Sahra Sulaiman

This past weekend, the East Side Riders Bike Club (ESRBC) celebrated the ribbon-cutting on their brand new bike co-op and shop located at 11321 S. Central Ave. in Watts.

Tracking the Great Streets program as it has begun to unfold around town has, at times, been a bit of an exercise in frustration. Which never fails to strike me as odd, given Mayor Eric Garcetti's declaration that the transformation of the 15 chosen streets into gathering places would happen via a "bottom-up and community-based process" in which the city "[worked] with neighborhood stakeholders to develop a vision for each corridor."

Tap tap tap.

"I want you to take a good look at me," the fragile-looking young man with a curved spine, hunched shoulders, and gangly arms addressed members of the Exide Community Advisory Committee (CAC), representatives of the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and Department of Public Health (DPH), and concerned residents and environmental justice advocates from the communities surrounding Exide Technologies' now-shuttered lead-acid battery recycling facility.

When the driver pulled in behind me in the new buffered bike lane along Vineland, I thought, OK, it's a little weird, but he's probably going to turn right or park.

Twenty-three days is not a lot of time to get community buy-in on a complete streets pop-up event/project and raise $10,000 in support of it. Especially in lower-income communities like Boyle Heights and parts of South L.A., where the stakeholders who would ideally be buying into the projects tend to be less familiar with concepts like "tactical urbanism," are generally of lesser means, and/or are often unreachable via a social media campaign (or wholly unable to make online payments to it).

When the butterflies, flowers, and decorative benches first started popping up along 1st Street in Boyle Heights last year, reviews were mixed.

"In the interest of time," Greg Kildare, Executive Director of Metro's Enterprise Risk, Safety, and Asset Management team, began his address to the Board on July 23, "I will just say that staff believes that the [Metro Blue Line] pedestrian gating project is an extremely important safety improvement to our oldest rail line and consistent with [Metro CEO] Mr. Washington's vision of reinvestment in our aging infrastructure, the state of good repair, and a safety-first orientation. That concludes my presentation."

Looking out over the growing group of women and women-identified folks gathering on the grassy knoll behind Olvera St. for the Ovarian Pscyo-Cycles 4th Annual Clitoral Mass ride, I realized that, despite having attended the previous three events, I only recognized a handful of the riders.

I've sat and observed the intersection of St. Louis and Cesar Chavez in Boyle Heights several times since the modified curb extensions started going in last month.