SGV Connect

Today we wrap up our Streetsblog California "Meet the Board" podcast series with an interview with the Inland Empire Bicycle Alliance Executive Director and Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice Policy Coordinator Marven Norman.

Norman recounts his roots in advocacy from a bike commuter that struggled with streets designed to be unsafe for bicycle commuters, people walking or waiting for transit. Today he is one of the most recognizable faces for advocacy in the Inland Empire, if not the entire state, holding down multiple leadership positions.

This podcast holds a special place in my heart, as Marven was actually the guest on the second episode of my first podcast, #DamienTalks back in May of 2015. As a longtime follower of Marven's work, it's fun to look back and see how far he's come and how much advocacy has grown in six years. However, as Norman notes, there is still an overwhelming amount of work to be done to make the Inland Empire a safe and enjoyable place to ride a bicycle or take a walk.

This is the seventh and last podcast in our "meet the board" series. To check out our past podcasts with Jon Weiss, Carter Rubin, Kris Fortin, Terra Curtis, James Sinclair, or Abby Arnold, click on their names.

Abby Arnold has been an advocate for a clean environment, people experiencing homelessness and for other progressive causes in her beloved City of Santa Monica for a lifetime. Half a dozen years ago, when Streetsblog L.A. was launching a pilot program in Santa Monica to see if the "Streetsblog model" could work in smaller cities, Arnold was one of the first to volunteer for our steering committee and has been a fixture with our team ever since.

In today's Meet the Board interview series, we talk about politics in Santa Monica, what she would like to see us cover more in the future and how non-profits should approach grant making with both governments and foundations. I'll give you a preview: she compares the process to dating.

In addition to Streetsblog/Santa Monica Next Arnold has been a leader with a who's who of advocacy groups including Santa Monica Forward, the League of Women Voters, and CLUE. She has also served on a variety of Santa Monica Commissions including a current stint on the Pier Commission.

This is the sixth podcast in our "meet the board" series. To check out our past podcasts with Jon Weiss, Carter Rubin, Kris Fortin, Terra Curtis, or James Sinclair, click on their names.

Regular readers of Streetsblog California will recognize James Sinclair's name as the author of the Stop and Move blog on transportation policy in and around Fresno. James was one of the first bloggers to allow us to syndicate their articles, and we've featured his work a handful of times.

James is also on the Board of Directors for the California Streets Initiative, the non-profit that publishes Streetsblog. Born and mostly-raised in Mexico, he often traveled to Fresno on holiday to visit family and developed a love for the city. In the "about me" section of Stop and Move, he explains how Fresno became a place he is passionate about :

I have been in and out of Fresno for most of my life. While it has never been my true home, it has been the closest to having one. I have been fortunate enough to live in a dozen places, and travel to dozens of countries. As such, I have been able to see what Fresno does well, and what Fresno does badly.

James now works as a bicycle and pedestrian planner/consultant. A decade after the launch of the Stop and Move blog, he sits down with us to talk about the state of advocacy in Fresno, his hopes and fears for California High-Speed Rail and some of his favorite projects.

This is the fifth podcast in our "meet the board" series. To check out our past podcasts with Jon Weiss, Carter Rubin, Kris Fortin, or Terra Curtis, click on their names.

This July and August, Streetsblog California is podcasting a series introducing our Board of Directors to our readership. To check out our past podcasts with Jon Weiss, Carter Rubin and Kris Fortin, just click on their names.

Today's podcast features Terra Curtis who researches emerging mobility policy for the California Public Utilities Commission. Curtis previously worked at Nelson\Nygaard and volunteered with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition working on the Better Market Street campaign years ago.

Our interview covers both her professional career and personal advocacy. Curtis appreciates the mission of N\N and the planning firm's belief in promoting entrepreneurship amongst their staff. However, she felt called to bring the expertise she had learned about the best ways to bring new technologies to the transportation sector earlier in life and her career prepared her for a role helping to direct policy statewide.

"On the oneside there's a chance for increased mobility and reduced dependence on the single occupancy vehicle," says Curtis in the interview on the future prospects of new mobility.

"On the other side, there's some downsides we want to avoid...I was really attracted here to help relieve that tension and help direct California transportation in a positive direction."

This summer, Streetsblog California is running a podcast series interviewing and introducing its Board of Directors to our audience. These volunteers help keep the organization running even if they don't regularly get a by-line on our website.

Today's SGV Connect features an interview where one of our co-hosts (Damien) interviews the other (Kris). In addition to his work with our San Gabriel Valley coverage, Kris is a member of our board of directors.

The San Gabriel Valley beat is actually Kris' third tour of duty with Streetsblog, having previously covered Boyle Heights and the Orange County. As you might expect, this podcast is something of a walk down memory lane of some of Kris' top stories.

Way back in 2012, Kris was one of the first reporters to introduce the world to the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade. The Ovas were a female-only bicycle collective that hosted rides and opened its own community center on Cesar Chavez Avenue. The popularity of Kris' first post broke our analytics by attracting literally hundreds of thousands of readers from over three dozen countries.

Kris also wrote about the impact the closure of the Wyvernwood Garden Apartments would have had on the larger Boyle Heights community.

Before SGV Connect, Damien and Kris collaborated on a video series with Shireen Alihaji interviewing the major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles in 2013. You can catch the interview with Councilmember Garcetti, here.

After a couple of years writing for different publications, including a full-time gig at the Orange County Register, Kris returned both as a board member and as a writer covering Orange County. At a time when the Register and other Orange County publications. His work at the time included coverage of transit and OCTA but also updates on some best practices from his beloved Santa Ana.

And of course today, he's with us with SGV Connect and as a board member. You can check out all of his recent work, here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. "Foothill Transit. Going Good Places."

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays.

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn,iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

During Melanie's sabbatical, we will be running a podcast series to introduce readers to the Board of Directors of the California Streets Initiative, the non-profit that publishes Streetsblog California, Streetsblog Los Angeles and Streetsblog San Francisco. Our first interview, with Jon Weiss, can be found here.

Earlier today, Damien interviewed Carter Rubin, the current Chair of our Board of Directors and the Transportation Technical Strategist for the American Cities Climate Challenge at NRDC. Carter has had some affiliation with Streetsblog for over ll years, as intern, writer, board member, steering committee member and now board chair.

In that time he's also had an interesting career writing at Metro's The Source news/blog page, serving as a David Bohnett Fellow in Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa's office and transitioning to working on the Great Streets program with Mayor Garcetti. He's been with NRDC for almost four years now helping cities combat climate change through better transportation projects.

For more on Carter's work, check out Carter's author's page at Streetsblog Los Angeles, here or his NRDC writer's page here.

During Melanie's sabbatical, we thought it would be fun and interesting for our readers to have a chance to meet the Board of Directors of the California Streets Initiative, the non-profit that publishes Streetsblog California, Streetsblog Los Angeles and Streetsblog San Francisco.

Our first interview is with Jon Weiss (Streetsblog author's page, here.) Weiss, a longtime supporter of bringing rail transit to West Los Angeles and member of the city's Bicycle Advisory Committee joined our board in early 2015 and has served as chair and president of the board.

This interview covers Jon's early advocacy in Los Angeles fighting to preserve rail right of ways from the old trolley system that has become parts of Metro and Metrolink rail services today to his efforts to get the city to build (and perhaps one day soon) complete a bike trail that runs parallel to the "E Line" (or Expo Line) through West Los Angeles.

A long-time member of the city's bicycle advisory committee, Weiss believes that there are good elected officials that want to do the right thing by promoting active transportation and transit, but they don't have the support to do so.

"We're in a third boom of bicycling in my lifetime. The first was gas prices (in the 1970's). The second was Lance Armstrong...which was mostly roadies but did bring a lot of people to biking. With COVID, the numbers have jumped and they're really jumping with e-bikes. People that read Streetsblog know there's a new bill passed to fund people buying e-bikes," says Weiss.

"The more people that are out there biking, the more pressure there's going to be on politicians. There's a lot of politicians that want to do the right thing, but they don't have the votes for it."

Weiss ends the interview with a big idea. Weiss believes there should be legislation passed that taxes the automotive and oil industries to run an advertising campaign similar to the TRUTH ads warning people of the dangers of tobacco. In Weiss' view, the more people that understand concepts such as induced demand or the difference in collision survival rates between 15 miles per hour or 25 miles per hour would dramatically change how people talk about transportation.

In this week's podcast, Kris Fortin speaks with City of Alhambra Vice Mayor Jeff Maloney about "Advancing Alhambra" the city's plans for its roads after the 2017 decision to not move forward with extending the 710 Freeway.

While Alhambra had been one of the cities most vocal in support of extending the 710 up to the 210 for decades, the cancellation of the project has led to new opportunities for the city to invest in transit and safe street programs. Advancing Alhambra pinpoints three interchanges and the current 710 "stub" for improvements that could have a dramatic impact across the whole city.

A community meeting is planned for tomorrow night, on Zoom at 6 p.m. Register for the meeting, here.

Early in the pre-interview portion of the podcast, Damien and Kris discuss how long they've been collectively covering the 710 corridor project, and how long the project existed before Streetsblog was launched in 2008 in Los Angeles. Kris brings up the nuttiest "open streets"/block party event he ever went to in 2013, that doubled as a rally for extending the 710. He wrote about it in Streetsblog, and if you're interested you can read the story, here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. "Foothill Transit. Going Good Places."

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays.

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn,iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

In this week's SGV Connect, Damien follows up on his story from last month about the ongoing efforts to transfer ownership of properties owned by Caltrans in what was the project area for the now defunct 710 project near Pasadena. Following that, Kris gets an update on some changes coming to ExpressLanes in the I-110 area.

First, Damien interviews Timothy Ivison and Angels Flores, both members of the United Caltrans Tenants Union about the history of the ongoing dispute between Caltrans and their renters. If you're interested in learning more about this story, check out "United Caltrans Tenants Oppose State Legislation That Would Guide Home Sales, Possibly Lead to Evictions" published at Streetsblog last month.

Kris talked with Metro staff about a few projects happening with the Expresslanes on the Interstate 10, including the COVID-19 service impact and recovery, the planned toll-road extension from the I-605 to the San Bernardino County Line, and what Metro is doing about people who avoid the toll by misidentifying themselves as a carpool vehicle.

The bulk of the conversation focused on Metro's planning next year to test increasing the HOV requirement on the toll lanes. Currently, two to three occupants per vehicle can avoid paying the toll on the Expresslanes. The pilot will require three or more occupants will have to be in vehicles while traveling during off peak hours, and only registered vanpool and transit able to use the Expresslanes during on-peak times. The second phase, which could happen as early as September 2022, would only allow van pools and vehicles of more than five occupants to travel on the Expresslanes. This phase would require board approval and would last until 2024, according to a Metro staff report.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. "Foothill Transit. Going Good Places."

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays.

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

Welcome to the first SGV Connect of April. This week's episode is a solo-interview with Damien and Felicia Friesema at Foothill Transit for a regular check-in about the agencies efforts to provide access to vaccinations, the rollout of its electric double-decker bus fleet and how a transit agency can celebrate poetry month.

If you want to use Foothill Transit to help plan a trip to get your vaccine, click here. And if you're looking for a moment of reflection, click here to visit the Foothill Transit and Write Girl L.A. celebration of poetry month.

Last, if you ride Foothill Transit, or were a rider before the pandemic, please take the agency's rider survey. Regardless of the last time you rode the bus, they want to hear from you.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. "Foothill Transit. Going Good Places."

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.