A Warm Welcome To SBLA Summer 2014 Intern Aviv Kleinman

There is a new face at Streetsblog Los Angeles this summer. Our latest intern Aviv Kleinman grew up in Los Angeles and currently attends SUNY Binghamton.

Here's Aviv's introduction in his own words:

Since I was very young, I’ve had a strong affinity for transportation.

With my wooden train set and any other toys and props I could find, I would spend nearly every Saturday morning on our living room floor constructing my own intermodal transportation systems, teeming with both freight and passenger rail systems, cargo-bearing trucks, passenger buses, cars, boats, and mobile construction machinery. I would sit for hours fascinated and transfixed by these many systems.

Many years later, that fascination has only grown.

I’m currently a Senior at Binghamton University, studying Urban Planning and Environmental Studies. It is my goal to become a Transportation Planner who can make improvements in transportation infrastructure to both reduce our damaging footprints on this Earth and to get us to where we need to go, faster, more comfortably, and more efficiently.

Transportation speaks to me. Wherever I travel in the world, whichever city I learn about, I always try to understand how people move around, and how people get to where they need to be. I find that the methods people around the world use to travel to and fro say a lot about their culture, and truly shape how they act in the world.

As an example, there must be a reason why the Netherlands, a country known for its extensive cycling infrastructure, is highly rated among the happiest countries on the planet. There also must be a reason why many Angelenos that spend so much time alone in their cars, stuck in the parking lots that we call our freeway systems, turn out to be stressed and unhappy.

I look forward to working with Streetsblog L.A. on researching and writing about sustainable transportation innovations across the city and across the world, and covering news stories on new and improved transit systems as they emerge. Streetsblog has always been my go-to source of transportation news, and I am excited to be working with its creators.

As a new SBLA writer, it is in my best interest to spread awareness in hopes of drawing in more support from the public concerning L.A.’s transportation. Los Angeles is well-known for its auto-dependent tendencies, but it’s also known for its avant-garde culture. With enough collective action and strong-willing individuals, we can change the way we move about the city. Within a trend-setting city such as L.A., public support is necessary in the introduction and improvement of sustainable and efficient transportation systems.

I see a future of more bicycle infrastructure, and easier and faster public transportation in the city. As we watch both the Expo Line and the Purple line extend towards the Pacific, I anticipate a paradigm shift in the way residents of the Westside interact with the city as a whole. People will be able to live by the beach and work downtown, or the other way around, while traveling with relative ease and congestion-free commutes. Additionally, with bicycle-oriented development surrounding transportation hubs, a bike ride to the local train station will be a breeze. This is just one example of the many ways transportation improvements affect the dynamic of life within the city. I believe that within the next few decades, as long as we keep putting in the effort to improving our mass-transit infrastructure, Los Angeles will become the multi-modal transit metropolis that we envision.

Look for Aviv's byline coming soon to a Streetsblog article near you! He'll also be posting at Streetsblog Lite, Twitter, and helping Streetsblog visibility on Reddit.