WOLFPACK HUSTLE: Marathon Crash Race 2 – Trailer 2 from Warren Kommers on Vimeo.

hernian:

Wolfpack Hustle Marathon Race 2 premieres at The Bicycle Film Festival! I wish I could be in New York for this one.

hernian:

6/21/11? That’s today!!!

TO LIVE AND RIDE IN LA DVD  now in Stock at Orange 20!!!

Footage from last Sunday’s LA Street Swarm jam!

Here’s a heads-up on my favorite subject, the prospective (dare we say upcoming?) Fourth Street Bicycle Boulevard.

I’ve been working on this with the LACBC for a couple of years now, and a few weeks ago I received a cheery email stating that LADOT had come up with some money and would be able to implement some of the first characteristic features of a bicycle boulevard on Fourth Street very soon–maybe even this year.

A bicycle boulevard, as you probably know by now, is a low-traffic street–usually a residential street–that is optimized for cycling by putting in periodic obstructions that force cars to turn of the street, but let bicycles continue as through traffic. This cuts out cut-through drivers who increasingly use neighborhood streets as alternates to main arterials, speeding noisily and recklessly down roadways meant for local traffic only–and so “bicycle boulevards” really serve as much to return neighborhood streets to the neighbors who live along them as to give cyclists a safe and quiet route through town. (I’ve argued we should call them “Complete Streets,” since that’s what they are a variant of: streets that have room for everyone, including cyclists, joggers, and maybe even kids playing baseball in the lanes, as we used to do when I was young. And “bicycle boulevard” sounds exclusionary, as if you’re taking something away, rather than really giving something to the current residents.)

Well, lo and behold, the LADOT’s plan called for signals at Rossmore and Highland–two arterials that really need them–and maybe traffic filters at those intersections, and otherwise a couple of mini-roundabouts such as you see in the photo below.

I instantly nagged my way into a meeting with LACBC and LADOT to complain about this.

In the first place, the only thing that keeps more drivers from trying to use Fourth as a speedway supplement to adjacent Third Street is the very difficulty of crossing Rossmore and Highland (which is often easier by bike). Leave off the car filters, and you’ll turn Fourth into a playground for terminally frustrated SUV wranglers. (In fact, it already has a high rate of collisions for such a lightly-traveled street–according to LADOT itself.)

Second, mini-roundabouts are worse than useless, unless they are very carefully designed and big enough to force drivers to slow down in them; they also need physical diverters to prevent wrong-way driving.

You’d think a roundabout, even without the signs that elaborate the obvious, would be easy to figure out–but there is nothing that is so simple that the willfully oblivious LA driver cannot misinterpret it.

And then there are the outright jerks. I see these sorts abusing roundabouts all the time. Just today, a few minutes before I snapped this photo in Culver City, I heard a big motor rev up behind me, and your standard dickless blunder in massive stretch cab pickup roared at high speed around the wrong side of the roundabout to pass me–on a 25mph local street.

It isn’t the first time I’ve seen that there, or at other inadequate roundabouts.

If we’re going to use them, let’s build them right: wide enough to require maneuvering, and with concrete guideways that prevent wrong-way turning.

Otherwise, we’re better off leaving things as they are.

Really, sometimes I wonder whether the roundabouts aren’t a sort of dog biscuit they’re tossing at us to make us quite yapping for a while.

For the real thing–street designs that support cycling, walking, and (while we’re at it) good drainage, while restraining the murderous imbecility of driving addicts, take a look at Aaron Kuehn’s design for the intersection of Fourth and Catalina. Sweet!
 

Problem solver for those concerned about getting their saddle stolen.

The detachable heard design allows you to remove your saddle every time you lock it somewhere. The seat post is useless without the lugged head. Perfect for those who want a little peace of mind whenever they have to leave their bikes outside for long periods of time. Now in stock at Orange 20 bikes!