Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Los Angeles Walking Adventures

For most of my life, I have relied on my own two feet to get me around.  Walking is one of the joys in my life as it has acted as a calming method in times of stress or a simple way to catch up with my mom after a rough week.  Every night after dinner, my mom and I would go on a walk around our neighborhood and talk about any topic that popped into our minds.  Around the holidays, we would watch little trick-or-treaters running by in hopes of getting the most candy or admire the sparkling Christmas lights that lined each house.  These 30 minute walks with my mom are memories that I will cherish forever, but my walking history extends way past these moments. 

From an early age, I have been walking to school, Target (my favorite store), work and my friend’s houses.  Because I lived in a beach community, I was within walking distance to retail locations, the grocery store, the dry cleaners and of course the beach.  There was no need for me to have a car because I could walk anywhere I needed to go.  Of course it took a little bit longer to walk than it would have with a car, but it gave me time to think, take time to appreciate my surroundings by smelling the roses and was great exercise.  It also helped me to develop navigation skills that have been useful now that I drive a car.  Once I got into to private high school and was forced to travel thirty minutes by car or an hour by bus, I finally realized the limitations of walking.  With an inadequate public transit system and long distances to travel, a car is a necessity.  However, now that I am in downtown Los Angeles, I have found myself leaving my car at home and venturing out on walking adventures.   

Would you believe that there is a series of secret stairs that are just waiting to be explored in Echo Park? 

Echo Park Stairways Map provided by Echo Park Historical Society


Back to a time when walking was how everyone got around, when no cars existed, these were the stairs that people used to get up and down the hills.  Now these stairs lie dormant to the occasional passer by, but the majority of them are hidden behind a forest of shrubbery to take you back in time, leading you to some of Echo Park’s historical landmarksWalking tours are available that are probably super fun, but if you’re a girl like me who loves excursions and exploring hidden arenas, then venture off on your own.  Be the tour guide and take some friends up the Baxter stairs of 230 steps that always have everyone huffing and puffing as they have climbed to the top or the stairway located behind Dodger stadium in the hills.  Whichever you choose, you are up for an experience that could lead you any which way.

What are you waiting for?  Find a location and go on a walking adventure with a friend, relative or even by yourself to experience historical Los Angeles for what it really is on your feet. 

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Blogging Soul Mate

What better way to find cool new bloggers or fascinating websites, but to join a social bookmarking site and follower users that share similar interests?  It saves so many hours in my day that I spend searching Google on various topics.  This way I can look through people’s tags and find sites on any topic I want and I didn’t have to do any of the work.  A whole new world has been opened, now that I am a Delicious user. 

I have been on a quest to find my blogging soul-mate, which I have to say has been an ordeal.  I guess I have a wide variety of interests, because I can’t find anyone that tags like me.  Maybe I am just being too picky!  After lowering my tagging standards and focusing strictly on searching for people who are transportation enthusiasts, I found Infrastructure Usa.  Even though, this user only has 47 bookmarked sites, it was the way in which they tagged their sites.  Infrastructure Usa’s number 1 tagging category is transportation, which perfectly aligns with my interests.  25 different sites are listed under transportation and another 16 under transit.  Hence a large percentage of their bookmarking revolves around transportation, meaning that this user has already tagged great sites in their library for me to use in future posts or in my research paper.  Infrastructure Usa only tags a few new sites each month, which is beneficial because it is impossible to search through people’s tags when they are tagging every single site that they come across.  This user is meticulous and only tags the websites that they feel will be most influential to them, so I don’t have to spend tons of time sifting through users cluttered internet worlds.  The one criticism that I do have about Infrastructure Usa is that it would be helpful if they wrote a small comment about each site, so that I can decide ahead of time if the article or blog is worth reading instead of having to click on each site and skim the introduction.  But their detailed categories do help the situation and help me to find exactly what I am looking for amongst their sites.  For 47 bookmarked sites, Infrastructure Usa has 124 tags and 20 different tagging categories, which shows how thorough this person is in selecting websites. 

Infrastructure Usa has tagged all sort of sites related to urban sprawl, current transportation politics, and the wave of the future in regards to new bullet trains across the United States.  The downside is that Infrastructure Usa does not just focus on transportation in Los Angeles, but in cities all across the United States, which expands past my blog.  But for all of my transportation enthusiasts, Infrastructure Usa opened the doors to some really cool sites.  The Infrastructurist-American under Construction (inspiration for Infrastructure Usa’s name?) is a blog that talks about everything that is transportation related in the entire world, including electric cars, the bullet trains in the world, thanksgiving traffic, banning cell phone use in cars, etc.  Literally, this blog seems to cover every topic related to transportation and then some.  I am sure that whatever transit topic or current project that you are interested in, there is probably a post written about it on Infrastructurist.  I will keep this site in mind when I am stuck about what to write about on my blog or looking for transit resources or current events in the transportation realm. 

Since Infrastructure Usa is all about transportation and making cities more sustainable, they tagged Streetfilms, which documents livable streets worldwide and posts their videos on this website for everyone to see.  Streetfilms is connected to the Streetsblog website and has proven to be one of the most popular transportation blogs.  But if you haven’t heard about Streetfilms yet then you must check it out right now and watch car-free clips (if you hate cars), health and safety clips (if you are worried about air pollution’s effect on our health, like me) or bicycle clips (if you want to experience places made just for bikes to roam free).  Regardless of your interest, there is a clip for everyone that is entertaining, informative and acts as a great procrastination resource. 

Infrastructure Usa might not be my blogging soulmate, but they will definitely be my blogging friend as I have found some great websites and blogs from their library, which I suggest everyone check out and see what sites you might discover as you sift through the tags. 

Friday, October 8, 2010

Response to the USC Bike Ban

I decided to research the USC Bike Ban as a potential post and couldn’t believe all of the fuss this issue has caused.  Most of the comments weren’t even from USC students.  Some facts needed to be set straight, so here are my comments below: 

Comment on LADOT Bike Blog

I go to USC and am not a bicyclist. However, I have to agree that the bike ban seems a bit ridiculous. After reading through the comments, I had a few things I wanted to bring up. It is important to understand that only half of Trousdale is bike-free, and that is mainly because we have various career fairs, student involvement fairs and other events held on Trousdale during the day.  DPS blocked off that section of Trousdale to ensure that there is no congestion or bike accidents considering the concentration of students in this area.   

There needs to be some sort of bicycle education because there are some students who don’t exactly know how to ride bikes, or at least ride them responsibly. I remember seeing this girl accidently hit a pedestrian on her bike, but she didn’t even notice and rode off without even apologizing.  She was so wrapped up in her text conversation that she didn’t even realize she had hit a person, which is ridiculous.  I witness at least one bike accident a week, if not more. Not everyone at USC is like that girl, but these are the people that have given bicyclists a bad name on campus. 

Bikerdude, I am glad that you are taking action and that you wrote a letter to President Nikias. However, I am not sure if an online education course is the best idea.  For instance, freshmen are required to take an alcohol education course online, but most of them don’t read the slides and just keep clicking “next”.  I believe in bike education, but feel that students won’t take the online course seriously and it won’t solve the problem in the long run.  A bike safety talk during orientation or welcome week might be more beneficial. This session could be followed by students registering their bikes with DPS right outside to ensure that everyone’s bikes get registered, which has also been a growing problem.  In any case, the bike ban is not the best solution. 

Comment on BikingInLA

I totally agree with Brett Griffith in the sense that everyone is exaggerating all of the articles’ points and needs to see what the bike ban really means for USC.  All of the articles concerning the USC bike ban can’t comprehend why USC can’t implement an adequate bike policy just like all of these other California schools.  However, the various UC campuses that were mentioned are much larger than USC, which is actually a very small and condensed campus.  There are various bike traffic jams at USC during peak hours on some of the smaller walkways, especially the walkway in front of Annenberg School for Communication.  Because of this, it makes sense that the main throughways of the USC campus should be used for bikes or should be divided into bike and pedestrian lanes in order to separate the pedestrians and bikes.  There is also a huge aesthetics problem in regards to the bike racks and the fact that the throughways are lined with an endless line of bikes.  Most students don’t even park their bikes in the racks and instead just leave them in between other bikes or wherever is convenient for them, since they are late for class.   Consequently, the accumulation of bikes in front of the buildings is ridiculous and probably 2-3 bikes wide, which makes it harder for everyone to walk the campus.   There are tons of issues facing the bikes and I believe that an adequate solution will be made soon and the bike ban will be lifted.