Bicycle Fixation Weblog
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03/17/2010: "One More Step for 4th Street"
Last night, we sent fully half of the Bicycle Fixation staff (ie, me) to a meeting of the Mid City West Community Council Transportation Committee, the idea being to beg a letter of support from the council for the LACBC's 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard project.Pleased to report that the committee approved our request for a letter of support, and will present their resolution to the full council in three weeks at the next meeting.
Then, once the mills of neighborhood committeedom have ground, we will present the case to the various city committees involved (as LACBC has been doing for many months), with letters from various "stakeholders" showing that pretty nearly everybody thinks that a complete streets/bicycle bouelvard treatment is just a dandy idea for 4th Street.
And once those mills have ground, maybe, just maybe, we'll see some smooth pavement, diversion planters, and so forth established along 4th, making the street an effective and attractive bicycle highway for commuters as well as a usable community space for residents and visitors to the various neighborhoods it traverses.
Streets traditionally have been community spaces, and in the most prosperous and humane countries they still are; it's only the recent mad addiction to private autos and hurry as a sacrament that turned them into nothing more than sluiceways for rushing cars.
This will be a good first step to re-establishing the secondary street network of Los Angeles as a place where humanity can flower--and to establishing a human-powered transportation modality that can better everything from personal health to neighborhood security to the condition of the very planet that we live on--all for the cost of a bit of repaving, a few carefully placed planters, and some paint.
