Showing a little bit of tech-saavy, to help reach out to the notoriously technorati sprinkled throughout L.A.’s bike scene, Mayor Villaraigosa is using Google Moderator to rank questions for the Mayor in advance of Monday’s Bike Summit.  You can go directly to the web-page set up for the Summit by clicking here.

For those not familar with Google Moderator, that need some help navigating the page, you can also click here for the wikipedia page explaining what this program is and how it works.

For those of us that can’t make Monday’s Summit, being held at 9:00 A.M. in the Metro Board Room adjacent to Union Station, this is a nice way to allow us to participate.  With a trip to New York that was scheduled months ago, I can’t make the Summit, but can still participate, somehow; as can anyone that can’t make it.  Of course, packing the room is one way to show the Mayor how important cycling is to Los Angeles, but overwhelming his google page is a less-effective, but still real way of getting the point across that people care about this issue.

Of course, it’s also a nice way to somewhat blunt the criticism that a 9:00 A.M. start time in the middle of August, on a Monday, with only two weeks notice, isn’t the best way to encourage a group of people to turn out.

Bikeside points out that "Notice that voting for every question does nothing – make choices!" because of the way that the technology is set up.  So take the time to read through and vote your favorites!  Right now there are 76 potential questions.  I’ll be making my votes tomorrow.

And good luck at the Summit!