Historically, the only mode of transportation less popular in L.A. than walking has been bicycling. Bikestation, a national organization based in Long Beach, is trying to change that. By providing a range of services to bicycle commuters, Bikestation has embarked on a campaign to make cities more bike-friendly and, therefore, more livable. TPR was pleased to speak with Executive Director Andréa White about her organization's efforts to take back the streets.
Andrea White
What is Bikestation's mission? What inspires your work?
Bikestation is a nonprofit that was founded in 1996 in Long Beach. Its mission is to work with communities to develop bike transit centers and related infrastructure-we need to not only have policies that encourage bicycle use but also facilities that enable bicycle use and the use of transit.
Our founder looked to Europe to find out how they achieved such high levels of bicycle and transit ridership. He found that they had these facilities that were situated at transit hubs, and they provided services-bicycle parking being the main service-but also bicycle repairs, retail, and bicycling and transit information and classes. It is kind of an all-around service to people who want to use bicycles and transit.
How has it fared in Long Beach?
Long Beach has done very well, and the city has been very supportive. We recently rebuilt the Bikestation in Long Beach into a brand new, state-of-the-art facility. The facility in the past has been full of parked bicycles and has achieved a high grade of financial self-sufficiency. We look forward to working with the city to build some new facilities in the future.
What sort of infrastructure does a city or region need to integrate bikes into its commute patterns and general mobility scheme?
A city needs to provide infrastructure that is continuous and can get anyone anywhere in the city from point A to point B on a bicycle. A car lane doesn't start and stop, on again, off again, throughout the city-it is a continuous system.
Cities also need to look at a bicycle as the vehicle that it is and create an entire system with end-of-trip facilities that can help you get anywhere you want to in the city on a bicycle. In addition to that there is, of course, good policy, education, and enforcement.
How does a city implement the sort of comprehensive network that you are promoting?
One of the biggest hurdles is that we have this pre-existing infrastructure that has not taken into account bicycles and the needs of bicyclists. We compound that when directives from Caltrans say, "Yeah, you should take into account, if you possibly
can, bicycles for any new changes to the road structure." That essentially allows anyone to opt out of that by saying that it's not feasible. We need to change that practice to, "You absolutely must take the needs of all roadway users into account."
To what extent can you turn L.A. into Copenhagen or Amsterdam, given the existing urban fabric?
We tend to put Europe into a special box as far as infrastructure goes, thinking that they don't have the same challenges that we do. In reality they do. They have developed differently than we have in a few areas, but they also have new growth, and they also have suburbia.
The difference is that when they do have this new growth, they accommodate bicycles in the plan. There needs to be the political will that there has been in areas of Europe in order to make a change. Amsterdam 30 years ago looked like L.A. as far as bicycling went. They made a conscious decision to encourage bicycling over automobile use. They took a large portion of their budget and concentrated on making the city a bicycle-friendly place and made huge changes over the last 30 years. So, it is possible to take existing infrastructure and achieve Amsterdam in L.A.
How do you drive political will?
Politicians in general are interested in the concept. Their citizens have concerns about air quality, about the livability of the community, they want their kids to be able to ride bikes and be safe. When we bring an element of the environment and a general feeling of community livability they are responsive. Another big issue is health. When you talk about asthma, obesity, and type-2 diabetes it's very real to politicians. From a political standpoint, it is a pretty easy sell.
I like to tell people that bicycles can solve every single problem in the world. It is an interesting combination of health, the environmental aspect, the community aspect, the safety aspect, transportation, congestion, dependence on oil, national security-all of those things can be impacted by bicycling. Politicians certainly get that.
Part of it is turning this enthusiasm into action by the city and transit agency staff members. There is some bureaucracy that needs to be worked through; there are entrenched interests. There are day-to-day negotiations that need to happen for the city staff to come fully on board with it.
A few months ago Bikestation co-sponsored a talk by the mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, who said was that cycling had to become "sexier" and move out of the realm of enthusiasts, environmentalists, and the poor. How do cities do that?
I agree. The social stigma has to be lifted. You do that by competing with the car on their level. Unfortunately the resources haven't been available for advocacy to do a nationally televised advertising campaign, blanketing everything with their ads. Pretty much every other ad on TV is a car ad-that is hard to compete with, but I think we need to.
A lot of things are coming together to make that a reality. There are national organizations like the League of American Bicyclists and the corresponding industry group, called Bikes Belong, working on things at the national levels along with various other organizations to work together, since none of use individually have the resources to do that.
The Bikestation in Long Beach is a partnership between Caltrans, the city of Long Beach, and Metro. Is it fair to say that you are a "mainstream" bicycle advocacy group, as compared to a Critical Mass or Midnight Ridazz? What is the common ground between bicycle advocacy and traditional bureaucracies?
There is definitely a trade-off between being an advocacy group and working within the system. We've decided to work within the system to make changes on the ground: physical changes to the infrastructure.
Other advocacy groups, or other groups in general, formal or informal, have a different role in that it is not always possible to work within the system to see the change that you want to achieve. There is room for both, but Bikestation tends to get involved with the agencies and bureaucracies; that is an important perspective because not a lot of bicycle advocacy groups are familiar with the ins and outs of bureaucracies.
What is the nature of Bikestation's relationship with the city of Long Beach?
Typically Bikestations are funded by a variety of public agencies as well as the operations of the facility-parking bikes doesn't make a lot of money. We developed a business model that does offset the needed subsidy. Typically the capital costs will come from a public agency and the operating cost will come from a combination of the city and the operations of the Bikestation itself.
California just passed a number of infrastructure bonds. How much money should go to cycling, and how much money will go to cycling?
The infrastructure bonds are an extreme disappointment to me. The small amount that they have going for transit and bicycling is offset by the fact that that funding is being taken away from the spillover funds from the gas tax. It's kind of a wash.
We have to begin to make choices based upon how we see the future unfolding and how we want our lives to be lived in the city. I don't think that that was at all taken into consideration with the infrastructure bonds. I recognize that automobile use is an important part of mobility. But if you want to make changes-which I think anybody that is educated in any of this to any degree knows-we need to increase transit and bicycle use. You can't just throw money at the highway.
As Bikestation expands, what is the role of public agencies versus private developing in generating momentum?
I think that public agencies are starting to realize that they have leverage as far as what they can get developers to do. Increasingly you are seeing requirements for bicycle parking and other measures within the requirements for developers. We, as Bikestation, are getting calls from developers saying, "How do we work with you to do this secure bicycle parking component of our requirement?"
Obviously developers are getting hit with hard requirements, especially here in Southern California, for car parking. Sometimes that can be mitigated through other measures, such as bicycle parking. I think the opportunity is here for the cities to take more of a policy role instead of an implementation role.
What does a city look like if it has embraced cycling? What are the range of benefits to both the built environment and the livability of a city if cycling takes hold in a city?
First of all, you have the fact that the 20 percent of the population that doesn't currently drive cars can now have mobility. I think that has serious benefits for the economy, for people's lives, how they live, being able to get to employment that they weren't able to get to before, creating better opportunity for upward mobility.
There are a lot of health benefits with working that commute into your everyday life, which is the easiest way to address the pressing issues of diabetes and obesity amongst other health issues. You have the related issues of the benefits that bicycling brings to the environment, consequently by reducing pollution, and lowering rates of asthma and cancer-again back to health. You also would have a city where people are out and about and interacting, which creates many benefits for public safety as well as overall quality of life.
The built environment would look different. There would be fewer super malls on the edges of everything. Basic needs would be more integrated into everyday life and into neighborhoods so that you are not forced to get in your car and drive long distances for a loaf of bread. You would have more transit-oriented development and a better mix of employment and housing. As people increasingly choose to bicycle to work, it means that they need to live closer to where they work.
How extensive is the Bikestation empire?
We have six facilities: Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Berkeley, Palo Alto, the Embarcadero in San Francisco, and Seattle. It's a growing network, and we have our first facility that will hopefully be coming online on the East Coast sometime in early 2008, and numerous other sites that are in the works. This concept is really expanding.
We've received interest from San Diego, Santa Ana, the Orange County Great Park, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Folsom, Sacramento, and several more in the Bay Area. It is a long list.
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