Monthly Archives: May 2009

Bicycle Tourism in Santa Monica

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by Scott David Reiter
We need to have another meeting soon, perhaps a chatroom format may be more comfortable?
We need to help coax the public mind off combustion. We need to seamlessly integrate biking into all the transportation modes. Going somewhere should be, well, as easy as riding a bicycle. Santa Monica will now work towards the Gold Medal of bike friendliness, and not just settle for the Bronze. I feel that we can surpass Portland and claim our rightful title as America’s Most Bikeable City. Heck, let’s take that even further, and develop a whole new industry opportunity. Maybe we can encourage development of low cost, planned community of hotel pods as an even cheaper alternative to youth hostels, with centralized cooking and hygiene facilities, a serious piece bicycle infrastructure. Money not spent on high priced hotels can benefit local businesses. The bicycle tourist as a economical opportunity: this could be big! It includes rides and walks of all that makes Santa Monica great: From the beautiful beach into the mountains, art, architecture, including the Wilshire Palisades Building and its “Ship Steaming to Sea” profile, Camera Obscura, etc.
Let’s move forward!

Mainstreaming the Bicycle

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Beware of the margins of the transportation universe: The bicycle belongs into the mainstream. This will probably be our main task in Santa Monica, and elsewhere: To gently move the bicycle out of the various marginal zones, the geographical margins of the beach path, generational margins when perceived as as childhood toy, limitation to the life-style of the eco warrior, with male gender imbalance, or with an emphasis on extreme sports. Perfectly normal people cycling, these are our heros, and their stories need to be told, loud and clear.

Bronze Medal for Santa Monica

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The League of American Bicyclists has awarded Santa Monica the Bronze medal as a Bicycle Friendly Community, with a special distinction in the category “Encouragement“. Well done, Santa Monica! After Claremont, this is the second city in LA County singled out for this award. And it is a great basis for improvements.
There are heros, and there a villains in this piece. One hero, undoubtedly, is Luis “Lumo” Morris from the Transportation Demand Management department, who has created a bicycle valet parking program here that brings a smile to every cyclists face. His dedication, inventiveness, seriousness and enthusiasm is a pure platinum, as far as I can tell. The villain would be the SMPD, which has thought fit to engage in a disproportionate enforcement campaign agains the critical mass rides. Out of touch with the joy of cycling, they pursued a hard line of car-friendly bike enforcement, which has brought tears to many eyes, and almost a thousand members to the critcal mass mailing list. A Police Department quite out of touch with the green aims of the city. Anyone who has seen a ticket being issued for sidewalk cycling on Lincoln Blvd will never forget it. Where was this poor cyclists supposed to ride? On the broken up pavement in the midst of high speed traffic?
The Bronze Award is a wonderful opportunity to remind the administration and agencies where gold and silver lie. Perhaps at the end of a difficult road called Bicycle Boulevard.