Also, I heard you once on bike talk and you are as well spoken as you are in your writing. Thank you for this blog and for your involvement in the LA bike scene.

Yes, if you join the bike movement publicly, you enter the scope of people who I might criticize publicly. However, understand that this is one highly critical post among very few. For every time I’ve been critical of an org, there are 19 or 20 instances where I’ve kept it private. You should know too that there is a lot of behind the scenes flak in this business. The post was born of frustrations that have failed to be resolved privately, and endless private conflict. I felt it was time to let people know that not everyone is friends in the bike activism scene, and there are real ideological differences between organizations.

But seriously – if you’re gonna blog – you’ll need a thick skin. The kind of back & forth that is happening here is nothing compared to what happens when you have a big story on LAist, the LA Times, or Wired.

-AT

But in the larger scheme of things, I don’t think you can expect perfect ideological purity from every group and individual in an advocacy movement. We need people on the inside, outside, and every point in between to make change happen. Should LACBC be doing bridge design – no. But I’d rather have people who care and are familiar with the issue writing a bike plan than some 2-bit planning consultancy whipping off some half-assed document that builds on LA’s plan as some example of best practices. Alta is generally considered the best in the business and virtually no one outside of the company or the DOT is defending the final result of that process as anything to be proud of.

So I’m supporting LACBC in all the good work that they are doing AND thanking god we have people like Alex out there who are willing to do the work to keep an eye out and call foul when it’s justified.

Here is the kicker: it used to be so much worse with this organization!

I tried to get a job with the LACBC several years ago (when a woman named “Kestley” something or other was running the organization). At the time, the LACBC was busy hustling for corporate money and government contracts to do bike planning work. They wee stuck in the non-profit industrial complex.

I went for my job interview in the MTA’s lobby with the head of the LACBC and their chief funding agency at the time, the MTA’s Lynne Goldsmith. I was so fucking pissed off about that encounter I cannot describe in words the feelings I had about the organization at that point. They were a hollow core of bullshit happy bike friendly vibes and a gleaming desire for pots of money handed out from the government to do paper shuffling tasks.

When I tried to run for the board of the LACBC, I made the suggestion that the organization direct its efforts to low budget fundraisers that would increase it’s membership and its legitimacy with the people it claimed to represent. To focus on selling $15 memberships and by actually trying to say something negative about the agencies they relied on for money when those agencies’ policies were killing and maiming cyclists.

In my eyes, the LACBC is revving up into a serious ass kicking machine – they have a big contact list, name ID, and though their efforts often strike me a politically amateurish plenty of other things the organization does is quite amazing (cough City of Lights cough).

This relationship with the LADOT is disturbing, and it would be a big help if the LACBC gave us a statement about it and disclosed its relationships with the other agencies that oversee bicycle planning in Los Angeles.

LACBC and myself are not allies. LACBC and Bikeside are not allies. LACBC is not allies with a lot of people and orgs. LACBC and DOT **are** allies – that’s the point.

Do the math.

Criticism can be good if it is constructive and aimed at the right people, but LACBC and Streetsblog? It seems that the real enemy here is not LACBC or Streetsblog but DOT. Why waste your time and energy in criticizing and undermining the work that other advocates are doing? Just do your work and they’ll do theirs.
I appreciate what all the orgs are doing – effective, worthwhile and helping to move things forward.
From what I understand, there is a lot to do to change the way LADOT functions and to make LA more bike friendly.
You all serve different functions and to waste your time in passing judgment, making assumptions and policing what other orgs are doing is unproductive and makes the overall message weaker.
I thought the goal here was about making LA more accommodating to bikes, not trying to rip other bike orgs apart, just because you have different point of views.
Focus your energy on criticizing the enemy, not your allies.

In peace,
JM

Realize that while you may feel that I’ve insulted people you know and love, the reverse is true: the people you know and love have likely disrupted projects I’ve been involved with. From my point of view, a great number of LACBC people have set back cycling and done things to undermine non-LACBC activists. I have personally experienced it, and it is ongoing, and worsening. If you stipulate for a second that is how I perceive things, then tell me, what would you do? Private discussion has failed, LACBC continues to engage in destructive practices that, I believe, are unethical. Should I say nothing? I feel horrible for not writing about these things earlier.

It also frustrates me that you’ve written things that dismiss and disrespect the entire field of urban planning, and then you turn around and make statements about how planning should be done, and by whom it should be done.

None of that justifies my mean tone. I was rude and I’m sorry.

“The term advocacy planning was coined by Paul Davidoff in his influential 1965 paper, “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning” which acknowledged the political nature of planning and urged planners to acknowledge that their actions are not value-neutral and encouraged minority and under-represented voices to be part of planning decisions.”

You might want to read Davidoff’s whole piece before you advance the claim that it is corrupt to do advocacy and planning at the same time.

@Alex – I think the LACBC should be doing this sort of work… and should have the fortitude to walk when/if they feel that LADOT jerks them around, or doesn’t hold up its end of the project. I think that what will help the LACBC have the backbone to do this is to have plenty of active thriving bike groups that will watchdog. It’s great that Bikeside is out there in an uncompromising way… and I would actually suggest that your critiques will make the entire L.A. bike movement – including LACBC – more effective.

(ps. I know it’s just your quick comments on a blog, but you’ve mispelled “Sadik-Khan” and used the wrong “its” when you wrote “electing it’s officers” – if you can get your typo count just a little higher, you could get hired to write sloppy city bike plans!)

Regarding qualifications – this is a deep and profound debate, and not easily resolved. However, I will say this – any planning done by LACBC needs experienced oversight. LACBC has previously put unqualified fresh bachelors degree earners in charge of planning projects – people who couldn’t tell you the difference between Class I, II, or III.

Going back to the COI issue, everytime LACBC takes on a government planning contract, they acquire a new COI. Each COI restricts LACBC’s capacity to express a credible opinion within that agencies jurisdiction. LACBC has just taken themselves out of the game in the City of Los Angeles and the South Bay. What’s left for LACBC to participate in, besides the little cities?

Joe Anthony – I’m airing these grievances precisely because efforts to resolve them behind the scenes have failed. In my opinion LACBC has become more and more brazen in seeking any funding possible, in order to get themselves out of their budgetary woes. At the same time LACBC actively works against other people’s efforts – LACBC’s Dorothy Le publicly contradicted Stephen Box on the W Hotel bike parking issue. LACBC endorsed the bike path to nowhere. LACBC forced its way onto the Cyclist LAPD Task Force, and has redirected the Task Force away from it’s original purpose. LACBC board member Kent Strumpell consistently apologizes for Mowery, and has opposed the Cyclists’ Bill of Right’s inclusion in the Bike Plan. Over and over this shit happens, and the best thing I can think to do is make it public. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Adrian – you call it misguided, well who is doing the guiding? Ask yourself why an ambitious activist like me, one who made a substantial financial contribution to LACBC at one time, is not within the LACBC, reforming. Ask yourself why LACBC stopped electing it’s officers, and why so much talent leaves that org. I don’t think it’s a ship that can be righted, or is worth righting – from my point of view it is that bad.

If LACBC really wanted sharrows on the ground they would have cried bullshit and not supported the study.

You say Bikeways isn’t the problem, I say the Bikeways coordinator is exactly the problem. When the bike coordinator couldn’t get things done in NYC, he quit, and wrote an open letter detailing how he had been stonewalled. This was partial motivation for bringing in Sadik-Kahn. If Mowery is being stonewalled, she has an obligation to share that with the public, not stab bike activists in the back. Instead, she never names names, undermines activists, and defends her superiors. Bikeways is the problem, along with the rest of DOT.

Blood on her hands.

you’re right that the funding mechanism, where LADOT chooses an advocacy group to work with and then pays them, obviates a sort of prioritization of LACBCs views over other advocacy groups. in this sense, LADOT is holding LACBC accountable to represent bicyclists. that is unfortunately the nature of capitalism, where people put their money where their mouth is. but for you to rag on LACBC because of this relationship is wrong. don’t hate LACBC. hate capitalism.

be fair, alex. LACBC would love to have sharrows on the ground right now. almost anyone who uses a bike for transportation would.

there really is no reason for LADOT to do a study, especially because sharrows have already been state-approved as a traffic control device. the major barrier is not LACBC or even the LA Bicycle Plan, or even the bikeways department of LADOT (well most of the bikeways department). it is LADOT leadership–people who are apprehensive of bicyclists, or removal of travel lanes, or removal of parking lanes.

this apprehension is the real barrier for progress in LA bicycling. and it is this apprehension that should be the target of our work. it’s a hard fight because the vast majority of Angelinos do not think about bicycling like us. we have to learn why people are apprehensive. we have to encourage people to step out of their comfort zones, possibly try something they hate. the hardest thing is that we have to counter this hate with love. we have to overcome people who hate bicyclists, or the idea of bicycling, with love.

it is really frustrating to have to sift through so much misguided aggression constantly leveled at LADOT Bikeways and LACBC, from you and stephen. these groups are not your enemy. they are in fact the closest things you have to allies. and while they may not be able to match your vision (which is indeed a glorious vision), they are interested in solutions while you continue to hack at them.

if you don’t want to work with them, that’s fine. but they are not working against you, and is a waste for you to work against them.

My point about involving the community (and not just professionals) in planning holds – whether the errors are the fault of city professionals (as Matt states in his comment) or Alta professionals or an overall flawed process scoped and executed by professionals. I think that Alta is a good professional planning firm and they did the best they could in a nearly-impossible situation.

Oh yea, you may want to look at the grant that LACBC received for the South Bay Plan. It may include some funding that will allow the coalition to hire a planner for the project.

To address Joe’s comment about Alta’s work on the LA Bike Plan: There were some errors/inconsistencies in draft plan related to some last-minute changes to the network at the request of the City, but to characterize the entire document as sloppy is a bit unfair.