Month: August 2012

The City Council voted two weeks ago to staff the Boyle Heights Community Plan, two years after it was stalled by budget cuts.

According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, 32 people went to the hospital this morning after Metro bus 51 collided with the Blue Line. Of the approximately 650 people on both the bus and train when the incident occurred, most of those sustaining injuries had been on the bus. And, most of those injuries were minor.

We will be exploring Safe Routes and Healthy Food resources on a nice sunday afternoon in South Los Angeles. Route focuses on: King Blvd, Vernon ave, Western Blvd and Adams Blvd.

The Long Beach City Council, in a 9-0 vote, will permit Bike Nation to launch a 10-year, $12 million bike share program in the city, thereby creating one of the largest of its kind in the state.

Woah, this is a huge week. Bike rides for bike protestors, bike rides for womyn, bike rides for gay history, bike washes to benefit bike messengers and a ton of important meetings. Even if I weren't on a slow train across the country I'd be hard pressed to keep up.

Childless urbanites love to hate the stroller. New Yorker Laura Miller started a blog, “Too Big For Stroller,” dedicated to mocking older children who get around the easy way. Commenters on a Greater Greater Washington story about strollers on buses last year showcased surprising vitriol, saying, “Carry your child, like an able-bodied adult should” and “Pretty lousy parenting, when you could fold the stroller and hold the child” and “Keep those strollers off our buses.” There are internet rants against giant, SUV-style strollers (and, five years ago on Streetsblog, a defense). A New York Times story about stroller rage ended up plumbing deeper emotional issues around unequal social status for breeders and non-breeders.

The decline of the exurbs -- how real is it? Images like this, from Charlotte photographer Nancy Pierce, offer a compelling glimpse of how recent development spread too far before the bust. The photos were shot about 20 miles from Charlotte.

“How to Turn a Place Around” introduces new ways of thinking about public spaces and how Placemaking can be used to bring communities together and revitalize underperforming spaces. Participants will explore the principles of making places through presentations, case studies of public space innovations, on- site evaluation and interactive discussions of critical issues and challenges. Discussion sessions will focus on the particular issues of participants.

Hey ridazz! Come get your bicycle washed at Los Angeles Eco-Village! For real. It’s a fundraiser for the Westside Invite L.A. – a bike messenger organized bike race, open to all cyclists.