Bicycling

Okay, so the Bicycle Advisory Committee isn't really a secret. But it might as well be.

In the end, it really wasn't about David Byrne.

WI'm young, I'm an actor and a photographer and I'm a woman. This might be nothing unusual in Los Angeles with the exception that I'm also car free.

Yesterday, the city of L.A. Department of Transportation (LADOT) made good on their pledge to stripe the first new mile of Reseda Boulevard bike lanes. The lanes were approved in 1996, but languished for various reasons detailed earlier, until bicyclists and community members rallied. It's one mile of a five mile gap closure.

Last night, the city of Pasadena hosted a public input meeting for its new bike plan. The big news at the meeting was the release of a draft map of proposed bikeway facilities. Though that map is not yet posted on-line, the city's Senior Transportation Planner Rich Dilluvio assured L.A. Streetsblog that it would be posted within a couple weeks.

(There's a lot of great bike and walk improvements happening in Long Beach, so L.A. StreetsBlog will cover it in two parts, for now. Today's article features the past and present; next Friday will feature exciting plans for the future.)

Chalk up more bikeway innovation to the folks at the NYC Department of Transportation. Now nearly complete, the Sands Street approach to the Manhattan Bridge is now safer and more enjoyable thanks to a first-of-its-kind in NYC: a center-median, two-way, protected bike path. Frankly, the facility is a perfect solution to counter the dangers posed by a tangle of roads and highway on-ramps that burden the area. Dramatic before and afters tell the delicious story.

Hey now! This must be the place: Friday is a happy day to stay up late for a once in a lifetime event with David Byrne! Byrne is pretty well-known recording artist, one-fourth of the Talking Heads and the founder of the heavenly Luaka Bop world music label. Byrne is also many other things seen and not seen, including an artist, a bicyclist. He's created artistic bike racks, including one shaped as an electric guitar. He has written a new book called Bicycle Diaries. The book, I read, is about his true stories of travels by bike in various cities.

Sunday's Crenshaw Crush drew cyclists from all over the city to Leimert Park, home of the Drum Circle, for a bike ride that introduced riders to the history, the culture, the politics and the people of the Crenshaw District.