Pasadena

CicLAvia touched down in the City of Pasadena for the first time yesterday. The route, centered on Colorado Boulevard, showcased the city's great walkable historic core, preserved because the City of Pasadena stopped the destructive and costly practice of street widening and reformed parking, but that's a whole 'nother story. Yesterday, Pasadena saw plenty of smiles, music, dogs, families, long lines at eateries, crowded Gold Line cars, and - yes - tens of thousands of bikes.

Donald Shoup, parking's one and only rock star, is retiring from UCLA this year. Tomorrow, the college is sending him off with a fundraiser retirement dinner atop parking structure number 32. You can attend, and hobnob with Shoup himself, by donating to the Shoup Fellowship fund for future UCLA planning students.

Smart people live in Pasadena. Some of them work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and send probes to Mars. Others spend their days figuring out quantum mechanics at Caltech. And still others dabble in transportation. A study group formed by Pasadena's Mayor Bill Bogaard and its City Manager has a smart idea in response to L.A. Metro's study to link the stub end of the 210 with the end of the 710: instead of closing this “gap” in our freeways, rip out the 210's stub along Pasadena Avenue.

The music in this time-lapse video by William Campbell captures the solemn mood of the bike community following Deane's death. This ride was completed on September 27, 2011. Five days after Deane's death.

Last week, Metro finished its most recent public meetings outlining twelve proposals to fill the so-called 4.5 mile "gap" on the I-710 between Alhambra and Pasadena at the I-210. The public response to the twelve alternatives presented was near-uniformly negative. Anger was particularly high at new proposals to connect the I-710 to the I-210 including, a tunnel connecting the 10 Freeway to the 134 Freeway, a surface route that would widen Avenue 64 and a highway route along Huntington Drive, Fair Oaks Avenue and Pasadena Avenue.

There are few things more moving and powerful than a ghost bike planting.  Last night, the Eastside Bike Club, cooks from the Bike Oven and other cyclists made the somber ride to the spot where Jocelyn Young was struck by a hit and run driver in the early hours of Sunday morning.

(This is the last part of our Bike Week 2011 Series on people's biking experiences in different corners of L.A. County.  Our last entrant is from our "Pasadena Correspondent" Brigham Yen, who is a little different than our other writers this week in that he doesn't represent a formal biking organization but still brings a wealth of information to his writings. - DN)

For the second time this year Streetsblog rolled in to Pasadena to take to a stage and talk Livable Streets.  We didn't quite pack the house as we did back in January, but we did have a fun night showing Streetfilms to roughly 50 people with CICLE, New Belgium Brewing, and REI as part of Bike Week Pasadena.  Thanks to a raffle, we even made a couple of bucks off the fun.

It seems as though everyone is releasing their calendars for Bike Week, it's time for Streetsblog to release ours.  In addition to our regular coverage throughout Bike Week, Streetsblog will actively taking part in two events.