The Urban Velo Issue #2 just came out and a cyclist from Puerto Rico wrote to me saying “I saw you on Urbanvelo. Way to go sister? keep riding strong.”Wohoo! This was some exciting news! Yeay. I had to go right away to the Urban Velo website and I downloaded the issue right away.
I clicked away at the pages until I found the special all-women edition” of I Love Riding in the City” and I found me on page 16.
Check it out and click on the photo to get linked to the photographer (on the homepage of the link is my cousin and his girlfriend) and click on the article to be linked to my acting website.
Wohoo! I’m very excited about this, because I love this magazine! Yeah!
Publicity | 29.06.2007 16:15 | No Comments
Yes, we made it on tv with one of our bicycling issues. Stephen has been protesting the “multi-modal” design of the Santa Monica Boulevard Transit Parkway for over a year now, a project that was funded based on promises of “Multi-modal” transportation and which ended up being a freeway with the transit elements reduced to nothing and the ped and cycling elements added as an afterthought.
Stephen has recorded his bike rides through this treacherous 2.5 mile of freeway, he photographed it, he talked to city councils, head engineers, Gloria Jeff, the head of the LADOT, Michelle Mowery the head of the Bikeways department at the LADOT and to the L.A. cycling community.
I rode with him many times and even though I’m pretty familiar with this stretch of smooth asphalt, and even though I rode it a few times on my own in the daytime to auditions and to gigs, I hate this stretch of road for many reasons.
Number one reason is that if there is light traffic, the cars are so fast, that they end up swerving into the bike lane. I even see buses ride in the bike lane. And the buses don’t bother changing the lanes when they pass a cyclist, because they think that I’m protected by the magical white stripe on my left from their draft. So every time a bus passes me, I feel the draft push me toward the curb.
Another reason I don’t like riding this stretch is because it’s removed from the neighborhood. There are no pedestrians (another afterthought in this multi-modal design) and no eyes on the street. This feels like riding on the freeway, totally disconnected from the community. (Having ridden on the freeway a couple of times, this is worse! At least the freeway had big wide shoulders.)
And one last reason why I don’t like riding it, is because in Century City the bike lane stops in the middle of the road, right before this road opens up to a total of 6 lanes, and a cyclist would have to race three lanes over to the left to continue going straight all while dodging cars and buses that stop right across the end of the bike lane and which cross over three lanes as well to continue going straight.
Phil Shuman did a story on the Century City Bike Lane Controversy and we were interviewed. Stephen and I were joined by our fellow cyclist comrade, Erik Knutzen.
Towards the end of this news segment, Michelle Mowery, the head of the Bikeways department of the DOT, says that this parkway is guaranteed to be safe for cyclists. Hmm. Michelle Mowery says this with a straight face even though her personal standard for bicycle commuting is limited to riding a bike path in daylight hours and even then is limited to one day a week in the warm months. (Note she chose not to ride the SMBTP during her claim that it’s “guaranteed safe!”)
Also, the LADOT claims that they didn’t finish the bike lane because they don’t know what Beverly Hills is planning to do. It is quite strange to hear, that big and powerful Los Angeles would wait for little Beverly Hills to make decisions on their multi-modal project. And even more strange is to hear this claim, taking into consideration that the bike lane stops in Century City, not Beverly Hills.
Bike Ride, Publicity | 7.04.2007 16:28 | No Comments