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Boyle Heights

Mexico Meets Eastside: Ruminations on Buses, Metro, Bicycles and Swap Meets

1:52 PM PDT on June 7, 2013

Metro would never go for this Guatemalan styled bus, but it would sure turn heads. Kris Fortin/LAStreetsblog

It's a copout to compare my travels in Mexico and Guatemala to anything on the Eastside. But, I can't help it. It's one of the biggest things on my mind the entire time.

Every time I saw a bicycle in Mexico City selling flowers, or taking water canisters to businesses, I would think of the mobile bike vendors with chips and junk food I saw once riding down First Street a block from the Pico Aliso Gold Line Station. Every tiangus, or marketplace, whether the size of a small neighborhood or an outpost outside of a metro station, I recalled stories of the Breed Street market.

So, here's what I saw, the similarities, and the things I think could help the Eastside:

How many ways can you say bicycle

Metro

Bus

Now in Theaters: La Camioneta, The Journey of One American Schoolbus

Parklet

Others

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