Evidently, 1st District Councilmember Gil Cedillo doesn’t understand how democracy works.
Word from yesterday’s LA City Council session is that Cedillo turned a deaf ear to the pleas of bike riders begging for a safer street on North Figueroa, and instead went forward with a plan to install diagonal parking rather than the bike lanes called for in the city’s already approved bike plan.
As anyone who has ever ridden or driven past cars attempting to back out of an angled parking space can attest, that does the exact opposite of improving safety.
Standing in the same chamber where retired councilmember Bill Rosendahl famously declared that “the culture of the car is going to end now!,” Cedillo insisted that he would not be bullied by cyclists.
I didn’t know that the pleas of a traffic minority group begging for a safe place to travel on our streets amounted to bullying; it seems more like a constituent group lobbying an apparently uncaring elected leader for relief, to me. Which is the very definition of democracy in action.
But what the hell do I know.
Cedillo also described bike riders as “the one percent,” deliberately miscasting cyclists with a term used to imply social and economic exclusivity, based on census data that bike riders make up just one percent of LA’s commuter traffic.
Never mind that the one percent stat only refers to rush hour commuters, and does not count the many people who ride to school or to do errands. Or the many low income, often immigrant, riders in his own district who ride to and from their jobs any hour of the day, often because they have no other way to get there.
And this from a man who publicly professes his support for immigrants to anyone who will listen.
Of course, no one should be surprised by the cold shoulder bicyclists received from Cedillo. Ever since his election last year, it has been clear that he intended to renege on the promise he made to support bike lanes on North Figueroa, back when he still needed our votes.
Cedillo has evidently made the political calculation that he doesn’t need our support to retain his office, in a city where incumbent councilmembers almost never lose elections.
Let’s hope we can prove him wrong.
More disappointing is that no one else on the council, or in city government — all the way up to the mayor’s office — has had the courage to stand up to the real bully in the room.
On that day nearly five years ago when LA bike riders finally found the voice we so desperately needed at City Hall, Rosendahl proclaimed, speaking for the full council, “We’re going to give cyclists the support they should have been getting.”
Unfortunately, Rosendahl has left the council.
And the support for cyclists appears to have gone with him.
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Be careful riding in Glendale, which once again ranks near the bottom on a list of America’s worst drivers.
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LocalWho says no one rides in the rain?
LA Curbed offers a look at the design finalists for the planned bike/ped bridge over the LA River at the Glendale Narrows.
The Mid City West Community Council is teaming with the LACBC to offer a bike safety class on Sunday, January 11th.
Streetsblog spinoff Longbeachize celebrates its first anniversary tonight with a happy hour at the Blind Donkey in Long Beach.
State
An arrest is finally made after at least six cyclists were knocked off their bikes by a thief who then rode off on the bicycles in San Francisco’s Panhandle area.
Another would-be bike thief is busted after trying to wrestle a bike from a man inside a store in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.
National
Cycling Savvy offers ten tips for successful bicycling in traffic.
Bounce back from your next hard ride with a little tart cherry juice.
More Denver residents are biking and walking to work, thanks in part to the city’s investment in better bike infrastructure.
An 18-year old Boston hit-and-run driver was allegedly under the influence of prescription drugs when he took out a cyclist and five parked cars while fleeing police; the rider is expected to survive, no word on the cars.
In more bike thief news, a Louisiana man is busted for burgling a $5,000 bike from a Mandeville bike shop.
International
We all know about the most popular bicycling movies, but what about the top five unknown cycling films?
No, really, the doping era in pro cycling is over. Even though a Mexican rider was arrested smuggling EPO through an airport.
Turns out bicyclists in the UK’s north may be marginally tougher than their southern counterparts.
Excerpts from a new book reveal the ugly drug-fueled final days of Italian cycling legend Marco Pantani.
Finally…
No, seriously, if you’re going to rob a pedestrian while riding your bike, make sure he’s got more than $7 on him first. It might have been more helpful if advice on how to bike home with your Christmas tree had come before most people had already bought one.
And caught on video: A cyclist survives a collision with a hit-and-run deer that violated his right-of-way, then fled the scene without stopping to render aid or exchange IDs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8uCeyUl_9U
Ok i bought a bottle of tart juice once when it was on sale. I did drink it all. Threw up only once. Concluded apparently in error it was meant for cocktails. I quickly learned to dilute it very very much but erred when the water was too warm. It is strongly intensely potently powerfully not bland at all. Is it like a sour orange? The study seems ridiculous in that its control group is deprived of a common diet.
Giberish of course to call a miniority in the past relevent to accomidations for the future. Although bike talk has acknowledged no plan offers enough for us to become a majority if one did only the real one percent might object. We learn from food trucks that high bidders think we have to choose them to feed us, and Gil sedms to think those who do not ride are the same. They will park, not ride, if only park they can. Parking is hyperlocal as has been noted. Metro funding conversion of paths to congestion, to space for cars not being used, is old thinking. They will not do so if the actual public interest, the nearly all of us, prevail in saying no one person can lease square yards just to store there dam glorified shoes for far too many minutes if not hours for only Gil greason. Real reasons say rather let people flow by in that space. Our roads are for us to move around on and Metro better not spend our money for a few cars instead to not even move at all on. To do so is to show what happens when distance between those who can fill out ballots and those who get go spend is too great. Metro is not democracy. Such entities are the beast built to destroy what could be now that the richness of any matter is available to all to surmise. Dismantle it if you want a real city.
Since Cedillo is going to axe the bike lanes, people must demand that the parking be of the back-in angled variety. Also, they need to make sure that BMUFL signs and ‘sharrows’ get included on the roadway itself and that the lanes all be narrow enough to avoid any legal ambiguity.
Surely Cedillo will claim – without actually choosing to look at any research, that back in angled parking is less safe. Because you know – change. And communism.
When I came to speak yesterday, my mom came with me to talk on another matter. She knows nothing about the situation but was appalled Cedillo’s statements. This is going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths for a long time to come.
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