How many times have you heard the response, “we can’t do that project because it will require an EIR.” (An EIR is an Environmental Impact Report and is a hefty and timely document) It is almost like environmental review will destroy a perfectly bitchen bike project. The stinging smell that crosses my nose everytime I hear those words come out of a collegues mouth is one of pure BULLSHIT! I have spent enough of my life digging through the CEQA Guidelines book to know full well a line of bullshit when I hear it.

Here comes the super nerdy part. The first thing a project goes through, long before the EIR can come along is an Initial Review. It is basically a checklist of potential environmental impacts. The checklist is included as an attachment in the CEQA Guidelines book that comes out pretty much every year. As one might assume, there is a Transportation/Traffic section of the checklist. But not all checklists are the same. Each year the checklists get tweaked a little depending on case law and what not. My office has a whole stack of these Guidelines books laying around from years past. So lets take compare a 2005 checklist with the 2010 checklist, nerdy bureaucrat style…

XV. TRANSPORTATION/TRAFFIC — Would the project:

a) Cause an increase in traffic which is substantial in relation to the existing traffic load and capacity of the street system (i.e., result in a substantial increase in either the number of vehicle trips, the volume to capacity ratio on roads, or congestion at intersections)?

b) Exceed, either individually or cumulatively, a level of service standard established by the county congestion management agency for designated roads or highways?

c) Result in a change in air traffic patterns, including either an increase in traffic levels or a change in location that results in substantial safety risks?

d) Substantially increase hazards due to a design feature (e.g., sharp curves or dangerous intersections) or incompatible uses (e.g., farm equipment)?

e) Result in inadequate emergency access?

f) Result in inadequate parking capacity?

So each of these items has four boxes next to it that represent “No Impact”, “Less Than Significant Impact”, “Less Than Significant With Mitigation”, and “Potentially Significant Impact”. If your project may have a “Potentially Significant Impact” there is a good chance that an EIR is going to be required. Ok so that is the 2005 checklist and it is jammed full of the assumption that car traffic is bad and a project that increases car traffic is the devil. Now lets move five years into the future and take a look at the 2010 checklist…

XVI. TRANSPORTATION/TRAFFIC. Would the project:

a) Conflict with an applicable plan, ordinance or policy establishing measures of effectiveness for the performance of the circulation system, taking into account all modes of transportation including mass-transit and non-motorized travel and relevent components of the circulation system, including but not limited to intersections, streets, highways and freeways, pedestrian and bicycle paths, and mass transit?

b) Conflict with an applicable congestion management program, including, but not limited to level of service standards and travel demand measures, or other standards established by the county congestion management agency for designated roads or highways?

c) Result in air traffic patterns, including either an increase in traffic levels or a change of location that results in substantial safety risks?

d) Substantially increase hazards due to a design feature (e.g., sharp curves or dangerous intersections) or incompatible uses (e.g., farm equipment)?

e) Result in inadequate emergency access?

f) Conflict with adopted policies, plans, or programs regarding public transit, bicycle, or pedestrian facilities, or otherwise decrease the performance or safety of such facilities?

So there you have it… the bicycle was invented somewhere between 2005 and 2010! Ok maybe not, but the CEQA Guidelines took off their training wheels and stopped riding on the sidewalk somewhere during that time.

As a bureaucrat I am not longer forced to look at the transportation system in terms of how many cars I can cram through an intersection during the hours of 7-9am and 4-6pm. So when you hear someone say “we can’t do that project because it will require an EIR,”  take the Subjective Bureaucrat’s lead and tell them BULLSHIT!

While I am at it I might as well add a list of some go-to exemptions that work really well for bike projects…

15061(b)(3) The activity is covered by the general rule that CEQA applies only to projects which have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. Where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possiblity that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment, the activity is not subject to CEQA.

15282 (g) Any railroad grade separation project which eliminates an existing grade crossing  or reconstructs an exisitng grade separation

15301 (c) Negligible or no expansion of existing highways and streets, sidewalks, gutters, bicycle and pedestrian trails, and similar facilities

15304  (h) The creation of bicycle lanes on exisiting rights-of-way

With some fresh paint already on the streets, it is worth noting that we have many improvements to look forward to in the near future.

New Colorado Ave bike lane, Westbound - photo by GarySeven

Gary’s comments on the recent bike infrastructure improvements in downtown Santa Monica were brought up multiple times during the meeting. Planning Commission Chair Jim Ries wondered how other concerned locals can provide such feedback before the bike plan goes to City Council for approval on November 22nd. Lucy Dyke responded that direct email feedback to her would be best. She also mentioned future Santa Monica Spoke Ride Alongs which will be a great way to introduce the public to the new facilities as they emerge, and get feedback in the process – similar to Charlie Gandy’s Long Beach by Bike tours.

Commisionner McKinnon inquired about the project timetable for the next few years. Lucy Dyke promised 2 bike corrals by year’s end, along with 14 miles of sharrows, and 19 miles of bike lane. Included will be the green bike lanes on Broadway and 2nd St, which should be ready by July 2012. Tentatively, the city plans to install 2,500 new bike parking spots in the next 5yrs, 800 of which should spring up next year.

5th and Arizona Bike Corral, adjacent to SM ICE skating rink - photo by Luis Morris

One of those bike corrals has already made its debut at the Southwest corner of 5th and Arizona. Thanks to the efforts of transportation engineer Sam Morrisey and transportation manager Luis Morris, it was installed within days of ICE skating rink’s request. The Zanzibar night club is located on that same corner – great music and overall vibe, except for their deplorable dress code which requires you to wear pants, even during a heatwave. So leave your find-a-decent-parking-spot worries at home – hop on your bike and ride to your preferred entertainment destination.

Overall, the Planning Commission was very receptive of the Bike Action Plan. If anything, their nitpicking of implementation details disclosed their thorough understanding of issues that cyclists face. Lucy Dyke earned most memorable quote of the night by stating that “We (the city) cannot avoid eventually prioritizing bikes over car traffic.”

In other news

• The city of Santa Monica plans to take over Lincoln Blvd from Caltrans in March 2012; My hopes are that Santa Monica will then attempt to turn Lincoln into a Complete Street, minimizing or eradicating the possibility of serious injury or death
• Most cyclists are accustomed to triggering a traffic light in their favor by riding over the embedded magnetic loops?  But what about that white stripe with a bike symbol?  It means that a video camera placed directly ahead will trigger the light, so don’t stray too far away from that mark.
• The Bike Center opens this Friday! Info below.

Bike Center, Colorado and 2nd St - photo by GarySeven

The Bike Center opens this weekend; it offers bike and segway sharing, lockers and showers, cyclist education programs, assistance with repairs, and secured parking. Santa Monica Spoke is leading a tour there on Saturday, Nov 19th, following a Bike Action Plan community meeting at 502 Colorado. Meet and greet at 10am; Bike Action Plan presentation led by city staff at 11am. Coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls will be on hand, and a 1 month membership to the Bike Center will be given away.

The Trail is not a Trail

by Gary Snyder

I drove down the Freeway
And turned off at an exit
And went along a highway
Til it came to a sideroad
Drove up the sideroad
Til it turned to a dirt road
Full of bumps, and stopped.
Walked up a trail
But the trail got rough
And it faded away—
Out in the open,
Everywhere to go.

In some primitive past, before the use of the wheel, people followed game tracks through grasslands and woodlands on foot. They shared the same degree of directional freedom that animals have. I did this as a child in East Africa: followed game trails through the bush. Small and lithe, I was able to finesse myself through tight spaces, stooped close to the ground.

When the wheel becomes the norm of human movement, though, we need roads in some form or another. But when four footed animals provided the motive power, these roads could be–and often were– narrow and rutted. The cobblestones of the European spring cycling classics shows how minimal such roads could be: rough enough that cyclists often use the dirt or grass verges as smoother alternatives to the cobbles themselves.

When the internal combustion engine and the bicycle wheel become the norm (these developments happened at the same time) not only do we need roads; we need macadamed roads, smooth roads. Unlike those drawn by four hooved animals, vehicles with motor driven tires need to keep these rubber donuts in touch with the surface they are traversing. Furthermore, expectations of speed go up as motorized wheeled vehicles become the norm.

Then, in the logic of human development, some of these roads eventually become multilane highways, divided highways, divided limited access highways, and finally freeways and interstate highways. All this is an understandable evolution: what works for 5 miles per hour does not work for 30; and what works for 30 miles per hour does not work for 75 or 80.

Such roads can only be created and maintained by powerful, sophisticated, and centralized governments, institutions with the power to tax, legislate, penalize, and maintain. These powers all go together and build off of each other and require a dense commercial and financial tax base to be viable. But the roads they build also help create that commercial and financial base: think of the network of interchangeable fast food restaurants, gas stations, truck stops, and (especially in New Mexico) Indian casinos that dot the US interstate highway system. Furthermore (and this is harder to imagine; out of sight, out of mind), think of how many small communities have died because the new interstate bypassed them fifty years ago. The Southwestern US is dotted with such hamlets along the old Route 66, full of crumbling buildings with roofs caved in. Highways are not merely passive reflectors of preexisting realities; they shape geographic, economic, and social facts on the ground.

What this means is that roads and money have a chicken and egg relationship, one that alters over time. They bring money into the settlements (not necessarily communities) that themselves spring up to take advantage of the traffic and hence money that passes along these asphalt ribbons. Soon most human movement becomes dictated by these expensive, technologically impressive roads. Furthermore, what happens in physical geography equally takes place within human mental ecology.

The larger roads no longer exist by a kind of local consensus, a development of local geography, local needs, and preexisting trails. Instead, they exist when some immense centralizing power deems that it is in its own financial or political interests for them to go along a certain path, between certain places.  The interstate system of the United States–its official name is “Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” partly came into existence because of Cold War fears, and to ease the movement of troops and war materiel in the case of military need. In other words, they are a direct product of what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”

And similarly we, the road users, are more and more channeled along paths that are preordained for us. Not only do the literal roads take us to and from work do this; so also the financial paths that undergird the roads themselves guide, force us even, along preordained paths that we might not otherwise choose. In a world that is complex, we become ever more embedded within this complexity that is geographically distant, beyond us and equally beyond our control.

The more complex our society, the greater our material rewards: this is the promise that the voices of concentrated capital and industrial progress have made again and again over the past few hundred years. Their promise is no doubt true in large part: more people own more than ever before. But what seems equally true is that we pay a price for these riches in our  freedoms. To a degree that might surprise our ancestors, we now traverse only preselected, preordained paths, both metaphorically and literally. Progress; yes; but there’s a real price paid for all this ease and convenience.

The modern world is supposedly about sheer individual freedom. But when we look at the infrastructures (both physical and mental)  that this form of freedom requires, perhaps it’s more accurate to note that instead, we have amazing ranges of choice within the narrowest of narrow corridors: that, of the 360 degrees possible geometrically, we can now traverse whichever of the five or ten degrees that society has dictated are possible in whatever way we like.

LADOT Bikeways staffers kicked out two prestigious bike experts from the workshops.  The details appear in my City Watch commentary – reprinted below.  One, Dale Benson, a California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) engineer, administers pedestrian and bike funding for Los Angeles.  The other, Rock Miller, has been hailed by Long Beach’s Charlie Gandy as Long Beach’s “traffic engineering genius”.  Miller designed Long Beach’s most famous bike facilities: the green stripe with sharrows, much of LB’s bike boulevard, and the protected bike lanes on 3rd and Broadway.

While the opening and closing sessions were open to the public, the meat of Think Bike were full day workshops on Thursday and Friday.  These workshops were invite only and not open to the public.  So when Miller and Benson showed up, they weren’t on the RSVP list.  Ted Rogers (BikingInLA) argues they should have registered:

Number one, the workshop was by registration only, and these weren’t the only people turned away for failing to register. Whether or not Alex Thompson thinks they should have been allowed in, they were the ones who failed to observe the simplest of requirements to pre-register.

Rogers and others are confusing the opening and closing sessions, which had open registration, with the private workshops, which were invite only.  Regardless, it is objectively foolish to turn away Benson and Miller, who asked only to observe.  The Think Bike workshops produced design concepts for three study areas.  Miller has the expertise to fully express those concepts as full fledged designs that can earn institutional support as he did in Long Beach.  And Benson oversees the funding that could fund these projects.  Turning them away is like kicking your boss out of a meeting because she wasn’t invited; it undermines what Think Bike was trying to do

So when Rogers and other point out that Benson and Miller weren’t invited, it’s besides the point.  If the Mayor had showed up would they have turned the Mayor away?  Or a Councilperson?  Miller and Benson will still be here in July 2013 when the Mayor is gone.

The Mayor’s office knows this was a bad incident – and that is why they issued official apologies to both Miller and Benson.

The uncomfortable truth no one wants to talk about is that senior LADOT Bikeways staff – Mowery chief among them – are often abrasive and oppositional in destructive ways.  It’s still a problem, and their loyalty to making LA bike friendly is still in question.  In the same period when the 7th St bike lanes went down, planned bike lanes became door zone sharrows.  While everyone is talking about green bike lanes, Tom LaBonge said “No” to 4th St Bike Boulevard thanks to flawed outreach from LADOT.

Think Bike is a great concept – a best practice for sharing best practices.  And I will defer to others in evaluating its outcomes, though I will share that I liked the Pacoima designs that came out.  But you can still screw up a good thing with boneheaded behavior.  For some reason talking about that makes me a pariah in the eyes of some.  Comments on LA Weekly and elsewhere have skipped polite disagreement, substantive criticism, and gone straight to character assassination.  For example, India Brookover:

Another instance of lazy journalism from the LA Weekly– the only “sources” are a couple of bitter guys that have weird, personal beef with LACBC.

Those two “bitter guys” are me and Stephen Box. I can’t speak for Box, but my problem with LACBC is the way that they conduct business.  That’s not a weird or personal beef, it’s a substantive disagreement with LACBC strategy.

So I will be a pariah then.  Someone has to point out when things aren’t working.  Right now that’s Bikeside, Joe Linton and a few others.  Even Damien Newton at LA Streetsblog could qualify his criticism less these days, IMO.  Even I have held my tongue too much.  It’s time to be open and honest about things that aren’t working.

(Re India Brookover’s allegations as to sources: the sources were actually Alexis Lantz of LACBC, DJ Chickenleather, an anonymous source, myself, and Stephen Box.)

My article in City Watch:

INVITATION ONLY … OR ELSE – If your boss asked to sit in on a meeting you were having with your staff, would you tell him to get out? Of course not! Or if you were a CEO of startup, and one of your major investors stopped by unexpectedly at a staff meeting, would you chastise them for not RSVPing? No, you’d give them your chair, your praise, your coffee, and your briefcase if they asked for it.
But here in the City of LA we’re experts in the art of foot-in-mouth. We’d turn away the boss and tell the investor to call first next time, and send him packing.

Case and point: at a workshop for LADOT engineers to learn best practices from the Netherlands, LADOT staff turned away a CalTrans employee who controls LADOT funding.

Dale Benson, the Senior Transportation Engineer in CalTrans District 7′s Local Assistance section, and Rock Miller, the award winning consultant who designed Long Beach’s innovative bike facilities, were turned away from the Think Bike LA workshops. The Think Bike LA workshops connected Dutch cycling experts with bike-challenged LADOT engineers to help them draft concept bike facilities to solve bike issues.

Benson administers bicycle funding and pedestrian funding for CalTrans District 7, which includes millions in federal and state funding that goes to LA biking and walking projects.  Miller is the Vice President of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) – the dominant national organization of transportation professionals – and has been praised by Charlie Gandy [link] of Long Beach as “Long Beach, California’s consulting traffic engineering genius.”

Benson and Miller have so far declined to comment.  However, LACBC Planning and Policy Director Alexis Lantz, the beloved Kill Radio DJ Paul “Chickenleather”, and a third source, who asked to remain anonymous, have confirmed that Benson and Miller were excluded.  DJ Paul was also excluded.

Rumors are circulating that Metro Transportation Planning Manager Tony Jusay was also excluded.

Lantz said “Michelle [Mowery] sort of pushed everyone out of the room that wasn’t part of the teams.”

Lantz emphasized that Benson, Miller and others were not on the three teams of twelve invited to participate in the workshops.  DJ Paul confirmed Mowery’s involvement saying “Ms. Mowery asked us to leave.”  Mowery, who works in Bikeways at LADOT, is the Bicycle Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles.

It was the anonymous source that provided the play by play.  The source reported that Benson entered the room and was confronted by Mowery.  Benson asked to observe, and emphasizing that he didn’t expect to participate:

Benson: I just want to observe and watch the groups working.

Mowery: This is a closed thing.

Benson: Well who made that decision?  Who do I need to speak with?

Mowery: You can talk to the mayor’s office . . . don’t make this difficult for me.

The source said that it seemed like “Mowery was going to call security.”  Benson, who is known to be very soft spoken, never raised his voice.

Historically, the City of LA has struggled to compete for Metro and CalTrans funds.  In the recent call for projects, the LADOT Bikeways only secured one on-street bikeways project.  That project received only 20% of the funding that LADOT Bikeways requested.

DJ Paul brought levity to the situation recounting a minutes long ordeal to get his camera battery charged, where ultimately he prevailed by trading use of his bike pump for use of a City Hall power outlet.  He said of the whole situation “it may have been a blessing because it made me work that much harder.”

Ultimately DJ Paul ran into one of the workshop teams at lunch.  Bikeways Transportation Engineer Nate Baird invited him along, saying, according to Paul, “I don’t see a problem with that.”

Neither do I!

LA’s Department of Transportation may have the right to toss a Senior CalTrans engineer out of its bike party but the question is … is it prudent? It’s way past time for LADOT to go to work on its less-than-friendly public image.

]]> http://www.bikesidela.org/think-bike-ladot-to-caltrans-engineer-you%e2%80%99re-outta-here/feed/ 9 http://www.bikesidela.org/sm-case-updates-and-city-council-mtg/ http://www.bikesidela.org/sm-case-updates-and-city-council-mtg/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:19:18 +0000 Mihai Peteu http://www.bikesidela.org/?p=3231 A couple of updates on how justice is being served in two unrelated Santa Monica traffic incidents.

Cathy Jean Jones struck a young woman in a crosswalk at Main and Pacific in February 2010, then tried to evade police.

From Danny Jimenez:

At the preliminary hearing on October 12 2010, the judge held there was sufficient evidence for the case to be heard before a jury. After a few continuances and postponements, Cathy Jean Jones pleaded No Contest on July 19th, 2011. Judge James Dabney sentenced her to two days county jail, but given two days credit for time served. She was also ordered to complete 180 days of community service, with permission to perform at a non profit organization approved by the LA County Probation Dept. She was placed on 5 years summary probation and ordered to pay court fines and make full restitution to the victim. Finally, she was ordered NOT to drive a motor vehicle. However, it does not say how long the driving restriction will last.

The restitution hearing is scheduled for January 5, 2012 in Department F at the LAX Courthouse.

In the Jeffrey Ray Adams case, District Attorney Steve Cooley decided to uphold the Misdemeanor charge.

The victim expressed frustration that his situation was not dire enough to merit Felony charges, even after his assault was caught on camera. BikingInLA explains that although the behaviour of the driver was outrageous, he is still not considered dangerous enough to warrant a Felony charge under California law. Rather sad that we have to be dismembered, left in a comatose state, or killed in order to elevate assaults with deadly vehicular weapons to a Felony status.

Tuesday evening, bike boxes on Ocean Park, downtown bikeways, and incorporating bike facilities into the future light rail station locations will be discussed at Santa Monica City Council. From Richard McKinnon, SM Parks and Recreation Comission:

First on the consent calendar is an item approving Alta design to design Santa
Monica’s first Bike Boxes at the Ocean Park Blvd and Main intersection and
at Michigan and Lincoln. The work is funded from a 2007 metro grant.

Second, the Council will consider circulation in the downtown area. In a great
staff, bikes are mentioned right through the document. The discussion will be a
chance to be heard about how bikes will be used in our central downtown
area.

3D rendering of a bike box

Road diets do create a safer environments for the most vulnerable road users. However, speed limits are merely suggestions, so bus or no bus, it would be nice to have seen a 10ft car travel lane instead of 11ft, and a nice roomy bike lane with a hashed door buffer zone.   So, in the defeatist tone of a lot of folks that I’ve seen commenting on local bike blogs – “It’s good enough for now”.

The main motivation for this article is the overall tone of the LACBC support letter in favor of the road diet, which I ran across a day after the deal was sealed.

Now on to…

The Gripes

Outright ignoring the dooring hazard is irresponsible, especially for a Bike Advocacy group. Also, it seems that LACBC continues to make excuses for LADOT’s inability to come up with a first-rate bike facility while deriding cyclists’ for their lack of “education”. The Main St corridor through Venice is a key connector between two very active commercial, relatively walkable areas. It is heavily used by cyclists and deserves the best bikeway possible. LADOT instead offers the MUTCD minimum bike lane design, which pales in comparison to what Long Beach is doing for its residents.

I am aware of the usual excuse: protected bike lanes are not an accepted standard, therefore LADOT is not eligible for funding, yadda yadda. Make it happen, in Venice. Go that extra yard and get that grant money, call it a temporary pilot project if you have to.

A cornucopia of caveats and assumptions...

Getting doored hurts and can cause very serious injuries.

What’s most offensive about the statement above is the shift of blame from city planner to the cyclist. “You should have seen that door opening from a mile away, newbie cyclist!” Are we designing a bike lane for the 8-80 age group, or for those with heightened spider-senses? I was unable to attend LACBC’s recent ThinkBike workshop, but I’m fairly certain the Dutch would set the bar higher.

Cyclists in cities with amazing bike facilities don’t have to be educated about the perils of the door zone. Why? They have amazing bike facilities, which minimizes dangerous situations from the start.

Another gripe:  ”Build it now, improve it later” mentality.  Built it well the first time around, instead opting for mediocre and hoping for improvements decades down the road!  Smaller cities like Santa Monica are more nimble, and  actually do react to cyclists’ concerns in a reasonable amount of time.  Maybe it has something to do with accountability – there are less departments to infinitely shift blame and responsibility onto when your project is lagging.

But honestly, when’s the last time you’ve seen the Venice Bike lane being “improved”? There’s fresh, smooth pavement in the travel lane adjacent to the Venice bike lane, but the bike lane itself is untouched.  It’s just as gritty and dishoveled as it was 5-10 years ago.

The Numbers

The paragraph below is what mainly sparked my outrage, and caused me two nights of lost sleep while I mapped and double checked the collision data repeatedly. A bold statement butressed by a breeze of thin air:

Excerpt from LACBC Main St Road Diet support letter - a brief review indeed

I will assume that the erroneous statement meant a two-year time span, from 2008 to 2010. According to my calculations, there were 28 total traffic incidents involving cyclists on Main St in Santa Monica between Jan 1st 2008 and Dec . About a third of those incidents were Sideswipes (10 incidents), another third were Broadsides (9), with the rest being Uncategorized (5), Head-on crashes (3), or Rear-end collisions (1). I have absolutely no idea how anyone can clearly draw a conclusion about how many of these incidents were doorings or caused by the door zone, after all, there is no specific label for a dooring in SWITRS.

CORRECTION: During the same LADOT time span, there were 17 traffic collisions reported, not 28.  A lesser discrepancy than originally reported.

Jan 2008 - Dec 2009 Main St Collision Types (2 yr time span)

2008-2010 Main St Collision Types (3 yr time span)

Primary Collision Factors for those same 28 incidents, same two year three year time span – unfortunately not very useful without a mention of which party was at fault.

Note:  The dataset I used is mostly comprised of street intersections.  This PDF contains traffic collision data involving cyclists from February 2006 to February 2011.  I have not been able to acquire a more accurate list of street addresses from the Santa Monica Police Department. Also, my dataset does not state which party was at fault. Regardless of that, keep in mind that’s a subjective call made by the responding officer.  If LACBC has more detailed data like actual street addresses and party-at-fault, I would still like to see how it supports their conclusions.

Now, let’s not be naive, we all know a large portion of incidents go unreported – the estimate is around two thirds. The former SMPD Deputy Chief was allegedly doored on Main St, and even he chose not to file a report. And in at least one case, a cyclist in Santa Monica has been convinced by a police officer that he should not file a police report if the paramedics do not respond to the scene. He was doored in the Broadway bike lane.

Think about that scenario for a moment.  It often takes paramedics arriving on the scene AND a willing police officer to take a report in order for these incidents to even be recorded. Most of the time, cyclists are so shook up, they allow the motorist to leave without exchanging contact info.

So when you see a red H&R Felony or orange H&R misdeameanor on that map, you best believe someone was seriously hurt.  Imagine that map with the other 2/3 of the unreported collisions.

Another takeaway is that Main St isn’t as rosy of a picture as it’s painted.  Clearly, there is unresolved conflict between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians.  And we’re duplicating the same lane layout just south of Rose, and somehow hoping for better results.

Conclusion

In retrospect, the aforementioned LACBC support letter was rushed, and the project backed mainly by a culture of fear. It’s a covert way of saying “this offer of a bike lane on Main St may disappear off the table if we don’t accept it as is“. The Main St road diet is a win, but the attitude that we should accept the first bike project LADOT offers without any scrutiny is a losing mindset. This paints cyclists as hungry dogs fighting for scraps. And as we gain political power in this city, we need to leave that mindset behind.

It would be nice to see bike advocates looking past the bare minimum design standards. We deserve better, the momentum is on our side.   Also, a bicycle advocacy organization should stray away from deriding the very people it claims to represent.

I understand that LACBC is considering this a win, and rightfully so, but why not set the bar higher? Extending the bike lane on Main St the last 0.7 miles is a no brainer.  Once it’s clear that there’s enough public support for the project as it stands, why not ask for more?

Don’t be afraid to criticize something that doesn’t feel right. Don’t be afraid to expect more from your city planners.

I used to think Alex Thompson was a conspiracy theorist, but now I truly wonder if that extra half a foot would have been eked out if Bikeside had not pushed the envelope on this issue.

Gary Kavanagh's illustration of door zone bike lane - Door Lane!

There’s a road diet proposed in Venice which will add bike lanes to Main St.  The road diet is controversial (check the comments on LA Streetsblog), as the bike lane is tight against parked cars, putting cyclist riding the center of the bike lane.  The proposal comes before Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) tomorrow (Tuesday) and below you can find my open letter to the board of directors.  For context: VNC and Mar Vista Community Council are adjacent to one another.

Edit: Mihai Peteu modified the Santa Monica Bike Map to show just the collisions taking place on the Main St bike lane in Santa Monica.  It paints a striking picture.  Not only are there a lot of collisions, but the usual ratio of 5 to 10 pedestrian collisions to every cycling collision is inverted: there are far more cycling collisions than pedestrian.  I can remember complaints about the Main St bike lane in Santa Monica since I started riding . . . and there’s been quite a number of awful collisions there, among them the Cathy Jones hit and run.  LADOT has stated that one benefit of the Main St project in Venice would be to continue the Main St. bike lane in Santa Monica.  This map calls into question the wisdom of continuing a door lane with a bad reputation, when the travel lanes are overly wide (11 feet).

Here’s the map, click through for the dynamic version:

Cyclist and pedestrian involved collisions in Santa Monica on Main St. Map by Mihai Peteu and Jason Leung.

The letter:

Venice Neighborhood Council members,

I’m writing you to ask that you reject the motion for item 6-C (Main St Road Diet) and ask DOT to provide you with better, safer and more innovative options for Main St. I will try to be at VNC for the item, but I have a prior obligation in Santa Monica which runs till 8. If I cannot make it, these are my thoughts:

I have appeared before you on this item, as well as on the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights and other items. I’m writing as a Del Rey resident who still bikes on Main St, and who often rode it in 2008 and 2009 when I lived on Horizon Ave in Venice. My background in cycling activism includes co-founding Bikerowave, authoring elements of LA’s 2010 Bike Plan as President of Bikeside, and my work as board member of the Mar Vista Community Council.

There are two good reasons to reject this motion, a motion which voices support for an LADOT plan for modifying Main St. First, while LADOT has participated in the NC process by appearing before your committees, they have not offered you options, a key feature of democratic process. Second, the nature of the proposed bike lanes endangers cyclists perhaps as much as it protects them.

Neighborhood Councils should be offered options by city departments. Too often proposals shopped by the City are “my way or the highway.” In this case, LADOT’s proposal is “keep Main St the way it is, or change it to what we want.” To my knowledge, DOT has not offered other striping plans besides the plan under consideration. This lack of options gives VNC little leeway to express its vision of Venice.

The proposed road diet is controversial in the cycling community. Some cyclists, this advocate included, argue that, as a minimum standard bike lane, it puts cyclists at risk. This has been written about on LA Streetsblog, Gary Rides Bikes, and Bikeside.

The proposed bike lanes will be in what cyclists call the “door zone.” The door zone is the section of the road next to parked cars where, if someone opened their door while you were riding by, you would crash into the door. If you bike in the door zone you’re risking free open heart surgery at the hands of a car door.

These bike lanes are the minimum 5 foot width next to a minimum 7 foot wide parking lanes. LADOT may characterize the bike lanes as “up to standard”, but realize this is the minimum standard that LADOT must build to *by law*. A study of parking behavior conducted in San Francisco showed that in 1 in 7 cars, when the driver opened their door to get out, that door extended beyond 9.5 feet from the curb. In this case, 9.5 feet from the curb marks the dead center of the proposed bike lane. So the study suggests that 1 in 7 car doors will cover most of the bike lane – that’s a risky bike lane.

And even more risky because many riders in Venice are novices. A veteran of LADOT’s minimally supportive streets knows that when a bike lane is in the door zone, you ride the outside edge, escaping most doors. Casual cyclists usually don’t know this. And what makes Venice such a bike paradise is the thousands of casual cyclists riding the streets on any given day. A design like the one offered by LADOT puts those casual cyclists in the door zone – offering them a false sense of security.

DOT has been creating some innovative bike lanes recently in other parts of the city. In Central LA they’ve built a bike lane with a buffer, and in Highland Park they’re doing a painted bike lane. Why innovative options like this are not on the table in Venice is beyond me!

So I encourage you to ask questions and get at the core of the issue. I believe that LADOT can offer other designs, they simply have not. In my work as part of the Bike Plan Implementation Team, I have seen LADOT turn around new designs within a month, so asking for alternatives is not unrealistic, and it doesn’t risk much delay. I defer to whatever VNC concludes – y’all know your neighborhood and if I could somehow move back to Venice (make the rent lower!) I would!

Here’s some questions you could ask of LADOT:

• We’ve heard that you are implementing bike innovations like buffered bike lanes and painted bike lanes in other parts of the city. Will you report back with new options that incorporate these kinds of elements?
• Why can’t the travel lane widths be reduced from 11’ to 10’ to encourage lower travel speeds and provide additional width for bike lane design?
• How often do you estimate a cyclist will be doored in the current proposed design?
• Realistically, will large, 11′ travel lanes reduce traffic speeds? Isn’t reduction of travel speeds supposed to be a benefit of road diets?

Best,

Dr. Alex C Thompson
Community Director, Mar Vista Community Council
President, Bikeside

(PS – Joe Linton pointed out that there is no MUTCD specified minimum width for a parking lane, so I got that wrong.  However, functionally it doesn’t make much difference, as cars don’t shrink if you make the parking lane narrower, and most cars are nearly 7′ wide.)

$50 million.  That’s what Alta Planning says that the New York City bike share system – unveiled this week – will cost to run each year.

That figure seemed really high to me, so I hit page-up, and saw that the system will have 10,000 bikes.  Do the division:

$50,000,000 per year / 10,000 bikes = $5,000 per bike per year

Five grand per bike per year?  I just don’t see how that can make financial sense.  How can a system cost that much per bike per year.  Even if there’s substantial administrative overhead, that implies you’d be spending thousands of dollars per bike per year administrating the system.

And keep in mind, the press releases seem to suggest this $50 million figure does not include the initial investment.  So it’s not as if this is the start up cost.

NYC cyclists, Halloween, 2008. Photo by Alex C Thompson

Perhaps figures like this are the reason that NYC will not spend any public money (apart from the allocation of public space) for the bike share system.  In way, that’s a sad sign of the times.  Why can’t a city make the relatively small investment in a bike share system?  They do it for every other transportation system – government spends enormous capital on roads, airports, subways . . . but we can’t afford a bike share system?  Government makes those investments despite recession, in spite of falling revenues.

Here in LA former Mayor Richard Riordan and allies have long been investigating a bike share system for LA.  Word on the street is that private operators won’t do it because the estimated liability costs are too high.  They think LA is that dangerous to ride.

Maybe that’s why it’s costing NYC $5,000 per bike per year – insurance.  If the insurance policy is just 1/3 of the $50 million yearly – $17 million – what does that imply the operator expects in terms of injuries and fatalities?  It’s a stark reminder of how far we have to realize bike friendliness.

If someone has firm figures or insight, I’d love to hear it.

Click to EMBIGGEN! Three charts showing how respondents evaluated bike friendliness. Looking at all respondents, 69.9% said LA is not bike friendly. If we only consider people who ride bikes frequently in LA (the majority of respondents fell in this category), then 65.8% find LA not bike friendly - slightly less. If we look at all other respondents, LA is evaluated more harshly, with 77.6% responding that LA is not bike friendly.

Over the next few weeks we’ll break down the data in a number of different ways. We’ll compare how people responded on one question against how they responded on another question, to get a sense for how asking the question differently affected their answer. We’ll look at how different user groups feel about bike friendliness and try to divine why. And we’ll look at some of the comments we received. We’ll map the responses, and we’ll talk about the implications of the data. We’ll also reveal some of our plans for the future, and we’ll engage in the great debate – is it a fair to ask “is LA bike friendly?” Some said “no!”

The negative result shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows cycling in Los Angeles. Whether you personally find LA to be bike friendly or not, you must recognize that there is immense frustration with aggressive driving and a city government that is slow to act.

Personally, I was surprised that so many people responded that LA is bike friendly. However, in the end even those that said LA is bike friendly saw lots of room for improvement. 16% of respondents who said LA is bike friendly and answered the question “how long will it take for LA to become bike friendly?” responded that LA will take at least two more years to become bike friendly. 44% said that will take at least five years, or even more!

How long will LA take to become bike friendly?

Overall, respondents think it will take a good while for Los Angeles to become bike friendly. 76% of respondents said that LA would take 5 or more years to become bike friendly at the current rate of improvement. The following chart breaks out responses to the time-to-bike-friendliness question accordin to whether respondents think LA is bike friendly:

How long will it take LA to become bike friendly? This chart shows what the overall response was, and also breaks out the response according to whether a respondent thought LA is bike friendly, or not. For those that said LA is bike friendly, the results are curious.

As mentioned above – many respondents who said “No” to “do you think Los Angeles is bike friendly” also said that it would take a few years at the current rate of improvement for LA to be bike friendly. A simple hypothesis would be that the 65% of respondents who said Los Angeles is bike friendly, but then went on to say LA will take some years to become bike friendly, didn’t get the question. I don’t think this is the case.

What I think is happening is that if you ask a question different ways, you will tend to get different survey results. This is a common feature of survey work, and many social scientists spend a lot of time just trying to get consistent data when different questions lead to different answers (and compromised pollsters often use it to control the results of survey, such as in Presidential elections.) This is precisely the reason that we asked about bike friendliness three different ways. It gives us three ways to talk about bike friendliness, but it also allows us to study how people answer the question differently. In the long haul that will allow us to better understand what it really means when people say a place is bike friendly.

0 to 10, how bike friendly is Los Angeles?

Which brings us to our other question: how bike friendly is LA on a scale from 0 to 10? This is a classic question, although no one seems to be able to decide if it should be 0 to 10, 1 to 10, 1 to 5, or 9 to 5. At UCLA they use 1 to 9 for teacher evaluations . . . go figure.

The average answer (mean) was 4.25, with 3, 4 and 5 being most common. Some survey respondents gave LA a 9, and one respondent gave LA a 10. I think his mouse slipped. Anyway, in this case a picture really is worth a thousand words:

From 0 to 10, how bike friendly is LA? The response average was 4.25, and one person even gave LA a 10.

Closing thoughts:

Some argued that the survey questions were too simple and did not offer enough freedom. Others thought that Bikeside made an error in not clearly defining bike friendliness; they thought we were not specific enough and left too much room for interpretation.

It was intentional. I believe that the ultimate measure of bike friendliness is how the people feel about biking. If the people of LA feel LA is bike friendly, LA is bike friendly. If they feel it is not, it is not.  The ultimate measure of bike friendliness is not some carefully calculated “bike score”, but the collective sense that a place is hostile toward or supportive of cyclists. Hence, we asked the simple question, and let each person choose their own criteria for evaluation.

The beauty of this is that in asking a simple question, we ended up with a complex and interesting answer.  The question squeeze’s each person’s opinion into a corner (which many found frustrating), and in that sense is reductive.  But when we aggregate the answers, we get something remarkable – a nuanced picture of where LA stands on bike friendliness.   Unlike a “bike score”, which takes complexity and reduces it to one simple number, we start with simplicity and end up with complexity.  That’s life – simple questions have complex answers, and I’m stoked that the results bear that out.

When you live in a large city, it’s easy to forget that much of the rest of the country (let alone the world) lives under very different circumstances. I’m here in the land of the large American pickup truck, which often haul bed-filling water tanks to self-supply remote homes with this basic necessity. These are not the vanity trucks common in large cities; they are scarred, with cracked windscreens and patinas of thick dust and mud due to use on washboard dirt roads where the heavy, gas-guzzling cab-on-chassis construction provides a sturdiness that better survives marginal roads.

Many of my fellow employees commute from larger towns 25 to 55 miles away, and these are one-way figures, not round trip. I’m trying to avoid this kind of commute, but the town where I’m teaching has no rental property whatsoever. None. So not only will I be driving to Los Angeles periodically; I might end up being forced into a long commute as well. For the short term, I’ve been commuting by bike since I have a temporary housing arrangement close to campus, but when this is over, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Ship Rock, New Mexico, July 2011, copyright Alex C Thompson

And yet even here, there are reasons for wanting bicycles to find at least some use. The diabetes rate on the above 20 year olds here is 23 percent and over 40 percent among the over 45 population. Along with–a contributing cause–of the diabetes is poor diet, itself related to poverty, unemployment and lack of economic opportunity. Is it a foolish dream to hope that bicycle use could help overcome some of these issues? Bicycles are cheap to run compared to even the most marginal automobile; they provide excercise when you use them, and are simple enough to be maintained locally, keeping money in the community rather than siphoning it off to distant towns. But bicycles do not provide a reasonable way for families or the aged to cover the long distances that travel here involves.

I don’t know how foolish this dream is; but as I split time between Los Angeles and rural New Mexico, I enjoy the widening of my horizons, both literally and figuratively. This is truly the country of big, even immense, sky and views; and in teaching here I hope to gain a broader perspective on issues of sustainable economies and ecological and cultural health.

For those of you who have taken it already – THANK YOU! – and please consider passing the survey around to your friends, one more time, via Twitter, Facebook, email, or carrier pigeon. (If you already took the survey, clicking those links will pop you back to our original post announcing our survey.)

In the meantime, the preliminary results are in, and by a margin of 2 to 1, cyclists and non-cyclists say Los Angeles is not bike friendly. Of 522 respondents thus far, 478 responded to the main question: “Do you think Los Angeles is Bike Friendly?” 69.0 % responded “No”, leaving 31.0 % responding “Yes”:

By a margin of more than 2 to 1, people don't think LA is bike friendly.

Our opening question helps us cut up responses according to whether the responses are coming from frequent cyclists, or non-cyclists. The cool part of this is that we can take a look at whether people who ride in LA are more or less inclined to think LA is bike friendly. In other words, do drivers and pedestrians perceive LA to be more or less bike friendly than cyclists?

Of frequent cyclists, 63.7 % think LA is not bike friendly, and the other 36.3 % think LA is bike friendly. Compare that all other respondents, who either identified as LA riders who do not ride frequently, LA residents who do not ride at all, or riders who do not live in LA. Only 21.7 % of these respondents think that LA is bike friendly, far less than the frequent riders.  Two charts, showing bike friendliness according to frequent riders and bike friendliness according to all other respondents:

Frequent riders stil think LA is bike friendly, but not by the same margin as infrequent riders, non-riders, and riders from outside LA.

Although all groups think LA is not bike friendly, people who don't ride regularly have a worse impression of bike friendliness.

So why do die-hard LA riders think LA is more bike friendly than everyone else? It’s a question to think on!  I’ll bet you all can come up with some good explanations in the comments . . .

Entire Document (281 pgs, 74mb) [PDF].
Individual Chapters: Summary | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Appendices

Seems as if co-blogger Alex Thompson’s experience at the last Los Angeles Bike Plan Implementation meeting was the polar opposite of mine. Bikeside Chris also seems to have caught a mean case of the BPIT Blues.

Making it Happen - explained on pages 161-162

Chapter 4 of the Santa Monica Bike Plan boldly contrasts the heel dragging felt on the LA Bike Plan with the heading “Make it Happen”. The sight of that phrase alone sets the tone, and quite frankly, should be expected from a forward-thinking group of city planners who sense a wave of change sweeping through. Using the word “Action” in the title suggests that city staff are indeed taking an active stance, hopefully translating into quicker implementation. Now on to the plan’s contents.

The Plan is driven by simple concepts, all chips off the old LUCE block:

• no net new automobile trips, achieved by encouraging cycling
• facilitating affordable and healthy transportation
• recognizing that a walkable, bikeable city supports economic health

There is a set of 5-year projects that are clearly doable given the current political climate, and a set of 20-year goals, similar to the way LUCE milestones are organized. The long term projects would certainly elevate ridership but are currently considered risque, such as Bike Boulevards on Michigan and Washington. These are referred to as Neighborhood Greenways in the BAP. Some audience members were quick to point out that since most of the funding is secured for many of the 5-year projects, the whole process could be accelerated.

The plan is too large to go into detail, so I will single out three reasons that SM City Planners “get it”.

1) The newly installed bike racks throughout Santa Monica, which effectively double the amount of bike parking. They are rubberized, as to not scrape up one’s frame, and they have a helpful sticker visually explaining how to secure your bike using the rear triangle method.

2) Furthermore proof of the planners’ attention to detail is the design for the Arizona bike lane extension in a hilly section. To make room for a buffered bike lane on the climbing eastbound lane, so traffic can pass up the (potentially) slower rider, sharrows are opted for instead of bike lane on the downhill westbound section.

3) The inclusion of cyclist profiles in Chapter 2 (pg 2-25 to 2-28) paint a human picture of the community while giving individuals a chance to express their concerns.

Current Ridership
The visuals below establish that cycling has picked up in Santa Monica, giving the BAP some political capital that it plans to spend.

29% Cycling Mode Share Increase from 2008-2010

Peak Weekday Bike Counts - Heavy ridership on Broadway, Main St, and Downtown area

Priority Bikeway Network

The Priority Bikeway Network sets forth a timetable for bikeway completion (Chapter 3, pg 3-24). Corridors of high priority:

• North/South: Main St, 16th, 17th, Stewart/28th
• East/West: Broadway (Appendix B, pg B-18), Michigan Wiggle Neighborhood Greenway (Appendix B, pg B-18, B-28)

Priority Bikeway Network - click for PDF

These choices were heavily influenced by public input meetings where local cyclists voted for their favorite routes. The future bikeway network has a evenly spaced-out gridline of routes typical of Gold and Platinum bike-friendly cities. Scott Reiter, a local cyclist, believes a tipping point will be reached once a solid North/South route is established and Broadway gets the buffered bike lane treatment.

Five Year Implementation Plan - click for PDF

Notable projects

• Green-painted Super Sharrow lanes on Broadway and Santa Monica Bl in Downtown area (Appendix B, pg B-17)
• Broadway, Arizona, Ocean Park get buffered bike lanes
• Washington Greenway (Ch 3, pg 3-51)
• Green Wave (implemented in Copenhagen, Valencia St in San Francisco) to ensure a steady flow of bike traffic through traffic light timing (Ch 3, pg 3-66)

Some of these individual projects represent fractions of the cost of, let’s say, widening a frickin’ freeway. The Arizona buffered bike lane (including extension of the bike lane from 26th St to Centinela) is estimated to cost $250,000 (Appendix B, pg B-13). This project is slated for the 20-year plan, but the only reason it would take that long to implement is bureaucracy encountered due to the potential removal of parking spots.

Parking
Appendix G1 defines the Public Bicycle Parking Guidelines – different styles of parking racks are assigned to each district (eg smaller footprint racks are used in commercial districts tight on sidewalk space). Listed are Inverted U, Bollard, and Modified Inverted U racks. Thankfully no mention of Wave-type racks.

For a map of existing bike racks in the city, see Chapter 2 (pg 2-22).

Regional Connections
The BAP includes the Citywide Bikeway System map from the 2010 LA Bike Plan which focus on Backbone routes leading into West LA (Executive Summary, pg ES-7). Lucy Dyke mentioned the importance of the Westside COG reaching agreement about shared routes such as Santa Monica Bl. For now, streets like Wilshire, Santa Monica, and Pico will remain auto priority streets, with the possibility of Sharrows being added in the rightmost lane.

This post barely scrapes the surface of the BAP, so dig in and find out for yourself what a bike plan written by cyclists, for cyclists looks like.

Send BAP feedback to Santa Monica Spoke (BikePlan@SMSpoke.org) or directly to the City of SM (shapethefuture2025@smgov.net).

BAP in the news: SMDP, Surf Santa Monica, SM Spoke.

Bicycles are wonderful tools. They magnify the limited physical abilities of the human body in a manner that is not completely at odds with the long term health of either humans or our ecosystems. They allow our mechanical ingenuity to flower, leaving us with various forms of bicycle: the road with all of its specialized subdivisions, the fixed gear freestyler, the mountain (divided into cross country, all mountain, downhill, and so on), and all the rest.

All this specialization reflects a kind of planned evolution of the basic safety bicycle from a little over a century ago. As roads got smoother, tires got skinnier on road bikes; and frame geometries and clearances adapted to fit these smoother roads. A counter-evolution started more recently, some forty years ago more or less (we think) with various California tinkerers adapting the frames of Schwinn Excelsior cruisers to the dusty, rutted fire roads, adding on gears, cantilever brakes, three-piece cranks in the process.

Like bicycles, we humans also change over time. Over the past century or so, average heights have shot up globally as nutrition has improved. Likewise, in the first world (and especially in the USA) over the past thirty to forty years, we’ve become fatter as we’ve grown taller: as our socially constructed surroundings require less and less physical work, we do less and less, and as we consume more manufactured “food,” we gain weight.

As this manufactured food indicates, the society in which we find ourselves is one shaped by the profligate, perhaps even cancerous creativity of capitalism: any need that can be imagined must be filled, preferably with a multitude of bright-label consumer choices billboarded with shrieking claims. This part of our social ecosystem asks us to develop into that strangest of beings, the consumer; yet this development is not conducive long term human wellbeing.

The consumer is someone defined not by what he or she does but by what he or she purchases. In a most basic way, consumers are asked to do as little as possible: to simply reach for a credit card, swipe it, and thereby purchase identity as defined by those purveyors of fantasy in the advertising and publishing worlds. If the evolutionary goals of capitalist marketing ever reach their telos, we will all become wallet-reaching, card-swiping oddities, where our minds are simply instruments of weighing brand names, our eyes focused only on cleverly designed logos, our ears tuned only to the jingles that tout the new, the improved, the so very, very necessary. How easy this life is! How very expensive! And how very bad for the underlying human being! This hyperspecialization exerts immense costs, something I hope to show in the following paragraphs.

As the development of bicycles indicate, becoming hyperspecialized is a liability. To exist means to embody possibilities; but existence equally means to live with concrete limitations. The form these limitations take is important. While a first world human existence at least temporarily seems to mean a world of unfettered identity seeking through consumption, I would argue that this involves so many ancillary limitations that reveal “choice” in its consumer form is instead a costly embrace of a strait-jacket. Similarly, while a carbon aero road bike with carbon aero wheels and the latest 11 speed Campy component group represents an evolutionary peak of sorts, from another (more thoughtful) perspective it represents an evolutionary dead end. It is of limited use, delicate, and has a profoundly limited life span; all because of a simple rule: that designing something to perform one task amazingly well inevitably distorts–limits–its overall flexibility.

Similarly a Formula One racing car represents an evolutionary peak of sorts, but equally a complete dead end, for it is useless outside the hyperspecialized surroundings constituted by a governing body’s rules; and if hybridized turkeys bred for immense amounts of white breast meat were ever to escape the confines of their controlled environments they would die in the flexibility-requiring world outside a modern commercial turkey farm. To return to bicycles: compared to the carbon wonderbike that race nerds drool over, the older model–a mere twenty years old now– of a tougher, heavier bicycle (think a lugged steel road bicycle that won races up until the 1990s) allows for a much greater range of uses: fatter tires for commuting and riding on mixed surfaces; greater durability and tolerance for eclectic parts mixes; and a much greater simplicity overall. Likewise, the admirable practical bicycles that are now on the market that combine in equal measure balanced frame geometry, clearance for urban-adequate tires and fenders, and a durable but reasonably light frame show an evolution–or is it a devolution– towards goals that do not involve a developmental cul de sac.

We humans are equally part of this world that requires specialization, but that equally paradoxically punishes its excesses. Think of the NFL football players who die young due to the demands put on their bodies while, dressed in pads and helmets, they pummeled other young giants on astroturf: they were impressive, scary even when in their prime; but tragic when, knees damaged, brains addled from continued hits, some die young from having provided us with an entertaining media circus for fall weekends and Monday nights. Or more mildly think about bodybuilders strutting along the beach, whose overdeveloped thighs require an odd, leg-swinging gait: having successfully built up bodies that on the stage look a certain way, they have lost the ability to walk with the simple grace that marks a healthy animal. These examples could be repeated endlessly, but I trust the point is clear. Specialization is inevitable; but perhaps we should be wary of the forms it takes and the extent to which we indulge it.

Hence my choice to devolve, both in cycling, and in my own activities. I cannot help but consume, but my identity is not that of a consumer. I prefer older bicycles for the reasons I mention above. Likewise, I try to define myself in terms of what I do and believe, not by what I buy. I want to have tangible, multipurpose abilities that allow for independence, personal satisfaction, and a sense of purposeful agency in the world we live in rather than its glossy consumer substitute that I’m always told I should want to inhabit, but frankly cannot afford in either the financial or in personal sense.

Given that I live in Los Angeles, in the USA, and in 2011, these are difficult choices to live up to. But when I consider the options, really, what else can I do?

As part of C.I.C.L.E.’s Community Workshops, Bikerowave volunteers stopped by A Place Called Home to demonstrate how a tire change is done proper.

Thus, a sunny Sunday morning, a group of Bikerowave volunteers sailed across town in cars and on bikes to do what they do best: pass on wrenching skills. En route, we were pleasantly surprised by the buttery smoothness of the newly-striped Expo bike lane. Pavement quality was considerably better Eastbound compared to Westbound. Just as the LA Eco Village post warns, the intersection at Rodeo needs improvement, crossing over those train tracks was a bit tense.

Bikerowavers: Karl, Enzo, JDF, JB, Joe and Molly

At APCH, folks of all ages brought in various velocipedes. After a quick primer on from JB, those attending broke up into small groups and worked on patching their own sabotaged tubes. They picked up on our tips and tricks quickly, and some were already confidently passing on the information to their peers by the end of the workshop.

Parked along Expo Community Garden fence

The tire clinic was followed by a Ciclavia South LA Exploration Ride, yet another test of the proposed future Ciclavia route. We had a chance to tour the Community Garden at Expo Park.

Topic timestamps

• 0:00 – LA Critical Mass escort: LAPD’s role, corking
  

  “Come out and ride before you criticize”

• 1:45 – How to minimize motorist aggression during LACM, Road use: safety vs. convenience
  

  “Have the courage of your convictions to see whether it’s a worthwhile endeavor”

• 3:37 – Future of bike community in Los Angeles, political access, gaining trust
  

  “There’s so much energy[...]“

• 4:30 – Ride attendance, increasing ridership on Venice Bl
  

  “If you double or triple the amount of riders on Venice Bl, you start to see that packing phenomemon”

• 5:50 – Youngsters on bikes, educating upcoming generation of riders, learning from experience
  

  “If they’re at a ride where adult stuff is going on[...]“

• 7:40 – Difference in mentality between LA and NY
  

  “My dad jaywalked right in front of New York PD”

• 9:20 – To be or not to be – the Helmet question
  

  “Sometimes it’s nice to feel that air across your skull”

• 11:00 – How to digitally stalk AT
  

  “I’ll have that email forever”

In the world of planning, or on a larger scale government work in general, there has always been this stated goal of objectivity. The idea being that if you take your own personal emotions and opinions out of the equation you will somehow get a more accurate, and therefore better, result. Well I am going to call BULLSHIT on that concept all together.

Take a walk through any DMV office or have a conversation with the person on the other side of the counter. It is an absolutely heartless experience. Those poor people have been stuck doing the same thing day in and day out just waiting for retirement. It scares me… seriously! As a government employee is that what I have to look forward to? I have seen it in almost every government office, people just pushing paper from one side of their desk to the other. It is happening in every planning office right now… applications for zoning variances and conditional use permits, environmental documents with the same mitigation measures that have been cut and pasted from one to the other. How is this “objectivity” considered positive?

Level of Service, an objective blight on our communities?

Now, yes I am talking about an extreme here, but I firmly believe that this extreme is what an objective planner has to look forward to. I have come to a realization that government planning as a career is intent on destroying whatever heart and utopian ideas you went into it with. The truth is that most planners come out of college with some amazing ideas and crazy good dreams of wonderful communities where you can walk to the market or mom can borrow a cup of sugar from next door. A place where kids still ride their bikes to school…

Did you really think that a conversation about the role of bicycles in planning was not going to end up in here somewhere? What website are you reading?

It is time that planners spend less time stuck behind a counter and more time experiencing what their city, county, or state has to offer. You have to have heart in order to survive a planning career! Your ideas and opinions are not only valid but valuable as well! I challenge you to throw your objectivity under the next bus that drives by and become a subjective bureaucrat!

Getting on a bike is a good place to start. There is one simple concept that I believe will save me from a heartless bureaucratic life, what is good for a bicyclist is good for the community as a whole. I stole that damn near verbatim. In planning we call them “best practices,” everywhere else they call it plagiarism or theft. I like good ideas, if you have a good idea I am going to steal it and not give you any credit for it… it is the highest form of flattery. If you want to know about pot holes, get on a bike. If you want to know about parking (or lack thereof), get on a bike. If you want to know about traffic, get on a bike. On a bike a planner can see and feel all of the issues that face a community. Smooth streets are better for cyclists, Slower cars are better for cyclists, shady streets are better for cyclists, accessible services are better for cyclists… see where I am going with this?

People care about the places where they live and work. They are passionate about it. As a planner, you are going to get yelled at. People are going to say rude and nasty things to you that you will probably never forget. And I am not here to tell you to ignore it. I absolutely love public meetings. I love getting yelled at because at the core of it that person’s passion is what we should be listening to, they really care. I get the best ideas from people yelling at me. Bring it on. Best of all, at meetings I get to be subjective. I care about this place and I too have great ideas. I go into every meeting with one thing on my mind, “if they know what I know and they care like I care, then we are probably going to find a lot of common ground.” Ultimately I am there to sell a community good planning concepts and practices because most fear of change comes from not knowing or understanding the concepts that the change is based on. Planning is about solutions to community-based problems. The community knows what the problems are, that is what they are screaming at you about. So take a moment and not just listen to what they have to say, but actually give a shit about it. Real planning happens from there.

Before and after photos of 3rd Street

Headed westbound on 3rd St

Westbound on 3rd St, near the Promenade

Now is later.

To be clear, the Bike Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) serves to coordinate efforts among City departments and community stakeholders.  Created by the 2011 LA Bike Plan, the BPIT meets on the first Tuesday of every month to decide how the on-paper ideas of the Plan will become the on-the-ground facilities of our streets.  Frequent participants include City Planning, LADOT, LA Bike Advisory Committee, LACBC, Council representatives, and Bikeside (obviously).  With such a wide variety of voices at the table, you might expect decision-making to be an arduous process.  However, as I mentioned, the City has added a measure of concision, by simply short-circuiting the community’s input.

According to many participants who attended the meeting two months ago, community members were not given enough advance notice of the top ten discussion to prepare recommendations.  Planning and DOT came to the table with loads of preparation.  The conversation that resulted in the final list did not follow a pre-determined procedure.  Now, the informal has almost crystallized without the voice of the people being heard.  The top priority bike projects for our city are being held hostage without due process.

I’ve created some maps to help you understand the shortcomings of the current top ten.  Let’s first take a look at the existing cycling facilities in our city, and those in development.  Here is the existing Backbone Network and the “Year Zero” projects.  Existing facilities are in blue, and Year Zero is in red.  So far, so good.  In fact, the Year Zero projects are doing quite a bit to enhance the connectivity and usefulness of the existing network.

(click any of the map images below to visit the fully interactive versions, which include the Valley and South LA)

Now have a look at how the Top Ten projects fit in (they are highlighted in pink).  Not bad, but I believe we can do better.

Finally, the streets marked in green are the Bikeside recommendations for priority projects.

Let’s take a closer look at the current top ten and my arguments against some of the projects.  In general, we are looking at a series of projects that serve Downtown LA.  I know, I know, it’s the only place that people ride bikes.  But maybe someday in a crazy future LA, people might ride their bikes to the beach.  UCLA students might head to Culver City.  People may even one day ride their bikes in the Valley or South LA!  Besides their geographical concentration, I have a few specific criticisms of these projects.

Take, for example, the S. Figueroa proposal.  This bit smacks of laziness and tunnel vision.  First, this street is already designated as a bike route, which means that cyclists already receive some sort of accommodation.  Second, while we’re on the topic of redundancy, as well as discussing unnecessary repetition, this project does nothing for connectivity that Hoover and Main Streets aren’t already doing.  Finally, it’s entirely opaque to me why we need to connect USC cyclists to a string of car-related businesses, parking lots and finally Staples Center.  Oh, I know!  I’ll ride my bike from school a half-mile to pick up my car from the Midas service center, hitch the car to the back of my bike, then tow it to a nearby parking lot so that I can empty my wallet even faster while I watch the Lakers!  Puh-leez.  Given that the security one enjoys when parking her bike near Staples is analogous to what she enjoys dressed in a banana suit while sitting in a cage full of silverbacks, I doubt that riding your bike to the game will catch on anytime soon.  My suggestion is to scrap this project in favor of something that actually serves some destinations, and enhances the overall usefulness of the network.

Moving a short way west, we find the absolutely pitiful Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. proposal.  This one makes me scratch my head even more than Figueroa.  Once again, we see the City departments giving top priority to a project that simply mimics an existing facility not too far away, in this case, W. 39th St.  And what in the world are the destinations that this project serves?  Getting middle schoolers not even half a mile down the road to the Crenshaw Church for an after school program?  Making sure that the waiters from Jerry’s Flying Fox can make it to 7 Kings Liquor before they head home?  Perhaps the inscrutable wisdom of our city planners escapes me.  Or perhaps this is what it looks like – a worthless project that’s on the table simply to front-load the yearly mileage requirement put forth in the Bike Plan.

The last proposal that I’m going to gripe about is the one on Spring/Main.  And I’m not even going to spend much time doing it, because I see the same problems here as elsewhere.  These roads are already bicycle facilities, and don’t connect to any “uncharted” territory.  Granted, these streets do serve loads of local businesses, but the area is already high-traffic.  Improving bicycle facilities in the area most likely won’t increase the throughput at these shops.

What makes our projects so much better, then?

I’ve already discussed why developing Sepulveda between Santa Monica Blvd. and Venice Blvd. is a good idea.  Add to that the stretch from Culver Blvd. to Centinela, and cyclists can then access the Westfield Shopping Center from Santa Monica, UCLA, even Downtown.  Move to the east and you will see that we suggest extending the Vermont project as far north as Wilshire Blvd.  Completing this connection would be a major foot in the door to providing South LA with quality cycling infrastructure, and an alternative to taking the Harbor Freeway to Downtown.  Notice also that on the north end, Hollywood and Koreatown gain access to truly useful parts of the Backbone, especially Venice Blvd.

Cruise over the hill and you will see that Sherman Way can provide residents with access to tons of businesses, as well as edging closer to a direct connection between the Valley and Downtown.  Endowing Devonshire with a continuous facility should be a no brainer, especially since the remaining portion is less than a mile-and-a-half.

While our recommended stretch of Nordhoff parallels Plummer, it provides a continuous route from one side of CSUN to the other, as well as completing a circuit with Woodley, Devonshire, and Reseda.  It may seem pointless to create a big circle for cyclists to ride around, but that’s not how the road will be used.  These types of connections have been shown to increase ridership in other cities, and they do so by creating maximum surface area for trips to begin and end with relevant destinations.  Finally, Topanga Canyon Blvd. provides great North-South connectivity, joins the rest of the Valley to the western-most spur, and already has funding, design and engineering from Caltrans.

At this stage in the game, it is critical that you, as a member of the cycling community, reach out to your Neighborhood Council, City Council, your favorite bicycle lobby (which is clearly Bikeside, right?), or attend the BPIT meeting, and let the City know what projects should receive priority treatment.  Don’t let Planning and DOT wrestle this process away from us.  Shatter the crystallized top ten list.  Demand due process!

Call them what you want: Cycle Tracks, Protected Bike Lanes, Bike Paths. Bottom line is, most people won’t start riding until you take cars out of the equation. Why? Because even well-intentioned people do stupid or careless sh**, and when people do stupid or careless sh** while in a car, they could hurt or kill others.  Even a cyclist’s own mistake can put them at much greater risk when riding alongside traffic.

So we have a chicken and the egg problem – you have to build great facilities first, then the people will ride.  Current bike lane designs are ripe for abuse.  There’s no way in hell police departments anywhere in the city will ever be able to effectively police bike lane misuse.  In some cases, police themselves use them as parking lanes.  Needless to mention, bike lanes also fail at protecting the cyclist.  Visual proof follows.

Standard Bike Lanes Are Failing

Ahh, the all-too-familiar Venice Bike lane block'o'trashcans...

Common occurence on the Ocean Ave bike lane, Santa Monica

UPS truck in New York, one of the biggest repeat offenders on the My Bike Lane website.

Impromptu unloading area, West Hollywood

Simple solution to avoiding all of the above:

Completely take cyclists out of harm’s way. 

The "controversial" Prospect Park West bike lane, NYC

Dennis Hindman hits it right on the head with his comments on the “BPIT Top 10” LADOT Bike Blog article. We need a “perceived barrier” that physically separates and protects cyclists from car traffic.  As a buffer, use planters, landscaping, bollards, or a row of parked cars.  You know, “experimental” stuff that most people here would consider futuristic or unattainable.  Vancouver gets it, Montreal gets it.  Expect, and ask for more.  Remind your local government that cyclists pay the same taxes that motorists pay*.  We have the right to ride safely and free of fear.

More proper propaganda follows – both excellent Streetsfilms shorts.

Physically Separated Bike Lanes

Prospect Park West Family Bike Ride/We Ride the Lanes

Physically Separated Bike Lanes

* preemptive warning to ignant fools that dare bring up the cost of Gas in the comments:  gas is not a tax, it’s an energy commodity.  Kind of like food for cyclists.

UPDATE
The Grand Opening of Long Beach’s protected bike lanes on Broadway and 3rd streets is this Saturday at Noon.

CicLAvia was even more amazing than last year, with folks coming from all over to enjoy the freedom of exploring the city car-free.  Seems like even Sandy Banks of the LA Times had a blast.  Restaurants could barely keep up with demand, that’s about as busy as I’ve ever seen MacArthur park and Little Tokyo.

Coincidentally, one of San Francisco’s (many) Sunday Streets took place this past Sunday as well.  A bit jealous that they have eight such events planned for 2011.

The question on everyone’s mind is when is it coming to their side of town.  Ciclavia South LA is trying to make their route a reality, they’ll need your help to get local businesses on board. Their next meeting is on April 20th at TRUST South L.A./SAJE, 6pm. Join the Google group to stay in the loop.

WideBicyclePanAndZoom from Nicholas Dahmann

Wilshire lane closures

Wilshire will be more rideable than usual for the next year or so, not due to any specific bikeway implementation, but due to the fact that traffic will move at a standstill during commute hours. One lane in each direction will be unusable, between Veteran and Bonsall. East-bound traffic in the morning is consistently backed up as far as Bundy. It’s time Tortoise and the Hare time – slow and steady wins the race. Time to bring out that cruiser and weave through parked cars.

From coast to coast

Streetsblog NYC has a short but effective clip showcasing the difference that a protected bike lane makes. When can we get some of these? A large percentage of people will *not* ride a bike unless it’s absolutely safe. Both the Santa Monica LUCE and the LA Bike Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) are good chances to lobby for upgraded, safe bikeways.

Tonight, item 4-B on Santa Monica’s City Council agenda intends to prioritize transit, bike, and pedestrian access throughout downtown. This seems like a valiant attempt to make the downtown core more accessible and welcoming to people, with improved connections to Bergamot Station, the Civic Center, and SaMo High. A potential 7th St bridge over the 10 freeway to connect SaMo High with the future Michigan Bike Boulevard will be discussed. Meeting starts at 5:30pm, City Hall Council Chambers – 1685 Main St, 90401. Public comment may not begin until 8pm or later, so bring reading material or a laptop if you plan on voicing your opinion.

BikeRoWave is leaving Mar Vista at 9:30am sharp – we really mean 9:30! 12-15mph pace.  (Blog, Facebook event)

There is also a UCLA group led by E3 (Economy, Ecology, Equity) leaving the Ackerman Bus Terminal at 9am.  In case you didn’t know, that’s where Westwood dead ends into the UCLA campus.  This one is also a slow paced ride, no rider left behind.
Ride safe and we’ll see you at Ciclavia!

Ciclavia 2010 by Jory (Flickr)

I’m referring, of course, to the planned ramp closures on Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards that are part of the 405 Widening Project.  The first phase of closures begins in August, and the subsequent phases eventually touch all eight ramps.  Some ramps will be closed for up to 90 days.  That’s three months of detours, three months of crawling traffic, three months of getting to work late.  See the table for the specific dates, and plan accordingly!

You may say, “That’s no big deal for me, I don’t have to take the 405.”  My response is that you don’t have to take the 405 to feel the effects of these closures.  Consider that, in October, three of the four ramps on and off of Wilshire will be closed at the same time.  This may result in increased traffic on Sunset and Santa Monica.  However, as Josef Brayj-Ali points out in Traffic is Not Like Water, stopping up the Wilshire ramps does not correspond to “damming the 405 river,” and the outcome can’t be predicted accurately.

You may say, “Do drivers even read BikesideLA? I’m a cyclist, and I’m going to zip past those jammed-up cars like I’m Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone!”  My response to that is “That’s great!”  But it’s not nearly good enough.  I’m calling out the need to look beyond the individual benefits that we enjoy as two-wheelers, and to embrace the collective advantages that we provide to all road users.  These ramp closures are a golden opportunity for the City and the bike community to demonstrate that putting more people on bikes, on buses and in carpools can reduce the strain on our failing infrastructure.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that trips from the Westside to the Valley should be made via bike during the construction.  What we should look at is increasing the number of local trips within West LA that don’t need a car.  What I envision is a highly targeted effort in the Westwood Village, Brentwood, Sawtelle, and West LA neighborhoods to lighten the load on their streets.  An effort that would help us overcome the chaos that will inevitably result from the broken traffic flow.  An effort that could establish a precedent which outlives the 405 Widening Project.

The foundation of this effort would be two-way outreach to inform the community, and to gather suggestions for improvements.  I’d love to engage the Neighborhood Councils and Homeowners Associations to get residential blocks and apartment buildings organized around commuting together.  Imagine a handful of “bike buses” traversing West LA, or full loads of passengers emerging from sedans upon arriving at the office.

We could use some help from larger organizations, too.  While the City is posting “Detour” signs to funnel cars to the next available on-ramp, it could also designate some safe routes for cyclists.  Local businesses could participate by offering promotions to patrons who arrive by bike or transit.  After all, better traffic flow on a street can only result in more exposures for the storefronts on that street.  There are lots of possibilities, and I would appreciate your ideas in the comments!

Let’s get prepared to milk this opportunity, and to demonstrate that promoting cycling means promoting more efficient road use, which benefits everyone.

Reason #5: DODGEBALL

When else are you going to get to play dodgeball in the streets of LA?  I don’t know, but it can’t be that often.  I hope, hope, hope to god that dodgeball will be back for this CicLAvia – CicLAvia Part Deux I’m calling it -and I’m an atheist!

Here’s some images from last year’s dodgeball games at CicLAvia – all photos from the slow witted blogger Alex Thompson:

Southpaw

Clobbered in the head - that will rattle your brainz.

Throwing with your eyes closed . . .

Throwing with your eyes closed usually leads to having you throw caught, like right here.

...so focus before you throw...

... and put your back into it!

CicLAvia 4-10-2011

At USC, I had to cross Figueroa.  In Santa Monica, Lincoln and Bundy effin suck.  In Little Armenia, you have stank nasty grimey pothole-ridden Hollywood Blvd.   In either of those cases, you can either walk out of the way to a crosswalk and wait a minute or more, or you can mad dash across.  That’s known as jaywalking, a term propagated by US automobile interests in the early part of the 20th century to scorn pedestrians and make drivers feel more entitled.  “Jay” insinuates that the one crossing the street is inexperienced.

Revisiting Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streets from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Based on Donald Appleyard’s 1981 Livable Streets book, it visually expresses how the physical width of a street affects the social life of nearby residents. Appleyard was an Urban Design professor at UC Berkeley that believed that “good urban design must be for the poor as well as for the rich.” He studied social and psychological effects of traffic and neighborhood layout and was the first to quantify this data.  Appleyard died a year after the publication of Livable Streets, at 54 years of age (struck and killed by a speeding automobile in Greece).

Social network on a light traffic street

The case study in the Streetsfilm video refers to light, medium, and heavy traffic streets in San Francisco in the late 1960s. The conclusion: streets with lighter traffic have more nearby friends and acquaintances, and they tend to identify the whole block as their public space. Residents of the street with more automobile traffic have less friends and tend to be constrain themselves to their apartment or building, exhibiting a much smaller comfort zone.

How traffic flow affects personal comfort zones

If Hollywood Blvd wasn’t a Nascar speedway, I would go to Taron Bakery for spicy cheese pies a few times a week instead of once a month.   Making even a right turn onto Hollywood Blvd always feels like jumping into a swimming pool full of sharks.

I’d like to see the Comments section fill up with stories about the most daunting street in YOUR neighborhood.  Off the top of your head, what street poses a similar barrier in your area?  Think about what you’d be doing differently, what social interactions you may be missing out on, and which business or venue you would patronize more.

I find Figueroa’s potential future redesign and ongoing mobility projects in Long Beach to be very inspiring. A ray of hope in an otherwise frustratingly stagnant transit climate. There, I ended on a positive note.

Charlie Gandy at Santa Monica Planning Commission Meeting

A very spirited Charlie Gandy stepped up to the microphone on the evening of January 5th to speak about the process that Long Beach is undergoing on its way to becoming the most bike-friendly city in America.  A few writeups of this already exist, so I figured I’d focus on the attitude necessary to push such changes through.  Plus I needed to balance out all the negative posts I publish.

Mr. Gandy started his presentation by underlining that what happens in Southern California tends to catch on across the country.

Gandy mentioned the importance of having a local developer such as Mark Bixby on board, the ear of “traffic engineering genius” Rock Miller, as well as external guidance from Andréa White-Kjoss, creator of the BikeStation program.

Mark Bixby is also a the founding director of the Long Beach Bike Festival which includes the 30-mile Tour of Long Beach, a fixed gear bike contest, and a fashion show.  A large majority (if not all) of the Long Beach city council members identify as cyclists.  This is the kind of momentum that Long Beach is working with.

To see Gandy’s entire presentation and the follow-up Q&A session, jump to about an hour into the archival footage of the Planning Commission meeting.

Cycling Infrastructure Projects

In Belmont Shore, the daily flow of 35-40,000 cars already move along at only 6mph, which is close to parking lot speed.  This is where Long Beach placed their “green carpet” sharrows.  The result: a 200% increase in cyclists, and a 20% drop in those riding on the sidewalk.  Belmont Shore businesses now seem willing to support bike corrals.

A protected bike lane (median separates cyclists and cars) in downtown Long Beach on Broadway is to be completed in late February.  On this street, cars will be guided to take a right turn while the bikes continue straight through.   Third Street will get the same protected lane treatment.  This is by far the best example of a bikeway designated for those between ages “8 and 80″ that I have seen so far in Southern California.

Long Beach has two bike boxes so far, one at 2nd and Marina, the other at 2nd and Bayshore.

Last but not least, Long Beach has pizza slice bike racks!

Dealing with Opposition

In regards to the friction created when designing for bikes, Gandy quoted Saul Alinsky: “If you don’t have heat you are not moving”.  For more memorable quotes, see the last paragraph of this post.  Being aware of dissenters, Gandy’s believes his most powerful tool is finding a way to accommodate the ones who oppose your project while continuing to move  towards that specific goal.

Residents may be skeptical at first to Bike Boulevards such as the one on Vista St.  But Gandy mentioned that residents in that neighborhood now now enjoy the calmer traffic.  It’s a safer environment for everyone; crossing the street is no longer a “death-defying feat”.

When asked about the best way to reduce motor vehicle parking, Gandy used Copenhagen as an example.  Over a longer period of time, parking was incrementally reduced, and people had a chance to adapt.

Commissioner Jim Ries asked about the expected push back from businesses when installing a bike corral.  Gandy admitted that businesses were opposed to losing car parking at first, but they eventually come around and realize that fitting a dozen vehicles in one car space means more business.  He used Belmont Shore as an example – the business community there now understands that a bike boom equals more income.   Residents have also taken notice that when vehicle speeds are lowered, property value goes up.

The term Bicycle Friendly District was used to brand areas of the city that promote local shopping.  This is an excellent idea, and I could easily see it catching in Santa Monica.  More details on this in Cynthia Rose’s Santa Monica Spoke post.  To enhance newbie cyclists’ shopping experience, the city of Long Beach offers free cargo bikes rentals so they can experience a new way to run errands.  Mr Gandy hopes that this eventually becomes a passion or an alternative mode if transportation for those that “drink the Kool-Aid”.

The Right Attitude

Here are some memorable Gandy Quotes from that night to clarify what the “get it done” attitude sounds like.

“Some people just drink the cool aid and make this their lifestyle.”

“We are taking an iron stance, akin to European cities that want to protect their lively urban core.  There is nothing more sterile than Dallas or Atlanta where there is no street life.”

“We hope to move from fear-based anxiety about change to a more experience-based attitude about change.”

When asked where he stands on Bike Sharing programs by City Councilmember Gwynne Pugh, his response was “I stand with four million dollars in my pocket on it”.

“An active living agenda is the next bike plan.”

“Green lane Sharrows cost 20-30 cents per foot.  That’s decimal dust.”

A more in-depth recap of the meeting is on the Santa Monica Spoke blog, with some details on where Long Beach gets their (hefty) funding for bike projects.  Gary also did a write up for the Santa Monica Patch.

In the past ten or so years, there’s been a real boom in practical cycling. Partly thanks to Grant Petersen’s healthy manias and editorializing–for long reach brakes, fatter tires, greater frame clearances, braze ons for racks and fenders–and partly in reaction against relentlessly high tech ultralight bikes and parts, utilitarian steel bicycles, commuters, cargo bikes and flexible, multipurpose rides have all experienced a renaissance. Along with this has come a smaller boom in commuting and practical cycling: the use of bicycles to supplant some form of internal combustion urban travel.

This boom has a further and more important social result because it has helped raise the bicycle from plaything to useful tool that goes beyond “lifestyle accessory.” It has helped transform the sensibilities of practical riders. Through practical cycling, bikes develop in new ways, but more importantly so do their riders.   This practical cycling can help riders move beyond “lifestyle consumption” to an identity less superficial and more grounded, whose character is still undefined, but is more in tune with a healthy human life and an economy that allows this.

Outside of practical uses, bicycles are toys, though sometimes expensive or beautiful ones. Like snowboards, surfboards, and rock climbing gear, they exist as recreational adjuncts to life rather than as necessities. As consumer items they exist primarily to allow us to have fun, and to define ourselves through the specific recreational choices we make, an important function in the world of late-stage capitalism. But when someone uses a bicycle to do something more important than shop for discretionary-income funded items, this use ca become more than a consumer choice. Simultaneously that rider has a chance at an equally  important change: she–he– begins to transcend the precincts of consumerism, and engages in something verging on meaningful activity.

You do not need a bicycle to do this: you can walk to the store to buy dried pinto beans and tortillas without needing even shoes (though the market will probably evict you without these). But a bicycle makes travel through dense urban landscapes much quicker, and in many cases even quicker than comparable distances in an automobile. The glory of this practical bicycling, then, is that one can actually be an effective and fully human agent using one, assuming that you use it for some substantive purpose, rather than as a lifestyle accessory. Rather than exercising your human faculties of agency and choice only through deciding on the brands of consumer goods you “need,” you are instead exercising both a specifically human agency and your muscles by doing something for yourself, with a minimum of mediation.

In this sense, bicycles are intrinsically anarchic in the philosophical sense, or at least much more so than any more complicated piece of technology that requires internal combustion or electric motors. They allow you to act for yourself with minimal intervening layers of corporate or mechanical mediation. In this way, they are revolutionary and liberating. This characteristic is why bicycles were an instrumental cause of women taking their public place in European and American society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The working poor have exhibited this independence here in Los Angeles for decades. The late afternoon pelotons  of the “Ruta de Busboy” riders in their white shirts and black pants pedaling away furiously to restaurant jobs on too large ten speeds or big box store mountain bikes bear witness to  this. But we middle class folk (and middle class is an internal identity as much as a financial one) have had to learn this same lesson by indirect means. Middle class attitudes and affluence are great barriers to actually living in the real world, outside the blinkering of class and cultural assumptions. Paradoxically those busboys and prep chefs are all aspiring to owning twenty year old Toyota Corollas the minute their income rises to a sufficient level, which reveals how in our society belonging means depriving yourself of some measure of humanity: to sacrifice independence, agency, and even being a good human animal with healthy lungs and muscles (unless of course this health is acquired as a “lifestyle” choice in an expensive gym) for the sake of belonging to a consumption-defined group.

So while cyclists have long lamented that bikes are considered toys in the US, the real force behind their becoming more accepted lies in their practical use. Unless they are used for activities more substantive than recreational fun, they certainly do have far more in common with toys than they have with automobiles, which–along with utterly trivial uses, are used for commuting and picking up the day’s food. (Note that this is not to say recreational cyclists don’t deserve respect and equal protection on the road.)  The bicycle is not the only way someone can accomplish these goals. Walking, using a skateboard and other forms of muscle power also allow the same freedom, the same agency, the unmediated contact with the actual world rather than its ersatz consumer version; but the bicycle is probably the best suited tool for urban landscapes.

So: live in this real world, instead of the one you’re supposed to inhabit where you are only a consumer. Ride your bike, and ride it for use and joy. Certainly, joy has a place in life, but a riding life of only fun is like trying to live off of cake from the best bakeries: while it tastes good for a brief while, it soon cloys and overwhelms. By riding your bike in this way, just maybe you’ll claim a fuller measure of humanity.  You might also discover that your overall attitude to this strange world we call normal changes: the urban bicycle as a lens through which to see the manias of late capitalism is, if we allow it to be, a pitilessly accurate instrument, revealing our foolishness and myopia. These changes are difficult ones: even practical cyclists live in a world of consumption-defined identity. But important changes start small and root themselves deeply; and the transformation of ourselves and our built environment is worth patience and gradual, evolutionary shifts.

Now on to keeping yourself warm and cozy.

Head: A waterproof helmet cover is a good idea if you’re going to wear a road helmet (with lots of open vents) in rainy weather. An even better water repellent is a bucket-style helmet. Most helmet covers will make you sweat anyway, so a bucket helmet isn’t all that bad of an option.

To protect your head and ears from the wind chill, a t-shirt sleeve or head warmer (~$15) will do the trick.

Upper body: A waterproof jacket is an easy decision to make, keeping your core warm should be a priority (Sugoi, Bellwether, LG, Descente, Castelli all make decent gear). No hood necessary, just a tight collar to keep rain drops from sneaking in (especially ones dripping from the rear of your helmet). Jackets with hoods will limit your visibility when looking over your shoulder. Even though the upper body creates heat, it doesn’t move much compared to your legs, so a jacket made of the cheapest waterproof material with some armpit aeration will do. PVC jackets run $15-25. Snug fit is best, letting the water roll off your body as quickly as possible.

Hands: Don’t have a good solution here. Waterproof gloves are too bulky, so just bare the cold until you get home or get a thinner pair that dries off quickly.

Legs: Waterproof pants range from $20 (PVC, will keep the rain out, but you’ll be soaked in sweat) to $150 (nice 3/4 length pants, made of waterproof-yet-breathable material). Middleground option that doesn’t break the bank – get the $20 pants, cut them off below the knee. That’ll air them out a bit and will keep them from getting caught in the chain. Your shins may get sprayed, but shins aren’t important. Keep your knees and ankles warm and if possible, dry.

Feet are extremely important and the toughest body part to keep warm and dry. On windy days and in light rain, toe covers will suffice. Toe covers aren’t guaranteed to keep your feet dry, but they’ll block a large percentage of the water hitting your forefoot. They will event fit over regular shoes, and they take up little space so they’re easy to pack.

For clip-in shoes, a waterproof bootie with a tight cinch around above your ankle will get you through the heavy rain. The biggest challenge is keeping water running down your leg from entering your shoe. My experience has been that waterproof socks are a waste. If you do opt for a full bootie instead of a toe cover, read some reviews first, make sure you don’t get stuck with a badly placed permeable zipper or stitching that falls apart prematurely.

Other tips:

• Cotton is a bad idea. Once it’s wet (whether from sweat or rain), you’re done. Thermal underwear and a thermal or wool tank top or t-shirt will do. For a base layer that touches your skin, synthetics and finer wools (read up on the various types available) are the better options. When wet, they’ll still keep you warm and they’ll dry much quicker.
• If you ever get stranded without such a jacket, cut holes in a trash bag for your head and arms, and that will at least keep your core warm (tip: most large trashcans have extra unused bags underneath the current one).
• Supposedly a can of 3M Scotchgard Heavy Duty Water Repellent or Gore Tex spray may also do the trick. Try it on an old ugly sweatshirt (BikeSide is not responsible for the potential destruction of your clothing).
• Do try to have a dry change of clothes (especially an upper body layer and socks) whenever you head out in wet weather. Most rain gear isn’t all that stylish to begin with.
• The sun is low in the winter months, so having sunglasses handy is a good idea. They’ll provide some protection against the sun’s glare and they’ll keep you from tearing up in a strong headwind.

Just to prove that you should be able to ride in any weather, here’s the winter setup of a Michigan State University commuter:

Cannondale Bad Boy, complete with Scottoiler chain lube system (for frickin' motorcyles!)

And for some more winter riding tips from the most extreme of conditions, check out Chicago’s Bike Winter riding tips and gear recommendations.

Have fun, be safe.

Tumlin explained that Santa Monica would like to help cyclists, but that “everything we do for you takes away from them.” “Them” being motorists. This common framing of the cycling issue is the greatest threat to bicycle friendliness today. The basic idea is that you cannot do good things for cyclists without having a negative impact on motorists. It is an “us vs. them”, “I win, you lose”, zero sum game point of view, and it is absolute poison.

Photo by Mihai Peteu

Following the artless logic of “I win, you lose” bicycle planning, Tumlin explained that further progress would rest on setting clear priorities and navigating treacherous political waters. When your only way of winning is by taking away from others, your priorities for taking things away become a priority. “The City has already done the easy stuff” explained Tumlin, who then expounded on why the journey to bike friendliness would be tough.

Bay Area consultants telling any ninety cyclists in Metro Los Angeles, particularly this ninety, that they face a difficult political battle is like Englishman telling Irishman that religious divisions can be trying. This was a roomful of cyclists who are street veterans and political veterans – they know exactly how hard it is on the street and in City Hall.

Tumlin remarked later that the room contained one councilman, three Planning commissioners, three Recreation & Parks commissioners and ninety cyclists. He didn’t mention the numerous Planning staff & police officers. With a such a turnout, Tumlin had an opportunity to drop the negative thinking and move strongly to inspire. It surprised me that he didn’t – when I last watched him during the LUCE update process he seemed much more confident.

The whole affair made me wonder at where Santa Monica is in the (somewhat lethargic) race to bike utopia. It seems crazy, but there is a case to be made that Los Angeles has overtaken Santa Monica. Santa Monica has quietly added a good deal of bike infrastructure, they have a great bike valet program for special events, and they have some good stuff going on in the schools. On the other hand, while Santa Monica’s attempt at a Ciclovia has foundered on an absurd permitting & political process, Mayor V has added CicLAvia to his curriculum vitae and started planning for another one. Where Santa Monica chased out Critical Mass (and consequently Midnight Ridazz), LAPD has made an effort (still struggling though) to support it. Los Angeles also has three brick and mortar bike repair collectives and two or three more in that are maturing, where Santa Monica has none. And relevant to this process, LA miraculously has a bike plan proposal it can get behind, whereas Santa Monica is just getting started.

The first 40 minutes of the evening were given over to discussions about infrastructure, with Tumlin first giving his introductory remarks, and then Tumlin’s colleague (whose name I didn’t catch) giving an overview of possible engineering solutions. However, the area in which Santa Monica is losing ground isn’t just in infrastructure. It’s in encouragement, it’s in education, it’s in rethinking the value and purpose of city streets.

A blinkered focus on infrastructure reinforces the “I win, you lose” frame. Street width, in the short term, is fixed. You can’t make the street wider, and you can’t make it narrower; all you can do is restripe it. If you believe, like many people do, that the only solution to hostile streets is to give cyclists there own special place, a sovereign nation, five feet wide, named “Bike-Lane-Land”, then you can’t do anything positive for cyclists without taking away space from motorists. If you accept this “fact” you will spend your days endlessly discussing the merits of 12 ft travel lanes vs. 10 ft or 9 ft, which is exactly what Tumlin’s colleague spent 10 minutes doing.

A slightly less poisonous version of the “I win, you lose” frame is the Interest Balancing paradigm. In this way of thinking, which Tumlin expressed a bit of, cyclists win at the expense of motorists, but it’s the right thing to do because cyclists interests have been neglected. One must balance the interests of all sides. The downside, which Tumlin was quick to mention, is that cyclists interests will have to be balanced against motorists in all cases, including on major arterials. As he put it, you can either slow down the street enough to make it safe for cyclists, or you can give them their own space. But, it’s just not reasonable on some streets, especially the big ones, to slow down traffic enough to make cyclists safe – that doesn’t balance the interests properly. Tumlin didn’t put it exactly that way, but that was the gist.

Neither of these ways of thinking is doing us any good. If we have to go into political arenas and convince people that they should give us things by taking things away from other constituents, we will only win when we have huge numbers. The “I win, you lose” frame is a lose, lose, lose some more, keep on losing approach for cyclists. It makes common cause with no one, it’s uninspiring, and its fruit are insubstantial. There are easy ways out of this, here’s two.

First, we don’t need infrastructure. Not in an absolute sense. We need the opportunity to coexist peacefully. We need to be able to use the road and not get run over. If you could take the lane and be respected by the motorists behind you, then you wouldn’t want or need a bike lane. You can call me all kinds of names and label me a Vehicular Cyclist, but you know in your heart of hearts that it’s true – if you felt safe taking the lane, bike lanes wouldn’t mean much. Bike lanes, as the dominant form of bike infrastructure, are mostly used to give cyclists a greater sense of safety and encourage motorists to respect them. They address the need for cyclists to peacefully coexist with other modes, but they are simultaneously a tacit admission that city staff are either unwilling or unable to get motorists to treat cyclists with respect. Once you’ve given up on making the existing streets safe for cyclists, and you decide that you need bike lanes everywhere, you are firmly in the grasp of “I win, you lose” bicycle planning. However, if you instead identify respect as the core issue, you can move on from this form of bike planning and this losing framing. Get into some encouragement, enforcement and education solutions and we can all win.

Second, there are better ways to approach and pitch infrastructure solutions than the “I win, you lose” zero sum approach. Even the famous negotiating tome “Getting to Yes” calls out this approach as an obstacle to progress. Enlarging the scope by featuring the values of Complete Streets is a good solution. Streets are not traffic sewers to park idling congestion on, they are our public spaces. They are there for business, for meeting people, they are there for everyone and they should be welcoming to all. A street where cyclists integrate harmoniously with cars and buses and peds is a street where everyone can feel welcome. Santa Monica’s bicycle pitchmen should position cycling solutions as a necessary element of civilizing Santa Monica streets and as good indicator species for street health. Emphasize that ensuring that all streets are complete streets means better traffic flow, and wins for everyone.  Remind people of the good ol’ days when, as a kid, they could ride their bike to the store, and ask them what they want for their kids and grandkids. This is the Win-Win frame that Santa Monica should be engaging with.

It’s not all bad and I am definitely a bit too focused on the way material was presented. On the whole I’m pleased to see that Santa Monica is making progress. Michelle Glickert and Lucy Dyke are good for Santa Monica, and I think if Santa Monica is serious about being bike friendly, then they need to add more staff to work with Glickert and Dyke. LA could learn a lot from Santa Monica in that they always have collaborative design exercises at workshops that move the conversations forward rapidly and dynamically. I am also impressed that Santa Monica’s bike activists are well organized under the Santa Monica Spoke banner. Tumlin and his colleagues are very bright people, and very accomplished, but I’m not convinced that they know what they’re doing here. They obviously understand that it’s a tough political environment but their badly framed rhetoric suggests they don’t understand how to navigate it. However, if they can turn rhetoric around and recognize that they have an opportunity to engage in inspiration and transformation, then Santa Monica could be in luck.

I was reminded more than once of some of the reasons I disengaged from Santa Monica politics. At the beginning of the meeting one woman interrupted a conversation I was having with Justine Rembac (bad ass Director of Sustainability for SMC’s Associated Students.) The woman said to us, with perfect politeness, “I’m being asked to start herding people toward the front.” Herding people? I let her know that I don’t get herded. I know that it’s probably just a bad verbal habit of hers, but I also know you don’t say things like that in LA. You don’t say things like that in LA ‘cause you’ll get yelled at (or worse.) I appreciate that about LA.

Twice I was talking with someone in the audience and someone leaned over and said our conversation was disturbing their appreciation of the powerpoint presentation. If you look at City Council meetings you’ll find the same thing; at Santa Monica City Council meetings visitors are expected to sit quietly in the pews.  In Los Angeles people work the room constantly, carrying on in lengthy (quiet) conversations. Again, there’s a quality of (false) politeness in Santa Monica that’s replaced with irreverence in LA, and I’m partial to the irreverence. At a good meeting more gets done in the side conversations than the meeting itself. The meeting before the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, and the meeting during the meeting are, taken together, are more important than the meeting.  As far as I’m concerned, if you’re focused on the powerpoint, you’re missing the real point, which is to make something happen.   Making something happen involves talking to people, and as long as it’s in hushed tones, I encourage the powerpoint connoisseurs in Santa Monica to tolerate the side conversations.

Or maybe I was just being loud and obnoxious.

My last thought: Santa Monica presented an accelerated plan for drafting and approving a bike plan. The justification offered was that Santa Monica needs a bike plan to qualify for certain funding applications. To my fellow bike activists in Santa Monica: if this is a poison pill, don’t feel you have to take it. This justification for swift drafting and adoption is EXACTLY the justification that LADOT et al offered when trying to push through an inadequate bike plan in Los Angeles. If the outlined planning process is going your way and suits your needs, then by all means, continue with it. But if you’re not getting what you need out of it, then insisting on a longer and more deliberative process is good and fair. If Santa Monica needs an approved bike plan they can easily reapprove the existing bike plan just for this year and continue with the public process of creating a stronger bike plan. If they need specific projects to be included in that plan to receive funding, they can throw those in the old plan, reapprove it, and continue with the update process. The need for an adopted bike plan is bullcrap excuse for an accelerated public process, and you don’t have to accept those terms if they don’t suit you.

Yelena Krupen

Yelena Krupen, the person who hit the esteemed Brandon Chau in Beverly Hills last year and then took off, has been sentenced to 25 days in county jail, $1500 fine ($350 of which is restitution to the victim), and 2 years of summary probation. The chance is that she won’t actually serve 25 days, but I’m curious to see what folks think of the punishment. Some may even say it’s too harsh, but then again, I hear she has a baaaad driving record…

1) does not excel at planning for multiple modes of transport,
2) skillfully deflects all responsibility for its failures.

On page 26 of this report, LADOT speaks of Wrong Way Cycling. I have no idea what the 3 other locations were, but the Jefferson/McClintock intersection is a perfect example of failing at designing for bikes. The problem originates a block West, at Jefferson and Orchard, where the mass of students that lives north of USC is funneled into the terribly-designed, car-centric McClintock gate into campus.

I used to commute through that exact intersection, and I did what was easiest for me as a cyclist – come down Orchard, then ride against traffic in the road (on Jefferson), or ride on the sidewalk and weave through people. It wasn’t always that way, I’m fairly certain that portion of Jefferson was redesigned in the early 2000s. I do recall whatever changes they have made to Jefferson, it made the USC campus more inaccessible.

Let’s see, you put in the uncrossable median to allow car traffic to flow more freely, impeding pedestrians and cyclists, and now you’re complaining about wrong way riders?

True, the average beach cruiser bike rider at USC has no idea what the rules of the road pertaining to bikes are. Most female cyclists in that area are trying to juggle a cell phone, coffee cup, and look through their bag all while riding. Some males specimens are equally aloof. I can see why there was a move to ban bikes on campus, although that is clearly a knee-jerk reaction by narrow-minded people.

Given this scenario, LADOT (or whomever wants to step up and genuinely claim responsiblity for our roads) should have designed simple, free flowing bike paths to campus and maybe thrown some funds into cyclist education. But it’s easier to shift the blame instead of accepting the responsibility.

If LADOT’s goal truly is to “reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities” as it claims on page 4 of this report, then all it has to do is reduce the speed limit on all thoroughfares and start treating the non-motorist public like they exist.

• Before the median was put in (which forces southbound traffic on Orchard to turn right), that intersection was open, Jefferson Bl just had a double yellow line
• A metal fence was added to the median to prevent pedestrians from “jaywalking” across Jefferson at Orchard
• Supposedly Orchard used to extend into campus in the first half of the 20th century
• According to their 2030 plan, USC is going to gobble up the area North of campus in order to “provide badly needed additional student housing, provide new academic space, and to create a vibrant retail space that will serve both our surrounding community and our academic community”
  

  Orchard at Jefferson - looking East on Jefferson Bl. As if USC wasn't fenced in enough already...

  Of special interest is page 7 of the USC Village Project Overview, which mentions that in the future, Jefferson Bl will have parking removed in favor of a widened sidewalk and a bike lane (!)

  

  Jefferson Bl - Widened Sidewalks + Bike Lane

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