jeremygrant.com

greensters
lacbc

…because they can do it all in one day.

Event:
Bicycle ride, public workshop & climate action

Date:
Saturday, October 24, 2009

Time:
8:15am – 6:15pm

Location:
LA Eco-Village to Exposition Park to Manhattan Beach

Come join the LA Greensters for a full day of hauling and community participation. We will feed and water/soda anyone who helps us haul valet equipment to MB and back to Marina Del Rey. See timeline below. Even if you don’t plan to haul equipment please feel free to join us for the ride. After the bike plan meeting we should be in Culver City at the Duquense entrance to Ballona Creek by 12:45 PM so you can meet us there. Santa Monica/Venice riders can join us at the Ballona Creek bridge around 1:30 PM for the final leg to Manhattan Beach.

Schedule:

8 AM – 9 AM: meet at the LA Eco-Village to load up LACBC bike valet equipment.

9 AM – Noon: Travel to and participate in Central/South LA bike plan meeting at Exposition Park – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library, 3900 S. Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90062

Noon – 2 PM: Haul bike valet to Manhattan Beach for SouthBay 350 event.

2 PM – 5 PM: Participate in the “Amazing Human Wave Tide Line” and help out with valet as needed.

5 PM: Depart Manhattan Beach and haul valet back to Marina Del Rey where we will hand-off valet equip to LACBC at approximately 6 PM.

Anyone hauling equip can simply show up at the Eco-Village located near 1st and Vermont on Bimini on Saturday morning between 8 – 9 AM.

A singular light yard sits in the middle of the 7,000 square mile area city Los Angeles. It is home to the Bureau of Street Lighting: four acres of utility trucks, light poles, offices and machine shops that services all 230,000 lights of the city.  It is funded by a special assessment levied against any property adjacent to or benefiting from the Street Lighting System. Chances are if you need a street light fixed the supplies and truck will be traveling from this light yard. Just call 311!

Take one step out from the light yard’s eight foot tall, chain link fence topped with razor wire and you’ll recognize that the sidewalk and curb in front is littered with trash, road debris and huge cracks. Another step and you’ll see how fast the traffic is speeding recklessly to the next stop light, a street lined with parked cars and cyclists trying to squeeze between the two. It is a disconnected stretch of Santa Monica that doesn’t share the two sided street interaction the rest of the Boulevard does. It’s been described by locals as a “dead man’s land” on the way to the Hollywood or Silverlake. It’s not a pretty picture of urban design. Much to the contrary — it’s a picture of urban decline.

Maybe this is where a light pole yard should be, right?

No. The light yard is contributing to urban decline. All sides are fighting this vacuum of decay. Dirt lots, parking lots and generous road right of ways border the yard.  The residential community seems sliced apart by the void of stacked light poles and a parking lot full of utility trucks and cars.  Replacing the void of the light yard with a park would nearly complete the vision of East Hollywood according to the Vermont/Western Transit Oriented District (TOD) Specific Plan.  By the year 2020 the Specific Plan seeks to create more public parks, establish a clean, safe, comfortable and pedestrian oriented community environment with a  compatibility of uses, transit friendly.  It calls for a lively civic atmosphere, safer routes to schools and transit.  It asks for more trees, replacing asphalt with porous surfaces, decreasing the urban heat island affect, and supporting the hospital core.  It supports the expansion and provision of educational, sports, senior and childcare public facilities.  The light pole yard property, public facility land mostly owned by the City of Los Angeles, is planned to be one of the following:

…public elementary, secondary or high schools; police stations and related uses; parks and recreation facilities, including bicycle paths and walking trails, nature trails; park land and lawn areas; children’s play areas; picnic facilities; athletic fields (not to exceed 200 seats); senior citizen centers, community centers, clubhouses; swimming pools, libraries; tennis courts; rest rooms; gyms; camping facilities; museums; aquaria, observatories, planetaria and zoos.

One artist’s vision of the proposed park… What would your vision look like?

There are many reasons why this area needs a park.  Across the street, under the shine so fantastically provided by the adjacent Street Lighting System are the signature bricks of Carnegie’s Cahuenga Library. It is the oldest branch in the LA system and a registered U.S. National Historic Place. It sits north of the yard. Behind the library sits Marshall Primary School and within short walking distances there are number of other schools (USC Medical School, Los Angeles City College, Lockwood Elementary, and many other private schools). The immediate area is also a national center of medical research and practice with Kaiser Permanente, Queen of Angels, Hollywood Presbyterian and LA Children’s Hospitals populating the neighborhood. Arts and culture is not to forgotten in this community as it is home to many types of artists, public television KCET, Barnsdall Art Park Center, the Braille Institute, Little Armenia, Thai Town and the Bicycle District. The new multi-family residential communities are exploding and the single homes continue to be a remodeled and resold. This diverse, mixed-use community is linked regionally via the subway / transit station, two blocks away at Santa Monica Blvd. & Vermont. East Hollywood also serves as a corridor to the the adjacent communities of Hollywood, Los Feliz and Silver Lake.  Whats missing in the package that East Hollywood provides is a park, open space, a community center.

Maybe its not enough reason that a park fits into this community like a jigsaw piece. The City is working on plans to expand the light yard while also contemplating plans on sharing part of the land as public open space while the Bureau of Street Lighting continues to operate as the industrial black sheep of the East Hollywood neighborhood. A shared land use plan is a good result for the short term; a long term goal of transforming the entire four acres into a public park and community center is what the neighborhood is asking for.

Take for instance David Bell’s call to action for support of the East Hollywood Greens. Mr. Bell is President of the local East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, one of the most vocal and active in Los Angeles. He sees the park as a direct health benefit to the children residing in the area, “Kids kick soccer balls up against this fence sometimes because they don’t have anywhere else to go.” Mr. Bell and his council have organized Park demonstrations in front of the light yard in the past few months and has seen overwhelming support from the community for this vision. In fact, the grass roots Park(ing) Day LA has taken the East Hollywood Greens on as a pet project with the NC and is organizing ongoing support, planning and demonstrations to make the park a reality by 2020.

Stephen Box, another East Hollywood stakeholder and park advocate, cites the drawn out ‘history’ of the 1996 $750-million parks measure passing and subsequent city council support and inaction in his most recent article on the stalled East Hollywood Greens plan. Mr. Box states, the “City Council motion 06-07-07 expired on August 25, 2009 and simply died, mortally wounded by City Council inactivity… The City Council motion of 2006 directed General Services to identify property that could be used to accommodate the Bureau of Street Lighting service yard and property was identified but the motion died. It simply died”

I understand that the City doesn’t have the money to build the park now; but, if the whole site is planned as a park it should remain that way in the plans. Inaction by the City should not be seen as reason to undermine the future of this park, the vision of the Specific Plan. Special consideration should be taken of plans that are so affected by the budget deficit and present economic circumstances, especially when it’s long term goal is to enhance the community and support a healthier population.

What would you rather have? stacks of poles or a park?

los angelenos knock down about 75 poles a month!
please stop knocking down the poles people! parks are for people, not for poles!!!

“The climb is swift with strong legs.”
-bike ninja

This past Saturday afternoon dozens of community minded cyclists attended the first LA Bike Working Group to review, discuss and formulate a response to the draft update LA Bicycle Plan. The draft, an update of the current Bicycle Plan first adopted in 1996 and re-adopted by the City Council in 2007, is now in it’s second public comment stage this October. More public meetings will be taking place and all comments will be sent to the staff transmitting the Plan to the City Planning Commission for its consideration and subsequently to the City Council for adoption.

Just visit labikeplan.com/ for more info on meetings and to make a comment

current plan update

Here are some points that I took away from helping facilitate the first small group discussion at the LA Bike Working Group:

What Cyclists Want from the LA Bike Plan

In the second group I was to help facilitate the engineering and technical stuff. We could have dissected all the inadequate and inaccurate diagrams and question the inclusion of unapproved design it offered. Instead, we questioned why such an extensive section of faulty technical drawings would be published (most Bike Plans just reference the well established sections of the required / approved codes and designs) In the end the we established that all streets and roads should acknowledge and support ALL road users and we should always consider the bicyclist as a road user… any thing less would be an inequality.

Of course there were many more opinions on the subject of the bike plan and I can’t include them all; but, I’d say that we all pretty much agreed that the draft update needs to be completely revised before it can even be reviewed for consideration. Another point we agreed upon was to demand the extension of the process / comment period. So many groups have asked for this and we still don’t have it.

(On a personal note) one immediate sore point of the City established meeting plan is that the first Saturday meeting occurs concurrently with the International Day of Climate Action, which is attended by many MANY cyclists. So many that it warrants a bike valet.

OCT 24th.
Heal the Bay, International Day of Climate Action
Bike Valet c/o LACBC & LA Greensters

for the more info on information in this article see:
labikeplan.com/
http://www.bikewriterscollective.com/
http://soapboxla.blogspot.com/
http://www.westsidebikeside.com/
et al.

Santa Monica held their annual Alt Car Expo at the Convention Center this past weekend. Along with a full array of alternative fuel cars, green and organic tech vendors there was a bicycle exhibitor area (the real alternatives to cars), a ride and drive test area, discussions, free bike valet, and lots of cool stuff. The expo presents ideas and solutions to the average consumer on how to use less energy and reduce their carbon footprint without making big lifestyle changes.

The LA Greensters showed up with their fantastic PARK(ing) Booth strapped to their xtracycles, bikes and trailers and deployed their park within minutes of arrival.  The Greensters presented an alternative transportation solution for the film industry. The film industry is the second most polluting industry in Los Angeles — the second most polluted city in the USA.  By planning the movie sustainably they were able to help produce a zero carbon footprint film, At What Price.  Bike Talk, on Killradio.org broadcasted from the booth live and BikeMoreLA! led a demonstration on how to grocery shop with your bicycle.

SOCAL, High School Cycling League
In speaking with Matt I found out about everything I need to know to compete as a cyclist in High School… if only there was something like this 20 years ago I would have joined. Matt was a swimmer and water polo player too and it seems like this would be the perfect sport to round out young athletes that cross train, triathlon or just plain love bikes.

Bike Weddings
Elizabeth told me all about how she performs the wedding: paperwork and all the formalities on bike. She makes sure something as special as the sacred bond of love leaves no lasting scar to the environment. A carbon free wedding is a way to make sure you’re ‘way ahead of the Joneses’ from DAY 1!

Cal Poly Pomona University
Hybrid Race Car Team
I was very impressed when this smart student let me know that their team placed 15th (out of 30 teams) their first year entering the competition. The race car was a combination gas and electric and they had a lot to learn (outside of regular studies) about controlling electricity. The clean cut team was made up of Industrial and Mechanical Engineers who designed and built the race car themselves. Learn by doing! Congratulations Broncos!

Bikerowave was there to offer free bike tune up services and to promote their new location on Venice Blvd on the westside. Along with bike repair and advocacy they have a lounge and library with coffee coming soon.

Dr phil habil Michael Cahn of Santa Monica Spoke was there to promote “ride your bike to SaMo High Day” and offered a lot of helpful advice and perspectives on riding your bike in LA.  Spoke also provided free flat repair kits and started up discussion on “where do you have an issue” with cycling in Santa Monica.

While it was neat to see so many people crowding the Best Buy booth that was full of bikes it was disappointing to see that the bikes did not require the rider to pedal at all. Cyclists should not have to share lanes with bikes like these. A better solution is what Dahon offered… pedal assist bikes.

The Dahon Ios was the coolest looking bike at the show (next to mine; ha ha). It has a floor pump in the seat, adjustable stem and handlebars, a place to charge the iphone, generator lights and a lot of other doo dads. I also tried out the new pedal assist bikes and think they are the best solution for new riders trying to make the jump to bicycling everywhere… no sweat pedaling and a good investment. I learned that electric Dahons are the choice of bike mechanics everywhere because they are made with everyday standardized components.

I had the privilege of meeting ‘Miss Traffic’ dressed in her fancy attire and making the rounds on behalf of the lost Metro campaign from last year. I think she inspired the Metro representatives (from the main room) to cruise through the bike annex because they showed up soon after.

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