Gary Kavanagh

Last Thursday UCLA hosted its third annual Complete Streets Conference in Downtown Los Angeles. I was excited to have had the opportunity to attend with such a packed line up for the all day event, with a few big names in the mix including the esteemed Janette Sadik-Khan.

At Tuesday night’s council session at Santa Monica city hall, it was a clean sweep toward making progress on multi-modal transportation goals and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (for areas not dependent on outside decision making like the federally regulated SMO airport).

I’m currently rolling out (on Amtrak) of Washington D.C. following what has shaped up to biggest rally ever held specifically to confront global warming and climate change as an issue in the United States (the estimates I find most likely were that there were around 35,000 marchers in the street).

For those who didn't know, some commitments came up that demanded nearly all of my time the past few weeks so I took a break from the blogging. For my first post back I thought I’d quickly go through a few of the recent or developing Santa Monica stories I caught word of or have seen that have been mulling around in my brain during my blogging absence. Things are moving quickly these days in Santa Monica, on more fronts than just bicycling, and there’s a lot to talk about out.

One game changing advancement to help users navigate public transit websites is the proliferation of smart phones, apps, and map services catering to public transit. While we shouldn’t assume everyone has access to these tools, it is foolish to not embrace the opportunities these new tools make possible. However, Big Blue Bus remains behind with a lack of real time updates made available. In addition, scheduling and routing data remains inaccessible to independently developed apps and websites.

This past week I first noticed signage and stenciling in Santa Monica telling cyclists not to ride on the sidewalk. This new stencil signage is at present only on 2nd St near Arizona, and is inconsistently implemented with one intersection with a walk your bike icon (2nd & Arizona), and another with a bike crossed out (2nd & Wilshire, as well as at one mid-block point). If we are to going to have such markings, I  prefer the "walk your bike symbol". "Walk your bike" frames the issue in the positive, and makes it more clear the riding a bike on the sidewalk is the issue, not simply a message of "no bikes". For simplicity sake, "walk bike" would be shorter and communicate the same message.

Coming up on Saturday, December 8th, Santa Monica is hosting a Family Bike Fest, through a collaboration of the city, local schools, and the Safe Routes To School program.  Just as the preparation events held in conjunction with the Bike It! Walk It! Days, the festival will have an educational component with youth bike skills courses and information. With food and other activities planned, it should be a pretty good time for people of all ages.

In the first post of this two part series, I laid out some of where we are in Santa Monica with regards to bicycling, and my belief that we are a regional leader even if Long Beach has silver and we remain ranked bronze. However a lot remains to be done if we are to make bicycling truly accessible in Santa Monica, and as promised, in this second part I'll outline some specific strategies and milestones that may be useful in guiding the next few years.

I am always delighted to read the various blog posts and opinions of other LA area advocates who see Santa Monica with less frequency than myself, who notice what’s going on here with fresh eyes, and like what they see. Recent posts on Orange 20's blog, and Flying Pigeon's blog, written by Richard Risemberg come to mind especially. Santa Monica, in my opinion, is the city furthest along in developing an everyday bicycling culture in Los Angeles County despite the designation of Long Beach as silver and Santa Monica as bronze by the League of American Bicycling.

Following up on my outlining the consequences of doing nothing, I wanted to articulate further what kind of development Santa Monica should be pursuing. While it is true I don’t want to halt or tie up development in never ending red tape, that doesn’t mean I believe anything goes should be our approach, or that there aren’t serious concerns.