People

"They say they care about our safety, but they're putting us in harm's way!"

Los Angeles' Bike Week 2014 kicked off at a press event this morning at Union Station. Metro Deputy Chief Executive Officer Lindy Lee welcomed assembled cyclists and media. Lee expressed enthusiasm about Los Angeles' bikeway facilities, now with "more miles than ever before." She invited cyclists to take advantage of free rides on Metro bus and rail for this Thursday's Bike to Work Day. There are also free rides on Metrolink and various local transit providers; see Metro's the Source for free ride instructions. Metro is hosting and co-hosting numerous Bike Week events, including a Wednesday ride and Bike Night at Union Station this Friday.

If there's one thing that was made clear from yesterday's community meeting for the proposed bike lanes on North Figueroa, it's that Councilman Gil Cedillo is going to continue dragging his feet on whether or not the Highland Park community is going to get bike lanes.

This week, stakeholders hammered out an agreement that allows the MyFigueroa project to finally move from design to on-the-ground implementation.

So, this is what it takes to make people angry enough to care, I thought as I looked out over the sea of elected officials, journalists, cameras, and cyclists gathering at the start point for Damian Kevitt's Finish the Ride event Sunday morning.

This morning, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell opened a new public bike repair stand. The repair stand is located at the Sunset Triangle Park Plaza.

At today's Metro Sustainability Committee, Metro CEO Art Leahy mentioned that he had visited Portland, Oregon. While there, he saw an "interesting treatment" for low volume streets making them better for bicycling. Leahy stated that cars hadn't been removed from the streets, but that they were diverted in some places. He said that these low volume streets carry hundreds of bicyclists every day.

Mayor Garcetti gave his first State of the City speech yesterday. The mayor touched on a number of transportation issues. He pledged to "bring rail to LAX" and to open the 405 Freeway's new billion-dollar carpool lane "next month," a bit earlier than its October 2014 projected completion date. The most detailed transportation news was a peek into some of the specifics of Garcetti's Great Streets initiative.

Yesterday's Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting featured a number of livability issues that deserve more in-depth attention: Safe Routes to School, bicycle and pedestrian traffic counts, parking privatization, and more. SBLA will do a brief re-cap, and will track and report on these issues more in the future.