I only leave my house once a week anyway, so a ciclovia every Sunday is a perfect solution!

In Bogota, since the ciclovia is a network throughout the city EVERY Sunday, it actually is a functioning transportation network, not just for recreation. You can use it to get to where you need to go on a bike very easily. My idea for CicLAvia is that it gets so big in LA that you actually can use it to run errands or get around the city, not just to ride your bike in circles for recreation. I agree the Mayor is probably talking recreationally here, but once this gets in the door we can open people’s minds more towards bike being a legitimate form of transportation.

You make a good point. Certainly, staging L.A.-based Cyclovias will be a fantastic tool for promoting communities and non-motorized transportation, and it’s obviously a fun, life-affirming event that will be impossible to ignore.

As you say, though, the real positive impacts on the environment, traffic and overall quality-of-life will only be improved when cycling and pedestrian trips begins to replace car usage. I think it is imperative for activists to make a clear distinction between the ultimate goals and benefits of recreational activities vs. the much more difficult endeavor of re-orienting our city’s transportational road space for bikes and peds.

Nah, Copenhagen is too white.

But my concern is that, at least in the Mayor’s mind, it is a “recreational” concept. “We close a few streets on a Sunday so people can play on them.” But come Monday morning, the streets return to their “real” use, moving cars. The fact that he chose to call out CicLAvia instead of implementing the bike plan or something else that rapidly and directly contributes to shifting transport out of cars leaves me unconvinced that he has had a real “road to Damascus” moment.

But at the least, it shows he is opening up to rethinking what streets ‘are’ and ‘are for’. Hopefully that means there will be more support for all kinds of changes.

That said, it’s a whole lot better than what he’s said before now which is essentially zero.

Here is a letter you can sign which directly asks him to support a better LA Bike Plan. That is definitely one way he can start visibly “doing more”.

http://la-bike.org/action_items/bike_plan_email_letter.html

Perhaps the entire LADOT (or at lease much of their senior management) should take a trip to Copenhagen?

After the mayor pioneered sharrows in NELA, he solicited a general response from the public on his COP15 web page, his YouTube channel, Twitter and via a contact me form on his site.

Social media works to get through to the mayor’s staff, and they communicate with hizzoner. Cycling advocates, take note!

http://twitter.com/villaraigosa

http://www.youtube.com/user/antoniovillaraigosa

http://www.mayor.lacity.org/MeettheMayor/AsktheMayor/index.htm

Keep your response on-point, short, and digestable. This is one small way we can let him know that he’s not doing his duty by ignoring the benefits of planning for bicycles in the roadway.

Apparently, it works (a little bit). Hopefully this is our foot in the door – he can’t be green while pissing on bikes and handing out thousands to car owners!

That's the sound of me fainting in shock that Villagairocksta used the word "bicycling" on the record, even if he is parroting Gottleib.