Friday, 1pm, The Cyclists' Bill of Rights at LA City Council

(Better late than never?  Writers block plagues me, so I’m sorry if this is a bit dense.)

Are you free Friday?  Ride with us to support the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights.  The Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee will review the progress of the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights this Friday at 1pm (Facebook event listing.)  It’s part of a bike themed meeting of the committee with five agenda items on cycling.

I will ride from CRANK MOB PARK (Venice & Canfield) to the meeting downtown.  I leave at 11:30am sharp – so don’t be late.  Stephen and Enci Box will be leading a ride for non-Westsiders from the Metro Red Line Station at Santa Monica & Vermont leaving at noon.

Our goal is to encourage the committee to endorse the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights without reservation.  And how could you not?  The bill begins with “Cyclists have the right to travel safely and free of fear.”  It ends with “Cyclists have the right to peaceably assemble in the public space, as guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.”  These are two of our most sacred freedoms.

They’re also rights which are consistently trampled in a city where cyclists are second class citizens.  I mean, heck, I just got off the phone with a LAPD Sergeant investigating this incident in which a cyclist was cuffed and illegally searched because he dared to ask questions – this stuff is not exactly abstract.  I think an affirmation of our rights, and the City of Los Angeles’ commitment to them, is in order.

Also on the agenda are the following items:

• A report on the status of LA’s bike licensing program: Officers of the LAPD have recently taken to enforcing LA the requirement that any cyclist have a bike license for their bike (LA Municipal Code 26.01).  Specifically, they used the law to harass Midnight Ridazzz.  The law is a travesty.  It was originally conceived as a way to recover stolen bikes, not as a means to harass cyclists.  Now many LAPD stations won’t even register you, even though they are tasked with implementing the program.  Worse – the law is illegal.  What?!!  That’s right, the State of California permits municipalities to require registration from residents operating a bicycle, but LA requires everyone to register their bike.  City of LA, FAIL.  This law criminalizes cyclists, and it has to go.  I’ll tell you right now – I will never register my bike.  Check out BikingInLA for a good deconstruction and different point of view.
• A report on the progress of the Bicycle Masterplan Update process:  When I resurrected this blog, one of my first posts was about the flawed Bicycle Masterplan Update process.  Basically, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and their contractors at Alta Planning have not done enough to reach out to the community, and the process has been totally opaque.  Nevermind that LADOT implemented almost none of the 1996 & 2002 Bicycle Masterplans.  We haven’t heard a peep about the nature of the plan since the community meetings in the spring except vague boasting about the ideas in the plan.  I’d like to see more community outreach, a transparent process, and a commitment from the Council to implement the plan.
• Report on the possibility of a bike sharing program in LA:  The cycling community has been awed by the results in Paris and Barcelona from bike sharing programs.  So major US cities have scrambled to make their own programs.  LA asked LADOT to look into the possibility, and LADOT came back with this report(pdf).  LADOT’s point of view?  “The City city still lacks a continuous network (of bikeways) to accomodate bicycle use for the bike sharing program.”  Ok, fair enough – what they’re saying is that novice bikers need a bikeways network to ride about safely, and LA doesn’t have one.  Since LA motorists are so murderous, I tend to agree.  But, LADOT’s sloth is the reason we don’t have a decent bikeways network.  A continuous bikeway network was part of the 1996 Bicycle Master Plan, and since then LADOT has made very little progress toward that.  Currently, LADOT is adding bikeways at a rate of 56 feet per year per square mile – so we can expect a complete bikeway network in 100 years.  When does “we didn’t do what we promised, so we can’t do anything to help you” stop being an excuse?
• Report on the progress toward adding Sharrows to Garcetti’s district:  Eric Garcetti, Council President, advanced a motion in July to add Sharrows to some major streets in his district.  LADOT will report on the progress so far studying this motion.  Sharrows are an innovative lane marking which indicates to drivers that cyclists are present and using the lane, legitimizing their presence, and help guide inexperienced cyclists in toward proper lane position.  I expect this project to move forward without trouble, in part because Garcetti is backing it.

As you might guess, LADOT itself is a major obstacle to progress toward bike friendliness.  That’s true, but in a sense it’s a gift.  Too often cycling advocates focus on infrastructure as a solution to all our problems.  Without infrastructure changes available as a solution, we’re forced to think about other things which are important to cyclists, such as motorist behavior.  Let’s advance that agenda as much as possible.

(photo by digablesoul)

(if you’d like to know more about these issues – LA Streetsblog is a good place to start – Damien Newton has put together a 5 part post series covering each of the bike items on the agenda.)