BikeWalkSouthBay

It’s a little edgy for my tastes but it would make a nice long bike path : )

Been away for while.  Sometimes the cyclical (no pun intended) nature of my life can be maddening. Any way, Brian Clark is cool, check it out!

This is from Ken Alpern of “Friends of the Green Line”

To All:

Although the state and federal governments continue to starve transportation funding (particularly for urban transportation initiatives) and fail to provide leadership in planning for the next century, at least it’s comforting to see local cities take charge whenever and wherever they can.

Although a long-overdue Green Line and/or Metrolink service does not yet access the South Bay’s transit hub via the dormant and publicly-owned Harbor Subdivision Right of Way (ROW), the Redondo Beach City Council, led by such responsible and visionary leaders as Councilmember Steve Diels, will upgrade this transit hub to prepare for that day when consensus and funding allows high-capacity rail to connect with local buses at the Galleria Mall.

Metro will upgrade its Metro Long Range Transportation Plan this year, as well as embark upon a Major Investment Study to evaluate Metrolink, Metrolink-compatible DMU service and other options for utilization of the Harbor Subdivision ROW between Union Station and the ports via the LAX and the Galleria Mall/South Bay transit hub. Continue reading ‘Bravo Redondo Beach!’

Good article in todays L.A. Times on a major problem. Death By Automobile. Although it doesn’t come to the conclusion that cutting auto use might be the answer, it does bring up some horrific numbers.

It also bring up the point that horsepower is way outa control these days. If there’s thing I think would make our cities more conducive to biking and walking, it would be to bring down the speed limits.

Lately I’ve been walking and riding the bus a lot. I always enjoy talking to the people I meet on the bus. In the last couple of weeks two of my favorite acquaintances have been; a fellow surfer, who grew up surfing on Lake Michigan (I’ve read about surfing on Lake Michigan, but never met anyone who’d done it before). The second was a young lady from Russia who was surprised by how limited our mass transit was.

I had, what I felt to be genuine and interesting conversations with both of these folks……. Sometimes I don’t think we realize how much has been lost. Meetings and conversations like this don’t happen when we’re driving in our cars.

It all happened on a short 6 mile commute to Lomita. The cost was a dollar. (round trip!)

The folks at LivablePlaces.org have a lot of well thought out (and might I add: time proven : ) ideas on how to make Los Angeles a better place. Check ‘em out.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Green Line connection at the South Bay Galleria? There’s even talk of it extending all the way up Hawthorne to P.C.H.

Sobering thoughts on ethanol production from USA Today

Let’s do some math.

To get a gallon of ethanol, you need a little more than 26 pounds of corn, and an acre of land can yield about 9,400 pounds per year. In other words, one acre of land can generate about 362 gallons of ethanol per year.

But people in the U.S. use about 174 million gallons of gasoline per day just for their cars (so says the Department of Energy). If the Magic Fairy came down and all our cars suddenly ran on ethanol we would need about 261 million gallons per day.

That would require more than 260 million acres of corn to produce. Considering that in 2000 farmers in the U.S. harvested about 73 million acres of corn, it looks like they’ll need to get cracking.

Read more

Cycling as a way of life in Italy. Read more

Which would you rather have?