SBLA Editor Joe Linton Featured in Guardian UK Tour of US Car Capitals

In September, I had the pleasure of bicycling around Los Angeles with Guardian journalist Nick Van Mead. The reporter was on a tour of three of the United States' car capitals - Detroit, Houston, and Los Angeles - to understand how car-centric places are moving into a healthier, more multi-modal future.

Today, Van Mead's article America’s road trip: will the US ever kick the car habit? was published at the Guardian.

Sitting at Relámpago Wheelery, Jimmy Lizama and I related to Van Mead how bicycling in L.A. has come a long way and how we still have a long way to go. Then Van Mead and I rode the 7th Street bike lanes into downtown L.A., checked out pedestrian improvements on Broadway, green bike lanes on Spring Street, and protected bike lanes on Los Angeles Street, and rode back on the L.A. River bike path.

I told Van Mead that I was concerned that some reporters drop into L.A. and report tired stories more or less saying "Whoa! Who Knew It!?! There Are Actually Bicyclists in L.A.!!!" I have seen quite a few stories like this, dating back to a 1999 National Public Radio piece. It seems like it is one of my roles to tell reporters that walking and bicycling in L.A. really is not new or news. I like the way Newsweek quoted me on this: “People have been walking in L.A. since before Columbus discovered America." Unfortunately neither the Guardian nor Newsweek could resist quoting the tired counterpoint from that misleading Missing Persons song.

I was glad to see Van Mead relay my conviction that governmental planning and transportation professionals are "only just catching up with how groups of Angelenos have been using their streets for years." I find that many people look at L.A. today and read it as: people are bicycling more because there is, finally, some bicycle infrastructure. I tend to read it the opposite way. People have been bicycling for a long time. Bicycling has visibly increased in L.A., especially around 2000-2010, while the city did next to nothing for bikes. Now, finally, L.A. is implementing bike infrastructure to catch up with people already bicycling.

My point underscores what L.A. County Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Tamika Butler states in the article:

L.A. City Department of Transportation General Manager Seleta Reynolds rounds out the article, speaking on the other side of the equation. It is not enough to just provide "carrots" in the form of safe walk and bike facilities but we also need to implement some "sticks" to make driving more reflective of its high societal costs, she says. From the article:

There is plenty of more about Los Angeles, Detroit, and Houston emerging as more balanced, more livable cities. Read the full Guardian article here.