Los Angeles is thinking of changing its not-widely-known, rarely-enforced law that bikes cannot be locked up to parking meters. This makes a ton of sense in places like Westwood, where there are way more people riding bikes than there are legal places for them to lock up; KPCC says there are just 65 official bike parking spaces in Westwood Village, "a prime biking area" with "thousands" of college kids and UCLA employees on their cruisers and fixed-gears.
The law is in place because, without it, bikes "get just attached randomly and stacked up against the meter and cause generally an unsightly and chaotic setup on the street," says
the Los Angeles Department of Transportation official who oversees parking programs. LADOT says it also has the law in place to prevent bikes attached to meters from interfering with meter money collection, but that's less of a problem with newer meters that take credit cards.
Instead of doing away with this law that's almost never enforced, the city's thinking about installing 150 special "hitches" to parking meters, which would make it easier for people to lock bikes to them, as well as making it legal (and somehow less "unsightly"?); the City Council's transportation committee approved the motion to do so last week. If the full council approves it, the hitches could appear on some of the 15 Great Streets across the city that have been singled out to receive pedestrian- and bike-friendly upgrades.
· Locking bikes to LA parking meters is illegal but that might change [SCPR]
· The First 15 LA Streets Getting Big Great Streets Makeovers [Curbed LA]