Peddling Idea of Pedaling to Work : Commuting: Los Angeles is requiring bike racks and showers at some new buildings and backs a $5.1-million trail.

For years, city and county transportation officials have tried to reduce freeway traffic and air pollution by getting car-happy Los Angeles commuters out of automobiles and into trains, buses and subways.

Now, they are turning to a century-old alternative mode of transportation: bicycles.

The City Council adopted a law this month that requires developers to install bicycle racks and showers in large new commercial and industrial buildings. Last month, the council and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission approved a plan to build a $5.1-million riverside bike path from North Hollywood to downtown.

But whether the city’s efforts can take people out of their Subarus and put them on their Schwinns is a matter of ongoing debate.

“There are a number of people who do want to ride to work and the intention is to give them the opportunity,” said Katherine McDonald, a spokeswoman for Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who wrote the building-modification law.

Some bicyclists, clean-air advocates and business leaders, however, say it will take much more than that before bicycling becomes a more popular commuting alternative. They said bicyclists dread competing with motorists on the city’s congested and often-dangerous streets.

“Most people have bicycles in their garages, but they don’t find it safe to ride on the streets,” said James McWorthy, president of the North Hollywood Wheelmen, a group of bicycle enthusiasts.

A 1991 survey conducted by a commuter service company found that only two out of 500 Los Angeles County commuters rely primarily on a bicycle to get to work.

The law adopted Nov. 5 was designed to improve that ratio by requiring new commercial and industrial buildings of 10,000 square feet or larger to provide bicycle racks. Buildings of 50,000 square feet or larger must also provide showers for each gender. The law is designed to provide bicycle parking for at least 4% of the occupants in each building.

Builders and business leaders said they don’t expect the law to have an immediate effect because the recession has put a damper on the commercial building industry. In the past two years, building analysts estimate, fewer than six buildings of 50,000 square feet or larger have been constructed in the San Fernando Valley.

“Right now, developers should be registered as endangered species,” said David Honda, president of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley. “No one is developing in the magnitude that they are talking about.”

Honda predicted that when the recession ends and the building industry booms, builders will begin to take note of Yaroslavsky’s law and most will probably see it as another costly government regulation weighing down the industry.

“Once we find more projects going up, it will be more controversial,” he said.

In contrast, Tim Little, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air, said the law does not go far enough and should be applied retroactively to all commercial and industrial buildings over 10,000 square feet.

But he, too, agreed that the streets are too dangerous for many commuters to consider bicycling as an alternative. “I ride a bike a lot, but I won’t ride downtown,” he said.

McDonald defended the ordinance, saying it was intended only to promote an alternative form of commuting. “Nobody is trying to present this as a watershed in the way we are transporting ourselves to and from work,” she said.

But she said studies indicate that cities where bicycling is encouraged have a bicycle commuter rate as high as 10%.

Alex Baum, 68, chairman of the Mayor’s Bicycle Citizens Advisory Committee, said the law will not be costly because it allows developers to do away with some automobile parking space to provide an area for bicycles.

“It’s a terrific law,” he said.

Claudia Keith, a spokeswoman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the district’s 20-year, clean-air plan includes “broad language” to encourage business to promote bicycling. But she said there are no specific requirements mandating bicycle racks or showers in new buildings. “Companies like the flexibility to provide what is best for the company,” she said.

Despite concerns about the safety of bicycling on Los Angeles’ congested streets, Baum said bicycling can be a safe form of commuting once motorists and bicyclists become better schooled in the rules of the road.

“It’s a matter of education and getting used to the bicycle as a mode of transportation,” Baum said.

He pointed out that bicycling is a very popular form of commuting in Europe and Asia because people there have become educated in bicycle safety and motorists are more aware of bicyclists.

Baum and other bicycle enthusiasts said the plan to build a 16-mile bike path along the Los Angeles River may spark the interest of many commuters who fear riding a bicycle on Los Angeles streets.

The 12-foot-wide bike path would follow the river north from Elysian Park to Riverside Drive in Griffith Park. From there, it would pick up an existing bike lane along Forest Lawn Drive, join the river again west of Universal City and follow the East Tujunga Wash flood control channel to Strathern Street in North Hollywood.

The city and the county Transportation Commission have both endorsed the plan and have urged state transit authorities to allocate $300,000 for preliminary planning on the project.

But Irwin Chodash, an engineer in the city’s Department of Transportation, said the path, to be built alongside the service road that already parallels the river, will probably not open until late 1995 or early 1996. He said the most difficult part of the project will be purchasing the easement rights from private property owners whose land the bikeway would cross.

Still, McWorthy predicted that construction of the path could prompt as many as 2,000 commuters from the Valley to ride to work. He said a traffic-free route is all that is needed before more people ride a bicycle to work.

“We can be downtown in 20 minutes on that path,” he said.