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.

* * *

Getting Worried about Bike Safety Here

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. 

Getting Scared of Biking in Long Beach Now

I have not been biking much these days;  I do it when I can.  Back when I began blogging on this here platform, I was on the bike and Metro almost everyday from the Valley to Long Beach.

I live in Compton now, and my biking range goes all the way to downtown LA, though it's been a while since I've done a ride.  I do not bike as much in Long Beach.

The days of biking are gone for the time being, mostly because of a job.

But even when I get on a bike, I'm not as freewheeling as I used to be.

Maybe I'm getting socialized into fear. 

Maybe I'm getting older.

Maybe I've gotten too sensitive to the stories I occasionally read on BikinginLA.  Stories of
fallen bicyclists and pedestrians, whose names occasionally whir in and out of local news with little fanfare or visible outrage.

Maybe I've lost too much trust in drivers and the social fabrics.   I've read too many stories about bikers in LA on sites like LA Weekly and KPCC, and people not on bikes largely remain brazen and entitled to their cars and retain a largely accusatory attitude towards bicyclists as if there are no bicyclists who drive.

Maybe I've gotten too sensitive to the numbers.  Recently, the Governors Highway Association found that California leads the nation in bicycle deaths.

I know that there is a small chance, a 1 in 4919 chance of getting hit and being killed on a bicycle, which is actually a much smaller chance than dying from a motor vehicle accident.  Death on a bicycle is the 17th most common way to die according to Medline.  Motor vehicle accidents are 8th.  Not that I would rather die by car in car, but at least there are some safety features that might be able to protect me, whereas if I am hit by a car, it's my body exposed and hopefully the damage is minimal.

All this worrying has gotten to me.

I'm ALWAYS looking over my shoulder nowadays, sometimes even when there is a bike lane.

For the first time in my adult biking career last week, I biked a route more on the sidewalk than on the actual street.  Even in the vaunted "most bike-friendly city" in the nation.

The streets that got me shook?  A couple east-west streets.  It would be no big deal for most veteran bicyclists, but if I'm riding it, there are probably lots of people who are also not, and are probably sidewalking it.

• 7th Street on the way to CSULB, which is bad as a morphs into a 3-lane speedway on the way to the 22 East freeway.

 

 
•  Willow on Signal Hill, which has 3 lanes, an uphill, and a 40 MPH speed limit

The Least Bike-Friendly Cities and Districts in LA County and City of LA

My work takes me all over LA County and the City of LA.

And when I can, I bike.

I don't have any real metrics or data available.  My rankings are not based on counting speed limits, bike lanes, traffic counts, or whatever, but are based mostly on my whether or not I 'feel comfortable' on main streets in certain cities as a sometimes-commuting bicyclist myself.

Chances are that if I "feel comfortable" as a sometimes-commuting bicyclist who occasionally rides with his scared-to-death fiance, mom, and/or sister, it is likely that even more people/Angelenos, who don't really make the effort to bike nor have given it much thought, will feel the same when encountering the same environs.

"Comfort" for me means "intuitive" and/or "natural."  So a driving (pun not intended) question behind these rankings is, how "intuitive" and/or "natural" is it to be biking on the streets of a given area?

But first...

The Limitations of These Rankings:  

• It's not systematic;  absolute lack of numbers
• Areas I know really well where I can take the little streets because I've passed through them many times:   LA City Council District 13 (Silver Lake, East Hollywood, Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Atwater Village), UCLA Area (Westwood-Culver City-Palms) North Hollywood,  Most of LA City Council District 4 (Los Feliz, Little Armenia, Koreatown, southern commercial parts of Glendale, Most of the Central San Fernando Valley:  Van Nuys, Panorama City, Pacoima, Arleta, Most of Long Beach:  Eastside and Westside Long Beach, Wilmington, Pico-Union, Exposition Park
• I could probably find my way around, but mainly use the big streets on:  A lot of the Valley (Universal City in the South to Van Nuys in the North, Sherman Oaks to the West, Burbank to the East), A lot of the South Bay Area (Culver City, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Carson, Torrance, Gardena, North Long Beach, Cerritos, Compton, Lakewood, Signal Hill, San Pedro), Some of the San Gabriel Valley (Monterey Park, West Covina), Some of the Westside (Santa Monica, Venice), Some of the Eastside (East LA, Boyle Heights), LAX-El Segundo area, Malibu, South LA (USC-Leimert Park), Culver City
• I would be pretty lost here:   A lot of the San Gabriel Valley and everything else East (Arcadia, Alhambra, Montebello, El Monte, Pomona, Lincoln Heights), Anything Northwest of Northridge (Chatsworth), Anything North of Pacoima (Lake View Terrace, Santa Clarita etc), Slightly North of Santa Monica (Pacific Palisades, Brentwood), Anything East of Paramount (Bellflower, Downey, Lynwood, Commerce)

Possible Takeaways:

• To place a more public spotlight on areas across LA County and City of LA that really feel unsafe for bicyclists.

I've divided the sections of LA County Cities and City of LA Neighborhoods into two tiers: "Really needs improvement" and "Oh Shit, I really hope I don't die"

LA County City "Needs Improvement" Tier

1)  Carson.  Carson has streets with decent amount of room for bicyclists, but I am not aware of many of its bike-friendly signs or whatever.
2)  Redondo Beach.  Not thinking of the actual beach area, but the surface streets.  I remember taking Artesia one time.  Not a lot of room for bicycling, though it seems to have potential.
3)  Inglewood/Hawthorne/South Gate.  Inglewood and Hawthorne seem to have space, but I hardly remember bike facilities on either.

4)  Alhambra/The Covinas - Wide streets, mostly flat.  Only cars have the opportunity to take advantage.




LA County "Oh shit I really hope I don't die today" Tier
1)  El Segundo - If you don't know the small streets here, it can be very scary.  Luckily the Green Line has a stop for Mariposa, and that's basically the street on which you should stay.
2)  Gardena - I have yet to see a single bike facility in this city.  It's one saving grace is the East side where there isn't any traffic.  But if you try going down Redondo Beach Blvd with its three lanes, BE SAFE.
3)  Cerritos - South Street can be scary as noted by me a few years ago.  Luckily this town is not that big.
4)  Beverly Hills/Century City - I think of Santa Monica Blvd.  Hate it.
5)  Torrance - My fiance's dream city growing up.  All suburbed and boxed in a car waiting to get on/off the 405.
6)  Vernon - Would be a decent biking area if there weren't trucks breathing on you, abandoned, and full of polution.
7)  Malibu - PCH, PCH, PCH.  Despite the fact that bicyclists are highly visible and there are road signs warning drivers to slow down, I still would not want to bike here.  The roads are designed for people to zip through, and it's probably even worse during peak hours.  Speeds can reach highway speeds
8)  Culver City - I really dislike biking anything in Culver City because of the traffic and the utter lack of bike facilities.  Sepulveda isnt very enjoyable.  Neither is La Cienega. 

LA City Rankings "Needs Improvement" Tier
1)  Mid-Wilshire - I know these streets already as a bicyclist, but I mention this here because actual Wilshire is still and almost always will be a nightmare (unless past 9P-10P, but that isn't guaranteed).
2)  Hollywood - Mostly because the touristy areas along Cahuenga are packed with traffic.
3)  Harbor City - Very small section of the city that I know has little bike-friendliness, especially not on PCH.
4)  Harbor Gateway - I see this district sign and I immediately think, what kind of bike-enemy trouble am I going to encounter next?
5)  Historic Filipinotown - The main East-West thoroughfares, Temple and 3rd St, are and always have been mini race tracks
6)  Florence - Whenever I use this street, I don't think bike-friendliness.  There is space, but I always wonder what cars are rushing behind me.

LA City "Oh shit I really hope I don't die today" Tier
1)  Beverly Glen - I think of Sunset Boulevard and how completely unrunnable it becomes.
2)  Beverly Grove - I think of La Cienega Blvd, the lack of space for bicyclists, and the car traffic that breathes on you like a predator
3)  Vermont-Slauson - Slauson has got to be the worst East-West thoroughfare with a railroad track on it.   Usually railroad tracks are a good sign for bicyclists.  In Slauson's, it means just try really hard not to get run over.
4)  Cahuenga Pass -The route that I used to take from LA to the Valley was always kind of scary mostly because of the cars breathing on me.  Would be a nice fun uphill/downhill if not for the impatient motorists.

A Biking "Novice" on PCH from Wilmington to Long Beach (VIDEO)

After our bike-commute dominated trip to New Orleans which saw us cross an intimidating bridge (with sharrows though!) separating the Lower 9th Ward from the rest of the 9th Ward, I decided to get my significant other a townie bike.  She wanted something a little faster than her 40-lb cruiser, but not quite a road bike.

Previously, she'd used her 40-lb cruiser for anything bike-related.  She wasn't quite a novice, but she wouldn't bike on the streets if she didn't know bike law. 

One of the first things we did on her brand new used townie was bike from her house to her work (which would take me about 20 minutes).  I recorded our ride on camera.  I salute her for her bravery, but then again, biking to commute shouldn't be an act of bravery and heroics.

The number of times I look back is the number of times I felt nervous about the traffic creeping behind me, enticing me to look back.  It was a bit nerve-wracking sometimes, completely unsure if cars actually 1)  see us 2)  respect us on the road to a) enough to give us our room b) not yell, curse, speed up and cut us off.

Analysis of Bike-Related Incidents in Long Beach 2002-2011

A report from Long Beach Bike:

Says that Bicyclists are statistically at fault more of the time over drivers, but drivers are not far behind.

I hope that the following statement doesn't simply reinforce the self-righteousness of those who are compelled to always defend those behind the motor.

According to the Long Beach data about 45% of the bike related accidents in the city are caused by the bicyclist (35% are driver related and 20% undetermined).

An analysis of Long Beach traffic accident data since 2002 has revealed five leading causes that make up more than 80 percent of all automobile-bicycle incidents:

1.   Bicyclist riding on the wrong side of the road against oncoming traffic;
2.   Bicyclist making an unpredictable and hazardous move (e.g., darts in front of a moving vehicle);
3.   Bicyclist running a stop light or stop sign;
4.   Motorist running a stop light or stop sign; or
5.   Motorist making a right or left turn in front of a moving bicycle.

"Bicyclists riding on the wrong side":  it would be nice to see the geographical breakdown of these incidents.  I see a ton riding on the wrong side on PCH in West Long Beach.

The fact that "making hazardous road moves" causes many accidents is unfortunate but not surprising;  my philosophy is to make every move "expected" by drivers, which is why I love the 4th Street sign that says "Bikes May Use Full Lane."

But the accidents are not all at the feet of bicyclists.

 There are a substantial amount of accidents actually caused by the driver:

"...over 40% of these accidents are categorized as either Auto Right-of-way violation or Pedestrian Right-of Way violation.  In other words the driver pulled in front of the bicyclists (I’m implying here that when the report refers to pedestrian..they in fact are referring to the bicyclist).  

Another 15% is related to improper turning. And finally 12% is related to running a stop light or stop sign.

The single biggest cause of driver caused accidents is making right turns and in the process cutting of the bicyclist.

So far for me in Long Beach, I've experienced one incident on bike that was the fault of a driver:  getting doored by a stopped pick-up on the driver's-side at an intersection on 4th Street. The driver stopped his car at an intersection, and unexpectedly threw his door open making me swerve left and crash on the road.

'Bike-friendly, eh?' I was thinking.

Nothing really happened to my body or bike.  I didn't get hurt too badly. He did acknowledge it was his fault and asked if I was OK. 

Now what we need is a comparison between Long Beach and LA and another biking hotbed to see how we match up.

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.

Accepted Realities: Bicyclists Being Killed

Nordhoff Avenue in the San Fernando Valley, specifically from Panorama City to Northridge is an actual bike route I used to take on the way to Cal State Northridge.  I would take it often to visit my CSUN friend, usually at night with just one backlight. 

Was never the safest, though at 2 AM the streets are empty. 


Ver Nordhoff en un mapa más grande

What the map won't say also is that Nordhoff Avenue has six lanes going in both directions from North Hills in the East to Northridge to the West.  When I rode this route, I would try to take up one lane.  I was just out there trying to be visible, and very very vulnerable. 

Turns out that a month ago, someone was actually killed in a hit-and-run accident on that very route.  76-year old Paul Albert Helfen was riding his bike at 2 AM in the morning and was struck by a Nissan Sentra.

2 AM definitely is not the best time to be out, but that doesn't mean it's the best time to clip and take someone's life.  The bicyclist that was out there and killed by the Sentra, could've actually been me.

I know that there have been many fatalities for people on bikes as reported by that Biking in LA;  it's tragic.  Every single killing is tragic.  It feels like there's something wrong when in news cycles, public discourse, and just our society and world in general when its easy to dismiss and ultimately forget about the death.  Its an accepted reality;  an incident we just kind of tolerate and take as normal, so that we may move on with our day-to-day lives.  It's like there's an utter disregard for life, usually because we don't know the person, what they were about.

Sometimes reading about fatalities and incidents on BikinginLA is like reading The LA Times Homicide Blog where you just read a bit about the person's life and ensuing tragedy that followed.

The tragedies in the Homicide Blog usually happen to marginalized, invisible people --- brown and black people --- usually somewhere in South LA, between South LA and Long Beach, or somewhere in Boyle Heights, or in the Mid-Upper San Fernando Valley.  Because the tragedy happens to marginalized, invisible people, the issue is marginalized and invisible.  They don't affect me because they don't directly implicate me or any of the categories I have been identified with or that I willingly actively identify with (However, just because I don't belong to those social categories of those marginalized and invisible people shouldn't de-value those lives).

Biking is done by people of all walks of life in every area of LA.  Biking as a means of transportation is marginalized and invisible;  most people travel by automobile or public transportation.  I guess a few things need to happen to curb this accepted reality:

1. Biking needs to enter the reality and daily living of the majority of the lives of Angelenos.
2. Ordinary and marginalized people need to become celebrities.  That is, we should know more about their trajectories in life so that readers identify a lot more with these people.  These reports of reports of these deaths need to talk about these people's lives, knowing about who they are, what they went through.
3. The streets need to become less like "obstacle courses" that people navigate and rush through;  instead, they should become more like destinations in themselves that people can make meaning of and enjoy.  It seems like interactive maps can help with that.

Only then can these deaths can be less of an accepted reality.

Pacific Coast Highway from Long Beach to East Wilmington

The "bike-friendliness" of Long Beach.

The phrase "bike-friendliness" and any positive association with "Long Beach" will remain a big, cruel joke to me until I see some major structural improvement on two streets, namely Anaheim Street and Pacific Coast Highway, two streets I see plenty of bicyclists, though by heavy automobile traffic.

Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) having a bike route sign on it is the biggest joke of them all.

PCH from Cal State Long Beach to the tip of East Wilmington has 3 very dangerous places to bike:  1)  the PCH Roundabout  2)  the bridge from East Long Beach to West Long Beach  3)  the bridge from West Long Beach to Wilmington.

Basically, PCH is very adverse in general to bicycles, but those 3 transition places are even scarier and are the focus of this post.  Visual evidence in the form of videos after the jump.

1)  The PCH Roundabout

Look at the video below and tell me if you think the cars zipping by at 50 mph on the roundabout are concerned about that stupid microscopically-little, utterly insignificant bike route sign.


Somehow, this is a "bike route."

I'm not complaining about this designation as a bike route, but I'm complaining about how this so-called "bike route" is absolutely NOT designed for much biking.  It is a "bike route" in name, but does not represent what I think a "bike route" is in reality, that is safe enough that I could take my mom and sister biking on the route.

The Streets as Obstacle Courses

I recently had an epiphany about road rage and why I, a bicyclist and occasional driver, had it.

Its usually about "limits."

When behind an automobile, I don't speed up and overtake or even bicyclist because I want to compete with them and show them whose boss on the road. 

I speed up because I hate being "limited" by anything in front of me.

It's the same story for a fast-riding recreational bicyclist/driver, and being in his car is where I had this epiphany.  He really hates being limited by anything in front of him, and so whether its his fixie or his stick shift Subaru, he's off to the races.

Urban Adonia used the frame of the "obstacle course" to describe the collective and individual mentality possessed by some automobilers and perhaps some bicyclists on the road.   "Obstacle course" meaning that there are objects in the road automobilers and bicyclists face, and the viewpoint the rushing automobilers and bicyclists adopt is that they must arduously get around them.  This frame is a contrast to the idea of the "livable" or "complete" street, in which speeds of automobiles are not so intimidating, but inviting to the idea of pedestrians walking, and biking is safe, even a preferred mode of travel. 

What makes an "obstacle course" an "obstacle course" is not just the difficulty of manuevering posed by the spatial arrangement of barriers but the expectation held by some entity of getting past those barriers within a certain period of time.

If you're a bicyclist on a four lane-road with little room for a bicycle lane and you're "taking up one lane" (as you're legally allowed to, and should be), you're not permitting automobilers to pass in their expected certain period of time.  If you the automobiler/bicyclist doesn't pass through in the expected period of time, they incur "lost time."  "Lost time" means lost opportunities.  In the context of bicycling, this means that time spent waiting behind a bicyclist and/or actually bicycling yourself means a whole lot of opportunities lost.

Having incurred a reptuation as a fierce bicyclist my 1st year of grad school, my professors would routinely tell me that they would bicycle, but they didn't have the time.  They had kids to take to school, other responsibilities, and commitments to fulfill.  Riding around Long Beach on a bicycle wasn't feasible for them because they didn't have time as a resource or "time on their side."  

If you on the road are not permitting automobiles whether you're on a bike or another automobile, you represent a "limit", "an obstacle". You are a micro-impediment to one driver's freedom, 'freedom' in the context of the road, meaning the ability "to choose" how fast you drive as if it were all a matter of human rights.

If you think about the road as an obstacle course and how fast you drive as a matter of freedom, we the drivers and bicyclists routinely limit each other's freedoms.  We are always in the way of each other's license to go bucwild.

To move beyond the view of the road as an "obstacle course", seems like we have to move to a point on more of our roads where either time isn't stressed and/or the expectation to move at speeds conducive to biking/walking becomes an asset rather than a liability.

Video: Cerritos, CA on South Street - Where Regard for Green Forms of Transportation Goes to Die

I had to get brown rice from a Filipino market. Just had to.

None in Lakewood.  Had to go to Cerritos.

No problem.

Left on Paramount with a bike lane.  Just had to worry about making my way across 4 lanes to a bike lane.



Go north on Paramount till I reach South St.

I ride South St. Wide wide street, bike lane in a block.

Maybe one tight area, but mostly smooth sailing.

That is till I reach the Lakewood-Cerritos boundary on the same Street.

A cacaphony of bad and bicycle hazardry ensued.

That nice cushy bike lane devolved into this below:





I was so intimidated by traffic breathing on me that I went on the sidewalk.

And still found it difficult.

Again, continuing the themes in why No One F*cking Bikes of there being little room on streets for bikes, combined with high-speed traffic, and there being virtually no room for bikes on sidewalks.

This Is Why No One F*cking Bikes: Lakewood, CSULB, and the Cambodia Town Strip

The theme of the areas above:  tight sidewalks, tight streets. 

And not the tight as in the good tight, as in the oh-shit-I-can-lose-a-limb-kind of tight.

I think the tightness of the streets combined with sidewalks is just one of those things that make it difficult to bike.

I wish there was simple signage that told drivers to simply expect bicyclists.  Expect, expect, expect.  Acculturate, acculturate, acculturate.  To...biking as a legitimate form of transport on the street.

I've divided this post into 4 sections based on the sections of the city I passed through yesterday:  Lakewood, CSULB, Cambodia Town in Long Beach, and Bixby Knolls.

Here's a map of the spots, I took my shots.


Ver Lakewood, Long Beach en un mapa más grande

Now that I've been commuter-biking for over 3 years now, I've learned the "easy streets" to take.  Easy streets being the streets with a lower volume of traffic, generally, the two-way, residential streets. Unless those easy streets are dark and or bumpy (as in Westwood), to avoid any hassle, I will usually opt for that.

However, most people do not do what I do.  Out of convenience, personal safety, they will take the main, busy streets --- usually riding on sidewalks. 

Inevitably, in Lakewood and Long Beach, bicyclists will run into streets that have no room for bikes at all (less you want to take the lane and have a line of 10 cars breathing on your back at 40 mph), as is the case on Carson Street in Lakewood and Anaheim St. in Central and Eastside Long Beach.

Lakewood

In Lakewood, there's Carson Street, which actually has a bike lane around the Long Beach City College area, but offers not much else to the West of that approaching Lakewood.  To the West of that is a tight sidewalk and 3 lanes for cars to run at least 40-50 mph.

Check out how little room there is for any bicycle to fit;  believe it or not, but this street actually leads into a bike path, though many pedestrians at LBCC do not seem to know what the markings of the bike path mean.

Carson & Obispo, Lakewood, CA

This Is Why No One F*cking Bikes: Take One

Every time I tell or show people that my main mode of transportation, rain or shine, is a bicycle, people give me some kind of "damn" or "wow" type reaction.

It's like an accomplishment to be a commuting bicyclist. I don't think it should be, particularly, when roads are flat and the weather here in Southern California is almost always ideal, and the city of Long Beach isn't that large (unless you're traveling from North to CSULB or something).

Yet all the concessions made for cars with little for bikes has made biking Long Beach and LA an accomplishment.

I think it's obvious as to why lots of people don't bike in LA:  it's dangerous.

But what does "dangerous" mean, and what does that look like while on a bike?

I can immediately think of narrow bike lanes, the fact that cars moving anywhere from 40-50 mph on LA streets are usually inches within bicyclists, even on streets with "sharrows" or "bike lanes."

For me, "dangerous" while on a bike means I have to think too much about every move I make.

I have to keep looking over my shoulder to make sure some speeding right-lane driver with little concern for my left shoulder doesn't skin me or take my left arm with him.  When I'm on Cahuenga Boulevard en route to Universal Studios, I know I have to pedal quicker and harder if I feel the drivers behind me are pressuring me to go faster or get out of what they think is their god-given birthright to the road. 

In contrast, when I drive, there isn't too much thought about every move I make.  Virtually every street is open to me.  Most drivers (erroneously) think the road belongs to them.

Bicycles have a right to the road.  It is the goddamn mot$#$@#$@ law.

I've said this for a while now, and I'll say it till I'm blue in the face.

But the hard reality is I know that if I bike on Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, a street which leads into bike lanes to Cal State Long Beach and below, drivers are still going to tailgate and pressure, and honk at me to get off the road.

Most drivers do not know or probably even care about this, that is until something tragic happens --- usually incidents that happen in silence, least if you don't keep up with this blog.

One Thursday afternoon, I decided to bike from school at Cal State Long Beach to my parents' home in the Valley. I decided to take pictures of all the things that made it tough to bike.



And it began with...

1) Bad to non-existent bike parking.

I began my morning early looking to stop for some food at my local drug store, only to barely find parking for my bike.

Yes, there was a bike rack where I could only lock up one bike wheel. As you can see above, my U-lock, can only wrap around one wheel - I usually use the U-lock to wrap both a wheel and the bike frame. Not going to going to cut it when biking is my main mode of transportation or just in general.

Though the mini-mall in which this Rite Aid was located could proudly say they had one bike rack, it also loses points because shoppers couldn't see whether part of their transportation investment is about to be taken.

I ended up having to use one of those cement poles that my u-lock barely fit around.

2) Holy goddamn narrow ass lanes

The above photos, probably everyone's worst fear when first getting on a bike: facing pressure from drivers:

• When drivers expecting to go 40 mph are breathing on you and honk at you for going too slow
• When drivers expecting to go 40 mph overtake you to assert that you don't belong on the road
• Drivers expecting to take up the full right lane with you just inches away;  it doesn't pay at all to "be nice" on the road as a bicyclist, you have to take the FULL lane 

My mom and my sister, newly minted bicyclists...not happening, unless in a big group.

The above photos taken in North Long Beach and the city of Vernon, where you ride side by side with big rigs.

3) Easy to get lost

Tell me if you can see anything distinctive in this photo.

Nothing?

Anything?

Bueller?

I ride what is known as the flood channel or the Bike Path from Compton at Del Amo ave to its end in Vernon.

The Bike Path is a bit like a biking freeway. You have two lanes going in either direction, and you must know your exit.

Way back when, the first time I ever rode this "biking freeway", I was actually lucky to be with someone who knew a little something about biking (and that she had a blackberry).

The above is supposed to be the part of the "biking freeway" where the rest of the route goes into San Gabriel, which is not really where you want to go if you want to go towards LA.  You have to exit the "biking freeway", make a left on a narrow sidewalk/bridge, and re-enter the bike path.

Compare this to freeway signage;  my friend Daniel put it best, "they want you to find these things."  Unfortunately it doesn't appear that way when riding the Los Angeles River Bike path.

4) Merging anyone?  Bike lanes that lead into nothing but traffic.

As I was riding through Universal City, I was trying to ride Lankershim Boulevard.  Behind me a rush of traffic.  However, I had to cut through 2 lanes with automobile traffic rushing behind me at 40 MPH in the dark.  It took me a good 2-3 minutes before traffic cleared up for me to merge over to my desired lane.

More tours, more photos, coming, when I have time.

Let's make biking less of an accomplishment, shall we.

The Biking Scene in Los Angeles from a Newbies Perspective: A Dissertation

I think all the people interested in biking in Los Angeles ALL mean well. From the Midnight Rydazz, to Biking advocates at LACBC, Ciclavia, C.I.C.L.E. to bloggers.

I am a very new biker, but I won't forget all the obstacles I've had to go through just to get into biking.

I got broken into the biking scene because my partner is a well-established figurehead in the bike community.

This post would not be up right now if it weren't for her. She's shown me what to look for in a bike, how to fix things, how to lock it up, how to deal with a flat tire, and the Bike Kitchen. She held my hand A LOT to get to where I am now, which is someone who could bike from the San Fernando Valley down to LA.

However, this was all very intentional on my part. I was really really looking to get out of my car, but I also didn't want to randomly jump into biking without knowing that I'd be wasting time, effort, and money.

Before I met my partner, what stopped ME, already a semi-committed environmentalist and wannabe biker was a few things:

1) After 6 years since my last bike, I wasn't even sure I remembered how to ride or if I could ever ride safely again. Definitely not in those narrow bike lanes where someone could hit me while opening the door or where the cars were just speeding up.

2) I wanted to get a cheap bike, but not get ripped off, but I didn't know what to look for.

3) The last time I invested in a bike, a used mountain bike, it got stolen. I really didn't know how to use a bike lock, or even think of using one. I just didn't want my stuff stolen again.

4) I was intimidated that I didn't know what I was talking about when I first went to the Bike kitchen.

I mention these obstacles because if these things stopped me, a committed semi-environmentalist and former WOULD-BE biker, it would probably stop a lot of other ordinary people, WOULD-BE BIKERS from seeing the true value and opportunity in biking in LA. Perhaps there needs to be something, an education program, an organization catered towards these beginners and novices/ordinary people.

What mitigated all those concerns for me, was that my partner helped me do things 1-4.

1) She took me on group rides throughout the city. I was scared as hell at first, but slowly got used to it after the first few times

2) She helped test out the used bike I bought off craigslist. For $150! I wouldn't have known and would've paid their asking price.

3) She showed me how to lock up my bike.

4) She accompanied me to my first visit to the Bike Kitchen. I can't stress enough how I lucked the fuck out.

While Biking is now quite normal for me and pockets of other Angelenos, it is still not something ordinary Angelenos do or at least feel like they can do. If biking is to be taken seriously, ordinary people need to be able to bike, and it starts by making them feel like they can, that it's normal, and that they should.

When I encourage my car-driving circle of high school friends to bike with me (or take public transit for that matter) --- the common response I get is that "It's not safe."

I have a few ideas to assuaging that #1 overriding concern:

1) Formal Group rides. Sounds simple, but I'm not just speaking in the recreational sense, but for transportation and commutes. There's always strength and more confidence built in numbers, and it helps make a commute seem a lot easier.

Group rides start out informally, but I don't know if a lot of people in LA have access to these networks of bikers. If there were a formal group system akin to bus drivers leaving a stop at a certain time or conductors, that would quickly make bike riding a type of institution --- a visible one at that. Or perhaps even a pack full of bikers (a Biker bus), biker taxis that you can call for if you need help for the cost of a Metro bus ride.

My idea is like a really big buddy system for bikers. A new biker would have someone to trail after who can help look after them and break em in --- perhaps also a way of creating green jobs with even greener transportation where the expense for maintenance relies on the bike user, but the biker can actually get help if they don't actually know how to maintain a bike.

Conversely, you don't actually have to know how to fix your car just to drive it a long way, which brings me to my second idea.

2) What I also glean from what would-be riders say is that there is a lot of uncertainty fraught in a commuting bicycle ride.

There's a lot of conscious thinking that happens before and during a ride: how greasy your hands are, how sweaty you are, your tires, pot holes in the pavement, sewer things.

In contrast, you don't have have to think a lot about the fact that you're driving a car when you're driving it. It's all very seamless.

So the question would be: how to make bike commuting a seamless process?

The answer would be: A public and quasi-public infrastructure that supports biking. This would make bike commuting smoother.

My first idea was gas stations with bike repair kits and even bike mechanics. I am very new to biking and outside of Orange 20, I don't really know where the bike shops are. When I got a flat on Griffith Park Blvd., I had to walk all the way back to Orange 20 in the Bicycle District. A good 4 miles. When I got a flat on Los Feliz Blvd. THE SAME DAY, I had to walk all the way back a good 5 miles to Orange 20 again. Luckily, mercifully, I rode to my partner's house after quite the mentally exhausting day. That kind of thing DOESN'T happen to a driver.

I think gas stations are one quasi-public infrastructure that keeps drivers driving. It's a way of maintaining the car. Bikes don't really have those little centers where you can maintain the bikes.

You have to know a lot to ride a bike to commute via bike. Conversely, you (assuming you're not a new driver) don't really have to know a lot about the car to commute via car.

Long-term, I don't know that the answer lies into driving seams into the driving experience (i.e. tolls and paying for parking) as much as it is making biking the more advantageous mode of transportation, and I think that starts with making SPACES PLACES to be. Everything that you should need needs to be within 3-5 miles. I hate having to go all the way down to Vanowen from Nordhoff St. in Panorama City just to find A book store.

3) Centralized Lost and Found stations - not directly related to riding, but related to "alternative" forms of transportation other than the car.

I've had a number of stuff fall from my bag while riding. I lost my cellphone while riding on Sunset Blvd. Thank God it wasn't my wallet.

On a separate occasion, when I lost my house and car keys on the 761 from Van Nuys to Westwood, I went to a Metro station to retrieve a pair of keys, I was appalled at how many keys were lost and how all this steel was wasted, never to be found again. I still can't find my keys.

4) Selling people and making acceptable the electric bike. My friend who bikes in Michigan, made this point to me. Only a certain demographic is really able to bike for commuting purposes --- the young, the sporty, the non-familial. What about those with knee or weight problems? What about older ladies who don't like pedalling? Electric bikes are something to put more people on bikes, experiencing the streets.