http://www.fehrandpeers.com/bicyclepedestrian.php

Who might a reporter/advocate contact to start working with USC to steer their lobbying efforts towards more bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets?

You would probably want to start with their External Affairs group:

http://communities.usc.edu/index.html

So, if it is not the measured safety, nor the measured amount of trips, nor any other measure - then it must be something meaningless like the direction the winds are blowing after lunch in the LADOT's offices.

I'm still a little concerned with DPS authority to issue traffic citations for this though.

If there really are signs around campus prohibiting riding in the crosswalk, the citations should properly list the municipal code violation and not the vehicle code because the CVC is ambiguous, at best, on this issue.

(b) No person shall roller-skate, skateboard, or operate a bicycle in violation of the limitations set forth on regulatory signs posted pursuant to this section.
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I wonder what the "traffic engineering principals and determinations" are.

I'd question whether or not those signs are at all visible, since I had no idea they existed until my friend told me (and she only realized their existence after she was told of them - by the officer issuing her a ticket).

Here is a good article about this: http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/neontommy/2009/04/universitys-campus-safety-expa.html

However, by the defenition, a bicycle in a crosswalk must yield right-of-way to a pedestrian. Therefore, in very busy pedestrian environments, a bicycle probably shouldn't be ridden in a crosswalk (in terms of riding with the flow of pedestrian traffic). A bicycle crossing a crosswalk (perpendicular to the flow of pedestrian traffic) would have to abide by regulations for vehicles within a crosswalk (basically OK but must yield to peds and cannot advance if peds are present).

A lot of these laws are in place to ensure safety for all users of the transportation system, so a little understanding of the premise may allow for a more reasonable debate and ultimately a solution that benefits all users.

Instead of comparing cars/bikes to CEO/secretaries... I think it's more like cars/bikes to drudgery/freedom. Sure, bicyclists in L.A. don't get the facilities we need and deserve... but I'd still much rather be on a bike here than sludging through traffic. The "effective difference" is that it's fun and healthy and liberating to be on a bike.

USC Department of Public Safety Officers (DPS) are fully deputized LAPD community affairs officer. They have the power to patrol, detain suspect (but not arrest), and issue traffic citations. They also assists LAPD in all manners of crime investigation and law enforcement in surrounding non-University owned property and neighborhoods in the University Park and the adjacent Exposition Park areas. Although technically, they only have jurisdiction over students, staff, and faculty at USC, they are essentially the University Park sub-station of LAPD, except they are paid by USC instead of the city. When a local resident in University Park calls 911, the dispatch at LAPD will send out DPS at first responder rather than LAPD, which can be called by DPS is they need backup.

Here's what bugs me about that law: what is the effective difference between having the "rights and responsibilities" of a vehicle driver and actually BEING a vehicle driver?

It's kind of like shouldering the responsibilities of being a CEO, but having the job title of "Assistant Secretary".

OK, that's a fair point, and I did not intend to imply that cyclists don't have a social obligation to ride responsibly, or that their actions only affect their personal safety.

More specifically stated, I could have said that the attitude of some people regarding cyclists on public roads is that they are intruding into an arena where they are out of place and unavoidably in danger, similar to a stray animal. Since you can't expect stray animals to act in a responsible manner, there's no policies in place for how they might integrate into traffic.

Certainly, with cyclists, there are some laws that purport to integrate them into traffic (stay to the right or in the bike lane), but when a situation arises like the one in this post, where there's no definitive law in place, it usually ends up that the cyclist is at fault. The logic seems to be that since city streets aren't really designed for cycling, it's counter-productive to (legally) blame motorists for colliding with them.

Not sure that this distinction serves us cyclists or gets us respect or anything... and I do think that bicyclists should behave like (nice, light, friendly) vehicles... but, in the letter of the law, bicycles definitely aren't vehicles.