Bike Parking and the Metro

Graffiti and an empty room at what was supposed to be the Metro Bike room

If you’re looking for 5000 words of light weekend reading, may I suggest three recent articles (1, 2, 3) by Bikeside board member and Bike Writers Collective founder, Stephen Box.  The articles detail failures by Metro to plan for cyclists and pedestrians at two major facilities – the Metro Station at Hollywood and Western, and the W Hollywood Hotel & Residence above the Metro Redline Station at Hollywood and Vine.  The problem?  Somehow bikes consistently don’t make it to the finish line in major projects, despite Metro promises:

Of the five basic TOD elements, the Metro and the W Hollywood have failed to get past the first half of item #1, designing for Cycling. Somehow the Metro’s Real Estate Department, led by Roger Moliere, Chief of Real Property Management & Development, and Greg Angelo, Director of New Business Development, allowed a significant 2/3 of a billion dollar development to get to the finish line before they spoke up and said “What about the cyclists?” Within the Metro’s Planning Department is a team led by Lynne Goldsmith that is responsible for bike parking at Metro facilities. How is it that the Hollywood & Vine Metro Station is now built out and the W Hollywood ribbon cutting is old news, yet the Metro still doesn’t have a plan for cyclists other than wandering around asking “Is there any room left over for the bike parking?”

That’s from the eldest piece, “Metro Bike Parking – Won’t Get Fooled Again!” In the second piece, “Transient Oriented Development”, Box hits on a point that flummoxes activists of all stripes, over and over.  How is it that the bigger a project, the less accountability for failure?  Over and over we watch people pass the responsibility around, and I wonder, when did “that’s my area of responsibility” become “not my problem”:

When this many authorities working with this much money use “I assumed!” as an operating mantra, it borders on professional negligence. The details matter. They are significant. They are the telltale whips of smoke that indicate a much larger problem, one that may not surface for some time. But they are significant and one can only wonder, “What else was completely overlooked?”

The real gem of all the pieces is a 1:19 video at the end of the third piece, “Metro Betrays Community.” Just watch it – Box explains how what was once a space set aside for visionary bike facility is now home to a homeless encampment and census training:

Someday, I swear it, I will have positive things to write for y’all, but for now, I’ve just got a backlog of negative stories that are just too good.