2009 Bike activism in LA

While I do a variety of things that do not include updating my blog, Stephen Box over at soapboxla.blogspot.com wrote a terrific article called 2009: The Year of the Bike that anyone interested in bike advocacy in Los Angeles should read. We have an uphill battle, but the energy and effort by people like Stephen is paying off. He's part of the Bike Writers Collective who organized the LA Bike Working Group (I wrote about it here) in response to the City of Los Angeles 'Bike Plan' that reduces the number of bike lanes from earlier plans.

Stephen ends the article with this:

The year 2009 closed with LA's Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa using the word bicycle in a sentence. He said, in an interview with KPCC's Patt Morrison, "In the area of bicycling I've gotta do a better job and the city's gotta do a better job."

To those of you in any number of major US cities this is not a big deal. Your mayor probably rides a freakin bike, but Villaraigosa had never even muttered the word 'bicycle'. I'm not getting my hopes up because he talks way (way) more than he does, but it is a step in the right direction. Come on Los Angeles, we are so close. Let's step it up in 2010.