Bicycling

For decades, dueling camps of cycling advocates have feuded about how to best accommodate riders. Some have pushed for the construction of Dutch-style cycle tracks, arguing that separated lanes make bicycling safer and less intimidating, while others have insisted such infrastructure isolates riders and makes cycling more dangerous than simply remaining within the flow of traffic.

Yesterday the LADOT announced through the LADOT Bike Blog that a series of projects outlined in the Bike Plan would undergo a full environmental review before construction of these projects can begin construction.  Between conversations with City Planning and LADOT, we have a good idea of how the environmental review will go forward.  City staff is concerned about lawsuits brought against projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA.)  CEQA lawsuits had delayed the implementation of the San Francisco Bike Plan for four years and continues to stall the Expo Line Bike Path.

(Update: I've just received word that the Leimert Station/Crenshaw Subway motion has been delayed until the next Metro Board meeting in May.  - DN)

The city of Long Beach is Southern California's undisputed leader in innovative infrastructure for safe and convenient bicycling.  They're at it again this Saturday, April 23rd 2011, when they unveil the first genuine protected bike lanes west of New York City.

Chicago Mayor-Elect Rahm Emanuel has snapped up Gabe Klein, former head of the District Department of Transportation in Washington, to head up his transportation team in the Windy City.

"That was the easiest hearing I've ever been to," joked Alexis Lantz of the Bike Coalition as the two of us packed to leave hearing room 1010 in City Hall.  Five minutes earlier, Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl opened the City Council Transportation Committee meeting with a ten second vote approving some parking districts followed by a hearing on doing away with Los Angeles Municipal Code 80.27, a law banning front mounted bicycle seats.  Two of those five minutes were taken up by me, as I explained the process of mounting a baby seat (commonly known as a car seat) in to a European style bucket bike.

Even in the wake of another tremendously successful CicLAvia, there are still signs of a Bikelash growing in some quarters against progressive transportation design that attempts to make streets safer and efficient for all road users, not just automobiles.

The heated debate over the Wilbur Road diet is back in the news as Councilman Greig Smith has asked the LADOT to move forward with a compromise proposal that it presented to a joint meeting of the Northridge West and Porter Ranch Neighborhood Councils last month.  The Council's had sent representatives to a "Wilbur Working Group" who helped LADOT devise the compromise, however neither the communities that wanted Wilbur returned to its faster design of yesteryear nor the community that applauded the calmed traffic was happy with the compromise.

When we last discussed Los Angeles Municipal Code 80.27, we explained how a couple of sentences of city law makes it technically illegal to ride a child in a cargo bicycle or front-mounted bicycle seat.  While this law has been sparsely enforced, it is on the books and has been a thorn in the side of cyclists that picture a future Los Angeles looking more like Bogota or Copenhagen than the L.A. of today.