Bicycling in Los Angeles, a newbie biker and veteran driver's perspective

Bicycle master plans have been alive and kicking into high gear in 2010 all over the greater Los Angeles Metro area. 

The City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Burbank, Hermosa Beach, Culver City, and Long Beach have all proposed or revised bike plans in just the past few months. 

With an average of 320 sunny days a year and mostly flat terrain, LA should be a bicyclists paradise, but it's no secret that its 4,850 square miles have been the domain of the car.

Bike plans contain a vision for bike improvements a city government will add in its future.  Bike improvements include bicycle lanes on streets, dedicated bicycle paths along waterways and railroad tracks, and bicycle racks at certain parking at certain areas.

Such far-ranging improvements seek to solidify biking as a safe and reasonable transportation option in and around Los Angeles. 

Important to the realization of a master plan's goals and the eventual growth of bicycling, yet often ignored is the opinion of the actual beginning cyclist and the motorist.

How hard is it to get into biking in LA, a metropolitan area dominated by car-driving?  I explore with my perspective as a veteran Angeleno driver and relatively new cyclist.

Perspective:  Bicycling in LA was very difficult to get into

I won't forget all the obstacles I went through just to get myself biking around Los Angeles.

I only started bicycling just last summer in August, but I've learned rapidly because of one very close friend.  However, I had been driving since I was in high school, at a school where driving a car for very long commutes was the norm and a sign of freedom.  There was one bicyclist, a French teacher from France or something.  I attributed his biking habit to him being French, therefore different, and as something of an anomaly.

The last time I tried biking in LA was in college, almost over 7 years ago.

Back in 2003, I got a grimy 50-lb used Mountain bike for $200. I got a flat tire, but did not know where to get it fixed except at the original place of purchase. I eventually spent $25 to get one flat tire fixed.

I used it only to bike to my school's library.  A few months later, it got stolen. So temporarily concluded my attempts at impact-free, muscle-powered transportation.

After college finished 3 years later, I knew I'd wanted to get into it again, but there were a few things holding me back from biking.

1) What held me back was not only a lack of confidence in my biking ability, but also poor bike infrastructure.

Having not picked up a bike since college, I was increasingly less confident in my bike riding abilities.  I felt like I was going to be my usual clumsy self, and get into accidents, especially if I was just going to use sidewalks.

I was also not too confident in the city's bicycle lanes.  Someone could hit me while opening their car door.

Worse than the narrowness of the bike lanes was just not having bike lanes at all.  I knew these bike lanes would also randomly end, leaving a bicyclist only one option:  fight with cars for lanes.  That was my #1 worst nightmare when biking.

Being fully acquainted with road rage as a long-time Angeleno driver, I knew that car drivers would probably honk, yell, or even bump me for getting in their way and holding up traffic.  LA drivers still don't expect bicyclists to be on the road, especially in the Valley.

The other worst nightmare was being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire.  I would have no idea of how fix the flat.  Even worse, I had very little idea of how to use LA's transit system to get back, or even how to put my bike on the bus if I could figure out where to go.

2) What also held me back was my unwillingness to get ripped off when doing bike-related transactions.

I imagined people rubbing their hands at another chance to rip off this novice bicyclist.

I wanted to get a really cheap bike, but not waste money on that horrible bike store again.  I knew that I wanted something durable, long-lasting, and able to get me places.

However, I did not know what that actually looked like.  I did not know the specifics of what I wanted in a bike. Forget brand names, I wasn't able to tell you the difference between a mountain bike and a road bike, or even a geared bike and a single-speed.

I did not know what was reliable information and my circle of friends could tell me very little.  The handful that were did not necessarily tell me anything, which brings me to my next point.

3) What also stopped me was being intimidated upon entry into the bike community.

The bicycling community is a bunch of people within relatively closed networks of friends.  The only people I saw on bikes were white so-called "hipsters", Lance Armstrong-types, and teenagers.  Of course those are not the only people who bike, but that's all I ever saw in Silver Lake.

I was intimidated that I didn't know what I was talking about when I first went to the Bike kitchen.  I was intimidated that they would laugh me out and rip me off.

The first time I went in, I just stood around watching people for about 5 minutes.  I knew that I wanted to build my own bike from scratch, my own project, but it was all unclear to me how this would work out.  They told me to wait on a list, so I signed up. 

After waiting for 30 minutes on the list, I left, only to have them call me 31 minutes later to tell me there was an open seat. 

I thought that missing the appointment was another sign that I was never meant to bike.

Bike lanes, midnight rides were not necessarily for me.  They were for young, hip people.  I was young alright, but I definitely wasn't hip.

4) What stopped me from investing in another bike was the threat of bike theft.

I didn't know exactly what kind of lock would keep my bike safe. There was just no use in investing in a bike if it was just going to get stolen again.

How I eventually got on a bike in LA

I eventually got broken into bicycling as a commuting option mainly because this past summer I met one close friend who is deeply entrenched in the bike community.

This individual helped me buy the bike that I currently own. I knew I wasn't going to get ripped off. With her help, I was able to test out a used bike on Craigslist for about $150. If she didn't ride it and personally appraise it, I would not have known the bike's various problems, and would have actually paid the asking price.

Within the first week, this same friend was already taking me on different rides throughout the city.  This scared the #2 out of me. However, I got used to it after a few rides.

With her around, I knew that I would not be stranded on the road. I learned how to fix flat tires and take the bus.

I would also not have to worry about my bike getting stolen.  She patiently showed me how to lock up my bike. 

Before long, I was speaking bike-speak at the infamous Bicycle Kitchen. 

Now that I understood a few things, I was even attending Bike plan meetings.

My friend was not the entire reason for my conversion to biking.  I had been plotting this all along.  However, without her, I wouldn't be writing this article today.

Making bicycling easier for everyone in LA

If all the little things prevented me, an eager and willing-bicyclist, from biking, I can only imagine the obstacles that prevent ordinary Angelenos from even entertaining the thought.

While bicycling to a destination is now quite normal for me and pockets of other Angelenos, it is still not something ordinary Angelenos do or at least feel like they can do.

If bicycling is to be taken as a serious solution for people's transportation needs in LA, ordinary people need to be able to feel that biking in the city is normal and that they themselves could bike.

This means that bicyclists should not have to think so hard or worry obssessively about their safety while biking. 

Whether I am biking through the Valley or in Los Angeles proper now even as an avid bicyclist, I have to think way too much about my safety. Racing through my thoughts as I pass under a bridge on Woodman Avenue in the Valley, one thing always barrages my thinking: is the car-driver in the back going to honk at me?  That, in addition to constant worrying that I won't get a flat tire, that my brakes won't undo themselves, or that my chain won't fall off the wheel.  

In sharp contrast, when you have driven for years, you don't have to think too much at all about the fact that you are driving.  You don't have to worry about getting hit and suffering bodily injuries. You don't have to worry about getting a flat tire and having to fix it all by yourself.  You don't have to worry about getting stranded because you have your AAA card and a bunch of gas stations at the very least to help you out with any car-related worries you might have.  

The key question that the establishment of bicycle infrastructure through bike plans should address is how to help bikers worry less.

Solutions to making bicycling easier for everyone

1)  Obvious signage and wider bicycle lanes to make drivers expect bicyclists.

One purpose of added bicycle infrastructure should be to make motorists expect cyclists to be on the road. 

Many drivers in LA don't think that bicyclists should even be on the road.  Legally, the road is where bicyclists are supposed to be. 

Larger, obvious "Share the Road" signs should make motorists accept the reality that bicyclists will be on a road near you. 

As a motorist who had been reading the ever-popular Streetsblog, the source of choice for all things transportation and bike related, I still had very little idea of what  the various bikeway improvements meant.  I did not have any idea what "sharrows" were as my car would run over them.  I could only stare in confusion when confronted by a green "bike route" sign. 

The only thing that caught my attention was a quadratic golden "Share the Road" and a bicycle on it.

Better enforcement of traffic laws by police is going to do little to help me, except until after the fact when someone has already yelled and/or harrassed me. 

I'd rather be safe during my actual bike ride.

2)  Supportive infrastructure helping people fix bike problems along their merry way, similar to gas stations and AAA

Almost anyone can drive without knowing how to fix their car.  They don't necessarily need to be into cars or engine maintenance.  However, when you bike, you're expected to know fix your own bike, like you were born with a pedal on your feet.  You're expected to love biking, and everything that pertains to it.

If you don't need to be an expert in cars or even have any interest to drive out of convenience, then perhaps you shouldn't need to be an expert in bikes or even have any interest in bikes to bike out of convenience.

This begins by fostering the same supportive infrastructure and networks current available to every motorist whim.

To make it easy for bicyclists who don't wish to become insta-mechanics, there should be be a supportive AAA-like infrastructure for bikes along their routes.  Bike pumps, and selling parts at gas stations would really help towards bike maintenance and perhaps also play into motorist visibility of bicycles in LA.  It would also help if cyclists could call a hotline that picks up stranded bicyclists and/or helps them fix their bike. 

3)  Friends need to help friends get on bikes.

Last but not least, people already within bicycling circles and communities could make biking easier for everyone if they just outreached to people within their networks, and other communities.

I got extremely lucky meeting my friend, who in one fell swoop, de-mystified the entire world of bike commuting in Los Angeles.  However, not everyone is so fortunate.  Not everyone will have an "in" into the community, or the knowledge required to ride or maintain a bike.

Educational programs such as the City of Lights with the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition is one example of a program making efforts to integrate current riders into a larger biking community.  They have opened up a bike repair space, styled after the Bicycle Kitchen called "Bicidigna" catered to low-income Latino day laborers. 

Just very recently, they released a biking resource guide, available to Spanish-speakers.  Click here for Link to Spanish Resource Guide