Human-powered revolution for community by community

CRSP, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Climate and Environment

Central LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Los Angeles’s urban planning is structured around single-occupant motor vehicular transportation rooted in structural racism, environmental inequity and unsustainable mobility. Our city allocates more space to moving, storing, fueling and transporting cars than any other kind of space, including housing, green space or schools. Re:Ciclos is a project directly addressing this unjust and unecological reality, especially in BIPOC communities, by recycling bicycles and scrap metal to redesign and refabricate them into cargo bicycles that are then distributed to a diverse set of community members who are committed to replacing as many car trips as possible in their daily lives. The project additionally works with young adults in an apprentice program to actuate workforce development and youth empowerment in fostering new leaders while collaborating with local artists to paint our cargo bikes in solidarity with our vision of a healthy, ecological and sustainable future for all.

Funding from the LA2050 Grant supports general operations, facilities and staffing for Re:Ciclos to continue developing its current cargo bicycle fabrication and apprentice projects and to grow its capacity both internally and externally. Our project is specifically seeking additional funds toward hiring a Communications and Media Coordinator staff member to assist in the vital work of public engagement, dissemination of information and on-the-ground community outreach. Our project strives to continue to create strong and impactful programming and to replicate its efforts around the county in community maker spaces, bicycle repair co-ops and educational institutions in an effort to provide this essential resource to as many communities as possible. The benefits of the Re:Ciclos cargo bike project include: >Reduced greenhouse gas emissions >More peaceful and healthy communities and community members >Youth empowerment and leadership building >Improved congestion, as 60% of car trips made are 5 miles or less >Active transportation and engaging civic life >Reinvestment in local economies by creating human-scaled cycles of commerce

A Re:Ciclos-envisioned future Los Angeles is one where historically marginalized communities are actively building healthy, vibrant, community-focused forms of mobility to combat global climate disruption, mobility injustice and deteriorated urban life due to the excesses of car infrastructure and culture. Funding from LA2050 would ensure that we can continue to build cargo bikes and distribute to communities most in need and to help develop new leaders in our apprentices who are not just a future workforce, but a future political body. Our clients and apprentices alike take an active participatory role in creating a new paradigm for healthy transportation. Re:Ciclos intends to build 2 cargo bicycles a month in 2023 in our shop space and grow in the years to come to build 20 cargo bikes a month collectively around the county to engage with communities on the local level and help usher in sustainable mobility practices in the neighborhoods most in need.

In late 2020, amid the Covid pandemic, Re:Ciclos worked with a young man in the gang-prevention program with the Bresee Foundation. Our young apprentice spent 10 days building a cargo bicycle for a local bread maker looking to sell her goods at farmer’s markets. The proof of concept was delivered and today our young apprentice will be entering a welding program at Los Angeles Trade Tech College and our client has since gotten rid of her car. This account exemplifies the cross-sectional impact that Re:Ciclos produces. Through miles traveled on our cargo bikes, materials diverted from the waste stream, greenhouse gas emissions reduced, car congestion lessened and more active-transportation space utilized, our program both helps our clients and apprentices lead by example and helps our city generate and track vital usage and mapping data on the environmental, social and political benefits to our diverse communities when we have access to clean, just and fun mobility.