Mark Elliot – Better Bike

Beverly Hills bike share Reeves Gregory station

Bye Bye to Beverly Hills Bike Share

July 30, 2021May 6, 2023 Mark Elliot bikeshare, Traffic and Parking Commission

Beverly Hills Bike Share is a thing no more now that city council has decided not to renew the contract. The last day of operation is July 31st. Thereafter vendor Cyclehop will remove the bikes and docking stations. This comes as no surprise given some concern about the magnitude of the system’s subsidy and the relatively few users. Indeed six years after council cut the ribbon, our shared-mobility experiment was attracting fewer riders than ever. Time to pull the plug.

Roxbury Drive protected bike lane demonstration project

News

Protected Bike Lane Demonstration Project at Roxbury Park is a Success

July 25, 2021 Mark Elliot Robert Wunderlich, Roxbury Drive South

Beverly Hills Mayor Bob Wunderlich welcomed about 30 riders, ten city staffers, and two councilmembers to preview what is likely to be the future protected southbound bicycle lane on Roxbury Drive south of Olympic. Just a bit of paint and a few planters delineated a separate lane adjacent to the curb buffered from passing traffic by parking but it was enough to suggest what should be the next step toward a citywide bike network tomorrow — if city council agrees.

News

Roxbury Park Protected Bike Lane Demonstration on July 22nd

July 14, 2021July 24, 2021 Mark Elliot Class II lane, Protected lane, Roxbury Drive South

City of Beverly Hills will host a demonstration to show off what we hope will be a protected bicycle lane on Roxbury Drive south of Olympic adjacent to Roxbury Park. Drop by Sunday July 25th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m to chat with city transportation officials and at 10:30 a.m. sharp join fellow riders in a bike ride with our Mayor Bob Wunderlich.

Soapbox

Scott Epstein for Los Angeles City Council District 5 in 2022

June 25, 2021January 14, 2024 Mark Elliot Scott Epstein

Here is some good news for Westside riders: Scott Epstein is running for City Council in district 5 in the 2022 Los Angeles municipal election. Better Bike is happy to endorse him. Scott was a longtime boardmember, transportation commission chair and executive chair of the Mid City West Community Council before stepping down to run for city council. We support him because he brings more than policy expertise to job; he will bring a new perspective on multimodal mobility after 12 years of ambivalence from current councilmember Paul Koretz.

News

One Beverly Hills Goes to City Council [updated]

May 20, 2021May 6, 2023 Mark Elliot One Beverly Hills

Exactly a month after the city council of Beverly Hills adopted the complete streets plan, our leaders are now facing the first next test: will bicyclists find safe access to and through the proposed One Beverly Hills project? The project comprises 600 hotel rooms and 340 housing units (not a single one of them affordable!) in three towers plus a conference center and retail — 2 million square feet in total. This Thursday May 20th city council reviews the project. Will city council require bicycle lanes as a condition of approval?

News

Beverly Hills Adopts Complete Streets Plan

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 Mark Elliot Complete Streets, Complete Streets plan process

City of Beverly Hills has finally adopted a complete streets plan. City council finally gave the nod on Tuesday, April 20th after having bottled-up a very good draft plan for eighteen months. We can now move forward on some of the first-year projects identified in the associated Action Plan: bikeway corridors, model bikeway design guidelines and the hiring of a mobility coordinator. Could safer streets for bicyclists be just around the literal corner?

Featured

Time to Get the Complete Streets Process Back on Track

November 30, 2020 Mark Elliot

Beverly Hills is midway through a multi-year mobility planning process called ‘complete streets.’ The goal is to take our auto-dominated city into the 21st century (albeit a couple of decades late) by making our streets accessible to all road users regardless of mode choice. Yet after five public events and $150k was spent to create a draft complete streets plan, only a few NIMBY scarecrows were able to bring it all to a halt last December. We need to get back on track to bring our city into the mobility present. You can help!

Featured

The Bumpy Road to a Failed Mobility Planning Process in Beverly Hills

August 23, 2020November 30, 2020 Mark Elliot Complete Streets, Complete Streets plan process, Robert Wunderlich

City of Beverly Hills has been talking about updating its Bicycle Master Plan (1977) since 2010. And for nearly a decade the outdated and moribund plan was left for dead by city officials. With Metro grant money hanging in the balance, city council revived the planning effort by folding it into a larger complete streets plan in 2017. But after a couple of public workshops in 2018 it has again languished. This time it was done-in by a few NIMBY scarecrows. They derailed a two-year planing process despite hundreds of supportive public comments. Let’s take a look at how a perfectly good draft complete streets plan has remained bottled-up ever since.

News

Comment on the Draft Beverly Hills Complete Streets Plan

November 30, 2019November 30, 2020 Mark Elliot

After a couple of close calls on a Benedict Canyon ride about ten years ago I started to wonder why Beverly Hills had not striped even a single bike lane. Or acknowledged that bicycle riders share the road. Or gave a single thought to our safety on the streets. I found my answer at City Hall: a 35 year old Bicycle Master Plan that sat moldering on a shelf.

Soapbox

What We Won’t See in Beverly Hills: City Manager on a Bike!

October 26, 2019May 6, 2023 Mark Elliot

We really have to hand it to City of Santa Monica. City officials took seriously the ‘Vision Zero’ goal of street safety and incorporated it into every aspect of city business. That city is so committed to safe, multimodal mobility that it has spent years refashioning streets to include bicycle lanes and even protected lanes to keep the modes separate. The safe-mobility message comes right from the top. City Manager Rick Cole not only pressed for those changes but he (figuratively speaking) walks the walk by promoting those changes to the public.

News

Just Another Sunday Morning in Beverly Hills

October 21, 2019September 18, 2023 Mark Elliot BHPD, collision

A selection of car crash images from the Beverly Hills Police Department’s own officers in the field. As As one wag asked in the comments on the department’s Instagram, “Why is everyone hauling ass and crashing in BH?” That’s a great question and one we’ve asked time and again of our Traffic & Parking commission and police department officials. Why indeed?

Soapbox

Santa Monica Leads, Beverly Hills Hardly Follows

October 18, 2019September 20, 2022 Mark Elliot Aaron Kunz, City of Santa Monica, Complete Streets plan process, Susan Healy-Keene

Santa Monica continues to be a regional leader when it comes to supporting multimodal mobility and enhancing street safety. It has installed many miles of bicycle lanes (included protected bikeways) and has emerged as a municipal leader with development policies crafted to put a lid on new vehicle trips downtown. Not least, City Hall is working with the community advocates to bring Vision Zero principles to bear on the transportation planning process. What about Beverly Hills?

News

CicLAvia Comes to West Hollywood This Sunday

August 15, 2019 Mark Elliot CicLAvia, City of West Hollywood

Join us for a ride up Santa Monica Boulevard through Beverly Hills where we will join the latest CicLAvia. Starting at San Vicente Boulevard on Sunday August 18th at 9AM and heading east into Hollywood, this promises to be one of the most pedestrian friendly routes yet.