At Zev’s Urging, Supes Demand Progressive Bike Plan

Earlier today, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors quickly and unanimously passed a motion by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky urging for progressive changes to the L.A. County Draft Bike Plan.  The L.A. County Bike Plan addresses the "unincorporated" parts of L.A. County (those without a municipal government) such as Marina del Rey.

The motion, available on the Supervisor's website for the last week, picks up many of the suggestions made by bicyclists at a recent meeting of the County Planning Commission, including language that allows the County to build cycle tracks when permitted by state law, requires conformity with the recently released "model street manual" by the L.A. County Department of Public Health and UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and allows the use of other innovative bicycling design as they become approved by Caltrans.

"The bicycle plan has come a long way since the first draft, but there improvements are still needed to really address safety," testified the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition's Alexis Lantz before passage of the motion.  "We want the County Bike Plan to not only be a guide for implementation but a visionary plan for the next 20 years that will help create safer streets, encourages a diversity of people to bicycle, and maximizes our planned and proposed transportation investments so LA County becomes more mobile, better connected, healthier and a more livable county.

We feel the motion before you today gives the guidance needed to staff in order to do just that and we urge you to support it."

The L.A. County Bike Plan requires the approval of the Supervisor-appointed County Planning Commission before a full vote by the Supervisors themselves.  At the November meeting of the Commission, they voted to send the most recent draft back to the drawing board to incorporate many of the changes that are now clearly supported by the Supervisors themselves.  The Supervisors are expected to vote on the plan's passage in March of next year.

“It is critical that the Board of Supervisors not wait to send a clear message that we expect this plan to do more to make the County a better, safer place to bike,” the motion reads.

For more on the motion, visit ZevWeb, here.