UCLA Students Take Over Building in Protest of Fee Increase Vote
Jason Segel Sings His Phone Number at the Swell Season Last Night
BART Cop Murder Trial to Move to Downtown L.A., Lawyer Predicts More L.A. Riots
-thumb-110x110-459458.jpg)
Bouchon Amuses Our Bouches
Midnight Movie: VICE Explores LA's Hidden Urban Oil Wells
The Bicycle Kitchen on Heliotrope at Melrose | Photo by GarySe7en via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
The city today officially adopted the Cyclists' Bicycle Bill of Rights, a twelve-point document affirming the rights that cyclists already have, but don't necessarily receive from government in addition to other basic rights that will help the city become more sustainable.
But what can a bill or rights do? It's not an ordinance or a change to the city charter? There's no law to enforce. Why have it? To cyclists, it's an affirmation. For non-cyclists, it's an education tool.
Cyclists' Bill of Rights co-author, activist and occasional LAist contributor Stephen Box, says their next step is to have it included "as written, as ridden" in the bicycle master plan the Department of Transportation is currently developing.
"The culture of the car has to change," Councilman Bill Rosendahl said at today's meeting. Rosendahl helped lead the charge on this motion after the Mandeville Canyon incident in his district where alleged road rage sent two bicyclists to the hospital.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I just read the post on
LA Streetsblog and it looks like approve may be a slight misnomer. LaBonge appears to have had a few objections to it and wants to delay it further before final approval.
I say pass because they unanimously approved this. As said on today's agenda and in the original motion:
Like I said, this is not an official legal document of sorts, so they have to "affirm," "support" and "encourage", not make into law.
They also approved this from the original motion, which leads to some of the questioning of its passage:
Remember, these two actions that were passed today were the ones in the original motion from July 11th. It has passed, it's done. Even LaBonge, after having objections and questions, voted yes on it. He just likes to opine in public forum.
When the departments report back per the second part of the motion, if that ever happens, the actions taken will likely be new motions and not amendments to today's passed motion, as I understand it.
If someone knows something I don't, chime in!
I think here's the difference between my take and Zach's.
I'm basically saying it's not over because they're going to have more hearings on the issue and lengthy department reports. In other words, as far as I'm concerned there's more to be done.
Zach sees that they saw a list of rights that cyclists have and by "encouraging affirming and supporting" it they passed it. Everything that comes later is a separate thing.
There's not a right or wrong view here, I think after hearing LaBonge and Acting President Greuel I got the impression it wasn't over. On the other hand, what more is their really for the Council to do than say they support the document?
After the meeting was over, LaBonge told Stephen Box, the only member of the Bike Writer's Collective that was present, that his committee (Parks) would hold a hearing after the reports were in.
So it's not over.
Except that part of it is.
Or something like that.
Good take, Damien. This was just the first major step in a long way to change the culture of bicycles on the road. This will go on for years.
Wish I could have been there my self, so I'm just going on what I've read. Thanks for the cross blogosphere dialog to help sort out my confusion on the matter.
Yay for bikes! Put the fun between your legs!!
That's an awesome photo!
I'm a little bittersweet over this.
On one hand, as a cyclist, organizer, advocate and one who led the first neighborhood council in the city to endorse this, I'm obviously ecstatic.
On the other hand, and I had a nice conversation with Stephen Box over this, I'm kinda pissed since it seems the city council just rushed this thing. Stephen also wanted a chance to allow more community engagement, and I would have made plans to attend the council meeting had I known in advance when this would go on the agenda (which Stephen, and everyone else, didn't find out until...Monday). I seem to get the vibe that the City has a, "Yay, we endorsed this, now what's for lunch?" while the actual cyclists want this to be something actually meaningful.
Oh yeah, the above picture: REPPIN' E-HO! W00t!!