Bikeside LA

“The best part of riding is spending quality time with my 5 year old and wife. We enjoy riding close to the ocean in San Pedro.” So said Gordon Teuber in response to Bikeside’s recent survey of Council District 15 (CD15) candidates.  Gordon didn’t just leave it at that though, he continued: “The worst part [...]

Two months ago, the Bike Plan Implementation Team met at City Hall and walked away with an informal top ten list of cycling infrastructure projects.  Since then, Planning and DOT have refused to put their time and energy toward any proposals that are not on the list.  When advocates complain to the authorities, they are [...]

Bikeside went to the LA County draft Bicycle Master Plan meeting in Marina del Rey last night.  The draft plan covers unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County and other seemingly random patches of land, like the Westside VA campus (we’ll get back to that one later). The existing LA County Bicycle Master Plan was adopted [...]

Bikeside went to the Bike Plan Implementation Team meeting on Tuesday.  Here’s what we learned and what we think: 7th Street lane:  the project from Catalina to Figueroa is in the outreach phase and city staff are meeting with community stakeholders before finalizing the design. 7th Street continued:  as part of the Wilshire Grand, the [...]

Los Angeles’ Department of City Planning is set to hold the monthly meeting of the Bike Plan Implementation Team (BPIT) a week from today.  That’s one week for us, the cycling public, to prepare our case for bike projects that will advance LA toward its destiny as premier city for cyclists.  Here at Bikeside, we’re [...]

Last Thursday, the Cyclist LAPD Task Force met once again (agenda, pdf) to discuss law enforcement and biking in Los Angeles. The Cyclist LAPD Task Force was created last January by Chief Beck and bike activists as a way to begin collaborating, after years of boisterous and acrimonious conflict. So far the Task Force has [...]

My main gripe with the latest release of Los Angeles’ 2010 Bicycle Plan is that it uses the word “bicycle” and it refers to “bicyclists.” Nerdy!  Cycling cyclists, bikers biking and riders riding are so much more sexy than bicyclists bicycling . . . the plan sets back bikers’ sexual prospects decades. On the other [...]

LA already has a Backbone . . . from 1977.  City Planner Claire Bowin discovered and scanned this map from the 1977 LA Bike Masterplan.  It’s a map of the planned bikeways from that plan, and it plans for two systems – a Backbone system and a broader (but one assumes, lower priority) Citywide system.  [...]

This Saturday, March 6th, we’ll finalize the Backbone Bikeway Network streets, and move on to discussing methods for making those streets ultra safe and ultra convenient for cyclists.  From 2pm till 5pm the fifth Bike Working Group will convene at the Hollywood Adventist Church (around the back) at 1711 N Van Ness Blvd. Everyone is [...]