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Comment by Samantha Polakov on February 17, 2013 at 5:26pm

All of this is great info.  I agree that too many of our resources are wasted.  I see my neighbors throwing out things that others who are not in great financial shape would like to own.  These items could be donated, but I guess that is too much trouble for people with two incomes to bother with.  I also see a lot of food wasted while people are starving.  I was "green" before it was so "in".  I just call it "frugal".  Been taking my own bags to the grocery for 25 years now - people used to look at me like I was nuts and now they're all doing it themselves!  Not because they care, but because they want to appear "politically correct" and "green".  Whatever ...

I still think making WW Blvd. into a two lane road is a bad idea.  I was talking with one of the restaurant owners on the WW and he thinks it will be a big mistake.  He said that sometimes ambulances need that extra lane to weave around cars on the street and without it, the ambulances will be stuck in traffic like everyone else!  I hadn't even thought about that!  He had received a flyer on the proposed changes and didn't understand that it meant that a lane was going to be removed.  I suspect many other business owners are also clueless about this and will start complaining after the fact.

BTW, Dylan, I will probably be using a bike myself to get around the area.  Now the Century City is charging for parking, I refuse to drive over there just to get a frozen yogurt or a quick meal at the food court.  I won't be cycling on the major boulevards nor will I require any "designated" bike routes.  I will merely take side streets to bike there and get home.  I still don't understand why everyone cannot do this!  I might even walk!  I've done it before!

Comment by barney desimone on February 17, 2013 at 5:26pm

All symptoms of the engineered downgrade of the standard of living. Remember the images of the poor Chinese riding bikes in massive herds that we used to see back in the 80's. That's going to be us. Welcome to the future. If you can embrace it and roll with it, more power to you. Just do so with both eyes open.

Comment by Dylan on February 17, 2013 at 3:39pm

Samantha, I just wanted to pass on a couple of links in case you hadn't considered this. Current trends indicate that, more than likely, your kids will one day be biking or walking at least part of their commute. I don't have a point to make here, just food for though. 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/are-we-reaching-peak-c...

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-dont-young-am...

Comment by barney desimone on February 16, 2013 at 9:23pm

That would be about right. Car travel by the common man is to be discouraged. It's not a family friendly concept, but then population reduction is the ultimate aim. Less people means less carbon output and environmental damage. These people are serious. The library I work for has a large meeting room. One of those groups meeting regularly is the Global Exchange. Their literature proposes that rivers and forests have rights and they have lawyers who will represent them against human interests. Sounds crazy but that's what the radical Environmentalists are about.

This all comes down from the UN. The beaurocrats there have a tremendous envy of the American standard of living. We use too much of the world's natural resources for their taste. The agenda is to work through NGO's and local councils to bring about changes in our lifestyle that nobody in their right mind would ever directly vote for. It's a giant end run around national and personal sovereignty. It's made tremendous progress under the radar for the most part, but people are becoming aware. It's getting late in the game with the Expo Line already well on it's way to completion. The Expo's coordinate hand in hand with these developments along their routes. It's not ad hoc but a wholistic plan. Check out the Expo website. It's telling.

Comment by Samantha Polakov on February 16, 2013 at 7:10pm

Barney, from the way you are describing it, the powers-that-be don't want us to travel about the city enjoying all it has to offer, unless we are taking public transportation or cycling as a family with babies in unsafe backpacks.  Where are the strollers and kid paraphernalia supposed to go?  They apparently want us staying in our own circumscribed little areas.  This is all so very impractical!  Not to mention parochial!  Even Ghetto-like!

Maybe I should sell my home and move to Beverly Hills?  No one seems to screw with them!

Comment by barney desimone on February 16, 2013 at 2:02pm

I like to ride a bike too. It's just not pracitcal transportation for most people. For the larger agenda Google Agenda 21 ( the Agenda for the 21st Century ) and ICLEI. There are some interesting You Tube clips if you don't have time to read a lot. I work at a library so I've been able to read some of the source documentation and academic literature supporting it. It's being pushed on a bipartsan basis at every level of government up through the international level. L.A. City and County and Santa Monica are signed onto ICLEI which is the local organ of Agenda 21. Bush Sr signed the agreement at the Rio Summit and Clinton created the structure that's pushing it. The Expo line and the way it's been implemented is a signature event for the urban plan side of ICLEI. There are far reaching plans for rural areas as well that may not affect us drectly. Our main local issue will be densification and a loss of quality of life.

I was born in Santa Monica nd have had a home near Pico and Westwood since 1952. The Expo line is going to be like a dagger through the heart of WLA. The mall was bad enough. What's coming will be worse. If you ever try to drive and park near the walking mall in Santa Monica you'll get a glimpse of the future. Parking down there is an expensive nightmare and crowding is terrible. It's going to get much worse when they put in the first 400 units planned for Lincoln and Colorado near the EXPO station on 17th St. That's the model, huge compact housing over mixed use retail on a transit line. Planned stations are at Palms and Motor, Westwood and Exposition and Sepulveda and Pico. The only station where a major development isn't planned so far is on Westwood. I don't think it's zoned for one yet. There's a subway through Hollywood into Westwood in the works and the locals are already fighting planned developments along the route. That's our kids' future if nothing is done to stop it. 

 

Comment by Samantha Polakov on February 16, 2013 at 1:20pm

Interesting point, Barney!  

I didn't realize there was a larger agenda than the one presented.  I wonder what my neighbors would think about living in a 400 square foot apartment with their 2 kids, 3 dogs and a cat.  These are hardworking, mostly professional people with double incomes who pay dearly to own their Rancho Park homes, so that their kids can go to good schools and live in a relatively safe neighborhood.  Some of these families ride bikes around the neighborhood with their kids, but they use side streets on the weekends, when it is safe.  No one has anything against cycling.  It is great exercise and fun to do.

This utopian bike & pedestrian "paradise" proposed by the Bicycle Coalition is not gonna happen by painting a white stripe along an already congested street!  They say, "if you build it, they will come".  blah blah blah  Tell that to a harried working mom who is trying to drive carpool and get a carful of noisy and distracting kids back and forth from school!  Putting a white stripe on the pavement is not the same as building new roads that ARE bike friendly and safe for all! 

Comment by barney desimone on February 16, 2013 at 11:04am

Common sense Samantha. I agree with everything you said. You took into account the actual reality on the streets and the actual mentality of the majority of the people who use them. The bike crowd do seem to have an attitude that they are morally superior. That attitude is fostered by the propaganda coming from the mass transit, bike, walk crowd, the same people who are pushing for massive densification. The 568 units planned for Pico and Sepulveda next to the Expo station is an example. They want WLA to be "walking friendly" also "biking friendly". What that really means is that they will creat so much congestion that it will be impossible to drive and park anywhere. Another term they use to describe this in their promotional material is "tranist village". Maybe they should describe their perfect residents as transit peasants. That's what they realy want. There are forces out there, the environmentalists being one, that are not happy with America's current standard of living. A house and a car don't fit into their agenda. A bike and a 400 sq ft "apartment" is their ideal of "sustainablillity". The biking crowd may just be pawns in this movement while some of the leaders have a wider agenda. You'll find that anywhere the mass transit lines go this whole agenda follows. The hip and happy bicyclist is just a convenient face to put on an ugly process. Maybe useful idiot is too harsh a term, but they will be the ones left bleeding in the street. It already happens where these bike lanes are in. The false sense of secuirty of a painted line only makes it worse.  

Comment by Samantha Polakov on February 16, 2013 at 10:39am

Yes, Dylan - I have ridden a bike for miles, down at the bike path at the beach.  I like to bike.  The attitude at the meeting was that of "we are better than you because we don't drive a car and contribute to the environmental pollution and overcrowding problem".  The cyclist group also presented statistics that were couched in a misleading way to promote the idea that cycling is better for local commerce.  Maybe you weren't there.  

It's great that you enjoy riding a bike, but in my opinion, it is dangerous to do so in heavy traffic on major streets.  Why not ride on side streets where it is safer?  Yes, it might take you a block or two out of your way and that is an inconvenience, but for safety's sake, it is the more prudent thing to do than to cycle in heavy traffic with car drivers who are already angry over the traffic situation.  Even with the types of bike lanes currently in existence, IMO, cars and cycles should not be sharing the same crowed roads at the same time.  Especially since there are no helmet or protective clothing laws for cyclists who are even in more danger than motorcycles when they are on the road.  At least the motorcycles have the ability to go fast and get out of the way of a car.  

A bicycle is like a sitting duck, with no protection - and the "perceived" safety of a "bike lane", which is only a stripe of white paint with no real barrier to separate the cycle from a car means nothing!  In other words, it is just as dangerous for cyclists to share the roads with cars, WHETHER OR NOT there is a bike lane painted on the road, so why remove an entire lane of already crowded traffic in order to make one?

Comment by Dylan on February 15, 2013 at 11:45pm

Samantha, I ride a bike to work. I don't feel holy about it. I never think about the environment while I'm riding. I simply enjoy it personally. I drive too. Your generalizations are simply inaccurate. Have you tried biking?

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