A new ordinance means bike parking must be a part of new developments in unincorporated L.A. County.

What does the width of your sidewalk have to do with the diameter of your waistline?

What do shade trees have to do with how active you are?

And what does bicycle parking have in common with farmers markets and community gardens?

They’re all elements in Los Angeles County’s new Healthy Design Ordinance, initially approved by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, and now receiving finishing touches from county attorneys.

The ordinance, expected to become law in March, represents part of a new and increasingly important partnership between planners and public health officials trying to fight an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and other diseases by making it easier for people to adopt a more active lifestyle.

To the delight of bicycle advocates, the new ordinance would require for the first time that bike parking be included in new developments in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County. (Similar provisions are included the county’s proposed Bicycle Master Plan, which is expected to come before the board in coming weeks.)

To foster more walkable communities, the Healthy Design Ordinance also would mandate 5-foot wide sidewalks instead of the current 4-foot standard. And, to make sure those wider sidewalks are inviting, it would require that shade trees be included in future development plans.

It also seeks to bring healthy vegetables and fruits to so-called food deserts by making it easier for farmers markets and community gardens to take root in residential and other areas without a lot of red tape. And written into the ordinance is a requirement that those markets accept CalFresh payments.

Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county’s top public health official, said his department was happy to have invested part of a 2010 grant it received from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help get the Healthy Design Ordinance off the ground.

It’s all part of a shift in tactics to move disease prevention out of the doctor’s office and into the streets.

“If we want to improve the health of Angelenos, we need to start by improving our physical environment and our social environment,” Fielding said.

Supervisors praised the work that has been done so far.

“This is a big idea. This is forward-looking. This is progressive policy-making,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky, who initially proposed the measure along with Supervisor Don Knabe, also saluted the efforts. But he said the new ordinance is just a first step toward designing a healthier county.

“Much more needs to be done to create livable neighborhoods that do not rely solely on automobile transportation,” Yaroslavsky said. “County planners and engineers, and private developers, will have to make a concerted effort to achieve neighborhoods where people feel comfortable walking, biking, and taking transit.”

In a motion adopted along with the board’s vote Tuesday in favor of approving the ordinance, Yaroslavsky directed county staff to take a closer look at “zoning and land use policies that encourage sprawling developments which force people to drive vast distances just to get to work, or buy a gallon of milk.”

At the same time, the motion recognized that there are no one-size-fits-all approaches, and that not all healthy design features will apply to every community.

A rethinking of what planning can mean to the health of communities and individuals is “actually pretty exciting,” said Susan Tae, a supervising regional planner who led the Healthy Design team for Regional Planning. “To create a more pleasant environment is to encourage a pedestrian to take a walking trip rather than jump in a car.”

(For a look at some of the guidelines the team came up with in developing the ordinance, click here. And a two-minute summary of the ordinance’s main points is here.)

Tae said other initiatives, such as the upcoming Bicycle Master Plan and a new specific plan to create a more walkable area around Gold Line stations on the 3^rd Street Corridor inEast L.A., will help move the spirit of the new ordinance forward.

Designing for health, she said, requires thinking like a walker or cyclist and constantly asking: “How do we create things at more of a pedestrian scale?”

“If it’s not comfortable,” Tae said, “then it’s not going to be used.”

Community gardens will be able to take root more easily under the new ordinance.

Posted 1/24/12

In the year ahead, strive for what makes you feel good on the inside.

What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Chances are, it’s aimed at a happier 2012. But what works when it comes to improving your day-to-day satisfaction? Can one resolution actually make any difference?

Sure, says Dr. William Arroyo, the Department of Mental Health’s regional medical director. But it may not be the sort of resolution most people are used to making. Here are his tips for a more soul-satisfying year:

1. Resolve to do a self-inventory. “Take note of all the good things, large and small, that were achieved in the prior year,” Dr. Arroyo says. Write them down—you might be pleasantly surprised at all you’ve accomplished. Now take special note of anything that was not only good for you, but also good for your family, workplace or community, and consider doing them again this year.

2. Resolve to give yourself permission to change. This is harder for some people than it sounds, Dr. Arroyo says. Behaviors become entrenched. Friends and families become invested in old habits. “It isn’t always easy to remember that it’s in our nature to pursue good,” he says. “It’s okay to do something differently, especially when doing it the same old way hasn’t worked or has offended those close to you.”

3. Resolve to build pleasure into even into the smallest of budgets. “Maybe you want to manage your money more efficiently,” says Dr. Arroyo, “or allocate for all your bills. That’s fine, but if there’s anything leftover, don’t forget to allocate some resources for pleasure—and pleasure doesn’t have to be expensive. Sometimes pleasure can be just spending time with friends and family, or with those one didn’t have time for in the prior year.”

Find ways to lower those stress levels.

4. Resolve to be healthy. “And that includes mental health,” the doctor says. “Pay attention to diet and exercise. Avoid harmful substances, whether it’s fatty food, or alcohol or some other potentially harmful thing. But also monitor moods and feelings. If one’s social life is unsatisfactory, think about bringing parts of that to a close. If people around you appear to jeopardize your well-being, think about changing your social circle. Whether it’s foods and beverages or people, give yourself permission to get away from toxic environments.”

5. Resolve to seek peace. “Yoga, prayer, meditation—these work wonders for many people,” says Arroyo. So, he adds, does professional counseling. “Everyone experiences worry and anxiety, but if that’s your primary mood, then it’s probably excessive and you might want to consult with a spouse, a partner, a trusted relative or member of your congregation, or you may want to seek professional help. A little bit of anxiety is normal and useful, but not to the degree where it interferes with your well-being.”

6. Resolve to communicate. “Becoming closer often entails making an inquiry,” says the doctor. If you’d like to be closer to your loved ones, “ask how you can be better with them this year. Be humble. Give the other person permission to let you know when you do something that causes them displeasure—and be willing to change it.” Or, if you aren’t getting what you need from your relationships, resolve to say so: “It’s okay to set limits with others, no matter how close or how distant they might be.”

7. Resolve not to overlook the positive. “One needs to be objective in tough times,” says Dr. Arroyo, “and to keep in mind that there is always more than one way of looking at things. Even in our darkest, most painful moments, there is often a bright side.” Hard times pass, he says, but those who weather them can come away with valuable life experience.

8. Resolve to reach out. “As folks are winding up the year, there’s always a lot of hustle and bustle, and we forget that some people are not as fortunate as we are,” Dr. Arroyo says. “Those who don’t have our means or our health or our rich circle of family and friends could benefit from some demonstration of interest in their well-being—spending time with them, conveying that we care.” Donating to charity isn’t the only route, either. “You can volunteer in an organization,” he says, “or work within your neighborhood.” The key, he says, is to connect and be useful: “It reminds that one is more than the things and money one has.”

Posted 12/30/11

First it was sugar in soft drinks. Now even bigger community health plans are afoot in 2012.

The new year is off and running in Los Angeles County—not to mention bicycling, walking and watching what it eats.

January, the traditional kickoff month for diets and self-improvement regimes of every kind, promises to bring some healthy developments of the public policy variety to Los Angeles County.

On January 11, the Regional Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on the county’s first updated bicycle master plan in more than three and a half decades. The plan is expected to expand the county’s network of bikeways and, by unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors, also to include cutting-edge design proposals for making cycling safer and more enjoyable throughout the region.

Then, on January 24, the Board of Supervisors will take up a proposed Healthy Design Ordinance, aimed at turning car-centric, fast-food-eating Southern California into a more walkable, bikeable and garden-filled place.

Meanwhile at the Department of Public Health, this year’s anti-smoking and anti-obesity efforts will be rolled into the county’s new Choose Health L.A. campaign. Funded for the past two years by federal stimulus grants and now by health care reform funds, those projects have sought to improve health, not by targeting specific diseases, but by teaming up with cities, community groups and school districts to get at the root causes of chronic ailments such as heart disease and diabetes.

Last year’s successes included a wave of local smoking bans in cities throughout L.A. County and a provocative ad campaign underscoring the sugar content in soft drinks. The federal grant money has also helped lay the groundwork for the master bike plan and the Healthy Design Ordinance.

Next up: food stamps at farmers’ markets, a grassroots push for smoke-free apartment complexes, teamwork with city attorneys to enforce laws against cigarette sales to minors, and work with hospitals to make it easier for new mothers to breastfeed.

Paul Simon, who heads the Department of Public Health’s Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, says the initiatives are the fruit of an ongoing effort to create an infrastructure of good health in Greater Los Angeles.

“In many of our communities, people want to make healthier choices but have a hard time doing it,” says Simon. “Especially in lower income districts where people want to be physically active, but can’t bike or jog or go out without worrying about violence. Or where the landscape is dominated by these packaged food products jammed with calories. If you set out to design a community to get really high rates of obesity, the community you’d design wouldn’t be far from the communities we’re living in now.”

The Healthy Design Ordinance would mandate wider sidewalks and shadier landscaping in the county, increase bike parking, simplify permitting for community gardens and farmers’ markets and require thru-ways in dead-end cul-de-sacs so that pedestrians and bicyclists can more easily get to shopping, recreation areas and schools.

Though it would only apply to new construction and major renovations in unincorporated areas, its effects, like those of the bike plan, are expected to influence surrounding cities—and to create a healthier landscape for years to come.

Posted 1/4/12

Supervisors are pushing for closer scrutiny of Lap-Band marketing in Los Angeles County.

County supervisors squared off Tuesday with promoters of the Lap-Band, featured on billboards all over Southern California but drawing increasing attention from officials concerned that the publicity blitz is obscuring a wide range of medical dangers.

After a series of sharp exchanges with representatives of 1-800 GET THIN, supervisors approved a motion by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Zev Yaroslavsky to bring greater scrutiny to Lap-Band marketing and procedures. They directed county staff to, among other things, “develop a plan to identify medical products and services that are being marketed in a dangerously misleading manner.”

The supervisors’ action comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently sent letters to eight Southern California weight loss clinics and the 1-800 GET THIN marketing firm, warning that the company’s ubiquitous advertisements do not provide enough information about the risks of gastric bypass surgery or about the need to change eating behavior to lose weight over the long term.

“The FDA’s warnings raise significant concerns about the vulnerability of all County residents to these advertisements, particularly those who suffer from morbid obesity and wish to find a cure,” the motion said. “Medical experts and the FDA agree that the Lap-Band procedure is an aggressive treatment for obesity and should only be considered in clinically severe obesity cases.”

Robert Silverman, the president of 1-800 GET THIN, told supervisors that his firm is taking steps to bring its billboards and radio and TV spots into compliance with the FDA requirements. An attorney for the company said its surgery centers “have a better track record than just about anybody else.”

But supervisors were openly frustrated as they tried to find out more about how 1-800 GET THIN operates, in terms of referrals to clinics and responsibility for disclosing risks to potential clients.

“It’s been a long time since a witness or member of the public has come to that table and has obfuscated as consistently and persistently as you have today,” Yaroslavsky told the 1-800 GET THIN representatives. “I did not come here as a person who had any fundamental suspicion one way or the other about what you were doing. I leave here now thinking you are hiding something.”

The FDA’s action was prompted by Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county’s top public health official, who last year asked the agency to investigate whether widespread Lap-Band promotion by 1-800 GET THIN was misleading.

The motion approved by supervisors Tuesday directed the Public Health Department to report back on what it is doing to get the word out about “safe and effective alternative methods to achieve and maintain a healthier weight.”

“There is no panacea for obesity, including the Lap-Band weight loss procedure,” the motion said. “However, there are proven strategies, when sustained over time, which can help people achieve a healthier weight, and decrease the risk for diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases.”

The motion also directed the County Counsel to provide legal options on steps the county could take to “ensure truthful advertising of aggressive obesity treatment procedures in unincorporated areas.”  And it instructed the Chief Executive Office to pursue legislation to increase supervision and oversight of clinics that perform “aggressive and invasive obesity treatment cosmetic procedures.”

Posted 12/20/11

Burning wood may be sweet to the nose but not to the lungs.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Better check your woodpile and your air quality.

Amid concerns about agricultural pests and air pollution in Southern California, state and local authorities have been paying closer attention this year to wood-burning fireplaces, one the most fragrant, but environmentally vexing, aspects of winter in L.A.

For instance, the Southern California Air Quality Management District will begin issuing mandatory “no burn” advisories through the end of February on days in which fine particulates in the area exceed federal health standards. Though the advisories are expected to be rare, and first-time offenders can get off the hook by taking a smoke-awareness course, fireplace owners who repeatedly light fires on those days can be fined up to $500.

“Fine particulates are not only bad for the environment, but bad for our health,” says AQMD spokeswoman Tina Cherry. “They can lodge deep in your lungs and exacerbate lung conditions and asthma. So this year, on days when the fine particulate levels reach 35 micrograms per cubic meter, we’re asking people not to burn wood.”

State and agricultural authorities, meanwhile, have been urging residents with wood-burning fireplaces to “buy it where you burn it” when it comes to firewood because so many invasive insect pests and diseases are transported in woodpiles.

“Right now, there’s a quarantine in San Diego County because of a pest called the Goldspotted oak borer, which spreads via wood and is a real threat to oak trees,” says Frank McDonough, botanical information consultant at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden.

“But you have to be careful even in areas without quarantines.”

The measures and warnings seek to wean Southern Californians from the wood fires that are such a tradition this time of year. To many, one of the coziest aspects of winter is the smell of a eucalyptus or oak log in the hearth, burning down to embers, but the fires that perfume winter nights with that smoky aroma also spew about 5.5 tons of particulate matter a day, on average, into the region’s air, according to the AQMD.

The new “no-burn” mandates are the latest in a set of measures aimed at controlling that pollution. Wood-burning fireplaces and stoves have been banned in new developments since 2009 in California, and voluntary no-burn days were initiated last year.

Although AQMD data has indicated that curtailment conditions can occur as often as 15 times in a typical winter, only one voluntary no-burn advisory was issued in 2010-11, and that was in February in the Riverside area, Cherry says.

This year’s mandatory no-burn laws will run from November 1 until February 29, and the AQMD will issue residential wood-burning advisories to let the public know whether particulate levels are elevated.

Residents can call a “Check Before You Burn” hotline at (866) 966-3293 to find out whether an advisory has been issued, or click here to sign up for an online notification. An interactive no-burn advisory map, which allows users to check for advisories by entering a ZIP code in the search area, is also available here.

Posted 11/30/11

A jog along the beach can be a perfect appetizer for Thanksgiving dinner.

Mmm. Turkey and stuffing, cranberries and sweet potatoes, pie and ice cream—few pleasures are as reliably delicious as Thanksgiving dinner, or as enduring: The basics alone will set you back thousands of calories. 

Fortunately Los Angeles County has a bounty of public recreational options that can help offset the gluttony, many of them right here in the 3^rd District. So as we load up our plates this week, let us also give thanks for the equally enduring pleasures of a Thanksgiving morning workout or a brisk walk after dinner.  Here are some of our favorite menu additions for a healthy holiday:

Take a hike

It’s not an accident that a landmark in the Santa Monica Mountains is the headquarters for a health and fitness reality show. The hills and canyons of Los Angeles County have been an inspiration to millions, and the county’s trail system just keeps getting better. With the exception of a couple of small parcels, for instance, the 65-mile Backbone Trail is now almost entirely owned by the public, and the long-planned Coastal Slope Trail has passed several key milestones this year.

Enter the Fitness Zone

You don’t need to join a gym to improve your strength, flexibility or cardiovascular abilities. Thanks to the Trust for Public Land, outdoor gyms have been installed in the last four years in more than two dozen parks across the county, with durable, weather-resistant exercise equipment designed to let you get toned at no cost. Both El Cariso Park in Sylmar and Pan Pacific Park in Los Angeles now have Fitness Zones that are just waiting to help you whittle away that second helping of stuffing. (For a map of Fitness Zones, click here.)

Hit the bike trails

Better yet, ride over the river and through the woods on one of Southern California’s paved bike paths, some of which are world famous, after all. If you’re socially inclined, preface your dinner with one of the Thanksgiving bike rides that have been organized in places like Beverly Hills and Brentwood. With events like CicLAvia capturing the public imagination, pedal power has never been hipper than it is right now in L.A.

Step into liquid

You’ll probably need a wetsuit, but who in Los Angeles wouldn’t give thanks for our beaches? Even if you don’t like to surf in November, the Southern California coast offers endless fitness opportunities—for free.  If you’re not a water baby, check out the Marvin Braude and Ballona Creek Bike Trails. Or make like Zev and take a beach run between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey before Thanksgiving dinner.

Pick up the pace

If you can walk, you can speed walk, or even jog a little. If you’re feeling really ambitious, maybe you want to sign up for one of this year’s “Turkey Trots” for runners in Burbank, Topanga and Van Nuys. More interested in proceeding at your own pace? Run the UCLA perimeter or shake a leg on one of the two jogging tracks at Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park. Out-of-town guests? Take the whole crew to the San Vicente median, jogging track to the stars (or, in any case, the almost-famous). It’s grassy, tree-lined, filled with beautiful people and easy to get to, and if you do the whole 6-mile loop from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica to South Bundy Drive in Brentwood, it’ll knock about 600 calories from your intake. Or make room for extra pie.

Posted 11/22/11

Public health workers Kristin McGuire, left, and Amber Tsujioka helped bring a new smoking ban to Compton.

Twenty-four years ago, when health advocates in Compton tried to restrict smoking, two City Council members defiantly lit cigarettes on the dais, then killed the plan before it could come to a vote.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

Last week, Compton passed a landmark ordinance to curb secondhand smoke in outdoor dining areas, parks, apartments and condos. Meanwhile, Hermosa Beach effectively outlawed outdoor smoking in virtually every part of the city where people gather.

On the other side of the 710 Freeway, the Downey City Council instructed staff to start drafting a law to restrict smoking in parks and other public places. This week, a tough, new, smoke-free housing measure was enacted in Baldwin Park.

The flurry of grassroots legislation—with more in the pipeline—isn’t accidental. For the past year and a half, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has been successfully leveraging a two-year, $16 million federal grant aimed at reducing smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.

The initiative, known as Project TRUST and managed by the department’s Tobacco Control & Prevention Program, has been so successful that its efforts already have been extended under a new and broader Community Transformation Grant, underwritten by federal health care reform funding.

Although the Department of Public Health has long done educational campaigns to help communities discourage smoking, the federal money “has let us accelerate that work, and move into more challenging policy areas,” says Dr. Paul Simon, who heads the department’s Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. “We’re now getting into 10 or 15 cities a year.”

By law, the public health department cannot lobby, but it can educate the public, thus setting the stage for a community’s own advocacy. Under the grant, the county was able to hire six “community mobilization teams” and subcontract with nine community-based organizations to provide technical and educational support for local efforts to restrict smoking.

As the teams have fanned out in the past 18 months to do local polling, hand out literature and speak to community groups about tobacco, community activism has followed. Since the Project TRUST initiative hit the ground, local smoking ordinances have been revisited or broadened in Manhattan Beach, West Hollywood, Burbank, Los Angeles, South Pasadena, Santa Monica, Huntington Park, Torrance and Inglewood, as well as the aforementioned communities. Still other cities are in various stages of readying smoking ordinances for passage.

Particularly successful have been city-level efforts to cordon off no-smoking areas in apartment and condominium buildings, where secondhand smoke chronically plagues children and nonsmokers, particularly those with asthma. A recent policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that nearly 1 million children in California are exposed to secondhand smoke every year.

Mandating smoke-free housing in apartment houses can be life-altering for families in rental units, but it has historically been a tough sell in lower-income areas, where smokers—who represent about 13% of California’s population—have tended to resist the notion that shared ventilation should keep them from lighting up in their own apartments.

A new state law that goes into effect Jan. 1 gives landlords the authority to ban smoking in rental units, but doesn’t mandate smoke-free apartments and condos. With the Compton and Baldwin Park votes last week, the county now has more than a half-dozen cities with smoke-free apartment ordinances, including Calabasas, which in 2006 pioneered the local movement.

And on November 16, Project TRUST will host a major policy forum on smoke-free apartments and condos in conjunction with the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles—a response to the growing number of local governments that are moving in that direction, says Project TRUST Director Robert Berger.

“It’s big,” says Berger. “We’ve reached a major tipping point in smoke-free housing here.”

Public health campaigns at all levels have for many years raised awareness of the dangers of tobacco, and state and federal restrictions have made dramatic inroads in the fight against tobacco-related illness. California was the first state to ban smoking in indoor workplaces in 1995.

But smoking still accounts for as many as 443,000 deaths a year nationally, including as many as 49,000 from exposure to secondhand smoke alone.  According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, more deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.

While overall smoking rates have been trending downward, higher smoking rates persist in a number of vulnerable sub-populations, including African American, Latino and Asian men, people with low income and education, the homeless, substance abusers and people living with mental illness.

In some policy efforts, such as the one that led to smoke-free housing in Pasadena, the county has played more of a supportive than lead role. In others, Project TRUST has collaborated with subcontractors such as the National Council of Alcohol and Drug Dependence South Bay or Smoke-free Air for Everyone (SAFE).

In most instances, the County’s technical and educational assistance has been welcome, but in a few, it has been met with confusion. When a City Council discussion of a ban in Downey drew a standing-room audience and a blizzard of letters, for instance, one councilman accused another of manufacturing “a sexy political issue for your campaign next year for the assembly.” Another was quoted in the local press as saying he had “never received a letter or comment on this until the last three weeks.”

Much more common, however, have been experiences like the one that will now set aside smoke-free apartments and condos in Compton, where the county’s mobilization team—a pair of young Public Health contract employees named Kristin McGuire and Amber Tsujioka—did most of the groundwork, beginning with a survey last year to assess the community’s level of concern about smoking.

As the pair became ubiquitous at PTA meetings, churches, community groups, senior centers and health fairs, the community began to coalesce in favor of smoke-free housing. Letters began to arrive at City Hall. High school kids began to show up around town in “Smoke-free Compton” t-shirts.

“A lot of the community members were unfamiliar with the impact of secondhand smoke,” says McGuire. “And when they would ask about possible solutions, we’d tell them how other communities were able to educate each other and form coalitions.”

It didn’t hurt that Compton City Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux had a longstanding interest in the dangers of smoking.

“I had led a movement a number of years ago to ban alcohol and tobacco billboards in the city of Compton,” says Arceneaux, “and I had had a bad experience with my daughter in an apartment situation. She’s a non-smoker with two small children and she had lived in Texas in an apartment below two smokers.

“It was coming through the vents, and for the first time in their lives, they were experiencing problems with asthma. It was horrible.”

Within six months of the county’s involvement, Arceneaux says, an ordinance was drafted, with technical help from the county.

McGuire, the Project TRUST mobilization team member, says her work in Compton has been “very rewarding” and hopes she’ll be able to continue working with the city as it implements its new ordinance.

Arceneaux, meanwhile, says the mood in Compton couldn’t be more different from that meeting in 1987. The measure passed easily, to the cheers of an audience full of teenaged Smoke-free Compton supporters. And so far, she added, no one’s complaining.

“I think this time the community was ready for it,” she says.

Posted 11/3/11

Los Angeles County's getting a new bike plan, and some think it should do more to attract new riders.

As Los Angeles County closes in on its first updated bicycle master plan in 36 years, cycling advocates this week urged planners to incorporate more ambitious and innovative approaches to making streets welcoming for bicyclists of all ages and abilities.

The plan as currently drafted would add 816 miles of new bikeways in unincorporated Los Angeles County over the next two decades, at a cost of $327.7 million. But critics say the plan relies too heavily on the lowest category of bike route—just signage, no dedicated lanes—and doesn’t embrace enough forward-thinking solutions for getting new riders to brave Los Angeles County’s streets.

“The plan before you…is basically straight out of the ‘70s,” said Eric Bruins, a USC cycling coach who was among those turning up on Wednesday to address the county’s Regional Planning Commission as it prepared to take up the plan, the county’s first since 1975.

Bruins told the commission to look no further than Long Beach for examples of cutting edge design, such as “cycle tracks” that separate bike lanes from automobile traffic with a row of parked cars.

“We’ve unnecessarily limited our toolbox, and the kinds of facilities that are missing from this toolbox are those that are going to actually increase ridership,” Bruins said.

Bruins also urged bike planners to take a page from another upcoming county initiative, the proposed Healthy Design Ordinance, to make sure that the best possible designs for cyclist and pedestrian safety are written into the plan.

The county’s plan, developed with the Department of Public Works acting as lead agency, requires approval from the Regional Planning Commission before it can move to the Board of Supervisors for final consideration.

Commissioners heard testimony Wednesday, but then voted to delay a decision until Jan. 11, 2012, to allow time for completion of the plan’s final environmental impact report.

The commissioners praised the work that has gone into the bike plan so far—and so did some of the speakers.

Alexis Lantz, planning and policy director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, commended the county for its efforts and acknowledged the complexity of the job. But, she told the commission: “We feel there’s still work to be done to create a visionary bike plan that will truly serve our unincorporated communities for the next 20 years.”

Among other suggestions, she said the plan should give greater priority to improving cycling conditions in low-income communities and in areas with high obesity rates and significant concentrations of bicycle-related accidents.

The plan envisions adding several different kinds of bikeways to the county’s current 144-mile network. It proposes creating 70.6 miles of dedicated, car-free Class 1 bike paths. It also would add 265.9 miles of Class 2 bike lanes on streets with markings to delineate a place for bikes to ride.

And there would be 21.3 miles of “bicycle boulevards”—neighborhood streets with traffic-slowing measures in place to create better venues for cycling and walking.

Most of the new bikeways, however, would be Class 3 bicycle routes—shared roads with signs reminding drivers that cyclists are using the street but without specially designated lanes for bikes. Those would account for 458.6 miles of the 816 total miles proposed.

One speaker, Michele Chavez of the Antelope Valley High Desert Cyclists, told the commission that she was “very pleased” with the plan overall. But she said some of the proposed Class 3 routes are in areas where speeding motorists are common—and hazardous to people on bikes.

“I’m concerned that what will happen is that just a green sign will be put up that says ‘bike route’ and the cyclists will be no safer on these roads,” Chavez said, suggesting that two- to four-foot paved buffers be installed along the routes.

Sam Corbett, an Alta Planning + Design consultant who helped prepared the bike plan for the county, said the Class 3 routes should not be dismissed as unambitious.

“Class 3 facilities aren’t just all signage and stenciling,” he said. He said that 270 miles of the Class 3 routes would require road widening to increase the travel lanes to at least 14 feet in each direction to accommodate cyclists as well as cars.

Overall, Corbett said, the bike plan could help pave the way for a bicycle transformation in Los Angeles County similar to what’s happened during the past 15 years in Portland, Oregon.

“In 10 or 15 years, I think we can be where Portland is now,” Corbett said.

But some speakers, like Alice Strong of the West San Gabriel Valley Bicycle Coalition, said that’s too long to wait.

“I hope we don’t take 15 years to catch up with Portland. I’m sorry, but we should be leading,” Strong said. “We should be the innovators here.”

Strong said she would like to see many of the Class 3 routes upgraded to Class 2 lanes.

“We want to get more women cycling,” she said, “and we just don’t feel safe with just a little sign.”

Posted 11/17/11

Four cases have already been treated for strains covered by this year’s vaccine, all from West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. These officially mark the start of a flu season that is likely to last until May. says public health director Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding.

“Even healthy people can get very sick from the flu and spread it to others,” he says, recommending that everyone six months of age or older receive a flu vaccine every year.

Fielding urges residents to contact their doctors for a vaccine. Alternatively, low-cost vaccines also are available throughout the county at supermarkets and pharmacies. (Click here and then look for the blue “Flu Care” box along the right margin.)

Starting next week, the county also will offer free vaccines to people who do not have health insurance. Click here to search for a county flu clinic by ZIP Code and click here for a list of upcoming flu clinics throughout the county, or call the county Information Line at 2-1-1. And for a lot more information, click here.

Posted 10/20/11

On Monday, America will celebrate the first annual Food Day with a cornucopia of events across the country intended to raise awareness of the importance of safe, affordable and healthy food, produced responsibly.

Sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest with no corporate or governmental funding, the event is modeled on Earth Day, and is being guided by an advisory board that includes Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Jonathan E. Fielding, restaurateur Alice Waters, author Michael Pollan, preventive medicine expert Dr. Dean Ornish and a number of other esteemed activists, politicians and physicians.

L.A.-area events range from a weekend fruit pick in Granada Hills and a Westwood screening sponsored by the UCLA Maternal and Child Nutrition Leadership Training Program to a fundraising luncheon in Downtown Los Angeles sponsored by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

Click here for a more complete listing of Food Day events in Southern California and here for some great ideas for getting involved in the celebration.

And if you just want to celebrate with some delicious and healthy meals courtesy of celebrity chefs from around the country, click here for some great Food Day recipes.

Posted 10/20/11