City of Lights Park(ing) Day Space Was a Success!
September 20, 2009 at 6:45 pm | Posted in LACBC Events | 3 CommentsTags: city of lights
Last Friday, September 18th, LACBC hosted a Park(ing) Day space on the corner of Wilshire and Park View, by Macarthur Park.
LACBC Staff and Volunteers
We had our lil stereo system, blasting Cafe Tacuba, free orange juice for the dehydrated masses, succulent houseplants, and bike posters with illustrations drawn by day laborer cats the week before.
We decided to create a more interactive space, test driving a workshop to get feedback about needed bike infrastructure improvements in the area, as we didn’t want to be just “another space”. And because we couldn’t afford entertainment, either. With large and small detailed street maps of the Pico-Union/ Macarthur area,
We engaged passerby pedestrians and bikers in discussion and asked them to fill them out with those bike improvements they wanted to see in the area. Things they might only dream of when riding through crazy potholes or down dangerous main corridors like Wilshire on their everyday journeys.
Cyclists are getting younger and younger in LA!!
It was a lot of fun, despite LAPD sheparding us onto the sidewalk across Wilshire from our original spot right after we had put 4 hours of quarters into the meter. We were visited by a really diverse group of people: a Latin high school biker group of about 15 cyclists, hipster cyclists, Streetsblog, Latina housewives with strollers, and day laborers. Many of whom had not seen a Park(ing) Day space before. It was awesome getting their feedback which will help us formulate future campaigns for City of Lights, which seeks to work with Spanish-speaking day laborer cyclists to create a more bike friendly Pico-Union. For more info on City of Lights, check out: https://sites.google.com/site/cityoflightsprogram/
Overall, it was a great opportunity to reach out to cyclists in an area that usually aren’t engaged in cycling advocacy campaigns.
With that said–See you next year at the 4th annual Park(ing) Day!!!
We had a good mix of people
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[...] From a Great Park(ing) Day Spot in LA (LA Bike Coalition via Streetsblog.net) More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol [...]
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[...] From a Great Park(ing) Day Spot in LA (LA Bike Coalition via Streetsblog.net) More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol [...]
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[...] In fact, recently at a Halloween party in Pico/Union, I was discussing this very same topic with my fellow partiers regarding the phenomenon of “outsiders” coming into these communities and someone made a joke about how “in the past, if you saw a white guy in the neighborhood, you were suspicious because no white person would venture out into these neighborhoods unless they were running a major drug operation.” Nowadays, it seems that hardly anybody raises an eyebrow at “newcomers” and it’s just become second-nature. Not everything is “hip” and idyllic, though; sometimes these neighborhoods still look and feel a bit sketchy. In fact, I got my car broken into just a month after I moved into the neighborhood. Nothing was taken (that I could tell), but it was nevertheless a bummer. However, after talking to others, I realized that this was not an uncommon experience. I’m hoping this was a random act but I am definitely taking precautions. I no longer park on that far-away isolated empty space (even though parking in this area is a major hassle but yet again what big city doesn’t have this problem) that I parked on that ill-fated night. One of my environmentalist colleagues told me the other day “yeah I had my car broken into a few times; that’s why I no longer drive” … and he doesn’t, he actually gets around on his bike and public transporation with no problems (and the bike lane issue in this area is another topic of discussion, something that the L.A. Bike Coalit…). [...]
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