A Tale Of Two Mayors

Remember when Mayor Menino got hit by a car while riding his bicycle in 2008. I had high hopes at the time that this would have kicked off a giant effort (accompanied by a giant budget) to work on bike infrastructure, bike safety and the like. And while I will be the first to proclaim that the last couple years have been awesome, it really wasn’t the water shed moment I was hoping for. The Mayor kept it mostly quiet, didn’t really use it in any speeches, and in my opinion missed an opportunity to really make some political hay from the event.

Contrast that with the Mayor of LA who recently broke his arm while riding when a cab swerved in front of him.

On Saturday evening, Mr. Villaraigosa hopped on a bike for a quick ride down to the beach. While he was riding in the bike lane on Venice Boulevard, a taxi abruptly pulled out in front of him. He swerved, fell off the bike and broke his elbow.

The incident was a gift to the cycling bloggers of Los Angeles, who have long complained about drivers who fail to respect bicycle lanes and a general lack of enforcement of safety laws by the police.

“He’s now officially one of us,” wrote Ted Rogers of the blog Biking in L.A. “Welcome to our world.”

In an essay on The Huffington Post, Mr. Villaraigosa reflected on his accident and promised to increase efforts to make the city more bike-friendly.

“If there’s one thing everyone now knows after my recent accident, it’s that I like to bike in Los Angeles,” he wrote. “The city’s landscape, climate and neighborhoods offer a cyclist’s paradise. Biking in Los Angeles should be a natural.”

“Unfortunately most of our city was built with cars in mind,” he added. “It’s time to recognize that bicycles also belong on L.A.’s streets.”

The mayor pledged to improve the city’s bicycle infrastructure and to step up enforcement of traffic laws. The city plans to set aside 10 percent of the revenue from a new sales tax levy – about $3.2 million this year – for bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

That’s how you make some cab crash lemons, into some political lemon aid. I applaud Boston’s current efforts, but we can always do better, and hopefully they will see these examples and copy them wholesale.

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