Volunteers To Count Bicyclists, Pedestrians At LA Intersections
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — If you walk or bike in the city of Los Angeles, today is your day to be counted.
Hundreds of volunteers are expected to take to street corners citywide Tuesday as part of this year's 2013 Los Angeles Bicycle and Pedestrian Count, which will monitor the number of pedestrians and bicyclists passing by 120 key intersections from the San Fernando Valley to South Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and L.A. Walks will carry out the biannual count, which, in 2011, determined there were 15,000 bicyclists and 75,000 pedestrians — up from 14,000 bicyclists and 62,000 pedestrians in 2009.
Westside Councilman Mike Bonin, who spent Monday morning on the corner of Bundy and Idaho in West Los Angeles, told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO it's all about making the city more cyclist- and pedestrian-friendly.
Councilman Mike Bonin
"We have tons of data about how many cars we have, where they go, and we never have enough information about walking and cycling," Bonin said. "And frankly, while the song says, 'Nobody walks in LA,' everybody walks in LA."
One of the priorities is to address the city's infrastructure, according to Bonin, who cited state data estimating that every 3.5 days someone is killed in L.A. "because it's just not sufficiently safe for cyclists or pedestrians."
"It's imperative that we do it because we're building a 21st Century mass transit system in LA, and the key to that is the first and the last mile of your commute," he said. "We need to be fixing our sidewalks and we need to make sure we have not just safe routes to schools, but safe routes to transit."
This year's count begins with sessions from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Click here for volunteer information.
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