Riding bicycles in Portland could be an entry on Stuff White People Like according to a comment made by the bicycle coordinator for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation at a City Council Transportation Committee meeting last week.

According to a great report by our friends over at BikePortland.org, Michelle Mowery, who claims to have been bicycle commuting in L.A. for 44 years, was “speaking in defense of L.A.’s Bicycle Plan Update when she mentioned that the outreach process behind it was not as robust as Portland’s in part because Portland is ‘very white’ as opposed to L.A. being ‘very diverse’.”

Check out the transcript of the exchange between Los Angeles City Councilor Bill Rosendahl and Mowery, as published on BikePortland:

BILL ROSENDAHL: Alta Planning is reportedly one of the finest consulting groups in the world for bike planning. How is it that the City of Los Angeles kicked off the Draft Bike Plan process with Alta but did not incorporate the robust Bike Plan process that Portland used/is using to develop their own Bike Plan? For example in Portland Alta maintained eleven working groups, and they used community bike rides to engage and survey.

MICHELLE MOWERY: With all due respect the City of Portland is 450,000 people. It’s a homogeneous community that is very white, and very progressive with respect to transportation. They have a trolley system that works very well, as well as their transit overall. We are a very diverse, disjointed city of 4 million people. They are 30 years ahead of us in the development of their, well, they’re not quite 30, they’re more like 20 years ahead of us in the development of their bikeway. So we’re a step behind Portland in what we’re trying to do. Granted, several of us would like to see a lot of changes in the city happen very quickly, but again we have a very diverse city with a lot of needs.

BikePortland notes that L.A.’s bike master plan update is being managed by Portland-based Alta Planning and Design.

[Via: BikePortland]