Perhaps you might want to cite your source, i.e., the “Metro staff” that confirmed it for you? To be sure, I think many folk reading this would like to know a name or names.

http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=697

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Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for.

Another “go big” approach might be to work on a identifying one major piece of bike infrastructure, such as 1-3 major bike corridors. Lobby local cities and neighborhood councils along the route to get invested, then lobby Metro to plan, coordinate, and fund the studies, and engineering. Then the local councils and city could focus on feeder routes, and amenities. After reading about Bike Boulevards, I’ve always thought of route like 6th, 3rd, Beverly or Melrose on the Westside (sorry that is where I once lived) as having great potential as a crosstown bike highway.

Also on a side note, since I live down in the OC now, I discovered some great roads for bike commuting with low vehicle traffic. the problem is the roads (and bike lanes) are in a crappy state of disrepair. I wonder what the prospects are for improving bike lanes on a road without improving the road itself. This might be an interesting strategy to pursue.

Further, there are plenty of law-suit worthy places for a bike advocate to sue the City and County, and I hope work in the next few years to assemble the resources and coalition to do just that. It is one piece of a larger movement, but using the courts can be very effective.

Both Kym and Wad are right, however, about local general funds being better suited to bike projects – as it allows the smaller bike movement to place pressure where they have the resources and ability to influence the process. Bike amenities are VERY cheap – so $4 to $5 million per year could give L.A. one of the premier bike networks in the world in about 8 to 10 years.

And Dan, about a primer on bike riding, I think the folks at CICLE.org have what you’re looking for:

http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=697

Kym Richards also makes a good point that bike projects have a better shot at being funded locally. The Metro-level items, marked to capital and operations, are very restricted since both are expensive and Metro needs all the cash it can get. The Call for Projects is a giant feeding frenzy, but there might be a great possibility that a small, progressive city like Santa Monica might lead the way.

May I suggest that, rather than screaming about perceived unfairness on the previously authorized funds, the efforts should be focused on getting bike and ped projects ready within the local municipalities so that when the Measure R funds start to flow, they will have something useful to put them toward?

You bring up a good point, but I don’t think bicycles are restricted (in the wording of Prop C., at least) from local returns money. I’ll have to double check, but that is what I recall. It has been the MTA’s policies and guidelines (not the wording of both Prop’s A and C) that has kept pedestrian and bike projects from proper funding and scoring in their Call For Projects.

Another avenue for money from the MTA for bike and pedestrian projects: Transportation Demand Management. The MTA funded a bizarre sounding electric scooter program with the City of L.A. in 2007′s funding cycle using millions in TDM funds. If bike and ped use of the right of way is officially considered “TDM” – then we’d have a big pot of money available.

If they do allow Measure R Local Returns to go to bike and pedestrian projects, then why not money from Prop A and C? That smells like a bike advocate law suit in the making.

The Bus Riders Union tried the same thing, but it got a consent decree.

Just as getting the tax increases required a public vote, changing the terms of the original taxes would also have to go before the public. Not only that, but the taxes might have to be put up for a referendum as well — cancel the original terms, then vote back the tax under new terms.

If bike advocates wish to pursue this matter in court, the plaintiffs would have to show some kind of damages or statutory or regulatory violation. I am not familiar with how much weight bicycling is accorded to transportation planning by Metro, the state or local areas. You might be, and you’d have to argue how bikers were violated by the flouting of these laws or regulations.

Keep in mind that in the Bus Riders Union case, it had sought a claim of racial discrimination. However, if the BRU were to win in a precedent-setting judgment, the court would have the power to declare both taxes null and void. They could not, though, demand that rail capital be rolled over to bus operations, as this would violate the original terms of the taxes put before voters.

“I confirmed with Metro staff on Friday that the local return component of Measure R funds will not have the same restrictions, and can be used for bicycle and pedestrian projects.”

Wow, really? Kymberleigh, thanks for sticking with this issue.

Prop A & C Local Returns are still off limits, but Measure R’s Local Returns is open to bike and pedestrian project?

I’ve got to find a copy of Measure R to read, I suppose. Any chance their Measure R local returns funding guidelines are available yet?

If they do allow Measure R Local Returns to go to bike and pedestrian projects, then why not money from Prop A and C? That smells like a bike advocate law suit in the making.

Ms. Peterson is correct in quoting the local return funds usage policies … as they apply to the existing Propositions A and C sales tax revenues.

However, I confirmed with Metro staff on Friday that the local return component of Measure R funds will not have the same restrictions, and can be used for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

The point remains, though, that those types of projects are typically much smaller in scope than what Metro is involved in planning and programming funds for.

That is the one thing the road lobby has gotten down cold. They keep planning even when the economy is bad so when a windfall does come it’s way they’re ready to build.

The process for the Transit/Bike advocacy is two fold; Create a list of ready to study projects and emphasize the need an importance of bikes/peds in the mindset of LADOT/Metro so that is an ongoing and continual process.

Mayor V’s list is mostly normal public works projects and has nothing to do with transit and only a small percentage of the requested funding is going to highway projects …

No, you are wrong. The massive, overwhelming, majority of the projects in “the mayor’s list” are highway projects or local road widenings. In terms of cash per project, the highway projects are super duper expensive, and make up the bulk of the amount of money requested.

You obviously did not read, or even skim, through either the list Damien linked to above, or Measure R.

Measure R funding should NOT be used for general non transit public works projects. Is that what you voted for?

If they somehow, very magically, become convinced of this and follow their own guidelines or perhaps even amend them (an idea that Brayj has been floating for a while) then we ought to be able to access some of the local return moneys for bikeway projects.

To review:

“the MTA’s Local Returns funding guidelines specifically single out pedestrian and bicycle projects as “non-transportation:, and weight those projects much lower than large budget road widenings.”

If this were amended by explicitly defining bicycles as transporation, something that would happen as a result of political pressure, then I see no reason to not go after it. Any and all avenues for culture change and for finding funding for bikeways projects should be explored.

They might not even be *good* projects….with the track record we’ve got set here in LA…I’d be surprised if someone out there actually had the rocks to create a full-on bicycle boulevard.

And I’ve already heard the 10 reasons why bike blvds wont work in LA….trust me.

However….