Argonaut,
I’m up there in age. The eyesight is failing and the reflexes decidedly less spry than they were twenty ought years ago or so. Consequently, my car keys were seized long ago and it’s all buses and trains and multimodal transportation for me all the livelong day.
Imagine my chagrin when I bicycled over to Inglewood City Hall only to discover nary a bicycle rack in proximity. For a central civic space, that’s absurdly unacceptable. Strike one. Another demerit goes to Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium wherein I did manage to find bicycle racks but was then duly flabbergasted to discover it’s verboten to bring a bike helmet into the stadium due to security. That’s two strikes there. But the apex of asinine, and this is applicable to all of the westside altogether, is the patent disregard for the dedicated bike lanes. It’s a veritable slalom obstacle course of, you name it: Strewn e-scooters, double-parked DoorDash drivers and all manner of impedimentary street flotsam that washes up curbside.
Three strikes, Los Angeles. Look alive and get that bicycle infrastructure in ship-shape already.
For it’s hard enough to even throw one of these rickety legs over the seat of a bicycle. Let’s endeavor to not make it any more of a challenge than it already is. My penny-farthing is stalwart, but I’m still apt to not pit my rubber wheels against the rubber wheels of a runaway wrong-way Waymo.
Noreen Petrichor
Westchester