Los Angeles will build hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes as part of a new transportation plan approved Tuesday that marks a major shift in the city's efforts to fight congestion.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Mobility Plan 2035 by a vote of 12 to 2. The plan essentially breaks with prior policy that relied largely on
widening streets to ease congestion in favor of a new policy that shifts
more dollars toward widening sidewalks, medians and dedicated bus and
bike lanes in a bid to encourage people to use private automobiles less.
While opponents have pledged to fight the plan and several council members are working to eliminate bike lanes in their districts, the vote marks a major shift in transportation policy that is likely to stimulate bike sales in the nation's second largest metropolitan area.
The vote follows a report by the Los Angeles Times that found that pedestrians constituted 1 of every 10 people involved in car crashes in Los Angeles County between 2002 and 2013. Yet pedestrians during that period represented more than 35 percent of overall road deaths, many of them near freeways or on wide, straight streets.
