MTA Grants Reprieve to Children’s Bike Program

A children’s bicycle safety program has been saved from its own crash by a last-minute grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Safe Moves, a nonprofit organization that stages safety demonstrations at schoolyards across Los Angeles County, will receive a $231,000 allocation for the fiscal year that starts today, officials said Friday.

MTA administrators had disclosed plans last month to terminate Safe Move’s funding. They said the program was an established one that no longer qualified for transit agency “seed money” made available each year to new groups.

But MTA directors approved the allocation without objection after an 11-year-old Long Beach boy appealed to them to continue it. Christopher Molletti said his life was saved shortly after he attended a 1994 Safe Moves demonstration because he was wearing a safety helmet when his bike was hit by a car.

Safe Moves founder Pat Hines had originally sought $543,000 from the MTA. She said she had planned to use that amount to obtain matching funds from the city and county. Her Marina del Rey-based group operates on an $830,000 annual budget.

Hines said she will now seek permission from local officials to solicit private donations that can be used in the matching-fund process in hopes of making up her budget shortfall.

The MTA, meantime, plans to use a consultant to evaluate the Safe Moves program and help determine whether it should be considered for on-going funding after 1996.

MTA administrators said they will examine the program’s effectiveness in promoting children’s use of bicycles and public transit in place of automobile transportation.