Los Angeles Commuting Article
08-01-08, 08:57 AM
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Los Angeles Commuting Article
Risking Life and Limb,
Riding a Bike to Work in L.A.
Cyclists, Banned on Freeways and Reviled
By Drivers, Save a Buck and Make a Point
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE
August 1, 2008; Page A1
LOS ANGELES -- Paula Rodriguez, who lives in the San Fernando Valley,
got so disgusted with soaring fuel prices last spring that she stopped
driving, sold her SUV and bought a bike.
But pedaling the 15 miles home from her job, the 30-year-old Ms.
Rodriquez has encountered something more frightening than $4.50-a-gallon
gasoline: the mean streets of L.A., home of the nation's most entrenched
car culture.
"Drivers scream at me to get off the road," says the medical-billing
clerk. The main commuting route near her home is so terrifying, she
says, that she usually takes an alternative route that adds four miles
to her trip.
Even then, it's not an easy ride. On one stretch, splintered glass in
the street could puncture her tires, she says. On Wednesdays, she has to
dodge garbage cans blocking the bike lane. On Friday evenings, as the
sun sets, she feels menaced by drunk drivers. Such threats compel her to
sometimes swing onto the sidewalk, even though that could get her a
ticket. "I go slow, ring my little bell and stop sometimes to say 'hi'
to pedestrians," she says.
Commuters across the U.S. are responding to high gasoline prices by
finding alternatives to driving. But in Los Angeles, it takes a special
kind of road warrior to hop on a bike in the name of saving the planet
and a little money.
The city is notoriously short on bike lanes, bike paths and bike racks.
Bicycles are illegal on the freeways, and city streets are packed with
motorists who seem increasingly cranky about the swelling ranks of
cyclists. Every cyclist seems to know somebody who has been injured or
who has survived a near-death experience. In 2006, 28 people in Los
Angeles County were killed on bikes, according to the California Office
of Traffic Safety. Geography makes things difficult, too, as the
distance from home to work in this sprawling metropolis can be immense
and necessitate adding public transportation to the journey.
Tensions between cyclists and motorists here have become dangerously
combative. Los Angeles police are investigating an apparent July 4
road-rage incident that sent two cyclists to the hospital with serious
injuries. The cyclists crashed into a car after its driver allegedly
slammed on his brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road, a
winding street through a hilly neighborhood.
"Cyclists have equal rights, but in fact a lot of motorists think they
should get off the road," says Lynne Goldsmith, manager of the Los
Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority's bike program. Nearly everyone
has a bike sitting in the garage, but people are starting to actually
use their bicycles for transportation, ranging from short hops to the
market to long-distance commuting, she says. "When we're used to seeing
more cyclists, we will treat them better."
An Exercise in Frustration
For now, commuting by bike here is most often an exercise in
frustration. Michelle Weinstein's 75-minute commute to work begins at
6:50 a.m., when she dodges rush-hour traffic on a busy boulevard in the
city's Silver Lake neighborhood on her way to a subway station. She
hauls the bike onto the train, then takes it off in North Hollywood,
about seven miles to the north.
The next leg is an express-bus ride. But when the bus pulls up with a
full bike rack, she must wait for the next bus. When she finally arrives
in Van Nuys, she gets off the bus and back on the bike for a game of
chicken with motorists.
"It's nerve-rackingly crowded, and people give me dirty looks," says Ms.
Weinstein, a 33-year-old personal assistant at a music-production
company. "Everyone I know who has biked has met with some kind of
injury," Ms. Weinstein says.
Ms. Goldsmith says the city has 1,200 miles of bikeways, but many of
those are along busy thoroughfares on which cars and bikes compete for
space. In West Hollywood, an enclave of 40,000 residents, debate is
raging over the proper role of sidewalks. The issue has divided elderly
pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who
worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or
on bicycles.
Defensive Biking
Biking advocates are offering classes to teach novices how to be
defensive riders. "Our classes are starting to sell out quickly," says
Liz Elliott, a founder of the grass-roots organization Cyclists Inciting
Change Thru Live Exchange. She says the group has so far instructed
about 100 people. Many bike lanes are "too narrow and you don't want to
be hugging the door zone," she advises -- referring to the space in
which a parked car can swing its door open suddenly. Unfortunately, much
of the local bike infrastructure was designed by engineers who don't
ride bikes, she says.
Veteran riders say that obnoxious motorists are the biggest problem.
Michael Marckx, a 44-year-old vice president of Globe International
Ltd., a skateboard company in El Segundo, recently started commuting
three or four days a week by bike, encountering what he calls
"caffeine-infused psychotics" in their cars who yell at him to get off
the road. "There's something about being in the car that is kind of
anonymous. It's a veil to hide behind, and people seem to like to get
their aggression out on cyclists," says the former professional bike
racer.
Some cyclists are striking back. Stephen Box, a cycling activist who
claims to have broken the Mandeville Canyon story on his blog, carries a
camera and snaps pictures of bike-tripping potholes and confusing
traffic signs. He sends the snapshots to the city. The community
organizer says he and about a dozen bloggers drafted a Cyclists Bill of
Rights in January that he is presenting for a vote at neighborhood
council meetings around the region. But Lenore Solis, a council member
in Atwater Village, says she voted against it because the assertion of a
right to "full access" on "all mass transit with no limitations" is too
broad, and could be interpreted as a legal right to bike lanes on
freeways.
Indeed, the freeways have been invaded repeatedly by renegade cyclists
calling themselves Crimanimal Mass, an offshoot of Critical Mass, a
national cycling enthusiasts' group. About 30 cyclists performed the
illegal stunt in rush-hour traffic on a recent Friday to demonstrate how
much faster commuters can zip through gridlock on a bicycle than in a
car stuck in traffic.
Despite the problems, L.A. cyclists keep trying. Kim Jensen Marren broke
her ankle when she collided with a truck that pulled in front of her
bicycle five years ago. But now the 30-year-old graphic designer is
newly married and wants to save money to open her own
wedding-productions business. So she recently got back on her bike and
started riding to work again, figuring that she is saving about $220 a
month.
Write to Rhonda L. Rundle at rhonda.rundle@wsj.com
Riding a Bike to Work in L.A.
Cyclists, Banned on Freeways and Reviled
By Drivers, Save a Buck and Make a Point
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE
August 1, 2008; Page A1
LOS ANGELES -- Paula Rodriguez, who lives in the San Fernando Valley,
got so disgusted with soaring fuel prices last spring that she stopped
driving, sold her SUV and bought a bike.
But pedaling the 15 miles home from her job, the 30-year-old Ms.
Rodriquez has encountered something more frightening than $4.50-a-gallon
gasoline: the mean streets of L.A., home of the nation's most entrenched
car culture.
"Drivers scream at me to get off the road," says the medical-billing
clerk. The main commuting route near her home is so terrifying, she
says, that she usually takes an alternative route that adds four miles
to her trip.
Even then, it's not an easy ride. On one stretch, splintered glass in
the street could puncture her tires, she says. On Wednesdays, she has to
dodge garbage cans blocking the bike lane. On Friday evenings, as the
sun sets, she feels menaced by drunk drivers. Such threats compel her to
sometimes swing onto the sidewalk, even though that could get her a
ticket. "I go slow, ring my little bell and stop sometimes to say 'hi'
to pedestrians," she says.
Commuters across the U.S. are responding to high gasoline prices by
finding alternatives to driving. But in Los Angeles, it takes a special
kind of road warrior to hop on a bike in the name of saving the planet
and a little money.
The city is notoriously short on bike lanes, bike paths and bike racks.
Bicycles are illegal on the freeways, and city streets are packed with
motorists who seem increasingly cranky about the swelling ranks of
cyclists. Every cyclist seems to know somebody who has been injured or
who has survived a near-death experience. In 2006, 28 people in Los
Angeles County were killed on bikes, according to the California Office
of Traffic Safety. Geography makes things difficult, too, as the
distance from home to work in this sprawling metropolis can be immense
and necessitate adding public transportation to the journey.
Tensions between cyclists and motorists here have become dangerously
combative. Los Angeles police are investigating an apparent July 4
road-rage incident that sent two cyclists to the hospital with serious
injuries. The cyclists crashed into a car after its driver allegedly
slammed on his brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road, a
winding street through a hilly neighborhood.
"Cyclists have equal rights, but in fact a lot of motorists think they
should get off the road," says Lynne Goldsmith, manager of the Los
Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority's bike program. Nearly everyone
has a bike sitting in the garage, but people are starting to actually
use their bicycles for transportation, ranging from short hops to the
market to long-distance commuting, she says. "When we're used to seeing
more cyclists, we will treat them better."
An Exercise in Frustration
For now, commuting by bike here is most often an exercise in
frustration. Michelle Weinstein's 75-minute commute to work begins at
6:50 a.m., when she dodges rush-hour traffic on a busy boulevard in the
city's Silver Lake neighborhood on her way to a subway station. She
hauls the bike onto the train, then takes it off in North Hollywood,
about seven miles to the north.
The next leg is an express-bus ride. But when the bus pulls up with a
full bike rack, she must wait for the next bus. When she finally arrives
in Van Nuys, she gets off the bus and back on the bike for a game of
chicken with motorists.
"It's nerve-rackingly crowded, and people give me dirty looks," says Ms.
Weinstein, a 33-year-old personal assistant at a music-production
company. "Everyone I know who has biked has met with some kind of
injury," Ms. Weinstein says.
Ms. Goldsmith says the city has 1,200 miles of bikeways, but many of
those are along busy thoroughfares on which cars and bikes compete for
space. In West Hollywood, an enclave of 40,000 residents, debate is
raging over the proper role of sidewalks. The issue has divided elderly
pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who
worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or
on bicycles.
Defensive Biking
Biking advocates are offering classes to teach novices how to be
defensive riders. "Our classes are starting to sell out quickly," says
Liz Elliott, a founder of the grass-roots organization Cyclists Inciting
Change Thru Live Exchange. She says the group has so far instructed
about 100 people. Many bike lanes are "too narrow and you don't want to
be hugging the door zone," she advises -- referring to the space in
which a parked car can swing its door open suddenly. Unfortunately, much
of the local bike infrastructure was designed by engineers who don't
ride bikes, she says.
Veteran riders say that obnoxious motorists are the biggest problem.
Michael Marckx, a 44-year-old vice president of Globe International
Ltd., a skateboard company in El Segundo, recently started commuting
three or four days a week by bike, encountering what he calls
"caffeine-infused psychotics" in their cars who yell at him to get off
the road. "There's something about being in the car that is kind of
anonymous. It's a veil to hide behind, and people seem to like to get
their aggression out on cyclists," says the former professional bike
racer.
Some cyclists are striking back. Stephen Box, a cycling activist who
claims to have broken the Mandeville Canyon story on his blog, carries a
camera and snaps pictures of bike-tripping potholes and confusing
traffic signs. He sends the snapshots to the city. The community
organizer says he and about a dozen bloggers drafted a Cyclists Bill of
Rights in January that he is presenting for a vote at neighborhood
council meetings around the region. But Lenore Solis, a council member
in Atwater Village, says she voted against it because the assertion of a
right to "full access" on "all mass transit with no limitations" is too
broad, and could be interpreted as a legal right to bike lanes on
freeways.
Indeed, the freeways have been invaded repeatedly by renegade cyclists
calling themselves Crimanimal Mass, an offshoot of Critical Mass, a
national cycling enthusiasts' group. About 30 cyclists performed the
illegal stunt in rush-hour traffic on a recent Friday to demonstrate how
much faster commuters can zip through gridlock on a bicycle than in a
car stuck in traffic.
Despite the problems, L.A. cyclists keep trying. Kim Jensen Marren broke
her ankle when she collided with a truck that pulled in front of her
bicycle five years ago. But now the 30-year-old graphic designer is
newly married and wants to save money to open her own
wedding-productions business. So she recently got back on her bike and
started riding to work again, figuring that she is saving about $220 a
month.
Write to Rhonda L. Rundle at rhonda.rundle@wsj.com
08-01-08, 09:17 AM
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Thanks for posting.
Positive article....not. Someone needs to take the journo, RHONDA L. RUNDLE, out on a bike ride just to show how pleasant it is, especially compared to grid locked traffic.
Positive article....not. Someone needs to take the journo, RHONDA L. RUNDLE, out on a bike ride just to show how pleasant it is, especially compared to grid locked traffic.
__________________
shameless POWERCRANK plug
Recommended reading for all cyclists - Cyclecraft - Effective Cycling
Condor Cycles - quite possibly the best bike shop in London
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!
shameless POWERCRANK plug
Recommended reading for all cyclists - Cyclecraft - Effective Cycling
Condor Cycles - quite possibly the best bike shop in London
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!
08-01-08, 09:44 AM
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They'd be better off moving out of LA than trying to change a system that has been around for decades.
The one guy was right - there is a certain anonymity that comes with driving. The culture that has grown around driving has had some serious psychological effects on people and how they interact with other humans. I suppose people feel higher and mightier when protected by a cage.
I'm not saying it's like this everywhere, but I think road rage may have been invented (or at least perfected) in LA...
The one guy was right - there is a certain anonymity that comes with driving. The culture that has grown around driving has had some serious psychological effects on people and how they interact with other humans. I suppose people feel higher and mightier when protected by a cage.
I'm not saying it's like this everywhere, but I think road rage may have been invented (or at least perfected) in LA...
08-01-08, 09:53 AM
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The issue has divided elderly
pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who
worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or
on bicycles.
pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who
worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or
on bicycles.
-S
08-01-08, 09:57 AM
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I'm kind of tired of the assumption that the only reason anyone could possibly want to ride a bike is to save money on gas. You know, the notion that riding a bike is actually faster/more enjoyable/healthier is ridiculous. The only reason someone would want to deal with the inevitability of being murdered on the road by "caffeine addled psychopaths" is to save a few bucks on gas.
I mean, every cyclist knows this...
I mean, every cyclist knows this...
08-01-08, 10:39 AM
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meh. what a negative article.
i bike commute near LA (the south bay area of LA county) almost every day and have never once had a problem with drivers. occasionally people laugh at me, i've been told out driver-side windows that "the beach path is safer!" and once i think i've been told to get on the sidewalk, but those were/are such minor, infrequent occurrances, i don't think twice about them. overall, my commuting experience in this part of LA has been positive.
and i was bike commuting before gas was even $2.50 a gallon. when i moved out here last year, one of my priorities was to be within reasonable biking distance to work just because i enjoy it, because it gives me morning energy for/calms me down in the evenings from my otherwise very stressful job and because it keeps me looking good in spandex. (
)
i bike commute near LA (the south bay area of LA county) almost every day and have never once had a problem with drivers. occasionally people laugh at me, i've been told out driver-side windows that "the beach path is safer!" and once i think i've been told to get on the sidewalk, but those were/are such minor, infrequent occurrances, i don't think twice about them. overall, my commuting experience in this part of LA has been positive.
and i was bike commuting before gas was even $2.50 a gallon. when i moved out here last year, one of my priorities was to be within reasonable biking distance to work just because i enjoy it, because it gives me morning energy for/calms me down in the evenings from my otherwise very stressful job and because it keeps me looking good in spandex. (
)
08-01-08, 11:29 AM
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"Biff, Pow, Thwop! Comics aren't just for kids anymore"
That's what this article reminds me of. So late, so labored.
"Critical Mass, a national cycling enthusiasts' group." Heh.
That's what this article reminds me of. So late, so labored.
"Critical Mass, a national cycling enthusiasts' group." Heh.
Last edited by Lot's Knife; 08-01-08 at 11:32 AM.
08-01-08, 11:51 AM
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Nobody's ever yelled at me. Sometimes drivers get kinda close, but they do the same to motorcycles. You get used to it... From my own experiences, LA isn't all that bad for bikes. And often it's faster than my car, and I don't have to worry about parking... It's not terrifying for me at all. I actually enjoy it. *shrug*
08-01-08, 12:22 PM
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08-01-08, 02:09 PM
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She can ride on the sidewalk.
official website of THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT https://www.lapdonline.org/prevent_cr...asic_view/7745
Can I ride my bicycle on the sidewalk or do I have to ride on the street? If I do ride my bicycle on the street, what side should I ride on?
Bicyclists are permitted to ride on sidewalks; however, it is an infraction to do so in a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property (56.15.1 LAMC). If you ride your bicycle on the street, you must ride in the same direction as the flow of traffic and as close as practicable to the right side of the roadway (21202a CVC).
08-01-08, 06:40 PM
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Publicity/Press is Publicity/Press, even if taken in a negative light. What I had to wonder when a coworker showed that article to me on the front page of the Wall Street Journal was, "How many people are going to see, or read this article?" Maybe, just maybe a few ignorant people were clued in that not all utility cyclists are DUI recipients, poor immigrants, or just kids messing around (not that they don't have a right to be on the road too).
I ride all over the Southland at all times of the day and night. I've had items thrown at me, been right-hooked countless times (without hitting them or them hitting me) and disrespected in various manners by the ignorant/clueless/selfish masses out here more than just a few times and was even the victim of a hit & run that included an ambulance ride. The South Bay sounds like Fantasyland to me from what novas wrote.
BTW, I've been cycling for 41 years and am not some neophyte.
