The Los Angeles County Bike Coalition’s newest campaign, Car-Free Fridays, launched this morning at 8:00 A.M. at the Hollywood and Western Red Line Station.  After interviews with the press and a short wait for stragglers, City Council President Eric Garcetti and the Bike Coalition led a group of sixty cyclists to city hall to show that biking is both a viable, safe, easy and fun way of commuting at around 8:40 A.M.

“Riding your
bike on Car–Free Fridays is a great way to reduce your impact on the
environment and get a work out at the same time,” said Council President
Eric Garcetti. 

The ride ended at City Hall just before 9:30.  By then the group had shrunk, as many riders peeled off to commute to work but the remaining 40 riders posed with Garcetti in front of the City Hall’s east entrance for visitors.

The bike coalition says there are many benefits to riding a bike a couple of times a week. 

Riding a bicycle for just 10 miles a week can save at least $520 a year, shed
calories, work to reduce California’s
emissions from cars and light trucks which are the largest single source of
greenhouse gas emissions in California.
It helps reduce traffic congestion which costs the regional economy $9.3
billion annually.

For anyone reading this blog for the first time, I’ll offer a simpler argument.  Which of the pictures below looks like a better and more fun way of commuting?  Both pictures were taken this morning.