At least 36 cyclists were killed in Los Angeles county in 2019. Photograph: Alamy
Poor infrastructure makes LA one of the most difficult US cities to bike in. Cyclists hope the pandemic will change that
With year-round perfect riding weather and a topography that allows both bike commuters to enjoy pedaling without too much strain and experienced riders to explore the nearby mountains and hills,
Los Angeles in many ways is a cyclists’ paradise.
But the city’s cycling reputation is tempered by the fact that it is one of the most vexing, difficult and downright dangerous cities in the United States to ride a bike in.
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“The weather here is so perfect that you really don’t need a car to shelter like you do in other parts of the country,” said Phil Gaimon, a former professional cyclist turned author and YouTube star. “But LA is also the shyttiest city in the most beautiful part of the world.”
At least 36 cyclists were killed in Los Angeles county in 2019, according to statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), accounting for about a third of all cycling deaths in
California that year. Just last month Branden Finely, 46, was killed while riding his bike through downtown, struck by the driver of a stolen pick-up truck weaving in and out of traffic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has added impetus for the region to improve in its cycling infrastructure. Photograph: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images
In 2018, Bicycling Magazine gave LA the ignominious title of
“worst bike city in America” because of the hazards posed to cyclists by distracted drivers, the terrible shape of most streets, and the seeming willingness of local officials to pay out millions of dollars in lawsuits rather than address the infrastructure needs that could make LA a safer place to bike.
“In terms of infrastructure for cyclists, let’s just say that my organization isn’t going to be out of business anytime soon,” Eli Kaufman, the executive director of the Los Angeles county Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), said. “It just hasn’t been a priority given all of the other intractable issues that the city and county have to deal with.”
But the Covid-19 pandemic has added impetus for the region to improve its cycling infrastructure, as bike sales boom and more people hit the streets to escape being stuck at home and to get some exercise with gyms mostly shuttered. “We have to build a culture that will demand the changes the city needs and with more people getting on bikes now that is becoming a reality,” Kaufman said.
Arguably more than any other city in the US, Los Angeles is a product of the automobile, its freeways and multilane boulevards – the 101, the 405, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood Blvd – embedded in the American psyche.
That strongly rooted car culture, paired with limited public transportation options, has only strengthened most Angelenos’ reliance on cars, and made advocating for alternative transportation modes an uphill battle.
“Doing away with the car culture here in Los Angeles is a lot like trying to do away with the electoral college, it’s not going to happen,” said Stefan Mayer, a cyclist in Los Angeles since 1980 and a coach at the Encino Velodrome in the San Fernando Valley.
The poor shape of LA streets has forced the city to dole out millions of dollars in the last decade to injured cyclists. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
That attitude has been reflected in the courts as well. Take the case of prominent entertainment attorney Milton Olin, who was killed in 2013 when a Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputy struck him with his car on Mulholland Drive. Despite the revelation that deputy Andrew Wood had been texting his wife at the time of the accident, the district attorney’s office declined to pursue criminal charges against him. Olin’s family was eventually awarded $11.75m in a civil settlement with the county.
“The district attorney just refused to prosecute the cop [who] killed Milt,” said Mayer, who knew Olin both professionally and personally for over 30 years.
Cars aren’t the only things killing cyclists. Sometimes it’s the roads themselves.
Despite numerous cities in Los Angeles county raising their sales taxes twice in the last 15 years in order to improve road conditions, and voters passing a gas tax in 2017 to do the same statewide, LA, and California as a whole, have some of the worst public streets in the nation.
Over 46% of urban roads in California are rated as being in poor condition, according to the Federal Highway Administration. That number jumps to over 62% when accounting for only the roads in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim metropolitan areas, data compiled by
the automotive website Copilot found.
The poor shape of streets in Los Angeles has forced the city to dole out millions of dollars in the last decade to cyclists severely injured by the shoddy road conditions.
Los Angeles has some of the worst public streets in the nation. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
In 2017, the city paid $7.5m to a man left quadriplegic after he crashed on a stretch of road where the pavement had buckled because of tree roots. That same year it gave $6.5m to a cyclist who suffered a traumatic brain injury after hitting a massive pothole on his bike, and another $4.5m to the family of a rider killed after he hit a 2in ridge in the pavement.
“Right now, the bike infrastructure in Los Angeles is woefully inadequate,” Kaufman said. “We’re not doing a systemwide approach, so you end up with these bike lanes that just end. They’re bike lanes to nowhere.”
City officials in Los Angeles agree there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to making the city more bike-friendly, and acknowledge that the cycling horror stories occur too frequently. Local officials appear to be at least willing to give lip service to cyclists’ concerns and have argued that riding a bike in LA has vastly improved in recent years.
In 2015, the Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti, announced the Vision Zero plan, which aimed (but failed) to reduce cycling fatalities by 20% by the end of 2017 and see zero deaths on city roads by 2025. The city’s 2035 Mobility Plan hopes to add to an existing bike infrastructure plan and link up a network of fully separated and protected bicycle lanes and paths.
Last year, the city added or made safety upgrades to more than 61 miles of bike lanes – more than doubling the improvements it made in 2019, according to LADOT. And as part of LA’s Green New Deal, the city plans to increase the percentage of all trips made by walking, cycling, micro-mobility, matched rides, or public transit to at least 35% by 2025 and to 50% by 2035.
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