MCM's Spanish Bicycle Safety Workshops

MCM in collaboration with Metro are currently conducting Spanish Bicycle Safety workshops throughout Los Angeles County. The goal of this program is to educate Spanish speaking cyclists on proper road biking procedures, inform riders about their lawful rights as well as provide participants with protective gear for safe riding. Training courses consist of indoor basic biking procedures, parking lot safety drills and a monitored bike ride. Participants will be provided with helmets, lights, reflective ankle bracelets, safety manuals and additional biking material as part of the training

Read La Opinion's coverage of Metro's Bicycle Safety Press Release Event/Lea la cobertura en La Opinión de la rueda presa de seguridad al ciclista de Metro

MCM featured on Spanish broadcast channel TELEMUNDO!

View a presentation of MCM's first PSA

MCM featured in the League of American Bicyclist's equity report

Click on the link below to read more about how MCM is becoming part of a national campaing for change.

About Multicultural Communities for Mobility

What is Multicultural Communities for Mobility?

MCM advocates for safe, alternative transportation access in underserved communities of color within greater Los Angeles. MCM sees bikes, access to adequate sidewalks, and mass transit options as part of the movement for social justice. We seek to create a new consciousness of “equitable environmentalism” that allows low-income communities to be safe, healthy, and have affordable mobility.

Why Was Multicultural Communities for Mobility Created?

In Los Angeles, the “city of cars”, a bike movement sprouted up in the mid-2000′s. Many rides, shops, and repair spaces started to open. Yet rarely were the vast amounts of immigrant cyclists, some of LA’s most dedicated cyclists anywhere to be found. Few of the most marginalized, low-income cyclists truly engaged at public outreach engagement meetings, leading bike infrastructure campaigns, or receiving culturally competent resources. We established the City of Lights program, originally based out of the LACBC in January 2009, in response to the need to change this and empower immigrant and low-income cyclists.

What Has Multicultural Communities for Mobility Done So Far?

Safety Education:

Over 600+ low-income cyclists have been served by MCM through our bilingual bicycle safety and legal rights workshops and distribution of free bicycle lights, helmets, and safety gear.

Advocacy:

MCM advocated for low-income residents to be meaningfully engaged in community planning workshops we designed after the adoption of the citywide Bicycle Master Plan. We have conducted dozens of workshops since 2011.

The 7th Street bike lane that currently runs from Koreatown to Downtown L.A. was a two year campaign of MCM. This was the first bike lane striped out of the 2011 LA City Bike Plan, especially in a low-income area. We successfully got equity/income criteria inserted into the Bicycle Plan.

Prior to our 7th Street campaign, we engaged jornaleros and community members to identify areas for bicycle parking racks in the Pico-Union/Macarthur Park area, resulting in 73 locations receiving racks in 2009.

Community Building:

We helped create the BiciDigna/BiciLibre bike repair space, jornalero led bike repair co-op in 2010. We also have led culturally themed bike rides to build community amongst a diffused population. We support groups like the DREAM Act riders in building a bigger movement to serve low-income cyclists.

Our partnerships include CARECEN, CDTech, KIWA, CCNP, TRUST South LA, Pacoima Beautiful, the LA Conservation Corps, Councilmember Ed Reyes, Kaiser Permanente, REI, the Bike Kitchen, NDLON, the UCLA Labor Center.

What Are Multicultural Communities for Mobility’s Future Plans?

Since our small inception as a program, we have since grown to a recently fiscally sponsored project of Community Partners in 2012. MCM intends to restart our safety education programming, develop more collaborative bike infrastructure campaigns with our partners, and expand our scope to address pedestrian and transit issues in 2013.

Help us expand in 2013 to reach more low-income folks on bikes!

We are recruiting passionate volunteers to help us grow Multicultural Communities for Mobility’s efforts and be a part of our team!

By now, you’ve kept tabs on our program through our blog, and as an engaged and/or interested community member, we want to invite you to be a part of our organization! Our advisory board and volunteers do a lot of exciting work, including reaching out to immigrant Latino and low-income youth cyclists, from teaching Spanish language safety workshops, to leading cultural bike rides, to holding the city accountable for striping more bike lanes and infrastructure in low-income neighborhoods in LA.

We do this work because we recognize that bikes (and other modes like walking and transit) are used as transportation by low-income communities already and we believe we can build a movement to create more social equity in these and other marginalized communities in need throughout LA.We need people of all backgrounds and skillsets–anything from grant writing, to campaign outreach, graphic design, educational workshops. Fluent Spanish speakers are highly prized!

Now is a great time to join us in creating a more multimodal Los Angeles for everyone!
If you are interested, email communitiesformobility@gmail.com or call us and leave a voicemail on the MCM hotline at: (323) 942-9962.

Support Us

Help us support our organization by making a donation by clicking the button above or by sending a check to Community Partners, attn: Nikh Mendez 1000 N. Alameda St., Suite 240 Los Angeles, CA 90012. Checks should be addressed to “Community Partners”, with MCM in the memo.

Please note: You will receive a charge from paypal under the name “Community Partners”.

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