...wife and kid in the living room, which is just behind the entrance of the house...
...gate left open...
...knocking...
We live in a time where on any given newscast, we are inundated with news items that double as cautionary tales. News of random robberies, assaults...it's a scary, negative world, and it seems so random. Basically, if you watch the local news, you'll be inclined to never, ever trust anyone.
On top of that, my neighborhood has a history, one that from any Google search of my street, would deem it a mostly BAD history. Without giving away too much detail, there is actually a Hispanic gang named after my street.
But I don't know what it is about me.
Maybe Catholic guilt. Maybe Anthropologist, 'let's-see-where-this-goes' mentality.
I crack open the door, but not our steel screen door so that there remains a barrier between me and this unknown individual. I can kind of see him, but he can't see me. He's shortish, mid-50s black man.
I ask him what's going on.
He says that he used to live in the very house that I live in today. Says his name is 'Bobby.' He says that the neighbors know him.
I think to myself, "well how come they don't help him out?"
He says that he was just in the neighborhood and got into some kind of fight.
He tells me that I have to help him.
There's a desperation in his voice that I would avoid on Metro trains. But him being here, in my house, on my family's property, means that I can't just ignore him.
He asks if I could drive him to his place in South Los Angeles.
By this point, I'm blown away. I'm glad he doesn't solicit money. I don't really want to turn him away, but I still don't know who the fuck he is or what he's doing here. However, if all he wants is a ride, I instantly get an idea.
"Hey man, what if I call you an Uber?"
The idea is my way of helping with something without spending money or necessarily directly dealing with him.
He keeps going on about how he just wants to go to his home in South LA and how he is known in this neighborhood.
He never really answers the question, but tacitly he seems to approve as I explain that it's like a Taxi. I pull up my phone and order it up from my app. I order it, but I also want to warn the Uber driver by calling her; the driver never picks up the phone. 11 Minutes.
I tell him it is ordered, and that they're coming in 10 minutes.
I take a closer look and see that he's bleeding just above the mouth. I just try to continue conversation about what the neighborhood was like, trying in earnest to verify his claim to the neighborhood.
He said that he grew up in my house during the 1980s. He said it was where he grew up. Kept saying that he knew people around, but conveniently were nowhere to be found on this chance school night.
When I see the Uber is getting close, I finally open the screen door so I could go outside and meet the man.
I tell him that the Uber is there, and he's still talking about going to South LA. He's talking the whole time.
A middle-agish "alternative" looking white lady in a black sedan pulls up in front of my neighbor's house, and I spot her. She has another passenger seated in the front seat, also another woman.
I immediately claim responsibility and say I ordered the Uber and ask if its OK.
She nods, and says, "It's fine."
Bobby hops into the backseat and I thank her with the profusion of a million suns.
But now, I just hope I don't see a local news story about an Uber driver something something by her passenger...
A Few Wednesdays Later
A white station wagon is parked right in front of my drive way where I normally would park after a day of work.
It is about 2 in the afternoon.
I usually get that parking space, and it is sometimes a big deal when someone takes it.
Today, it is taken.
By Bobby.
He is talking to a neighbor that I don't talk to and greets me as soon as he sees me.
Says that he was here to repay me for calling that Uber.
He gives me $20, and says that we should barbecue some time.
Showing posts with label Driving in LA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Driving in LA. Show all posts
My Secret to Escaping the Sunset-Barrington Intersection That Everyone Is Complaining About
And by "Everyone", I mean some residents of Brentwood.
Other than a taxi, Uber, or Lyft driver, I don't know how many people drive the variety of routes that I do in and around Southern California.
I've actually had to go directly to Brentwood on Sunset before 7 AM on a number of occasions.
It's about 20-24 miles from me, so I leave my house in Compton at about 5:30 AM and usually get there with plenty of time to spare, sometimes at 6:15 - 6:30. Coming from the 405, I don't experience such a crush of traffic, especially when it's still dark outside, and that's just my point.
When I absolutely need to, I leave early and get to where I need to, including that Sunset-Barrington, corridor. That's the secret!
But then again, that's just my own thing, which probably won't make for a good broad design solution to the problem for everyone. Also, I'm coming Eastbound from the 405, usually childless, as opposed to Westbound from the 405, which seems to bear the brunt of the complaint.
On the way home, usually at around 9AM, I also have been subjected to this "one-mile, one-hour" traffic in the morning, but it never registered as seismically different from my many other traffic experiences on the 605 North in the morning or the 605 South in the Evening, the 105 East during rush hour, even getting to the airport when you think people are away at work.
I don't know of any other viable-all encompassing solution.
Though tolls "might" work because theoretically demand is high but supply is low, but I'd think the affluent who probably make up most of the drivers will probably still pay to go on without any second thought. The poor people like me, who work there, will be the ones feeling the hit.
After that solution, I'm not sure how much changing traffic signal timing and street markings will do.
I've read the comments on the Facebook pages of KPCC and LAist about how they should've allowed transit to be built or how they should just bike.
Yes, they should have allowed transit, but not much they can do about the situation now.
A fraction of them can bike (though biking Sunset west of West Hollywood is really scary), but that won't work for those who carry cargo and/or kids.
I guess the only real solution is to make that area very unpopular and undesirable so no one will traffic the area; that's the thinking behind writing this blog here!
Other than a taxi, Uber, or Lyft driver, I don't know how many people drive the variety of routes that I do in and around Southern California.
I've actually had to go directly to Brentwood on Sunset before 7 AM on a number of occasions.
It's about 20-24 miles from me, so I leave my house in Compton at about 5:30 AM and usually get there with plenty of time to spare, sometimes at 6:15 - 6:30. Coming from the 405, I don't experience such a crush of traffic, especially when it's still dark outside, and that's just my point.
When I absolutely need to, I leave early and get to where I need to, including that Sunset-Barrington, corridor. That's the secret!
But then again, that's just my own thing, which probably won't make for a good broad design solution to the problem for everyone. Also, I'm coming Eastbound from the 405, usually childless, as opposed to Westbound from the 405, which seems to bear the brunt of the complaint.
On the way home, usually at around 9AM, I also have been subjected to this "one-mile, one-hour" traffic in the morning, but it never registered as seismically different from my many other traffic experiences on the 605 North in the morning or the 605 South in the Evening, the 105 East during rush hour, even getting to the airport when you think people are away at work.
I don't know of any other viable-all encompassing solution.
Though tolls "might" work because theoretically demand is high but supply is low, but I'd think the affluent who probably make up most of the drivers will probably still pay to go on without any second thought. The poor people like me, who work there, will be the ones feeling the hit.
After that solution, I'm not sure how much changing traffic signal timing and street markings will do.
I've read the comments on the Facebook pages of KPCC and LAist about how they should've allowed transit to be built or how they should just bike.
Yes, they should have allowed transit, but not much they can do about the situation now.
A fraction of them can bike (though biking Sunset west of West Hollywood is really scary), but that won't work for those who carry cargo and/or kids.
I guess the only real solution is to make that area very unpopular and undesirable so no one will traffic the area; that's the thinking behind writing this blog here!
A Shift in My LA Driving Mentality
Maybe it's the coming baby.
Maybe it's the fatigue of driving anywhere for work with a range spanning from Bakersfield up North to Mission Viejo in the South and Santa Monica in the West to the border of California/Arizona.
Maybe it's about not wanting anymore tickets.
Maybe it's having been involved in way too many fenders that involve a car rear-ending me the past 2 years or so.
Maybe a little bit of everything.
I have gradually changed the way I drive, mostly from a gap-closing undercover speed racer...
to a
gap-surrendering overly cautious non-speed racer.
In the 13 years I've been driving LA streets and highways, I've logged around 130,000 miles, endured countless traffic jams on the 405, 101, 5, 110, 210, 1, 710, 605, 10, 110, 60, 91, 22, 118, 14, mostly in a Corolla.
Driving in LA really gets fatiguing, a sentiment shared with me by a fellow high school classmate I'd run into recently. He himself having grown up in LA was also disgusted by the traffic --- to the point where he wanted to move away.
Driving as a habit in traffic is starting to get really, really old. Some days I'm just ready to mentally check out and opt for a Google self-driving Smart car, which I actually would be scared of because of the potential for hacking and a lot of things that could go wrong with computerized systems, but that's another story.
I feel less like the teenager who on his way to a family party was egging on my dad to chase down someone who cut him off in Azusa and more like my mom who on every trip with my dad keeps her eye on the speedometer and tells him to slow down but also participates in the road rage expressions with him.
I feel more like the teenager terrified of the road and all that could happen rather than the teenager switching in and out of double yellowed lined carpool lanes in attempt to weave through traffic.
I think it's mostly my descent/ascent into design thinking, where I give people/other drivers a 'margin for error', that is room to make a mistake, such as a quick move into my lane.
Example: if there's traffic in other lanes and there's a large gap between me and the car in front of me, I won't rush to close that gap, I'll proceed cautiously sure enough give to those who appear to be in a rush enough space to get in front.
Example 2: Given that a lot of fenders have happened to me with the rear-end of my Corolla taking the punishment (and apparently not showing), I try to brake much in advance to ensure that the driver behind me will brake in advance as well, as opposed to braking only when the see me brake.
Having made this shift into allowing for a 'margin of error', all I see are drivers with the football running back mentality (which to be fair is not actually everyone on the road, but is everyone that I usually get mad at on the road). See a gap? Shoot at it. They make an error? It's their fault! One idea brought by reading the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt.
I think those people with the 'running back mentality' including my very own CRV or Corrolla driving dear old dad, see the roads as something to get through quickly and efficiently. They expect nothing more and nothing less. They expect to 'get through', and god help us if someone gets in their way unexpectedly.
'Time' is a big determining factor for how people drive, but I guess the eternal struggle/question in LA is deciding how were going to use 'space' and other drivers to help control this.
Maybe it's the fatigue of driving anywhere for work with a range spanning from Bakersfield up North to Mission Viejo in the South and Santa Monica in the West to the border of California/Arizona.
Maybe it's about not wanting anymore tickets.
Maybe it's having been involved in way too many fenders that involve a car rear-ending me the past 2 years or so.
Maybe a little bit of everything.
I have gradually changed the way I drive, mostly from a gap-closing undercover speed racer...
to a
gap-surrendering overly cautious non-speed racer.
In the 13 years I've been driving LA streets and highways, I've logged around 130,000 miles, endured countless traffic jams on the 405, 101, 5, 110, 210, 1, 710, 605, 10, 110, 60, 91, 22, 118, 14, mostly in a Corolla.
Driving in LA really gets fatiguing, a sentiment shared with me by a fellow high school classmate I'd run into recently. He himself having grown up in LA was also disgusted by the traffic --- to the point where he wanted to move away.
Driving as a habit in traffic is starting to get really, really old. Some days I'm just ready to mentally check out and opt for a Google self-driving Smart car, which I actually would be scared of because of the potential for hacking and a lot of things that could go wrong with computerized systems, but that's another story.
I feel less like the teenager who on his way to a family party was egging on my dad to chase down someone who cut him off in Azusa and more like my mom who on every trip with my dad keeps her eye on the speedometer and tells him to slow down but also participates in the road rage expressions with him.
I feel more like the teenager terrified of the road and all that could happen rather than the teenager switching in and out of double yellowed lined carpool lanes in attempt to weave through traffic.
I think it's mostly my descent/ascent into design thinking, where I give people/other drivers a 'margin for error', that is room to make a mistake, such as a quick move into my lane.
Example: if there's traffic in other lanes and there's a large gap between me and the car in front of me, I won't rush to close that gap, I'll proceed cautiously sure enough give to those who appear to be in a rush enough space to get in front.
Example 2: Given that a lot of fenders have happened to me with the rear-end of my Corolla taking the punishment (and apparently not showing), I try to brake much in advance to ensure that the driver behind me will brake in advance as well, as opposed to braking only when the see me brake.
* * *
Having made this shift into allowing for a 'margin of error', all I see are drivers with the football running back mentality (which to be fair is not actually everyone on the road, but is everyone that I usually get mad at on the road). See a gap? Shoot at it. They make an error? It's their fault! One idea brought by reading the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt.
I think those people with the 'running back mentality' including my very own CRV or Corrolla driving dear old dad, see the roads as something to get through quickly and efficiently. They expect nothing more and nothing less. They expect to 'get through', and god help us if someone gets in their way unexpectedly.
'Time' is a big determining factor for how people drive, but I guess the eternal struggle/question in LA is deciding how were going to use 'space' and other drivers to help control this.
Cars as Weapons and Worrying About Bike Safety
Maybe it's my age, or maybe it's because I've been getting rear-ended more than I like, but I am increasingly hating driving.
It was only yesterday about say 15 or 16 years ago that I could not wait to get behind the wheel. Now, it's just draining.
Yesterday, I ran into an old high school classmate in Marina Del Rey who also expressed his hatred for driving LA's freeways. Though he was wearing a plain LA shirt, he expressed his own desire to move to Colorado or elsewhere.
Traffic can get that bad, and THAT draining.
Yesterday, there were two separate car incidents in two different parts of LA County that strike close to places that I travel through fairly often on bike: 1) a car crash in Wilmington three blocks from Banning High School on Pacific Coast Highway, and 2) a Suge Knight hit and run in Compton on Central and Rosecrans Avenue at the South LA-ubiquitous burger chain Tam's Burgers.
These incidents underscore a basic fact: the car can be a very dangerous weapon. Each of these incidents killed people.
In the first incident, the driver of the car lost control of a car and ended up driving on the wrong side of the road. They smashed into a rideshare van, which unharmed the van, but instead killed two people driving that car. According to one of my friends who knew them, that car was souped up and the driver couldn't quite handle it.
In the second 'incident', after arguing on set for the biopic "Straight Outta Compton", Suge Knight followed some guys to the burger joint, ran them over and backed up. One of the men suffered injuries and the other died. Suge has been charged with murder.
This is why I'm always looking over my shoulder when I bike --- I just never know when someone is going to lose control of their car, or if someone in their rage is going to use his car to do something harmful.
Though Suge Knight's use of the car was probably intentionally directed at pedestrians, I was wondering about bike safety in the neighborhood in general.
Incidentally, I was headed towards Rosecrans and Central on 1/28 and managed to get some video.
I titled the video: would you let your kids bike this? Or something to that effect.
Why would I title it that?
In less than a month, I'm going to be a dad. Yep. Crazy, crazy, crazy ish.
However, I'm probably not the first ever to come up with an idea or with the sentiment to inspire more bike safety for the sake of their kids. Apologies to whoever is on the front line and doing the dang deeds.
In the same way that I wondered how I could ensure bicycle safety for my little sister, and my mother, I've been wondering how I'm going to carry the baby while biking.
While Central Avenue in Compton has a bike lane, and I as a lone bicyclist feel somewhat safe, I really wouldn't like the idea of biking with a trailer.
But maybe that's just me being chicken.
Measuring Bike Safety: Indicator "Species" Counts
I think part of the reason I would not feel safe is because there's really no protection for my baby and me if something were to happen. I simply would not want to take any chances.
That in mind, I keep thinking about how our spaces cater to the most vulnerable people. Most often I don't think they do. "Vulnerable people" being the elderly, the handicapped, the very young, and women of all ages.
Another confession: part of my job includes counting pedestrians and bicycles at intersections for engineering companies. The way we count bikes is pretty basic; we just count them the way we would count cars with our specific handheld machines.
While I know that the bike advocacy organizations have been on top of counting every demographic on a bicycle during their own volunteer-run counts, in my field, the work with traffic engineering firms, we often we don't take note of whether they are on the sidewalk, and/or gender.
Why would noting gender be important?
Women simply don't want to be anywhere where they'll be catcalled, harassed, or simply taken advantage of. It's something as an able-bodied man that I have the privilege of not knowing.
Just as has been posted that the presence of women in a public space indicates a place's safety, I think that line of thinking can be extended to bike infrastructure. In a closed structure where biking is somewhat more protected, like a bike path, you will see a lot more women. On any given street, however, if you see anyone, you'll likely see guys. I think it's important to note just because it can help explain why some use a space, and why some don't.
On occasion, a client will ask us to make a differentiation of pedestrians and bicyclists, and a person counting will note whether they are adults or children, but that's the extent of our classification counts when it comes to bicyclists.
I think some helpful things to start counting: women on bikes, women pedestrians, bikes with child trailers, bikes on sidewalks vs. bikes on streets, people on wheelchairs (motorized and manual), people on skateboards
In short, I'd hope that engineers in particular start calling for new ways to measure bike safety, and call my company on it so I can keep having a job.
It was only yesterday about say 15 or 16 years ago that I could not wait to get behind the wheel. Now, it's just draining.
Yesterday, I ran into an old high school classmate in Marina Del Rey who also expressed his hatred for driving LA's freeways. Though he was wearing a plain LA shirt, he expressed his own desire to move to Colorado or elsewhere.
Traffic can get that bad, and THAT draining.
Yesterday, there were two separate car incidents in two different parts of LA County that strike close to places that I travel through fairly often on bike: 1) a car crash in Wilmington three blocks from Banning High School on Pacific Coast Highway, and 2) a Suge Knight hit and run in Compton on Central and Rosecrans Avenue at the South LA-ubiquitous burger chain Tam's Burgers.
These incidents underscore a basic fact: the car can be a very dangerous weapon. Each of these incidents killed people.
In the first incident, the driver of the car lost control of a car and ended up driving on the wrong side of the road. They smashed into a rideshare van, which unharmed the van, but instead killed two people driving that car. According to one of my friends who knew them, that car was souped up and the driver couldn't quite handle it.
In the second 'incident', after arguing on set for the biopic "Straight Outta Compton", Suge Knight followed some guys to the burger joint, ran them over and backed up. One of the men suffered injuries and the other died. Suge has been charged with murder.
This is why I'm always looking over my shoulder when I bike --- I just never know when someone is going to lose control of their car, or if someone in their rage is going to use his car to do something harmful.
* * *
Getting Worried about Bike Safety HereThough Suge Knight's use of the car was probably intentionally directed at pedestrians, I was wondering about bike safety in the neighborhood in general.
Incidentally, I was headed towards Rosecrans and Central on 1/28 and managed to get some video.
I titled the video: would you let your kids bike this? Or something to that effect.
Why would I title it that?
In less than a month, I'm going to be a dad. Yep. Crazy, crazy, crazy ish.
However, I'm probably not the first ever to come up with an idea or with the sentiment to inspire more bike safety for the sake of their kids. Apologies to whoever is on the front line and doing the dang deeds.
In the same way that I wondered how I could ensure bicycle safety for my little sister, and my mother, I've been wondering how I'm going to carry the baby while biking.
While Central Avenue in Compton has a bike lane, and I as a lone bicyclist feel somewhat safe, I really wouldn't like the idea of biking with a trailer.
But maybe that's just me being chicken.
* * *
Measuring Bike Safety: Indicator "Species" Counts
I think part of the reason I would not feel safe is because there's really no protection for my baby and me if something were to happen. I simply would not want to take any chances.
That in mind, I keep thinking about how our spaces cater to the most vulnerable people. Most often I don't think they do. "Vulnerable people" being the elderly, the handicapped, the very young, and women of all ages.
Another confession: part of my job includes counting pedestrians and bicycles at intersections for engineering companies. The way we count bikes is pretty basic; we just count them the way we would count cars with our specific handheld machines.
While I know that the bike advocacy organizations have been on top of counting every demographic on a bicycle during their own volunteer-run counts, in my field, the work with traffic engineering firms, we often we don't take note of whether they are on the sidewalk, and/or gender.
Why would noting gender be important?
Women simply don't want to be anywhere where they'll be catcalled, harassed, or simply taken advantage of. It's something as an able-bodied man that I have the privilege of not knowing.
Just as has been posted that the presence of women in a public space indicates a place's safety, I think that line of thinking can be extended to bike infrastructure. In a closed structure where biking is somewhat more protected, like a bike path, you will see a lot more women. On any given street, however, if you see anyone, you'll likely see guys. I think it's important to note just because it can help explain why some use a space, and why some don't.
On occasion, a client will ask us to make a differentiation of pedestrians and bicyclists, and a person counting will note whether they are adults or children, but that's the extent of our classification counts when it comes to bicyclists.
I think some helpful things to start counting: women on bikes, women pedestrians, bikes with child trailers, bikes on sidewalks vs. bikes on streets, people on wheelchairs (motorized and manual), people on skateboards
In short, I'd hope that engineers in particular start calling for new ways to measure bike safety, and call my company on it so I can keep having a job.
The Church, the Car, and the Family
My girlfriend was given this book called, "The ABCs of Choosing a a Good Husband" written by someone named Stephen Wood. It was published by Family Life Center publications and given to her by some father-figure colleague of hers who probably isn't impressed by my "cultural" Catholicism.
She read the book out loud and hopped upon interesting quotes about car usage, the Christian faith, and dating.
This publication suggests that the availability, and wide usage of the car eroded an aspect of the family, and by implication the Christian/Catholic faith.
As my friend wondered about ways of getting churchgoers to share the road and think of it as a Christian act, I think that above publication provided insight so that I could slap up an answer to my friend's question:
While the author doesn't exactly implicate biking by commuting, he makes a point that ironically parallels some of the thinking from my past atheist punking girlfriends: the car may provide the means to get you to point A and B, but it doesn't do a lot to connect you with people.
She read the book out loud and hopped upon interesting quotes about car usage, the Christian faith, and dating.
This publication suggests that the availability, and wide usage of the car eroded an aspect of the family, and by implication the Christian/Catholic faith.
Chaperones and the family courting circle were abandoned in the early twentieth century for the thrill of the automobile and the "independence" provided by the dating revolution (p. 23)I'm not sure what Stephen Wood is in the Christian/Catholic community, but what he's written is apparently credible enough for my fervently Catholic girlfriend.
As my friend wondered about ways of getting churchgoers to share the road and think of it as a Christian act, I think that above publication provided insight so that I could slap up an answer to my friend's question:
- Bike advocates should frame the mode of transportation as a "family-friendly" way of transportation, and sell them on how automobiles interrupt if not ruin families and to a lesser extent community
- Priests should accept that frame and promote it as such
- Promote bike-a-thon events for the church
- Move to build bike racks or hire valets to watch over bikes; a contrast to the common LA scene of full parking lots on Sundays, only to be severely underused the rest of the week
While the author doesn't exactly implicate biking by commuting, he makes a point that ironically parallels some of the thinking from my past atheist punking girlfriends: the car may provide the means to get you to point A and B, but it doesn't do a lot to connect you with people.
"Exactly how do you court in the twenty-first century? The skills needed for the art of courtship have been lost, and we all need to rediscover them. For starters, you can rethink how you use a car.The part about chaperones notwithstanding, its hilarious to me how sometimes conservative elements of religion can on occasion sound almost progressive green hipsters.
I know this sounds radical, but I suggest that a car be used only for chaperoned social activities and to visit each other's homes, if they are nearby. You, and the man courting you, should interact with your families at mealtimes and join in family activities, recreation, and outings as much as possible. Don't use a car for private times together." - (21-22)
List of Key Notes from Tom Vanderbilt's Book Traffic
Just finished Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do and What It Says About Us.
I remember wanting to read it when it first came out in 2008.
By happenstance at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance and a bookstore there, I saw it priced for a $1.00.
It has felt like "highway robber"y ever-since.
The book is a page-turner. It's got everything that I've ever thought was needed for solid writing: simple metaphors to describe complex phenomena, references to psychological studies, statistical anomalies, but all packaged in a personal kind of way.
I don't mark up books too much anymore, but I just had to for this, and thought I would entice people to give the ideas a look. I quoted everything in the notes verbatim with the associated page number. Bolded emphases are all mine for the sake of easy reading.
Overall, my take on the book: made me think a lot about the illusion of safety though I wish there was more attention paid to solutions for bicyclists
Metaphors for and Ways to Think About Traffic
Bike-Related
Communication Problems when Driving
Shouts to Los Angeles
Other Interesting Studies Cited
I remember wanting to read it when it first came out in 2008.
By happenstance at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance and a bookstore there, I saw it priced for a $1.00.
It has felt like "highway robber"y ever-since.
The book is a page-turner. It's got everything that I've ever thought was needed for solid writing: simple metaphors to describe complex phenomena, references to psychological studies, statistical anomalies, but all packaged in a personal kind of way.
I don't mark up books too much anymore, but I just had to for this, and thought I would entice people to give the ideas a look. I quoted everything in the notes verbatim with the associated page number. Bolded emphases are all mine for the sake of easy reading.
Overall, my take on the book: made me think a lot about the illusion of safety though I wish there was more attention paid to solutions for bicyclists
Metaphors for and Ways to Think About Traffic
- We think of traffic as an abstraction, a grouping of things rather than a collection of individuals (7)
- Once humans decided to do anything but walk, once they became traffic, they had to learn a whole new way of getting around and getting along (10)
- Being in traffic is like being in an online chat room under a pseudonym (27)
- Our vehicle becomes our self. You project your body way out in front of a vehicle...We say "Get out of my way," not "get out of my and my car's way." (24)
- Identity issues seem to trouble the driver alone. Have you ever noticed how passengers rarely seem to get as worked up about these events as you do?...They do not feel that their identity is bound up with the car. (24)
- "A modern, urban freeway is a lot like eBay, without reputation scores" - LIor J. Strahilevitz (58)
- Traffic is a sort of secret window onto the inner heart of a place, a form of cultural expression as vital as language, dress, or music (216).
- The only place where the little man achieves equality with the big is in heavy traffic. Only there can he actually overtake (220).
- The driver's thinking it's wide open. It's a football mentality ---I've got all my blockers and I can go (71).
- You hit the brakes for a second, just tap them on the freeway, you can literally track the ripple effect of that action across a two-hundred mile stretch of road, because traffic has a memory. It's amazing. It's like a living organism. - Mission Impossible III (119)
- Rice has more to do with traffic than you might think. Many people use water analogies when talking about raffic, because it's a great way to describe concepts like volume and capacity. One example, used by Benjamin Coifman, an engineering professor at Ohio State University who specializes in traffic, is to think of a bucket of water with an inch-wide hole in the bottom. (122)
- At places like bottlenecks, however, traffic acts less like water (it does not speed up as highway "channels" narrow, for one) and more like rice: Cars, like grains, are discrete objects that act in peculiar ways. Rice is what's called a "granular media," a solid that can act like a liquid. Sidney Nagel, a physicist at the University of Chicago and an expert in granular materials, uses the analogy of adding a bit of sugar to a spoon. Pour too much, and the pile collapses. The sugar flows like a liquid as it collapses, but it's really a group of interacting objects that do not easily interact (123).
- In a 1982 survey, a majority of drivers found that the majority of other people were "courteous" on the road. When the same survey was repeated in 1998, the rude drivers outnumbered the courteous (61).
- Texas Transportation Institute found that the single most common cause of stress on the highway was "merging difficulties" (64)
- A study by a group of Israeli researchers found that drivers committed more traffic violations on familiar routes than on unfamiliar routes (15)
- One study of pedestrian fatalities by French researchers showed that a significant number were associated with a "change of mode" --- for example, moving from car to foot --- as if the authors speculated, drivers leaving their vehicles still felt a certain invulnerability (20)
- Studies, as I mentioned earlier in the book, have shown that cars waiting to make left turns against oncoming traffic will accept smaller gaps in which to cross (i.e. more risk) the longer they have been waiting (i.e., as the desire for completing the turn increases). Thirty seconds seems to be the limit of human patience for left turns
- ...a study by Quality Planning Corporation, a San Francisco-based insurance research firm, found doctors to have the second-highest crash risk in an eight-month sample of a million drivers, just after students (whose risk is largely influenced by their young age (258).
- Studies by geographers have shown that people tend to overestimate distances on routes that are "segmented," versus those where the destination is in sight (147)
- In the 1960s, as Jane Jacobs described in her classic book The Death and Life of Great American cities, a small group of New Yorkers, including Jacobs herself, began a campaign to close the street cutting through Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village. Parks were not great places for cars, they suggested...The traffic people predicted mayhem. What happened was the reverse: Cars, having lost the best route through the park, decided to stop treating the neighborhood as a shortcut. Total car traffic dropped ---and both the park and the neighborhood are doing just fine (156).
- A study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that the second-leading cause of distraction-related crashes (behind fatigue) was "looking at crashes, other roadside incidents, traffic, or other vehicles") (163)
- Most crashes, after all, happen on dry roads, on clear, sunny days, to sober drivers (185)
- The nations that rank as the least corrupt---such countries as Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, and Singapore --- are also the safest places in the world to drive (236).
- ...commute times have also been expanding. One of the fastest-growing categories in the last "commuting census" in the United States was that of "extreme commuters," people who spend upward of two hours a day in traffic (moving or otherwise). Many of these are people pushed farther out by higher home prices, past the billboards that beckon "If you lived here, you'd be home by now," in a phenomenon real estate agents call "drive till you qualify"...In 1969, nearly half of American children walked or biked to school; now just 16 percent do. From 1977 to 1995, the number of trips people made on foot dropped by nearly half. This has given rise to a joke: In America, a pedestrian is someone who has just parked their car (16).
- In the 1950s, studies revealed that about 40% of daily trips per capita were "work trips." Now the nationwide figure is roughly 16%. It's not that people are making fewer trips to work but they're making so many other kinds of trips. What kinds of trips? Taking the kids to school or day care or soccer practice, eating out, picking up dry cleaning. In 1960 the average American drove 20.64 miles a day. By 2001, that figure was over 32 miles. (132)
- In an average year, more people were killed in the United States on Saturday and Sunday from midnight to three a.m. than all those who were killed from midnight to three a.m. the rest of the week (250)
- More people die in pickups per 100 million vehicles registered than in any other kind of vehicle
- Intersections are crash magnets---in the United States, 50 percent of all road crashes occur at intersections. At a four-way intersection, there are a staggering fifty-six potential points of what engineers call "conflict" or the chance for you to run into someone---thirty--two of these places where vehicles can hit vehicles, and twenty-four are spots where vehicles can hit pedestrians. Roundabouts sharply drop the total number of potential conflicts to sixteen, and, thanks to their central islands (which create what engineers call "deflection"), they eliminate entirely the two most dangerous moves in an intersection: cross directly through the intersection, often at high speed, and making a left turn. (178).
- When the urban planner Donald Appleyard surveyed San Francisco in the 1970s, he found that on streets with more road traffic, people had fewer friends and spent less time outside. In the same way that traffic has been blamed for habitat fragmentation of the wild, cutting off species from foraging areas or reducing the tendency of birds to breed, high traffic helps starve social interaction on human streets (maybe this is how congestion hurts romance). Somewhat paradoxically, Appleyard found that people who lived on the streets with less traffic (who made more money and were more likely to own their own homes actually created more traffic themselves, while the people who lived on the high-traffic streets were less able to afford cars. The rich in effect, were taxing the poor (160)
- If you drive an average of 15,500 miles per year, as many Americans do, there is a roughly 1 in 100 chance you'll die in a fatal car crash over a lifetime of 50 years of driving (249)
Bike-Related
- When bicyclists violate a traffic law, research has showed it is because, in the eyes of drivers, they are reckless anarchists; drivers meanwhile are more likely to view the violation of a traffic law by another driver as somehow being required by the circumstances (23-24).
- The best thing engineers can do, the thinking has gone, is make it easy. "You can't violate driver expectation," says Granda. (183)
- A cyclist, for example, may feel safer riding on the sidewalk instead of the street. But several studies have found that cyclists are more likely to involved in a crash when riding on the sidewalk. Why? Sidewalks, though separated from the road, cross not only driveways but intersections---where most car-bicycle collisions happen. The driver, having already begun her turn, is likely to expect--and thus to see---a bicyclist emerging from the sidewalk. The cyclist, feeling safer, may also be less on the lookout for cars (268)
- Studies have shown that people take longer to leave a parking spot when another driver is waiting (44)
- The reason people cruise is simple: They're hunting for a bargain (149)
Communication Problems when Driving
- Being in a car renders us mostly mute. Instead of complex vocabularies and subtle shifts in facial expression, the language of traffic is reduced --- necessarily, for reasons of safety and economy ---- to a range of basic signals, formal and informal, that convey only the simplest of meanings...Frustrated by our inability to talk, we gesture violently or honk---a noise the offending driver might misinterpret (21)
- When a driver is cut off by another driver, the gesture is read as rude, perhaps hostile. There is no way for the offending driver to indicate that it was anything but rude or hostile (22)
- It is often impossible to even send a message to the offending driver in the first place. Yet we still get visibly mad, to an audience of no one. Katz argues that we are engaging in a kind of theatrical storytelling, inside of our cars, angrily "constructing moral dramas" in which we are the wronged victims --- and the "avenging hero" --- in some traffic epic of larger importance....in an effort to create a "new meaning" for the encounter, we will try to find out something after the fact about the driver who wronged us (perhaps speeding up to see them), meanwhile running down a mental list of potential villains (e.g., women, men, teenagers, senior citizens, truck drivers, Democrats, Republicans, "idiots on cell phones," or, if all else fails, simply "idiots") before finding a suitable resolution to the drama (23)
- This seems like an on-road version of what psychologists call the "fundamental attribution error"....we ascribe the actions of others to who they are...meanwhile we attribute our own actions to how we were forced to act in specific situations (23).
- The desire to "catch" a green makes drivers speed up at precisely the moment they should be looking for vehicles making oncoming turns or entering the main road from a right tun on red. The high placement of traffic lights also puts drivers' eyes upward, away from the street and things like the brake lights of the slowing cars they are about to hit. Then there are the color-blind drivers who cannot make out the red versus green, and the moments when sunlight washes out the light for everyone (179).
- People are free to terrorize others on the road because their identity is largely protected. The road is not a private place, and speeding is not a private act (59).
- Each safe trip we take reinforces the image of a safe trip (249)
- So why is Belgium a more dangerous place to drive [than the Netherlands]? An answer of sorts may be found in another kind of index, one that more or less aligns with the GDP but often diverges in interesting ways: corruption (235).
- In traffic, laws are only as good as the norms regarding them (241).
- When the engineers build something, "[Psychologist Tom] Granda says, 'the question everybody should ask is, What effect will it have on the drivers? How will the driver react, not only today, but after the driver sees that sign or lane marking over a period of time? Will they adapt to it? (182)
- The above-average effect helps explain resistance (in the early stages, at least) to new traffic safety measures, from seat belts to cell phone restrictions...We think stricter laws are a good idea for the people who need them (60).
- "unintnernalized externalities." This means that you are not feeling the pain you are causing others. Two legal scholars at the University [of] California at Berkeley have estimated, for example, that every time a new driver hits the road in California, the total insurance cost for everyone else goes up by more than $2,000. We do not pay for the various emissions our cars create---to take just one case, the unpaid cost of Los Angeles' legendary haze is about 2.3 cents per mile. Nor do we pay for he noise we create, estimated by researchers at the University of California, Davis, to be between $5 billion and $10 billion per year. (160)
- Even if the occupants of cars themselves were safer, he maintained, the increase in car safety had been offset by an increase in the fatality rate of people who did not benefit from the safety features ---pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. As drivers felt safer, everyone else had reason to feel less safe (264).
- Most people would prefer to face the danger of the street," he wrote, "rather than the fatigue of getting upstairs." The woonerven reversed this idea, suggesting that it was people who lived in cities and that cars were merely guests (191).
- One way of increasing capacity is rerouting demand (169).
- ...a properly designed roundabout can reduce delays by up to 65 percent over an intersection with traffic signals or stop signs (124)
Shouts to Los Angeles
- Los Angeles, like all cities, is essentially a noncooperative network. Its traffic system is filled with streams of people who desire to move how they want, and where they want, when they want, regardless of what everyone else is doing. What traffic engineers do is try to simulate, through technology and signs and laws, a cooperative system. (111)
- No city in the world has more traffic reports or traffic reporters than Los Angeles...(114)
Other Interesting Studies Cited
- Eye contact greatly increases the chances of gaining cooperation in various experimental games (31)
- People who go to traffic court, [legal scholar Tom] Tyler found, are less concerned with the outcome---even when it is a costly ticket or fine---than with the fairness of the process (235)
- A study by a group of U.S. economists found that women were less likely to engage in hypothetical corruption, that female managers in one country they studied were less likely to engage in actual corruption, and that the countries that rank as least corrupt on the global indices tend to have more women in government (243).
- Here we must remember the old dictum about what keeps a university running smoothly: 'Beer for the students, parking for the faculty, and football for the alumni.' (145)
- In the first decade of the twentieth century, forty-seven men tried to climb Alaska's Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak. They had relatively crude equipment and helicopter-assisted rescues were quite frequent, each decade saw the death of dozens of people on the mountain's slopes. Some kind of adaptation seemed to be occurring: The knowledge that one could be rescued was either driving climbers to make riskier climbs (something the British climber Joe Simpson has suggested); or it was bringing less-skilled climbers to the mountain. The National Park Service's policy of increased safety was not only costing more money, it perversely seemed to be costing more lives --- which had the ironic effect of producing calls for more 'safety' (266)
- Grimly tally the number of people who have been killed by terrorism in the United States since the State Department began keeping records in the 1960s, and you'll get a total of less than 5,000---roughly the same number, it has been pointed out, as those who have been struck by lightning (271).
2 Hours from West LA to Long Beach
2 Hours.
In 2 Hours, I could drive to Santa Barbara, I could drive to San Diego.
In the Western part of LA, 2 Hours affords you 30 Miles. A marathon runner could almost keep pace. A very good one at least.
That 2 hours is what it took me to get from Beverly Hills to Central Long Beach from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM.
I was rushing to make a tutoring appointment from my other job and almost failed miserably.
I had to be there by 3:30 for an hour tutoring session that lasts till 4:30.
The first mistake was using a combination Wilshire Blvd towards UCLA. The five-lane virtual highway was packed to capacity. A large number of cars decided to either U-turn or turn on the next available side street. It took about 15 minutes to get out of Beverly Hills to go from the 8300s to the 11000th block of Wilshire.
2:45. I've traveled barely 4 miles.
OK, fine, I'll just speed by when I get to the 405.
Trying to get on the 405 S(mistake), I took Santa Monica Blvd. Traffic never quite eases up. Another 15 minutes.
3:02. This is when I realize the impossibility of getting to Central Long Beach in 28 minutes. That is still 26 miles away.
I think of the hard cover book that I picked up for $1 by Tom Vanderbilt, a book called Traffic.
As I turn onto the Southbound ramp full of other drivers who'd been waiting. I think constantly of the metaphor he'd used to describe unexplained traffic jams. That of rush of water having to fit into one tiny hole.
Amidst this glut, I experiment for awhile with techniques from the book, going 30 MPH, trying to maintain a steady space, meanwhile, allowing many drivers to cut into my lane.
It is 3:15 by the time, I reach the Univision sign in Culver City on the 405. 20 miles to go in 15 minutes. It has taken a solid 45 minutes just to travel 10 miles.
But the impersonality of traffic doesn't care.
My Corolla limps along the highway. Having gotten only 2 hours of sleep the night before, I get in a few micro-sleeps while my car moves at an elite marathoner runner's pace.
I nod off and wake myself up at different intervals. I think of how the curves on the freeway are designed to wake drivers up, another insight from Vanderbilt's book.
3:30 slips by unnoticed in my mid-day drowsiness. I am barely in Lawndale, some 15 miles away from Long Beach.
I eventually pull into the sidewalk, and my clock reads: 5:38. It's a clock that actually means 4:23 PM, unchanged since Daylight Savings Time and 13 minutes ahead.
In 2 Hours, I could drive to Santa Barbara, I could drive to San Diego.
In the Western part of LA, 2 Hours affords you 30 Miles. A marathon runner could almost keep pace. A very good one at least.
That 2 hours is what it took me to get from Beverly Hills to Central Long Beach from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM.
I was rushing to make a tutoring appointment from my other job and almost failed miserably.
I had to be there by 3:30 for an hour tutoring session that lasts till 4:30.
The first mistake was using a combination Wilshire Blvd towards UCLA. The five-lane virtual highway was packed to capacity. A large number of cars decided to either U-turn or turn on the next available side street. It took about 15 minutes to get out of Beverly Hills to go from the 8300s to the 11000th block of Wilshire.
2:45. I've traveled barely 4 miles.
OK, fine, I'll just speed by when I get to the 405.
Trying to get on the 405 S(mistake), I took Santa Monica Blvd. Traffic never quite eases up. Another 15 minutes.
3:02. This is when I realize the impossibility of getting to Central Long Beach in 28 minutes. That is still 26 miles away.
I think of the hard cover book that I picked up for $1 by Tom Vanderbilt, a book called Traffic.
As I turn onto the Southbound ramp full of other drivers who'd been waiting. I think constantly of the metaphor he'd used to describe unexplained traffic jams. That of rush of water having to fit into one tiny hole.
Amidst this glut, I experiment for awhile with techniques from the book, going 30 MPH, trying to maintain a steady space, meanwhile, allowing many drivers to cut into my lane.
It is 3:15 by the time, I reach the Univision sign in Culver City on the 405. 20 miles to go in 15 minutes. It has taken a solid 45 minutes just to travel 10 miles.
But the impersonality of traffic doesn't care.
My Corolla limps along the highway. Having gotten only 2 hours of sleep the night before, I get in a few micro-sleeps while my car moves at an elite marathoner runner's pace.
I nod off and wake myself up at different intervals. I think of how the curves on the freeway are designed to wake drivers up, another insight from Vanderbilt's book.
3:30 slips by unnoticed in my mid-day drowsiness. I am barely in Lawndale, some 15 miles away from Long Beach.
I eventually pull into the sidewalk, and my clock reads: 5:38. It's a clock that actually means 4:23 PM, unchanged since Daylight Savings Time and 13 minutes ahead.
Responding to Slate's 'Why You Hate Cyclists': Drivers Not Irrational, Simply Don't Expect Bicyclists
It's not because all because drivers are 'irrational.'
What would be "irrational", and by "irrational", I mean 'devoid of sound judgment', would be if drivers did look at these stats of bicycle accidents, deaths day-after-day, and then still continue to drive recklessly.
But fact is, most drivers probably don't see those stats, let alone seek out and mine and monitor the latest bicycle incidents. In all likelihood, drivers don't care what bicyclists do, just as long as they're out of the way.
The problem is not that too many drivers are 'irrational' or whatever label bicyclists want to plaster upon them, it is simply this: most drivers, least here in LA simply do not expect bicyclists to be on the streets. This means that drivers usually do not 'anticipate' bicyclists.
There's a reason LA is branded as having a 'car culture'; most people expect cars to take them any and everywhere with efficiency. For example, my folks expect their Honda CRV to take them from the abode in the San Fernando Valley to my mom's job in South LA everyday, back and forth. My godsis, a new hardcore bicyclist takes her Prius from her house in Highland Park in LA to her job down here in Long Beach. Even if they don't really like cars, they depend on it as a basic necessity as they travel far from home to job. The car gets each of them where they need to be, but each of them are more sympathetic to bicyclists.
But not everyone bikes, or knows me or any bicyclist period, and won't approach bicyclists with the same bit of caution and/or sympathy.
Implicit in the expectation of efficient travel is an expectation amongst many that automobiles are the only vehicles with the right of way on the streets, leaving little room for any other modes of transportation. The resulting tensions between bicyclists and drivers are problems of environmental design and culture, not one of bad decision-making either by bicyclists and/or drivers
Speaking from my lens as a former driver-only still surrounded by tons of people who drive everywhere, most drivers view bicyclists on the street (as opposed to the sidewalks) as nothing more than anomalies. We are nothing more than "obstacles" for which fast-moving drivers feel the need to speed around. A lot of the time drivers tell me they aren't sure what to do when a bicyclist is on the street sharing with them.
Drivers do not expect, do not anticipate, and so are not 'prepared' to 'deal' with bicyclists, especially on streets with no large and/or clear street markings. Now from my own experience as a bicyclist, a lot of drivers will switch to another lane, speed up, and immediately switch back, or speed by me, barely skinning me. Sometimes, they will add a honk or a yell. Many times I've been tempted to carry heavy objects in my bag to launch back at many a reckless driver.
Much as I'm tempted to counter a driver's 'emotional' overreaction with my own 'emotional' overreaction, it's a tension continually fueled by roads designed to facilitate automobile traffic only. It's a tension that will continue to manifest if there aren't changes to the designs of roads. It's a tension that will continue unless there are large, clear reminders in the form of signage and street markings to drivers that they need...to expect...bicyclists.
When I think of drivers expecting bicyclists to be on the road as a potential big difference-maker, I think to events where streets are closed off to an automobile traffic. I think of street fairs, Marathons, and triathlons. People, drivers, bicyclist, expect the streets to close and respect them, allowing for pedestrian and/or bicycle traffic to actually populate what is usually the domain of cars. Unless really old and/or de-ranged, drivers don't "irrationally" barge through cones or "Road Closed" signs. Now, that would be irrational.
I think most drivers don't get mad when they know what to expect on the roads; people can work their way with or around whatever is expected. That's what I've learned from observing how drivers avoid those street fairs, Marathons, and Triathlons. I think if you were to do a survey it's largely the unexpected occurrences, against which people don't know how to react, that pisses people off.
When they know to expect something, it seems like people don't get as entitled, therefore not as mad or as hateful.
Drivers need to be made to expect bicyclists to be on the road.
That can be done in a number of ways. In the short-term it seems it'll be through big group rides, and more people being on the streets. Maybe we need to create more reasons for people to be on the streets, more ciclavias, runs, street fairs, etc. Long-term, it needs to be through big signs and street markings, though arguably guerrilla versions of those infrastructural changes can be created.
What would be "irrational", and by "irrational", I mean 'devoid of sound judgment', would be if drivers did look at these stats of bicycle accidents, deaths day-after-day, and then still continue to drive recklessly.
But fact is, most drivers probably don't see those stats, let alone seek out and mine and monitor the latest bicycle incidents. In all likelihood, drivers don't care what bicyclists do, just as long as they're out of the way.
The problem is not that too many drivers are 'irrational' or whatever label bicyclists want to plaster upon them, it is simply this: most drivers, least here in LA simply do not expect bicyclists to be on the streets. This means that drivers usually do not 'anticipate' bicyclists.
There's a reason LA is branded as having a 'car culture'; most people expect cars to take them any and everywhere with efficiency. For example, my folks expect their Honda CRV to take them from the abode in the San Fernando Valley to my mom's job in South LA everyday, back and forth. My godsis, a new hardcore bicyclist takes her Prius from her house in Highland Park in LA to her job down here in Long Beach. Even if they don't really like cars, they depend on it as a basic necessity as they travel far from home to job. The car gets each of them where they need to be, but each of them are more sympathetic to bicyclists.
But not everyone bikes, or knows me or any bicyclist period, and won't approach bicyclists with the same bit of caution and/or sympathy.
Implicit in the expectation of efficient travel is an expectation amongst many that automobiles are the only vehicles with the right of way on the streets, leaving little room for any other modes of transportation. The resulting tensions between bicyclists and drivers are problems of environmental design and culture, not one of bad decision-making either by bicyclists and/or drivers
Speaking from my lens as a former driver-only still surrounded by tons of people who drive everywhere, most drivers view bicyclists on the street (as opposed to the sidewalks) as nothing more than anomalies. We are nothing more than "obstacles" for which fast-moving drivers feel the need to speed around. A lot of the time drivers tell me they aren't sure what to do when a bicyclist is on the street sharing with them.
Drivers do not expect, do not anticipate, and so are not 'prepared' to 'deal' with bicyclists, especially on streets with no large and/or clear street markings. Now from my own experience as a bicyclist, a lot of drivers will switch to another lane, speed up, and immediately switch back, or speed by me, barely skinning me. Sometimes, they will add a honk or a yell. Many times I've been tempted to carry heavy objects in my bag to launch back at many a reckless driver.
Much as I'm tempted to counter a driver's 'emotional' overreaction with my own 'emotional' overreaction, it's a tension continually fueled by roads designed to facilitate automobile traffic only. It's a tension that will continue to manifest if there aren't changes to the designs of roads. It's a tension that will continue unless there are large, clear reminders in the form of signage and street markings to drivers that they need...to expect...bicyclists.
When I think of drivers expecting bicyclists to be on the road as a potential big difference-maker, I think to events where streets are closed off to an automobile traffic. I think of street fairs, Marathons, and triathlons. People, drivers, bicyclist, expect the streets to close and respect them, allowing for pedestrian and/or bicycle traffic to actually populate what is usually the domain of cars. Unless really old and/or de-ranged, drivers don't "irrationally" barge through cones or "Road Closed" signs. Now, that would be irrational.
I think most drivers don't get mad when they know what to expect on the roads; people can work their way with or around whatever is expected. That's what I've learned from observing how drivers avoid those street fairs, Marathons, and Triathlons. I think if you were to do a survey it's largely the unexpected occurrences, against which people don't know how to react, that pisses people off.
When they know to expect something, it seems like people don't get as entitled, therefore not as mad or as hateful.
Drivers need to be made to expect bicyclists to be on the road.
That can be done in a number of ways. In the short-term it seems it'll be through big group rides, and more people being on the streets. Maybe we need to create more reasons for people to be on the streets, more ciclavias, runs, street fairs, etc. Long-term, it needs to be through big signs and street markings, though arguably guerrilla versions of those infrastructural changes can be created.
Biking in LA: An Act of Trusting Strangers
I haven't been as dedicated a bicyclist as I had been the past two years, perhaps because of me now viewing my time as limited and spending most of it in Wilmington.
These days I'm around a lot of people who do not bike to commute, who at best view bicycling as a recreational activity. My current girlfriend is one of them.
She owns the heaviest, but most stylish cruiser bike ever made. Its like a 50-pound green bike with sunflowers on it. It's really only made for beach cruising and nothing more. We once took it on the back of my Corolla along with my road bike to a (Councilman) Tom Labonge bike ride where she rode a hellish 12 miles struggling to keep pace with a pack that seemed to all have road bikes. She absolutely refuses the free, lighter mountain bike that my godsister is willing to donate to her.
She is quite terrified of the idea of biking on anywhere but the sidewalk.
Last Labor Day, we decided to bike from her place in East Wilmington to her parents' abode in West Wilmington. It wasn't the first time, but it was the first time she'd biked in a long while. She would do this even before she'd met me, but it would be on the sidewalk.
We rode a little bit on the road, I followed her from her back, making sure that if anyone was going to get hit, it would be me. It's a pretty calm ride, if not utterly boring for an LA biking veteran. Good thing I had my iPhone bumping Paulina Rubio. Despite taking only residential streets and having the luxury of this self-proclaimed "LA biking veteran" literally watching her back, there were still a few streets on which she clung to and rode the razor thin, crack-laiden sidewalk.
I was thinking of her experience as I rode from East Wilmington to Long Beach today. Biking this route means biking industry-serving bridges that act as quasi-freeways on Pacific Coast Highway, big rigs, and drivers pressuring me to bike faster or get the hell out of their way. Along the way along Poly, I passed 2 girls riding the wrong way on the street.
I had three thoughts, which sound a lot more organized as I write them out for you:
1) I've seen quite a few bicyclists riding the wrong way in Long Beach on busy streets. My girlfriend told me that "maybe" people rode the wrong way so they could "see the traffic" as opposed to being blind to it from behind. I thought maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if one day bike lanes were big enough as a street lane and accommodated both directions in one lane on both sides of the street. I'm not a traffic planner, and I doubt its feasibility given the dependency on automobiles, but it seems like this would do something to make the designs of street more bicycle-friendly.
2) As all this was swirling in my head, and I kept thinking about the video of that motorist from Brazil running over a bunch of critical mass riders, and how cyclists could continue to be killed without much uproar, I had this thought: biking and riding with traffic on the street in LA is one activity where you put an immense amount of trust and faith in strangers operating these high speed machines. "Immense amount" meaning you're trusting a lot of people traveling, trying to get somewhere at their convenience and at an accelerated pace that we've become accustomed to, not to mess with you, your body, your bicycle, or your ability to bicycle. If you're riding with traffic, you can't see what people with their 2-ton vehicles behind you are doing, which immediately puts your limbs, and life at risk. It represents too much uncertainty in the crazy social worlds of uncertainty we already have.
I feel like I put too much trust in motorists. Many times, it seems like doing so doesn't really pay off.
3) If riding the bike with traffic represents uncertainty, and putting trust and faith in strangers, using the car to commute a short distance is due also in part to not trusting strangers behind the wheel. When I was doing research for what I thought would be my thesis project, I came across a few LA Times and Press-Telegram articles about how public space in Long Beach was scary for women and children during the 90s: kids would get jumped at bus stops. For their safety, one woman would drive around her car 3 blocks to church to avoid walking the sidewalks.
Having and using a car represents a safe, secure, time-conscious way of moving around. If biking could ever be made safe, secure, and time-conscious, then it would decrease dependence on the car.
These days I'm around a lot of people who do not bike to commute, who at best view bicycling as a recreational activity. My current girlfriend is one of them.
She owns the heaviest, but most stylish cruiser bike ever made. Its like a 50-pound green bike with sunflowers on it. It's really only made for beach cruising and nothing more. We once took it on the back of my Corolla along with my road bike to a (Councilman) Tom Labonge bike ride where she rode a hellish 12 miles struggling to keep pace with a pack that seemed to all have road bikes. She absolutely refuses the free, lighter mountain bike that my godsister is willing to donate to her.
She is quite terrified of the idea of biking on anywhere but the sidewalk.
Last Labor Day, we decided to bike from her place in East Wilmington to her parents' abode in West Wilmington. It wasn't the first time, but it was the first time she'd biked in a long while. She would do this even before she'd met me, but it would be on the sidewalk.
We rode a little bit on the road, I followed her from her back, making sure that if anyone was going to get hit, it would be me. It's a pretty calm ride, if not utterly boring for an LA biking veteran. Good thing I had my iPhone bumping Paulina Rubio. Despite taking only residential streets and having the luxury of this self-proclaimed "LA biking veteran" literally watching her back, there were still a few streets on which she clung to and rode the razor thin, crack-laiden sidewalk.
I was thinking of her experience as I rode from East Wilmington to Long Beach today. Biking this route means biking industry-serving bridges that act as quasi-freeways on Pacific Coast Highway, big rigs, and drivers pressuring me to bike faster or get the hell out of their way. Along the way along Poly, I passed 2 girls riding the wrong way on the street.
I had three thoughts, which sound a lot more organized as I write them out for you:
1) I've seen quite a few bicyclists riding the wrong way in Long Beach on busy streets. My girlfriend told me that "maybe" people rode the wrong way so they could "see the traffic" as opposed to being blind to it from behind. I thought maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if one day bike lanes were big enough as a street lane and accommodated both directions in one lane on both sides of the street. I'm not a traffic planner, and I doubt its feasibility given the dependency on automobiles, but it seems like this would do something to make the designs of street more bicycle-friendly.
2) As all this was swirling in my head, and I kept thinking about the video of that motorist from Brazil running over a bunch of critical mass riders, and how cyclists could continue to be killed without much uproar, I had this thought: biking and riding with traffic on the street in LA is one activity where you put an immense amount of trust and faith in strangers operating these high speed machines. "Immense amount" meaning you're trusting a lot of people traveling, trying to get somewhere at their convenience and at an accelerated pace that we've become accustomed to, not to mess with you, your body, your bicycle, or your ability to bicycle. If you're riding with traffic, you can't see what people with their 2-ton vehicles behind you are doing, which immediately puts your limbs, and life at risk. It represents too much uncertainty in the crazy social worlds of uncertainty we already have.
I feel like I put too much trust in motorists. Many times, it seems like doing so doesn't really pay off.
3) If riding the bike with traffic represents uncertainty, and putting trust and faith in strangers, using the car to commute a short distance is due also in part to not trusting strangers behind the wheel. When I was doing research for what I thought would be my thesis project, I came across a few LA Times and Press-Telegram articles about how public space in Long Beach was scary for women and children during the 90s: kids would get jumped at bus stops. For their safety, one woman would drive around her car 3 blocks to church to avoid walking the sidewalks.
Having and using a car represents a safe, secure, time-conscious way of moving around. If biking could ever be made safe, secure, and time-conscious, then it would decrease dependence on the car.
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