I’m live-blogging from the School of Public Affairs, where Ryan Snyder, a UCLA alumnus, is giving a presentation called “Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Go Mainstream”. He’s one of the most well-respected bike and pedestrian planners in the United States, and I’m very privileged to be able to sit on our graduate program’s alumni council together.
Today, I’m joined by START to listen and live-blog the lecture; this should be a good crash course on bike/ped planning for them.
Part of an on-going series of blog entries by the students in START, the UCLA Transportation-sponsored bike-related Action Research Team in the Education for Sustainable Living Program.
By Anand M.
In our efforts to improve knowledge about sustainable transportation in and around the UCLA campus, last week START (Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team) analyzed the bike rack situation on campus by conducting bicycle rack level of service counts.
[Note from Sirinya: Level of service (LOS) is a measure of how well transportation infrastructure is working. LOS is most commonly used to analyze highways, but the concept has also been applied to intersections, transit, and bicycles.]
ALWAYS AT CAPACITY: Cyclists have to look gingerly to find an open spot to lock up a bike at the racks by the Engineering building.
Over the course of three days, our team split the entire UCLA campus into six areas from McGowen Hall to the Wilshire Center and located where all the bike racks on campus were and how (and in certain cases, by whom) they were being used.
We also recorded the type of racks, the number of spots that were available in each location, and the number of bikes occupying the racks. Bikes that were abandoned and those attached to improper locations such as railings and posts were also noted. The counts were done between the strategic hours of 10:00 AM and Noon, the busiest part of the day so we could get the best measure of how in use the bike racks on campus are. (more…)
The Education for Sustainable Living Program ran an informational booth throughout last summer's round of Freshman Orientations. Picture from www.eslp-la.com.
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about being a stakeholder for the 2010 Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START), which is comprised of four students working with UCLA Transportation on bike and ped issues for the winter and spring quarter.
START is an Action Research Team under the Education for Sustainable Living Program, which is organized by and for UCLA students. Over the past few years, ARTs have helped initiate major sustainability-related projects and policy changes around UCLA through their research on topics like waste diversion, energy use, recycling, and water consumption.
START’s primary objective is to improve sustainable transportation options for students, I’m also hoping that they’ll learn about bicycle planning and engineering as well as how to draw on their scholarly knowledge and field work experience to effectively advocate for sustainability-related causes.
The 2010 START includes these students:
START will be guest-blogging about their two-quarter long experience here at Be A Green Commuter. (more…)
Two employees of UCLA Transportation are at Metro headquarters to attend a Town Hall meeting sponsored by Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood and Senator Barbara Boxer, and a Bicycle Roundtable in the afternoon.
This was preceded by a press conference to increase the visibility of Mayor Villaraigosa’s 30-to-10 plan organized by MoveLA, a transportation advocacy organization led by Denny Zane, former mayor of Santa Monica, and UCLA urban planning alumna Marlene Grossman.
Pictures were taken by Damien Newton of LA Streetsblog/Flickr.
The bike shop over at UCLA Recreation is offering another bike maintenance and safety class tonight!
Details:
