Olga Yokoyama, Distinguished Professor at UCLA, has shared with us a letter written to UCLA Health CEO Mazziotta and laid out the arguments for doing more and doing it now. In her letter she speaks about her personal experience using a bicycle, and the obstacles she has faced in the past.
I made a lonely case whenever there was a bicycle parking problem, including the management at the Faculty Center, whom I told that the Faculty Center needs to have a bike rack near the entrance to prevent people like me from parking my bike next to a traffic sign across from the Faculty Center (and getting in trouble with campus police). It was a distinctly odd topic to bring up at the time, and the fact that it was a graying female faculty member raising it made it only more difficult for those addressed to respond.
This bike rack has now been planted and is well used, not least due to her insistance. She also refers to the "gray couple happily biking" that is used to advertise the UCLA Health System. She encourages him to lead a concerted effort to make such happy cycling a reality for more people and she concludes "I do feel optimistic about the world when I imagine Westwood full of pedestrians and bicyclists, with only an occasional car passing by."
A lot more needs to be done to make all the locations of UCLA Health in Los Angeles attractive for cyclists, and to provide programming and education for staff at the hospitals. The resources currently given to transportation services are too limited and the standards are not exactly professional. Close communication between the users, well trained experts, and the health providers, and transportation services is a must if the planning is to be done to the appropriate professional standards.
Thank you, Olga. Please let us know when you hear back from Dr Mazziotta.
Pattie Cuen Chief Marketing Officer UCLA Health System Dear Pattie Cuen, We have been in touch previously about a Community Health Program featured in Vital Signs. I was glad that you were able to schedule one presentation about the health benefits of cycling in 2011. The UCLA Bicycle Academy would now like to express our disappointment that you have not taken up a sponsorship request from Santa Monica regarding their bike-share system. We have been told that your office had been contacted repeatedly to consider if the UCLA Health logo should appear on 500 Breeze bikes which are now operating. As you know, UCLA Health operates a hospital and a large number of medical offices in Santa Monica. Your support for a public transportation system which has, according to CDC experts, significant health benefits, would seem an excellent fit, both regionally and because of your commitment to community health. Why were you not able to take advantage of this opportunity? Has there been some administrative barrier that prevented you from pursuing this? Has someone whispered something bad about bicycles? The corporate mission of UCLA Health is to increase market share among those who need medical help. But you also have a responsibility to enable the public to lead active and healthy lives with fewer visits to the doctor. Putting your brand onto bicycles advances this community benefit and connects your brand with a young and trendy audience who represent an urban, "car-light" lifestyle of the future. I know we are in agreement because of this memorable image, which so effectively presents the rejuvenating abilities of the bicycle.
It so happens that the City of Los Angeles is also planning to launch its own bike share system soon. They too are looking for a major sponsorship partner. I want to encourage you to reach out to them and work towards placing the stamp of an enlightened health provider on the most healthy mode of transportation. News today is that America's obesity problem is still growing, up from 34 % to 37%. This may sound like a economic opportunity for some in the health business. I hope you hear it as a different challenge: How could the UCLA Health brand support the active living arguments which flourish inside public health programs around the country, including the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, where you teach healthcare marketing. Please share with us the reasons why you declined the Breeze Bike request so that we can work towards removing such obstacles in the future. We have copied Dr Mazziotta because we are currently discussing with him a more rigorous approach about how UCLA Health sites can support and increase the numbers of those who do not drive. We believe marketing should play an important part in this conversation. Sincerely Dr Michael Cahn Secretary, UCLA Bicycle Academy
We had a short answer from Mazziotta, who writes: The UCLA Health System always wants to support activities that improve the health of the campus and the community that surrounds it. Your request to more effectively support sustainable and more healthy mobility would fall under that umbrella. That said, almost all of the items that you mention in the email correspond to traffic flow, bike lanes and bicycle storage in and around the campus. These activities are overseen and controlled by the campus rather than the Health System or the School of Medicine. As such, I will forward your comments and requests to the appropriate people at the campus level and have them respond accordingly.
Karwaski from UCLA Transportation followed up with a more substantial answer. It includes the memorable term "erosion of entropy", as in: "While this is admittedly a complex process involving multiple jurisdictions, the combined public relations value along with the real-world utility of having such a facility will erode any entropy within the various partners." He also warmly acknowledges of our own work.
I then tried to draw the campus architect into this discussion. Referring to the plans for a new UCLA Health office location in Reseda, I raised technical questions which the campus architect quickly, too quickly, referred back to UCLA Transportation.
I asked:
With reference to our correspondence with Dr Mazziotta, aimed to insure that the UCLA Health System offers safe, attractive and welcoming bicycle facilities at all its locations, I would like to ask how the project # 947785.01 referenced above will contribute to this goal.
I would like to know:
1) Do current procedures for this and similar tenant improvements include negotiations with the landlord aimed to increase the number of users and employees who will choose active and healthy means?
2) Which nationally recognized standards do you apply when establishing the amount, type and placement of bicycle facilities (eg ABPB?) at locations used by UCLA Health?
3) Does the absence, presence and quality of such facilities play a role in SCAQMD compliance?
4) When making changes that serve to attract a greater number of visitors without a car, it is good practice to put a $ value on the savings achieved for every car not parked. How have you calculated this value? Do you have a conflict of interest policy in place when weighing such savings against the income achieved through parking charges and valet parking services?
My sense is that both the Architect and the CEO of the Health System imagine that UCLA Transportation is doing a job which it really is not equipped to provide. Traditionally, UCLA Transportation was strictly limited to work on the Campus. The questions we raise are specifically off campus. Moreover, support for healthy modes is not only a question of putting a bike rack somewhere, - most likely next to the refuse bins. It is about programming, about base-lines, about education, about a change of culture when selecting, renting, refurbishing, using locations for UCLA Health System. To provide that kind of service for such a large entity with diverse regional premises, some big, some small, where none so far exhibit any traces of having had the benefit of a professional bicycle planner, is a daunting job. Creating a bicycle plan and implementing it over such a varied geography will surely take a number of years. It will take more than "Karwaski will fix it" to make the UCLA Health system a truly bicycle friendly employer.
UCLA Health has a very strong marketing team, who have given us the image of the senior cyclists who happily ride along the beach. That marketing team also looks to it that most of the buildings UCLA Health uses across town carry the trademark blue color of our campus. It would be nice if the same care and attention that is needed to create this consistent marketing message was applied to make these sites fit for a healthy cycling future. Like the UCLA blue, this process would offer a great public relations value, but more than that, it would also have real-world utility, offering healthy modes to the communities where UCLA Health works.
The UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative was a milestone. Our public health experts led the way. The campus commitment is significant. Applause. Applause. Applause. But UCLA Health, that part of UCLA which employs more than 50% of all UCLA employees, always seemed distant when UCLA Transportation worked hard to reduce car trips and support cyclists. The Tiverton Bike Route blocked by building work, Bicycle racks replaced by valet parking for cars, and off campus locations, well, we just don't know. It is time to find out what UCLA Health is really doing for healthy and sustainable modes on and off campus. It is time that the high standards of support for non-motorized modes developed by UCLA Transportation are applied to all sites where UCLA Health operates.
Hence our invitation to Dr Mazziotta, the Vice Chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences, the Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the CEO of the UCLA Health System.
Click on Image to view pdf
To prepare for the conversation with Dr Mazziotta, we need to hear from those who are involved with the medical schools and UCLA Health, be it student, staff, faculty or patient. Please point us to areas where small changes would have a big effect. Tell us about unsafe infrastructure, about a history of collisions, about administrative processes which discourage alternatives to cars use, and all the other malignant side-effects of that well ingrained notion that everybody drives a car in LA. The car-centric default is alive and well here, even though it leads to obesity, diabetes, asthma and cancer (evidence). Tell us how you were able to commute between UCLA and the VA hospital before 9/11, how that embarrassing Tiverton closure affects you or your colleagues. Are there questions which a public record request could answer? Are there conflicts of interest which make it difficult for UCLA Health to come on board with the bicycle turn?
Please come to our monthly meeting at noon on 5 November 2015 where we will prepare our dialogue with Dr Mazziotta. Please leave a comment on this page, email, tweet or share your thoughts on social media.
UCLA Health could be missing the train towards a better bike-able future. Even Cedars-Sinai tells you where to park your bike. Our health system is not "against"cyclists: They just don't own the problem that many not-yet-cyclists would choose healthy and sustainable modes if the right support and infrastructure was in place. That is what needs to change.
Lets try to give this big ship a slightly different direction: Back in 2006, the Bicycle Master Plan was virtually boycotted the largest unit (by $ and people) of UCLA: Not a single representative of UCLA Health is among the 67 names acknowledged on the first page. Things change late in 2014, when two deans of the Medical School, Linda Sarna and Eugene Washington, spoke out in support of bike lanes for Westwood. Mazziotta can build on this support and on the research in Public Health to bring his own houses and hospitals (6 hospitals and a large medical group) in order. As he unites the various leadership roles on the medical campus, now is a unique moment to move towards a Bicycle Master Plan for UCLA Health.
In the meantime, Noel, Physical Therapist at UCLA Rehabilitation, rides ahead with some sensible advice.
Taking your bicycle to North Campus, to Bunche Hall, to Public Affairs, Urban Planning, along Dodd Hall, to the Art History Library or to attend the meeting of the Bicycle Academy at Lu Valle Commons (BTW, our next meeting is on Thursday, 8 October 2015 at 12 noon at Lu Valle), a certain sense of guilt might accompany the cyclist. Guilt in the sense that the direct path up Portola Plaza is, legally speaking, wrong-way-cycling.
20 September 2015: Wrong Way: Do Not Enter Heavy duty signage, fit for an interstate off-ramp, red and loud and in duplicate
This sense of guilt or embarrassment also affects the UCLA cyclist insofar as he identifies with his campus but finds no shortage of cycling arrangements which could be improved. So many small steps are still needed to optimize our campus for those on bikes! One such small step has now been taken at Portola Plaza. If the signs on the ground don't deceive us, here the waiting is over soon. The ONE-WAY lettering on the ground has already been erased and the bicycle road marking has been painted precisely where the engineer has left his telltale instruction which resembles a pair of cherries. Contraflow Cycling is coming to UCLA: Guilt-free cycling up north Portola Plaza.
A palimpsest of road lettering: ONE WAY yields to contraflow (looking south)
A spray-painted "pair-of-cherries" bike marks the place for a fully fledged bicycle symbol
And here is a preview of the pieces still missing to mark a important step for UCLA cycling.
Our campus is a big and complex machine: two years went by between the proposal and the implementation of this new arrangement. Two graduation seasons have come and gone, but now Portola Plaza is ready. Contraflow Cycling exempts cycling traffic from "One-Way" and "No Entry" signage. The legalization of two-way cycling on one-way streets has been very successful in urban areas in Europe. In many cities (and across some entire countries: Belgium, France) it has become the default for all (all!) one-way streets.
A wider use of "No entranceexcept cyclists" or "Bikes OK" creates a slight advantage for people on bikes. It advertises a small privilege for those who choose sustainable modes for their journeys. It helps to tilt the traffic system a little bit towards healthy modes. The introduction of contraflow cycling at Portola Plaza also recognizes that it is very difficult to direct bicycle traffic here in the same way in which you can direct cars through a one-way system. People on bikes will always default to the shortest path, just as they will default to the path with the least gradient. Contraflow cycling has sometimes been associated with higher incidence of collisions, but where it has been properly evaluated, it actually seems to reduce the risk of traffic collisions.
The new arrangement helps to regularize an informal cycling practice that would be hard to enforce. The signage alerts drivers to the presence of bicycles, it shows that UCLA Transportation takes support for healthy modes seriously, it is not expensive, and it could become a precedent for similar arrangements in the wider LA region. Well done!
Phillip Bonacich (President) is emeritus professor of sociology with an interest in the economy of power in groups. He is a long time bicycle commuter and his daughter, Cory Caletti, is a senior transportation planner and bicycle program manager for the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. Phillip cycles from Mar Vista.
Michael Cahn (Secretary) has "invented" the Bicycle Academy in 2008. He occasionally teaches a class on the history of transportation for the history department. He is a former board member of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and previously served as secretary of the Cambridge Cycling Campaign. He runs a secondhand bookshop in Cambridge (UK). He cycles from Santa Monica.
Jack Katz (Director) is professor of sociology with an interest in video documentation of the interactions of cycling in urban traffic. He would like to work with others to evaluate local candidates for political office for their track record on cycling issues. He picked up a 20$ bike at a garage sale on the way back from the car repair place 15 years ago, and would never be without one since. In the morning, he puts the bike on the 20 / 720 bus near Koreatown, and enjoys the ride back from campus.
Michael Manville (Director) is a professor of Urban Planning at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. He rides to campus from West Hollywood. Lucky him, he says he has been able to avoid car commuting for most of the positions he has held in the past. He is an active participant in regional planning issues and contributes to legislative initiatives on housing and transport.
Suzanne Paulson (Director) is a professor of Atmospheric & Oceanic Science and at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She rides to campus from Sunset Park in Santa Monica on a quality steel bike. She has cycling company on her commute because her son Ry attends Geffen Academy on campus. He likes to use her panniers to transport his books to school.
Alex Purves (Director) is an Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA. She bicycles to campus from Santa Monica and also cycles with son to his elementary school. She is currently writing a book on Homer, who knew neither bicycles nor cars, but who did sing of the odd collision between chariots and pedestrians.
Daid Roy (Director) is a lecturer in School of the Arts and Architecture where he teaches Sculpture. Daid is active in the union and also teaches at Otis College. He rides from Leimert Park
David Williams (Director) is a professor of Ophthalmology and Neurobiology at UCLA. He does research and teaches on the retina, and would like to see more motorists using their retina to view the road rather than their smart phones. He cycles in Westwood, but prefers places where there are fewer motor vehicles.
Purpose and Membership
The purpose of the UCLA Bicycle Academy is to improve conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians at UCLA. The Academy will
* Advocate for bicyclists’ and pedestrians’ interest on UCLA facilities
* Work with the campus and agencies and communities surrounding the campus in order to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to campus.
* Host social and educational events with a focus on bicycle/pedestrian issues related to UCLA.
Membership is open to current or former staff or faculty or visiting scholars of UCLA. Partners and family members of the above are also eligible as members. Students are welcome to all our functions.
