Patt Morrison for Monday, 2-22-10

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Monday, February 22, 2010

1-3 p.m.

 

CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG

 

 

1:08 – 1:53

Cyclists in the City: The 2-wheeled army demands its rights!

Unlike San Francisco, Los Angeles does not have a strong reputation for being bicycle friendly.  The car capital of the world has done very little to accommodate growing legions of cyclists on the road, the end result being daily tension between motorists, frustrated bicyclists and scrambling city leaders.  But there are changes on the horizon, starting with the L.A. city bicycle master plan that has undergone months of public input and is being retooling after a less-than-enthusiastic initial reception.  In Pasadena, their city master plan goes as far as proposing the elimination of lanes of traffic for construction of diversion barriers for the protection of cyclists.  How far should SoCal cities go to make life easier for cyclists, and can bicycles and cars ever peacefully coexist?

 

Guests:

Michelle Mowery, Sr. Project Coordinator, bicycle planning and programming, LA Department of Transportation (DOT)

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Claire Bowin, AICP, LEED AP, Los Angeles Department of Planning

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LA’s Bicycle Master Plan was made public last year. They held community meetings and public hearings and got a lot of comments from cyclists.  They are retooling the plan and will reintroduce a new draft within the next few months.

 

Alex Thompson, is on the steering committee of the LA Bike Working Group

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            They created an alternative bike plan called the Backbone Bikeway Network

            The plan is roughly 200 miles

Thompson helped design the plan after holding public meetings with cyclists throughout the city

 

Ed Reyes, Los Angeles City Councilman for the 1^st District

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He is on the PLUM (Planning & Land Use Management Committee)

The Bicycle Master Plan will come through his committee

He was hit by a motorist while on a bicycle when he was younger

           

Aurisha Smolarski, campaign and communications director for LA County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC)

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.           She attended a rally on Friday at the U.S. Department of Transportation to demand more funding and prioritization of bicycle, pedestrian and non-auto projects in the National Transportation Bill.

 

Doug Failing, executive director of highway programs & interim chief planning officer at LA Metro

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            He was active on the Caltrans Bicycle Advisory Committee

They are holding a series of Bicycle Roundtables in 2010

The first meeting was last Friday (Feb. 19)

They will hold public hearings every 3 months

They handle bike and transportation issues for all 88 cities in LA County

They have a “Bikes on Rails” program –bikes on trains and metro lines

They handle bike parking issues-where to lock bikes up before hoping on Metro

They fund projects but it’s up to individual cities to create plans  

They are investigating a “Bike Sharing” program modeled after one in Paris, France. It involves the creation of kiosks that allow cyclists to rent bikes for short periods of time

                       

Rich Dilluvio, transportation planner, Pasadena Department of Transportation

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                        Pasadena’s plan calls for 20 miles of new bike lanes and paths

                        The 1.8 million dollar plan relies on federal and state grants

                        One controversial element calls for taking out traffic lanes to make more   room for cyclists

                        Pasadena’s plan is fairly well received relative to LA’s

 

 

2:08 – 2:19

OPEN

 

 

2:24 – 2:53

Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do

A common anti-immigration refrain is that immigrants take jobs away from Americans.  What is it like to stoop over lettuce fields in Arizona, work the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama, and dodge taxis as a bicycle delivery boy for an upscale restaurant?  To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent a year working in these environments alongside Latino immigrants.  By combining investigative reporting with his personal narrative, Thompson exposes the underbelly of the American economy and tells the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants, and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.

 

Guest:

Gabriel Thompson, recipient of the Richard J. Margolis Award, the Studs Terkel Media Award and a contributor to The Nation and New York Times, among others; he is also the author of "There's No José Here" and, most recently, "Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do"

IN STUDIO

 

 

Jonathan Serviss

Producer, Patt Morrison Program

Southern California Public Radio

NPR Affiliate for Los Angeles

89.3 KPCC-FM | 89.1 KUOR-FM | 90.3 KPCV-FM

626.583.5171, office

415.497.2131, mobile

jserviss@kpcc.org / jserviss@scpr.org

www.scpr.org