Metro’s bicycle brain trust

Bikes now have more room on rail cars, thanks to Metro's Bicycle Roundtable.

There was once a time, not long ago, when bicyclists weren’t much more than a squeaky wheel to Metro—and not in a good way.

What a difference four years makes.

On February 19, 2010, the cycling community got a seat at the transit table when Metro hosted its first Bicycle Roundtable meeting.

It was the beginning of an important collaboration—one that would lead to some major improvements for cyclists within the Metro system. But you wouldn’t have known it from the rocky start of the process, as cyclists started engaging warily with a government agency that hadn’t always been so welcoming.

“They distrusted us and were very assertive about issues we needed to address and policies we needed to embrace,” said Diego Cardoso, Metro’s executive officer in charge of the bicycle and pedestrian program. “Those were the days when Metro was transitioning as an agency in terms of mobility and bicycling in L.A. County.”

Intended as a forum for bike advocates to exchange ideas with the transit agency, the meetings grew out of a rising tide of vocal cycling activism. “The bicycle community was demanding in terms of getting Metro, cities and the county to deal with issues of how to improve mobility for bicycles,” Cardoso said. “We said ‘Well, let’s bring them together.’ ”

Though contentious at first, the discussions soon evolved in ways that have helped shape the emergence of cycling as a major mode of transportation in the county.

One of the earliest results was the end of a ban that kept bikes off trains during peak periods of travel. What’s more, the agency has even removed seats from rail cars to clear more room for cyclists to bring their rides aboard. And Metro has more than doubled the share that bicycles get in its competitive Call for Projects program, which funds local initiatives with regional significance. (Cycling programs now get 15% of the pot, which in the last cycle totaled $199.4 million.)

The collaboration also has led to new public education programs promoting safety. The highly visible “Every Lane is a Bike Lane” campaign grew out of roundtable discussions, and last summer, Metro launched bicycle safety classes taught by advocacy groups that attend the meetings.

On the political side of things, Metro’s Board of Directors has provided support as well, officially recognizing bicycling as an official “mode of transportation,” putting it on equal footing with motorized travel.

Next up: bike-sharing.

“Bike share is a good example where they basically asked ‘What do you think?’”  said Eric Bruins, director of policy and planning for the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition. “Feedback from the roundtable was very clear—there should be one regional vendor and we want to see a strong leadership role from Metro.”

The agency, spurred by a  motion by Mayor Eric Garcetti, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and others, stepped in after the city of L.A.’s bike share program foundered and took the lead in creating a county-wide bike sharing plan. In December, Metro’s board expanded the agency’s role, directing it to fund the plan by teaming up with local jurisdictions.

An update on the bike share project’s progress—including input from the roundtable group—is scheduled to come before Metro’s board in April. According to Cardoso, the agency is in the process of contracting with an outside company to help implement the program, with Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Pasadena serving as pilot cities.

Another upcoming project aims to build five new “bike hubs,” structures that will offer secure parking, repairs and other resources, at major public transportation hotspots. The first one, at El Monte Station, will open later this year. Other hubs are planned for Union Station, Culver City Expo Line Station and two Red Line stations—Hollywood/Vine and North Hollywood.

The roundtable’s most recent meeting earlier this month drew a mix of cycling aficionados, staff from government agencies and  the offices of elected officials and even a couple of unaffiliated members of the public. Attendees came from all over: Santa Monica, Montebello, even Orange County.

One regular participant, Dennis Hindman, 61, of Toluca Lake, said he’d like to see more folks from the public take part in helping the agency get more of a grassroots perspective. “It gives you the insight of actual experience,” he said. “You may have missed something from a practical standpoint that just won’t work in real life.”

Miguel Ramos, a volunteer for Multicultural Communities for Mobility, was attending for the first time. Ramos’ mission is to promote inclusion of all of the region’s diverse communities in bicycle projects—something he said is simply “not happening in low income communities” nationwide.

“These communities already have a growing bicycle culture,” Ramos said. “It’s about recognizing that fact and allowing their voices to be heard.” To achieve that, he said, Metro must increase outreach in multiple languages.

For his part, Bruins of the Bicycle Coalition said he would like to see a higher level of participation by a broader range of Metro staffers.

“Metro has many departments,” Bruins said. “We’d like to see other departments come to the bike roundtable because it’s really that exchange of ideas that’s helpful. The folks that are designing the next set of light rail vehicles came and presented designs of how bikes can be stored on board. Those are great discussions because they allow departments that don’t usually deal with the bike community to interface with us.”

Even today, bicyclists and the agency don’t always see eye-to-eye. Many cyclists are pushing for the installation in rail stations of “bike channels”—deep grooves next to stairways to make it easier for bikes to get up and down. That, however, would be expensive, and retrofitting existing stations with the channels would be even costlier, said Laura Cornejo, who oversees Metro’s Active Transportation Program and has led the past two roundtable discussions.

“Advocates are pushing for Metro to do more and be a little more aggressive,” Cornejo said, “but we have to be strategic and take baby steps to get to the final destination.”

But, she added, the days of bicycles as an afterthought in L.A. are long gone.

“All the trends point to bicycling growing,” Cornejo said. “We’ve seen it on rail, where bicycle boarding has increased about 40% in just one year. I don’t see the trend reversing or slowing.”

Metro's Diego Cardoso, second from left, with team for roundtable-inspired safety campaign.

Posted 2/25/14