Streetsblog Los Angeles

This is our second in our new e-interview series.  The first was with Melissa Hebert of LAX Car Share.  If there’s an advocate or personality that you think we should interview, please drop me a line at damien@streetsblog.org

Alexis Lantz was recently named the “Planning and Policy Director” of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition taking over for Dorothy Le.  Lantz is no stranger to cycling issues in Los Angeles, having worked on a full bike count study as part of her graduate work in the UCLA Planning Department.

Now that she’s taken a more high-profile position with the LACBC, I thought it would be a good time to talk with her and see what her plans, and the Bike Coalition’s plans are, going forward.

Name – Alexis Lantz

Online Name: I usually post with my name

Residence – Silver Lake

Advocacy Background – to tell you the truth I’m pretty new to (bike) advocacy. I did a lot of AIDS advocacy when I was in high school (I grew up outside of Washington, DC) I lobbied my congressional representatives on providing more funding for AIDS education, volunteered with AIDS Walk etc…

I went to college at American University in Washington, DC with the motivation of becoming a lobbyist but after one semester of political science classes I decided to switch gears and got into graphic design, performance art, and public relations. It wasn’t until I landed in LA that I became passionate about transportation issues.

I grew up primarily in cities with good public transit systems, a large chunk of my youth was spent in Germany and I was able to ride my bike to school etc – moving to LA opened my eyes to urban planning and transportation issues primarily because LA seemed to have done everything wrong when it came to city planning. Almost every other place I have lived (other than my stint in the suburbs of Virginia) was designed at human scale – LA is built at car scale.

I love living in LA and see making LA more bike/ped (and transit) friendly as one of the most important things this city can do to make itself into a more vibrant, equitable, and sustainable world-class city. Read more…

Allison Mannos from the LACBC’s City of Lights Program and Allison Mannos and
Councilman Ed Reyes Install Bike Parking at the CARECEN Day Laborers Center

How long does it take to install a bicycle rack?  Once you have a place selected, all the tools, and funding to install it, installing a bicycle rack takes about 5 minutes.  Of course, getting all of those things can take well over a year.

Earlier toady, the LACBC’S Award Winning City of Lights program, the office of Councilman Ed Reyes and the LADOT celebrated the installation of four bicycle racks at the CARECEN Day Laborer Center in the Pico-Union District of Los Angeles.  City of Lights began working to empower immigrant communities to advocate for bicycling infrastructure and help them learn how to ride safely just over a year and a half ago.  One of their projects was to bring better bicycling infrastructure to the community and today’s installation of safe bike parking at CARECEN was the first victory in the quest for better infrastructure for the day laborer community.

Before the location for these racks was selected, City of Lights worked with the immigrant community in Pico-Union to walk the streets and select the places most in need of bicycle parking.  They presented their findings to the LADOT who checked the recommended areas to make sure they met city criteria.  LADOT Assistant Bicycle Coordinator Chris Kidd estimated that dozens of more racks would be going in the area surrounding CARECEN.  LADOT is  ratcheting up its bike parking program and has the goal of installing 100 new racks around the city every month.

Reyes addressed the importance of bike parking to the day laborer community during the press event.  You can watch Reyes deliver his bi-lingual statement by clicking here. Read more…

At least eleven states have laws requiring drivers to leave three feet between their vehicle and cyclists while passing. If the Mayor of Los Angeles has anything to say about it, California will join those states before the year ends.

At a Tuesday press conference, Villaraigosa, flanked by leaders of the LADOT, LAPD, Los Angeles Councy Bicycle Coalition, and Midnight Ridazz, stated his support and promised his advocacy for a state law requiring drivers to give those three feet. The purpose of the press conference was to announce the winner of a slogan contest for posters designed by Geoff McFetridge that will be going up on bus shelters throughout the city. The "Give me 3" slogan was created by Danny Gamboa and beat out over 200 other entries.  You can see the fruits of McFetridge and Gamboa's efforts above.

Momentum for a "3 Feet Passing Law" for California has been growing in Los Angeles since the start of the year. Council Member Bill Rosendahl floated the idea that the City could create its own passing law while he pushed for an "anti-harassment ordinance" for cyclists. While the City Attorney has opined that the city can't pass such a law on its own, Rosendahl renewed his call for a "3 Feet Passing Law" at last week's Bike Summit.  For Villaraigosa's part, he has vowed to push forward with this proposed legislation no matter what.  “We’ll keep at it until it becomes part of the California Vehicle Code,” he promised at the press conference.

Read more...

In what has to be a double victory for the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition, reports are coming in that Sharrows are appearing on 4th Street in the Mid-Wilshire and Koreatown areas.  The LACBC hasn’t just been the leader in pushing for Sharrows on the street, but also in turning 4th Street, a popular bike route, into something resembling the Bike Boulevards of Portland and Berkeley.

Announcing the find on twitter, @danceralamode joked that finding a Sharrow is like a celebrity siting.  I’m sure there will be a lot more on the Sharrows arrival as the day and weeks go on. But in the meantime, if you spot a Sharrow while riding in the city, and you’re not on Fountain, 4th Street, NELA or Westwood, drop us a line and send us a picture so we can help spread the word.

Over 500 slogans have been submitted to the Bike Safety Slogan
Contest being organized by the un-likely (some would say un-holy)
coalition of the LAPD, the LACBC, MidnightRidazz.com, and the LADOT.
These groups have been working with the City of Los Angeles to procure
ad spaces in bus shelters and Public Amenity Kiosks (PAK.) The goal
being to raise awareness among road users about issues such as rights,
rules, safety, and road courtesy in relation to bicycles. The final
slogan will be designed and illustrated by the world renowned artist Geoff McFetridge.

A
top ten list of slogans has been procured from the entries and now the
coalition is looking for more input from the public before the final
slogan is chosen for production.

You are invited to comment, pick apart, improve upon and otherwise
discuss the slogan. The goal is to get a broad consensus and an
effective campaign. You may comment here, on Facebook or on MidnightRidazz.com

Drum roll…. the slogans please:

Read more…

(I'll be out of town for the River Ride this year.  Instead of the normal Streetsblog review I asked the LACBC to help me write a preview of the 2010 River Ride. - DN)

Join us Sunday June 6, 2010 for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition's Tenth River Ride!

Anyone who has done any sort of cycling in L.A. County has probably been on the Los Angeles River Path at some point or another. Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) staff, members and supporters have been long time supporters of the revitalization of the Los Angeles River and the River Path. What many of you might not know is that the Los Angeles River Ride is produced by us, the LACBC. Now in its 10^th year, the River Ride and the LACBC have a lot to celebrate.

The Annual Los Angeles River Ride is a unique event, because it was dreamed up, organized by, and is the very life blood for LACBC, whose mission is to create and improve the bicycling environment and quality of life in Los Angeles County.  The ride begins at The Autry National Center in Griffith Park and continues to Long Beach where they turn around to head back to the Autry.

Advocacy efforts for the LA River revitalization and the River Ride have been linked from the beginning.

LACBC has done significant work, along with many organizations, to improve the areas encompassing the Los Angeles River and River Path. We have helped advocate for and win a complete removal of all graffiti on 30 miles of the River Channel, improved directional signage, advocated for a re-striping of the path.  Finally, the most hard fought victory was the repaving of 3 miles of rough flood channel on the easement from Fletcher to Figueroa. All of these improvements have been done in conjunction with the River Ride.

Read more...

Everyone who had a problem with the "Caution! Pass With Care" posters because they were "illegal" can rest assured that the next awareness campaign aimed at motorists, but designed by cyclists will be perfectly legal.  Of course, that the LAPD, along with the LACBC and "Midnight Ridazz," is sponsoring a contest to create the poster theme that will appear in bus shelters and Public Amenity Kiosks (PAK) throughout the city.  People interested in learning more about the project, or how to submit a theme for the posters, the art is being donated by Geoff McFetridge, can read more about it at the LACBC blog.

The announcement of the contest and partnership revealed a familiar division in the bicycling advocacy community.  On one hand, you have those that believe partnership is one way to build relationships of trust and do some good in the meantime.  Then there's the group that believes that going along with the government (LAPD, LADOT, whoever) on small projects relieves the pressure for the major policy changes that the city desperately needs.  It's an interesting debate, and one that flares up every now and again.  Prediction: we'll see it again in the lead-up to "Bike to Work" Week in mid-May.

People seemed especially surprised to see the Midnight Ridazz's skull appear on the contest announcement.  Roadblock, who holds the copyright on the term "Midnight Ridazz," spoke with me about why the Ridazz name is attached to this project:

Read more...

Oftentimes, cyclists find themselves arguing with non-cyclists about many different facets of life riding the streets of Los Angeles.  Cyclists ride the wrong way, spending money on bike lanes are a waste of money, cycling is just something people do to be trendy or exercise; these false arguments get repeated so often that non-cyclists, even ones sympathetic to the cause of safer streets for cycling, found themselves believing it. 

While anyone that's ever taken to the street on two pedaled-powered wheels knows these "facts" to be untrue; the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition did us all a favor by putting lie to these falsehoods in their final report on last year's bike counts completed throughout the county.  The final report will be available by the end of the day at the Bike Coalition's official website.  In the meantime, let's see how they're report puts truth to lies.

Spending money on cycling is a waste of money since nobody bikes.

Of the twenty five intersections the LACBC counted, the top seven intersections all had either bike lanes or connected to a bike path.  In other words, the numbers tell the story, if you want people to take to the road on their bikes, the best way to make them feel safe is to provide either the protection of a bike path or the paint of a bike lane.  Of course, we've seen how sometimes this feeling of safety can be a false assumption at times, bike paths in urban areas come with their own set of safety hazards; but the numbers speak for themselves.  If the City of Los Angeles, or any city, wants more people to consider cycling for transportation; they need to spend the resources to make cyclists feel safe.

Read more...

This morning, while preparing "Today’s Headlines" I came across a story in the Times about cyclist Jose Guzman, our friend Ramon Martinez and a day in the life of a day laborer on a bike.  I thought the story was a good narrative, and was probably a more relevant story about what happens every day in L.A. than the story about bus riders earlier in the week; but it was missing one thing.

"Where’s the reference to City of Lights?" I asked myself?  To someone who knows the program; they’re aware that much of the story was taking place in the downtown bike repair space, that City of Lights announced earlier this year.  But, I would bet that we’re lucky of 1% of the people reading the Times story could make the connection to the Bike Coalition’s Streetsie award winning program.

So, first thing’s first.  Let’s give credit to writer Hector Tobar for taking the time to paint a picture of the bike-riding day laborer, a subset of bike culture that accounts for a large percent of the people who ride bikes; but a small percent of those who show up to meetings to "be counted" when it’s lobbying time.

But let’s also take a second to remember that the unsung heros of this story are the folks at City of Lights, a mostly volunteer wing of the LACBC who are on the front lines of making this city a better and more inclusive place for all cyclists.  Drawing on some of the energy created by this story, they hoped to do a little fundraising for the bike repair space mentioned in the story.  You can read about what they need and how to help them out at their website.

The Sharrows Pilot Project has been an ongoing campaign for LACBC, nearly five years running now, as we jumped hurdle after hurdle working to clear the pilot through the LADOT. Last year City Council President Eric Garcetti championed the issue and the idea began to take off. Now in 2010 we will finally see Los Angeles city streets catch up to other surrounding cities and start implementing sharrows to help create safer and more bike- friendly streets.

Yesterday, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed, a contractual agreement between the funders of the pilot project-SCAG (Southern California Association of Government) and the David Bohnett Foundation-and LACBC and LADOT, the two groups doing the work for the pilot. The MOU outlines the scopes of work, the budgets and a timeline to which all parties are held accountable. LADOT was given a notice to proceed to commence work on the pilot beginning yesterday, Monday, March 1st.

Due to LADOT's perception that Los Angeles is a city unlike any other city currently using sharrows, one of the pilot's main purpose is to study which streets in LA are best suited for implementation. As with any other pilot, there is preliminary data that needs to be gathered before the paint hits the ground. But we are happy to announce that we will be seeing sharrows on LA city streets in mid June!

Though we can't publicize the locations of the sharrows until they have been finalized by the end of March, we can expect 5-10 locations. LACBC will be conducting bike counts and on-street surveys of bicyclists before and after sharrows are implemented. We will also be developing and distributing educational fliers and posters to analyze the impact of how "supplemental educational components" affect bicyclists' understanding of sharrows and their correct usage of the roadway.

With all the work to be done, we will be looking for volunteers to help out in ways similar to the great assistance we got with the first ever bike count earlier last year. Please contact Aurisha@la-bike.org if you are interested in being a part of the sharrows pilot project.