Category Archives: bicycles

LACBC’s Empowering Local Advocates Series, Workshop 2 MEMBERSHIP

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Empowing Local AdvocatesWorkshop #2 (MEMBERSHIP) is scheduled for next week, Tuesday April 29th as part of LACBC’s Empowering Local Advocates Series. These workshops are designed to empower YOU – designed to give you all the tools you need to be stronger advocates to help our mission locally and for all our Local Chapters! HELP US SPREAD THE LOVE OF BIKING AND BIKE CULTURE IN OUR CITY and help us as an organization extend our reach, and grow our membership!

Refreshments will be provided – mingle with bike ambassadors throughout the city, local chapters, and other passionate volunteers. Hope to see you there!

We have grown as an organization to 11 Local Chapters throughout the County of Los Angeles and 5 Bike Ambassador programs in City of LA. With so much going on, LACBC HQ wants to help empower YOU to advocate in your local capacity.

Join us for the second workshop of the series – MEMBERSHIP
DATE:      April 29th 
TIME:      6:30 – 8:OOPM
WHERE:  LACBC HQ, 634 Spring Street, Edison Room 

Help us extend our reach in a county of 10 million people. Learn how to engage interested stakeholders about what we do as an organization and help grow our membership base.

At this workshop you will learn:

– Why we are membership-based
– What membership benefits are
– How this advances advocacy locally
– How to sell membership
– What our Bike Month and Membership Drive opportunities are

The website has been updated to include March’s “OUTREACH” workshop presentation for those who were not able to attend. Also you can refer to this page to get updates on the presentations and updated event flyers for each future workshop.

Please RSVP here and spread the word!! Please contact Alek@la-bike.org with any questions Facebook event.

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Pledge YOUR Support for MANGo Today!

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Community EventPlease help us Support MANGo
with all the benefits and options!

MANGo will be presented to City Council, February 11th
Send a Letter of Support for MANGo Today!
AND
if you can …. Please come to Council Meeting and voice your support!
Great video on POP-UP MANGo!

Santa Monica City Hall Council Chambers, 1685 Main Street, Rm 213 - More info HERE.

Support Santa Monica’s and the region’s first Neighborhood Greenway: MANGo! with an email to Mayor Pam O’Connor, City Council, Commissioners and staff. Even with this AWESOME PROJECT there is opposition from those who still want vehicles prioritized over people, our health and safety. To help we have created some template letters you can use for inspiration or to cut and paste. We encourage you to customize with your personal comments or please feel free to simply cut and paste and email to the list provided below. You can see more about MANGo in the drop down menu here on our website. “Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway”

Support letters: DON’T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME AT END OF LETTERS!
Read Santa Monica Spoke’s letter of support sent to City Council here
Santa Monica Spoke Supports Staff Recommendations letter here
If you live in the Pico Neighborhood we have a specific letter here.
If you have children we have a letter from that perspective here.

Here is the basic MANGo Support letter:

______________________________________________________

Dear Council Members,

I support the Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway (MANGo) and urge you to approve the staff recommendations for this regionally important plan. I want a calmer Michigan avenue where it is safe and pleasant to walk and bike, and where this community can simply spend time outside enjoying their neighborhood and their neighbors.

Michigan Avenue has been adversely impacted for years by high levels of cut-through traffic rushing to and from the freeway and Samohi, further adding to the burden caused by the Santa Monica Freeway and the large boulevards that isolate this community. MANGo will create a safer calmer street and an inviting alternative east/west walking and biking connection to numerous destinations along its spine. This includes safe routes to many schools (including SMC & Samohi), Farmers Markets, parks and recreation, the Civic Center, beaches and the new Expo Line stations.

Through a very inclusive process MANGo planners have presented a variety of options to address the traffic and safety issues on Michigan Avenue, included are traffic reduction goals. I support establishing an ambitious project goal of less than 1500 vehicles per day on MANGo along with easy steps that measure if implementations are effective. If we need to do more to reach these goals, let’s make sure we are able to use the full range of traffic calming measures explored and outlined in the project to create safer street on Michigan Avenue, similar to those that have been used in other parts of Santa Monica. I believe this is a prudent course of action and important for the ultimate success of MANGo.

I realize it’s a bold and scary move to make a street that demands slower car traffic, and that there are editorialists and pockets of resistance who think that doing anything to impede auto circulation is a bad idea. We’ve suffered decades of an increasingly car dominant culture that has split the city in half, made the skies smoggy, and hurt and killed too many people. MANGo is a big step toward encouraging a change in that thinking of how we get around and can help set the tone for the next fifty years of the way Santa Monica works. What kind of city do you want? One for cars, or one for people? I hope you will choose the latter and cement your legacy as the city council that said yes to MANGo and everything that will follow.

Please support MANGo and make sure we set an ambitious target for reducing traffic on Michigan Avenue to less than 1500 vehicles per day and assure that we have all the tools at our disposal (including traffic diverters if needed) to achieve safer, healthier more active options for circulating in Santa Monica and regionally.

Sincerely,
Name
Address or neighborhood (optional)

______________________________________________________

Click here to email your letter : Add your content or use one of our letters above. Or you can copy this emails list: pam.oconnor@smgov.net, terry.oday@smgov.net, ted.winterer@smgov.net, kevin@mckeown.net, tony.vazquez@smgov.net, gleam.davis@smgov.net, robert.holbrook@smgov.net, Rod.Gould@smgov.net, David.Martin@smgov.net, Francie.Stefan@smgov.net, Jason.Kligier@smgov.net, Mango@smspoke.org, lucy.dyke@smgov.net, Jim_Ries@hotmail.com, parryj@gte.net, gnewbold@gmail.com, richard@richardmckinnon.com, jenniferfkennedy@gmail.com, suehimmelrich@gmail.com, andersonsmpc@yahoo.com, clerk@smgov.net, council@smgov.net, planning@smgov.net

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MANGo to City Council February 11th

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MANGo Council crop

Save the date: February 11th
& get your typing fingers ready to Support MANGo.

MANGo is due to be presented to Santa Monica City Council a week from today, Tuesday February 11th. We are looking forward to seeing the Final Project Report & Presentation to Council on this major improvement to the Santa Monica Bike network and a long overdue investment in the Pico Neighborhood.

MANGo will create a safer calmer street and an inviting alternative east/west walking and biking connection to numerous destinations along its spine. This includes safe routes to many schools (SRTS, including SMC & Samohi), Farmers Markets, parks and recreation, the Civic Center, beaches and the new Expo Line stations.

Through a very inclusive process MANGo planners presented a variety of options to address the traffic and safety issues on Michigan Avenue, including reduced traffic goals. We are advocating for establishing an ambitious project goal of less than 1500 vehicles per day* on MANGo along with easy steps that measure if project implementations are effective, and a tiered implementation approach over time to meet goals.

You could say it is a bold and scary move to create a street that demands slower car traffic. There are editorials and pockets of resistance who think that doing anything to impede auto circulation is a bad idea. We have suffered decades of increasingly car dominant culture that has divided cities, created smoggy skies, and hurt and killed too many people. MANGo is a big step toward encouraging a change in that thinking of how we get around and can help set the tone for the next fifty years of the way Santa Monica works. What kind of city do you want? One for cars, or one for people? We hope our decision makers will choose the latter and cement their legacy as the City Council that said yes to MANGo and everything that will follow.

More on what you can do and how coming soon..

*Design guidelines from National Association of City and Transportation Officials (NACTO)

Oct 6th CICLAVIA – HEART OF LA: Tips on “How to Participate!”

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OCTOBER 6th  CICLAVIA – HEART OF LA
CicLAvia offers some tips on “How to Participate!” 

So… No Cars on the Street. Now What?

ladies_waving.1

© Cynthia Rose

CicLAvia - Heart of LA will have 7.5 miles of car-free streets ready to roam in downtown Los Angeles on October 6. Shoes will hit the pavement, tires will roll down the road, music will fill the air and food… oh all the food!

Bring out some skates, bike, skateboard or walk the route? Ride your bike with us from the Santa Monica Pier feeder ride, drive to a nearby parking structure or take public transit? (More on those options in our next post) Wear a fluffy pink boa, orange cape, purple tutu (oh wait that’s for me) or something from your CicLAvia t-shirt collection? The choices are endless!

But, how does one begin to plan their CicLAvia Day? The folks at CicLAvia have gathered some tips!

The folks at CicLAvia want to make your day easy. That’s why they’ve created a fabulous “How to Participate at CicLAvia“ page. Here you will find all you need to know about individual and group participation, ways to enjoy the route, suggestions for businesses and for shoppers, ideas for families, and guidelines for disabled participants and soooo much more! I was also happy to see included on the page Rules of the Road  that outlines tips how we can all share the open road  space to ensure we are all safe and courteous to everyone – not matter what the mode they have chosen to participate.

CicLAvia Presents: Charles Phoenix and His Fantastical Chinatown Field Trips

CicLAvia is proud to partner with Los Angeles pop culture expert and humorist Charles Phoenix for an up-close, enthusiastic and entertaining tour of Chinatown. Three one-hour Chinatown walking tours will be offered during CicLAvia – Heart of LA on October 6. Space is limited for these special tours. Proceeds benefit CicLAvia.
Experience the charm of LA’s legendary Old Chinatown as your tour guide, Charles Phoenix, shares his keen eye for oddball detail and the stories, and glories, of one of LA’s most exotic themed environments and precious pop cultural resources. You will never see Old Chinatown the same way again.

You can also participate in CicLAvia by making a donation to help fund the logistics of putting on the best free community event in LA. Click here to make a donation or text SMILE to 85944 to donate $10.
Make sure to RSVP on Facebook to be kept up-to-date on allCicLAvia - Heart of LA news and share the event with your friends.

Santa Monica poised to lead on Regional Bike Share

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Update: Resolution passed 5-1 to move forward, more after October regional planning forum coordinated by State Assemblyman Richard Bloom.

The Santa Monica City Council included bikeshare in the Bike Action Plan recommendations adopted on November 22, 2011 and designated bikeshare as one of the highest priority projects for Bike Action Plan implementation.

PRELIMINARY Bike Share locationsTonight the next step in the process comes before the City Council, item 8A on the agenda – How will we move the process forward?

Last Spring when then LA Mayor Villaraigosa unexpectedly announced Los Angeles had partnered with Bike Nation to provide Bike Share and thus derailed much of the preliminary work being done in Santa Monica, and the WSCOG to create a regional Bike Share NETWORK. Chair of that committee was then SM Mayor now 50th districts State Assemblyman Richard Bloom (and SM Councilman Kevin McKewon), also actively participating in this process with the WSCOG were City staff from WSCOG City’s (Beverly Hills, Culver City, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and County of Los Angeles) bike advocates, Santa Monica Spoke, WeHoBC and LACBC on a bicycle advisory committee. To put it lightly we were all pretty stunned by the Mayors announcement and the manner the choice was made to say nothing of the then nearly unknown provider.
However – Santa Monica continued moving forward with a close eye on what was happening in Los Angeles. Through the City’s efforts we have secured available grant funds to initiate a bikeshare system totaling $2,764,000. Each granting agency has required steps and timing for grant funds and staff has been coordinating with the agencies. One such hurdle is selecting a provider by this December! Although we do want to move forward – we also want to collaborate and coordinate with Los Angeles and the region so that we establish a truly regional bike share network. Jason at the SM Lookout outlines more on that here

Bike Nation has failed to materialize for a variety of reasons and now we are at a similar point before “LA’s announcement” – making the choice of what operator, and what revenue structure to move forward with.  Assemblyman Richard Bloom sent an invitation to re-convene the discussion on Bike Share with the WSCOG, City Staff, LA Metro and members of our bike advisory committee to meet in October. “To be successful, we have to all be partners” he says in his invitation. Santa Monica is leading the way as they are the only city that currently has money to move forward on a bike share program including stations outside our city limits. In the spirit of collaboration and creating a network that works regionally the City has petitioned an extension for awarding a operator contract so we can include other stake holders in the operator selection and the potential revenue models chosen. In the interim “staff recommends that the Council require any operator bidding for Santa Monica’s bike share program to be able to explain how they would ensure that their system will be interoperable with any future system to be deployed in a neighboring jurisdiction”.
With EXPO coming Bike Share is one way we can support and provide options to reduce auto traffic and congestion. We are excited it is finally getting closer.

Click to view comprehensive Staff Report
You can attend tonights City Council meeting to give input, watch live on CityTV or comment via email

Look for a report on the regional meeting in mid October.