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A packed house at City Hall at yesterday's City Council Transportation Committee meeting | Photo by Danielle Director/LAist
By Danielle Directo, Special to LAist
At the Transportation Committee yesterday, the city presented its Bicycle Plan proposal, which maps potential fixes to L.A.’s streets to make riding easier and safer for cyclists. The verdict? “Flawed,” pretty embarrassing” and an “egregious waste of money” were among some of the comments from bike and community advocates, Sierra Club members and neighborhood councilmembers.
“No matter what people tell you, we are not involved in the process,” said bike activist Stephen Box, who also commented on several other items discussed at the meeting. “I’m calling on you to…call it dead,” he told Transportation Committee Councilmembers Wendy Greuel and Bill Rosendahl.
“I think it’s a big step backwards…This is a real slap in the face to bicyclists,” said Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee member Joe Linton.
In addition to including more input from bicyclists who have first-hand experience riding the very streets included in the Bicycle Plan draft, the Department of Transportation’s proposal needed to be “more comprehensive,” said members of the public. The plan, which was released online before the meeting, also drew criticism for not being detailed enough, and speakers said the department wasn’t doing enough to make the proposal more widely available or to reach out to low-income, Spanish-speaking riders without Internet access. The department was also blasted for hiring an outside consultant to draw up the plans at a pretty price.
Citizens also added the city needs more driver education programs on bicyclists’ rights on the road, along with more signage notifying drivers of bike lanes and cyclists.
Greuel advised the committee to schedule another meeting next week and “come back with an outreach plan” to work with the public on the Bicycle Plan.
The LAPD failed to show for the discussion on the recent tensions between cyclists and drivers and the harsh treatment of bike riders by police. "By law, we are required to coexist, by law we are allowed to coexist," said one speaker, a local bike shop owner. "Can't we educate our our security, our police force to protect and to serve, not to persecute?"
Michelle Mowery, LADOT Senior Bike Coordinator, said $7.2 million in state and local funding for bicycle transportation programs is available. "It's there now, we hope it stays there, but we don't know if it will," she said.
Also up for discussion was the recently canned bike licensing law, speed limits and regulations for sidewalk bike riders, how to addressed abandoned bicycles on city-owned bike racks and the potential impact of contracting bike lane maintenance activities. The council made a motion to continue the discussion during next week's meeting.
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Stephen is right. I went to one meeting and that's all I've done, heard, etc about this plan since its inception. Let's face it, LADOT is terribly horrible at community relations. It's funny how they don't understand that a little communications like "hey, this is what we're up to," goes a very long way. When you don't do that and people are surprised, they freak out when if they weren't surprised, they probably wouldn't care in the first place.
Case in point: when about eight people were robbed on the street in Silver Lake and the community heard about it through word of mouth and posters hung around the neighborhood, every one freaked and it became a huge news item with community meetings, press conferences, etc. Everyone was asking why the police didn't let them know. At the same time in Sherman Oaks, five students were robbed on the street.. A senior lead officer for the area sent off an e-mail to the community and neighborhood block captains and there was no freak out, no news conferences, no blip on the radar, so to speak.
It took years for LADOT to finally hire a Public Information Officer and he does a great job, but they have him so busy with other stuff, he's limited in what he's able to do and very important information never makes it out of his office.
L.A. has so much *potential* to increase it's bikeability with a little effort.
There were even all kinds of federal fundage possibilities
that have been fumbled for years.
(See link below)
Bike advocacy
Danielle,
Thanks for covering this meeting and for such a great article!
it's gonna be the cyclists who pull the reveal on the City of Los Angeles. The shocking thing to the LADOT and to Planning is that we are speaking up. This lackadaisical way of doing business is their typical MO and they're just shocked that we won't give up!
I hope to see you next Wednesday when the LAPD and the consultants are asked to account for their performance and their role in making LA a great place to ride.
Best!
umm,
imagine,
a cr@nk mb
crit mass, mdnight ridazz
"flash mob"
at the meeting
yet with everyone donning their
logistics, pragmatic, strategic cap?
it could be a beautiful thing...
the boondoggle, how to make boring yet
*important* policy procedurals
seem ironic, hip and fun.....
Maybe it's time for "cyclists" in LA to stop being such wusses and "Harden the F*ck Up" to quote Stuart O'Grady.
For the last 10 years I've commuted by bike all over this city and while there's the occasional encounter with an idiot motorist riding around the city as-is isn't all the bad and would border on pretty good.
If anything the only cycling problems as of late have been all the dumb asses on fixed gears giving everyone on a bike a bad name.
I love riding in L.A. I'm comfortable taking lanes on the street, sprinting when I have to, and I have a thick skin. But let's face it, this kind of street cycling isn't for most people. Cycling to get around shouldn't just be for the athletic and fearless. The more people we get out there the safer it will be for everyone, you and I included.
Personally I'm not asking much of the city. For now I don't necessarily need every street to have a separated bike lane. I just want them to educate cops and drivers better, to paint some sharrows and put up better signs, and maybe some subtle engineering to create a couple of safe, fast routes, east-west and north-south. These are baby steps, really, nothing that will require huge infrastructure expenditures.
yeah
and all those pesky
civil rights protesters
back in the day
should have just *accepted*
shoddy treatment, hostility
and life endangering circumstances.
because the ruling class *told them* to.
bullies are *always* so right and just.