So, You Want to Help Bikes in L.A.?

So, You Want to Help Bikes in L.A.?

Bicycle Transportation Policy Goals for Los Angeles

Rev. Borfo, making a point during the Gypsy Ride in April of 2007.

So far, people interested in making things better for bicyclists in L.A. have been able to wring public relations victories out of local politicians and opinion makers. Extending those victories into substantive changes in the way the City and County of Los Angeles deal with bicycles is a challenge that confronts all bike advocates.

It is often easy to get a politician to stand with you on a podium and loudly proclaim their "support" for your pet issue. It can be quite another to see something get done. I've developed this short list of specific policy recommendations that are within the power of the Los Angeles City Council and the Office of the Mayor to enact.

These are not massive changes. Several of these recommendations can be achieved in a matter of months, as they are quite technical and require only a one or two sentence ordinance and vote of the council.

So, here is my short list of bicycle transportation policy goals for Los Angeles:

Get Money for the Citywide Bike Network
At the direction of the City Council or the Office of the Mayor, the City should find, apply for, or allocate the $60 million required to completely build-out the Citywide Bike Network described in the 2002 Bicycle Plan. As planned in the 2002 Bicycle Plan, this money can be allocated piecemeal over the course of 10 or 15 years in amounts ranging from $4 million to $6 million per year. This amount, for a City the size of Los Angeles, is peanuts - but a completed Citywide Bike Network has the potential to get 5% of all trips in L.A. to be done by bicycle.

New, Official, Street and Highway Designations
At the direction of the Council, the Planning Department, the LADOT, and the LADPW should develop new Street and Highway Designations that are inclusive of bicycle, transit, and pedestrian uses of the right of way. This process would require at least one or two years to complete, and would require public hearings, it would likely require an EIR as well as $1 to $2 million in staff time and material.

Legal Definition Tweaking
These redefinitions will allow any unrestricted "transportation" dollars to be allocated to projects that do not speed up cars. Sidewalk improvements, traffic calming, bicycle facility construction, bus bench improvements - all of these will be able to use non-restricted transportation funds.

1. Legally define "Transportation", in the Los Angeles Municipal Code, to be:
   

   "Any method or mode of moving goods or people using a street, highway, road, or public right-of-way. Bicycling, walking, using transit, and vehicular use are transportation."

2. Add "Bicycling is a mode of transportation" to the legal definition of bicycle in the Los Angeles Municipal Code;


3. Add "Walking is a mode of transportation" to the definition of walking and pedestrian in the Los Angeles Municipal Code.

Monitor and Evaluate the Street in a Different, and Scientific, Way
In the Monitoring/Evaluation segment of the bike plan (and the General Plan), as well as in the City's Street Designations and Standards, it would help cycling a great deal if something more than a cyclist count was employed to measure the performance of the roadway.

Currently, the streets of L.A. are measured by the City primarily by observing how many motorized vehicles can go as fast as possible on a street. This is a dysfunctional method of roadway performance measurement. Measuring the road this way turns the public right-of-way (which should serve commerce, civic life, and transportation) into a car-only sewer pipe that hurts local business interests, and destroy traditional civic life.

We all know the proportion of cyclists on the road is minuscule.

However, the effects of cycling, and bicycle infrastructure, are not minuscule.

Slower auto speeds relate to greater social cohesion, higher retail sales, fewer deaths and injuries, less air and noise pollution. Deemphasizing car throughput also increases the likelihood that both the oldest and youngest people in the neighborhood can use the streets safely.

Here are some scientific performance measures that can be applied to measurement of the public right-of-way to ensure that local business interests and civic life are taken into account in roadway design and construction:

1. Trends in retail sales tax income;
2. Crash, injury, and fatality reduction and monitoring;
3. Social surveys to establish live-ability;
4. Air pollution reduction and monitoring;
5. Noise monitoring;
6. Substituting automobile-based counts of speed and throughput (like Level of Service, Average Daily Trips, and "accessibility") for people-based counts;
7. Demographic surveys of street users.

All of the above can be reliably, and scientifically, measured. These measurements need to be a part of the the Monitoring/Evaluation section of the Bike Plan (and the General Plan). The City's official street designations and standards (see LAMC 17.05-A) must also be amended to reflect an increased focus on roadway performance for bicycles, pedestrians, and transit vehicles.

You can see the Monitoring/Evaluation section of the (soon to be old) Bike Plan here:
http://www.lacity.org/pln/cwd/gnlpln/transelt/BikePlan/B7Monitr.htm

The General Plan's Monitor and Evaluate section can be found here:
http://www.lacity.org/pln/cwd/gnlpln/TransElt/TE/T8Monitr.htm#citywide

So, that is it! There are some other policy goals that I am sure a group of cycling advocates could generate, but these are what I've done my research on. All of these would not take more than two city council motions apiece to achieve, and they are things that will actually improve the lot of bike riders in the City of Los Angeles. None of these ideas are particularly expensive. None of these ideas are off the wall. They get right to the heart of of the matter, and speak directly to the power that the City Council and Mayor wield.

Fortunately, the work of bicyclists over the past few years has already gotten local councilpeople thinking and working on bicycle issues. If we act now and present a clearly defined set of recommendations, we stand a good chance of actually seeing something come out of the explosion in bike culture and advocacy that has recently developed in Los Angeles.