Anyone interested in riding their bicycle off-pavement in any Los Angeles City Park needs to be at the Los Angeles City Council Meeting this Tuesday March 1.

According to sources close to the City Council, the mountain bike feasibility study is about to get stripped out of the bike plan. City Council member Tom LaBonge wants to introduce last minute motion to send the Bicycle Plan back to the Transportation Committee for “revision” (read removal?) before passing the plan by full council.

If you can’t attend the meeting then we encourage you to call La Bonge’s office at (213) 485-3337 or email at councilmember.labonge@lacity.org to share your opinion on LA Bike Plan.

Also make sure to let your city Councilperson know too. This is your city! This is your community! Get involved or lose opportunities to ride dirt in LA. Click here to find your City Councilperson.

Here are few talking points:

1.  Mountain bicyclists have participated in good faith in the entire planning process.
2   The draft plan requires the city to “analyze and explore  opportunities for additional off-road bicycle facilities.”
3.  It requires the city to look at the experience and practices of other cities and of neighboring open space land managers.
4.  It requires an inventory of city dirt roads and trails.
5.  It calls on the city to “evaluate and address multiple user groups’ needs in the City’s limited public park land.”
6.  Mountain biking is a safe, sustainable, health promoting activity.
7.  Among the three purposes of the bike plan are:  Increase the number and type of bicyclists in the city and Make the City of Los Angeles a Bike Friendly community.  The studies of mountain biking on trails are totally appropriate with those goals.
8.  To pull this language now is unwarranted.
9.  The plan has been vetted.  The time to pass it as drafted is NOW.