If Los Angeles, the city in lust with the car, can pedal into the future, maybe, just maybe, there is hope for this petroleum addicted world. It appears the LA City Council is on the verge of pedaling back to the future with a new bicycle transportation master plan that would create 1,680 miles of interconnected bike lanes, streets and corridors - amazing what happens when a city's mayor almost gets killed riding his bike.
In 2008, two cyclists were seriously injured on a narrow Brentwood road when a driver slammed on his car's brakes in front of them. The driver, physician Christopher Thompson, was convicted of numerous charges, including assault with a deadly weapon.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the district where the crash occurred, said it made him rethink the way the city puts cars on a pedestal.
"There has been a real awakening in the city," he said. "We're starting to think of our streets differently. They're not just conduits for making cars move fast."
Summer - maybe today it kicked open the door and firmly planted a foot in Portland - Yeah! We hope! With it comes a wave of bike folks enjoying this place we love - first-timers, commuters, Sunday Parkways families, Bridge-Peddalers, Pedalpaloozers, a host of summer Centuries and the STP invasion. But what really excites me and gives me hope that we may someday replace our auto-mentality inner city with a people friendly culture (and god forbid that concept pedaled into the burbs) is the "Cycle Chic" phenomena - everyday people wearing everyday clothes, doing everyday things. As movement inspiration photographer Mikael Colville-Andersen says in the video post below, Cycle Chic "hit a nerve... ya know, I didn't invent cycle chic, it's as old as the bicycle as we know it, 120 years"
Picked this up over on a website (thanks to Jenn) called StreetFilm.org - some fun bike/livable street culture stuff waiting over there to be explored - take a spin.
Wow! That did not take long. Apparently three lanes up Broadway aren't enough for some motorists - we need your positive reaction to the Cycle Tracks more than we thought:
If Los Angeles, the city in lust with the car, can pedal into the future, maybe, just maybe, there is hope for this petroleum addicted world. It appears the LA City Council is on the verge of pedaling back to the future with a new bicycle transportation master plan that would create 1,680 miles of interconnected bike lanes, streets and corridors - amazing what happens when a city's mayor almost gets killed riding his bike.
