Walk: 7-28-10

Today I went for a walk around town, something I have not had the opportunity to do lately for a variety of reasons. Most prominently, I twisted my ankle crossing the street about a month ago and I am just getting to the point where I can go with absolutely no pain during or after my walks.

A lovely Wednesday it was today, the weather almost ventured into the “too hot” category but stayed nice throughout with no sporadic changes in temperature, making for a smooth and cool transition into the evening.

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3.78 miles according to Google

The initial intention of this walk was to snap pictures for an “Alleys Rock” segment but I ended up picking up a treat from Pete’s for frequent commenter, hippierunner, and I to share.

The starting point for this walk, Loleta Avenue/Oak Grove Drive. I walk down Oak Grove and appreciate the calmness of the street. I make this point often but by no means thoughtlessly, like a handful of other streets in ER, Oak Grove Drive could easily become a bicycle boulevard. It would be an especially convenient bike boulevard at that as students walking or biking to Eagle Rock High School could do so with ease and bypass the more hectic Yosemite Drive. As I toy with the thought I am lucky enough to actually cross a cyclist’s path.

A few minutes later I caught a skateboarder too, on the street, perhaps a testament to the calm, low traffic volumes Oak Grove has, further making the case for the street’s conversion to a bike boulevard.

Off in the distance, to the right

I turn North by Glacier Drive/Oak Grove Drive but instead of going onto  Glacier, I take the alley running parallel to it. (I will save the pictures of this alley when I take a more detailed look on it in a separate segment of “Alleys Rock!”)

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The alley is interrupted by Yosemite Drive and Neola Street. Beyond Neola the alley continues on until it meets a set of stairs which brings one up to Glacier Drive/Saginaw Street. As I transition from the stairs to Glacier I begin noticing charming little details.

The curb next to the stairs has been beautified and personalized with smooth stones inserted. From my limited experience I would say this is a unique sighting of anywhere. I have see custom mailboxes and street signs and street addresses, but an entire custom curb? Not until now!

Mosaic art in front of one residence

Looking East there are some nice, interesting, and undoubtedly unique views of Figueroa Street area.

More interesting details on homes

Found an empty soda can, and if I were in the mood I would bring it home to recycle it for cash, instead I opted to place it in the nearest blue bin.

When I reach Colorado all the peacefulness from where my walk started on Loleta Ave/Oak Grove Dr to the small portion Glacier Drive is lost. Cars zoom by and there is a significant drop in attractive aesthetics.

Crossing from South Colorado to the North side and continuing West lowers the pedestrian’s subjective/psychological safety as the island refuges are bare, and tiny in comparison to the space dedicated for cars traveling on Colorado as well as cars entering the 134 freeway. I personally did not really notice this before, but any area adjacent to a freeway entrance seems to have cars racing for the 65mph freeway speed limit before they are actually on the freeway. The cars not entering the freeway also decide to travel faster just because the surrounding cars are doing so. The on-ramp in this area is particularly long and there is no reason why cars shouldn’t slow down before they are on the on-ramp. Alongside other ‘radical’ pro bike and pedestrian tricks I wish to push upon the rest of Eagle Rock, I think it would be a good idea to have cars slow to speeds between 10 and 20 mph before getting on an on-ramp; this could be accomplished in the form of traffic calming devices such as curb extensions or round-a-bouts. It is awful enough that people have to live next to freeways, the on/off ramps should at least favor the pedestrians who frequent the area or live there. But I digress… Also not helping the pedestrian’s subjective safety are the chain-link fence and glass and other roadside debris that collect on the curbs or sidewalk.

Confusing location of sign

Can't imagine waiting for the bus here

Continuing, I pass the infamous housing project that never finished with an Occidental College sign on a street post. The immediate area does not give Eagle Rock  a proper impression to first-timers.

Things that caught my attention on Colorado:

I guess dogs are a problem in this complex

Around Hartwick there are some signs rarely seen elsewhere in Eagle Rock, if at all

No parking of vehicles over 6ft

This is why the signage is necessary

Is this phone booth still in use? or can it become a book booth?

The result of one pedestrian wanting to cross the street, a block of traffic

Funny poster for upcoming movie

A narrow Mount Helena Ave

After I took a picture of Mount Helena there was a voice “what’s the picture for?” To my left I see a tattooed man with a beard smoking a cigar. Forgive my prejudgement, but I did not expect much in the way of conversation with this man. I simply told him I was taking pictures for a blog I just started and the street was particularly narrow, something I hadn’t noticed before. He responded “A blog just about Eagle Rock?” I specified it was from a walking perspective to which he said jovially “You can say you met a guy smoking a cigar after a 20 mile bike ride”. How did he know I love bicycling!? His ride length impressed me. I told him it was cool he did that. I asked if it was okay to take a picture of him with his bike. He struck a cool pose. I asked if he was informed with the LA Bike Plan. He was not aware of but mentioned the Mayor’s recent bike spill. I forget how the conversation exactly went but he pointed to his house, told me he submitted some comics to the Boulevard Sentinel, that he tries to arrange group rides, that the corner we ere standing on is subject to many car accidents and that he bikes to work when the weather is nice (he better bike often then!). His name is Matt and shook my hand with his left hand so I did not get smoke smell on my hand.  In our brief conversation he also gave a friendly nod of respect to a bicyclist that went by. You just don’t get that kind of spontaneous interaction when trapped in your car.

 

Proud Matt shows off his bicycle

And so my walk continues…

Heather’s Store now sells jeans, not perfect for the summer but the price is right at 10$ a pair.

Sometimes I feel the streets are cluttered with signs which do little to compensate for poor road design, found this by Heather’s

I was not aware I was ever in a school zone, there was no change in street-scape and definitely no change in car speeds either.

The Beverage Shop at it’s worst… soon to come a branch of Delta Driving School

An opportunity to do something with this little patio area, too bad it isn’t being utilized.

Finally I arrive at Pete’s. As bicycles are always on my mind, I take a few pictures of where there is ample space to install bike racks.

Every time I go to Pete’s by bike I need to lock it to a street post. Taking the pictures I also spot two cyclists, both on the sidewalk despite Colorado Boulevard being an official Bike Route.

Maybe the city is doing something wrong in making the street attractive to cyclists?

Amusing find inside Pete’s

Receiving my order I walk on Mt. Royal Drive for about a second before spotting a super cool alley which I take for as long as I can, then it was up Townsend Avenue to Hill Drive and down on Hartwick Street where I met with hippierunner to start sharing the chocolate shake and fries I ordered. Back onto Colorado with nothing new and a left on Townsend heading towards Oak Grove. As we turned onto Oak Grove I was pleasantly surprised to see an old friend. Just had a brief word with him then hippierunner and I concluded our walk on Oak Grove Drive and Loleta Avenue.

Reason #3 to walk Eagle Rock: admire intricate details on the local streets, re-imagine the paths you frequent as you would like to see them, go from Oak Grove Drive to Colorado Blvd without taking Figueroa St, Genevieve Ave, or Wiota St. In fact do it with only being on an official street for a small fraction of the time! Notice signs you did not see before, meet new people and discuss common interests, discover new ways to get places, say ‘hi’ to an old friend, enjoy an other friend’s company  and reward yourself with some Pete’s!

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Not A Through Street: Casper Avenue/ Colorado Boulevard

This crossing light has a long wait time

Today NATS (Not A Through Street) brings us to Casper Ave, a small, out of place street. It is parallel to Eagle Rock Boulevard and perpendicular to Colorado Boulevard, the life of Eagle Rock. Casper also crosses Chickasaw Ave and is within close proximity to Fair Park Ave, two of Eagle Rock’s most disjointed streets. Casper Ave hosts the Eagle Rock Farmer’s Market and our library, you would think this street is long or robust, right? Wrong. Somehow, despite all of it’s local descriptors Casper Ave is a short street, an especially short street at that running about a third of a mile from end to end, around 1780 feet long. This little street also holds title as the only street that interrupts Las Flores Ave between Sumner Ave and Townsend Ave, a title I wish it did not have. Las Flores would be an excellent candidate for a bicycle boulevard conversion, an alternative to bike or walk on instead of the crazy former portion of Route 66, Colorado Blvd, if it continued through  Casper. Between Figueroa Street and Live Oak View Ave, Casper is also the only street perpendicular to Colorado Boulevard from the North which does NOT connect to Hill Drive. These are the things that distinguish Casper Ave before exploring it as a NATS, so lets take a closer look.

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Even before passing beyond the “Not A Through Street” sign, there is something that makes this NATS different from the rest – aside from what was mentioned in the previous paragraph – the location of the NATS sign is unusually low. The interesting thing about the location is that it is tailored for cars, making it somewhat large, and when it is placed so close to the ground that one can stand in front of it, the largeness of the sign is realized to any pedestrian walking by. Anyway…

The first find past XTC was the very cute Jack’s Gym. When my sister was younger she used to have gymnastics lessons all the way in South Pasadena, if Jack’s Gym had been here at the time we could have saved time, and gas while supporting local business. I worry that because of the NATS sign less people will discover this business than if it were placed on a regular through street. However, Jack seems to be in good shape and hopefully playful exterior reflects the classes given there.

And along with the sweet of Jack’s Gym, I found the sour, a lemon tree from the neighboring property that drops free lemons in Jack’s parking lot.

This lemon survived the fall

Across the street from Jack’s Gym was a little less impressive

Grimy, dirty LA with telephone lines, ugly lots and all.

Shortly afterward I discovered a resident growing their own corn, tomato, chilli, and likely more. There’s a sign accompanying the produce though the website on the sign is no longer functioning.

As I paused to photograph the veggies, this large deodar ceder (?) easily caught my eye before I resumed walking up Casper Ave. It stands so elegant, yet strong.

Look at house for idea of the scale

Next, the bicycle enthusiast in me was excited to see that Casper Ave narrows right around the massive tree. Casper still can accommodate standard desired four cars’ width after narrowing and makes me wonder why we insist on making our streets unnecessarily wide.

This is not an optical illusion, look on the right curb and notice the narrowing

Right before reaching the end there’s an other interesting transformation of a front lawn.

The top has been reached and I am greeted with peace, how nice.

... Does this mean "End Peace"

Lots of Cacti on the top too!

Looking South the street is very picturesque with the hills in the background. The noise of Colorado is long gone at the end of this street and standing there, one would never guess so much hustle and bustle goes on just a block away.

Reason number 2 to walk Eagle Rock: Forget the noise of Colorado Boulevard while admiring homes, enjoying a lemon, and finding ‘peace’.

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Part Two: Metered Parking vs Free Parking

Since writing ‘part one’ I have realized that there is only so much that can be said of the metered parking vs free parking without sounding terribly redundant or requiring a good bit of time to set aside to study certain curbsides or parking lots. Nevertheless here is my ‘part two’.
On today’s adventure I tried getting the numbers of all the parking meters that are not functioning. A meter is determined broken if the screen is completely blank, flashes ‘FAIL’, or says ‘dEAd’ (about five meters in Eagle Rock have this on the screen). I may have missed some meters, in fact I am almost certain I did though I scanned Colorado from Ellenwood to Eagle Vista (it was unnecessary to go that far though I didn’t want to miss a single meter). I went down Eagle Rock Boulevard from Blockbuster to Fair Park Ave, with the few pockets adjacent to ER Blvd. Here are the meters I noted as not functioning:

9  14  47  50  55  56  58  60  62A  65  67  68  69  72  80  85  86  93  98A  103  105  108  110  123  124  125  127  129  130  131  133 134  135  139  140  142  143  146  150  152 155  156  157  159  160  162

To have the meters fixed, call 1-877-215-3958. You will be forwarded to a live person, when they go on the line say you want to report over 30 broken meters in Eagle Rock or any of the ones I have listed. Before hanging up be sure to get the person’s name for reference in case we have to call again in a couple of weeks.

I forget how to engage in these kind of phone conversations so I probably didn’t play my call all that well. I did not get the woman’s name and she stopped me after I named about 15 meters and said she would put in a request for the area. She asked where I was parked and I told her I wasn’t parked anywhere but was simply reporting broken meters. She sounded a bit exasperated throughout the conversation, but I assume she just isn’t used to getting calls for broken meters since everyone enjoys the socially implied free parking a broken meter provides.

Sure free parking is great but we need to realize it comes at a high cost and that frankly cars should pay for parking because of the sheer amount of space they take up. Here’s the now famous poster illustrating the problem of car dominated cities and why we can’t sustain more cars on the road each year.

Credit: Press Office City of Munster, Germany

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Not A Through Street: Delevan Drive/Range Road

 

Although Eagle Rock has historically been a suburban community of Los Angeles, it does not conform to horrid images of suburbs that may imply Eagle Rock is a sterile cookie cutter community. Perhaps this is partially because Eagle Rock was primarily developed as a streetcar community and was its own city for a bit over a decade, from 1911 to 1923.

However Eagle Rock remains suburban is certain respects nonetheless and because of this it is not uncommon to see a street sign reading “Not A Through Street” in the neighborhood. These streets are obviously of no interest to people unless they live there. It is for this reason that I am interested in these ‘NATS’ (acronym of Not A Through Street) as I will affectionately refer to them. What exactly is at the end of these not through streets? What is the unique character and feel adopted?

This installment of NATS looks where Delevan Drive and Range Road meet, up a bit of an incline running along the southern end of Delevan Drive Elementary. This NATS is definitely different from other NATS as it has a metal barrier physically preventing cars from traveling through. This feature especially interested me. When I saw the barrier I began to wonder, “does it actually go through but on a dangerous path, is that why it is blocked off?” Nothing prevents a pedestrian from passing the barrier, so I crossed it and embarked on a brief adventure.

Looking down the street I started thinking there may be a house at the end and they really want people to keep off their stretch of the street. I walked with hillside to my right and fencing along the left. I spotted a rusted bike in the corner of someone’s yard up against a chain-link fence.

Handlebars are visible on the othe rside of the fence.

Then the street curved to the right and in an unusual manner for a street that is paved and continues for so long– there was nothing developed at the end.

Where am I going?

At the end of the road there was some shrub, broken branches,  loose leaves, and… a dirt path!

End of the line… sort of.

The path was very narrow with plants brushing my side.

And at the end the path this is what I saw:

The path connects to the other side of Delevan Drive which is otherwise accessible via Yosemite Way. In the process of writing this post I looked at two maps of Eagle Rock: a map from 1937 shows Delevan as a continuous street that does not appear to get cut off anywhere; and Google Maps shows exactly the same thing– a continuous Delevan Drive.

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Even for people that like to explore unknown streets, a “Not A Through Street” sign typically ends any speculation of a potential new short cut or hidden path. However, one of the many advantages of walking is that you can often go places cars can’t and move through a space without a flat, paved path. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to see that despite the sign’s warning, walkers can continue along Delevan Drive.

Reason number 1 to ‘walk eagle rock’ : Go from one end of Delevan to the other uninterrupted, defying signs claiming the street is bisected.

Looking at the dirt path from the other end.

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Part One: Metered vs Free Parking in Eagle Rock

This is part one of a series of posts I will do on parking/ parking meters in Eagle Rock. I have not yet decided whether to stick to Colorado or venture onto Eagle Rock Blvd, and Figueroa Street.

The blank meter

Eagle Rock: 134 Freeway to the North. 2 Freeway to the West. Widest part of Colorado Boulevard is in our town, three lanes wide, which formerly served as part of Route 66. Eagle Rock Boulevard too alternates between two and three lanes. Figueroa, one of the longest streets in Los Angeles ends in Eagle Rock. Cars have several unofficial reasons to have a crush on Eagle Rock with so much freeway-like access through the town. This is not the residents’ decision however as the community actually fought extensively against the freeways cutting our neighborhood. Eagle Rock’s main streets are wide as a result of previously accommodating trolleys.  Also, contrary to other parts of LA, Eagle Rock has managed to preserve a significant amount of its historic architecture in the face of an era of strip malls and ‘plazas’ through efforts of groups such as TERA and ERVHS. 1992′s Colorado Specific Plan, part of which included restrictions on future auto-related businesses is a testament to the community’s desire to remain “small town” as its origins and limit ER from becoming a town run by cars– the “car town” which communities such as Cypress Park have been unfortunate enough to fall victim to. In a “car town” the community loses opportunities to connect the neighborhood through pedestrian havens and instead becomes dissected, servicing automobiles over people for stretches on end with auto shops and drive throughs. However, despite Eagle Rock’s holistic and direct efforts to resist the car through combating freeways and strip malls, cars still have a reason to love Eagle Rock– free parking! I think most residents are aware of the failed meters on Colorado, here is a detailed look.

People take free parking for granted and rightfully so as the city Los Angeles itself reluctantly adopted parking meters in 1949. Nowadays people more or less know what to expect: parking lots often have free parking while curbside parking in front of shops have limited hour parking and/or meters. Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock features a mix of lots and metered curbside though don’t worry about paying curbside.

Between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Glen Iris, heading East, 19 of 26 parking meters are failed. This results in meters flashing “FAIL” or blank screens and plastic bags over meters (some of which appear on functioning meters as well). This also means a lot more free parking. Don’t want to pay for curbside parking? Move up a space or two and you are bound to find a non-functioning meter. In fact, as the numbers easily show, you are more likely to encounter a failed meter than a working meter.

On the same stretch, between Glen Iris and ER Blvd, heading West the situation is better or worse depending on how one looks. There are less meters though this is because there are more free parking lots. Going west towards Eagle Rock Boulevard of 14 meters 5 are failed.

Of a grand total of 40 meters between ER Blvd and Glen Iris 24 are not functioning. This is more than the city average of 1 in 10 meters not functioning. In such times of financial distress it seems like one logical place to allocate money would be to fix broken parking meters, because when functioning, meters are a consistent source of income for the city.

Broken meter....

A common sight along Colorado

Out of order

This person really wants the meter functioning "pls fix!"

This is unusual, it says "dEAd" instead of "FAIL"

Somebody doesn't want the meters fixed, the call number has been scratched

For broken meters, call 1-877-215-3958

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