things to remember

Last night was my first time back on the bike in what feels like forever: Rain Thursday night kept me from trucking my bike home on the bus, and it rained enough on Friday to convince me that riding the bike home that night wouldn’t work either (the beers that evening didn’t help). As for the weekend, washed-light and fleeced clouds that it was, I didn’t make the trek west from Koreatown. So it was only last night that I confronted the thought of getting back on the bike.

And it’s funny: A couple of days waiting for the bus gives you pause. As far as commutes go, mine is a cinch – make my way to Vermont/Wilshire in the morning, pick up the 920, skip into Westwood; sure, riding the bus on the way back east is an experience in itself, but the streets had mostly emptied by the time I got of my last meeting. So the choice: Bike home in the foreign cold or slip on down to throw my bike on the rack of the 720?

Thankfully, I decided to coast on down Westholme – the cold rough against my knuckles, the sudden tearing of my eyes at the wind – and roll my slow way east. I’m glad I did too: The storms have washed the air (or if you want the scientific version, the low front drove a cold front through Southern California leading to less moisture content in the atmosphere and resulting in greater visibility), and the waning moon hung in the sky singing in its slow loping voice. Mostly empty streets tonight, and moments of catching the moonlight through sycamores on pavement, spun silk scored with shadow.

That was reason enough to ride, I suppose. I’m looking forward to tonight (although before that happens – and if you care – Go Heels!).

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bike map: mar vista to koreatown

I actually mapped this one out a little while back but haven’t had the chance to put it up. It’s very much a work in progress and owes a great deal to Will Campbell’s routes, but here’s a first stab at mapping out some routes from Mar Vista to Koreatown. The Venice Blvd. bit is kind of a no-brainer, but it took me a couple of times to figure out the best route between Venice and 4th. As you’ll see, there are a couple options, and if you have any other suggestions, please send them my way.

riding in the dark

Been a while since last writing, though the riding goes well.

Tonight’s ride wasn’t so much to speak of (down Westwood to Santa Monica, push up through Century City and split lanes through Beverly Hills until Santa Monica South widens into Burton Way; thought about crossing lanes in traffic to catch the left turn onto Sixth, but decided in favor taking the crosswalk and a moment to rest before catching up to traffic at Fairfax; move up to Fourth, split the darkness, roll stop signs east of Western, turn up Kenmore in the suddenly gathered night), but I’d like to pick up on a note or two after last week’s election.

As Gary pointed out, last Tuesday’s election was indeed a victory for transportation, no matter how cynical you are. It was not, unfortunately, an election that delivered everything that one might have hoped for, but I suppose elections never are. All that said, I have been turning over a couple of things in my head.

First is the issue of Measure R. To gloss the issue – imperfectly – the fine citizens of LA County have just voted themselves into a higher sales tax, with the increased revenues slated to be spent by Metro on a variety of transportation projects all across the county. It’s a great idea, but I just have one request: Can whomever is doling out that money or soliciting project ideas think for a moment about bicycle infrastructure from the perspective of the bicyclist? I’m not talking about designated bike lanes on every bike-friendly street; I’m not even saying that we need sharrows on every street (though that would be sweet). I’m thinking really only of the small section of Fourth Street that’s been affectionately named the Bike Boulevard. It’s a great way to sneak home from the Westside: Really light traffic, which leaves ample room to swerve past what would otherwise be maddening pavement, and beautiful scenery to either side. My complaint, I suppose, centers on the intersection of Rossmore and Fourth. There’s a light at Third that holds up traffic, but the light cycles seemed perfectly timed to leave a gap on one side of the street when traffic is coming on the other. As a cyclist trying to cross that north/south traffic, I have one of two options: Wait what seems an interminably long time until I get a break wide enough to roll across (which is what I did tonight); or wait only long enough to see a half-opening before jumping through traffic (which I’ve definitely done). Neither solution seems particularly satisfying, but I have to be clear: The issue isn’t so much the wait. It’s how absolutely invisible I feel to traffic (and on the note of invisibility: Bikes are utterly invisible to sensors at Wilton and Fourth) curving north or speeding south on Rossmore. There’s little to no street lighting – probably a function of neighborhood policies, I suppose – and the intersection is further darkened by a stand of trees about the intersection. Beautiful to look at, but absolute murder to see in. It’s kind of terrifying.

So why not take steps to increase visibility of bicyclists at what is – by most accounts – a fairly popular east/west route for LA riders? I’m not saying put in flood lights or even demanding that flashing lights go off whenever a bike approaches the intersection. It doesn’t even need a stop sign. But there must be some way to both moderate cross traffic speeds and increase the visibility of cyclists. And as planning proceeds and the debates unfold over Measure R, I’d love to see changes in the infrastructure that come out of the experience of riding a bike in this city and not from some idea of what some study said in a different place.

Second, about this whole business of California Propositions. Relic as they are of a particular moment in the Californian democratic (demagogic?) imagination, I have decidedly mixed feelings about the whole institution. That said, I’ve been thinking about ways in which the institution of the Proposition might be turned towards cycling advocacy. Taking a couple of BikinginLA’s recent suggestions as case studies, what would happen if citizen cyclists wrote a proposition that made vehicular assault a criminal violation? Perhaps it might be possible to put drivers at fault for accidents occuring in the bike lane, in the same way that a driver who rear-ends another driver is automatically at fault. Or better yet, rewrite our vehicular code to make cars more responsible for the damage which they can inflict on bikes and pedestrians. Just a thought or two.

More, I hope, soon.

bike 1 – bus 0

Honestly, this probably isn’t exactly the thing that you should brag about – it’s probably bad bike karma – but I can’t help it. After a couple of fitful starts riding home, I decided to take 3rd from La Brea instead of 4th. There were a couple of reasons for that: 4th, in spite of its lack of traffic, has very few lights and a handful of bad visibility sections; 3rd figured to be better lit and not as heavily trafficked, being half past nine and all; and I’d seen a couple of people riding 3rd in traffic and it had taken a great deal of restraint not to roll down the car window and tell them to ride 4th – in other words, I figured they knew something I didn’t.

The bad news about 3rd is that the street is a mess. The right lane is just filthy with divots, cracks and other potholes, and there’s no shoulder to speak of. Not at all the kind of street I’d want to ride in traffic.

But the good news? I turned right onto 3rd just ahead of the late night Metro 16 rolling east. I thought about stopping and hopping on, but decided to stay on. I stayed ahead for a couple of blocks, but the bus pulled ahead of me along that dark residential stretch around Highland. Kept riding though, and I saw my chance at the clotted series of lights just east of Western. Put the hammer down, if that’s how you put it, and jumped back in front of the bus. Hauled up 3rd to the crest at Normandie and rolled the last couple blocks home. Moral of the story: I could have taken the bus, and it would have taken just as long.

Bikes are fun.

And another story from the ride home: I took Santa Monica and caught a knot of No on 8 protesters in front of the Mormon Church. There were a couple more knots strung out between Century City and Beverly Hills, causing a racket. I don’t know if it’s related to earlier protests in Westwood, but who knows. Least of all I. Actually, on looking around a moment longer, there was evidently a large crowd protesting this afternoon in West LA. LAist links to the story: Prop 8 March Creates Traffic Nightmare in West LA. A commenter notes that it’s not always about the traffic. How true.

tonight’s ride

dark comes more quickly these days. i rolled out from UCLA a couple of minutes past six today without my front light, but had to stop at san vincente and sixth to put it back on. i’m still a bit jumpy after last week, and decided it was better to take the minute than regret it later.

home safe and sound now, and still trying to work through some more thoughts after BikinginLA’s recent work. nothing yet, though i think the central issue for me is this: how do you balance legislation with engineering? with activism? with plain old driver education?

all of that said, one of the reasons i wanted to start a more cycling-specific writing effort was to give some sense of how possible it is to ride in this city. talking to friends on campus, a couple of them often seem a bit incredulous at the thought of riding from UCLA to koreatown, and so i thought it might be an interesting project to start putting together some maps of my rides. this one here was tonight’s.

so that’s what it’s like

part 2, really. i drove into campus yesterday with a friend, as i have yet to learn how to get myself to campus in time to teach my 8 am lab section. i’m not thrilled about the prospect, but there’s something incredibly satisfying about driving on empty streets and pulling into an empty parking lot.

but this comes back to cycling.

i drove home with my friend last night in traffic. in all, it took me almost seventy minutes to make the drive from westwood back to koreatown; small irony in the fact that i drove almost exactly the route that i ride, and some measure of satisfaction in thinking that i can actually bike home in less than it takes me to drive in rush hour traffic. it was wyton to wilshire to carmelita to canon to santa monica to beverly near all the way through to wilton. taking my friend down to her place near 5th and wilton, we crossed 4th on van ness. i pointed out one block west where i’d nearly been hit last week and rolled my through the stop sign.

it was only some time later when i realized what i’d done had been almost exactly like that white BMW had done last week to me. i’d like to think i stopped long enough to really look both ways, but it was probably a pretty good california roll that took me through that intersection. and though i was looking, i wasn’t really looking. sixty minutes of rush hour traffic will do that to you, lull you into an easy expectation of cars and nothing else. i’d seen bikes on beverly – most without lights, without helmets – and had taken some measure of satisfaction in seeing them. see, i thought, look how conscious of people i am.

except i wasn’t really. i was conscious of cars because i had to be; i was conscious of cyclists because i had the luxury of looking. when i rolled that stop sign at van ness and 4th, i had the luxury of looking, but i didn’t feel the need to really look. of course, this cuts both ways: riding down that hill on 4th, i have a responsibility as a cyclist to make myself visible and to ride defensively, expecting that a car is going to do exactly as i did.

maybe just end with this: as easy as it is for me to gnash my teeth at a stupid driver, i can just as easily be that stupid driver.

errant car

so that’s what it’s like.

rolling my way east on 4th through hancock park (is it country club park at that point? regardless, the far edge of money), spending most of my time thinking about the poorly balanced books on my back, giving a little bit of thought to the rasp of my dry chain, trying not to catch the wrong edge of the pavement on the poorly little street. i look up, see a white BMW coast into the stop sign at westminster right as i start to pick up speed coming east down the hill on 4th.

he’s not going to stop for me, i think, but keep on my way. i’m into the intersection when i realize that he doesn’t see me, isn’t going to see me until it’s too late. swerve wide, kick my right foot out of the pedals, listen to the skid of my back tire, realize he stopped and i’m through.

i brake, turn around and step off the saddle in the middle of the street. it’s pushing 9, the deep shadows of old ficus trees against the weak yellow streetlights. the car’s still stopped in the middle of the street. it honks, gathers itself – clean lines, dark tint – and skips north. i roll to the light at wilton. goddamn light is red again, much like always, and when i step down to the street, i realize i’m still shaking.

so that’s what it’s like.

there’s more to be said, that has been said (ethics, vulnerability, visibility), but that was the ride tonight.