his bike to work, Robert Cable whirs along the Orange Line bike path — past syringes. Broken glass. Garbage. Homeless encampments. Even human waste.

His commute and recreational rides can grow especially ominous in Van Nuys, he said, where he has seen wobbling drunks and knife fights on the ribbon of asphalt ahead.

“One day I rode through here and witnessed two guys squaring off on the path, one guy had an 8-inch serrated knife,” said Cable, 52, of Lake Balboa, recently recalling the incident during his 10-mile trek to a TV production job in Studio City. “They dropped F-bombs. It just doesn’t feel safe.

“I like to ride with my kids. There are areas of the path I can’t take them on.”

With a spike in homelessness across Los Angeles County, bicyclists and pedestrians are demanding more progress, as city officials say they are increasing law enforcement, social services and sanitation cleanups.

“I’m concerned about safety, being mugged,” said Joey Diago, 44, of Van Nuys, who walks a half mile along the bike path to his job at CarQuest Auto Parts. Sometimes there’s drug users. And of course the trash. The city should definitely do something about it.”

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On a recent day, Cable stopped his mountain bike at Cedros Avenue and Bessemer Street, a homeless hub that the city has tried to rid of a line of tents.

Nonetheless, a mountain of trash littered the path north of the busway. Shopping carts piled with broken bicycles and cast-off clothes. Mattresses. A derelict gas barbecue. Stuffed animals and half eaten rolls.

While Mayor Eric Garcetti and other public officials celebrate growing greenways across Los Angeles, Cable said the pedestrian path between Sepulveda Boulevard and Hazeltine Avenue has been especially troublesome.

He said he contacted a Metro official about installing lights on unlit sections of the path, who responded that the transit agency had no jurisdiction over it.

He said he reached out to the Mayor’s Office and to representatives of Councilwoman Nury Martinez, whose district includes Van Nuys, seeking some kind of enforcement and clean-up action.

“The irony, to me, is we’ve got a mayor who is all about greenway bike paths,” said Cable, from his Trek mountain bike. “And yet they won’t do anything to the existing path for cleanliness, lighting, beautification.”

Cable suggested the bike path is more pristine in wealthier communities like Sherman Oaks and Studio City.

“Our neighboring (council) districts have clean, well-lit, well-maintained bike paths. That’s a problem,” he said.

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The number of homeless residents across Los Angeles County this year rose 23 percent, to nearly 58,000 residents, according to the Los Angeles County Homeless Authority. The San Fernando Valley’s homeless, by comparison, grew 4 percent to 7,627.

Around Van Nuys in the mid-Valley communities represented by Martinez, the number of homeless residents grew 10 percent, to 2,047 residents.

City officials say they’re now making progress in their campaign to make the Orange Line bike path a clean and safe place to walk and ride.

This month beginning July 1, the Los Angeles Police Department began patrolling Metro buses and trains, and have stepped up patrols along the bike path.

The department’s HOPE Team, launched in the Valley after a request by Martinez, has been focusing on Metro areas to connect homeless residents with housing and supportive services. A new Metro-specific HOPE Team has just been formed.

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The Sanitation Department, with help from police, sent cleaning crews along the path on May 15th, June 15th and will soon revisit it again this month.

Local business owners last spring said they had seen improvement.

“Clean neighborhoods say a lot about the health of a community and the livability of a city. That’s why Mayor Garcetti has made cleaning L.A.’s streets one of his top priorities,” said Alex Comisar, press secretary for Mayor Garcetti. “The Mayor developed the award-winning Clean Streets program, and he invested millions more in the program this year.”

Meanwhile, Martinez said she has scheduled tree trimming in the coming days along the bike path to address overgrown trees that might serve as draws for homeless encampments.

“Building an encampment that blocks or hinders the ability of others to use the bikeway is unacceptable and unsafe for everyone involved,” said Martinez, in an email statement while on vacation. She said with recent and future cleanups, coupled with new Metro HOPE Team enforcement, “we will be able to be even more targeted and effective in keeping the Orange Line Bike Path clean and safe for kids and families.

“As a community, none of us should be OK with people living like this, in such substandard and unsafe living conditions. We must find better solutions.”