Bicycling

The Port of Long Beach is green. Very green. And no, we're not talking about the unsightly tint the port used to give the Alamitos Bay. Port administrators are making a concerted effort to make the giant shipping facility as environmentally friendly as it can be.

This week's National Bike Summit culminated in an ambitious new campaign to recruit a million bike advocates and the unveiling of a new Google Maps bike feature. But in a Wednesday session dedicated to the outlook for federal bike investments, cycling advocates hesitated to declare that they could secure new commitments from Washington.

Last week, hundreds of bike advocates descended on Washington D.C. for the tenth annual National Bike Summit -- the largest one yet. Hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the summit is always a great opportunity for advocates to share ideas and make the case for cycling on Capitol Hill. This year attendees encouraged their senators and representatives to sign on to several key pieces of legislation, including the Active Community Transportation Act, Safe Routes to School Act, and the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act.

The bike blogs and even some traditional news outlets are buzzing with the news that Google Maps will be launching a "bike directions" application later today at the National Bike Summit in Washington in 150 cities, including Los Angeles.  The New York Times reports:

Photo: Lisa “no relation” Newton/Flickr Last year’s Bike Summit is this year’s StreetSummit, taking place next week – Thursday March 18th and Saturday March 20th. The summit features opening keynote speakers, and a day full of workshops and networking. It’s hosted by the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, which urges attendees to pre-register online by … Continued

A bill introduced last month by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), who has been a steady advocate for reducing the dangers of distracted driving, would increase first-time and repeat fines for drivers who text while driving or who don’t use hands-free devices, and would extend the prohibition of cell phone use to cyclists. This last move has cycling advocates baffled and on the defensive.

This morning, while preparing "Today's Headlines" I came across a story in the Times about cyclist Jose Guzman, our friend Ramon Martinez and a day in the life of a day laborer on a bike.  I thought the story was a good narrative, and was probably a more relevant story about what happens every day in L.A. than the story about bus riders earlier in the week; but it was missing one thing.

NHTS data from 2001 and 2009 shows a major increase in sustainable transportation. Image via Mobilizing the Region. Between 2001 and 2009, the number of trips that Americans made in cars dropped by more than four percent, with walking, bicycling and transit use picking up the slack, according to new data from the U.S. Department … Continued

Not all of the bicycling news happened in Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday.  The cities of Covina and Claremont both opened Bikestations.  Each city is now the proud owner of a two hundred fifty square foot facility adjacent to their Metrolink Stations, designed to make it easier for people to walk or bike either to the Metrolink trains or to just within their towns.