Thanks for checking out our blog! We’re just as excited as you to be serving and working with low-income cyclists!
Here’s a little FAQ on City of Lights.
What is City of Lights?
The objective of City of Lights is to educate, empower and advocate for low-income bicyclists of color and create social justice in the environmental and bicycle advocacy movements. We have given out bike lights and safety vests at the CARECEN and IDEPSCA centers since April 2009. We helped create the BiciDigna bike repair space, a partnership between LACBC, IDEPSCA, and the Bicycle Kitchen since January 2010. Additionally, we have served over 600+ low-income cyclists and continue to do safety, maintenance, and legal rights workshops, under the popular education philosophy that anyone can be empowered to teach others anything. We fill the gap of the lack of representation of low-income cyclists of color in the bicycle advocacy movement.
Why Was City of Lights Created?
Often we see vast amounts of immigrant cyclists, some of LA’s most dedicated cyclists, riding to and from work in the streets. Yet too few are on the rides that the mainstream bike community hosts, are at public outreach engagement meetings, or leading bike infrastructure campaigns. We established this project in January 2009, in response to the need to change this and build bridges with immigrant Latino/a cyclists.
CARECEN Day Laborer Cyclist
But Why Aren’t They a Part of the Bike Community?
There is a disconnect-unfortunately, many of them are not acknowledged as part of the bike community and as part of the “green” movement already taking place. Given the fact that there is global warming and major traffic congestion in L.A., it is important to begin building bridges with these cyclists who are unconsciously committing to healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. That’s why we created City of Lights to create a more bike friendly community.
What Are City of Lights’ Future Plans?
Since our small inception, with seed money from Planet Bike, we have since grown to a bilingual volunteer committee, having expanded beyond our original non-profit partner umbrella into a new organization, with partnerships with CARECEN, CDTech, KIWA, CCNP, TRUST South LA, Pacoima Beautiful, the LA Conservation Corps, Councilmember Ed Reyes, Kaiser Permanente, UC Irvine, REI, Pitzer College, the Bike Kitchen, IDEPSCA, NDLON, the UCLA Labor Center.
December 31, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Can you add an RSS feed on your site? I love your mission and I want to follow your work. Thanks a ton.
Austin Kocher
Columbus, Ohio
YayBikes!
January 10, 2010 at 8:27 pm
I so want to have this in Boyle Hts!!!! Please let me know when your next meeting is and if I can attend.
We have so many riders over here not aware of the rules and it leads to tickets and a lot of near accidents.
Please teach me.
I want to do this in the Eastside
January 13, 2010 at 4:55 am
Thank you for your enthusiasm, Gerard! We will send more details to you via email.
February 2, 2010 at 6:07 pm
[...] transportation. (Photo: Ciudad de Luces)We learned about an outreach program in Los Angeles called Ciudad de Luces, a project of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition whose mission is "to increase [...]
September 30, 2010 at 6:30 pm
This great program couldn’t come fast enough for the folks in South LA, SF VAlley, and the Eastside who have lost their battle with big iron on unfriendly streets. When we talk about wonderful and necessary amenities like bike boulevards, signal loops, markings and the rest, it’s easy to forget about picking the lowest-hanging fruit: bringing even the most minimal safety amenities to the boulevards where unlicensed motorists predominate and where eyes on the street are few. To bike in some of our disadvantaged communities is a test of courage, but of course these folks don’t need courage; many of them have few other transportation options. Bike lights, vests, awareness of rights – this is MacArthur genius grant stuff IMO.