Thoughts on ThinkBike L.A.: 1 – Downtown

On September 22-23 2011, Dutch bicycle facility designers came to L.A. and worked with Angelenos to create great designs. The ThinkBike event was covered at LADOT, and L.A. Streetsblog, but the coverage didn’t include too much in the way of sharing actual designs, like S.F. Streetsblog coverage of their ThinkBike did. I figured that I would do a series of three posts (1 – Downtown, 2 – Pacoima, 3 – South L.A.) showing off more of the great work. The designs are posted at LADOT, but they’re big pdfs, difficult to search, find, and share. I’ve broken them out into place-specific entries and tried to run a lot of images and text, to make this excellent work more findable. In addition, I’ve done a fourth blog post about the overall process, which I did find a bit disappointing.

THINKBIKE 1 of 4 – DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

The Downtown L.A. ThinkBike team included folks from DLANC, FAST, LACBC, LADOT, and Metro. The pdf of their full slide show is on-line at LADOT.

Map of the Downtown L.A. ThinkBike plan - mainly Main Street and Spring Street from Cesar Chavez Avenue to Venice Boulevard

The Downtown ThinkBike Team focused mostly the one-way couplet of Main Street and Spring Street, from Cesar Chavez Avenue to Venice Boulevard. 

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Food Truck Court to Open: Perhaps Carne Asada ISN’T a crime

As the LATimes just reported, a sea change may be in the works for mobile food culture in LA. Within several weeks, a parking lot at South Alameda Street and Traction Avenue downtown will open to host food trucks several days a week. This follows several years of crackdowns on taco trucks and other mobile food vendors, as reported by http://saveourtacotrucks.org/ and others.

Why is this relevant to the LAEV neighborhood and community? For one thing, our neighborhood is full of vendors, mostly Latino, selling food on the street, both licensed (selling out of officially permitted trucks), and illicit (selling off tables, shopping carts, and small portable grills). The crackdown on legal food trucks, which involved forcing them to move ever 30 to 60 minutes, essentially amounted to a crackdown on a specific aspect of Latino culture by driving a major food tradition illegal and underground. I hope that this food truck court indicates a willingness on the City of LA’s part to acknowledge that the practice of street food deserves a place in this city.

Additionally, I’m fascinated by the growth of so-called ‘fusion’ food trucks, mixing the various food cultures from the area (Korean tacos, Mediterranean falafel burritos, etc). I have sadly seen these trucks harassed and driven out of several neighborhoods around LA (frequently before I even got to try their food, perhaps part of my bitterness). One of the main reasons I love our neighborhood is that I can walk 6 blocks or less to get food from at least 5 major world cultures, and I’m excited that this mix is creating something new.

As usual, we are following far behind in the tracks of Portland, a city whose transit, bike, and food cultures make me wish I liked rain more, but any more in the direction of better transit and better food makes me happy. Expo line, anyone?

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