After Accident, L.A. Mayor Turns Unwitting Cycling Advocate
Like lots of cities, the freeway mecca that is Los Angeles can't be called the most bike-friendly of places. Many residents who might like to bike more are too fearful to dare try.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has become an unwitting spokesperson on that point. It was a lovely summer weekend this July when he hopped himself on a two-wheeler for the first time in years. Call it a casual ride with his girlfriend gone wrong. Soon after setting off, a taxi abruptly pulled across the Venice Boulevard bike lane and, bam, the mayor flew helmet-first to the ground and shattered his elbow. Before his accident, Villaraigosa was no cycling advocate by any stretch of the imagination. These days, with pins still in his elbow, he is in the uncomfortable crosshairs of the bicycling community to speak up for cyclists' rights.
Could it take just one high-profile bike accident to start the ball rolling for change? Nationally, in 2008, 716 people died in bicycle accidents and 52,000 people were injured (although this is usually an under-reported statistic.) Cyclists face down cars and lose every day, but rarely does this make big news.
Villaraigosa has heeded the cycling communities' call, though not without controversy. Yesterday, he convened a cycling summit to win over a "highly skeptical house of roughly 300 bicyclists" and pledged to raise safety awareness, dramatically expand bike lanes, and promote a new cycling culture in the City of Angels. He had earlier pledged $3.2 million to support L.A. cycling this year, and now promises to build 40-miles of bike paths a year for the next five years (the city averages about 8-12 miles a year for the last 40 years). To the chagrin of some in die-hard cyclists, he also wants to require helmets by law. A few laughs at the summit, including a moment in which Villaraigosa received a set of training wheels, were tempered by the somber news that a cyclist had died in the city that very morning.
All across the nation, cyclists struggle for a safe existence amidst a car-centric culture that, by default, dictates the heaviest hunk of metal rules the road. National statistics bear out their stories. According to a recent report, while bikers and walkers represent 9.6 percent of all transit trips, they account for 13.1 percent of fatalities and just 1 percent of federal transportation funding. And while some U.S. cities, such as Portland and Minneapolis, are clearly ahead of others, the U.S. overall lags behind most other Western nations in bicycle use. This is likely not for lack of interest, but rather for lack of investment. Case studies show that cities that invest the most in bicycle and pedestrian modes of transport, 'low and behold, have the highest cycling and walking rates. Driver education programs also help in spades -- many drivers are blithely unaware that cyclists have rights too. Right now, it's pretty clear that in a lot of cities, people want to bike more. They are just afraid.
So which other U.S. cities could use a high-profile bike accident jolt their mayors into action? (Just kidding, stay safe mayors! Just getting a mayor to ride a bike regularly would be enough to change his or her perspective.) How about the mayors of Birmingham, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; and Memphis, Tennessee, to start? Bicycling magazine recently named these places the worst large cities for cycling. I urge you to write to your local leader and ask him how often he or she gets on his tw0-wheeler.
Photo credit: Hartford Strong, Flickr
Jess Leber
is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C
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