Photo: Lisa "no relation" Newton/Flickr

Session 1 - 1pm

• Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis - Carl Anthony, Paloma Pavel
• LA's Transportation Future: How Congress Can Help - Denny Zane (MoveLA), Hillary Norton (FAST), Shannon Tracy (T4America), Wendy Alfsen (CAWalks)
• Sidewalk Politics - Bill Roschen, L.A. City Planning Commission
• Bike Research from the Frontlines - Alexis Lantz, Vicki Karlan, Yogi Hendlin, Herbie Huff, Dorothy Le
• Learning LA from the Streets - Diane Meyer, "Without a Car in the World"
• Can we Strengthen the LA Bike Movement? - Ron Milam, Bike Sage
• Moving People to Good Food and Good Food to People - Mark Vallianatos, UEPI
• Street Typologies and Measurements - Jane Choi, LA Department of City Planning
• Crowd Source Bike Mapping - Zane Selvans
• Bike Racks as Art - Geo McCalip, Cyclist Graphics

Session 2 - 2pm

• What the Hell is Going on in Long Beach? - Charlie Gandy
• Diversifying the Bike Movement - Adonia Lugo & Andy Rodriguez, LACBC City of Lights Campaign
• 2010 LA Bike Plan - Jordan Turner, LA Dpt. of City Planning; Michelle Mowery, LA Dpt. Of Transportation
• CicLAvia: Car-Free Streets in LA - Stephen Villavaso & Bobby Gadda, CicLAvia
• Imagining a Narrower LA: The Everyday Impact of Urban Design - David Yoon, Narrow Streets LA
• Thai Town Marketplace: building a Community Health Zone and Market in East Hollywood - Alexander Holsheimer, Thai Community Development Center
• Living Streets Part 1: Reclaiming Streets for People
• Complete the Streets? Street Vending!
• Building Bike Community Through Political Action - Ted Rogers, BikingInLA
• Planning for a Cooler California
  

• Session 3 - 3pm

• How Free Parking Gets in the Way of Building Livable Cities - Donald Shoup, Madeline Brozen, Herbie Huff and Kevin Ocubillo; UCLA School of Planning
• Taco Trucks on the Street
• Safe Routes to School in Southern California - Jessica Meaney
• Creating a Sustainable Taxi System - LA Taxi Workers Alliance
• Scripting a Bicycle Narrative
• Bikes and Public Transportation - Lynne Goldsmith, Metro Bike Program
• Livable Streets Part 2: Taking it to the Streets
• Glendale Safe and Healthy Streets - Colin Bogart, LA County Bicycle Coalition
• Subverting Urban Planning: A Call for Advocacy Planning and New Standards - Stephanie Taylor, Steve Cancian, Enrique Velazquez, Carrie Sutkin, Marta Sanchez; Verde Coaliton
• Changing Communities Through Walkability Assessments

NHTS data from 2001 and 2009 shows a major increase in sustainable transportation. Image via Mobilizing the Region.

Last year, 11.9 percent of all trips were on foot or by bike, while 4.2 percent of trips were on transit. Both figures signify significant increases.

The National Household Travel Survey, the source of the new stats, is the gold-standard for transportation data. As Mobilizing the Region reported, while the Census only tracks how people get to work, the NHTS gathers data on all trips taken. It also distinguishes between, say, driving to a park-and-ride bus area and walking to the local bus stop.

The downside to the NHTS is how infrequently the survey is conducted, which makes it difficult to determine how much the 2009 data reflects a larger trend, and how much may be due to temporary changes brought on by fluctuating gas prices and the recession.

Getting more people to walk and bike was a major theme of the conference.
Photo:San Diego Personal Injury Attorney

The foundation has a rigorous program which supports quantitative research to inform public policies that can foster healthy communities. Remember: In this country 40 billion dollars are spent on food promotion each year. Combine this with low energy prices which hide the true cost of motoring and transportation, add the agricultural subsidies which unleash rivers of sticky corn syrup and cheap meat onto an unsuspecting population, and hoopla, we have an obesity epidemic. For the first time in history, the current generation of children will have a lower life expectancy than the generation of their parents. Strong stuff. The system is broken, they say. The energy balance gone awry, can the bicycle set it right? Can pedestrianism come to the rescue when 8-18 year-olds spend an average of 7.5 hours per day in front of electronic devices.

A monumental task against well entrenched structures, staged as a painful contradiction between the concern for communities without access to healthy lifestyles, and the plush chandelier surroundings of US Grant, A Luxury Collections Hotel in San Diego. During three days of Active Living Conference, this contradiction never quite went away, because amid all the concern for measurement, verification, community participation, reaching the sedentary population (80% of the total), making research relevant for policy, nobody ever went on the stage to say: The system is broken. The whole damn system is broken, and we are here trying to fix it by addressing the symptoms. Of course, addressing symptoms is better then not addressing symptoms.

Based on the success of tobacco control, the public health community now zeros in on the obesity epidemic, with support from Michelle Obama, who has just launched Letsmove.gov, a campaign to raise a healthier generation of kids. The name "Let's Move" highlights how public health advocates are looking towards transportation (and land use) for a solution. Indeed, the two political silos of transportation and public health have slowly started to connect. The relationship between health and transportation will be the site for many interesting developments in the future, and it is precisely in this area that the bicycle rides. Public Health departments are funding bicycle coordinators (PLACE Grants), and we are now waiting for a department of transportation to acknowledge that their policies have significant health impacts.

The return on investment for complete streets, the health impacts of congestion pricing, Safe Routes to School and diabetes, these are some of the areas which the National Institute of Health, the Center of Disease Control and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are ready to fund now. They want to study the impact of bicycle boulevards on property values, dog walking among youth, engaging park directors, physical education and justice, etc. These are prime research opportunities for non-motorized transportation, and a partnership of advocacy and academic expertise must be a winning combination in this context: They call it natural experiments, or community based participatory research.

Throughout the three day conference, a robust optimism was displayed that scientific research will improve our lives. The poster sessions were prime exhibitions of scientific verbiage. This scientific spirit may be the founding myth of the public health profession and its trust in the statistical bedrock. Some punters may just want to cut right through the words and numbers and assert simply: The price of gas is to low. But this simple truth is not scientific enough to inform policy changes. To do that, it requires numbers, percentages, and statistics.

For those who want to advance policies that encourage cycling, the greatest issue is how to calculate the benefit of each mile driven on the bicycle. Its health benefit, the monetary saving, the environmental benefit, and even the social benefit neatly expressed in dollar and cent. That is the Eldorado of non-motorized research and advocacy, and the foundations know that too. The Victoria Transport Institute has done some work in the area, at the conference Thomas Goetschi (Rails to Trails, now University of Zurich) presented an interesting paper on the Cost-effectiveness of Bicycle Infrastructure - The Example of Portland. More work is needed here, including GIS technologies and mobile phone applications, to gather the much needed data.

6 P.M. After a long day of numbers and data and valuable advice how to speak with elected officials, I ride up the endless hill with is Third Street in San Diego on my way to University Heights. Halfway up, a pedestrian who just parked his car spots me and dispenses his blessing as I ride by: "Good for you to be cycling to work" he shouts. His spontaneous display of support and encouragement (and envy?) shows that the tide is indeed turning.

This incident also reminds us that changing cultural values are hard to express in those statistical formulas the public health profession loves so much. A better qualitative understanding of the "transportation personalities" that we construct for our appearance on the street by choosing (and registering) year, model, color of our car, and by selecting our mode of transportation, is essential to overcome the cultural and psychological barriers to active living choices.

Next year, again in San Diego, the theme will be "Evaluating Youth Advocacy." To make this occasion even more valuable, the foundation may want to consider a scholarship-program to support attendance by advocacy groups.

The first lady visited "Sesame Street" last fall as part of her push to fight childhood obesity. (Photo: NYDN)

Mrs. Obama appeared with six Cabinet members, the Surgeon General, and several lawmakers and mayors to mark the president's official creation of a new Task Force on Childhood Obesity. As part of the first lady's new effort, the White House plans to expand the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, while setting up a Safe and Healthy Schools Fund during hte next reauthorization of federal elementary education law.

In her remarks to the press this afternoon, Mrs. Obama paid particular attention to the lifestyle shifts that have led many kids to a more sedentary routine -- and helped contribute to obesity rates of 17 percent for children and teens, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. (The same study found that one of every three U.S. kids are oversight.)

The first lady said:

In my home, we weren't rich. The foods we ate weren't fancy. But there was always a vegetable on the plate. And we managed to lead a pretty healthy life.

Many kids today aren't so fortunate. Urban sprawl and fears about safety often mean the only walking they do is out their front door to a bus or a car. Cuts in recess and gym mean a lot less running around during the school day, and lunchtime may mean a school lunch heavy on calories and fat. For many kids, those afternoons spent riding bikes and playing ball until dusk have been replaced by afternoons inside with TV, the Internet, and video games.

The White House budget envisions a new investment in urban farmers markets' such as this one, which served D.C.'s low-income Anacostia area for two years. (Photo: DC Food for All)

Now the White House is getting in on the action, with $400 million included in its fiscal year 2011 budget to support development of new food outlets in urban communities where the nearest grocery store is often a half-mile or more away -- the neighborhoods that policymakers call "food deserts."

The White House proposal is modeled after a Pennsylvania effort that has steered more than $57 million in grants and loans to develop 74 local food markets in lower-income areas of the state. The Obama administration's version would be anchored by $250 million in New Market Tax Credits, which give developers incentive to launch new projects in economically distressed areas.

For the second time in three months, a national coalition of bicycling and pedestrian advocates took a look at how federal funds are being spent on projects designed to keep cyclists and pedestrians safe as they move themselves from one place to another.  For the second time in three months, Los Angeles was shown to be well behind the curve when it comes to spending money on "non-motorized transportation" as the state likes to call it, or "people powered movement" as those that transport themselves do.

First, there was Dangerous by Design.  Yesterday, the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking released Bicycling and Walking in the United States: The 2010 Benchmarking Report which looked at the transportation spending habits of the nation's fifty-one largest cities.  That includes Los Angeles, naturally, but also Long Beach.  You can read national coverage of the report, prepared by D.C. Streetsblog's Elana Schor, here.  But some of the local breakdown might surprise you.

In Los Angeles, twelve percent of all trips, not just commuter trips, but all trips, are done by either walking or cycling.  That's well above the national average of 9.6%.  However, thirty six percent of all crashes involve pedestrians or cyclists which is well above the national average.  One reason for this?  Los Angeles spends only 1.2% of its federal transportation dollars on bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure.

Aurisha Smolarski, the Campaign and Communications Director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, noticed that the numbers don't add up for a city trying to be the greenest in America, "In Los Angeles, the dramatic disparity between bicycling and walking levels of 12% versus the federal funding for bicycling and walking of 1.2% shows that the LA area needs a dramatic increase in funding for bicycling and walking.  LACBC would like to work with whatever entities to make this happen."

Despite the great strides Long Beach is making for cyclists, their numbers aren't very different from Los Angeles'.  Twelve percent of all trips are done on bike or on foot.  Twenty nine percent of all crashes involved "people powered movement" and Long Beach spends only .5% of its federal funds on cycling or pedestrian projects.  That just goes to show you that the federal funding picture only tells part of the story and any city can change its streets if it has the political will.  Long Beach is using local funds and state and private grants for many of the forward thinking projects such as the green-sharrowed lanes and its bicycle boulevard project.

These statistics are in-line with what we see statewide for California.  For all of California, twelve percent of trips are being done by people powered movement, but only twenty percent of crashes involve cyclists or pedestrians.  One and a half of a percent of transportation dollars are spent on "non-motorized transportation."

You can read a full breakdown of the transportation habits, crash data and spending priorities of all of the major U.S. cities by reading the report's fact sheet, here.

Photo: j.r. mchale/Flickr

Anyway, take it away Chuck:

The Shakedown.

The sky over downtown LA was the color of an old tire weight. I was in town chasing a lead on a big job. The politicians in Sacramento had passed a law saying every part of the state had to cut down on driving to prevent climate change. LA wanted to hire an operative to tell the politicos they needed to rethink that idea, because it was a death sentence for Southern California.

As the rain let up I took a stroll down 7^th. A big blonde follow loomed out of the wet shadows asking for a handout, but I brushed him off. I turned and crossed the street just as the light turned yellow. I dashed across in time and headed down Hope Street.

A black and white screeched to the curb and a voice insisted I hang around for a while. Two gorillas with guns got out. One went around back to cut off my escape while the talkative one let me know the score. It was illegal for a pedestrian to cross the street on a yellow light in the City of Angels. He wrote me up; I could pay on the internet. They let me go but my attitude had changed. I knew then that the City had cars deep in its DNA. Pedestrians were viruses that needed to be controlled. I left town that afternoon, wishing LA good luck with that whole peak oil thing. Maybe they can shake down a few pedestrians for gas money.

One of the first conversations I had about transportation reform after moving to Los Angeles was about how the City of Los Angeles absolutely will not install "Zebra Crosswalks" because they weren't certified in city design guides.  I found this confusing, because studies have shown that the series of vertical lines that create a Zebra Crosswalk are more safe for pedestrians and drivers than the "box" crosswalks used at most crossings throughout Los Angeles.  In short, cars are more likely to respect a Zebra Crosswalk than a traditional one.

However, the aversion to these types of crosswalks seems to be eroding.  Just a couple of blocks from where I live and work a Zebra Crosswalk appeared at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fuller Ave in front of the Baiis Yakov School for Girls and another is proposed for the Central Region MacArthur Park Elementary School.  Earlier this month, Kent Strumpell, better known on this blog for his bike advocacy, reports that another one has been painted at the corner of Manchester and Sepulveda in West Los Angeles.  Strumpell reports that the crossing is part of a pilot project and that the early returns are good.

I observed the new crosswalks for about 15 minutes last week during evening rush hour and it seems as though they make a big difference in driver behavior: most cars stop clear of them, giving pedestrians plenty of room (a major advantage of zebra crosswalks is that, unlike conventional crosswalks, their distinctive "floating" stripes are easily differentiated from the separate "stop bar" that shows motorists where to stop).  This is especially welcome at this intersection, the busiest transit stop in our community, with lots of folks hurrying to catch connecting buses.

Without directing future development toward walkable urbanism, the climate impacts of sprawl will overwhelm other efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, said Robert Cervero, a professor specializing in transportation and land use policy at UC Berkeley. "Urban development patterns have a significant role to play in carbon reduction," Cervero told the audience. "Otherwise we'll just get knocked back by land-use patterns. Sustainable urbanism has to be part of the equation."

The benefits of walkable development extend far beyond the efficiencies of trains, buses, and bikes compared to cars. As journalist (and befuddling congestion pricing critic) David Owen has documented superbly, city dwellers use far less energy to, for instance, heat homes than suburbanites.

Cervero attached some rough numbers to these "embedded energy savings." While transit investment alone can achieve a 10 to 20 percent reduction in America's per capita greenhouse gas emissions, he said, factoring in the embedded energy savings of walkable development boosts that figure to 30 percent. That's 30 percent compared to present-day emissions levels. The reduction could reach as high as 60 percent, Cervero added, compared to the level of per-capita emissions that would result from continuing business-as-usual sprawl-inducing policies.

Since most Americans aren't all that familiar with walkable urbanism, the question of how to generate public support for more sustainable development patterns inevitably arises. John Inglish of the Utah Transit Authority shared some of the successes on this front from his home state. It's a bit of an old story, but it's a good one: In the late 1990s, the public-private venture Envision Utah began a campaign to shape regional growth in the Salt Lake City region. Through a series of public workshops, they built support for smart growth strategies that became state law in 1999.

How did they do it? Inglish focused on the sheer fiscal common sense of walkable urbanism. When presented with the fact that transit investment produces huge savings in overall infrastructure costs, Utahns got on board. By 2020, a transit-oriented growth scenario would save some $15 billion, which would otherwise go to roads, sewers, and other utilities under the sprawling business-as-usual scenario. "That's more money for schools and parks," Inglish said. "The community was not as conservative when faced with the realities as had previously been thought."

Unfortunately, the audio turned spotty during Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's turn at the podium. To substitute, here's an excerpt from his interview with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, in which the mayor marvels at Copenhagen's bike culture, visible even deep inside city hall:

In the summer of 2008, when Streetsblog first announced its "1% for bikes, 1% for peds. campaign" in what would later be known as Measure R, we never thought that a year and a half later we would still be fighting that fight nor that we would be close to a partial victory.  

Tomorrow, the Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee will be discussing how the city will program its share of the Local Return funds from Measure R.  Following the mayor's promise that Los Angeles would set aside a portion of its Measure R funds for non-motorized transportation; the LADOT and Council Members have been living up to Villaraigosa's promise by programming 10% of the city's Local Return funds for these modes in every version of the budget that has come to light.  Building on the campaign launched here last summer, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition has been organizing transportation, public health, and environmental groups to keep the 10% set-aside alive.

However, the process of actually allocating those funds has been a slow one.  It was back in May when Council Members Bernard Parks and Jose Huizar first proposed projects to be funded by Measure R and later in the month when then Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel outline for the city's Measure R share.  Over the next six months, different reports from the Chief Legislative Office have arrived spelling out a dire economic climate and different proposals for the city's Measure R funds.  Tomorrow, the city departments working on the proposed budgets are asking for another sixty day extension.  A copy of the proposal, with a project list to be funded at the end, can be found here.

So what's the hold-up?  Unfortunately, the sad state of the city's finances have complicated the issue of what to do with a new funding source.  The CLO's report notes that the city is expecting shortfalls in various transportation funds and has to raise a "local match" for some Measure R projects within city limits.

When it comes to raising funds for "local match," the city has to raise 3% of funds for construction of:

• Crenshaw Transit Corridor
• Exposition Boulevard Light Rail Transit
• Green Line Extension to Los Angeles International Airport
• Regional Connector San Fernando Valley 1-405
• Corridor Connection San Fernando Valley
• North-South Rapidways (Canoga Corridor)
• San Fernando Valley East North-South Rapidways Westside Subway Extension

According to the CLO, that comes to a cool $200 million.  Given the mayor's stated goal of completing all transit projects within ten years, the LADOT and Council will be under pressure to front-load transit funding which could lead to a reduced ability to set aside bicycle and pedestrian funds.

In addition, the city is expecting shortfalls from the two transit taxes that make up the bulk of the city's transportation budget which could lead to a delayed time lime for some projects and a combination of fare hikes and service cuts for the D.A.S.H. buses.

On top of that, remember those first motions by Parks and Huizar mentioned above?  Each of those motions directs Measure R funds towards specific projects.  In Parks' case it would fund intersection improvements near the Foshay Learning Center.  Huizar wants further study for the Downtown Streetcar.

Despite all of these projects pulling what are quite honestly a limited amount of Measure R funds, just under $21 million dollars for the current fiscal year, it's honestly surprising that the bicycle/pedestrian set-aside has lasted this long.  Maybe the tide is turning when it comes to setting aside money for non-motorized transportation at 200 Spring Street?  I guess we'll have to wait another 60 days to find out for sure.

The BikeStation in Washington D.C., which provides parking and services for bicyclists who use transit. (Photo: U.S. DOT)

The FTA's new rules, released for public comment on Friday, replace the previous definition of the so-called "structural envelope" surrounding a transit station.

In the past, regulators had tended to use 1,500 feet as the distance which "most people can be expected to safely and conveniently walk to use the transit service." But the Obama administration, stating plainly that the current radius is "too short," has proposed expanding it to a half-mile for pedestrian improvements and three miles for bicycle projects.

In its explanation of the new proposal, the FTA wrote:

The most successful and useful public transportation systems have safe and convenient pedestrian access and provide comfortable waiting areas, all of which encourage greater use.

Distances beyond the walkshed of public transportation stops and stations may in fact be within the range of a short bicycle trip. Providing secure parking and other amenities for bicycles and cyclists at public transportation stops or stations can be less expensive than providing parking for automobiles.

The proposed regulation also codifies a U.S. DOT definition of "livability" that Streetsblog Capitol Hill took note of when it was first mentioned by Transportation Secretary LaHood: "If people don't want an automobile, they don't have to have one."

Pedestrian life downtown. Photo by MarcTonySmith/Flickr

Los Angeles -Long Beach-Santa Ana Metro Area is among the most dangerous communities in the nation for pedestrians, ranking third in the percentage of crashes involving pedestrians and 27th out of the 52 largest metro areas in total pedestrian safety, a new report shows. Unfortunately, the report also shows that our Metro area shows the least political will to correct the problem, ranking in the bottom 10% when it comes to spending funds to protect the most vulnerable road users. The Greater Los Angeles Metro Region ranked fourth from the bottom when it comes to spending money to fix dangerous roads. You can read the full local press release by LA Walks at their blogsite.

The report, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods), ranks America's major metropolitan areas and states according to a Pedestrian Danger Index that assesses how safe they are for walking. An update of the 2004 Mean Streets report, Dangerous by Design was released by Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership.

The report also examined how states and localities are spending federal money that could be used to make the most dangerous streets safer, and found that Los Angeles -Long Beach-Santa Ana Metro Area ranks 48th, spending (only) $0.45 per person. Yet, 26.99% of traffic deaths in the metro area are pedestrians, making the metro area the 3^rd highest rating location in the nation. This percentage is particularly high since only 2.7% of the population walks to work.  In other words, few people commute to work by walking, owing in part to the unsafe nature of our streets, and our governments are not spending nearly enough money to reverse that trend.:

"Los Angeles is where we are in the rankings because we are not investing to protect our citizens from speeding traffic as well as designing and building livable streets in our neighborhoods," said Deborah Murphy, Founder of Los Angeles Walks, "Be it the horrific crash that claimed the lives of two USC students after one was drug for almost 200 yards, or the case of a commuter being slammed by a city-bus in a crosswalk downtown; there are too many crashes every year that point to a dangerous system in need of real investment."

Unfortunately, these types of crashes are all-too frequent. Just last night, a pedestrian was killed by a car while legally crossing the street in a crosswalk in Long Beach.

One small step the City of Los Angeles could make immediately is setting aside a portion of its Measure R Local Return funds for bicycle and pedestrian safety. The City Council Transportation Committee is set to vote on how to spend it's portion of the county-wide transit tax on November 18.

"As Congress prepares to rewrite the nation's transportation law, this report is yet another wake-up call showing why it is so urgent to update our policies and spending priorities," said James Corless, director of Transportation for America.

Angelenos could have a great impact on the debate in Washington, D.C. on how transportation dollars are spent. ⁞ After all, L.A. is the largest city in the home state of Barbara Boxer, the Chair of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Earlier today, Walk Score, the website that ranks areas based on how easy it is to lead a car-lite lifestyle, has taken a big step towards improving its metrics by adding transit data.  As long as a city has google transit, which thankfully Los Angeles now does, you can get a much clearer picture of how easy it would be to ditch your car after moving to a new neighborhood.

The site's usefullness to home buyers and others just looking to move is one of the sites' most useful tools.  Local real estate websites, such as Zip Realty, use Walk Score on their website to help home buyers make decisions.  When we were planning to move to Los Angeles, my wife and I used Walk Score to narrow down the neighborhoods in which we looked for a rental house; so I can vouch for the site's usefulness.  Of course, the site doesn't take into account urban design and safety issues, but between google street view and the LAPD's crime map that information is also readily available.  In other words, Walk Score is a great place to start, but you probably want to do a little more research before signing a lease, a fact Walk Score doesn't try to hide.

Walk Score has a use that they don't advertise, what I call "Livable Streets Trash Talking."  My neighborhood has a Walk Score of 87, which is way higher than the scores for my brother's in Woodland Hills (67), my mom's in Marina Del Rey (71) or my Church's in West L.A. (72.)  Since I work from home, I can also boast that my "office" has a more walkable area than the Flying Pigeon Bike Shop (71) and my wife's office in Brentwood (72).  However, the trophy for having the most walkable community around your office goes to the Bus Rider's Union who edged the Bike Coalition with a score of 98 to 95.

The passage of Metro's Long Range Transportation Plan last week has helped heat up a national conversation about Los Angeles, how it grows, how it moves and the future of our Metropolis.  Of course, Diane Meyer's "World Without a Car" exhibit has people locally thinking outside the auto; but others are picking up the conversation such as the Transport Politic and Think Progress' Matt Yglessias. However, that debate shows us one critical missing link in our transportation planning.

We still don't know how Angelenos move from place to place.  For the most part, we're still reliant on census figures that only ask about commuting trends, traditionally under-count people of lesser means and definately under-count immigrants.  Recently, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, in their most recent report on how the city is going to spend its Measure R funds, reported that combined, 3.6% of Angelenos commute by bicycle or by walking in Los Angeles based on figures provided by the Southern California Association of Governments.  Outside of major projects or reports that require them, the city does not do bicycle or pedestrian counts leaving planners reliant on bad statistics or guesswork based on personal observations and biases.

When commenting to the Council on the report, I wondered how 96.4% of people commute without walking at all; but of course I realize that they are referring to the dominant mode in the commute.  However, that number shouldn't be used as an excuse to under-fund pedestrian improvements.  After all, the city worker that drives from the Valley to the large parking lot to the West of City Hall is reliant on safe crossings to get from his car to the office, just as the dedicated pedestrian is reliant on a series of safe crossings to get from place to place.

But if the city is reliant on census figures that over-count the number of car-reliant transportation trips, then advocates for car alternatives are always going to be behind the game.  For example, my wife is a car commuter when she's not on maternity leave, but I would estimate that less than half of her total trips involve getting in her car.  Trips to the store, park, Farmer's Market, gym, and around the neighborhood are done on foot or on bike.  The census, the data source relied on by the city, completely discounts those trips because it only measures commuter trips.

What do you see? A city transportation study would see one van. Photo: aisipos/Flickr

The situation has become so dire that the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition has begun measuring its own bike counts, and news organizations have begun running their own polls to try and get a picture of what's actually happening on the street.  While a recent poll by the LA Downtown News' results were similar to those completed by City Planning, the unscientific method of asking one's readers how they commute, will certainly lead to those results being dismissed.

Speaking of City Planning, the process that created the new Downtown Street Standards included bicycle and pedestrian counts and those standards are amongst the most progressive ones in the county.  The standards promote bike lanes, sidewalk widenings and open space.  When an agency bothers to actually check what's happening, the results are planning documents that favor "non-motorized transportation."  For more on the street standards, listen to Streetsblog interview the Urban Design Studio's Emily Gabel-Luddy.

As the city moves forward with it's Bike Plan and other community plans, it's past time that it begins gathering data on it's own about the effected areas.  Relying on the census and the guesswork of engineers who have looked at their job as finding the best way to move cars is only going to lead to wider roads, unhealthy communities and a rising Car Culture, even as that way of planning wanes in the major cities around the United States.

A coalition of activists for seniors and the disabled went to federal court to try and force Caltrans to meet federal safety standards for sidewalk, intersection and other pedestrian amenities.  The group charges that when doing road construction, our state DOT is ignoring the federally mandated fixes and upgrades that are required by the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). 

An attorney for the plaintiffs tells the Times that data from Caltrans from 2001 to 2006 shows that the agency failed to install about 1,000 required curb ramps during road improvements. The 1,000 missing improvements doesn't include curb ramps that were installed but don't comply with federal law.

Caltrans and urban officials from around the state seem aware of the problem.  The Times explains:

Government officials and powerful municipal organizations such as the League of California Cities have contended that access lawsuits will burden financially strapped state and local agencies that are already struggling to comply with the law. Caltrans estimates that it would cost about $2.5 billion to make improvements statewide...

...Caltrans has spent $10 million -- an amount that will be spent annually for the next several years -- to build and upgrade curb ramps as well as improve sidewalks.

I'm certainly not a math expert, but at this pace it will take Caltrans a mere 250 years to bring California into compliance with the ADA, assuming no conditions get worse over the next two and a half centuries.

While that $2.5 billion seems to be a huge amount of money, certainly thrown out by the League of California Cities to scare people away from supporting the safe streets and sidewalks that all Californians deserve, consider that LA County itself will be spending $8 billion of Measure R funds to increase highway capacity and encourage car-driving commutes over the life of the gas tax.

Locally, the City of Los Angeles has its own ADA problems.  Back in January Donald Shoup broke down the many issues that the City faces as it tries to come into compliance and the many ways its dropping the ball.

A college-age Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), with her father at right. (Photo: Klobuchar for Senate)

Coburn's amendment fell short by a vote of 39-59, with three other Democrats, Sens. Russ Feingold (WI), Evan Bayh (IN), and Claire McCaskill (MO), also aligning with the majority of Republicans in favor of the opt-out.

Feingold, Bayh, and McCaskill are fiscal hawks who frequently vote to limit the scope of government spending, making their votes less surprising than Klobuchar and Webb's -- if just as disheartening for clean transportation advocacy groups.

Klobuchar in particular hails from a state where bicycling is a popular element of local culture. She has spoken often of her personal appreciation of biking, hiking, and other outdoor activities, and welcomed a 14-year-old climate activist to Washington after the young girl's 1,500-mile bike ride.

Klobuchar's office has not yet responded to an inquiry about her vote on Coburn's two amendments to the Senate spending bill that funds U.S. DOT for next year. The second Coburn amendment that fell short today was a modified version of his earlier proposal to restrict all "transportation enhancements."

Even when limited to only block funding for transportation museums, however, the second Coburn plan was defeated on a 41-57 vote.

A couple of years ago, the City of Pasadena considered banning bicycles from what they're now calling the "Rose Bowl Recreation Loop" because of the conflict being created between cyclists and car drivers.  At the time the city sided with the drivers citing their "commutes" as more important than the cyclists and pedestrians using the loop as a public space.  Pasadena's plan was hotly debated, but eventually shelved.

What a difference two years make.  After last year's hugely popular "Car Free Rose Bowl" event, attended by just about every planner and member of the Pasadena DOT on payroll, the city decided to take a second look at their plan and the change could barely be more drastic.  Pasadena is now proposing two plans that would increase access for cyclists and pedestrians in two different plans that will be presented at a community meeting tomorrow between 5 and 7:30 p.m. at the Brookside Golf Club and Lot K.  For more information please call 626-744-4610.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Rose Bowl Circle, it's a three-mile loop around the stadium that provides access to the parking lots and a handful of local roads.  The loop is popular with recreational and racing cyclists from around the region and beyond because of the well-maintained roads, flat area and scenic and easy-to-access location.  In addition, the area is also popular with residents who use the walkway for exercise or just to spend some time outside.

Let's take a look at the three options outlined for Pasadena by their consultants at Crain & Associates.

The first option is to leave things as they are.  Pasadena is well aware that there are serious problems with the current plan, and lists them in the report available on the project website.

• Pavement markings and signs specify one-way pedestrian flow, but are disregarded by many.
• Four-foot striped buffer is intended to separate pedestrians from bicyclists. However, pedestrians use the buffer as additional walkway, and often encroach into the bicycle and vehicle lane.

Enhanced Two-Way Walkway Proposal

• Walkway is widened to 13 feet, allowing 2-way travel “Wrong Way” signs will be removed.
• Walkway is on colored asphalt rather than a separate sidewalk, to allow motorist use during special events.
• Flexible delineator posts separate pedestrians from bicyclists and vehicular traffic.
• Some parking restrictions may apply.
  

While the "Enhanced Two-Way Walkway" proposal is a modest improvement, by far the most progressive proposal is the "Enhanced Walkway, with Bike Lane
and One-Way Vehicle Travel" pictured above.  This time the plan actually removes a car-travel lane for the benefit of all other road users. 

Photo: La Cita Vitta/Flickr

Eight months after Measure R has passed, the Metro Board is finally ready to pass its Long Range Transportation Plan at its meeting on July 23.  Instead of 2008, the LRTP will be passed in the 2010 fiscal year.  Instead of a gloomy "constrained" plan, the Board will be passing a much more robust plan because of the half cent sales tax dedicated towards transportation.

Of course, not everyone was a winner in Measure R.  Despite pressure from 200 people that signed a letter asking the Metro Board for a bicycle and pedestrian set-aside in Measure R funds, so while the rest of the plan is "strategic" funding for non-motorized transportation remains restrained.  Metro staff is quick to point out that municipalities are free to use their part of the 15% of Measure R funds that go back to communities for whatever they want including bicycle and pedestrian projects; but it's still sad to think that whenever the Metro Board releases copy for the final LRTP they are expecting to vote on later this month, the official website hasn't been updated since March 2008, all categories will see larger numbers than originally forecast except the bicycle and pedestrian projects.

But there is some good news.  While the 2008 LRTP said there was $241 million set aside for bicycle and another $241 million set aside for pedestrians; Metro staff is now saying there is actually $324 million each for the bicycle and pedestrian budget line.  Metro staff explains where Metro currently stands in relation to bike and pedestrian funding:

The $324 million identified each for bicycle and pedestrian modes represents a revenue stream reserved for each mode in escalated dollars from 2005 - 2030.  In today's dollars, this would be equivalent to receiving an average of $11.7 million per year each for the life of the LRTP from 2005 - 2030.  That this is a substantial, dedicated long-term investment for bike and pedestrian improvements within our agency’s transportation plan. 

The Measure R Local Return funds are above and beyond what is identified in Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan.  In other words, the 15 percent return is a separate amount of funding that the region’s 88 individual cities have the opportunity to utilize for, among others, bike and pedestrian projects they feel are important. 

That's a pretty big math error, especially since the "strategic" amounts listed for bicycle and pedestrian projects were $368 million per mode in the 2008 LRTP.  We've already made up most of the difference between "constrained" and "strategic" by just fixing a math error.  It doesn't seem like too big a lift for Metro to come with with another $84 million to help non-motorized transportation jump from "constrained" to "strategic" too.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn't think walking has much to do with public health. (Photo: MSNBC)

Sen. Mike Enzi (WY), senior Republican on the health committee, slammed the legislation for seeking to "pave sidewalks, build jungle gyms" and expand bike access to help improve public health:

We need to root out the waste, fraud and abuse that is driving up health care costs – not create a whole slew of new wasteful programs.

It's unclear whether Enzi knows that the federal government already has a program to encourage biking and walking, nor whether he's aware of their demonstrated public health benefits. But his talking point is already migrating to other Republicans, who have twisted the health care bill's proposed "community transformation" grants into a big-government bogeyman.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) picked up Enzi's baton today in a speech against the health bill:

[E]arly indications are that it will direct billions of dollars to things like having the government build sidewalks and government-subsidized farmers markets.

The idea here is to use tax dollars to encourage healthier lifestyles. But at a time when Americans are buried under medical bills and frightened about losing the coverage they have, farmers markets and sidewalks aren’t the reforms they have in mind.

If anyone doubts that the city is starting to hear and understand the issues of cyclists after a series of organized May rides, those doubts should be expelled today.

During a rather routine LADOT report on how $6 million in funds collected in 2005 and 2006 would be spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects, Councilman Bill Rosendahl spoke up to ask what input was given by the cycling community?

The LADOT lamely responded that it thought that the list was presented at a Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting.  Michelle Mowery, LADOT Senior Bicycle Coordinator, also opined that the committee was aware of the projects in the list, but maybe not the list itself.

To bolster their claim of outreach to their own Advisory Committee, one can note that the entire report was copied to former BAC Chair Alex Baum.  Of course, a cynic might note that Baum had been replaced as chair two months before the report was completed. 

The questions took a turn for the aggressive when LADOT representative Paul Meshkin responded to Rosendahl that there was no input gathered that he knew of, an aggressive Rosendahl wondered out loud why not.  After being pressed by both Rosendahl and Tom LaBonge, the LADOT committed to getting word of this $6 million in funding out to the bicycling community and to solicit feedback on what the community thinks of the project list.  Rosendahl insisted that communication include a notice that the City Council would open up the record at a full meeting for comments before passing the list.

Well Councilmen, I'm here to help.  The entire project list can be found on pages five and six of the report available here.  It includes partial funding for Phases I and II of the San Fernando Road Bike Path (which I had thought was already completed,) various maintenance and study programs and a slew of pedestrian projects.  When the Council posts that there will be a full hearing, I'll post a notice with all the relevant details here.

That being said, Rosendahl and LaBonge's larger point wasn't just about getting a list in front of cyclists who read blogs and are on official mailing lists; it's about getting the greater community involved and interested in bike planning and specific projects.

While I can certainly appreciate the Council Members standing up for cyclists after getting caught twice in ride-bys; I can't help but notice that this is a list of bicycle and pedestrian projects yet there was no discussion of getting input from the larger pedestrian community.  Because the "pedestrian community" includes everyone who's ever entered city limits, they could have just made sure the list was also presented to the city's Pedestrian Advisory Committee, a far less controversial mirror to the Bike Advisory Committee that has been chaired by Deborah Murphy since it's inception in the 1990's. 

Of course, it's entirely possible that Rosendahl and LaBonge are unaware the PAC exists since they haven't appointed representatives to the committee at any point during their terms, despite nearly a dozen letters from the Committee, the LADOT and even Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel asking them to do so.