As of right now, Jersey City’s only bike lanes – on Grove Street.

On December 6th 2012, Jersey City Mayor Jerremiah Healy announced that, during 2013, Jersey City will receive 54.7 new miles of bikeway. I received the news via the NJ.com article Move over, drivers: Jersey City plans to add 54 miles of bike lanes.

The article describes the future bike facilities as part of a “comprehensive bike program including bike lanes, updated biking ordinances, additional bike parking, and an expanded safe cycling campaign.” It further breaks down the 54.7 miles as: 35.2 miles of bike lanes and 19.5 miles of bike routes, featuring sharrows. The article also states that the “experimental bike lanes on Grove Street will be made permanent this spring.” As far as I know, those are the only bike lanes in Jersey City. 

Overall, I think that this is great news for Jersey City cyclists, businesses, pedestrians, people who breathe here, etc. Kudos to Mayor Healy for putting forth this important initiative. For future blog posts, I am looking forward to finding down more specifics on what streets will be receiving what bike facilities, and tracking to make sure they are done as soon and as well as possible. Keep your readers tuned to Bikas for more specifics in the weeks and months ahead. (And anyone who’s interested in riding these and tracking what’s been done and what remains, let me know via comments below.)

Today, though I will critique the announcement a bit. First of all the NJ.com article, then the mayor’s remarks.

The title of the NJ.com article begins “Move over, drivers.” While this may be the case (hopefully some of these bike lanes will cause drivers to more safely position their cars where they can share the road with cyclists), it has an assumed reader: drivers. As a cyclist living in Jersey City, I tend to take issue with titles, signs, etc. that assume I am driving. Jersey City has high levels of walking, bicycling, transit… so… not all of us are drivers. When announcing great stuff for bicyclists, it would be great if the title of the article assumes that we exist.

In beginning by telling drivers to “move over,” the article also sort of picks a fight. It assumes that bike facilities are a zero-sum game where cyclists’ gains must come as drivers’ losses. This is not necessarily accurate. Studies show that many bike facilities make roads safer for everyone, including drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and, of course, cyclists.

The rest of the title “Jersey City plans to add 54 miles of bike lanes” is just plain inaccurate. It’s not uncommon for journalists, and even cyclists, to mistakenly use bike lanes/paths/routes interchangably… but they’re different. The text of the article makes clear that it’s only 35 miles of bike lanes. Better to use the inclusive term “bikeways.” Bikeways include bike routes, bike lanes, and bike paths.

My suggested title for the article: something like “Good news for all: Jersey City plans to add 54.7 miles of bikeways.”

Lastly, let’s look at Mayor Healy’s remarks as quoted in the article:

“We’re obviously not going to put them [bikeways] in high-density traffic areas,” Healy said. “But a lot of our side streets can accommodate bike lanes and we intend to do that.”

I found this a bit disheartening. It sounds like the mayor wants to get cyclists off of main streets and onto side streets. While it’s probably a good strategy to start with some of the lowest-hanging fruit, likely to be “side streets,” cyclists also need to access those “high-density traffic areas.”

Traffic is a sign that an area (or, also, a website) is popular. Traffic occurs where people want to shop, work and live. If we only make “side streets” safer, then we’re missing the point. It reminds me of the joke about a drunk who’s lost his wallet in a dark alley. A passerby asks the drunk what he’s looking for underneath the streetlight. They drunk responds that he’s lost his wallet in the dark alley. The passerby asks, if the wallet was lost in the dark alley, why is the drunk searching in the street? The drunk responds “the light is better here.” Let’s not put bike lanes on out-of-the-way side streets where they may not be most needed.

If Jersey City’s new bikeway network doesn’t go to popular destinations, then it really doesn’t make our streets safer. If bikeways are relegated only to side streets that cyclists rarely use, then the initiative may not result in its intended environmental and health benefits. Let’s hope that Mayor Healy and Jersey City’s planners have balanced utility, safety, popularity, feasibility, etc. as they chose the streets where the new bikeways will be implemented.

The devil (and the angels) are in the details, though – more analysis and critique coming soon. And I am looking forward to bicycling on the new lanes this year!

New bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood

There are 0.3 miles of new bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles neighborhood of East Hollywood. The new bike lanes extend from just below Sunset Boulevard at Sunset Junction all the way to Virgil Avenue, fairly near the new Bicycle Kitchen’s new location.

The lanes connect with existing bike lanes on Myra Avenue and stop just a block short of connecting with bike lanes on Sunset Boulevard. The new lanes end at Gateway Avenue – one short block from Sunset Boulevard. They will connect with bike lanes scheduled to be added to Virgil Avenue within the current fiscal year (meaning: to added by July 1st 2013.) In the above embedded map, the new bike lanes are in yellow, existing lanes in green, and near future bike lanes in red.

Bike lanes for his stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard were approved in the city’s Bicycle Plan; the lanes are partially (from Hoover/Myra to Virgil) in the city’s 5-Year Implementation Strategy.

Bikas visited the new lanes last week and they were almost done. The lines had been striped, but the bike symbols hadn’t been painted. Cyclists and quite a few cars were using the new bike lanes.

Thanks to Road Block @wolfpackhustle for alerting me to the new lanes via Twitter.

Sorth County Trailway – 12+ mile bike path from the Bronx to Tarrytown and continuing farther north.

Last weekend, my fiance and I took a two-day weekend trip to Tarrytown, NY – about 30 miles north of Jersey City. We took the PATH train across to World Trade Center, then hopped on the NYC Subway 1 Line which goes from lower Manhattan to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. At the north edge of the park, the northern border of New York City, is the beginning of a nice long rail-to-trail project, which goes by the somewhat generic name: South County Trailway. See the link for a brochure with a handy trail map.

The southern end of the South County bike path was a little hard to find. We exited the 1 train at 242nd, right across from Van Cortlandt Park. We rode through/along the west edge of the park… but then ended up riding through streets in lower Yonkers to find the entrance to the trail, which was on the other side of the Henry Hudson Parkway, thus not easily accessible all along. There’s probably an easier way to get into the middle of the park and start at the beginning of the trail.

From there it was very smooth sailing. We bicycled nearly 12 miles mostly through fairly lush woodlands, with changing fall colors. The path, an old railroad right-of-way, roughly follows the Saw Mill River, which also includes the Saw Mill River Parkway. It passes along Yonkers, Hastings on Hudson, Ardsley, Greenburgh, Irvington, and more. It’s difficult to tell exactly where one is, because the path itself is all pretty woodsy.

There are a few small streets that cross the bike path; about a dozen in a dozen miles. There are crosswalks, and the few drivers we encountered at crossings waved us through.

At Elmsford, there’s a short (about 0.5 mile) gap where we had to ride on fairly un-bike-friendly streets to get to the next segment. Not so bad, but jarring after nearly a dozen miles of peaceful quiet bike-only facility.

Bike trail spur along the Tarrytown Reservoir

The path continues further north, but we got off near the Tarrytown reservoir where there’s a connecting bike path that runs along the southern edge of the reservoir lake. We pedaled down to Tarrytown and enjoyed spending time with old friends. On the way back we put our trains on the Metro North Train to Grand Central Station, then biked to the PATH station disembarking back in Jersey City. All in all a very pleasant car-free weekend out of town.

Bikas founder Joe Linton

Bikas founder Joe Linton will be a guest tonight on KCRW radio‘s Which Way L.A.? The news radio segment airs at 7pm-8pm today, August 16th 2012, at 89.9 on your FM dial. You can listen online – then or after – too.

Tonight’s program will feature a 10-minute segment discussing the recent New York Times article If Kant were a New York cyclist. In that article, Randy Cohen aka The Ethicist (if you’re unfamiliar with him, watch this excellent Streetfilm), argues that, in some situations where nobody is endangered or harmed, it’s safe and ok and ethical for bicyclists to break the law. 

An excerpt from the NYT article:

I roll through a red light if and only if no pedestrian is in the crosswalk and no car is in the intersection — that is, if it will not endanger myself or anybody else. To put it another way, I treat red lights and stop signs as if they were yield signs. A fundamental concern of ethics is the effect of our actions on others. My actions harm no one. This moral reasoning may not sway the police officer writing me a ticket, but it would pass the test of Kant’s categorical imperative: I think all cyclists could — and should — ride like me.

I am not anarchic; I heed most traffic laws. I do not ride on the sidewalk (O.K., except for the final 25 feet between the curb cut and my front door, and then with caution). I do not salmon, i.e. ride against traffic. In fact, even my “rolling stops” are legal in some places.

Tune in tonight!

Irritating ad for Toyota SUV – Bikas recommends just skipping the SUV and going directly to the bike polo

>At Taking the Lane, Elly Blue coins a new term “Bikewashing” to describe those non-bikey things that are using bikes to advertise. An excerpt:

As bicycling becomes more popular, there’s been a shift in the bike imagery used in advertising. Sure, there are still adssuggesting that you’re a loser if you ride a bike, but there are a growing number using bikes to convey a sense that the company cares about the values of active transportation, health, and localism.

It seems like bikes are all over the ad world these days – from ads for cars to healthcare to snack-crackers. It’s ironic (and very very irritating) to me that car companies use bikes to advertise. There are a lot of implications, but it seems like car-people want to be associated with the freedom of bicycling… my recomendation: skip the car and go directly to the bike stuff.

The article at Taking the Lane is good; the discussion does touch on the good aspects of bikewashing… in many ways it’s a sign that bicycling is popular and awesome!

> The NY Times has a Dave Eggers review of Grant Petersen’s new book Just Ride, including a critique of dressing up in fancy expensive clothing to bike. An excerpt:

“In its need for special clothing,” [Petersen] writes, “bicycle riding is less like scuba diving and more like a pickup basketball game.” A regular cotton T-shirt and a pair of shorts will ventilate better, he says, and if you’re not trying to shave seconds off a world record, the microscopic aerodynamic advantages of tight synthetic clothing just don’t apply to you.

Check Bikas Facebook page for updates. Recently added: a photo set from last Friday’s epic Critical Mass ride in L.A.

2012 US Postal Service bicycle stamps

From the wording on the back of the stamps:

Whether a youngster just learning to ride, a commuter on the way to work, a road racer crossing the finish line, or an airborne BMX rider, everyone who bicycles has one thing in common: They know a great thing when they feel it!

As a bicyclist, I am a minority somewhat starved for seeing my own image. It’s a situation similar to folks who are Latino, Black, Asian, mixed-race, gays,  lesbians, transexuals, etc. watching movies or tv and not seeing themselves portrayed enough. Similarly, the few bicyclist portrayals have something to say about how the public perceives who bikes and who doesn’t.

1999 USPS BMX Biking postage stamp, part of the Xtreme Sports series

Let me start by briefly reviewing other USPS bicycle stamps – oh boy!

I remember being pretty excited about these 1999 “BMX BIKING” stamps that were one-fourth of the Xtreme Sports stamps page. It was just after I was among the founders of the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, which formed in1998. When the extreme bicycling stamp came out, we were still mailing out various stuff. Even though extreme biking really wasn’t the bicycling I was doing or promoting, all in all, I was happy to have some kind of recognizably bike-themed stamps to put on some of our mailings.

In the long run, though, I think it’s a little counterproductive when the general public sees cycling as “xtreme.”

2011 USPS Go Green stamp urges folks to “ride a bike”

More recently, in 2011, the USPS came out with a sheet of 16 “Go Green” stamps. Each of the stamps illustrates a tip for reducing our environmental footprint. Tips include “use efficient light bulbs,” “recycle more,” “compost,” etc. One out of sixteen urges folks to “ride a bike” and shows a bicyclist. I actually really like the cyclist, who looks like he has just gone to the market, and is carrying cargo in both a front basket and a back rack.

(The thing that I dislike so much about the Go Green stamps is that, of sixteen, one stamp shows a bike while two show cars. Rounding out the green transportation picture, one each for walking and for riding the bus. I personally really resent cars being shown in any kind of environmentally responsible transportation picture. Cars, even the so-called greenish ones, are very environmentally destructive… and while there are some settings where they’re appropriate, I don’t think that they should ever be seen as eco, or as safe.)

The 2012 bicycling series is probably best in the simple fact that they do acknowledge, respect and draw attention to bicycling. Appearing on a stamp says that we bicyclists exist! It says that we’re legit!

Woman with cargo – my favorite of the new bike stamps

What I was happiest to see: cargo! When I look around at bicyclists in Los Angeles (and urban bicyclist all over) they’re usually carrying something: a messenger bag, a backpack, panniers, or something! Then when someone (generally a non-bicyclist) portrays a cyclist, they often are shown carrying nothing – no lock, no pack, no nothing… which tends to mean that the cyclist portrayed is a weekend recreational cyclist, not someone running an errand, commuting, shopping, etc.

The commuter’s posture is a little more upright – not so up as the child, not so hunched over at the racer-man. That’s good – to me, the more upright the posture means the easier, more fun, more everyday, more accessible to all.  So… her somewhat-upright posture is good, but the overall impression may be that as one grows up one’s gotta hunch over more on one’s bike.

The other excellent thing about the “commuter on the way to work” is that she’s female! It’s the first female bicyclist I know of on a USA stamp. There’s so much great energy in the female bicycling leaders in L.A. and elsewhere. Now they have at least one stamp.

So… now to a few things I don’t like so much about the stamps – which I really do like overall.

Unfortunately only one in four cyclists is female and is carrying any kind of cargo.

Three out of four of the bicyclists (all of the adult cyclists portrayed) are wearing expensive-looking special clothing – basically lycra. This gives the impression that one needs a special fancy wardrobe to ride. I would like to see some people riding in everyday clothing… the way most urban cyclists ride.

All four are wearing helmets… which similarly gives the impression that helmets are necessary, and that bicycling is unsafe. I wrote some helmet stuff here. My bottom line is that basic urban bicycling is really safe, and that helmets unjustly make it appear more risky than it is. I think it’s ok to show some folks wearing some helmets… but suffice it to say that it’s unusual to see four out of four cyclists wearing helmets in an urban setting.

Racially, the stamps show: a child of indeterminate race (with slightly darker skin than others, but, as far as I can tell, no clear racial signifiers),  a white woman, a white man, and a BMX rider so wrapped in expensive gear that it’s impossible to tell who’s inside. So… the overall impression is that adult cyclists are white, which isn’t what I see on the streets of Los Angeles.

As much as I like these stamps, including the accompanying text on the back – which is very very good – I would have loved for them to include more of the everyday cyclists that I love seeing on city streets. Perhaps there could have been other archetypal riders: the working-class immigrant cyclist, the messenger, the fixie youth, the folder, the cargo bike, the tandem, the businesswoman, even families riding together with various ways of getting kids on board.

What do you think of these stamps? Do you see the kind of cycling you do reflected in them? Did you run out and buy dozens of them, like I did?

(Note: If it wasn’t already tortuously clear, I am sort of a stamp collector – in part because I do some artwork I send through the mail. Examples here.)

Sign on Mitchell Avenue in Tustin, CA

This sign is in Tustin, California, about an hour’s train ride southeast of Los Angeles. It’s the suburb where I grew up. It’s a place where I bike often, in the past to visit mom, lately to visit my brother and his family.

The sign reads “DRIVE CAREFULLY / PROTECT OUR CHILDREN“

And here’s a similar one:

Sign on South Robertson

This sign is in West Los Angeles, on Roberson near Cadillac. It’s in the SORO neighborhood, very near the art gallery where my work is in an art show is up until August 15th.

This sign says “Drive Carefully / Children at Play.”

I find these signs reminiscent of beer advertisements that say things like “Budweiser asks you to drink responsibly.” You and I know that Budweiser wants us to drink plenty of alcohol, whether responsibly or not.

My biggest beef with “Drive Carefully” signs is that they assume that I am a driver. By addressing drivers only, the sign legitimizes driving, and de-legitimizes other ways of getting around. Personally, I find it very irritating to be commanded (by these signs) to drive. No thanks, Mr. Sign, I am getting around just fine without driving. Please don’t assume I drive.

The second assumtion that the signs make is that “careful” driving is safe. Driving cars kills people. It’s not a few bad apples. Not just the folks who maybe forgot to read these reminder signs. Even if a specific driver goes all his or her life without personally killing someone, that person contributes to a system that is doing the killing. The roads are widened and lengthened, the speed limits are raised, the capacity increased, because policy-makers perceive that everyone is out there driving.

Driving’s death toll is predictable. Worldwide it’s a million people a year, in the U.S. it’s 30,000 each year (source). California roads kill about 3000 people annually (source). And that’s just the kills – there’s also injuries, pollution-related disease, inactivity-related disease, the global warming stuff, and more.

If you really want safe streets, then you need to (at least some of the time) get out of the car – and walk, bike, take transit. If you want to drive carefully, drive less or not at all.

So… WWBD? Maybe wording like: “Driving kills – Please walk, bike, or if you drive, drive slowly and carefully” or some kind of emotionally-intelligent signage – for example: “Don’t run over my daughter” or something like that. The examples above are trying to be emotionally-intelligent; they do mention children… but I think that they don’t play that note strongly enough.

But really, do we need more signs? In L.A., we’ve got plenty of signs and we’re still killing lots of people all over. Is installing a sign a non-solution that makes status quo folks feel good without actually addressing the problem? Better to put the money into stuff that invites walking, bicycling, transit: put in benches, trees, crosswalks, bike lanes, etc. instead of signage targeted toward drivers.  For more discussion on this read about “naked streets” including the work of Hans Monderman.

What do you think? How should signs like these be worded? Or should they exist at all?

Case in point, this sign I spotted today:

ATTENTION PEDESTRIANS sign on Vermont Avenue near 4th Street in Koreatown

It reads (all caps): ATTENTION PEDESTRIANS / WATCH DRIVEWAY TRAFFIC / USE CAUTION WHEN CROSSING. 

This sign is in Koreatown. It’s in front of the County of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks office building at 433 Vermont Avenue – between 4th and 5th Streets. Koreatown, with 42,609 residents per square mile (per L.A. Times, 2009), is the most population-dense neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. The sign location is three blocks from the Metro subway station at Vermont and Wilshire. All this to say, it’s a place where people really do walk.

So this sign, which blocks a portion of the sidewalk, is arguably trying to make pedestrians safer, warning them of potential driveway danger. I don’t know the story of how the sign came about, but I am going to guess that a driver, pulling out of the county’s surface parking lot here, crashed into a pedestrian.

If that’s the case (and it’s my speculation), then who was at fault? Well… I think that cars still need to yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.

It’s Bikas’ version of the cell-phone self-portrait in the mirror – all over the internets these days.

I looked around into the adjacent asphalt parking lot. Full. No complementary sign saying something like  ”ATTENTION DRIVERS / DON’T KILL ANY PEDESTRIANS / USE CAUTION WHEN CROSSING SIDEWALK” There were a couple of mirrors, which helps drivers and peds see each other better.

But no sign suggesting any driver responsibility.

And one more image to show the paucity of walking facilities (don’t call them amenities around me!) here’s the sidewalk just south of the sign.

There was a ficus tree here, and it’s been removed. The uneven surface is covered with asphalt. It… a… mess.

So… what do I expect here? WWBD? The sign is, in its imperfect way, trying to make things safer for pedestrians. Maybe there’s a way to give it a message that’s more pedestrian-affirming. How about:

ATTENTION PEDESTRIANS / DRIVERS DO DANGEROUS THINGS HERE / BE CAREFUL / YOU HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY / PLEASE SUE ANY DRIVERS THAT INJURE YOU

Well, maybe that’s overboard. A little. Maybe Bikas readers can suggest something more concise and civil.

And if you’re going to caution pedestrians – folks who are not at fault – who are not engaging in dangerous behaviors – then you, County Rec&Parks, need to caution drivers too. Perhaps the county could erect a sign that says: ATTENTION DRIVERS / PEDESTRIANS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY / SLOWING DOWN IS SAFER FOR ALL. Perhaps the county could put plastic bollards (“candlesticks”) to make the driveway mouth smaller, to help drivers exiting slow down and pay attention.

In addition, I think a longer-term, systemic response, would be to provide substantial incentives for employees getting work by ways other than driving. I’ll bet that county employees who park here receive exactly the opposite incentive – ie: free parking. The county can charge folks to park, and then reward folks getting to work by walking, transit, bicycling or carpooling. This likely includes employer parking cash-out.

I’d like to organize a crew – City Repair style – to do some guerrilla sidewalk repair for places exactly like that asphalt patch.

I was tempted to deface the sign – or to turn it 90 degrees to face the driveway, and maybe put it in the middle of the car lane… but instead I’ve ushered it into posterity with this whiny post. Look for all-too-regular insult of the day posts coming soon.

Parket at 420 W 4th Street in Long Beach.

This is what it looks like when an on-street car parking space dies… and goes to heaven. Or is maybe just reincarnated?  or maybe rein-people-nated? 

Parket in front of Berlin coffeehouse/restaurant on 4th Street in Long Beach

It’s called a parklet – basically the semi-permanent installation of sort of platform-mini-park in place of an on-street parking space. This is Long Beach’s third parklet. I wrote about the first L.B. parklet at this earlier post at L.A. Streetsblog.

This new featured parklet is located at 420 West 4th Street, about 4 blocks easy walk or bike distance from the Metro Blue Line 5th Street Station. It’s in front of Berlin, a coffeehouse and cafe.

What’s amazing about these spaces is just how many people you can fit into a couple of parking spaces. Such a shame the way parking robs the space from our urban areas…

Closer view of parklet seating

Planter box of great-looking succulents at Long Beach’s latest parklet

Someday these will make it to Los Angeles.

No bicycles were harmed in the writing of this post

Today, Bikas will pass along a story that we heard many years ago. I can’t vouch to its veracity:

Once upon a time, there was a small kingdom called De’Ir. De’Ir was located on an island called Sihkwah, just off the coast of Kh’arz, and said to be very much under the influence of Kh’arz. The kingdom was harmonious and egalitarian, largely attributable to a long history of enlightened democracy on De’ir.

For many centuries De’Irians had democratically elected their leaders, through elections which followed a grand voting ritual-festival event they called the “Soverko.”

There was a sort of overlooked problem, though, historically with the De’Irians democracy. You see, a lot like early on with the United States, Greece, and many other fabled democracies, De’Ir only allowed white male non-slaves to vote. The De’Irians were fairly enlightened, though, and, during the reign of a particularly wise white-male leader, they quickly opened the vote to women. Women were also granted the opportunity to hold office, but surprisingly only a few ran, and though they were often popular in the local press, they rarely rose above the rank of local water boards.

The “De’Ir Dilemma”, as it has now come to be known, was that De’Ir kept the Soverko ritual intact at that time. Folks were pretty attached to it, being a tradition at the root of their democracy and all. The Soverko was sort of a long, expensive ritual testing of candidates to show their fitness as leaders.

The way the Soverko worked is that candidates were measured in a series of competitions. There was an impartial commission of judges, retired elder community leaders, known as Kohnzholtagnts or just “Kons”, who would assess and rank candidates.

Via the Soverko, the Kons evaluated various aspects of political candidates. Criteria pertained to their fitness for office, all based on tried-and-tested criteria, deeply based in local tradition. Candidates’ leadership aspects weighed included: height, deepness of voice, fullness of beard, length/straightness of hair, flatness of chest and hip, whiteness of skin tone, and a whole host of measures based on the aspects of candidates’, let us say, sexual virility – long held to correspond to success in leadership. So, during the Soverko, Kons measured candidates’ sexual organs for length, girth, speed of erection, rapidity of climax,  and a whole series of other elaborate measures of the candidates’ actual seminal ejaculate: volume, viscosity, whiteness, staining-ability, etc.

While all this may sound a bit quaint to contemporary western ears, in De’Ir, the Kons actually had a long and scientifically-rigorous body of research on leadership. Turns out that De’Ir scribes’ statistics conclusively prove that their great leaders did all have flat chests, deep voices, short straight hair, and so on.

Though the De’Ir Soverko was officially just an advisory evaluation, you can guess that male candidates did pretty well, and female candidates were uniformly found lacking. A few well-loved female candidates did brave the De’Ir Soverko, and prevailed, at great cost in coin, time, and humiliation. Some women protested the De’Ir Soverko was biased, but the well-respected De’Ir judiciary upheld the the Soverko tradition; the courts found the De’Ir traditions rigorously unbiased.

Many women leaders – especially writers, scholars, bicyclists, etc – found their opportunities for leadership limited. A whole lot of smart women left De’Ir, not long before the Sihkwah Island was destroyed in a giant cataclysm where it was said to be swallowed by the ocean. Some posit that the island subsided due to earthquakes; others say tsunami. Many think that it was undone, perhaps sabotaged, internally. Historians are divided on the actual truth of the matter.

The only way that we know the story is through De’Ir expatriate women having recorded this tale.

So… come to the city’s third and final Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) scoping meeting today at 6pm at the Los Angeles River Center – 570 West Avenue 26, LA 90065 – three blocks west of the Metro Gold Line Lincoln/Cypress Station.

For the city to move forward with additional bike lane projects, it will conduct expensive, time-consuming “Level of Service” analyses to tell how bike lanes will impact car speed. The EIR is expected to show that bike lanes will slow down car speeds, therefore proving that it impacts the environment adversely, so the city can then issue it’s “Statement of Overriding Considerations” and move forward on implementing bike projects.

More information on the city of L.A.’s Bike Lane EIR meeting/process/projects in this earlier post.

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck