Like the song says, nobody walks in L.A.

Beautiful strip this week Keef. Your passion about cars in LA and the lack of reasonable alternatives jumps out of every panel. And I share your concern. I've been hit twice in the last two years by inattentive motorists while riding my bike in a designated bike lane! But I don't live in insane LA--which I rode through way back in 1982--but in Austin, Texas. Home of Lance Armstrong. You'd think we'd do a better job here, but the car culture is everywhere in the U.S.

I drive a car (Subie Forester) - great during Snow Belt winters.. I also religously ride my bicycle, Park & Ride at a bus stop and walk and ride whenever possible - especially possible.

And when behind the steering wheel, I respect pedestrians, bike riders and motorcyclists. So do the majority of drivers in my progressive Midwestern town.

I'm looking into getting a used Miata for summers: lightweight, manual tranny, great fuel economy, reliable high-rev engine and a rag top = a ride that's a shitload of fun to drive. I love the driving experience - on twisty empty roads, that is. Clogged freeways? I commute with the bus, thank ya much.

My point is: I am a member of the car culture who also is NOT an eco-murderin' asshole who runs over bikers in a Hummer H2.

So are millions of other responsible car enthusiasts who *gasp* dare to view a finely built, sensually designed vehicle as a merger of art and engineering - not just an appliance or Mother Earth-killer.

So please don't project LA asshole drivers onto the rest of us. I though asinine steretyping and generalizations was the tactic of only the Right wing?

Cheers.

Lonewolfy

P.S. - Dream Rides: 1.) new Corvette - 430 hp, 27-30 mpg hwy

2.) Vintage '70s Porsche 911 - sexy as hell

"especially possible" = "especially in summer"

Hey, Keith,

You can hop a Burlington Northern, not far from Olivera strett, ride it south and when you feel the cross tracks roll by beneath the boxcar wheels at Crenshaw, jump off just as the train makes that slow turn through the Compton Yards.

Walk about a kilometer South by southwest and there you are:

The Watt's Towers.

Simon Rodia's gift to the world- and L.A..'s own masterpiece.

When were you last standing beneath that majesty?.

Early morning is best- be alone with those towers and that color and fantasy.

L.A. has its beauty.

You just have to know what freight train to catch.

the bicycle incident is a classic. I don't think cars are solely the problem. inattention and a lack of real training on how to drive are a much larger factor. Motorcyclists and bicyclists are extremely high risk because of inattentive drivers. the only way to bring down the accident rate short of eliminating cars from city centers, is through education. Drivers of all vehicles (cars, motorcycles, and bicycles) should be required to be licensed and go through a training program every three to five years. The motorcycle safety training program shows how this training can be quite successful because it has reduced fatality rates as much as 70%.

Another thought is that as people migrate to the rented experience of something like zip car, their driving skills will go down and the accident rate will increase. Lack of practice reduces ability to see road hazards. if you only drive occasionally, you'll drive in unfamiliar territory which will overload your awareness and ability to process information from the roadway which puts you in other users of the road at significantly higher risk. To me, this is even greater reason for periodic testing as part of a license renewal process.

I know this is unpopular, but I really do believe that commuter bicycles should be licensed and equipped with full signaling lights for direction and stopping. driver awareness focuses on familiar signals to communicate the intentions of the other vehicle. They see brake lights and turn signals. They don't see the cyclist ignoring all the traffic rules and causing hazards to everybody including themselves. There also should be road use tax for cyclists to pay for the construction and maintenance of bicycle lanes. This is the equivalent of the gasoline tax for cars paying for roadway construction and maintenance. Every transportation system should pay its own way. I know people argue that subsidies are good to move people to alternative transportation systems but I argue that artificially distorting pricing or costs of using a transportation system screws up the development of new ones. For example, subsidizing roadways out of the general tax fund has cost us a lot in terms of identifying and developing new alternatives to a gasoline powered car. We should not make the same mistake again. Fares pay for transit, gas tax pays for cars, use tax pays for bicycle lanes.

Light rail systems serve a surprisingly small amount of territory. Yes, the rail lines may be long but the puddle of service are on the trail stop is surprisingly small. a good rule of thumb of how big the service area around the subway stop is the distance someone in their 70s and of moderate health (i.e. knees and ankles kind of functional) can walk in 10 minutes. how many shops and people can you house on a human friendly scale in a 1/10 or 2/10 of a mile radius circle?

Alternatively, Google Brad Templeton's website on robot cars. Using electric robot cars, you have all the benefits of public transit, safer travel for those of us on two wheels, faster transport and, significantly higher energy efficiency than you'll ever see from light rail.

It's stupid to own a car. Even for lots of people in the outer boroughs.

Ray Bradbury had said he has seen the greatest cities of mankind destroyed by cars.

Let's roll the wayback machine back about a year, and look at what people started thinking about when gas was around $3.00 or more a gallon. If gas were priced about commensurate to the impact caused by using it, people would drive much less.

Oh wait, we are making cars more fuel efficient and electric cars, and such to greenify the entire auto industry and car culture. This would reduce the fuel costs associated with driving private vehicles. But taxes and tarriffs to support the infrastructure and manufacture of such cars would raise those costs as well.

Only increasing costs will make people reconsider the convenience of using individual autos. Only then will the American public free itself from the individual car ideal.

Don't get me wrong, I love cars, and I love driving. I have restored classic sports cars, and love a weekend romp down a sunlit country road. So I get it or the motorcycle out for a little recreation now and then. I commute by train, and bicycle. I run most of my errands by foot or pedal power.

I love driving, I just don't believe we should allow our lives to be structrued so that we have to do it all the time. Community planning, workplace consideration, and other initiatives can solve the problem, but the car has to stop being n easy answer to address inconvenience (work is in a place 50 miles from where I can afford to live for instance).

-Shlep