Putting Bikes on Fast Track

When the City Council adopted a law Nov. 5 requiring developers to install bicycle racks and showers in large new commercial and industrial buildings as a means of “Peddling Idea of Pedaling to Work,” as The Times put it Nov. 29, it imposed on others incentives for the end of the bicycle commute.

But the city did little or nothing to provide incentives for traveling by bicycle.

Sure, there is a plan to build a bicycle path from North Hollywood to downtown, but that is a microscopic effort in a city as vast as Los Angeles.

There is no need for new bicycle paths to be constructed at costs in the millions of dollars. All that is needed, if there is really substance to the promotion of bicycling as a realistic commuting alternative involving at least 10% of commuters, is to provide dedicated bicycle lanes on existing major traffic arteries.

The $5.1 million projected to build a new bicycle path from North Hollywood to downtown would buy an awful lot of paint to mark off dedicated bicycle lanes throughout the city of Los Angeles and not just in one narrow corridor.

It is time for the City Council to realize that forcing others to spend money to do part of a job and itself spending millions of dollars is no substitute for wise spending of the taxpayers’ dollars. Would it not be a shame to have so many empty bicycle racks and unused showers in large new buildings?

The City Council should realize that having all one needs at one’s destination is no substitute for being able to get to one’s destination safely.

SYLVAIN FRIBOURG, Woodland Hills