Thursday, March 25, 2010
Los Angeles Biking Plan
In attending the street summit event, I chose to attend a session related to biking in LA and the current updates that are being made to the biking map. This issue is important to consider because currently there are far to many gaps within the biking system in LA which make it difficult to effectively use biking as a safe means of transportation. In observing this session I was very surprised to see the anger that many individuals displayed toward the city. Riders in Los Angeles feel that most roads are not safe to ride and that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the current map system. The issue with creating this type of change in LA is that creating such a change is very difficult. It is not an easy task to change roads and buldings that have existed for a long period. Further, the system of tranportation in Los Angeles is very fragmented. There is not an organization that has complete oversight over transportation but rather there are multiple organizations that are responsible for overseeing different areas of transportation which makes it difficult to implement change. In learning this information at the street summit I feel that it is important for the community to take action and force change to take place because the current system in Los Angeles will not create such changes alone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There are, in fact, a couple different biking communities in LA that have been rapidly growing in numbers (LACBC, or to a lesser extent, LA ridaz/midnight ridaz, and others) that have been working towards precisely this goal. Janette Sadik-Khan, who has made big moves with bicycles in NYC, gave a talk at Oxy on Thursday outlining some of the projects she's worked on/is working on. Currently, LA has a mayor that supports bicycling much more than previous mayors, so there's a good chance we'll be seeing some changes. You're right, the issue with making a change is that it is difficult. But I think things are looking up. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/la-activists-float-idea-of-freeway-system-for-bikes.html
ReplyDeleteIf you look at this link, you'll see that a group of activists are working on a possible "bike-freeway" system in LA. I'm not sure if they covered this at the bike summit, but I am kind of surprised that your outlook is so bleak when now is really the time that changes have the best chance of happening in years.