When I was a freshly-licensed, pimply-faced, up-to-no-good teenager, my parents and my friends’ parents all warned me to stay off of Highway 126.

“It’s nicknamed Death Alley for a reason,” they said. “It’s one of the most dangerous highways in the state,” a friend’s dad who happened to be a CHP officer told my friends and me. “Stay away from it!”

Now whether that was true at the time or not, it certainly made sense for parents to tell their kids to stay away from the picturesque road, which used to feature suicide passing lanes before it was modernized.

Zoom forward 16 years and I feel that if I had kids I’d tell them to stay away from Bouquet Canyon for the same reasons. Consider the death and destruction of the last two years:

• Bicyclist hit and paralyzed by a hit and run driver in Spring 2009
• Bicyclist hit and killed by a hit and run driver in summer 2009
• Stevenson Ranch dentist kills himself after crashing his Lamborghini in the Canyon
• 24 year old, allegedly intoxicated, twists his Porsche around a tree, killing his 26 year old female passenger
• Unidentified sport biker killed in March 2010

Last year I wrote about some sport bikers who were zooming up and down the canyon, making my friend Kevin Korenthal and I nervous to ride. So we pulled over and filmed them shooting through at speeds approaching 100 mph.

Look, the point is this: Bouquet Canyon may not have any more fatalities or accidents than any other stretch of road in or near the SCV, but it is clear that it attracts those who like to speed because, let’s face it, it’s a really cool place to drive/ride.

So cool, in fact,t hat those who like to race it warn each other about enforcement crackdowns. Check out this post in a motorcycle forum from 2008:

Boquet is under heavy CHP patrol looking specifically for bikes (with modifications). I should know. At the start of Boquet on the only straight, I pass a car with Radner rapidly coming up on me, as soon as we pass, we see a totally white CHP radar unit on the shoulder…SH*T……! We roll by him and he doesn’t move, we go around the next right hander and a CHP Interceptor is all lit up blocking the road. We slow and he waves us next to him, and points at me to pull over and let all others go. He says they got me at 85 in a 55. He was real nice as I explain they must have gotten a fix on that blue sportbike guy (Radner) about to overtake me. I think they really did ’cause Mike was going faster about to pass me (where he shouldn’t of as I am passing a vehicle!). The cop seems to be thinking about it. I couldn’t f*ckin’ believe it! WHAT THE F. He radios the Radar Unit for a desription of the bike. (I am on the black Sprint with bags). I hear over the radio “He’s on a black bike with saddlebags wearing a black jacket.” Cop #2 asks “What color of helmet?” Cop #1, dark helmet, {long pause}, maybe blue. I am thinking, “DAMN, ticket for sure!” Then Cop #2 says. “Well it sounds like we may not have the right guy, there is some doubt here. And your bike looks expensive, one doesn’t modify a bike like that, we are looking for illegal mods also. Since we aren’t sure you are the right guy, we’ll let you go, have a safe day.”

It’s unreasonable to expect the CHP to patrol the 10+ mile long canyon at all hours of the day and night, especially when the sport bikers with mods are so much faster than conventional CHP cruisers.

Therefore a simple, cost effective solution to the problem emerges: Speed bumps (or humps) every half mile or so at least through the twistiest, funnest sections of the canyon. I know they are hated by everyone (including me) but you can’t deny their effectiveness. The next time a group of adrenaline junkies want to race their Lambos or suped-up motorcycles, they’ll be forced to slow down lest they go…well…airborne.

Over a dozen people attended LA County and Alta Design’s Bicycle Master Plan meeting last month at Hart Park.

The meeting, which focused exclusively on bike infrastructure in the unincorporated County areas of Santa Clarita, was useful and informative. County staff and Alta planners started the meeting off with an overview of the previous meeting (held in Castaic back in April) and laid out the goals for the night.

Cyclists were then invited to review maps of the SCV, note areas of the valley they’d like to see more cycling infrastructure and note their priorities for county bicycle programs (like driver education, safety courses, etc).

Overwhelmingly, cyclists at the meeting said they’d like to see a marked bike lane running the entirety of the Old Road from Castaic to the Newhall Pass. Adding a lane there would address a major weakness of bike infrastructure in the SCV: a total lack of a safe north-south route on the west side of town. Right now, it’s downright frightening to ride on portions of the Old Road, yet there is no other route to places like Castaic, Val Verde, or the businesses in the Commerce Center.

I also had my pet list of bike lane recommendations: I wanted lanes in both directions on Sierra Highway from Agua Dulce to the City line (ideally those lanes would continue into City territory, Sierra Highway is very wide), lanes on Pico Canyon Blvd connecting to Stevenson Ranch Parkway’s lanes, and lanes on Vasquez Canyon Road, north of Saugus.

The great thing about meetings like this is that you get to see how and where other people ride.  Some suggested lanes on roads I had never thought of, and it turns out the County is already studying sections of the SCV for lanes that I haven’t even considered. Check out the map:

Bike lanes on county portions of Copperhill Road would be particularly welcome as the City has bike lanes on Copperhill east of Haskell. A bike lane on Placerita Canyon Blvd east of Highway 14 would be sweet for both road and mountain bikers, as would a lane on Bouquet Canyon Road, which has been the site of two vehicle-on-bike crashes (one of them fatal) in the last 18 months.

Of course, not everyone rides their bicycle the same way. Quickly there emerged among the cyclists divisions in the old bike path vs bike lane debate. Some cyclists at the meeting were more recreational-minded; they argued that investments should be made in off-street bike paths, like the ones the City of Santa Clarita has built to segregate cyclists from vehicle traffic.

Other cyclists who view cycling not just as recreation but also as transportation argued that on-street bike lanes are preferable in that they are cheap to implement and go where the roads already go.

It’s an important debate: are bikes merely toys or exercise equipment, or are they vehicles that should be seen as part of the transportation network? I think that unless an off-street path system is complete from one end to another with minimal obstructions to the rider that on-street lanes are preferable.

A minority of cyclists (none of whom were at the meeting as far as I could tell) don’t believe cyclists should have any infrastructure whatsoever, arguing that segmenting cyclists from vehicle traffic paradoxically increases danger to cyclists.

Overall it was a very useful and interesting meeting and I thank the County and Alta for coordinating it and coming prepared.

More County Bicycle Master Plan meetings will be held in the coming months. Keep an eye on SCVTalk.com and LACOUNTYBIKEPLAN.ORG for more.

Last time it was spilled pomegranates. This time it’s cardboard. What’s it going to be next? Nerf balls? Tickle Me Elmos?

LA Times:

The southbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Sylmar were blocked Tuesday morning after a big rig flipped over near the Newhall Pass.

The 4 a.m. accident near the Roxford Street exit spurred the California Highway Patrol to issue a SigAlert about 20 minutes later.

Although all lanes of the southbound freeway were closed, CHP officers were directing traffic onto the right shoulder to allow cars to move, said CHP Officer Anthony Martin.

The big rig was leaking diesel, he said.

CHP officers initially estimated the freeway would be opened two hours after the accident but later changed the status of the reopening to “undetermined,” Martin said.

The cause of the big-rig crash was under investigation.

Five years ago there were reports that someday a freeway & tunnel might be built from the 14 to the 210, allowing the AV and SCV to bypass the Newhall Pass altogether. But I haven’t seen anything on that in several years. In the 1960s, I recall there was a CalTrans proposal to build a highway through or near Towsley Canyon, but that (thankfully) never happened.

It’s pretty clear now that no alternate highway systems are coming; we’re going to be stuck with the vulnerable Newhall Pass even as we add more people to the SCV and the Antelope Valley.

It’s too bad we don’t have a rail option from the SCV to the west San Fernando Valley & West Los Angeles.

I know this part of town pretty well- along this section of Soledad is a nice, wide bike lane that’s used by hundreds of cyclists every week:

Both KHTS and SCVSheriff.com say the vehicle struck the curb and overturned. For that to have happened, the driver must have left his normal traffic lane and passed through the relatively wide bike lane before striking the curb. How unfortunate that a 15 year old kid was standing right where the driver crashed.

I’m still a little raw over the 4th of July crash that killed Matilda Garnica so it’s even more upsetting now to lose a 15 year old kid who was probably just enjoying his summer vacation.

My heart goes out to his family.

EDIT:

The Signal adds this disturbing detail in their Qwik-E email:

At first I was like: hey, that’s not so bad. Just a small refueling station. But then they panned to the gigantic solar array that would be necessary to generate electricity that would take hydrogen out of city water (in our case, state water/well water) and make it ready for your car. Probably a bit impractical and too expensive.

I suppose you could use city power to generate the electricity for the refueling device, but then why bother with hydrogen in the first place? Why not just get an electric car like the Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt? At least you wouldn’t have to use water to fuel the car. Both systems seem to take awhile to refuel the car, however.

The circumstances of last night’s awful fatal collision at Valencia Blvd in front of Islands Restaurant are becoming more clear. Killed was 43 year old mother Matilda Garnica, according to ABC 7 which has a good report:

ABC 7 says the victim that was airlifted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles from the COC parking lot is 12 years old and is in critical condition. A total of six children were injured according to ABC.

It’s not clear which of the two cars above -a Dodge SUV or Inifiniti sedan- was at fault and which one hit the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk. It’s remarkable that the driver who ran the red light was not detained (according to the ABC 7 report).

UPDATE: Tim Myers posted a link to an SCVTV.com story that says the 21 year old female driver of the white Infiniti sedan ran the red light, crashed into the SUV, and then hit the crowd of pedestrians. Leon Worden says the Infiniti driver was driving east bound on Valencia at the time of the collision.

Several commenters at the Signal’s site confirm the heroic efforts of other fireworks watchers to move the car off the victims:

Some outlets are saying the collision occurred at 9:47 pm, which would have been towards the end of the fireworks show. The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Twitter feed first reported the incident at 9:54 pm.

I was watching the fireworks from the opposite side of Town Center, along Creekside. The center of Valencia was packed like I had never seen it before; people were camped out everywhere: sidewalks, grassy medians, parking lots, paseos, many of them just feet from the street. Shortly after the show, I heard multiple emergency sirens, and then two helicopters observed the scene above Town Center for at least a half hour.

The City had closed off McBean north of Valencia Blvd, but all lanes on Valencia Blvd itself were open to traffic at around 9:00 pm when we drove through there. There were scores of people sitting in front of Islands Restaurant and the shops in the Kohl’s shopping center.

All night, I observed impatient drivers on the roads; at the corner of McBean & Valencia a couple walking with the light in the crosswalk were nearly hit by an impatient or careless driver. I saw no traffic enforcement officers at intersections.

Some of the commenters at the Signal’s site are already blaming the City for not closing down Valencia Blvd. I don’t think we know enough to lay blame (beyond the obvious red-light runner) but I hope this incident raises awareness that pedestrian and spectator safety should trump parking convenience and traffic at events like this.

I mourn for that woman’s family too. I hope the 12 year old boy recovers and pulls through. What a tragic end to an otherwise wonderful day.

Query: What’s a group of young, internet-savvy SCV food connoisseurs to do with themselves in a town that pines for a Cheesecake Factory above all else?

Answer: Un-Think SCV and get the hell out of town on the Sandwich Train to Los Angeles

That’s just what I and about 11 others did last weekend. After some extensive planning by SCVTalk reader and fierce BBQer Mike D. and Lady Ducayne, the 12 of us boarded a Metrolink train Saturday morning in Old Town Newhall and left with empty stomachs, fat wallets and high expectations of finding some good eats in urban Los Angeles.

Metrolink: An Eco-Friendly link to LA

We are very fortunate as a community to have Metrolink services at three train stations throughout town. On Saturdays you can buy a round-trip ticket to downtown Los Angeles for only $11, a bargain when you consider the cost of gasoline and parking at various spots in LA (also, a Metrolink ticket also allows you free transfers on MTA’s rail system).The trip south only takes about 43 minutes from Old Town Newhall to Union Station in downtown LA during which time you can enjoy chatting with friends aboard a clean and comfortable Metrolink train.

The SCV Sandwich Train crew at Union Station with MTA Headquarters in the background

Langer’s Deli

Our first stop was Langer’s Deli near MacArthur park. To get there and try their world famous pastrami sandwiches, we hopped on board MTA’s Red Line and got to experience that most un-LA like sensation: riding an east-coast style subway.

No, we didn't get mugged

Now ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you I’m not generally known to be very knowledgeable or critical about food. Generally I look at food as fuel: the relationship between taste and quality is inversely proportional to my hunger levels. In other words, the hungrier I am, the less I care about taste and quality.

But on Saturday, I had no choice. The whole day was programmed out in advance by skilled food strategist Mike D, so I arrived very hungry at Langer’s and enjoyed a pastrami sandwich (extra lean) and pickles that were, to put it mildly, an extravagant feast for my ignorant taste buds:

Not just lunch, a veritable Sandwich Experience

The rest of the Sandwich Train crew, experienced and critical eaters all of them, enjoyed Langer’s too.

Next Stop : Fancy Ice Cream

What better way to wash down delicious pastrami than with some fancy gourmet ice cream at a well-known indy ice cream shop in a hipster neighborhood?

Enter Scoops, reportedly one of LA’s better ice cream stores, and just a scant few blocks away from another Red Line subway stop.

Delicious: I chose Orange, Merlot Sorbet and Oreo Vanilla crunch

The neat thing about Scoops is that they change the ice cream flavors constantly. In fact, they make fresh ice cream daily, and when they run out, that’s it. They close. That means you have to get there early to enjoy the good stuff. Scarcity, it turns out, is sometimes good for business.

After enjoying that tasty treat, we checked out a nearby bicycle shop then walked the few blocks back to the Red Line station for a trip back to downtown LA.

Bottega Louie

Next we stopped at a ritzy place named Bottega Louie. This fancy restaurant took so long serving us simple foods (I ordered a salad) that we left out of frustration. The Sandwich Train crew are currently savaging it on Yelp.com (Southland restaurants, beware their wit!), so I won’t pile on here, but sufffice it to say, this restaurant was a disappointment, though their tarts looked amazing.

But we had an ace up our sleeves, a sandwich place that never disappoints, and we headed there post-haste onboard the Red Line once again.

Phillipe

How to describe Phillipe? I suppose one could say Phillipe is to Downtown Los Angeles as Saugus Cafe or Waystation is to Santa Clarita: a veritable eating institution, over 100 years old. Serving delicious French dip sandwiches to people of all incomes, races, nationalities and statuses, Phillipe French Dip and delicious lemonade never leaves you wanting

My double-dipped French Dip served with melted swiss cheese and lays chips added in for extra crunch

Post Script

Sufficiently fattened and satisfied, the weary Sandwich Train crew hopped back on board Metrolink for an easy ride home. The trip was a total success, and more are planned in the future, but you don’t have to wait for us! The Metrolink and SCV stations make exploring LA a snap; you can even bring your bicycle along if you want.

So what you ask?

SO WHAT! It’s good news, that’s what. Because it looks to me like the Valencia Auto Center, that once-powerful interest group that represents about 25 dealers on/near Creekside, must be enjoying increased sales if they’re able to pay for full wraps in The Signal.

And that’s good news for City Hall because their tax coffers have been in a death spiral (okay maybe that’s exaggeration) for a few years now as stingy SCVers selfishly held onto their money and refused to buy new Escalades.

Car sales are important to Santa Clarita. Afterall, new car sales helped fuel the SCV’s boom during the early naughty aughties, not to mention all the support businesses (think car washes, maintenance places and bling outfitters) that bloomed as well.

It appears to me in Newhall that the VAC is borrowing Newhall land’s technique: rebrand an existing product (dilapidated Creekside in the case of the dealers and 40 year old Valencia in the case of Newhall Land) as something new and exciting. Ergo Awesometown and Valencia Auto Center, “Southern California’s Largest Auto Center”

Awesometown Auto Dealers Inc!

It won’t be long now until we start getting daily updates on the Valencia Acura dogs (Scooter and Spark Plug?) once again, and that means, my friends, that Fat City USA can’t be far behind!

But it’s not just full-Signal wraps that have quickened my heart lately. I’m also noting a return of that once-ubiquitious, only-in-the-SCV mascot vehicle: the raised stomper truck with boat/motorcycle stickers on the back. Check out this brand new behemoth spotted near my house:

The New Chevrolet : A lot like the old Chevrolet

This double-cabbed duallie is not only raised a few feet off the ground, it sports chrome spikes on the front and back wheels and a muffler the width of my thigh. Built to intimidate Democrats and Prius drivers but inspire Tea Partiers, this massive truck tackles the mean, meandering streets of Santa Clarita with ease, providing its driver an instant bad-ass credibility boost.

I haven’t seen a stomper truck this large since early 2008 (and yes I posted about it then) before gas prices hit $4 a gallon, Wall Street collapsed, the Gulf of Mexico actually contained water and not just oil, and a black man became our president.

The return of the stomper truck to the SCV automotive scene  and Valencia Auto Center’s bold new advertising campaign can only mean one thing: Santa Clarita’s love affair with the automobile is back and stronger than ever and pretty soon we can all go back to kvetching about how powerful the auto dealers are instead of talking about Bob Kellar’s sanity, crazy City Council candidates and Frank Ferry’s outbursts.

I for one welcome a return to this familiar territory.

That’s the word that came to mind when I read The Signal’s story today on the “postponed” or “paused” Lyons Avenue railroad crossing. The City says money is to blame; they’d rather wait for a developer to contract with the city to fund (in part or whole I suppose) the estimated $7.5 million cost of building a railroad crossing at the eastern end of Lyons Avenue. The purpose of the crossing would be to 1) replace the obsolete and dangerous crossing at 13th Street & Railroad and 2) ultimately link Lyons Avenue to Dockweiler, thus bypassing Placerita Canyon and its fussy homeowners.

But now that link, that crucial piece of infrastructure for Newhall that has been in the planning stages for decades, is “paused.”

Come on, don’t bullshit me. It’s dead isn’t it?

And we all know why it’s dead. It’s dead because the Placerita Homeowners, the most powerful NIMBY special interest group in the SCV with their own sphere of influence, their own special standards district and their own high-powered attorney, thinks that that link will lead to the development of high density housing that threatens their safety and makes it difficult for them to use golf carts in Placerita Canyon.

Indeed, that was the gist of this story on Friday afternoon, when Signal Publisher Ian Lamont teased today’s story  for Saturday’s Signal via the Qwik-E email:

This story should have appeared in Saturday’s Signal, and as you can see from the tease above,  funding challenges weren’t mentioned as a cause for the “pause” of the Lyons Avenue rail crossing. In fact, the tease all but says the city is killing off the rail crossing “in light of public outcry, primarily from Placerita Cnayon Residents.”

Yet come Monday morning, we learn that it’s actually funding challenges that’s “pausing” the rail crosssing. What changed between 3:02pm on Friday and this morning? Is there another version of this story sitting on a  Signal hard drive that didn’t get published?

No surprise that the P-Canyon homeowners are pleased by this development, whatever its cause. Val Thomas tells The Signal that “Our point has really not been to stop the thing [Lyons crossing] but to get the whole picture,” by which she means that, to P-Canyon residents, a Lyons rail crossing necessarily means that 500-700 safety-threatening condos will be built at the entrance to their rural-equestrian paradise.

What she (and The Signal) leave out, however, is that the condos can’t be built now because the existing 13th Street Railroad crossing is totally and completely inadequate. Thus, from the P-Canyon resident’s point of view, if you kill Lyons Avenue crossing, you kill the 500-700 condos.

The City has always rightfully looked at the Lyons crossing on its own, because that’s how it should be looked at. It’s a piece of infrastructure that will lead to a four lane road connecting Old Town Newhall to Sierra Highway. It has nothing to do with Casden’s condos, that’s just the foil the P-Canyon people use to fight progress.

And progress, make no mistake, is what this is about. It’s about building a road that puts traffic into a revitalized Old Town Newhall. A road that would eventually allow Disney Studios at the Ranch workers quick and easy access to businesses in Newhall. It’s like Newhall’s own Cross Valley Connector.

And now it’s dead because of a handful of rich property owners in Placerita Canyon, a group of homeowners who have veto power over just about anything in this part of the SCV. A group of homeowners who practically own us.

They win, we lose.

And the Lyons Crossing is dead but the City doesn’t have the courage to say it.

And then there’s the other side of the coin: those who complain about too much infrastructure. I’m looking at you Decoro, with your wide, high speed streets, your lovely Paseos and ped bridges, and your shiny new bike lane!

Some parts of the city actively refuse ped-friendly infrastructure. Placerita likes its “rural equestrian” atmosphere, and the Happy Valley part of Newhall recently decided it didn’t want sidewalks either. That’s all fine; those people have other options.

But then there’s another, largely voiceless group of people in Santa Clarita who lack even basic infrastructure.

I was talking with another cyclist yesterday about my recent post on “Frank” the man who got hit by a car on Rye Canyon Road. This particular cyclist lives on Newhall Avenue near the Green Thumb, and he felt that cycling & walking infrastructure in the rest of town was luxurious compared to what he’s got in his neighborhood. To wit:

This is Newhall Avenue, formerly San Fernando Road, north of Highway 14. This part of Newhall has lots of high-density housing. Condos, apartments and town homes line Newhall Avenue and Valle Del Oro. It also happens to be one of the poorer parts of town, with higher crime rates as a result.

Nevermind riding your bike through here (which is a terrifying and bumpy affair), it’s simply a chore to walk through this part of town too.  Go grab a coffee at the nearby Starbucks and have a look for yourself: mothers pushing strollers or carrying their children on the bumpy dirt path adjacent to the road. People carrying their laundry to the laundromat with barely a curb (and not even that in some places) separating them from cars driving at 60 mph. Want to cross the street? You’ve got to hike for a few blocks to get to the nearest cross walk.

And this corridor is one of the main gateways to our City.

One would think that in 23 years of City-hood, our City could have built the most basic piece of pedestrian infrastructure for the thousands of residents who live near here if it cared enough. Especially when they endlessly tout their “60 miles” of off-street paths in brochures and videos. I’m sure there’s parts of Canyon Country like this too (Sierra Highway comes to mind).

Don’t get me wrong. I think the City has done a wonderful job remaking Old Town Newhall with the Community Center, the Metrolink station and Main street. But the lack of even sidewalks just a half mile away is just shameful if you ask me. And it definitely puts some of my complaints in perspective.