Archive for March 11, 2009

Here we go again — An open letter to the candidates in California Senate District 26

March 11, 2009 / / 4 comments

Even though we just finished one election last week, we have another one coming up in two weeks to fill the state Senate seat recently held by Mark Ridley-Thomas — a district that covers most of Los Angeles and Culver City.

As I’ve said before, we need to become more involved in the political process if we want things to get any better for cyclists in this city or this state. So today I emailed each of the candidates in the March 24 primary election, based on the list provided by the League of Women Voters, to offer them each an opportunity to use this blog to speak directly to the biking community.

Just as I did for the recent 5th Council District election, I will post their statements in the order I receive them, without edits or comments. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of the candidates respond — especially considering that we may have provided David Vahedi’s margin of victory in the council primary.

 

Dear Mr. or (Ms.) …

As you are aware, the election for California Senate District 26 is less than two weeks away, Yet many voters have only recently become aware of this election — let alone the candidates or their positions.

That gives you a unique opportunity to reach countless uncommitted voters; however, the concerns of one highly motivated voting group have largely been ignored up to this point.

Thousands, of not tens of thousands, of registered voters in this district also ride bikes. Some, such as myself, ride for recreation and fitness. Others ride for social or environmental reasons, while for still others, cycling is their primary means of transportation.

Whatever their reason, virtually all are concerned with such vital issues as safe streets and improved infrastructure, clean air and fair, unbiased enforcement of traffic laws, along with meaningful reform of state laws to encourage greater participation in cycling and ensure our safety.

I am offering you, as well as the other candidates in the race, an opportunity to address a highly motivated, yet largely ignored, voter group — at no cost to your campaign.

As an active voter in this district, I also operate a popular blog about bicycling in Los Angeles. I will turn this forum over to your campaign for one day, in order to speak directly to the cycling community.

You are free to discuss anything you want, from the role bicycles can play in reducing traffic congestion, to seemingly unrelated issues such as crime rates or responsiveness to your future constituents. If you are an active cyclist, tell us. Or if you want to confront cyclists in some way, feel free. I will publish whatever you send — unedited and without comment — in the order that it’s received.

All I ask is that you send your statement to me in the body of your email or as a Word attachment, with a maximum of 1,000 words (although less is usually better online). You may also submit a small photo or campaign logo to appear along with your comments.

Of course, you’re under no obligation to participate; however, if some of the other campaigns submit a statement and you don’t, it could speak volumes to the biking community.

Besides, it’s free. So what do you have to lose?

PS — I recently made the same offer to the candidates in March 3rd primary for Los Angeles 5th City Council district; four of the six candidates, and two of the top three finishers, participated, including David Vahedi, who won by a margin of just 60 votes.

 

Gary points out that cycling is neither a Democratic or Republican issue; try telling that to Rush Limbaugh, who appears to have a different take on the matter. And even people who support cycling may not support cycling everywhere. Now Nevada is taking up a bicycle safety bill. Will points out that when bikeways are closed for construction, we should take the promised re-opening date with a grain — or possibly, a bag — of salt. Thanks to Streetsblog’s Ben Fried for tipping us to a great cartoon addressing the issue of cars stopping in the bikelane, while Damien asks if we’ll really see the city’s Bike Master Plan next month. And finally, Anonymous Cyclist offers a great explanation of what to do if you’re in a cycling accident.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Selling bike safety, culture and infrastructure to a suspicious public

March 9, 2009 / / 12 comments

The single most powerful political manifesto I’ve ever read was written by Dale Carnegie.

I don’t think he intended to write a revolutionary treatise. But over the years, I’ve found the suggestions contained in his 70-year old book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, are more effective in creating political and societal change than any sit-in, march or demonstration.

One in particular has been proven over and over to be a brilliant political tool: “Always talk in terms of the other man’s interest.” That is, look at it from their perspective, and think about they’re interested in, rather than what’s in it for you.

I been thinking about that since I attended a session on advanced bike traffic planning tools, hosted by Ryan Snyder of Ryan Snyder Associates, at the L.A. Bike Summit on Saturday. He talked about a number of innovative bike traffic solutions, from sharrows and bike boxes, to painted bike lanes and improved signage.

But what really caught my attention were two things:

First was the concept of Road Diets. Simply put, it’s the idea that traffic flow and neighborhoods can both be improved by reducing the number of lanes.

For instance, a typical four-lane street that carries 20,000 vehicles or less a day can often be reconfigured into two through lanes, with a center left turn lane so that turning cars don’t block traffic, while leaving room for bike lanes on either side. This reduction can actually improve vehicle flow, while calming traffic speeds and permitting a dramatic increase in bike usage — and improve safety for both drivers and riders, while revitalizing the surrounding neighborhood.

The other one was the idea of Bike Boulevards — something a number of local riders have advocated lately.

At its most basic, a bike boulevard is a street, often parallel to a major thoroughfare, that has been optimized to encourage bike traffic. At the same time, it employs various barriers, roundabouts and signal changes to discourage vehicle through traffic.

You don’t have to sell cyclists on the concept of a bike boulevard. Build it, and we will come.

But as Ryan pointed out, the problem for both of these ideas — especially bike boulevards — comes when it’s time to sell local residents and business owners on the idea. With today’s over-congested traffic, very few people are open to the idea of actually reducing traffic lanes.

And no one wants to live on a bike boulevard.

People who live there tend to envision a thundering horde of two-wheeled thugs invading their street, reducing their property values and making them second-class citizens in their own neighborhoods.

Yet the reality is just the opposite. By eliminating through traffic, a bike boulevard will dramatically reduce vehicle traffic, making their street quieter, more peaceful and significantly safer, while local traffic is still able move in and out with ease.

Streets become more walkable, as well as bike-able, encouraging residents to get out and meet their neighbors. And the enhanced landscaping and beautification projects that often are part of a bike boulevard project — in part to get buy-in from the locals — results in a more attractive streetscape.

All that adds up to a better, more livable neighborhood. And means that property values could actually go up, not down.

The same holds true for a business district. Reduced traffic flow means less through traffic, resulting in quieter streets less congestion and easier access for drivers who do want to stop and shop. Parking can be improved and streets beautified, creating a neighborhood ideal for strolling or sidewalk cafes, while the extra bike traffic could actually bring more customers to the area.

Everyone wins.

So we have to do a much better job of marketing — whatever we’re selling. Because the key to getting bike boulevards and the other biking infrastructure, safety improvements, better educated, less biased and more effective police, and acceptance of bike culture, is not to demand our rights, but to look at it from their perspective.

We have to show local authorities, as well as home and business owners, exactly how and why it works to their benefit.

And let them demand it, instead.

***

Streetsblog offers some great biking links this morning, as well as a good overview of the keynote speakers at the Bike Summit. Gary, Brayj and Drew also offer reviews, though in the latter case, I fear I have once again failed to make a good impression. Will offers links to photos, as well as photos and video of his close encounter with Lance following the Summit. Los Angeles Rides quotes from a New York Times article about riding in the city, and how we make ourselves look bad — and not just by wearing spandex. Bicycle Fixation demonstrates that once again, cycling offers better stress relief than any prescription drug. The Biking Lawyer relates the history of the Stop As Yield Law. And Los Angeles Cyclist offers parts 3, 4 & 5 in his five part story of the Ridiculous Pink Fixie.

Category: Best of, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Extra added post pre-Iditarod post

March 8, 2009 / / One comment

My brother set out on his fourth Iditarod Sled Dog Race this morning, leading a team of 15 dogs 1,150 miles through the frozen tundra of the Great White North. As a recent profile in the local Anchorage paper made clear, he’s not going to win.

To put it in cycling terms, it’s like if you, by some miracle, found yourself riding in the Tour de France.

You know you’re not going to win. But you’re still competing on equal terms with the best riders in the world.

And what could be more cool than that?

Only this. Imagine competing in that race in some of the most forbidding conditions on earth, through snow up to 12 feet deep and temperatures far below freezing, if not far below zero. And your only companions are a team of dogs — experienced athletes in their own right, who love racing every bit as much as you do.

You can follow his progress by visiting the official Iditarod website, and clicking on the link reading View Full Current Standings link. Just look for the name Eric Rogers, bib number 60 — which was also his starting position.

As I write this, he’s just under 4 hours into what should be somewhere around an 8 to 10 day race. And he’s already moved up 25 spots to 35th place.

He won’t win.

But damn, I’m proud of him.

Category: General / Tags: , ,

See you at the Bike Summit

March 6, 2009 / / 4 comments

I’ll be honest. I didn’t think I’d be attending this weekend’s Bike Summit.

Not that I didn’t want to, you understand. But my weekends are reserved for spending time with my lovely wife (who I just happened to meet exactly 16 years ago today). Which is why you don’t see me on weekend rides, however much I might want to be there.

But then Damien asked me to be part of this panel.

Suddenly, I had a perfect excus…uh, valid reason to attend — one that even a non-riding spouse couldn’t find fault with. Besides, I’ll make it up to her. Honest.

But frankly, this is important.

This city has long had a large number of cyclists, myself included for the last few decades. And a large number of cycling groups and organizations, from La Grange and the Wheelmen (I’ve really got to get around to adding them to my links over there) to the LACBC and C.I.C.L.E. Not to mention the Ridazz and Socal Bike Forums.

Just to name a few.

But it’s only over the last year or so that these disparate voices have started to coalesce into a political movement. And that riders — or ridazz, if you prefer — have come to realize that if we want things to get better for SoCal cyclists, we’re going to have to do something about it.

And we can do a lot more by working together than we can just bitching about it on our bikes. Or on our blogs.

So I’m really looking forward to it. And plan on doing a lot more listening than talking, because there’s a lot to learn.

I’m also looking forward to meeting some of the people attached to all those links over there. Along with some of the people who visit this site on a semi-regular basis, for reasons I will never understand. But for which I am eternally grateful.

Which brings up a question.

What would you like me to discuss during my part of the presentation? Is there anything that you been dying to know about biking or blogging, L.A. politics — or surviving beachfront bee and massive hematomas, for that matter.

Because I’d much rather discuss something you find fascinating than just blather on in my own inimitable manner.

 

Nate covers yesterday’s Pre-Bike Summit meeting. An Iowa cyclist takes other riders to task for opposing the state’s Bike Safety Bill. Isn’t it time we got one of those, too? Cyclists in Toronto deliver nearly 6,000 signatures to city hall demanding a new cross-town bikeway. Our own Rearview Rider echoes that in calling for a 4th St. Bikeway right here in L.A. Arizona bucks the trend towards common-sense revisions of bike safety laws by refusing to allow rolling stops in their state. Looks like almost everyone is getting into the bike sharing, even if our own city can’t figure out how to do it. Finally, Gary barely dodges after-dark joggers in the bike lane.

Category: General / Tags: , , , ,

Still think your vote doesn’t count?

March 4, 2009 / / One comment

Let’s talk about yesterday’s election for just a moment.

As you may be aware, I invited each of the candidates for L.A.’s 5th Council District to use this site to address cycling and other transportation issues. Four of the six candidates — Adeena Bleich, Robert Schwatrz, Robyn Ritter Simon and David Vahedi — chose to participate.

And one of those four, David Vahedi, received the most votes yesterday. He’ll face off with Paul Koretz — one of the two who chose not to participate — in a runoff election May 19.

Thanks in no small part to mentions by Damien Newton of L.A. Streetsblog, as well as a few local riders who emailed a link to the candidates’ statements or posted links in local biking forums, these pages received over 300 unique visits.

Now consider this. Vahedi won yesterday’s primary with a margin of just 60 votes, out of over 26,000 votes cast.

60 votes.

At the same time, Koretz finished just 1512 votes ahead of Bleich, the 3rd place finisher. That’s 1512 votes out of the roughly 100 thousand or so registered voters in the 5th District — the vast majority of whom didn’t even bother to cast a ballot.

So if you ever wondered if your vote really makes a difference, consider this: if just 20% of the people who read these statements cast their votes for Vahedi, we were responsible for his entire margin of victory. And if just 757 people had voted for Bleich instead of Koretz, she’d be in the runoff, instead.

And you can’t tell me there aren’t at least 757 cycling registered voters on the Westside.

Over the next few days, I plan to email each of the candidates who provided a statement, to thank them for participating and offer my support in the future. Because we need to support the people who support cycling.

I’ll also make one last attempt to reach Paul Koretz, and encourage him to provide a statement. I won’t vote for anyone until I know how they stand on the issues that affect us as cyclists. And I hope you won’t, either.

Although I’m more that happy to let Damien take over from here on out.

As for all the cyclists who were eligible to vote yesterday, but didn’t take the effort to cast a ballot, I have just one question.

What the hell is wrong with you?

 

Bike Portland is on her way to L.A. for this weekend’s Bike Summit; yours truly will be participating as well. As if there weren’t enough problems on area bike paths, now we have to dodge bodies. And finally, I was thinking about getting this for my next bike jersey, although this one seems pretty meaty, too.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , ,

Bike paths: Ride at your own risk.

March 2, 2009 / / 9 comments

Most experienced cyclists know that we risk our safety every time we venture into the traffic lane.

But maybe you didn’t know that you’re also at risk when you ride in a designated off-road bikeway (Class I). Except the risk there isn’t from careless or aggressive drivers.

It’s from a bottom-line obsessed bureaucracy that has little or no incentive to protect your safety, or even your life. Because they have no liability whatsoever for the condition of that bike path.

Trip on a misaligned manhole cover on the sidewalk — as my wife did a few years ago — and the company or government agency responsible for maintaining it is legally responsible. Get into an accident on the street because of a missing traffic sign or a dangerous road condition, and the city, county or state agency responsible can be held liable.

But suffer an injury because of a massive pothole or botched patch job in a bike lane, or a huge crack — or even criminal activity — on an off-road trail, and you’re on your own.

Swerving around the frequent bumps and cracks in the bike path around the Marina, I always assumed that someone would be injured there sooner or later — if they haven’t already. And that the county, which is responsible for most of the Marina del Rey area, would be sued as a result.

But I never knew that such a suit would be summarily dismissed.

It wasn’t until I read the statement from Council District 5 candidate David Vahedi that I had the slightest clue that no city, county or state government, nor any private enterprise, bears any legal responsibility for maintaining safe riding conditions on a Class I or Class II bikeway. (I’m assuming they’re still responsible for conditions on a Class III bike route, since those usually require riding in the traffic lane. But I could be wrong.)

When I asked Vahedi if her had any more information, he was kind enough to pass along the law that removed liability on off-road paths and trails, as well as the California appellate court ruling that greatly expanded it.

It’s clear that the original intent of the law was to encourage property owners to grant access to the public by removing liability for conditions they didn’t intentionally cause, and may not be aware of. For instance, DWP might not be willing to provide a trail leading to one of their reservoirs if they had to worry about being sued any time someone slipped and fell on a wet rock.

The problem came when the courts began to interpret any off-road path, trail or sidewalk — including heavily traveled Class I bikeways, such as the Marvin Broad Bikeway along the beach from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes — as being covered under the law. Or on-road bike lanes for that matter, such as the bike lane through the Sepulveda Pass, as Vehedi notes in his comments.

And even, as in his example from the Venice bike path, if they are fully aware of the problem and have done nothing to correct it.

So if you’ve wondered why things never seem to get fixed along our bikeways, that’s why. Problems get corrected when the agencies responsible face liability. If there’s no risk to them, it usually falls to the bottom of a long list of things they intend to get around to eventually, when and if their budget allows — even if that poses a greater risk for everyone else.

Yet while government and corporate lawyers have been quick to capitalize on their new-found freedom from liability, one section of the law has been universally ignored — the one that says warning signs have to be posted if there are any known health or safety hazards along a paved pathway.

So if authorities know that the lights are out along the L.A. River bikeway, they are required to post signs warning riders about it. If L.A. is aware — and they are — that the Ballona Creek trail runs through known gang territory and that riders have been subject to assaults, they have to provide a warning to anyone who might consider riding there.

And if Los Angeles and Santa Monica refuse to enforce the No Pedestrian signs on the beachfront bike path through their respective cities, they have to warn riders about the presence of pedestrians.

Otherwise, they can — and should — be held liable for any injuries that may result.

C.I.C.L.E. reposts an article tracing the early history of the bicycle. Bike craftsmen exhibit their work at the North American Handmade Bike Show. Once they clear the snow, Yellowstone opens its roads to cyclists and other non-motorized traffic for several weeks of car-free riding, starting in mid-March. A woman and her children are hit head-on by a car while riding on a popular bike path on Hawaii’s North Shore. And finally, Bike Date reposts a list of great bike safety tips from the Onion.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , , ,
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