Gary Kavanagh
Recent Posts
Santa Monica Family Bike Fest Coming Up In Early December
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Coming up on Saturday, December 8th, Santa Monica is hosting a Family Bike Fest, through a collaboration of the city, local schools, and the Safe Routes To School program. Just as the preparation events held in conjunction with the Bike It! Walk It! Days, the festival will have an educational component with youth bike skills […]
Next Steps For The Bike Movement In Santa Monica (p. 2/2)
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In the first post of this two part series, I laid out some of where we are in Santa Monica with regards to bicycling, and my belief that we are a regional leader even if Long Beach has silver and we remain ranked bronze. However a lot remains to be done if we are to […]
Next Steps For The Bike Movement In Santa Monica (p. 1/2)
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I am always delighted to read the various blog posts and opinions of other LA area advocates who see Santa Monica with less frequency than myself, who notice what’s going on here with fresh eyes, and like what they see. Recent posts on Orange 20’s blog, and Flying Pigeon’s blog, written by Richard Risemberg come […]
Tackling The More Difficult Question Of How Development Should Take Shape in Santa Monica
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Following up on my outlining the consequences of doing nothing, I wanted to articulate further what kind of development Santa Monica should be pursuing. While it is true I don’t want to halt or tie up development in never ending red tape, that doesn’t mean I believe anything goes should be our approach, or that […]
Santa Monica Bike Center In The LA Times, & Could Be A Model For Region
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Over the weekend the Santa Monica Bike Center was covered in the Los Angeles Times, which some of you may have read in the “Today’s Headlines” roundup from yesterday. The article by Matt Stevens offers a great snapshot of what the facility is and what it does. Importantly the Times covering Bike Center gets broadcasts […]
The Consequences of Doing Nothing
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With the local campaign heating up in Santa Monica, so too is the rhetoric of competing visions for the future of the city. While Santa Monica is in the midst of some significant changes, there is one loose affiliation of local voices with a vision largely based on not building anything and trying to preserve in […]
TEDx Santa Monica, City 2.0
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After a morning of chasing Endeavour through Inglewood on Saturday, I came back home to catch the TEDx Santa Monica talk on the subject of “City 2.0.” The event was hosted at the new Cross Campus collaborative working spaceon Broadway. It was a fitting site for talking about new urban ideas, as collaborative studio spaces […]
Parking Rates & Pedicabs
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New public parking rates went into effect this past week in Santa Monica, and despite hemming, hawing, and many letters to the editor leading up to this moment, the world did not end. Parking rates went up at most parking garages and street meters in the downtown core. However, some parking rates at frequently underutilized […]
Carmageddon II, Fun Times & Flawed Infrastructure Priorities
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There were some fears that the second coming of “Carmageddon”, a full closure of the 405 between the I-10 and the I-101, might really bring the disastrous traffic jams that were imagined but never materialized the last time around. By all accounts, traffic was no worse this weekend in Santa Monica and the Westside than […]
Bike It! Walk It! Day Is Coming Up Again; Free LCI Education Classes Offered.
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One of the things that always gives me some hope that our civilization hasn’t completely lost it’s way, is watching the “Bike It! Walk It!” Day event grow and develop in recent years. The next Bike It Walk It is next week, on either October 3rd or 5th (more details below). For those not familiar […]
Pro Walknomics/Pro Bikenomics
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In order for our society to tackle the challenge of creating a more walkable and bikeable North America, with the appropriate devotion of money, resources and public space, we have to build a solid political consensus. Unfortunately, some of the compelling reasons to prioritize active transportation have been unnecessarily politicized into partisan issues. We can […]
CNU Hones Its Transportation Agenda in Long Beach
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Preceding the start of the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference this week, the Congress for the New Urbanism met at the Renaissance Hotel across from the Long Beach Convention Center to convene their annual CNU Transportation Summit. At the summit, CNU develops its transportation agenda, including new and existing projects. Having caught the new urbanist bug in Florida […]