Mayor Villaraigosa’s Bike Summit

Photo by @ronmilan

Last month, L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, who claimed he hadn’t ridden a bike in years, hopped on two wheels and headed down the bike lanes of Venice Boulevard towards the beach when, after just 30 minutes of riding, a taxi pulled out in front of him causing him to crash and shatter his elbow. Thankfully he appears to be recovering well and in response to the incident, he called a Bike Summit, held yesterday. Upon announcement of the summit, the L.A. bike community was grateful for the mayor’s attention, but critical of the event’s scheduling – held during working hours – and lack of coordination with the already existing advisory committees and Street Summit organizers.

I wasn’t able to attend due to work, but followed commentary via Twitter. The Biking In L.A. blog has a good write-up of the event. Despite the time, the summit was well attended with a packed room of 300 or so, though, as @LosAngelesCM tweeted “If this LA Bicycle Summit were held at 7pm there would be over 1000 cyclists here. They’d need a bigger room.”

Reactions to the mayor’s summit were mixed. Cyclists were generally happy to have the administration’s ear but skeptical that any substantial change would be enacted. He stated there would be an expansion of bike lanes, though many wanted it to occur faster than the schedule he described, wanting the same kind of aggressive growth found in the mayor’s 30/10 plan. The mayor was met with cheers when he stated he would support a 3-foot passing law, but widely booed when he said he would push for mandatory helmet laws in the state legislature (currently helmets are only mandatory for minors). Helmets are always a contentious subject, one I find as tiresome as listening to atheists and Christians duking it out, but I will say that the helmet debate distracts from the real issue which is improving driver and cyclist behavior. If the taxi had been attentive and not cut the mayor off, there would have been no incident. Education and enforcement of traffic laws, and training of both responsible driving and riding will do more to save lives than a mandatory helmet law.

Indeed, the mayor seemed to be making excuses for the taxi driver, stating in an earlier article, “[The driver] was very concerned when he realized it was me … He was careless, but that’s not illegal. He certainly didn’t do this on purpose.” Well, first of all, one wonders how concerned the driver would have been if the victim was not the mayor but an average citizen. Secondly, careless driving is illegal. VC Section 23103 defines reckless driving as the “willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.” Of course the driver didn’t do it on purpose. Few people purposefully want to cause harm to another, but the lack of intent doesn’t absolve one from responsibility. Furthermore shouldn’t a professional driver be held to higher standards of traffic safety? Stephen Box jokingly tweets, “Rumors of Mayor’s Taxi Summit remain unconfirmed.”

Speaking of Stephen Box, who is running for City Council in District 4 in 2011, I’m eagerly awaiting his full response to the summit on his blog. His Twitter feed from yesterday was rather critical (tagging his summit tweets with #MayoralBS), and echoed much of the doubt cyclists felt about any immediate action happening, or any adoption of things like the Cyclists Bill of Rights or the Backbone Bikeway Network. I support Box (and happen to live in Dist. 4). He combines passion, vision, and an extensive knowledge of the workings of the city and if Villaraigosa is serious about improving the cycling situation in Los Angeles I think Villaraigosa would do well to listen to Box.

Tags: advocacy, los angeles, villaraigosa