Soon after we got started in 2009, City of Lights volunteers noticed that the Central Los Angeles neighborhoods in which we did our outreach and education lacked bike parking stations, even though bicycles were a common form of transportation there. Some day laborers told us about an unwillingness to bike to the worker center because of the threat of bicycle theft, feeling unsure that they would find their bicycles waiting at the end of the day if they left them locked to fences and poles.
The group researched the process for requesting a bike parking staple from the City of Los Angeles in 2009 and surveyed sites to recommend to the city. In the photos below, CoL members Andy Rodriguez, Julio Orellanan, and Efren Moreno Jr. are pictured surveying in December 2009. Thanks to CoL's efforts, the city added 73 bike parking installations. To build on this success, the group created a guide to the process so others could make requests.
The Spanish language bike parking guide was released in early 2010, and in October of that year, CoL was proud to join Councilmember Ed Reyes (CD-1) at a press event to install the first bike parking outside of CARECEN's worker center in MacArthur Park.
