Bicycling

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.

Last year, when handing out the Streetsie for "Politician of the Year" to Bill Rosendahl, we challenged the Councilman to complete a bike safety course before we would give it to him in person.  While he agreed, we've had to put the project on hold, in part because of his heart surgery.

You have one last chance to hear the presentation and ask questions or provide feedback directly, Tonight, Wednesday 3/23/2011, start at 6:00 PM in the Mark Twain Library, 1401 E. Anaheim, Long Beach