There is a lot to praise with the current draft plan, but there are some sore points I'd like to address.
First, my idea to expand the ability of property owners to swap bike parking in lieu of required car parking has been included in the plan (Policy 1.2.3, Policy 1.2.7 A and B) - but only for City owned projects, multi-family residential, and only for a measly 5% of the required car parking! Come on guys, you can do much better than that. Open up the bike parking swap to all lot sizes (no more 10,000 sq. ft. of active use requirements). Open up the bike parking swap to more zones (and not just "Commercial" and "Manufacturing" zones). Finally, open up the potential for bike parking to save money and lower the costs of expanding a business or a building by allowing 50%, 75%, or 100% of required car parking to be replaced with quality, covered, bike parking.
Second, I see bike facilities mapped in my neighborhood, and I see policies (Policy 1.1.6 A) to "Increase opportunities for bicycle lanes on Major Class II road ways." What I don't see are scheduled timelines for North Figueroa Street (now designated to have a bike lane installed) in the implementation section of the plan. How about a capital improvement plan instead of a policy goal to implement a capital improvement plan? What I don't see is a mention of lane removal on a Major Class II Highway, except for a shared bike/bus lane. I love buses, but not when they're bearing down on me and my daughter. On the stretch of North Figueroa Street, in front of Flying Pigeon LA and the Bike Oven and continuing all the way up to York Boulevard, the road is easily 10,000 daily car trips shy of the MINIMUM capacity the road is designated for.
A car lane removal to install bike lanes on North Figueroa Street will degrade off-peak Level of Service but could, in fact, improve Level of Service overall by keeping a steady flow of vehicle traffic, moving at reduced speeds at all hours. This slower flow of car traffic will not trigger a winnable CEQA lawsuit, and it will drastically improve the lot of local businesses and the ability of residents to cross the street.
Finally, I don't see any measures to measure! The data collection mentioned in the plan (Policy 3.2.5) is already being collected (manual traffic counts already capture bike trips and SWITRS data is already compiled in a database). The plan needs to call for a scheduled publishing of this data in a report and maps for councilmembers and the public to access. The plan calls only for "analysis" of this data - but when will this analysis be presented to the public? When will a reporter, a candidate for office, a concerned parent, or a school kid be able to quickly search for the 10 most deadly intersections in the city to bike? On a weekly basis? On a quarterly basis? On a yearly basis? Or, as the plan proposes, some time between 2010 and 2015 (with an unstated publishing date and unmentioned format). Give us some deadlines and specific, not just the old bureaucratic brush-off with a "staff shall" with no deadlines and no agreed-upon format.
This bike plan draft is a lot better than what was originally presented to us, but there are places for improvement. The bike parking swap needs to be embraced, strengthened, and allowed to have a chance in other zones. Maps and policy goals are fine, but Major Class II Highways need to be scheduled to be improved in this plan (not in a plan to plan). Our roads are already being surveyed, but that data is not being compiled - it is time to call for regular and timely publishing deadlines, open formats, and maps of bicycle use and traffic crashes.
With these small changes, I feel that this plan will have a better chance at actually making a difference as opposed to being another knocked-out paper brick, full of ideas parried and defeated by bureaucrats, sitting on a dusty shelf in City Hall.
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