Bicycling

This photo of an LADOT parking enforcement cyclist riding down the sidewalk was taken yesterday afternoon.  Of course, riding in the sidewalk is perfectly legal in Los Angeles. However given some of the actions by the LAPD and the warnings by bicycle safety experts that sidewalk riding is the most dangerous place for a cyclist; it would be nice to see LADOT's "official" cyclists take to the street, and set the example for other cyclists, when it's time to ride.

(Editor's note: Because the LADOT uses the lawsuit barring bicycle projects in San Francisco as reason to "go slow" on bike projects, I thought checking in on the status of that lawsuit with the folks at SF Streetsblog could be enlightening.  Also, Michael Rhodes contributed significantly to this story.)

Over the last several weeks, Mayor Villaraigosa and his new police chief, Charlie Beck, have been holding community meetings and town halls throughout the city.  At nearly every stop, they were met by cyclists who are concerned with the rising violence on the streets and the worsening relationship between some riders and the LAPD.  In West Los Angeles, Alex Thompson pigeonholed his Councilman, Bill Rosendahl, and questioned the Chief on street justice.  In the Valley, Bike Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey organized cyclists to get out for the meetings.  Downtown, it was the Bike Coalition and representatives from Echo Park Bicycles, who have organized meetings on bike theft in recent weeks.  These are just a small sampling of the mobilization efforts cyclists underwent city-wide.

Last weekend, when I was a guest on Bike Talk, the conversation in the room turned to what can be done about the growing number and boldness of bicycle thieves in Los Angeles.  After lamenting that the LAPD basically declared it a non-priority, unless you can hand them the case on a silver platter, at a meeting at Echo Park there was a brief debate concerning personal responsibility and "street justice."

In the summer of 2008, when Streetsblog first announced its "1% for bikes, 1% for peds. campaign" in what would later be known as Measure R, we never thought that a year and a half later we would still be fighting that fight nor that we would be close to a partial victory.  

During our ride on Friday, Steven Frien wondered a couple of times why there wasn't talk of having a bicycle lane on 1st Street running parallel to the Gold Line on First Street .  Later in the day, during The Source's review of our review of the Gold Line, Steve Hymon upped the score by asking why there wasn't better bike planning along the entire route.  After all, we know how much bike parking there is at every station, wouldn't it be nice to have a bike network to keep those racks full?

When it comes to infrastructure improvements that encourage more people to walk or bicycle to transit stations, how long will commuters be willing to travel? The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has officially answered that question, proposing a significant expansion of the rules governing how close bike-ped projects should be to transit in order to receive government funding.

This year the New York City Department of Transportation measured a 26 percent jump in commuter cycling. Coming on the heels of 2008's unprecedented 35 percent growth, that puts the total two-year increase at a whopping 66 percent.

As we mentioned last week, there is reason for concern about the way the traditional media is covering the "bike v car" controversy in the wake of the verdict in the trial of Dr. Christopher Thompson.  Sometimes there is a soft bias, such as in the wording of the question in  today's "Question of the Day" by KABC and sometimes it is more pronounced on radio shows or other two-way communications.