Westside COG’s Bike Agenda?
Westside Cities Council of Governments (COG) board has on Thursday’s agenda a staff report concerning the organization’s bike coordination effort (item 6A under continued business).Continued business indeed: the COG is taking small steps toward some sort of regional, coordinated bike planning, but as yet there is no identified timeline nor any specific policy statements adopted by the COG to put some umph behind this much-needed effort.That may change if the COG adopts the policy statement in the staff report.
The staff report excerpt:
The Westside Cities Council of Governments supports member jurisdictions planning efforts, including grant applications that would assist in 1) closing gaps in the sub-regional bicycle network, 2) improving and/or adding consistency to bicycle facilities, and 3) improving and/or adding consistency to educational efforts, including bicycle safety.
The larger context is that this representation organization has been the laggard as member governments undertook bike planning efforts. The COG has been a point of information exchange and informal policy coordination among member local governments, but despite committees for transportation and sustainability, the COG was slow to embrace bike issues. Not until the COG received regular visits from Better Bike last summer, and again this Spring (along with representatives from Sustainable Streets and Santa Monica Spoke) did the COG take up the issue.
We think that Westside sub-regional coordination is a no-brainer now that major transportation improvements are coming to the Westside:
- Expo line will be connecting Culver City & Santa Monica;
- Subway will reach west to the VA property; and not least,
- Bike planning is underway in each city AND LA County.
Except for Beverly Hills! Our own city still makes halting progress in even the most basic improvements. We’re spending $300,000 (so far) on attorneys to fight the preferred Century City subway stop, though, and the Chamber and Tourism organizations will share fancy new digs in a city-owned structure. We digress…
To be fair, the Westside Cities COG is a creature of it’s constituents (policymakers, not residents, that is) and is understaffed: there exists no policy analyst or dedicated transportation planner on board. No webmaster. The challenge is evident. Yet Santa Monica councilman Kevin McKeown and WeHo Councilwoman Abbe Land have both spoken up about bike issues in earlier meetings – unprompted! – which suggests awareness on the part of the COG board (if not imminent action). COG rep Bill Rosendahl just today shepherded an anti-harassment ordinance though LA City Council on a 12-0 vote!
Can we translate regional movement on bike issues into a sub-regional agenda? Behind the scenes, staffer Maria Rychlicki has worked with an intern to sniff out grant opportunities, and that comes on the heels of two meetings with bike advocates. But we’ve heard nothing from the COG since we last visited in May. In the meantime, committee meetings have given a vague nod to the bike effort.
Let’s see what the COG board does tomorrow on what advocates have urged: closing the gaps in road infrastructure that exist now and will persist after bike plans are implemented. The language of the staff report is reassuring, and there is a proposal in there to gin up some funds for a real effort. How will the board receive it? Will the safety of cyclists be a COG priority? Will the COG step into the larger transportation debate with some guidance for member cities – or even a refined work program for its own committees where the heavy lifting should be happening?
Thursday’s meeting should provide some indication of where the board stands. They’ll receive a staff report on the bike coordination effort and we’ll see if it’s actively discussed or merely ‘received and filed.’
Come and hear for yourself at noon at the Veterans Home of California on the VA Campus West L.A. 1500 Nimitz Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90049. If you’re arriving by car – and why would you be if you’re interested in active transportation? – you’ll need a parking permit. Email Better Bike or Maria. Refreshments available!
We’ll be rolling from Beverly Hills City Hall at 11:30am (Fire station corner) for the ride to the meeting. See you on the way, or see you there!
The following comment from this post is incorrect: “We’re spending $300,000 (so far) on attorneys to fight the preferred Century City subway stop.” The City has set aside $350,000 as a contingency fund to protect the City’s interests in regards to the Westside subway extension. The LPA (locally preferred alternative) for Beverly Hills is and always has been an alignment which turns west from Wilshire onto Santa Monica Blvd. It’s the least expensive and least intrusive option, which also protects the integrity of Beverly Hills High School. The High School is build on 25 acres. According to the CDE, if a high school serving the same amount of students were built today, the campus would need to be around double the size. Any tunneling under our only high school would severely restrict the ability of the District to rebuild, renovate, refurbish or reconfigure the campus in the future. What’s more: from a cyclist’s perspective Santa Monica should be the better, obvious option, particularly after Beverly Hills makes the BH part of Santa Monica Blvd more bike-friendly.
Ideally, the City could acquire the old railroad right of way contiguous to Santa Monica Blvd as part of a bike lane solution. Alternately, perhaps Little Santa Monica could lose some on-street parking to make way for bike lanes (much of the street already seems much too narrow to accommodate two lanes of traffic and on-street parking).
Furthermore, Olympic Blvd should not be forgotten. Not all BH residents live close to Santa Monica Blvd. Olympic is an important thoroughfare and that part of town could benefit from being made more bike- and pedestrian friendly.
Thanks for your reply! I’ll take this part of your post to heart, Councilman: “Santa Monica should be the better, obvious option, particularly after Beverly Hills makes the BH part of Santa Monica Blvd more bike-friendly.” Let’s hope, as of course we have to look integrating all modes of transportation.
I’m not familiar enough with the EIR to know about how rider projections (hazy as they may be sometimes) support one or the other alternative, so I can’t comment on the merits of one or the other except to say that you’re correct – the stop on Constellation is not designated as ‘preferred’; that’s something I imputed to Metro’s perspective.
The SM Blvd. station choice would be preferable from a circulation perspective, I agree. We need to view SM Bl. as a Westside region surface transit backbone, I believe, and to that extent integrating an active transport (like cycling) corridor with the subway is logical.
Even more when we look at the subway investment long-term: How long will the Country Club exist as a single-purpose property, especially given the availability of land on the Westside? If the future sees development on that land, then that station location pencils out much better.
From the cycling perspective, though, I believe that we (in BH) need to be all-in if we’re going in. That means seeing the SM Blvd. corridor for the multi-use (including bus service) corridor that it is, and build it out accordingly.
Let me toss another related issue out there: it’s not only that corridor, but the Golden Triangle that is tangential to it, in which we local cyclists find interest. SM BL. is a feeder into the Triangle from both the West (gateway) and the northeast.
I myself believe that integrating both SM BL and Little SM into a bike route system is critical if we want our local shops to benefit as more folks move to bikes and avail themselves of local shopping options…rather than drive to Century City or the Grove. But that’s a longer conversation!