Following last night’s CD 11 Livable Streets Candidate forum, I sat down with each of the four candidates for a brief chat about the forum, the state of the campaign, and what they thought of the debate.
About a half hour after the forum was over, I talked with Odysseus Bostick. Coming into the night, I was extra interested in hearing Odysseus' ideas, as he has made a habit of discussing transportation issues of the day with a variety of Streetsblog contributors including Don "Roadblock" Ward, Ted Rogers and Gary Kavanagh. Bostick also earns bonus points for staying out late with us last night despite today being his twin daughers' third birthday.
I'm a sucker for stories about people's kids, especially kids that are close to Sammy's age. But it wasn't Bostick's moving story of taking one of the twins to CicLAvia (with plans to take the other in April) that the crowd remembered, it was his plan to require that between one and five percent of parking spaces in commercial corridors be turned into bike corrals.
In a discussion where the candidates tended to agree with each other, this bold idea stuck out to many in the crowd as one of the best of the night. Whether its politically possible in a city where a plan to add fifteen corrals to the one in existence is cause for celebration, is a story that has yet to be written. There's more on that in the video above.
For more on the candidates' issues, visit his website here. To join the fun on twitter, click here.
New concepts for rapid bus service across the 626 have ironed out the questions of where an East-West route would run and where demonstrations could begin.
Metro and Caltrans eastbound 91 Freeway widening is especially alarming as it will increase tailpipe pollution in an already diesel-pollution-burdened community that is 69 percent Latino, and 28 percent Black