Los Angeles

Breaking Travel News explores: Is Los Angeles a cycle-friendly city?

From BreakingTravelNews.com

It’s fair to say opinions on visiting Los Angeles are mixed.

For many, the sun-soaked city is an epicentre for creativity and glamour, thriving on diversity and opportunity. Known for its iconic palm tree-lined streets, world-famous entertainment industry and year-round sunny weather, the City of Angels offers a dynamic mix of cultures and lifestyles.

From the glamour of Hollywood to the serene beaches of Santa Monica, there is something for everyone.

On the other side of the scales, Los Angeles can be a challenging place to live. There is a perception the city is covered in a thick haze of pollution year-round, while the notorious traffic and long commutes make gridlock a daily frustration for many.

The sprawling nature of LA can make it feel disconnected, while the high cost of living, especially housing, puts immense pressure on people trying to make ends meet. Not for nothing is Los Angeles home to Skid Row, one of largest stable populations of homeless people in the United States.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

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LA’s Plan For A ‘Car-Free’ 2028 Olympics Was Laughable At The Time And Sounds Even More Unlikely Now

From Jalopnik.com

Los Angeles had big plans for the 2028 Olympics, but with four years left, things aren’t looking good

By Collin Woodard
In the years leading up to the 2024 Olympics, Paris wasted no time making the city more people-friendly. It added more than 600 miles of bike lanes, planted 65,000 trees, created hundreds of pedestrian plazas, invested in light rail and returned streets to the people. The same year the International Olympic Committee chose Paris to host the 2024 games, it also chose Los Angeles to hostthe 2028 games. Even with four years remaining, as Dwell points out, it doesn’t look like LA is going to see similar sweeping changes.

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Paris’ bicycling infrastructure a model that Phoenix, Los Angeles should copy, officials say

From CronkiteNews.com

By Zach Bradshaw/Special for Cronkite News

PARIS – The City of Light has become a “gold medal” example of modern bicycle infrastructure, making transportation during the Summer Olympics more accessible than ever.
Improvements to existing infrastructure has allowed the French capital city to also be widely known as the capital city of biking.

“It’s pretty great,” said Hannah Warmerdam, a Paris-based bike tour guide who works at Holland Bikes Tours & Rentals in Paris. “I mean, the biking infrastructure in France restarted in Paris.”

Since 2010, the city has devoted over 400 million euros, about $434.8 million, to retrofitting roads, developing parking solutions and strengthening the bicycle infrastructure. Many projects were carried out in preparation for the Olympics.

“The challenge was to ensure that this cycle network was built for the Olympic Games,” said François Wouts, director of the city’s Roads and Transport Department. “Therefore, an ambition linked to reaching each of the competition sites, but also to be able to serve the whole.”

As Los Angeles prepares to host the Olympics in 2028, Paris city officials say L.A. should make strides toward better bicycle infrastructure.

“I think that in Los Angeles there must be roads sized very largely and on which we could certainly take a little space of the volumes to the automobile and reallocate it to soft travel like the bicycle, like what we finally did in Paris,” said Christophe Najdovski, the Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of greening public spaces, green spaces and biodiversity.

Photo by Svetlana Gumerova on Unsplash

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Shining a Light on the Bicycling Community

From Bicycling.com

By Riley Missel

As the summer evening sky turns from orange to purple to navy, traffic in the Los Angeles bike lanes dwindles until just a few riders remain toodling by, their path unaffected by the surrounding darkness thanks to a single bulb mounted to their forks—a Dynamo light.

This bicycle-mounted beacon is powered by its passenger’s energy to illuminate the road ahead—for the rider and everyone following them. Bike mechanic Jimmy Lizama custom-fits these lights for cyclists out of his Koreatown shop called Relámpago Wheelery, where he builds wheels by hand as well. But according to him, those services just help pay the rent for what he’s really doing there.

“Ultimately, Relámpago is social engagement within the bicycle community,” he said. A Dynamo light of a shop, if you will. Fueled by Lizama’s passion and his surrounding community’s enthusiastic response, Relámpago is illuminating the future of energy use, mobility, and human connection in downtown Los Angeles.

One such way the shop fosters human connection is by hosting mobile karaoke nights. Oh yes, mobile—they hook up a bike trailer to two tandems to serve as the stage, complete with speakers and a microphone. As they tow their singer through the streets of Los Angeles, the audience pedals along behind on their own bikes laughing and singing along. Usually, Relámpago teams up to host these events with other community programs raising awareness for a cause like women’s rights, immigration rights, or water rights. People meet each other, make friends, and find ways they can help each other live better in their community.

Lizama’s goal is to energize his community in the most accessible, sustainable way possible—after a bike. “It amplifies its human’s energy,” he said. His favorite way he sees this concept in motion is on a cargo bike: With simply the power of your legs, you can transport yourself as well as another person, or a bikeload of things.

Photo by Wayne Bishop on Unsplash

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Healthy Streets LA is at city council now!

What is the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure?

The ballot measure will require the City of Los Angeles to implement its Mobility Plan 2035 whenever the City repaves or otherwise works on a street. Doing so will save money, reduce traffic, make the streets safer, and give people more options to get around town, helping to clean our air. You can read the full text of the measure here. Here is a Google Slides Overview.

Why is the measure needed?

Since the passage of the Mobility Plan in 2015, Los Angeles has only implemented 95 miles out of 3,137 miles planned (about 3% in 7 years). Our city is ignoring its own plan, and even worse, sometimes working against it. A legal mandate is needed to get the city to do what they have already said they want to do, and to give us, its residents, cleaner air, safer streets, less traffic, and options on how we get around town.

If it passed, what changes would I see in the city?

The change would be dramatic. You would see a city that is inviting to walk in, safer to bike in, faster to take the bus in, and easier to get around, all while saving lives, reducing traffic, and improving air quality.

What needs to happen to get the measure on the ballot?

We need to collect approximately 93,000 signatures from registered voters in the City of Los Angeles in 100 days, starting around mid February. While that may sound like a lot, it’s doable! Our goal is to have 250 volunteers collecting signatures for about four hours per week.

 

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7 L.A. cyclists share how to go car-free, ride safely and have fun

From LATimes.com

By Jonah Valdez

At its best, biking in L.A. is a cost-effective, climate-friendly means of transportation, leisure and exercise. Yet at its worst, biking in L.A. remains a dangerous errand of twisting through an incomplete network of fading white paint, miles of unprotected bike lanes that vanish into thoroughfares where cyclists compete with cars moving at high speeds.

“The concern is very simple,” bike activist Michael Schneider said. “People feel like they’re gonna die if they bike in L.A.”

Over the past five years, 96 cyclists have been killed on Los Angeles roads, an average of 18 a year, according to LAPD data. So far this year, six have died, including Andrew Jelmert, a 77-year-old real estate agent struck by a driver in Griffith Park in April, and days later, Leonidas Accip Serech who was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Koreatown. That same week, a third cyclist, John Hermoso, was killed while riding near Santa Clarita, outside Los Angeles city limits.

And yet a hardy 3% of L.A. residents, about 120,000 people, through wit, will, joy or necessity, carve out their daily commutes and other trips on two wheels.

Michael Runnels, an assistant professor of business law at Cal State L.A., speeds down Griffith Park hills, catching glimpses of the sun rising over the city. Lena Williams, a community organizer, slows down to take in the murals of South L.A. that reflect their experience as a Black queer person. Through thin rubber tires, cyclists feel the city’s inequality, gliding between neighborhoods with smooth pavement and those whose roads are riddled with potholes.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

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