Car-free Fridays are the last Friday of every month. I wrote about the first one a month ago. It’s not always easy to leave your car at home, but the benefits to traffic congestion, the environment and your health make it completely worthwhile. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll try it with me next month.
What if you could help reduce the pollution in Los Angeles, cut down the congestion on the roads AND get in shape all at the same time? That’s precisely the thinking behind Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s Car-Free Friday campaign, which kicked off Friday morning with a bike ride from the Hollywood/Western Metro station to City Hall downtown.
As LACBC Executive Director Jen Klausner put it on Friday, the idea is to:
…encourage people to leave their cars at home on the last Friday of every month. It seems to be a general observation that Fridays are the most congested day here in the L.A. area and so we want to see if we can’t make a collective difference. People will find that if they give cycling or walking a try for their commute that they’re not only improving the environment in L.A. but they’re also doing themselves a big favor.
I’m personally a big fan of biking.Several of my staff bike to work on a regular basis, especially since our office policy is for everyone to leave their car at home at least once a week. I applaud the LACBC for their efforts to get the entire city to try it.It’s no easy task in a car-obsessed city like Los Angeles, of course, but it’s my hope that the more accessible, appealing and safe we make biking as an option, the more people will choose to cheat on their cars.
To that end, we’ve launched NavigateHollywood.com, which is a “way-finding” website with great resources for those looking to bike, walk or take public transportation around the Hollywood area.
In addition, look for new “Sharrows” coming soon on Fountain and Vermont Blvds to help make these streets safer for bikers. I talked a little bit about them before the bike ride on Friday.
For me, this is about improving the environment, public health and the quality of life for everyone traveling throughout Los Angeles, whether in a car, on a bike or by foot. These are the values that have guided me as Councilmember for the last eight years and I hope to continue fighting to improve the way of life for all Angelenos during the next four.
