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Over 225 People Expected at Mayor's Bicycle Summit this Morning
Photo by Lucyrk in LA via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
Photo by Lucyrk in LA via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
All of the sudden Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a "new champion of cyclists' rights." That, after the first time riding on the streets since taking office -- or so says the Associated Press -- and breaking his elbow in an incident involving a taxi cab last month. For many, it's a great thing to finally have the Mayor's energy behind cycling, especially since he wants L.A. to be the greenest city in America (too bad Long Beach is winning the cycling infrastructure race so far).
The Mayor will meet with cyclists this morning at a bike summit he called for earlier this month. He's getting praise for holding it in the first place, but is a target of criticism for scheduling it during the work day.
Alex Thompson at BikesideLA collected a series of RSVPs on the Mayor's Facebook event page that noted the work time hindrance. "Can’t take off work that morning, sorry," wrote one cyclist. “Some people actually have jobs," sniped another.
Despite that, over 225 people were confirmed as attending on Facebook early this morning and over 375 were listed as maybes. The high attendance rate may have something to do with dialogue within the cycling community. One voice has been Damien Newton at StreetsblogLA: "Packing the room is one way to show the Mayor how important cycling is to Los Angeles," he wrote last week.
Newton also pointed out that the Mayor's office is using Google Moderator, where you can submit and rate questions, in preparation of the summit. Over hundred questions have been submitted so far with over 3,600 votes casts.
Today's summit is at 9 a.m. in the Metro Board Room at One Gate Plaza, which is adjacent to Union Station. And there's been some positive news going into this: yesterday city crews were doing preliminary striping for a few miles of bike lane in the West Valley.
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