Bike to Work Day 5.16.13

Today was “bike to work day” in L.A. and, while I’ve been biking to work all year this year, I have been working in the Pasadena area this month, which allowed me to pay a visit to the Bike to Work Day “Pit Stop” at Pasadena City Hall this morning.  It was a great opportunity to meet other bike commuters, talk to some city staff about making the city more bike-friendly, and have some muffins and coffee before getting on your way.

As a veteran bike commuter, I don’t need the prod of a “Bike to Work Day” to get me on my bicycle, but still I think events like Bike to Work Day are a wonderful way to get people to try it and realize they can get to work without a car.  This morning, for example, I was talking to two women who were riding to work for the first time.  One hadn’t been on her bike since, “like forever,” as she told me, but it was great to see their sense of accomplishment at having done it successfully.  The first step away from total auto-dependency has to begin somewhere, so the more events like this, the better.

I also think such events are a wonderful way to nurture a sense of camaraderie among bike commuters, since we’re still in the very low single digits in terms of percentage of transportation mode share in Southern California.  In other words, it reminds us that we’re not alone and we’re part of something that seeks to make our cities and our streets healthier, safer, and more livable for everyone.  Best of all, unlike many organized bike rides, Bike to Work Day consciously gets people to substitute their bike for their car, if even for a day.  It gets at the heart of what a transformative potential the bicycle has as a legitimate mode of transportation.

This week is also “Bike Week Pasadena,” an annual event organized by a local bicycle transportation advocacy group CICLE.org, as part of the local Bike Month festivities.  This is a great group of grassroots volunteers who host family-friendly fun rides and what they call “urban expeditions,” which are casually-paced rides that explore parts of the city by bike.  Sometimes the rides have fun themes, but the idea is to get people of all levels of fitness out on bikes and experience the city in a more fun, healthy, and open way than can be done in a car.  When I’ve attended these rides, it not only gave me a wonderful new perspective on my city, it gave me a sense of belonging within the bicycle advocacy community.  This year’s events included a  food-themed ride, a ladies’ night ride, and a kids’ costume ride.  The LA County Bicycle Coalition and Metro also play a major role promoting these bike week events.

Sure, Bike Week Pasadena and Bike to Work Day might be seen by cynics as a bit gimmicky, but these events are excellent ways for the”bike curious” to experience bicycling in a safe, fun environment and a welcome reminder for the more experienced that we’re part of a growing movement.

Bike to School

Today, May 8, was the second annual national Bike to School day.  This year, I helped organize a bike to school event for my local middle school, and the experience was both rewarding and exhausting.  The day dawned cloudy with just a hint of morning drizzle, which I think may have kept some families from participating, but we ultimately had about 12 kids and 4 parents participate in our group ride to school.

I was initially prompted to organize this event last fall after a student was struck by a car while bicycling to the local middle school.  Fortunately, the girl was not seriously injured, but I’ll never forget the sight of the girl’s bicycle wedged under that car’s front bumper, and I resolved to do something about it.

A little bit of research showed how much walking and bicycling to school have declined in the last few decades.  According to US DOT statistics, in 1969 almost 50 percent of American schoolkids walked or biked to school.  Today that number has declined to just over 10 percent.  I remember walking a little over a mile to the local elementary school when I was growing up, but in recent years, my wife and I almost always drove our kids to school, and statistically we’re pretty common.  Here’s the really sad part:  when my son was attending the local elementary campus, less than a quarter of a mile from our house, we drove him.  Every day.  Granted, there are no sidewalks on our street, and he’d have to cross the street where there’s no crosswalk at the corner where the bicyclist was struck, but that’s no excuse.  We could have walked with him.  Truth be told, my wife or I often walked to the school to pick him up at the end of the day, but on busy mornings, we got in the car.

There are many reasons for this, and parents I’ve talked to often cite safety as the number one reason they chauffeur their kids to and from school in cars.  Ironically, the mini-traffic jams our cars cause around schools twice a day are one of the main reasons the streets are less safe than they were 30 or 40 years ago.  The pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from literally millions of cars idling in front of schools across America is not inconsequential, either.  Moreover, we’re implicitly teaching our kids to depend on cars for every little trip, and the lack of exercise among young people is part of what has led to an obesity epidemic among American youngsters.

There is also a fear of predators expressed by parents.  While statistically, the chance of a predator attacking a child on the way to school is much smaller than a child getting killed in a car accident, the fear is nonetheless real.  This is why organized bike and walk to school events are so important.  They offer parents an opportunity to supervise a wholesome and environmentally friendly way to travel to school by organizing “bike trains” and “walking school buses.”  Young people get healthy exercise, develop knowledge of the rules of the road, and connect with their communities in a group setting.

These bike to school days don’t have to be every day, but can be once a week or once a month.  In the past year, my daughter and I have been bicycling to her school once a week (save a couple of days when it was raining pretty hard).  In addition to being great exercise for both of us, she’s learning to be more confident on the road, and it provides wonderful father-daughter time.

I’ve been feeling a little discouraged lately about the slow pace of change in this car-obsessed culture, and the magnitude of the environmental crisis that our addiction to fossil fuels exacerbates.  But there was real enthusiasm from the parents and kids on the ride.  The local PD offered a bicycle escort, and even stopped traffic at the two major intersections we rode through on the way to school, making the event stress-free for the kids.  The parents who participated are already talking about putting together more events of this sort to help kids learn to ride safely, and the local principal has been super supportive.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll break our dependency on cars.  One small step at a time.

Bike Month Woes

May is “Bike Month,” according to the League of American Bicyclists (not to mention the one year anniversary of this blog).  I expected I’d be posting a lot more.

Yet, I’ve been away from the blog for longer than I’d intended, partly because I’ve been busy with another writing project and partly because I’ve been in something of a funk about the glacial pace of change in our deeply-rooted car culture (come to think of it, in light of the rapidity with which glaciers are melting due to climate change, we humans seem to be moving slower than glaciers).

Speaking of climate change, the signs are ominous, to say the least.  Last week, scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory measured atmospheric CO2 at 400 parts per million (ppm), the highest level recorded in, like, literally a million years.  The level of atmospheric CO2 was about 280 ppm at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the middle of the 19th century, and had not exceeded 300 ppm for the previous 800,000 years.  In 1958, when modern measurement began, the level was 316 ppm.  The scientists didn’t mince words about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activity (like, um, driving our millions of cars everywhere like there’s no tomorrow).  As one of the scientists told the Los Angeles Times:

“The 400-ppm threshold is a sobering milestone, and should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to support clean-energy technology and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, before it’s too late for our children and grandchildren.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s evidence of a backlash against bike lanes in L.A., even though we need more of them (as well as a substantial expansion of public transit) so people have realistic alternatives to the car.  First, the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce has been orchestrating a campaign to stop the installation of bike lanes on Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock, painting pictures of apocalyptic traffic jams and blaming bike lanes instead of cars.  Next, the L.A. Times editorialized against the green bike lanes on Spring Street downtown, repeating the discredited argument of location managers for film production companies that green bike lanes “ruin” L.A. as a film location.  I’ve used those green bike lanes and they provide a safe space for bicycles on that busy downtown street.

As if that weren’t enough, I’ve had a series of extremely frustrating arguments with some of my friends and members of my family about the need to break out of the automobile-centered culture.  They agree in principle but they refuse to act on this principle.

All of which reinforces for me the seriousness of the death grip that the automobile has on this culture … indeed, on this planet and its future.  It also makes it harder to stay optimistic, which I try to do in this space.  Hence, my absence.

Time for a bike ride.  It always makes me feel better.

CicLAvia to the Sea

Sunday 4.21.13 was the sixth CicLAvia (not sixth annual as many corporate media outlets erroneously reported), this time along a new route from downtown to Venice beach.  The route was a bit longer this time, 15 miles one way as opposed to 10-12 miles in the past, and offered CicLAvia’s first direct connection with the west side.  What follows are some reflections as CicLAvia continues to mature and grow as an L.A. event.

First, the good.  CicLAvia continues to introduce people to a new way of thinking about experiencing the city.  Yesterday, I met two first-timers on the Gold Line to downtown.  Neither had ever been downtown on their bikes and neither had ever been on the Gold Line.  I could see the excitement in their eyes and told them they’d be in for an unforgettable experience.  CicLAvia to the Sea also allowed me to see parts of L.A. I was unfamiliar with, and connected downtown with the beach, which seems a natural connection to me (DTLA to Long Beach, anyone?).  First-timer JustAdventures shared her sense of wonder and totally gets CicLAvia.

I’ve been to all six of the CicLAvias, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them all.  Moreover, I’m not going to rant on the organizers who have a herculean task of managing this growing beast.  However, I have a small critique along the same lines as blogger Asymptotia.  I’ve always had time to bike the entire route and back, but this time the route was longer (which was fine with me) and the delays along the route much longer (which was problematic for a number of reasons).  The crowd, conservatively estimated by organizers at 150,000, but probably closer to 200,000, was simply too large for the amount of road space we had.  For much of Venice Blvd., LADOT gave us only half of the roadway, which led to major bottlenecks and long waits in the hot sun at traffic lights.  At least twice riders had to wait for four red light cycles before being able to proceed.  With these delays, the ride simply took too long.

I started my CicLAvia at La PLacita downtown at 10:00 am, and estimated riding at a moderate pace I’d be in Venice by 11:30, 12 noon at the latest.  I had arranged to meet a Venice friend at the hub there.  Unfortunately, because of the long delays at traffic lights I did not get to Venice until about 1:00 pm.  Three hours to complete a 15-mile course is an average speed of 5 miles an hour.  Once I got to Venice, I had to cancel with my friend because I did not think I would have had enough time to get back to Union Station before the route closed at 3:00 pm unless I immediately turned around and started back.  I grabbed a quick bite to eat, watching the clock the whole time and began my return.  As it was, I rode the bike lane on the eastbound side of Venice Blvd. much of the way back to Culver City rather than get stuck at traffic lights on the CicLAvia side of Venice Blvd.  I felt like I had to  ride fast to beat the clock, and that is not the spirit in which CicLAvia should be experienced.  I decided to take the Expo Line from Culver City back to downtown, which I’d never ridden, but I really would have preferred to ride my bike all the way back.

I trust this isn’t what organizers had in mind when they planned this new route, and I also hope some changes will be made next time.  I would start the event an hour earlier (or end it an hour later) to give people more time to explore the longer route and work with LADOT to reduce the number of traffic stops along the way.  I think the overwhelming popularity of the event and its purpose (to get us out of our cars and connect us with our city and each other) provide ample reason for these changes.

Despite these glitches, I’m still a huge CicLAvia supporter.  It really has changed the way I perceive my city.  Perhaps it is a measure of the fundamental shift in consciousness that CicLAvia has wrought that I am no longer blown away by 15 miles of L.A. streets open for people instead of cars.  Experiencing city streets without cars seems almost normal now.  I’m no longer surprised when nearly a quarter of a million (a quarter of a million!) Angelinos of all races and colors and ages show up to enjoy these open streets.  A quarter of a million of us showed up and voted with our feet, with out bodies, with our bikes.  We want safe, car-free space to ride our bikes for everyday transportation, for health, and for fun.  The era when the automobile held unquestioned sway over our public space in the most car-centric city in America is coming to an end.  Elected leaders, are you listening?

Cars and “Freedom”

Any casual glance at television in the United States brings a reminder from the oil and auto industries that cars equal “freedom.”  Usually it’s a subtle, implicit association, showing images of smiling drivers on an open road, usually along the coast, a beautiful mountain road, or other open space.  Watching these ads you’re not supposed to remember that cars bring with them sprawl, and sprawl destroys those open spaces and those uncongested roads the viewer is so nostalgic for.

Other times the association between freedom and cars is more explicit, as in Dodge’s use of a George Washington lookalike to suggest cars helped win America’s independence from the British [see above].  Another entry into this over-the-top category is country singer Tim McGraw’s recent commercial for an oil company in which he comes as close as a person can to actually making love to his car and refers to cars, with complete lack of irony, as “living, breathing organisms.”  The commercial shows the all-American image of McGraw driving a Jeep along a dirt road by a placid lake, while his voiceover calls cars the very embodiment of “American freedom.”  The ad, titled “Tim McGraw Freedom,” actually ends with McGraw holding a quart of engine oil, looking into the camera saying “long love cars.”

If there was even a hint of irony there, it would be hilarious, but Madison Avenue is not known for irony when it comes to cars.  I think here of the Mercedes ads of the 1990s and 2000s that used Janis Joplin’s anti-consumerist song “Mercedes Benz” as a completely unironic soundtrack.  Joplin’s song was originally recorded just days before her death and she intended it to be a reminder that material goods don’t bring happiness, despite what the admen and women try to sell us.  The wonder is that anyone with half a brain could listen to that song and think it was appropriate as a jingle for a car commercial.

So far as I know, no one has studied the specific cultural impact of the pervasive and unending barrage of images equating cars with freedom in our society, not to mention the economic impact of all those ads on media coverage of issues related to the automobile, the environment, and public health.  It would not surprise me at all if the effect of all this repetitive automobile propaganda on the collective psyche and the media was profound.

Juxtaposed with these images is a recent study I came across this morning, concluding that air quality near freeways may be worse than previously thought.  The study, by researchers at UCLA and the California Air Resources Board, found unhealthful levels of air pollution within a mile of freeways in the hours between 4:30 and 6:30 am.  People living a mile downwind of a freeway are thus exposed to unhealthful levels of particle pollution, nitric oxide, and hydrocarbons during these hours, all of which have been shown to contribute to asthma, heart disease, and other health problems.  The study is yet another in the already large body of scientific evidence showing the price we pay for our addiction to cars.

Because of these health dangers, the L.A. Times noted, the report urged people who live near freeways to

keep your windows closed in the hours just before sunrise.  Use air conditioning.  Install HEPA air filters.  Postpone outdoor exercise until later in the morning or exercise farther away from the highway.

Yup, shut yourself up in your house, close the windows, and don’t go outside to exercise.  That’s American Freedom for ya.

Long Love Cars.

Bikes and Suburbia

Recently, I read an article by D.J. Waldie, the bard of suburban living and author of the critically-acclaimed memoir of Lakewood Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir.  As the product of suburbia myself, Waldie’s essay got me thinking about the ways in which the form of the suburb has shaped our thinking about the automobile and personal mobility in general.

Waldie’s memoir is a defense of the postwar suburb against those who argue that they are essentially places without memory, without individuality, making up in materialism what they lack in culture.  For Waldie, Lakewood was his place of memory, the place that shaped his individuality, and his almost poetic defense of it let you know that it wasn’t without its deeper cultural significance.

In his recent essay, Waldie wrote about giving a tour of Lakewood to Gwendolyn Wright, professor of Architecture at Columbia University, and offered his insight on ways suburban form shapes the consciousness of the individual and, by extension, the community.  ”The tour is, by necessity,” he writes,

an argument with illustrations. It’s an argument about the place of everydayness and about the purpose of the habits of ordinariness that are built into any human-made landscape. Inescapably, the built molds the personal. It works even in inattentiveness, engraving patterns of the familiar.

Waldie allows that this landscape is perhaps best understood on foot, for it is only at the slower pace that one sees the small details that give texture to a place.

Walkers see modest (even humble) vistas opening at a pace that lets contemplation occur unbidden. You can be woefully distracted by daydreams or sorrow while walking a suburban sidewalk, but then a birdcall, the rattle of the wind in the leafless trees, the unconscious expectation fulfilled in seeing again some sight will momentarily lighten the darkness of self-absorption. A sense of place is made.

As anyone who has bicycled or walked a neighborhood knows, one sees, hears, senses so much more of a place on foot or on a bike than in a car.  In fact, one of the things that has struck me so powerfully since I began riding my bike for transportation four years ago is the richer sense of place one gets when not in a car.  It’s not just the speed, it’s also the way we are literally insulated from “the world” in our cars.  It is a testament to the blindness of many developers that some postwar suburban streets even lack sidewalks as well as safe places to ride bikes.

At least Waldie considers a walking tour, but ultimately succumbs to the imperative of the automobile.  ”It’s not possible,” he says, to walk the tour.

My town is relatively dense but not very compact, and we have to drive to its places of memory.

“We have to drive.”  How often, living in suburbia, do we hear those words?  How often have we said them without thinking?  Nestled in the middle of his sentence is one of the shortcomings of suburbia writ large.  Aside from the suburban home mortgage, the car is likely the largest personal expense incurred by the suburban family.  Thus it requires an enormous personal investment in a car to be a fully functioning member of the suburb.  This is one reason that suburban teenagers dream of the freedom of the drivers’ license and the car.  Without it, “it is not possible” to participate fully in the life of suburbia, and thus, to be fully human.  The car becomes an imperative and raises the cost of admission to suburbia.

Consider the social cost of this investment.  It impoverishes public transportation as working people struggle to pay for private motorized transportation (an average of $8,000 per car per year, according to 2012 figures from AAA).  That is an average of $8,000 per car per year invested in private modes of transportation instead of public transit.  Add to this the taxes and fees that go toward the building and maintenance of freeways and it’s no wonder suburbanites are often reluctant to support funding of public transit.  After shelling out thousands to car companies, finance banks, insurance companies, and auto repair shops, how much do they have left over?  The car also impoverishes public space, necessitating acres of parking lots for their storage, acreage that is bereft of any real human purpose.

There are, of course, the environmental consequences of the “we have to drive” mentality, not the least of which is climate change, and it is due time that we who live in suburbia address the way our mode of transport affects our world.  It’s not that any single person in suburbia is responsible for traffic congestion, air pollution, and climate change, but collectively we in suburbia are a big part of the problem when we assume driving is the way things have to be.

The real shame of the “we have to drive” mentality is that a city like Lakewood is eminently bikeable.  With a relatively flat topography and a little more than 3.5 miles across at its widest point, it would be easy to bike around Lakewood, enjoying the benefits the walker enjoys without adding to pollution, traffic, and the social isolation that the car causes.  Indeed, on Lakewood’s eastern edge sits the San Gabriel River bike path, which offers a dedicated bike route to the seashore in less time than it takes to get your car’s oil changed at the nearest Jiffy Lube.  Of course, I think some of Lakewood’s arterial streets need to be made more bike-friendly, as do most of suburbia’s, but distance and geography are not barriers to bicycling Lakewood.

None of this is meant to single out Lakewood as uniquely car-centric in its thinking.  It is a problem confronting all of suburbia.  Indeed, Lakewood has a relatively bikeable grid pattern of streets, instead of the awful meandering cul-de-sac model favored by some suburban developers (curving cul-de-sacs emptying onto high-speed arterials are much less bikeable and walkable).  It raises the importance of infrastructure in providing alternatives to the car-centered lifestyle, and some suburban streetscapes are more amenable to bikeability and walkability than others.  Nevertheless, we need to start thinking, as more communities are, about using the streets we’ve got in ways that encourage alternative transportation, even in suburbia.

Perhaps the best part of bicycling suburbia, where possible, is that it opens an alternative to the unthinking “we have to drive” reflex.  I look forward to the day when walking or riding a bicycle for short trips around one’s hometown becomes part of the “habits of ordinariness” in the suburban landscape.  When that happens, the suburban “sense of place” will be that much richer.

Media (Mis)representation

Parklet on Polk Street, San Francisco, that the L.A. Times sees as a “freeway for bikes” that will “jeopardize” the street. SF Streetsblog photo.

A recent story in the L.A. Times about San Francisco’s efforts to make Polk Street more bike-friendly illustrates how many in the media just don’t get it when it comes to modern urban street design and transportation.

Ostensibly, the article reported on a neighborhood meeting to discuss replacing of an estimated 170 on-street parking spaces on Polk with bike lanes and parklets (pictured above) that has some business owners and local motorists fearing the end of the world.  The meeting was apparently dominated by opponents of the plan, and some of those in attendance who support the plan said they felt too intimidated to speak.  The article noted that supporters who spoke were often booed or “met with disdain.”  The reporter, Maria LaGanga, appears to have sought the views of San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director Leah Shahum, which were included in her story.  But there was much else in the story that reflects a subtle and pervasive anti-bike bias in the reporting.

First, LaGanga went out of her way to mention the killing of a pedestrian by a reckless bicyclist in San Francisco last year (the cyclist was recently charged with felony vehicular manslaughter), while mentioning only in passing, and much later in the story, that a pedestrian or cyclist is struck by a car an average of once a month on Polk Street.  In so doing she virtually ignores the regular carnage caused by cars, and plays up an isolated incident involving a bicyclist a year earlier.  She also buried the fact that the plan would leave untouched 2,100 on-street parking spots within a block of Polk, a fact which would have put the near-hysterical opposition of motorists in a very different light had it been mentioned at the beginning of the story.  As readers of this blog may remember, it’s not the first time this Times reporter has done a hit piece on San Francisco’s emerging bicycle and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.

Drivers of 2,000-lb vehicles with hundreds of horsepower are portrayed as the weaker, aggrieved party that is “under attack,” while bicyclists who want safe space over a small portion of the roadway are portrayed as the aggressors.  She describes the plan as literally “jeopardizing the vital north-south corridor” between the city’s Civic Center and the bay.  Who knew that bike lanes could “jeopardize” and entire street?  While LaGanga amplifies the fears of some local businesses that the plan is a “commerce killer,” she makes no effort to inform readers that complete streets makeovers such as the one contemplated for Polk have revitalized struggling business districts in numerous places where they’ve been tried.

The online version is even worse for playing up a phony “bikes vs. cars” trope and the online headline actually repeats the idiotic idea that this will make Polk some sort of “freeway for bikes,” in the words of one opponent.  The plan would actually reduce traffic speeds, provide safe road space for pedestrians and bikes, while the parklets would provide more space for people to hang out, shop, and socialize.  Precisely the atmosphere that would attract more commercial activity.  Hardly a “freeway for bikes” or a “commerce killer.”  Yet these irrational fears get played as headlines in the Times.

The problem of media bias is largely a reflection of a deeply-ingrained car culture that is so ubiquitous that it is rarely questioned.  Mobility, in this context, means getting behind the wheel of a car.  Exchanging curbside car parking (on one street) for parklets and bike lanes that enable people to enjoy the neighborhood at a slower pace thus gets transmogrified into an imaginary “war on cars.”  Moreover, as with most complete streets plans, this one leaves a significant portion of lateral roadway space for cars, bike lanes notwithstanding.

LaGanga might have used the meeting to probe the assumptions behind conflicts over road space such as that on Polk.  She might have explored the evolving idea that streets are for pedestrians, transit, and bikes (as well as cars), rather than adopting the assumption that motorists have a right to monopolize all road space.  The fact that none of the opponents offer any alternative ideas for how cities might improve road safety, reduce automobile congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and the continued degradation of public space for more automobile parking, also deserves consideration in any reporting of the story.

Since the LA Times has assigned Maria LaGanga to its transportation beat in San Francisco, perhaps it’s time for her to commute by bike and/or public transportation once a week in the interest of fair reporting.  I’m not saying she’s got to give up her car, but it’s clear that she’s got little or no knowledge about issues facing urban cyclists or modern transportation policy beyond the automobile.

C’mon Ms. LaGanga, rent a bike, strap on a helmet, and take a ride on Polk Street without a bike lane at rush hour.  You’ll get a whole different perspective on the whole “bikes vs. cars” thing.

Making Bike-Friendly Places

Last night, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the LA County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) on the topic of “how bike-friendly places are made.”  To be perfectly honest, I almost didn’t go (I’ll explain why in a moment), but, boy, am I glad I did.

It has been a frustrating and dispiriting couple of weeks, with the death of bicyclist Ivan Aguilar at Cal Poly Pomona, and the resulting realization of how difficult it is going to be to enact change (i.e., road diets, traffic calming, and bike lanes) on campus roads.  In light of these frustrations, making “bike-friendly places” seemed more remote than ever.

It didn’t help that work and the normal pressures of the world have kept me particularly busy, and I felt physically and mentally exhausted.  I needed a boost.

Fortunately, LACBC’s meeting, featuring bike planners Matt Benjamin, Brett Hondorp, and Ryan Snyder, was a shot in the arm for me.  It wasn’t just the panel, but the whole experience, from the commute to the meeting, to the energy in the room, to the optimistic message about all the great bike infrastructure that is being installed by cities all over Southern California, that picked me up.

I took the Metro Gold Line to downtown, and got off at the Little Tokyo station.  My plan was to take First Street to Spring and the LACBC headquarters where the meeting was held.  I prepared to go into full “road warrior” mode to ride in heavy downtown traffic, or be forced onto the sidewalk at some point.

To my surprise, LADOT has installed sharrows on First Street from the Gold Line Station to Los Angeles Street, where it then turns into a bike lane.  What a pleasant surprise!  I was able to ride safely and with very low stress all the way to Spring Street.  Once I got onto Spring Street, traffic was a bit heavier, but I was able to enjoy riding in the new buffered bike lane, painted green for added visibility.  This was the first time I’d ridden in traffic on Spring Street’s green, buffered bike lane (CicLAvia doesn’t count), and I was impressed by the how much easier it makes riding on that heavily-traveled street.

LACBC photo of Spring Street Green Lane

Not only are these bike lanes an example of the huge difference that relatively small infrastructure changes can make (safe space for bikes on the roads, secure bike parking), I was reminded that such changes had to be fought for, they wouldn’t happen by themselves.  Too many of our fellow citizens still see the world from the perspective of the driver’s seat of a car.  But once you experience these changes, your eyes are opened, and you can’t go back to the dinosaur mentality of cars uber alles.

All three experts talked about the innovative ideas for bike infrastructure and “complete streets” being implemented in cities all over Southern California.  You know you’re in a room full of bike nerds when slides of buffered bike lanes and cycle tracks bring “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience.  All speakers stressed how the idea of complete streets encompasses making streets better accommodate multiple modes of travel, including transit, walking, and, of course, bicycling.  It was also interesting to note how the innovations in bike lanes and cycle tracks are being slowly incorporated into the official design manuals used by traffic engineers (though, in my view, these changes are happening much too slowly).  The other thing that was striking was how often it is the activists who have to lead the way on street design.  The engineers and the political leaders in cities often lack the will to challenge the primacy of the automobile on our streets without being pushed.

Those who attended were an ethnically diverse group, from different parts of Southern California and a wide range of ages, and evenly split between men and women.  After the presentation, the activists milled around, talking and comparing notes on their latest efforts to make streets and cities more bike-friendly.   There was lots of energy in the room, and I felt the fog lifting from my spirits as if blown away by a warm Santa Ana wind.

After the meeting, I rode buffered bike lanes on Main Street and Los Angeles Street back to Union Station, where I took the Metro back to Pasadena.  I reflected on how profoundly transit and bicycle-friendly infrastructure can transform the way we get around.  I also reflected on the work that remains to be done.  But thanks to the community of activists around LACBC, I no longer felt like it was beyond reach, and I was reminded that I am part of a movement.

Like any movement that seeks to transform deeply entrenched norms, whether it be the struggle for the 8-hour day for workers or the long struggle for civil rights, we must be ready to be in it for the long haul.

The Bike Lane Brush-Off

Less than two weeks after the tragic death of Cal Poly Pomona student Ivan Aguilar on Kellogg Drive, the administration at Cal Poly has revealed its opposition to any suggestion that bike lanes be installed on the road where Ivan was killed.  In a recent article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, a campus administrator essentially dismissed calls for bike lanes on Kellogg Drive.

“Kellogg Drive, to handle the volume of traffic that’s on it, needs to remain a four-lane road, two on each side. Right now, there’s no room for additional bike lanes.”

Never mind that there isn’t currently a single bike lane anywhere on campus (a fact which led blogger CLR Effect to write last week that he was “shocked” at the virtual absence of any bike infrastructure on campus), so one wonders what “additional” bike lanes the university is talking about.  It makes it sound as though greedy cyclists already have plenty of bike lanes on campus, but want more.  The University also implicitly dismissed calls for measures that would appreciably reduce traffic speeds to make the roadway safer.

“We set the speed [on Kellogg Drive] based on the recommendations based on the traffic that needs to travel on that road. The 45 mile per hour limit was put in on that road based on that recommendation.”

Both statements indicate that Cal Poly administrators’ primary criteria for their roadways is to maintain the volume and speed of automobile traffic on campus arterials (and perhaps to shield the university from lawsuits).  The safety and accessibility of campus for bicyclists barely registers in their minds.  Regardless of administrators’ comments, which are revealing enough, the design of the campus’s roadways speaks volumes.  When roadways are engineered exclusively, or even primarily to maximize  the volume of high speed automobile traffic, that is precisely the way they work.  To use that as an excuse not to change when it is proven to be dangerous, however, is unconscionable.

According to the article, the campus might consider widening Kellogg Drive to accommodate bike lanes at some point in the future, but the likelihood of that happening any time soon, given the perennial budget crunch in the CSU, is virtually nonexistent.  Moreover, simply painting a bike lane along a 45-mph four-lane arterial would still be unsafe, unless traffic speeds were slowed and/or a physically separated bikeway were constructed.

The university’s message is clear:  bicyclists will be tolerated as long as they do not take an inch of roadway space from cars—and so long as they do not require any motorist to lift his right foot ever so slightly from the gas pedal on the way to the campus’s multimillion-dollar parking garage.  While I am not surprised that bicyclists’ safety got the brush off, I am somewhat surprised at the bluntness of the brush off.  The university’s statements in the press reveal its mindset about campus transportation.  Bikes are for Euro-wimps, eco-freaks, fools, and poor people.  ”Real Americans” drive cars to school, and drive them fast.

What is perhaps most distressing about this 1950s transportation mentality is that it comes from an institution of higher learning that looks to the future in so many other ways.   Today, in cities and at universities all over the country, mobility is being re-thought outside the auto-centric perspective of the post-WWII era.  A growing number of transportation planners and city planners are realizing that we cannot continue to design our roads as if cars were the only legitimate mode of transportation.  All over the U.S., “complete streets” are being redesigned to accommodate multimodal transportation alternatives.

After the death of Ivan Aguilar, I assumed the wisdom of transportation redesign would be apparent to the well-educated people who make decisions at my university.  I should know better than to assume.

Ivan’s Tribute

Yesterday, Thursday March 7, was Ivan Aguilar’s memorial bike ride at Cal Poly Pomona.  As my readers know, Ivan was riding his bike on Kellogg Drive when he was struck and killed by a car on February 28.

I’m going to keep this post short, share some of my images from the event, and let you contemplate the human cost of unsafe streets.

The memorial began at around noon with tributes from students and classmates.  A procession of over 300 students, friends, family, faculty, and staff then slowly made their way to the spot where Ivan was struck down.  There, his hermanos shared memories of him as a friend.  All those who knew him talked about his cheerful personality and how he always made those around him feel happy.  A ghost bike was then placed near the spot where he was struck and will remain as a reminder to all those who pass that spot.  At that point, Campus police blocked traffic on Kellogg, and approximately 100 bicyclists took part in a memorial ride on the route he rode every day to school.

The ride itself was a fitting tribute.  The road, usually noisy with traffic, was silent and peaceful with nothing but the wind in the sycamore trees and the soft whir of bicycles.  I will never forget the sense of peace that came over me at that moment.  I hope Ivan’s soul has found that peace, and that his family might also.

Finally, the ride returned to the ghost bike, where Ivan’s family shared their feelings and expressed their gratitude for the outpouring of support from all who attended.  The entire event was very moving, and I managed to keep my composure until the very end, when Ivan’s sister spoke.  Then I lost it and the tears flowed.

We will not forget you, Ivan.  We will work as long as it takes to make the streets safer for bicyclists.

If you wish to donate to Ivan’s family to help them defray the cost of his burial, you can make a donation here.