Anyone who knows Master Blogger Jeffrey knows full well that he is a far left wing ideolog <sic> who lives in a high density building complex on the wrong side of town, has few responsibilities, a low paying job, no children, rides around SCV on a bicycle, and believes many more of our tax $$’s should be spent to sacrifice auto traffic lanes for more bike lanes. Nevermind that he once darned killed himself riding his bike into a telephone pole.

It’s all pretty accurate, save for the part about riding my bike into a telephone pole. For the record, I don’t really know what happened when I crashed while riding to my low paying job with few responsibilities, though I’m pretty sure that during the 45 minutes that I was blacked out, I was transported into a bizarre & wonderful future SCV where I faced a critical, life-defining choice.

Aside from that, yes, I do encourage alternate transportation modes and better land use in the SCV. In fact, I had a brainstorm last night while walking around town with my dog and wife and being suspicious of every Prius that drove near me.

You see, the City has got me thinking about Lyons Avenue and zoning with their Lyons Avenue Corridor plan that will be discussed on July 21 in Old Orchard. As Mike said in a comment recently, this is one part of town that could probably benefit from a little density increase. I’m wary because I live here, but it got me thinking: we need more park & public space here too.

And it just so happens we have some really great open space right there in literally the no-man’s land between Newhall and Valencia. It’s enjoyed once a year by hundreds or thousands of people, it’s grassy, cool, and quite large. I’m talking about the green space that divides Orchard Village Road:

Take a step with me into far left ideolog <sic> land for a moment and imagine a modest white picket fence with gates surrounding all or part of both green spaces above. Picture a couple of un-signaled crosswalks on the east and west sides of Orchard Village that would raise awareness of pedestrians in the area. And envision families relaxing in between the streets, on the median there, enjoying a cool summer evening breeze or tossing a frisbee with their kids. Next, picture the businesses that might sprout up in the decimated Ralphs shopping center to service those people.

In other words, picture what we enjoy there every year on the 4th of July. Only year round.

This is a beautiful space that’s we’re already paying to keep up (sprinklers every night, mowing the lawn every week), but we can’t really use it. I know this is radical, left-wing thinking, but I can’t help it. It’s who I am. It would seem to me this would be a very cheap and effective way to increase park/open space land in the Newhall area.

Link to PDF of the route

It’s unknown at this point whether legends like Lance Armstrong or George Hincapie will participate in this year’s Tour of California, but there will still be plenty of talent to come out and see. The best action will probably be on the Balcom canyon climb where riders will face an 11% grade.

Anyway it will be fun to have the ToC in Santa Clarita during a warm month. Hopefully it will be a boon to the City’s coffers as riders and support crew (maybe?) stay the night in town. What’s even better is that the opportunity for bitching about traffic will be minimized; it looks like the City will only need to do rolling closures of McBean and the segment of the Cross Valley Connector immediately east of Interstate 5.

There he is. You can see the bridge in the background.

I think I join all pimply-faced and loose-panted SCV youths in mouthing a long and expressive, “Wiiicked!”

More here.

In the days leading up to this weekend’s Awesometown food truck festival, I had a sense that the crowds were going to be massive.  A lot of my friends are the type to seek out the better trucks in LA and/or stand in a snaking, hour-long line when one of these trucks makes it into our city. Of course we would go — it’s that second and third layer of friends, family and acquaintances that had me worried.

On paper, this looked to be the coolest thing to happen in Santa Clarita in a very long time. To a food-nerd like myself, this wasn’t to be missed. I arrived 30 minutes early, parked steps away from the trucks and made fast conversation with friends I spotted.  There were some twenty trucks, but many of us had come to the independent conclusion that the crucial trucks would be Ludo and Border Grill, in that order.  So there I stood, about fifth in line for Ludo.

What’s Ludo?  I think you mean “Who’s Ludo?”  Ludo is Ludovic Lefebvre, one of the most forward-looking chefs working in America, and certainly one of the top five chefs in all of Southern California.  A few years ago, he hit reset on his stratospheric-trending career and same up with new ways to present his food.  The most notable being LudoBites, soon in its 6th iteration (I could go on and on, but it’s a very big deal, and so is he).

Recently, Ludo joined the food truck game, but from an unlikely direction: fried chicken.  He offers three different types of fried chicken and a few sides. The chicken, the slaw and the fries are all delicious and accessible. Easy to eat and easy to share.

Please, enjoy this picture.  I remarked to my friend who took this picture, “these fries, and that béarnaise, it’s like being transported to Paris… nothing this good has ever been made in Santa Clarita.”

Ludo, making fried chicken, in Valencia. That just about says it all: one of the very best chefs in the game, using expert preparation and great ingredients to serve humble street food, right on our door step.  That’s the attraction.  Los Angeles might be, as the great food critic proclaimed, “…the best place in the world to eat now.” The truck scene, as we know it, began in Los Angeles and is both a reflection and an addition to its culinary landscape. But they don’t need these trucks like we do.  I agree with Jeff: let’s do this again. A thousand times over.

A good friend of mine spends much of his time traveling the world, eating things both delicious and unspeakable.  Arriving at 6PM, he left just as quickly. The lines were insanely long and he had his kids. I get that. (note: I’ve learned the hard way that kids do not pair well with food trucks) It wasn’t for everyone, but it was great for enough of us to declare it a success.  Just about every truck either sold out of served continuously through the event, without interruption.

And that, I suppose, is my retort to the complainers.  It was a complete success.  If you planned ahead and arrived early – or had some patience and stayed late – you likely had a chance to eat as much as you could handle. I had to leave at about six, but not before scoring from two trucks, all while having great conversation and running into about half the people I know.

I know a lot of you love Santa Clarita for its Yacht Rock tribute bands in the park.  And I’m happy for you. But on Saturday, the rest of us had our chance, and we had a blast. Just as I suspected, it was coolest thing to happen in Santa Clarita in a very long time.  I’ve found that those who came and stuck around had a great time. The naysayers seem to be those who missed out. (For next time, check out Lady Ducayne’s pro tips for food truck festival enjoyment)

It’s worth noting that this was really an event for the purpose of selling the remaining group of homes in Valencia. I’d go into why and how, but that’s another post. The City, by all appearances, had nothing to do with it. (For one, they wouldn’t have hired an company named “Cluster Truck” to make it happen). Much respect is due to team Awesometown. They did a great thing for this community.  But soon enough, these homes will be sold and their incentive to throw such a bash will be gone.

I hope this event made truck operators give our town another look.  I’m aware of a well-repected truck that was blown away by the turnout, and is seriously considering a return trip.  I also hope that this event inspires others in the valley to facilitate festivals like this. Already, Brave New World Comics in Newhall hosts trucks regularly.

Final bit: this picture speaks a thousand words. I can scarcely think of two people I know whose views differ more than the guy on the left and the guy in the center. Look at those smiles!  It was that kind of night. All I can say is the guy on the right is a helluva diplomat.

(excellent) photo credits: Main photo: R.E. via flickr; Fried chicken: Lady Ducayne; Three guys and a bag of coffee: Steve Petzold.

Heather Merenda, the city’s sustainability planner, said popular programs include energy audits, showing 748 residents how they could “tune up” their homes to boost energy efficiency; a bulb-exchange program replacing less-efficient ones with more efficient ones; and education programs for schools.

The city also has a high recycling rate, is bike- and pedestrian-friendly, and boasts a restaurant waste composting program, all of which also impressed the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Emphasis mine.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the City of Santa Clarita is great for bike riding if all you’re interested in doing is riding recreationally, tooling around on a summer evening with the fam, enjoying the outdoors.

But if you want to bicycle for transportation to enjoy all the benefits that brings (significant cost savings, health improvement, environmentally friendly), riding in the SCV frankly sucks.

It sucks because, like LA, the SCV has great weather, is relatively flat, and, unlike LA, is not that large. Cycling as transportation should be a natural fit for our city, but it’s not. It’s not because the City’s philosophy has always been that bicyclists should be segregated from other forms of traffic, pushed off onto paths so as to not inconvenience any one else, even in the slightest. And paths are expensive and difficult to build, which ultimately means they don’t connect housing centers to job & retail centers as well as regular roads do.

Which is why I’ve advocated for a year or so now the efficacy and affordability of plain old on-street bike lanes, which go where the roads go.

But our City (mostly the City Council), with a few notable exceptions, doesn’t see it that way. They’ll continue to look at cycling as a recreational, fun-time activity until someone gets elected who knows what the score is. And they’ll be touting the SCV as a “bike friendly” community thanks to the NRDC’s award in the days and weeks ahead.

And as far as pedestrian friendliness goes: sure, if you’re in Valencia, walking can’t be beat. But if you’re poor and live in Newhall, the city won’t even build you a sidewalk.

According to Wikipedia generic “heart disease” is the leading killer in the United States, accounting for 25.4% of all deaths in the US. So its rank as the number one killer of both men and women in LA County is hardly surprising.

But who would have thought homicide and motor vehicle crashes account for the #2 and #3 causes of premature death respectively for men in LA County? Do men get into that many crashes in LA County that it ranks as the #3 killer of us? Apparently so.

Sadly, homicide ranks as the #1 killer of blacks and Latinos in LA County, according to the report. Lung disease is the #2 killer of whites behind heart disease, followed by motor vehicle crashes. As the report notes, risky behavior contributes heavily to these causes of death.

Speaking of health and motor vehicles, there’s another aspect to the report that applies to us here locally. I don’t think Santa Clarita is more or less obese than any other community, but the report notes that obesity “is one of the greatest challenges facing Los Angeles County” and that, taken together with diabetes, “threatens to halt and even reverse the gains in life expectancy we’ve achieved.”

As many planners and so-called new-urbanists have argued for years, increased obesity rates are a direct result of suburban, car-friendly and pedestrian-unfriendly development (see this 2003 NYT story “As Suburbs Grow, So Do Waistlines” for a sample). And this report takes that same line, arguing that city planners and decision makers ought to “increase access to safe places for residents to walk, bike, play and exercise” and “incorporate health considerations in General Plans, transportation plans and redevelopment activities.”

And I think “incorporating health considerations” is one thing the City of Santa Clarita (and arguably Newhall Land with Newhall Ranch) is trying to accomplish with its “valley of villages,” ped-friendly concept. Of course one SCV man’s ped-friendly, jobs/housing balanced development is another man’s high density OVOV nightmare (that they moved here to escape from!) so therein lies the crux of the matter.

This is one of the reasons I choose to live in Newhall and one of the reasons I’d live in Valencia: they are relatively walkable compared to other areas of the SCV like Stevenson Ranch. And this report backs that idea up: living in walkable communities contributes to a healthy, more active lifestyle.

Cows grazing in Newhall Ranch

I kept waiting for the heat today but have been pleasantly surprised at how mild and breezy it has been.

Tomorrow’s forecast mirrors today’s – with a projected high of 83°F, it’s a few clicks below our almanac average of 92.

I have to believe the beach traffic diminished somewhat with the mild conditions.

How did you spend your Saturday? How will you spend your Independence Day?

Every December, the otherwise average, run-of-the-mill beige-colored cul-de-sacs of Santa Clarita are transformed into sometimes spectacular displays of lighted, kitschy holiday bliss.

It’s part of Americana, even for those who aren’t particularly religious, to enjoy at least looking at lights, if not putting up a modest strand or something more involved.

There are some legendary areas in the LA basin that lay claim to their seasonal, bejeweled nature.  Christmas Tree Lane, Candy Cane Lane, and countless clusters covered in living Christmas color.  Rather than having one large core of lights, we have streets that are gems scattered throughout our valley.  The local media typically run their boots-on-the-ground reports, and there are sites to help you track down worthy drive-by’s and walk-arounds, but there’s an angle that is rarely discussed: community.

Go ahead, mosey down Clearidge Drive in Myers’ neck of the woods.  Check out Gina Court in Saugus, or perhaps Brooks Circle in Bossert’s ‘hood.  The residents in these communities (and many others) have created traditions–painted cutouts that theme their patch, tea lights on the sidewalk, bonfires blazing in driveways, virtual tunnels of lights, hot chocolate for visitors–even live music.  That’s the part of the holidays I live for; the connections that are cultivated and put on display as a living example of the essence of the season.

If you think this sounds crazy or naïve, consider Wakefield Court–a street with a couple dozen homes in Saugus and a perennial favorite in the Signal’s Holiday Light Tour.  Dubbed “Wakefield Winter Wonderland,” the giant candy canes and lighted banner at the entrance serve as a sort of honey pot enticing folks on their way to, say, La Cocina Grill, to stroll on by.  Every single home has a light display, some modest but most over-the-top.  Lights string from house to house, with some sharing more of the communal load than others.  A band plays in the garage of one of the homes; there are families gathered in driveways and sidewalks huddled around makeshift firepits.  Donations are collected for the Santa Clarita Shelter.  The Wakefield tradition was borne out of the tragedy and hardships that followed the 1994 quake, which forged a bond between neighbors that transcends similar street addresses and a common nine digit zip code.  The ritual remains, a vivid and warm reminder of the power of friendship, hope and love.

Now that’s something to celebrate.

Pictures and a short video I took of Wakefield Court this weekend:

I’ve had the unfortune of being near some of the schools during arrival and dismissal time. And every time I’m there, I marvel at how crowded small neighborhood streets can become in just a matter of minutes. What’s more, I marvel at how ineffeciently we use our resources: not only are most parents driving only their student to school (rather than three or four others as well), many aren’t even following road signs, directions from staff or common sense in the way they ingress and egress the school zone. Add that to the fact that most neighborhoods have elementary schools in them, which means these schools are within walking distance for many of the students.

Yet everyday we see the same craziness; everyone packs into their car at the designated time then gets frustrated when the street fills up.

Nuts to all that I say.

What if we could replace this:

with this:

okay okay, before you roll your eyes and say, “There goes Jeff the crazy bike commuter guy, I’m going to close this site and go read dlisted.com” I’m not talking about bike commuting here, per se. I’m talking about a crazy European concept called a “Bike Bus,” explained herein via the Streetsblog Wiki:

A Bike Bus is a group of cyclists riding together to a specific destination on a schedule with an experienced leader. Bike Buses are often formed by commuters who ride together to work. However, a Bike Bus can be adapted to go anywhere groups of riders want to go- church, shopping, the zoo, parks—If a road goes there, a Bike Bus can go there.   It’s called a “bus” because there is a set route and timetable so it can pick up more “passengers” along the way.

How easy would it be to adapt this concept for kids in the upper grades in an elementary school, for example? With paseos running so close to schools in much of the valley, great weather for most of the year, and schools close to homes, a “bike bus” might be a solution that fits into Santa Clarita’s design perfectly.

Think of all the things this solves: kids get exercise, have fun on the way to school, noisy, dirty vehicle traffic is taken off the road and parents’ stress level goes down. Parental volunteers could lead the “bike bus” and coordinate with their schools while other parents coordinate the bus’ timetable and route. Best of all, students ride safely in a large group with parental supervision.

I know this idea wouldn’t eliminate all the awful traffic at arrival and dismissal time, but surely it could only help.

The City of Santa Clarita’s Central Park will be re-opened to the public. The last of the fire suppression units are leaving the area and the City’s parks maintenance staff will be evaluating the condition of the field before opening the park completely. Beginning this evening, park patrons may use the dog park, basketball courts and trails.

It’s anticipated that the park will be fully open for all organized recreational activities this weekend.

My dog certainly appreciates having Central Bark open again.

No one questions that the needs of the fire fighters outweigh our needs as a community to use Central Park during emergencies.

However, as an outdoorsy person, I came to miss having access to the park for the last two weeks. Some parks in Santa Clarita are better in some ways than Central Park (for picnics or lazy naps, Newhall and Hart come to mind because of their big, shady trees), but no park in town offers all the amenities that Central Park does (especially the dog park).

I’ll be glad to have it back this weekend!