This time I exploit my employers to promote a book event by tying it in to the CicLAvia open streets event scheduled for Sunday, May 31st, in nearby Pasadena. Since the CicLAvia is only a smidgen over three miles long, I am offering folks a chance to extend it by riding back to South Pasadena with me for a book signing at The Battery on Mission Street.

You can read about it on Orange 20 Bikes under the title of CicLAvia Plus, or at Flying Pigeon LA, where I call it Bikes, Books, and CicLAvia.

There's also a Facebook page for it, if you favor that….

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 27 May 2015 21:58:34 -0800 [link]  

Orange 20's post this week alerts readers that the store has moved (albeit just half a block), and asks that they Check Out Our New Shop.

While at Flying Pigeon LA we ask whether the upset win of David Ryu in Los Angeles District 4 will end in Shaking Up the City Council? It's a body in dire need of a good shake-up…. But Ryu has been very quiet on the campaign trail about what he would actually do if elected…. Well, he's been elected now, so he'd better let us know!

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 20 May 2015 20:07:35 -0800 [link]  

Well, the meeting I attended at LA's City Hall was dreary enough: despite petition signatures in the thousands, the testimony of dozens of stakeholders—a significant majority of whom favored a fully multi-modal facility—and the growing weight of evidence that building car-friendly infrastructure simply invokes more traffic and congestion and drains the public treasury…the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Public works voted unanimously to recommend the Option 1A plan for the Glendale/Hyperion bridge complex linking Silver Lake and Atwater.

This option retains four lanes for mixed (ie, motor) traffic, the same four lanes that induce rampant speeding now, and adds two skimpy bike lanes and one sidewalk. Only one sidewalk, forcing walkers to detour about a half mile if they are unlucky enough to be on the downstream side of the bridge at one end and wish to end up still on the downstream side on the other.

This is the half-a-loaf plan: survival rations, not nourishment. It's better than the abomination that exists today, but it's far from a truly community-friendly multi-modal bridge. Option 3, preferred by the majority, featured three mixed traffic lanes, two protected bikeways, and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.

The unimaginative minority in the audience could think only that there would be oh-my-god less room for cars—though there can never be "enough room for cars," if you follow the current paradigm of structurally mandating that everyone drive by making all other option unattractive or downright frightening.

The Bureau of Engineering even trotted out their "Level Of Service" computations, though the methodology used has long been discredited and is scheduled to be abandoned by the State of California soon.

So Silver Lake and Atwater will continue to be blessed with road-raging drivers barreling down from the apex of the bridge at freeway speeds—right into pedestrian-centered shopping streets.

Read more here:
Is the City Destroying a Bridge in Order to Save It? (By me)
Is the Death Bridge Dead? (By me)
A Tale of Two Future Bridges: New Bike/Ped Crossing on L.A. River, Fewer Sidewalks on Glendale-Hyperion (By Damien Newton)
Public Works Board Approves Sidewalk Deficient Glendale-Hyperion Bridge (By Joe Linton)

A cursory search on "Glendale Hyperion bridge" will find you many more articles on this issue.

But at least I had the pleasure of a ride downtown in a very light rain, so light that I just let it fall and evaporate from my woolens while I rode without rain gear. (Which I carried just in case.) It is only under rain that much of LA smells good, and so it was today.

And I wasn't alone: I came across many dozens of other cyclists on my way downtown and, especially, in the city's core.

At least there was that.

Richard Risemberg on Sat, 16 May 2015 03:00:00 -0800 [link]  

This week's blogging roundup brings you the Wheelie Bin Bike Lane Derby News from Orange 20 Bikes, and alerts you that They're At It Again, as two LA city council members try to revive the Glendale/Hyperion Zombie Death Bridge plan, over at Flying Pigeon LA.

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 13 May 2015 20:15:24 -0800 [link]  

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