I'm sure at least someone is wondering why I broke yesterday's Transportation Committee meeting into two different stories on Streetsblog, one on the Ballona Creek Issue and one on the rest of the meeting.
Well, here's the deal. Yesterday was a great day for bike advocacy in the city. A group of City Councilpeople were near unanimous (again, it's hard to tell how Parks felt because he wasn't engaged until the very end when he spoke forcefully for better amenities around USC) that the city needs to do better for bikes. Sharrows, a better BMP, better bus access...all of these are good issues that the Council addressed, and a lot of people worked very hard to make yesterday happen. They deserve a moment in the sun and Councilmember Bill Rosendahl deserves a measure of praise despite his support of closing that Ballona Creek gate.
Nevertheless, the committee's decision to embrace the LAPD's request to close the gate deserves coverage on it's own. Sounding like a helmut-wearing velo-advocate Richard Alarcon rose to defend free access to a public space and for that he deserves kudos.
So kudos to the Council for embracing bikes yesterday, but all that being said we have a lot of work to do. I think the two stories each make that point in their own way.
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