The Westside Urban Forum is inviting to an event entitled: Which Way UCLA and VA: Friday Sep 18, 2009 7:00 AM, Regency Club, corner of Westwood and Wilshire.
7:00 AM is early, very early, but it is important, and de rigueur for every cyclist who has fought his way through the car-filed cemetery which surrounds UCLA, especially to the West. Panelists include our own Chancellor Gene Block, the Hon. Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County Supervisor, and Ronald Norby, VA Healthcare Network. Moderator Cindy Miscikowski, President of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners & former Member Los Angeles City Council.
Come ye all you urban planners and cyclists, and let us find out if the developers and politicians have woken up to the call of the bicycle. And if the bicycle bell is still in your pocket from last night's council meeting, leave it there, it may come in handy. Bring money too, allow $ 10 surcharge if you wait to register after the 15th, because there is a ticket requirement, but Parsons Brinckerhoff seems to subsidize student membership. And who is going to stay quiet just because of $ 15 (student non-members). Perhaps the UCLA Urban Planning has a fund for this?
The issues from saddle and handlebar:
The Westwood / Brentwood bicycle dis-connection called 405
The Hallowed Ground Land Grab: Why do cyclists need to risk their lives on Wilshire when a path across the cemetery is simple and easy. Let's have a discussion if endangering and discouraging cyclist (and re-routing the subway to the sea?) is the appropriate and best way to pay honor to those who are honored there. Clearly, given all its benefits, the bicycle is the most patriotic form of transportation, and both the VA and the National Cemetery could do more to welcome it
Does Nothing: Unfilled promises of the UCLA Bicycle Masterplan which requires improvements of bicycle access routes to UCLA
Who Killed the West LA Veloway: A Grand Dream (image above) from the early 1980ies, pursued with much local support, including employing a planner to work on it
The Los Angeles Country Club: Miles of rolling hills for the golfers, but not even a few feet for a decent cycle path?
(Of course, some of this has been said before by the so-called The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (pseud.) and his rather angry booklet)