Pedal to work with a City Council president

I've written in the past about how a ridiculous number of people bike to work in Portland, Ore., where officials over the years have pumped a lot of money into cycling infrastructure. The same hasn't happened here, but bike activists -- to their credit -- are still asking people to try cycling to work once in a while.

As part of that effort, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition is asking commuters to go car-free on the last Friday of each month. Small steps, people! To launch the campaign, the group has scheduled a bike ride tomorrow at 8 a.m. from the Western Avenue Red Line station to downtown Los Angeles. City Council President Eric Garcetti will be in the pack. That means fellow cyclists can chat with him about all the things the council members could do to help cyclists now that they've finished dealing with Billy the elephant.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Lisa Anne Auerbach uses her two wheeler along Broadway downtown to get where she needs to go. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Damien Newton]

You got it backwards, it's normal how many people bike to work in Portland. What's weird is that more people don't do it here.

[Ingrid Peterson]

Luckily, I always go car-free to work!

I'm really glad to see Garcetti participating though....I'll go ahead and read that as a good sign for things to come....

Perhaps one day commuting to work via bicycle will be the norm in LA.... keeping my hopes up WAY high...

You gotta give 'em hope!!

[Andre Freimann]

Biking to work isn't worth the risk. Until Los Angeles and surrounding cities get their act together, it just isn't safe enough to risk. In Manhattan Beach, they just repaved Rosecrans (about a year ago) and did so WITHOUT adding bike lanes. It just shows you where priorities lie. When riding my bike to work, I'd have more drivers than not nearly edge me off the road or narrowly miss me even if I was riding in the gutter. Not fun and not safe.

[L.A. Lady]

Garcetti is doing this as a publicity stunt because he is running for City Council as the incumbent, and his opponent in the race, Gary Slossberg, is actually committed to bicycling, walking, etc. Garcetti and his policies have pushed through lots of projects and practices and set the tone that makes it less than wonderful to bike in L.A. When you get downtown, good luck finding a decent place to lock your bike, or a place to take a shower, bathroom, lockers, etc.

[City Employee]

Eric Garcetti has been an awesome pro-biker legislator. He made it possible for city employees to have bike lockers and showers and a ton of his staff bikes to work. I know them and this is no publicity stunt, this is a core belief. Let's not be so cynical...