Month: July 2008
Streetsblog LA
Wilshire Crescent Turns Car Parking to Bike Parking
Ask and ye shall receive. The good people at Green Apple seem to have heard our cry for better bike parking. On my way past the Wilshire Crescent strip mall, the first place featured in Streetsblog’s “Bike Unfriendly Place of the Week,” yesterday I spotted a new bike rack bolted down to the parking lot. … Continued
July 30, 2008
Today’s Headlines
Aug. 4 Senate Committee Could Kill Sales Tax (LAist) Cyclist Hit and Injured on Santa Monica’s Main Street (Westside BikeSIDE) Quakes Impact on Transportation is Negligible (OC Register, Times) Quake Slows, Doesn’t Stop, Metrolink (KFI AM) Recapping the Mandeville Canyon Road Rage Crash (CityWatch) Forget the Car, Jet Packs Are Here! (Jewish Journal of LA) … Continued
July 30, 2008
Cartoon Tuesday: The Elegant Simplicity of the Free Market
Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling. Click through to view the comic in its entirety.
July 29, 2008
Earthquake….We Got an Earthquake
I just finished watching video of the City Council meeting when the earthquake hit on ABC. Councilman Dennis Zine was speaking when the quake hit and called it while the staff urged people to stay put. Amusingly, ABC's downtown reporter made clear that the people milling around behind her while she gave her report from the street weren't pedestrians, but people forced out of their building because the elevator was shut down.
July 29, 2008
The U.S. Wants to “Borrow” From Transit to Pay for Highways
Like a burned-out addict stealing to support a meth habit, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that due to declining gas tax revenues, the Highway Trust Fund would need to borrow money from its mass transit account to pay for road projects. Today's big news story was buried at the bottom of page A17 in the New York Times:
July 29, 2008
San Francisco Pol Wants to Ban Cars on Market Street
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that City Supervisor Chris Daly wants to ban cars from part of Market Street. While transit would still be able to traverse the 2.3 mile stretch between Octavia Boulevard and the Embarcadero all privately owned passenger vehicles would be banned.
July 29, 2008
NYPD Thug Attacks Cyclist without Cause. Cyclist Goes to Jail
Words fail when watching this clip of an NYPD officer forcibly knocking a Critical Mass rider to the pavement last Friday. The assault was caught on video by a bystander in Times Square. Compounding the injustice, reports Gothamist, is what happened next:
July 29, 2008
Today’s Headlines
Gas Taxes Down, Bush Admin Wants to Borrow From Transit to Pay for Highways (NYT) City to State: Don’t Rob Local Aid (Contra Costa Times) Truckers Sue Ports Over Pollution Reduction Plan (Times) Tom Vanderbilt Gets Some National Attention (USA Today) MTA More Effective at Fighting Fast Food than LA City Council (LAist) 2008 Will … Continued
July 29, 2008
DIY Lanes on Fletcher Bridge Already a Memory
Last week, MetBlogs reported that some enterprising souls took it upon themselves to improve the city's bike network by adding their own lanes to the Fletcher Bridge that runs over the Los Angeles River. The Do It Yourself, aka DIY, Lanes lasted less than half a week as the DOT saw to their quick removal. Apparently, in Los Angeles it takes well over a decade to construct the projects in a Bike Master Plan, but a couple of days to remove vigilante bike lanes.
July 28, 2008