Congrats to a colleague!

I recently received an email from the Los Angeles Bicycle Kitchen email listserve that contained a video featuring Jimmy Lizama.  Jimmy is a resident of the Los Angeles Eco-Village, founder of the Los Angeles Bicycle Kitchen, and an avid activist for building better access for cyclists in Los Angeles and raising awareness about cyclist safety.

Check him out giving a talk on cycling, happiness, and economic development at an independent Tedx talk at UCLA:

LA needs more bike lanes! LA is GETTING more bike lanes!

In the past couple of weeks, I have had two conversations with people I am close to (family friends and coworkers) about cyclists in Los Angeles.  Both conversations turned violent, with the people involved (all who only use cars to commute) talking about how frustrating it is to be in a car behind slow cyclists, that cyclists should just be bumped of the road or killed, and that Los Angeles was obviously made only for cars.

I found the conversations I had with folks about killing cyclists to be very sad and disturbing, though I do understand why people in a fast moving vehicle would feel frustrated by a smaller and slower vehicle clogging up the road in front of them.  I believe that the best way to resolve such a conundrum is to change the way things are in our city - such as by having more bike lanes.

A few days ago, former LTG panelist LaTanya Spann sent me an article from Blog Downtown about how a bike lane is being built through the historic core of downtown Los Angeles:

"Downtowners could soon be seeing green on Spring Street as the city moves forward with plans to remove two vehicle lanes, adding a green bike lane to the roadway and setting the stage for future mini-park plans."

At LTG's last event at The Last Bookstore (which happens to be on Spring St.), participants all addressed innovative ways to develop downtown Los Angeles.  One such plan focused on fusing bike lane creation with gardens.  Such lanes would leave room for cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians, while stimulating traffic to local businesses and even the growth of plants (like building garden bike lanes).  Some of these ideas are contained in our strategy paper, which you can find here. 

LTG exists to help people identify things that need to be changed, to identify change-makers, and to show people things that they can do to make change right at home.   Whether you are a cyclist or secretly hate cyclists, we all agree that Los Angeles County streets can and should be made much more bicycle friendly.  If you want to do something to make this change happen, just know that there is a lot you can do.  We suggest for starters that you get active with the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition, check out the LTG strategies (and maybe advocate to implement one!), or attend this weekend's California Bike Summit 2011!  

 Learning about cyclists and why people cycle, and advocating for better roads, more bike lanes and safety for roadway commuters just might provide the solution to violent thoughts and actions related to bad city planning.  

Peace and love!

Nisha Namorando Vida
Director/Founder
Local to Global Life Works

Local to Global Strategies and Ciclavia!

Dear community:

Firstly, I hope you are all well and are warming up to the arrival of a beautiful new autumn.  :)

Below, please find an embedded and downloadable strategy paper from the Local to Global August event held as a GOOD LA monthly meetup at The Last Bookstore.  Please feel free to share this document with your respective communities, but know that we will soon post a longer version that includes dialogue from all discussion groups.  I am also working on providing videos of the panels based on footage shot by Ro Kumar of Local Blu.  Check out the video he put together on his site of our event: http://localblu.com/2011/08/good-magazine-presents-generating-good-growth-in-downtown-la-video/.

Local to Global Life Works (LTG) is very much a budding organization working to establish itself as a nonprofit.  The August GOOD monthly meetup at The Last Bookstore was only the second official event we have ever held.  Please stay in tune with our work, and please come out to more events, because there is much planned for the future!

Ciclavia // No cars = thousands of cyclists!

I also have some photographs to share from Ciclavia, which happened yesterday.  I volunteered to work the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) booth and free bike valet service.  Ciclavia was birthed by folks affiliated with the Los Angeles Eco-Village (where LACBC was born).  Local to Global Life Works had the privilege of having our first official event at the Eco-Village and of having a staffmember of the LACBC (Allison Mannos - who will be starting a new position as a communications manager at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy) as a panelist at our event at The Last Bookstore.

Ciclavia was amazing, inspiring and beautiful.  And it made the streets so deliciously free of car exhaust.  There is so much more that needs to be done in our cities to live healthily with our environment, but this was a great start and a beautiful vision for the future of Los Angeles.

         

                       Bicycle love on the Gold Line!                     Free bike valet + $5 discount on LACBC
                                                                                                    membership = a good deal

LTGStrategies_TeaserDTLA

I hope you all are well and I look forward to seeing you soon. 

Kind regards always,

Nisha Namorando Vida

Director/Founder 

Local to Global Life Works

localtoglobalworks (at) gmail (dot) com