Book Review: Strategic Plan

The email from Scott Waugh arrived yesterday. The executive vice chancellor asked us to look at the strategic plan for UCLA, the recommendations for the same to be precise. And so we did.

The process falls into five sections, each with a committee and a substantial report, and plenty of recommendations. I started with the section on Civic Engagement.  H-i-g-h-l-y   r-e-c-o-m-m-e-n-d-e-d.  V-e-r-y.  It is an extended meditation on the Chancellor's demand that UCLA must make a difference in the civic life of Los Angeles. The report reminds us how the other team in LA  has achieved an admirable track record on neighborhood engagement, while the community programs UCLA had initiated after the LA riots were silently dropped after a few years. The report contains some very clear language about a confusing and inefficient hierarchy, especially surrounding the so-called Office for Community and Government Relations, which, for the bicycle advocate, always felt deeply conflicted and ineffectual. The report suggest a new position of a Vice Chancellor for Community Engagement who would have the resources and the authority to facilitate the much needed connection between the campus and the community. The report envisions community relations that are bi-lateral, a constant give-and-take, and never top-down. It gives short shrift to the arrogance of academia that would consider itself as the bringer of all things nice to the community which does not know what it needs. It also highlights the unique responsibility of UCLA, being the only elite public university which is located smack in the middle of a global megalopolis. Bingo. Let's run with this!

Mind you, all this lofty talk is not goody-two-shoes stuff: The back-end is made of hard-boiled marketing considerations, brand surveys, and the need to shore up political support for public education. The ivory tower campus is no longer a viable proposition in an American city and an American society that needs a great deal of urgent fixing. There is talk of integrating disparate initiatives, of formally acknowledging student and staff involvement in such initiatives, and the interdisciplinary challenges posed by realities that do not neatly fall into disciplinary terrains. Like the bicycle which challenges the co-operation of urban planning, public health, sustainability, diabetes prevention, transport engineering and behavioral psychology.  

Thanks, folks! From the handle-bar of our bikes we have identified very much the same shortcomings in the current strategic engagement and in the organization chart of our campus. But our short proposal, long proposal goes further. Because the bicycle is the unacknowledged purveyor of healthy living, our proposal had a closer look at UCLA Health, the big bear on our campus . Yes, there are many many many doctors and nurses in the system who do what they can to fix what they can. Imagine what they could achieve with the support from the top as envisioned here!

One report does not list the people which make up its committee, but from the available composition of the committees, we are hearing a whole lot of silence from one entire half of the campus. The bigger half, mind you. UCLA Health, previously known as the UCLA Health System, is hard to find here. Paul Staton, their Chief Financial Officer, is listed as a member of the committee on Institutional Effectiveness. And there are faculty from the Medical School participating. But reading through those reports, it is evident that UCLA Health is boxing far below its real weight. The missing voice of a major health care provider in the region marks a worrisome disconnection. Perhaps Mrs Spisso, President of UCLA Health, should look into this. Or is there a secret plan for the UCLA Health to opt out from the community engagement vision outlined here? To be sure, the bi-annual accounting exercise called "Community Health Needs Assessment", required by the IRS to secure the tax-exempt status of the hospital, is miles, light-years behind the strategic vision of how the campus should make a difference in the civic life of Los Angeles.

Managerial formulas will not make a difference in the civic life of LA

The "Healthy Behaviors" project, presented as part of the Research Innovation section, is a superb example how campus and community can come together. It includes a reference to an entity called "UCLA Medical Center" (p 13), which is the 520 bed hospital located on campus. But it fails to note the staggering opportunities of community outreach afforded by the network of 160 plus UCLA Health medical offices located in the LA County, - even if the locations of these offices precisely mirror the map of affluence in our region. "Healthy Behaviors" has evidently been written without the benefit of engaged feedback from UCLA Health. The uncanny silence from UCLA Health threatens to derail this very laudable effort. There must be no opt-out from making a difference in the civic life of Los Angeles.

Thanks, fellow Bruins! Great work! But why was all this good stuff kept in a drawer since July? Yes to more institutional agility. Improving access to campus for those who would not drive has suddenly become much easier, and it should have been easier 6 months ago. 

• When presenting community partnerships, try to avoid the false impression that UCLA is located in the city of Los Angeles. Those on two wheels learn very quickly that UCLA is located in a complex network of municipalities, districts and agencies, from Beverly Hills to the Veterans Administration, from Santa Monica to Culver City, from LA County to CD5, from West Hollywood to the National Cemetery Administration. The problems associated with this regional complexity are addressed in our short proposal, long proposal 
• When talking about housing, environmental justice, education, please do include transportation
• And thank you for envisioning DTUCLA close to a station of the purple line. These details do count! 

UCLA in Downtown: Campus and city agree: Best to ignore the scandalous bicycle infrastructure around UCLA

Provision for those who would walk or ride a bike to UCLA is, well, bad. Scandalously bad. It would be a nice project to quantify the damage done to the environment and the health of our communities by those planning decisions in the region around UCLA that have favored cars and ignored sustainable modes. But even before these figures are on the table, one would expect that the conversations between campus and elected officials during the annual UCLA in Downtown event would touch on the need to improve non-motorized access to campus. Not so. Campus and city agree: Best to ignore the scandalous bicycle infrastructure around UCLA.

To make up for this omission, we have attended the evening reception UCLA Day in Downtown LA at LA City Hall. An impressive building, a beautiful evening. We handed out some reminders to those who forget (and forget yet again) all about the surprising benefits of non-motorized transportation. Here is the batch of custom colored bicycle badges for the occasion.

custom colored bicycle badges

One lady would not touch our offering, she apparently fell from a bike as a child. But many attendees proudly displayed our bike badges as the evening progressed. One alumni remembered his father in law who had a bike shop, the other had his fiancee who is a keen cyclists. Still another arrived on a bicycle. The servers transmitted urgent demands from the kitchen where the badges were in high demand. They all supported the idea that a world class university which promotes an agenda that challenges itself to make a real difference in the local community can ill afford to stay silent on the benefits of bikes. Specially when talking to elected officials and planners.

Alumni

Chancellor Gene Block

Chancellor Gene Block

Paul Koretz

Alumni

We also brought a few playing cards.

But not the standard Bicycle Cards®. Our cards are specialized bicycle advocacy cards, cheat sheets with some of the questions that deserve attention when thinking about the place of UCLA in its community.
Our cards were ♠ spades ♠ only, because ♠ spades ♠ is what it takes to get bike lanes built.

Finally, for the latter part of the proceedings, when the assembly honored its advocates, we found a few bicycle bells in the our advocacy tool box. They rang out happily when the audience applauded, reminding all, yet again, that a campus that fails to get involved with healthy and sustainable modes of transportation is a poor campus indeed.

Sustainable Transportation around UCLA: The way forward after the I-405 Widening

Below is the text we have shared with the members of the Westside Council of Governments, which is meeting early October to discuss the Westside Mobility Study Update.

The arrival of the Purple Line and the Olympic Village at UCLA offer important opportunities to improve transportation, environment and public health in the region around UCLA. The UCLA Bicycle Academy sees the need for a nimble regional entity which works closely with the campus and can better support those who would get around without a car. A complex network of overlapping authorities, sometimes called a "bureaucratic quagmire", has made it very difficult to improve connectivity for sustainable modes. The COG itself helps to overcome these barriers, but we would like to see a more dedicated focus on healthy and sustainable modes in the region around UCLA. The campus would play an important role in this effort. It creates most trips in the region, including some 50.000 weekly ride-share trips to campus. UCLA also has a track record of supporting healthy ways of getting around. The expertise among its administrators and faculty should become part of a long-term program to improve transportation options in the region. We ask the COG to investigate if such a round table would improve its ability to deliver improvements for active and healthy modes.

The Background:
The I-405 widening project had a singular focus: Adding more car lanes. It failed to follow the Complete Streets Policy Caltrans adopted in 2008. Today, the interstate has become a massive barrier between Westwood and Brentwood, severing UCLA from its hinterland, forcing people use the car for very  short distances. Sepulveda Blvd mocks us with a cruel grin that lacks sidewalks and bike lanes. Nobody represented future residents on the VA property who want to walk or wheelchair to Westwood away from the dangerous roar of a sea of fast cars. Residents are eager to do the right thing for the environment and for their health. But those soaring ramps and bridges which cross Wilshire so elegantly have become the Arc de Triomphe of Motordom, a stark reminder of what happens when traffic planning ignores the needs of those who would get around without a car.

The way forward: 
We envision an entity which can refresh bike markings across administrative borders, trim hedges without a long waiting period and has funding to implement non-controversial improvements fast. It would also offer a mechanism for walkers and riders, the real experts on our street, to give feedback and call for small improvements. Overlapping authorities need to work together in the long term to make walking and cycling more attractive in the area around UCLA. After 1.6 billion dollars have purchased our cars a few more lanes across the Sepulveda path, now it is time to facilitate a well coordinated regional effort supporting sustainable modes. Funding for such a regional forum could come from Measure M. It should also be able to apply for 3rd party funding for regional non-motorized improvements around UCLA. We believe that such a forum would be able to remedy the negative consequences of the I-405 widening in the region around UCLA.

This is a pretty comprehensive ask. We want to see UCLA play a more significant role in transportation planning in the area. We also want to see a streamlined process for minor maintenance and safety improvements. We also want to see new funding for demonstration projects, for safety studies or for workshops to develop new ideas to support and encourage healthy and sustainable modes in the region around UCLA. The COG is an appropriate forum for such projects, because it ensures the co-ordination and collaboration between jurisdictions. If the COG becomes convinced that the I-405 has become a massive barrier for pedestrians in the region, then it would be only natural for them to reach out to the Rep Ted Lieu and ask him to raise the issue in Washington. Then we could see a path forward to remedy the negative impacts of the I-405 widening and get our region back on the path towards healthy and sustainable transportation. 

Bring on the Experts: Bicycles: Yielding (AB 1103) for more health and cleaner air

California is a big deal. Just behind the US, China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, our state is the sixth largest economy in the world. They do a lot of driving here in California, 327 770 million miles to be precise. All this driving is a big problem for air quality, and for communities which are hurt by traffic. Moreover, all those cars discourage and prevent people from using active and healthy modes like the bicycle.

Traffic planning has facilitated and encouraged cars for more than 100 years. Little wonder that those who want to use active modes, for their own health or for the health of the environment, confront plenty of hurdles and barriers. Plenty of them! On Westwood Blvd and elsewhere.

But now the law-makers in Sacramento have come out with a new plan. It is called AB 1103 Bicycles: Yielding. On February 17, 2017 Assembly Members Obernolte and Ting, supported by Senator Wiener, Assembly Members Bloom, Chávez, and Kiley (@JayObernolte @PhilTing @Scott_Wiener @RichardBloom @AsmRocky @KevinKileyCA) introduced a proposal for a bill which would bring the so-called Idaho-Stop to California. It would allow those who are riding a bicycle to treat a stop sign as a yield sign. The proposal states:

A person operating a bicycle approaching a stop sign, after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection [...], may cautiously make a turn or proceed through the intersection without stopping. However, if required for safety, the person shall stop before entering the intersection, and may proceed after yielding the right-of-way.

When the law was introduced in Idaho in 1982, it was shown to reduce collisions involving people on bikes. It is not a provision to blow through stop signs. It is an arrangement that takes into account the 360% visibility enjoyed by the person on the bike, and the ability to hear approaching vehicles. There are no A-pillars or windows on the bike. The law also takes into account that, compared with a motor vehicle, the bicycle poses much less of a danger to other road users. It would also end the annoying intersection confusion that often occurs when a cyclist comes to a full stop, finds himself waved through, but then needs to co-ordinate with drivers from other directions. 

I have a dozen of these signs on my own commute to UCLA. As an occasional unicyclist, I have mastered the art of trackstand to the degree that I can do red lights and stop signs without putting my feet on the ground, rolling back and forth slowly, regardless of wind and now also with onlookers. I will miss the opportunity of show off my tricks, but this law is not about me. 

It is about those Californians who would ride a bicycle but have been put off by a infrastructure which does not project safety, and by a legal system that does protect cycling. The law (and enforcement) fails vulnerable road users in many ways: It does not offer presumed liability, it fails to address the epidemic of hit and run collisions, and vehicle based enforcement by police remains structurally blind to the dangerous wave of distracted driving which we have to contend with when cycling. AB 1103 could be the moment when the legal system takes the most vulnerable road users out of the shadow. But the point of this proposal is not that it would legalize a widespread practice on the road, the real point is that it would and could encourage more people to try healthy and sustainable modes for the many short trips Californians drive. Aggrieved voices from behind a steering wheel feel this proposal gives those on a bike an unfair advantage: But the advantage of the California Yielding will be available to all drivers, they just need to get on a bike. 

Indeed, the true value of this law may well be the public discussion it will produce. This is a good discussion to have, to underline the urgency for more sustainable modes and less driving. When we bring this issue in front of 39 million Californians, each of whom is driving 14.000 miles a year, where more than 40% of all trips are less than 5 miles long, some insight may well occur, some lights my be switched on, and some drivers my venture outside their comfort zone and try how it feels to take advantage of the privilege California Yielding will afford to those heroes who pedal in traffic. 

Which brings us to the main question: How many lights will this proposal be able to switch on? How much enlightenment can a public discussion like this produce? Indeed, how many of the 327 770 million miles driven in California will be replaced by miles pedaled as a consequence of the law, and the simplification it offers for those who chose to do the right thing? How many more miles pedaled?

How will the public react? How much encouragement is in this new law? That then is the big question for the public health experts: Will AB 1103  yield 1 million, 2 million, or 20 million additional bike miles a year? Can we please urgently get a rough estimate from the experts? And would they be so kind to translate these additional miles cycled into air quality benefits, and translate them into health costs not incurred? How many premature lives not lost? And what would be the value, in  millions of  $, of carbon emissions avoided? What would be the value of health benefits achieved by these additional active modes? In millions of $ please. 

These figures are urgently required. They can help to structure the public discussion about the proposal. And they can teach even the most dedicated motorhead that there is real money to be gained from giving your people on bikes a legislative leg up.