Next Stop: City Council – LA Bike Plan passes joint PLUM/T-Committee

Wednesday afternoon saw the penultimate stage completed in the years-long journey to get a new bike plan adopted for the City of Los Angeles.  In a special joint session, both the PLUM (Planning and Land Use Management) and Transportation Committees met to discuss the draft LA Bike Plan.  As the two committees with input on the bike plan, they are the last step before the plan faces the full City Council for adoption into the City’s general plan.  The crowd on hand was much smaller than those who turned out for the Bike Plan at the City Planning Commission, but there was still ample representation from the LACBC, Bikeside and the BAC.

The joint committee hearing was held in City Council chambers

While there was a small measure of conflict among speakers and committee members (mostly centered around equestrian/mountain biking conflicts), the plan itself easily sailed through committee.  Below the fold, we’ll cover the highlights of the hearing.  If you want blow-by-blow coverage, you can always check out the twitter feed of LADOT Bike Blog’s author Christopher Kidd (@BikeBlogChris).  You can also check out the twitter hashtag #LABikePlan to see what the collective bike community had to say during the hearing.

There were three items heard before the joint committee.  The first was an action item (requiring a vote) and the last two were “receive and file” items (which don’t require a vote).

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“We’re Almost There” – Planning Commission Continuance on Bike Plan Scheduled for 12/16

The Planning Commission convened at 9AM ... and concluded 7 hours later.

(Update: There’s also excellent coverage of the meeting by Joe Linton on Streetsblog and by Ted Rogers at Biking in LA)

To Be Continued…

Today, the Planning Commission voted 6-0 to continue their hearing on the 2010 draft LA Bike Plan until December 16th.  In a marathon session, with the Bike Plan alone taking up nearly 4 hours, the LA bicycling community still managed to turn out a large and vocal contingent to make their views heard.  Many different opinions were voiced and much ground was covered.

Topics ranged from EIR standards to the Backbone Network to the 5 Year Funding Strategy to Bicycle Friendly Streets to the culture of City departments to mountain bikes in City parks to the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights to staffing and documentation concerns; discussion covered the variegated landscape of what LA’s bicyclists hold most dear.

While the commissioners were generally positive about the Bike Plan (in closing statements, the audience was told “[it’s] a plan we like very much” and “we’re almost there”), they voted to continue the hearing on the plan until December 16th.  In the meantime, staff will work out the specifics of recent amendments and the Planning Commission will form a sub-committee to work with City staff to make sure their concerns are addressed prior to the next Planning Commission meeting.  A lot of the speakers voiced very valid concerns, and we’re glad that staff is going to be able to better address them before the next meeting of the Planning Commission.  The end result of the Planning Commission meeting is that we’ll have a better bike plan when this process is all over, and it’s hard to take issue with that.

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Fat Tire Fest October 17th! LADOT Bike Blog interviews CORBA

LADOT Bike Blog had the pleasure of sitting down with Steve Messer, a member of CORBA’s board of directors, on the rainy Wednesday morning before CicLAvia. CORBA, the Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association, is holding their largest fundraiser of the year this weekend On Sunday October 17th CORBA will host the Fat Tire Fest at the Lake Castaic State Recreation Area. We talk with Steve about the Fat Tire Fest, CORBA’s mission and activities, their response to the 2010 LA Bike Plan and more, below the fold.

Come to the Fat Tire Fest this Sunday!

CORBA’s Biggest Fundraiser

CORBA, an all-volunteer organization, uses the annual Fat Tire Fest as their largest fundraiser of the year. The festival itself will also be run entirely by volunteers, donating their time simply for their love of off-road bicycling and their desire to support the good work CORBA does.

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