reason number 42 to bike commute:

"Biofuels Raise Beer Prices." OK, this headline from ProBrewer.com, is perhaps a little exaggerated, but it nonetheless adds to the growing evidence that the otherwise reasonable push toward alternative fuels--alternative to coal and petroleum--carries its own social and environmental side effects. In this case, it seems European farmers have planted significantly less barley this year as they chase the lucrative subsidies their governments are offering to grow rapeseed (canola) and other raw materials for making biodiesel. With less barley planted, less will be harvested and prices for maltsters and brewers are already on the rise. Besides the economic implications for beer producers and consumers such as myself, there is mounting evidence that the rush to grow other biofuel crops such as maize and, especially, palm oil is having a variety of environmental consequences, with accelerating tropical deforestation topping the list.

While I think biofuels nonetheless offer a lot of potential, let's not forget there is an even better alternative to petroleum-guzzling engines: the human body. We can walk and, of course, bicycle in far more energy-efficient a manner than we can drive, with absolutely no worrisome side effects to deal with--other than helping fight obesity, stress, etc., and living happier, healthier lives as a result. Why is it we so often search for new technologies and techniques to fix our current problems, when sometimes the simplest ideas, such as conservation, provide the most elegant solutions of all.

stay off the sidewalk

Once again, a major media story portrays urban cycling as dangerous and cyclists as hapless victims of a car-driving society that treats them as second-class citizens. This time, it's the Chicago Sun-Times reporting--under the headline "Vicious Cycle"--that a "war" is brewing between cyclists and pedestrians near that city's Northside lakefront. Last month, Alderman Mary Ann Smith led the restoration of an expired 2002 ordinance that fines adult cyclists $250 for riding on the sidewalks lining Sheridan Avenue between the lakeshore campus of Loyola University and the northern end of Lakeshore Drive. Apparently, we're supposed to be outraged by this allegedly bike-unfriendly action because, in the words of author Monifa Thomas, "You'd face a lighter fine if you drove your car on a Chicago sidewalk."

Now, I have no idea if that statement is true, and if it is, Alderman Smith needs to get seriously busy on revising at least one more city ordinance. But back to the point: Bicycles don't belong on the sidewalk! Especially if it's a pedestrian-crowded sidewalk in a dense urban environment. Bicycles are vehicles, and bicyclists are most certainly not wheeled pedestrians. Like cars, trucks, and motorcycles, bicycles belong both legally and practically on the street. Unfortunately, it seems that neophytes such as those pictured at right--a wannabe Euro jersey and no helmet?!--are allowed to speak for all cyclists in complaining that the new law reduces their safety, when any experienced urban cyclist knows that just the opposite is true. Sure, this statement smacks of elitism, but it's an elitism rooted in years of humble and continuing instruction and training, not a sense of naive entitlement.

To be fair, the Sun-Times article does include some voices of reason. Most notably Rob Sandowsky, executive director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, points out that alternative street routes exist just a block or two away from the lakefront route in question. Perhaps the city could do more to advertise these alternatives via signs, and perhaps the city could improve the bike-friendliness of Sheridan by enforcing speed limits and marking the right lane with "sharrows". But it's still up to bicyclists to educate themselves and learn how to ride their freakin' bikes! Riding safely, comfortably, confidently, and efficiently, alongside of motorized traffic isn't hard, nor is it limited to the "strong and brave"; it just takes a little practice and a humble willingness to learn. And if one is ever not comfortable riding on a particular street, there are always alternative street routes that are far safer than the sidewalk, which study after study demonstrates is the absolutely most dangerous place to ride.

To that end, another recent news item is more constructive. A personal-health feature in the New York Times this week, provides a nice summary of guidelines for both drivers and cyclists in learning how to share the road. And while the article starts out in the common sensationalist style of anecdotally describing a bicycle accident or two, followed by statistics that overstate the dangers of urban cycling because they fail to acknowledge the equivalent dangers of driving an automobile--or to standardize the data in any sort of way (per capita? per mile? per hour?)--at least the article carries the more rational and helpful headline that "Cars and Bikes Can Mix." Of course they can.

If you want to learn more about bicycle education, a great place to start is the League of American Bicyclists. I also highly recommend the "effective cycling" program of bicycle transportation engineer John Forester and the phenomenal website of the late Ken Kifer. The fact that Ken was killed in 2003 while riding his bike should in no way dampen his message as to the safety of cycling; he was tragically and unluckily struck by an obscenely drunk driver, a criminal who just as easily could have taken the life of a fellow motorist or pedestrian as that of a man on a bicycle. In recognizing the non-zero, but still quite small, risks of cycling, we must also acknowledge the comparable risks of the alternatives, especially the daily carnage that occurs within motor vehicles. No user of the streets, regardless of how many wheels they have under them, is completely safe. But fortunately, we're all extremely safe, especially when we know what we're doing.

reason number 97 to bike commute ...

... (at least in L.A.): serendipitous celebrity sightings. Yesterday, on my ride home through Playa del Rey, I did my usual scan for hazards while crossing through the intersection of Pershing and Manchester and spotted the unmistakable figure of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, waiting, on foot, to cross Manchester to apparently drop off some dry cleaning. Who said, "Nobody walks in L.A.?" Freakin' Kareem does!

This sighting comes only about a month after seeing former U.S. soccer star and current L.A. Galaxy General Manager Alexi Lalas walking his dog early one morning just a few blocks south of the same spot. But for me the biggest highlight came earlier this year when I saw none other than Larry David holding court with about a dozen hangers-on outside Chaya restaurant on Main Street in Venice/Ocean Park. Since I saw filming-location signs for "CYE" just down the street a few days later, they must have been in the neighborhood scoping things out for the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I briefly thought about yelling something stupid like, "Hey, Larry, You're the Man!," as I rode past. But besides thinking I'm too cool to do something like that--but apparently not too cool to blog about it--I was quite legitimately afraid of what he might have yelled back!

None of this really matters, except to point out how much more attuned to the surrounding landscape one is when passing through on bike, rather than tucked away in the cocoon of an automobile. And with the Culver City model-train store now closed, perhaps bike commuting is the new best place to catch your favorite celebrity on the westside.

you know you're old when ...

... you find this short piece by novelist Michael Laser ridiculously funny. It's a middle-aged person's addendum to the language of text messaging. One suggested addition to his list that I have is: WDISGHT (When Did I Start Growing Hair There?). It would seem to naturally follow Laser's own WROMH (Where's the Rest of My Hair?).

MXFLA (Merry Xmas from L.A.)

beachfront racism along santa monica bay

Another posting today that doesn't involve two wheels. Indeed, it concerns, at least in part, vehicles that have no wheels at all: surfboards. Now, I may be a proud California boy, and I may have spent much of my youth on a Boogie Board, but I'm no surfer. I do live close to the ocean, though, and my daily bike commute--not to mention most of my recreational rides--takes me within earshot of the crashing waves and close enough to taste the saltwater in the air. Plus my grandparents used to live in a condo in Oahu's remote Makaha valley, which just happens to empty onto one of the world's most historic surf sites. Put it all together, and I have a strange fascination for the worlds of surfing, and I thus rank Stacy Peralta's surf-themed documentaries (Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants) as two of my favorite films.

More than surfing, this post is about local social history and how it is so often hidden in the landscapes we observe today. Given that it regards the modern United States, it's perhaps inevitable that the following introduction to a specific bit of local geography also centers around the concept of race.

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It goes without saying that racial segregation is a major theme throughout all of the United States, urban as well as rural, and Southern California is certainly no exception. For example, the photo below from the collections at the LA Public Library reminds us that our beaches--among other places and institutions--were once segregated; in this case (ca. 1925), the group is standing next to the sign that marked the edge of "the Inkwell", the Santa Monica beach where Blacks were allowed, in contrast to Whites-Only Venice Beach to the south.

Rather than near the beach, the centers of "black" Los Angeles have been east of the 405; Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Watts, Compton, Central Avenue, West Adams, Inglewood, are just some of the place names most associated with SoCal black communities of both the past and present. This generalized mental geography that places blacks in an extended "South-Central" zone is largely confirmed by recent Census counts. For example, look at the following map, based on the 1990 data, produced by the geographers at CSUN:


It thus might come as some surprise that Manhattan Beach (just 0.6% black in 2000) actually has a significant place in the region's Afro-American historical geography. Manhattan Beach's "Parque Culiacan" suggests a link to Mexico (indeed, to Manhattan Beach's first official "sister city" in the 1970s), but the history of this land is more centrally linked to blacks and coastal racial segregation in the early twentieth century. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, this story is not told on the City's official website. (Earlier this year, however, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted to rename the park Bruce's Beach, in recognition of the history below.)

For those interested in the social history of SoCal beaches, particularly in the South Bay, there is no better single source than a fascinating article by CSUN geographer Ronald Davidson, which was published in the 2004 Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. Here's the quick outline of the story of Parque Culiacan:

• 1902 - Manhattan Beach emerges as one of many oceanside resort developments on Santa Monica Bay
• 1911 - Standard Oil builds its refinery at El Segundo (the second refinery in California, hence the name), and MB booms as a residential suburb for oil workers
• 1912 - MB codeveloper George Peck progressively sets aside two beachfront blocks for nonwhite (i.e., black) property owners, who were otherwise excluded from owning beachfront property anywhere in Southern California. Willie Bruce and her husband Charles are the first to buy property and they build a small resort for blacks, complete with cafe, dance hall, and fishing pier. This becomes known as Bruces Beach.
• 1924 - After years of racist challenge to the Bruces' existence, including from a local chapter of the KKK, the city of MB uses eminent domain to acquire the property, move all the non-white residents out, in order to presumably build a park. The city's real motivation, though, to "ethnically cleanse" the area became apparent when the park wasn't actually built until the 1950s.

We might reflect on how subsequent public policy, especially with regard to schools and public transportation, have helped preserve Manhattan Beach as an overwhelmingly white place. Why, for example, didn't they build the Green Line closer to the beach, say along the old rail corridor that runs between Valley and Ardmore, which would have conveniently dropped off riders within walking distance of the beach, instead of keeping the Green Line much further inland near the 405? Why is it nearly impossible to ride the bus to the South Bay beaches especially now that MTA has canceled its old route 126 that served Hawthorne, Lawndale, and (via transfer) Inglewood, South L.A. and Watts? (It remains to be seen if the new Beach Cities Transit system will pick up the slack, but so far it doesn't seem to be terribly concerned with serving people from the other side of the 405.) Why did these same mostly-white beach cities change the name of the old Compton Blvd. to Marine Avenue in the late 1980s? The days of explicit, formal racial segregation may be over, but it still exists in only slightly more subtle forms.

To bring the story full circle, the same year (1924) that Bruces Beach was being eliminated in Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica established its own blacks-allowed beach, popularly known as "the Inkwell". Rather than prime space near or north of the pier, the Inkwell was located on the stretch south of the pier between Pico and Ocean Park. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Inkwell is today remembered as a birthplace of black surfing, home to pioneers such as Santa Monica College alum Nick Gabaldon (another website and another).

Finally, I probably don't need to tell you that beaches were hardly the only public space that were generally deemed off limits to blacks during the early 20th century. For example, public swimming pools were also segregated into the 1950s, with some pools only allowing blacks and other non-whites on so-called "international days", which invariably were held the day before the pool was cleaned. Ours is a sad, sad, embarrassing history, indeed.

• For more on LA's rich black history, click here.
• Those interested in the challenge of providing public access to our beaches will want to check out this publication from the Surfrider Foundation.