LA Public Press reporter Phoenix Tso joins us for our first podcast of the year. Tso covered mutual aid efforts immediately after last January’s Eaton Fire in the Altadena area of the San Gabriel Mountains. Marking the anniversary of the 14,000 acre fire that destroyed 10,000 structures and took at least 19 lives, Tso checked in again with small business owners rebuilding their lives back from the disaster.

Struggles are plenty: insurance claims, fire remediation, lost income, lost neighbors and customers, and real estate development. The stories Tso shares with us are somber, but remind us why the community needs support from the San Gabriel Valley at large. A lightly edited transcript of the conversation can be found below.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Chris Greenspon - This is SGV Connect 145. I'm Chris Greenspon. This is our first podcast of the new year. We hope you all had a good break. Quickly, before we begin, though, I just want to remind you that Streetsblog's San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the foothills and commuter express lines traveling into the heart of downtown LA. To plan your trip, visit Foothill transit.org. Foothill Transit "Going good places". 

Today, we're looking back at the one year anniversary of the Eaton Fire and recovery efforts to keep the community intact. Here as our guest, we have Phoenix Tso reporter for LA Public Press. Phoenix, welcome back to SGV Connect. 

Phoenix Tso - Thank you for having me. 

Chris - So earlier this week, you filed a story checking in with business owners in Altadena who've been able to reopen a year after the fire. How are people holding up now, a year later? 

Phoenix - Yeah, I just did a story on small business owners whose businesses were affected by the Eaton Fire in Altadena one year later. I think it's kind of a mixed bag. I talked to a bunch of people who were able to reopen. Some, like, just a couple months ago, reopened. One person actually, technically never closed. She said she was the only person in her shopping plaza, without a working air conditioning and a patchy roof,  all burned up. 

But the building was luckily intact, and her store was luckily intact. She runs a print and copying shop. So, yeah, it's a mixed bag. 

Some people, their businesses burned down completely. It's a total loss. One person I talked to runs a martial arts studio, and she actually bought the land that her studio was standing on. She's trying to rebuild, trying to raise the money, and she says that, like, it'll probably take three to five years for her to come back and for the community to really come back. Yes, there's businesses that have reopened, but there's just not as many people back in Altadena one year later. 

Chris - And what's the mood?

Phoenix - It's somber. I would say. 

I think there's still a big community feel, though. A lot of these businesses were pillars of the community, and they're where people gather still…or gather even more. For example, Fair Oaks Burger, they closed during the fire, and they didn't reopen until June, basically because of smoke remediation issues and debris and everything like that. But they kept doing mutual aid operations in their parking lot. They worked with the World Central Kitchen to distribute food, and they ended up partnering with different groups to do grocery distributions. So they've still been around in Altadena, and there are a lot of community events there, and a lot of the community really gathers there. Business is slower than before, but people did come back after Fair Oaks Burger reopened. 

Chris - What kind of community is this and why do people want to preserve it? Obviously, every time a community has a tragedy, we hear some of the same descriptors. But what makes Altadena Altadena?

Phoenix - I think Altadena is special because it's technically urban. It's close to LA but it really does have a small town feel. I wonder if Altadena residents would agree with me…of like a Gilmore Girls type of feel. It's right by the mountains. It's beautiful up there. It's a little isolated and out of the way. 

People who like a quiet, sort of nature…very close to nature, type of community that still is also close to urban amenities. I think they love that. As has been said it's a historically black community. It's one of the few communities where black people are allowed to own homes for a long time, and that community has been affected heavily by the fire.There's a big question whether they'll be able to make a comeback, especially with a lot of corporate developers buying up lots that have burned down. 

So it's actually a very diverse working class community as well. It's kind of unique in that sense, very different from the Palisades fire. Where the Pacific Palisades is one of the wealthiest communities in LA County. The diversity, the mix, but also like a very tight knit community. I think when you go out to community events, there is a small business fair on Small Business Saturday, right after Thanksgiving, you could definitely see a lot of the community out there, and people knowing each other, and really breaking bread together.

Chris - And it still has a little bit of that 'Dena' cultural feel with the hippie stuff and the art galleries. 

Phoenix - Yeah, definitely. And in fact, I talked to an art gallery owner who started dedicating his gallery to artists affected by the fire in Altadena and Pasadena. And he said, “Yeah, the support that people are showing those artists is really amazing.”

Chris - So you spoke to a range of different types of businesses. You spoke to the gallerist. You spoke to somebody who's trying to get a martial arts studio back up and running, hopefully in a few years. You spoke to somebody who owned a print and copy shop and I think a restaurant or two. Overall, what are the challenges that they spoke about in getting reopened? 

Phoenix - Yeah, I think their insurance companies were a big challenge. 

I interviewed a lot of business owners at Mariposa junction, which is one of the few shopping areas where one of the buildings burned down, but one did not burn down. So those businesses have come back. So I think that's a big challenge. 

Oh, the gallery owner I talked to. His name is Ben McGinty. He said that the biggest challenge for him is being back when everybody else has lost everything and it’s a very like sobering thought, for sure. 

But also, people said that the challenge was getting their shops remediated in a timely manner, they had to wait months for that to happen. I think some of them did it themselves and still need to get reimbursed by their insurance company. I guess some insurance companies were understanding. Some, just gave an attitude, like, “why are you asking?” It's like, “oh, I'm a policyholder. Like, why wouldn't I ask for this, for, you know, this to be paid out?” 

Yeah, I think having the money to be able to reopen and rebuild, having a good landlord who would like not charge rent while you're not in the store and an insurance company to help with repairs. Those are all challenges. 

Chris - So how are folks surviving, or is it? Are they getting grants? Are they getting help from the city? Are they getting community buyouts? What's going on? 

Phoenix - Yes, there are a lot of grants. Fair Oaks Burger, it's kind of interesting. You know, Rick Caruso, the billionaire businessman, his foundation has issued a good amount of grants. Interesting to see his name in the mix there. 

There are a lot of grants from corporations, different chambers of commerce. There are low interest loans, or no interest loans that people have been able to get another challenge is the red tape it takes to reopen in LA County.

The owner of Fair Oaks Burger talked about that a lot, and she said that, if they make the process easier with a little less red tape. She thinks  more businesses will be able to come back more easily. 

Chris - So where are we seeing real estate movement? You alluded to this a little bit. 

Phoenix - Oh, yeah, I haven't looked at this in a lot of detail, but I've seen a lot of reports.A lot of the lots, I think it's several hundred residential lots that have a lot of people have  put their lots up for sale because they aren't able to rebuild. 

That's a similar challenge. The insurance companies have not come through for people who lost their homes, which is really horrible to hear. So they're selling their lots. And a lot of corporate developers, LLCs, are buying up those lots. It remains to be seen what they're doing with them. 

I saw a report where  one of them is being constructed right now, and it's kind of interesting. The home they're building is for sale for at least a million dollars, or something like that. I don't know how a lot of people can afford that. So, there are a lot of community groups who are really tracking that and are really trying to advocate for community land trusts and for community minded people to buy up these lots and to be able to sell or rent them to working class folks, just to preserve the diversity of Altadena, to let allow people to be able to come back. 

I read last year, groups had asked for, maybe $500 million from the state, which they didn't get. I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying again. But so far, I think there hasn't been a lot of support from, you know, from the state to actually do something to preserve Altadena as it was and has been.

Chris - Yeah, it sounds like an uphill struggle. So what should we keep an eye out for as we're wrapping up this interview going forward with LA Public Press, with Altadena and your reporting?

Phoenix - Oh, I'll keep covering Altadena. I'm covering calls for a state investigation into the evacuation response by LA County. I will be looking into who's buying these residential lots and what they're doing with them as a whole. We are still covering everything LA County, especially the immigration raids, police accountability, housing, organizing, you name it.

Chris - So thanks for joining us once again on SGV Connect. 

Phoenix - Thanks for having me again. 

Chris - That's Phoenix Tso reporter for LA Public Press covering all things Eaton, fire, mutual aid, Chinatown and more. Check out hers and all the other fine work from LA Public Press, and if you can donate, they do good work. And if you have anything left over, donate to Streetsblog. I'm Chris Greenspon. Thanks for listening. 

In the SGV Connect's end-of-year podcast, Damien Newton and Felicia Friesema of Foothill Transit discuss transit updates in response to questions submitted by readers.

The discussion addresses:

• The delayed implementation of Line 289/197 combination/extension due to ongoing student needs at Ganesha High School.
• Foothill Transit's hydrogen bus program is paused due to funding cuts, with a focus on low-emission CNG buses.
• The 295 college connector line...and more!

A lovingly edited transcript of the podcast can be found below.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

SGV Connect Podcast: End-of-Year AMA with Foothill Transit

Recorded December 15, 2025

Host: Damien Newton
Guest: Felicia Friesema, Foothill Transit

Damien Newton:
Welcome to SGV Connect. This is our end-of-the-year podcast with Felicia Friesema of Foothill Transit. I think this is the third year we’ve done this, but only the second year in a row. According to Chris, that means I can now call it an annual tradition.

As always, we asked readers for questions, they sent them in, and we’re posing them to Felicia. As a disclaimer, none of the questions were especially controversial. Since we wanted this to be informational, we did provide the questions to Felicia on Friday so she could review them and give us the best possible answers.

Also, I’ll say upfront, we don’t have any really fun questions this time, so we may try to come up with something fun toward the end, depending on how long we spend on the wonky stuff.

Before we dive in, a reminder that SGV Connect is sponsored by Foothill Transit, offering car-free transit throughout the San Gabriel Valley, with connections to A Line stations along the Foothill Extension and service into Downtown Los Angeles. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. Foothill Transit — going good places.

That ad copy has been the same since before this podcast was even called SGV Connect. If you ever want to change it, let me know.

Felicia Friesema:
I’m just ecstatic that this has become an annual thing. I really love these AMAs. They’re fantastic.

Damien Newton:
They’re fun and easy on my end, so I’m a big fan too. It looks like we have five questions this year.

The first two came with mini-essays attached — written in the first person, but not by me.

The first question is about the implementation of the Foothill Forward Line 197 and a proposed combination with Line 289. The reader writes:

“I’m excited for the proposed Line 289/197 extension from La Verne to Cal Poly Pomona. It would allow for a weekend connection from the A Line to Cal Poly Pomona — the 295 is weekday only. When will it be implemented? Other Foothill Forward improvements have moved forward, but this one has been pending for years.”

Felicia Friesema:
The proposed combination of Lines 289 and 197 would be a great idea. However, that routing would remove a segment of the current Line 197 that serves Ganesha High School, and we’re not quite ready to do that yet.

We’ve been working with Pomona Unified School District and monitoring ridership trends at Ganesha to understand ongoing student needs. Right now, our focus is on continuing to provide that service.

The connection from Line 197 to the A Line remains in our plans. We’re working with the City of La Verne, the Gold Line Authority, and LA Metro to make enhancements at the station so buses can serve it effectively.

As for timing, it’s still up in the air. There are no firm plans for 2026. We need to do more due diligence on student demand before moving forward.

Damien Newton:
I’ll just note that the quality of the questions was excellent. The writer even included links — presumably for me — but honestly, they were more useful for you. I’ve saved their info in case Chris Greenspan ever moves on.

Felicia Friesema:
Bus riders and bus fans often know the system better than we do, and that’s fantastic.

Damien Newton:
The next question builds off that theme and focuses on Foothill Transit’s hydrogen bus program. The reader asks about the future of hydrogen fuel, especially given recent shifts toward battery-electric fleets statewide.

Felicia Friesema:
That’s a great question, and it’s one we get a lot. Foothill Transit has been an early adopter of hydrogen fuel-cell buses, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount from that experience. Hydrogen has worked well for us operationally, especially for longer routes where range and refueling time really matter.

That said, the landscape is changing. Battery-electric technology continues to improve, and funding priorities at the state and federal level are evolving. We’re keeping a close eye on that and making decisions based on reliability, cost, and what best serves our riders.

We’re also part of a larger hydrogen hub conversation in California, so this isn’t something we’re abandoning lightly. But like everything else, it has to pencil out long term.

Damien Newton:
That makes sense. And I think people sometimes forget that Foothill Transit has always been willing to pilot new technology, even when it’s risky.

The next question is about ridership, specifically college routes. A reader asks whether Foothill has seen changes in demand now that many campuses are fully back in person, but with hybrid schedules still common.

Felicia Friesema:
We’re definitely seeing a rebound, but it’s uneven. Some college routes are close to pre-pandemic levels, while others are still lagging. Hybrid schedules have changed travel patterns, and students aren’t necessarily commuting five days a week anymore.

We’re responding by being more flexible — adjusting schedules, monitoring demand closely, and working directly with campuses. Programs like student transit passes remain a huge part of our strategy, and they’ve been very successful where implemented.

Damien Newton:
That leads nicely into the next question, which is about major events — specifically the 2028 Olympics. Someone asks whether Foothill Transit expects to play a role, especially given the geographic spread of venues.

Felicia Friesema:
We’ve had preliminary conversations, but it’s still early. Large events like the Olympics require coordination at every level — Metro, municipal operators, law enforcement, and local governments.

For Foothill Transit, the challenge is balancing special-event service with our core mission: serving daily riders who rely on us to get to work, school, and appointments. We don’t want to overextend ourselves in a way that hurts regular service.

Damien Newton:
That’s a good segue to the Rose Bowl, which always generates questions whenever there’s a big event. Someone asks whether Foothill plans to expand service there.

Felicia Friesema:
The Rose Bowl is always tricky. It’s not just about buses — it’s about traffic control, street closures, and coordination with Pasadena and other agencies. We do provide service for certain events, but expanding that requires partners at the table and funding to match.

Damien Newton:
Before we wrap up, I want to ask a lighter question — something we’ve done in past years. Do you have a book or podcast recommendation for listeners?

Felicia Friesema:
I was hoping you’d ask that. I’ve been reading a lot more nonfiction lately, especially books about leadership and organizational change. One I’d recommend is Turn the Ship Around! It’s about empowering teams and decision-making, and I think it applies really well to public agencies.

Damien Newton:
That’s a great recommendation. I’ll add it to my list.

Before we close, is there anything coming up in 2026 that riders should be paying attention to?

Felicia Friesema:
We’ll continue rolling out Foothill Forward improvements where funding allows, and we’re staying focused on service reliability. Electrification will remain a big theme for us, whether that’s hydrogen, battery-electric, or a mix of both.

We’re also continuing conversations with cities and Metro about bus-priority projects. Those don’t always get a lot of attention, but they make a huge difference for riders.

Damien Newton:
I want to thank everyone who submitted questions. They were thoughtful and detailed, which makes these AMAs much easier to do.

Felicia, thanks again for joining us and for being willing to do this year after year.

Felicia Friesema:
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk directly to riders and advocates. These conversations matter.

Damien Newton:
And thanks to Foothill Transit for sponsoring SGV Connect and making this podcast possible.

As always, you can find more San Gabriel Valley transportation coverage at Streetsblog Los Angeles. We’ll be back in the new year with more episodes.

Felicia Friesema:
Looking forward to it.

Damien Newton:
All right. Thanks, Felicia. Talk to you again soon.

Felicia Friesema:
Thanks, Damien. Bye.

End of recording.

In this special episode of SGV Connect, your hosts SBLA SGV Reporter Chris Greenspon and SBLA Editor Joe Linton take listeners on a tour of the newly opened Metro A Line (formerly Foothill Gold Line) extension.

The trip begins at the new Glendora Station, where we walked to Finkbiner Park. From there, we go east to San Dimas for lunch at the cozy Rail Side Café.

Then in La Verne, we take in Bonita Avenue's elaborate Halloween decorations. Try to see these for yourself before they're gone (photos below).

The journey concludes in Pomona at the Pomona North, for now the end of the line, where commuter rail and light rail make for a key working-class transit hub.

Along the way, we reflect on walkability, local character, and how to enjoy this side of the SGV without a car. Plus more recommendations in each town. A copy of the transcript is available below.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Chris Greenspon:
Welcome to SGV Connect episode 143. I’m Chris Greenspon. Damien Newton has the day off for this episode because it’s a special tour of the Metro A Line extension with our editor, Joe Linton, and me. We want to keep the spotlight on this new part of the light rail system in the 626.

But first, a reminder that SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new A Line stations across the foothills and commuter express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. Foothill Transit—going good places.

Now, of course, the Foothill A Line connects SGV residents in the foothills to Pasadena, downtown L.A., and Long Beach. But did you know you can also ride it east? To give you a feel for what you can get up to in the area, we took a ride on the train and got out at each stop to explore and talk about what there is to see and do.

Joe Linton:
My name is Joe Linton. I’m the editor of Streetsblog Los Angeles. I’m here with—

Chris Greenspon:
Chris Greenspon, reporter for the San Gabriel Valley region, SGV Connect.

Joe Linton:
We’re here at the brand-new Glendora Metro A Line Station. It’s one of four new stations. Today we’re going to take a sampling tour of the four new stops on the A Line—the former Gold Line, or Foothill Gold Line as they called it—and see what you can walk to near the stations, what’s interesting about each one, and get a sense of what you can expect when you ride the new train.

Chris Greenspon:
Glendora, of course, is known for The Donut Man with its seasonal strawberry and peach donuts. But there’s also The Hat’s classic pastrami and JPM Comics, all within a short bike ride of the train.

We walked past downtown Glendora’s charming gumdrop trees and historic houses to reach the real center of Glendora life—Finkbiner Park. It’s a nice green space with volleyball, a skate park, pickleball courts, basketball, and a band shell. But remember, it’s Finkbiner, not Finkbinder.

Joe Linton:
Okay, Finkbiner Park—it’s not a hop, skip, and a jump from the Metro station, but it’s what, a 15- or 20-minute walk? Not bad. There was probably a more direct route. It’s one of those things with transit—I tell people, “Oh, I like this restaurant or this park,” and it’s not like I’d drive across town to get there, but because it’s within a few blocks of a Metro stop, it’s easy for me to go. It’s easy to take my daughter there. It’s not always the most incredible destination, but it’s close and pleasant.

Chris Greenspon:
That was a big reason why I started reporting on the San Gabriel Valley in the first place—even before anyone was paying me—because it’s nice that there are regular, local places to go, things to do, and people to see. It’s not like going to Griffith Park where you’ll see 400 tourists from Norway getting off a bus. You can actually have some breathing room here and hear yourself think.

Speaking of journeys that aren’t just about the destination, next we headed to San Dimas Station. Get off in San Dimas if you’re looking for trails or a bigger regional park like Bonelli. Check out the Antonovich Trail leading into San Dimas Canyon and Cataract Falls—a great place to watch the sunset.

This wilderness between freeways must have inspired the carved walking stick art back up at the Metro station. These wildlife pieces are great—I like the salamander back there and the skunk right here.

Our stop included a one-block hike for lunch at Railside Café, right beside the San Dimas Metro Station, where we even had train-shaped breakfasts—just kidding.

Joe Linton:
It was yummy. I’m a sucker for muffins and gravy, whatever—it scratched a certain itch. Not something I should eat every day, but very good, and it’s just a block south of the San Dimas Station.

Chris Greenspon:
Yeah, with ample patio seating.

Moving on—with Halloween on the rise, we took to Old Town La Verne. Every October, the million-dollar homes on both sides of Old Town get decked out with awesome Halloween decorations. On All Hallows’ Eve, Bonita Avenue is partially closed to vehicles, and trick-or-treating begins around 5:30 p.m. There are also some great restaurants there if you want something besides candy afterward.

Joe Linton:
This one’s got stuffed animals, blood-splattered sheets, and a sign saying “Free Horror Show.” It’s been taped over and rewritten—it’s kind of awesome.

Chris Greenspon:
Yeah, I don’t even know what game this is supposed to be—maybe you’re supposed to throw baseballs at dolls or something?

Joe Linton:
Creepy—not just dolls, but creepy dolls, like the kind that might inhabit your nightmares.

Chris Greenspon:
This is the pièce de résistance—the Jaws-themed house with five screaming sharks coming out of the grass.

Joe Linton:
Life-size—what, seven or eight feet tall? Sharks with mouths open, sharp teeth, severed limbs in the mouths. So how does it look at night?

Chris Greenspon:
It looks great at night. See our pictures at la.streetsblog.org on the post for this episode. And while you’re there, click the link to read about the pedestrian bridge that the City of La Verne is building over Arrow Highway to connect the Metro station to the Fairplex.

Now, back on the train. This is your Metro. Let’s keep it clean.

Chris Greenspon:
Pomona is the end of the line for now. For that reason, it’s by far the most-used of the new stations, and it has great art paying tribute to everyday Pomonans—but it feels like something’s missing.

Joe Linton:
We’re not in the heart of Pomona. The station is called North Pomona. Downtown Pomona has the museums, cafés, City Hall, good food, and music. Here, we’re at the north end of town—more of an industrial rail corridor, not much housing or retail.

Chris Greenspon:
There is some newer, more upscale housing on this side—it’s a quieter part of town. This is the part of Pomona that people tend to associate more with Claremont or La Verne.

Joe Linton:
Yeah. So Pomona North doesn’t have a lot to walk to today. The city is building new housing along Garey Avenue, and there’s more in the works. There’s also an old depot building the city hopes to turn into a café or coffee shop. So there are efforts to activate the area, but there’s not much open yet.

Let’s walk over to the Metrolink Pomona North Station, which is about 40 feet from the A Line platform.

Chris Greenspon:
This connection between light rail and commuter rail makes Pomona North decidedly the most working-class stop on the A Line extension.

Joe Linton:
It’s on the San Bernardino Line, which runs about every half hour during the day on weekdays. You can get to San Bernardino—all the way to Redlands via another connection. There’s not much to do right here, but it’s a worthwhile connection. You can get to Claremont, Montclair, and points further east on the Metrolink train.

Chris Greenspon:
There’s also a shuttle here that takes people to Cal Poly, so it’s a great connector.

Joe Linton:
Yeah, it’s an end-of-the-line commuter station with a lot of parking. The hope is to extend to Claremont and Montclair, but that’ll take a while. This is the end of the line for now.

Chris Greenspon:
And that’s our little tour of the new A Line stops and their surroundings. Hopefully it’ll get extended to Claremont before too long, but in the meantime, you can bike there from Pomona North.

Some system info: trains run from 5 a.m. to midnight, and fares are $1.75 with free transfers. During peak hours, trains run about every six minutes, a bit slower in between.

That’s all. I’m Chris Greenspon—thanks for listening to SGV Connect.

This week’s SGV Connect Podcast features a pair of interviews by Chris Greenspon with Baldwin Park City Councilmember Emanuel Estrada and Filmaker Nicola Pieper.

Greenspon and Estrada discuss Baldwin Park’s $266,000 relief fund for families affected by immigration raids, which offers rent and grocery assistance. Estrada emphasized long-term planning, grassroots action, and multi-county cooperation, noting that all council members have immigrant backgrounds. You can read a transcript of the interview here.

In the second interview, Greenspon and Pieper discuss her short documentary All That She, a poetic portrait of 67 women from four continents, including many from the San Gabriel Valley. The film challenges stereotypes and celebrates cultural diversity and connection. A San Gabriel Valley resident for three years, Pieper says the project reflects the community’s warmth and interwoven social fabric. The film will be available online next year. But for now you can check out a teaser for All That She here or read an edited copy of the interview here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

This week’s SGV Connect features a pair of interviews by Damien Newton. Don’t worry Chris fans, the next podcast has already been recorded and it has a pair conducted by Chris Greenspon.

The first interview this week is with Felicial Friesema about the big changes that have occurred in September with Foothill Transit Coverage. Of course, the SGV’s bus agency had to create new routes for the A-Line stations that opened in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, and Pomona; but the transit agency also opened a new bus line, Line 295, to serve Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. Sac). A transcript of that interview can be found below the podcast embed.

Our second interview is a rebroadcast of last week’s StreetSmart podcast from Streetsblog California. The episode features Transform CA’s Zack Deutsch-Gross and we break down the recently concluded legislative session. To listen to that episode by itself, or for a transcript of the interview, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Damien
We’re here with Felicia Friesema from Foothill Transit. There have been a few big changes since the last time we talked—outside of the regular route adjustments—especially with the… I was going to say Gold Line.

Am I allowed to say “Gold Line” here? 

Felicia Friesema
Not anymore, dude. It’s the A Line.

Damien
When I’m with the Construction Authority, they still let me call it the Gold Line.

Felicia
Well, because “Gold Line” is still in their name.

But yeah, it’s the A Line now.

Damien
Fine. The new “A Line” stations opened, and you also launched a new bus route. Let’s start there. What can you tell us about the 295? It opened last week.

And while it serves a Gold Line—uh, A Line—station…

I’m going to let people in on something Chris Greenspawn knows well: I mess this up in our ad copy at least once a month and we have to re-shoot it.

Felicia
(laughs)

Damien
So if you ever hear Chris say, “Why don’t you read that ad copy, Damien?” It's usually because I’ve already messed it up. Anyway, you launched a new bus line serving an A Line station, but you opened it before the A Line station opened. Tell us about Route 295.

Felicia
Yes! Congratulations to us. I’m really happy about it. Line 295 is one of our shorter lines—it only serves three stops.

It runs between San Dimas Station, Cal Poly Pomona at Temple, and the Mt. SAC Transit Center. Service is Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with 20-minute intervals.

We opened on the 15th to introduce people to the new line. We honestly didn’t expect much ridership at first—and we were proved wrong very quickly.

On the first day alone, we had over 200 rides. We weren’t expecting that at all, which means we’ve got a lot of non–light rail-oriented riders on that line.

Damien
Just to be clear: you weren’t expecting ridership on day one until the rail station opened, right?

Felicia
Correct—thank you for clarifying that, Damien. We weren’t expecting ridership to really kick in until the A Line opened on the 19th.

We started the service early to get a sense of traffic patterns, especially on Temple between Cal Poly and Mt. SAC. That area can get pretty hairy at certain times of day when school’s in session. We wanted to see how the schedule would run.

Little did we know it would become really useful to a lot of people right away. And then, of course, ridership picked up again when the Gold Line—see, I just did it—

Damien
(laughs)

Felicia
—when the A Line opened on Friday.

Damien
This line mostly serves the college campuses. You’re expecting students, professors, and people accessing the campus from farther away. It’s not quite a first-mile/last-mile connection—it’s a bit longer than that—but it’s both a rail connector and a local route now.

Felicia
Exactly. Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. SAC have long been commuter campuses. Cal Poly does have dorms, but a significant number of students drive or take transit from far away—some from downtown L.A., some from Fontana.

Having a smooth, easy transit option is definitely a plus for them.

Damien
As my kids get older, we’re starting to look at colleges for my son, who’s a sophomore. We’ve heard: don’t sleep on local schools. People undervalue them—especially if they’re used to traveling for college.

I live in West L.A. and have heard plenty about people commuting to Cal Poly Pomona. I’m not as familiar with Mt. SAC—my kids’ interests don’t line up with their specialties—but I’ve already noticed the rail connection. My kid (or I) would only have to transfer twice to get there by train instead of driving.

Felicia
Exactly.

Damien
The big transportation story in the San Gabriel Valley right now is the four new A Line stations that opened on Friday. Joe did a Streetsblog story about it. We’re going to go out and ride it together soon.

How does this impact what you do? It’s not just providing connections to stations—you’ve probably got some bus lines that can be almost replaced by rail. I imagine it’s a lot of work every time a new station opens.

Felicia
It is, but it’s good work. When the A Line—then the Gold Line—first started opening in the San Gabriel Valley, we had one line across the Foothill corridor called the 187.

We’ve since split that into the 187 and 188, with Azusa as the midpoint. We thought we’d lose significant ridership along that corridor when the A Line opened…

And—see, I’m going back and forth, too.

Damien
Yeah, it’s not easy.

Felicia
Gold Line for history’s sake; A Line for now.

Anyway, we found that while travel patterns changed, our ridership wasn’t heavily impacted by the opening of the Gold/A Line.

Splitting the 187 into two lines also improved schedule adherence. We learned some people needed to get into Pasadena and others into Claremont, so having a transfer in the middle made the line more efficient.

We still watch the area very closely.

That earlier experience became our blueprint for how service might be affected by these new stations. We’re not anticipating major shifts, but we’re keeping a close eye on it.

We’ve also worked to get our service closer to the stations for first-mile/last-mile connectivity. For the most part, it’s just another great way to make sure people are getting on transit.

Damien
There’s a post on your website—we’ve been linking to it in the SGV Connect newsletter. It’s literally foothilltransit.org/article/foothilltransit-and-metrorail. It shows all the connections to the various stations for people who want to access them.

And your website always does a little extra—like highlighting local businesses around the stations. I always appreciate that.

Felicia
Yes.

Damien
So it’s probably too early to see how 295 has been impacted by the station opening. Friday was a special day, then you had a weekend. We’re recording this Monday the 22nd—the second weekday the line and station are both open.

Any interesting early observations from the A Line stations and your transit service?

Felicia
Yes, actually. We’re very excited about this and keeping track of where ridership is growing. Fridays are usually low ridership days—people take off early or make it a three-day weekend.

But we had really solid ridership on the 295 out of San Dimas Station the first day the A Line was open. We expect that number to grow. We’re partnering heavily with the schools and relying on a lot of word of mouth.

We’re also looking at how other lines are impacted. It’s hard to tell exactly how much ridership is shifting because you can’t always tell if a boarding is from the street or a transfer from the A Line.
We’re sending people out to make sure connections are smooth and to help riders with questions. These are still early days, but we’re keeping close tabs.

Damien
I was talking to a friend over the weekend—he’s in the industry—and he suggested I ask: Do you think these new stations will mean more overall ridership, or less on the bus lines?

I always assumed people would ride the train instead of the bus. His hypothesis is that you’ll more than make up for that with people who weren’t riding transit at all but will now ride the train and need the bus for the last leg.

Felicia
I think in the short term, yes. With something like this, you have to take a long view.

Our surveys consistently show: the more transit service is available and frequent, the more people ride—period.

Any new transit service—more connectivity, more frequency, more access—is good for all transit. In the short term, there may be some shifts as travel patterns change.

But long term, anything that makes transit more familiar, accessible, and easy to use is good across the board.

Damien
All right. Any closing thoughts, or anything I didn’t ask that you think listeners should know?

Felicia
Just one thing about the La Verne Station. We’ve seen a lot of chatter about accessibility—specifically about having a stop closer to the station or buses going directly into the station.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make the adjustments needed for a proper bus turnaround. We were hoping they could. The Construction Authority is turning the project over to Metro, so it’ll be in Metro’s hands going forward.

We’ll partner with them to make it more accessible. For now, bus service will be across the street rather than directly in the station.

Damien
I did notice on the map that there’s a new stop on the 197 significantly closer than the previous ones.

Felicia
Correct.

Damien
But the hope is you’ll be able to go directly into the station in the medium-term future?

Felicia
Correct.

We’ll say the “hopeful” future.

Damien
Obviously it’s not happening next month, but hopefully Metro can make that fix reasonably soon.

Felicia
We hope.

We hope, we hope. But yes, we’ve adjusted the line as much as possible to make it more accessible.

Damien
All right. Thank you so much for your time. We usually do an end-of-year check-in around November or December—let’s plan on that.

Felicia
Those are fun. Let’s make it an AMA.

Damien
Oh, we could do that. That’d be fun.

Felicia
Yeah, let’s do an AMA. I loved the last one we did.

Damien
I always like when people send me questions anonymously, even though you and I can almost immediately guess who sent them.

Felicia
For sure. We know you guys. We do.

Damien
Anyway, thank you so much for this. We’ll check in again. I’ve gotten more interested in how bus and rail work together—after watching the last Gold Line extensions and even locally with the Expo (excuse me, E Line) here—how that impacted Big Blue Bus and Metro Bus service. I started as a bike guy, but this has become fascinating to me.

Felicia
Yes, come to the dark side, Damien.

In SGV Connect 138, Streetsblog talked to Benito Flores and others in the Reclaimers movement that were helping him resist eviction in the Caltrans owned property he was living in. The Reclaimers are a group of formerly unhoused people who moved into Caltrans-owned properties in 2020 to both put a roof over their heads during a public health crisis and draw attention to the amount of publicly owned housing that was not being lived in during a nationwide housing crisis.

After losing several court cases, Flores and other reclaimers were given a choice: move out of their house and work with the homeless authority to get new housing or stay and risk forcible eviction. Flores chose to stay, and sadly passed away after falling from a treehouse he built as a hideaway when the sheriffs or state police came.

In this episode, we interview two reclaimers who chose the first option: leaving their reclaimed homes and working with HACLA.

The interview takes place in Councilwoman Jurado’s El Sereno office with Marta Escudero and Cecilia Lopez, members of the Reclaimers movement. In 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, they occupied vacant Caltrans-owned homes in El Sereno, inspired by the Moms for Housing movement. Both describe how displacement and the housing crisis pushed them to act, with support from groups like ACE, Eastside Café, and HACLA.

Initially granted two-year leases, Marta and Cecilia later faced eviction efforts and legal battles. Marta negotiated with HACLA to secure Section 8 housing in Boyle Heights, where she now lives with her daughters. She emphasizes the importance of staying in her community for family support and schooling needs. Cecilia, however, remains unhoused, still couch-surfing despite promises of permanent housing, and expresses frustration with HACLA’s delays and broken commitments.

For Streetsblog’s complete five-year coverage for the Reclaimer movement, click here. A transcript of the interview is available below.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Marta - Hello. My name is Marta Escudero.

Cecilia - Hello. My name is Cecilia Lopez.

Damien - ...and I'm Damian Newton. Nice to meet you. We should have done that when we got here instead of waiting for the recording. Anyway, we're in the El Sereno office of Councilwoman Jurado, and we're talking today with two of the Reclaimers. This is mostly for me when I'm listening to it five years from now, going, "Wait, what? It was in the office?" 

So let's start the interview how we've started most of the interviews by just sort of recapping the beginning for anyone that's listening for the first time, because and for anyone that's listened before. I always think this is such a dramatic and unique story. It's always worth repeating in the words of the people that lived it. So why don't we just start with what a Reclaimer is and what happened in 2020

Marta - So at least for my side of the story, because there's multiple sides, I found out that ACE and LACLA, LATU, DSA were meeting months before. Well, during that time, I was couch surfing with my daughters, and I was falling into despair because there was no housing. And then I saw Moms for Housing on the TV, and I wanted to do something similar, inspired by these black moms that took housing up north, and so I started reaching out to people and letting people know what I wanted to do. And my friend Colleen, which she's amazing, she's the one that, like, really motivated me to do this. 

She gave me the contact for Amy Scherer from ACE, and that's when I found out they had been planning this for a while. And then at the same time, Angela from Eastside Cafe put something on Facebook, and I reached out to her, and then they linked together. At that same time, Ruby Gordillo was doing canvassing of empty houses through ACE, and found these houses in El Sereno as well. So it was just all kind of meshed together. And we began planning, I believe in December I joined and we began planning more thoroughly, like in January, and then covid hit, and it was right in the lockdown. 

We were even thinking, "Should we do it? Should we wait?" And then we said, "let's just do it." And it was right. It was just pure luck. It was right on the weekend of the lockdown. And so everything was in chaos, and the governor just let us slide. I think if it wasn't for that, I believe if it wasn't for that, we probably would have been taken out.

Cecilia - Definitely... all hog tied.

Damien - So with the support of all these groups, the two of you moved in separately to different houses in El Sereno, both in El Sereno, because I know there were other places that ... okay... both in El Sereno. You moved into houses during the first weekend of the lockdown. I don't think I ever put that together in my head that it was,

Cecilia - It was March 14, I believe.

Damien - Yeah, yeah. So you moved in. I know there was some, some action to try and get you out, but the governor's office actually stepped in and said, you know, let them stay. There's a crisis, and…

Cecilia - We had sent letters first, because we were having a rough time in the beginning with CHP.

Damien - That'd be the Highway Patrol, because these were Caltrans owned properties.

Caltrans owned these properties because they were in the right of way of a freeway expansion that they wanted to do the 710, which was canceled in 2017, or 18, I believe. And then they still own the properties, although they're starting to divest the ones in Pasadena, I know they're being - and South Pasadena - those are being turned into the properties are, I believe, being demolished and turned into affordable housing, but the people that moved into them are not they may have an option to rent into the affordable housing, but there's no homeowner option that had been discussed when Caltrans bought these houses, like way back in the 70s. The 1970s.

Okay, so the originally you were given one year leases, if I remember correctly,

Marta - two-year leases.

Damien - And so you stayed in there, then through 2022, and then there were legal efforts to evict and not evict, and tenants rights were claimed, and all that stuff went to court. Right?

Marta - Yes, because we were given a two-year lease and the HACLA was not providing the housing we needed and were asking for, because people have individual needs, I especially requested to be geographically close, because I'm a single mother and I have all my support system here, plus my daughters, go to special schools. 

They're unique. There's people from Santa Monica, from South LA. They go to these schools from the valley, because they're so unique that I can't find them anywhere else, and I didn't want to have to go through that commute. It's exhausting, and so I really fought for that to be included in HACLA. They think that anywhere is okay, and I don't agree with that. I feel that people have unique needs, and housing should provide that for us as well.

Cecilia - I feel the same way, except I don't have kids, but my roots are here. I was born here, and so that's all I know. I am used to the area. I'm comfortable being here, and I feel safe here.

Damien - So the legal actions around that I know went on for a couple years with eviction efforts, efforts to oppose in court, as I understand it, the legal efforts were sort of exhausted sometime in 2024. One of the reasons we're doing this interview is we did the one with Benito and Roberto a couple months ago. Benito, when offered something after the court cases expired, chose to stay in his house and fight eviction. Other people made different decisions when HACLA made offers to them for housing. So I guess I'm get both of you, I'm assuming, took the HACLA offer --

Cecilia -- but I think we're bypassing a place here because the first two years we were living in the house that we began...

Damien - The reclaimed house?

Cecilia - Right and then during that time, after the two years, we were asked to move because the houses supposedly needed to be inspected. And then were given another lease for another two years into the new home, which was still in the Caltrans homes.

Damien - So you moved from one home to a different one. It's still that Caltrans owns properties in 2022ish.

Cecilia - But that was only because they needed us to sign the lease, the agreement that none of us were really happy about, but we really didn't have a choice to not sign.

Damien - Okay. So the original two years, and then there was another two years in a different house. And so it was when that expired. And the legal options were out. And then HACLA came to you guys with a new offer, which I'm guessing, since we're here, you both took, could you describe sort of what that offer was like? You know, when we talked to Benito, he was not happy with the offer, but it was for, I believe, four years. A four year lease?

Marta - We all had different--

Damien - Okay, everyone was offered a different lease

Marta - Based on our circumstances.

Cecilia - I think they offered him four years to live in a hotel, and he was not happy about that.

Mart -  I wouldn't have taken that deal either, but I do think there was room for negotiation, because that's what I did with HACLA. I was offered some housing at first, and I said, No. I kept saying, No, this is what I want, and you need to look for this. And I also sought outside support so I could push what I wanted, and I got something fairly good in the end. 

The  eviction process is horrible, and I already knew I wasn't gonna win legally. We didn't get these houses legally in the first place,  we weren't gonna get them through the legal system.

I already had that in mind. I was going to get evicted at some point, and so I needed to prepare for that. And it was a very stressful time, and I couldn't be in despair for my daughters. And so I needed to be in a place where I could be able to think and just keep going. I felt I couldn't stay. I wanted to avoid as much as possible, doing eviction defense. I already had a plan to do it, if that was the last resort. 

First of all, I didn't want to bring violence to my community. Second of all, I also have a lot of vulnerable people in my life that are immigrants that need more care, and so I want to be well because I can't pour from my empty cup, and also because of my daughters. And so I was really pushing for HACLA to do something that was good for us, in order for me and my daughters to be well. And I had supporters that pushed because first they kept, like giving me less money or trying to locate me in different areas, and I kept with supporters, phone banking, emailing, and I was able to get a pretty decent deal. 

It's in Boyle Heights, which is close to me, and I've lived in Boyle Heights. Before it's section eight, we actually have more room inside. And it's, yeah, amazing public housing, which I think needs to be more of, and that's why I took that deal.

Damien - So this is an open ended lease, though it doesn't expire in a certain number of years.

Cecilia - That's what we were promised, exactly.

Marta - I got what HACLA had promised me in the first place, and I couldn't say, No, my daughters are thriving there, and I really like that place, and now I'm able to offer more support. I'm also part of another organization, J Town Action and Solidarity, that works with unhoused communities and anti gentrification work. And I want to, I want to be there for the most vulnerable people, and now I'm able to do that, that I'm better. I know I was spiraling during that time, and 50 knows I was in grad school, I was working. I'm a single mom. I was facing eviction. I was like, in this or I was just like, it was too much. That's a lot.

Damien - I've done many of those things, but not all at once, and mercifully, have never had to worry about eviction. But that's, that's that's a full plate, and now you feel like you're on the other side the HACLA came through with it, with the promise that a print gave to you, and as a result, you're able to now start giving back to or continue giving back to your community in a different way.

Marta - Yeah and HACLA shouldn't just do this to be because I'm not special. HACLA should do this to everybody, because everyone deserves not to be displaced, to stay in their community and to have equitable housing.

Damien - And I think that's a big point about staying in the community. When we've done homelessness coverage. We did a series back before the pandemic. The goal of that series was to go and interview and visit different places that offered different steps in the process for someone who was experiencing homelessness to fully house. So we visited, you know, temporary shelters and interim housing and that place up in Glendale, Ascencia and stuff like that. And what we heard when we talked to the people, was like, Yes, I'm very grateful to have this roof over my head. But you know, the people I know are 20 miles away and 20 miles away in LA County is a real barrier to being able to have any sort of interaction, much less still be part of the community.

Marta - They're isolated. They're a lot of them are in carceral states in shelters as well, and so and displaced from their communities is very isolating, and people with mental health issues,

Cecilia - They don't feel safe, and they pass.

Marta - So we need better alternatives, for sure.

Damien - So what's your experience with your current housing situation?

Cecilia - I am still unhoused. I was also promised permanent housing. I was offered. We started to go through the paperwork, and then, for some reason, it just stopped. I continued with my eviction and, well, that was not easy, like she says, and that was just an awful long experience. But I'm glad it's over, but I also am not housed since, since then, I've been couch surfing again, like I was in the beginning, and so I'm very displeased, but I'm still working on it.

Damien - Is HACLA still involved?

Cecilia - Yes, because they're the only ones that I could be reaching out to, but I believe, also not to go back on what Benito was offered. And I think that was why he was so very upset, is because we all were promised and offered permanent housing. So when they offered him four years in the hotel, of course, he was upset.

Damien - Benito  challenged us to reach out to HACLA to see if we could get a response as to what happened, and we got a very legalese - we did - We got a very legalese response. I imagine if we reached out on your behalf, it would be the same thing we can't discuss. You know, you know exactly.

Cecilia - That's their good excuse.

Damien - Yeah, I imagine it might actually be almost the same statement with, like, two or three, you know, things where they changed pronouns and changed his name to your name. But do you, I guess, regret or the decision not to go the same route he did as far as, like, a physical resistance of eviction? Or do you---

Cecilia - I would have never gone that route. I would have never, ever gone that route, ever, and I feel bad that he did.

Damien - So what do you see as a potential next step? Is it hoping the HACLA process works out?

Cecilia - Exactly, I still have hope.

Damien - Yeah, and so we talked to someone. I talked to someone last night on the phone, before this, and she can't be with us today for the interview, and when she was. It gave a very similar story to the one we've heard today. And she was saying that she is in housing now. She took a HACLA deal, but she misses her old place and preferred it. And she actually was saying, like, if my message, if we were to do the interview, my message would be, you know, put me back in my old house, if that were and it's probably not an option, because they probably have plans for that area, but if there was, area. But if there was an option to go back to the house that you had been in--

Cecilia - I knew they  would come to my house to do inspections and tell me, would you please stop doing, you know, like renovations and repairs on the house? And I said, Well, I'm here. I want to enjoy my house, and I want to make sure that it's safe and that it's livable and presentable, if anything. And they would just continue to tell me, you know you're never going to live here forever. And I said, I know that, but while I'm here, I want to enjoy my house.

Marta - Another option is that these houses are going for bidding, and El Sereno Community Land Trust would want to purchase these houses. The problem is, like, last year, the land trust got like, probably one of the worst houses and just one. And the people, the agencies, entities that are getting more of the houses are Habitat for Humanity... is one, I don't know

Cecilia - That's one of the main ones.

Marta - That's one of the main ones that's getting that, and they're basically just flipping the houses because we tried to apply, and it's not at our income level, so it's not for deeply affordable housing. The Land Trust would like to bring the Reclaimers back, especially like Cecilia and other people that have roots in El Sereno. I think it's very important for them to come back to these houses. And so we're trying to get Caltrans to realize this and prioritize Reclaimers to come back to these houses. I know I have a friend that's doing work in Altadena also trying to get Caltrans houses for the people that were displaced during the fires. Like those are people that we need to prioritize. I feel,

Cecilia - I feel that if it wasn't for our movement, then these homes would have still been vacant and rotting and going to waste also.

Damien - Well, I think that's one of the reasons this story has captured people's imagination in a way that a lot of other stories that deal with issues around the unhoused haven't the direct action and the focus that was done on it, and how that really changed the conversation in this area around those housing and those issues. And I know when we're traveling for work, I'll have people in other parts of the state, if, when I say, you know, Streetsblog, oh, and I do our San Gabriel, they're like, Oh, you did the Reclaimers podcast. And then they'll ask for updates. And sometimes I have them right at my fingertips, and sometimes I have to look them up.

Cecilia - We also know that there has never been anyone to stand up to the state, to bring this up, into the light, to let everyone know that this data has all these properties they're just wasting. And this is not just in El Sereno. It's statewide.

Marta - That's like our major outrage, that these houses have been sitting vacant for so long and nothing was being done. And then it's not only here, like all the states, a lot of them Caltrans owned by Caltrans, sometimes by county, by city. How are we in a housing crisis? And these houses are sitting vacant, immoral? And that's why, to me, legality doesn't matter. Of like, yes, we took the houses, but we took it because it's immoral to have them just rotting while people are --

Cecilia - It should be against the law. It really should. The houses are being wasted. There's people suffering out there daily, every day, everywhere, statewide.

Damien - And you were making the point earlier that, yes, after some letters, the governor's office interceded and told the state, we pretty much have to stop doing it, to stop trying to force you out, and the county and city to figure something out. But do you think that that was probably not just a result of the public pressure, but also a result of the chaos of the pandemic, or do you think this could have been a very different story?

Cecilia - Oh definitely without pandemic it, it would have probably never have happened.

Damien - Yeah, you can't see it, but everybody's shaking their heads in the room for the people that are listening. So we've discussed a little bit about the current situations, the housing situations you're in, and what the next steps are for the movement to try and force governments to do something with the properties they have that are not being utilized. You know, the homelessness crisis hasn't gone away in the past five years.

Cecilia - It's never gonna go away unless there's permanent housing, affordable, permanent housing.

Damien - So what do we see as the next step for the movement from here, for me, sure we can get, we can do it locally, on what we're doing, and then maybe expand to talk about, like, what we would like to see the state do in future years.

Marta - Right. Oh, for me, locally, with the Reclaimers to get more of the houses through Caltrans, either individually, if that's an option, or through El Sereno community land trust as a whole, I feel like there should be more reclaiming like I think me I wanted also like moms for housing inspire more reclaiming locally and nationally, worldwide. I feel like we need to build a reclaiming movement, because again, it's immoral to have vacant houses while people are suffering in this supposedly fabricated housing crisis, because it's not natural, and so it's a product of capitalism and All these, all these oppressions we're under. So I want more people to reclaim and if people need support, I'm here for it...

Cecilia - A lot of people may not see it as being the correct way, but if we were able to get others aware of all these homes that are rotting then, then then if we, if that's the way we have to do it, then, then that's what we're going to do.

Marta - One of the oppositions we had in this neighborhood, and I think in general, is like, I work hard for my housing, so why should you get handouts? And I don't agree with that, like I could work hard for my housing, and I still think that people deserve housing because, not because I did it and I suffered and I wasn't able to spend time with my daughters because I was working so hard. Doesn't mean that I want better for other people. I think as humans, we should want better for other people, and if that takes a housing I know like it helps so many people to have a house--

Cecilia - People really don't start to see it unless it's right there in your front lawn. Somebody pulls up a tent and starts living on your sidewalk. Then they start to see it, then it starts to affect them.

Damien - I know it's very early in the process for this, but have any of the candidates for governor, in any way, said anything about this that would give you any hope. It seems like this is something that Villaraigosa would have picked up on.

Marta - Yeah, they either have ignored us or maybe they don't know, but I feel like we need to be out there more now and start demanding housing, permanent housing, stable housing, housing that really cares about people. Because the most vulnerable people on the streets I work with are unhoused all the time, I know their stories. I know they're highly traumatized, a lot of times, foster care, children that have weaned out of the system, that don't have support. 

There's abused women out there, veterans, people that can't pay their medical bills, and so we tend to stigmatize or stereotype, "oh, it's just addicts," but often also substance abuse. I feel like anyone, and I don't care if they're addicts, they need housing, but substance abuse doesn't come from prior. A lot of times it's what they do to survive on the streets.

Damien - There was actually the West Side city council member Mike Bonin, who would talk about how there was a period in his life where he was homeless, and talked about how the drug abuse followed the becoming homeless, not the other way, not the other way around. And he would talk very movingly about it, as the council was, you know, ready to do something horrible about criminalizing homelessness. And at the time, the council was even more conservative than it is now, so there were a lot of 12 to one, you know, with two people, not there type votes with Mike, you know, being the one. And I think, though, that that's, that's a very interesting point, in a way, he humanized the issue for a lot of West siders, that whose only experience with homelessness was that person who was pulling up a tent in front of their house or pulling up an RV in front of their house. So their house. I don't know where I was going with that.

Cecilia - Also there, there were many, many vouchers that were unused, that were supposed to have been given out. And Huckle said on them, a lot of Section Eight vouchers are on. Used every year, and they expire. And so what no one ever looks into that portion like, why none of those, all those vouchers, should have been used because there are enough people to use them, and no one ever gets that side of the story either. You know, I think they need to dig deeper. And why are there so many homeless people out there? HACLA is not helping by doing such things.

Damien - So I feel like we've covered a lot of the issues we wanted to talk about. I know that sometimes, since we do this very conversationally, these podcasts, instead of a list of questions, sometimes there's something people are really dying to say, and I just didn't ask the right questions. So at the end, I am always like, if we miss something, feel free to just chime in and say it, because I want to make sure that we're getting your stories and your beliefs and opinions and values out there as much as possible. So if there's something we missed, please just fill it in. You can say I did a great job. That is totally acceptable. Chris is shaking his head because he's heard me say this so many times.

Marta - Yeah. Well, I mean to me, it's just the issue of displacement worldwide, especially right now with Palestine, I feel really strongly about that, like I don't. I think people deserve to be in the places where they feel comfortable in the places where they have support. And like Trump says, "Oh, they could just go to another Arab country." Like that doesn't make sense to me. Same thing with HACLA. "You could just go to the valley and find another school. That's fine." No. Like, no. We have roots. Here we have a community. Here we have schools that meet my daughter's needs. We can't just go anywhere, and this is something that needs to be humanized, because not just any offer should be okay, like there should be a really intentional offer that fits individual needs, because that affects our mental health and our health in general.

Damien - I think there is a stigma. Well, we offered them something, or, Oh, they were offered a voucher, and especially around the project room key. We would hear that a lot. Well, they were offered a hotel,

Marta - Like the phrase beggars can't be choosers.

Damien - Project room key was very well intentioned, but it was also there, but it was also very uneven. Some facilities worked great. Some did not. But I would hear that a lot when we were talking about that program back during the pandemic with people, well, they were offered something and didn't take it as though that somehow moved down their value, almost.

Marta - Yeah, I agree. Anything else?

Damien - No. Well, thank you both for your time. You know, always said, feel free to reach out if there's something we should know. I would love to hear if the people are ready to move into the El Sereno Community Land Trust home. We know if and when that happens, I should say when that happens, it will, you know, we would love to be able to come out and cover that, you know, highlight that success slowly, for sure. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, to take a house that's fallen into disrepair and get it ready like that is an undertaking. And for a nonprofit that's doing it for the first time, it's a double undertaking. You know, the next one will be easier. I understand that.

Marta - it's gonna be difficult. They're looking for funding for this house. They plan to do it ecologically. So they're doing a lot of research on Earth build, that is, that is also fire friendly, because we know what happened in Altadena and those houses there. So these are going to be more fire resilient with clay. And also they're sustainable, and this is the type of housing that we need in Los Angeles. So I'm really excited for this project. I know it's going to be hard to fund it, but we're looking forward to this project.

Episode 139 of SGV Connect focuses on the impact of ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on the communities in the San Gabriel Valley. Both interviews were conducted by Chris Greenspon. 

The first is with Estrella, a resident of El Monte who witnesses the crushing impact of the ongoing threat of ICE raids in her community. The second is with Assemblymember Mike Fong, who highlights not just what the communities he represents are experiencing, but some ways in which the state is fighting back.

Estrella reports that while the community is beginning to show signs of life again, things will never be the same. Families are struggling to make rent as economic activity has slowed even for those who are still working. Others are sheltering to avoid ICE. Even the school district has seen a drop in attendance as the arbitrary nature of the raids has caused widespread fear.

A lightly edited transcript of the conversation can be found here.

Fong also discussed the impact of recent ICE raids in the San Gabriel Valley, highlighting incidents in Alhambra and Rosemead. He emphasized the trauma and fear affecting all immigrant communities, especially the Latino population. Fong discussed some of the state legislation aimed at improving the situation, including his own legislation to support undocumented students. He also praised legislative efforts like SB 805 and SB 627 to ensure law enforcement transparency. Fong underscored the importance of community support, citing a local food distribution initiative, and outlined his legislative goals for expanding college access and affordable housing.

A lightly edited transcript of the conversation can be found here

SGV Connect would like to take a moment to wish the friends and family of Benito Flores peace and comfort after his passing.

This week’s SGV Connect reconnects with the Reclaimers (full coverage), the group of formerly homeless people that moved into Caltrans-owned houses at the start of the pandemic without the agency's permission. Over the past five years, the Reclaimers have been on a legal odyssey that’s involved not just Caltrans and the three cities where the transportation agency owned houses in the right of way for a now cancelled freeway extension, but also the California Highway Patrol, and even the Governor’s Office.

This interview focuses mostly on the story of Benito Flores, a 76-year old handyman still residing at a Caltrans owned home in El Sereno. Flores has resisted eviction, and plans to stay in the house until he is forcibly removed. When the Sheriffs eventually arrive to remove him, he plans on escaping to a treehouse he has built on the property.

He hopes his action continues to draw attention to how the housing system continues to work against people of lesser means and promotes a rent strike he hopes will materialize in December of 2026.

Flores claims that the Housing Authority for the City of Los Angeles has lied about him in court filings when they stated that he refused permanent supportive housing. At Flores’ request, we asked HACLA to comment on this. Their full comment is below, right before the audio from the podcast.

Statement from HACLA:

For the past five years, The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) has managed the El Sereno Temporary Housing Program under a lease with Caltrans, providing essential resources including utilities, case management, housing navigation placement support and financial subsidies to over 44 households and close to 150 individuals, including Mr. Benito Flores. This program has helped over 90% of our families find permanent housing, with more placements underway. We understand that for Mr. Flores, this is not just about a house but a home, which is why he has been provided with the fullest array of services and housing search assistance including referrals to multiple permanent affordable housing sites as well as access to an emergency housing voucher, which unfortunately, he refused.  HACLA offered several housing referrals, including some deeply affordable options, including senior housing and permanent supportive housing. During the pandemic, HACLA offered Mr. Flores an emergency housing voucher which could be used in the private market to expand his housing options. Additionally, People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) attempted to complete applications on Mr. Flores’ behalf so he could be prioritized in the Coordinated Entry System for placement into permanent supportive housing. Regarding documentation, it is our general policy not to release private information about our program participants and we have confirmed with PATH that we cannot release any of Mr. Flores' case notes.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Episode 137 of the SGVConnect Podcast is part two of our Olympics preview and focuses on the upcoming Olympic cricket tournament coming to the Pomona Fairplex.

In the first interview, Streetsblog editor Joe Linton interviews Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval. The far-reaching interview covers other topics, including Pomona’s response to the actions of President Trump’s para-military bounty hunters and the arrival of the GOLD LINE, but returns to a friendly discussion of the Olympics. Included is a challenge for the Streetsblog. You can read a full transcript of the interview here.

In the second interview, Chris Greenspon talks with Abhimanyu Rajp, Director of Los Angeles Cricket and co-owner of the minor league team the Los Angeles Lashings. Rajip shares his enthusiasm for cricket, talks about what it means for the local cricket community to have it return to the Olympics in Pomona, and explains the rules of the variation of cricket that will be played here.

If you’re a visual learner, you can get another explanation of the rules in this video. A transcript of the interview with Rajp can be found here. The audio of the podcast can be found below the video.

This week kicks off a multi-episode mini-series at SGV Connect focusing on the LA 2028 Olumpoc games and what the events can mean for San Gabriel Valley Communities.

This first episode features an interview with Alissa Walker, co-host of the LA Pod and editor of the Torched Newsletter. When not hanging out with celebrities and appearing on Netflix specials, Walker has become the go-to source of information about the upcoming games.

The 2028 games will feature four venues in the San Gabriel Valley. Pasadena will host the soccer finals at the Rose Bowl, the Santa Anita Racetrack will host equestrian and dressage, the Pomona Fairgrounds will host the cricket tournament, and shotgun events will be held at the Shotgun Center in El Monte.

Walker reports that San Gabriel cities are well positioned to host these attractions, as the venues all host major events (outside of the Shotgun Center) and know how to do so without causing headaches for neighboring communities. She is also excited for the possibilities that could occur with cities hosting official and unofficial events to bolster their profile and their coffers. It also allows for city and regional officials to think about creative ways to use the games to improve their transportation options in the short- and long-term.

Transcript:

Damien Newton - As mentioned in the pre show, I'm recording with podcast royalty today.

Alissa Walker - Who is it? Who's gonna be on? Oh, me.

Damien -  , the LA Pod is the only podcast that I download and listen to when I run.

Alissa - So you listen to it more than me.

Damien - I almost never listen to this podcast unless it's one that Chris is doing completely on his own. So I understand what you're saying there.

Alissa - It's not that I don't want to listen to it. It's just,  , I've already listened to it.

Damien - I relate. No, it's a great podcast. I was saying to you before we started recording that I ran into your co host in the grocery store this morning, and he referred to you as a unicorn. Because you're so much on top of things that when you guys are sending story ideas back and forth, he never finds an article on the story before you do. 

Alissa - Oh, I don't know if that's true. You're talking about Mike Bonin, my cohost, because I think Mike is actually pretty good at that stuff too, though. 

Damien - Yeah, he's pretty on top of things. When he was my city council member, both as a reporter and as a constituent, I never found him unprepared for a question, even if we were trying to catch him off guard at a neighborhood meeting.

Alissa - Ohhhh, you were out there yelling at him about bike bike lanes. You were yelling. Well, that's what I said to him on the most recent podcast that I felt like he did in 2010 when I went on the John Mulaney show, having people yelling at me about bike lanes. I was like, now I finally understand what it feels like, Mike.

Damien - Yeah, that was wild. They put me on the neighborhood council after they approved that project. So I got in. Everyone that Googled me knew who I was, so I just got to listen to people screaming at me about that. And honestly, I had had no input at all on it. Joe was the Streetsblog editor. I had nothing to do with it. 

Moving on,we're talking about the Olympics, because in addition to being the podcast royalty, you're also the editor and writer of Torched, a subscription newsletter that's covering the Olympics and Los Angeles. It is a must read. Torched is where we go if we need to find something out about the Olympics, which is why we're here today, because the Olympics are theoretically and hopefully coming in 2028.

Alissa - Yeah, what will they be like now? We're not sure,

Damien - Right? It's been a long time. It feels like it's been at least four or five decades since it was approved, two or three years ago.

Alissa - More than that. It's been a while, 2017, that's a long time. And think of what, think of what Paris accomplished in that time compared to us. 

Damien - Oh, that's a hint. I think about the tone of this podcast. 

Some San Gabriel Valley cities are in line to host Olympic events. Some have been announced. Some are, quote, unquote, in the works. Having done some writing that I do for Santa Monica Next, I know that it's not necessarily a slam dunk for a city to host an Olympic Games, just be a smaller part of the game. 

So we wanted to talk a little bit about what these cities can be looking forward to, what they might want to be considering on their own, and all sorts of other various issues. If there's any breaking news, you would probably know it ahead of me. That being said, that usually takes us four or five days to get a podcast up, so it probably won't be breaking anymore. But anyway, that's the longest intro we've ever done. Welcome Alissa.

Alissa - Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. 

Damien - So let's start talking. Last I checked there were two or three San Gabriel Valley cities that were hosting events, shooting and horse events. What can you tell us about what's going on with the San Gabriel Valley and the Olympics?

Alissa - Yeah, and you missed one: cricket. Well, I mean, does the Pasadena Rose Bowl also count as San Gabriel Valley?

Damien - I mean, it's in... We always debate this, because geographically it is, but Chris always argues that it's culturally a very different city than the rest of the SGV. 

Alissa - All right. Well, you can, you can try to lump it in, maybe if needed. 

Most people know about the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl is going to be used as soccer finals. And it's going to be the third time that the Rose Bowl has hosted Olympics events. They hosted events in all three Olympics, which is kind of cool, but the bigger announcements are definitely this last batch of announcements. 

The LA 28 did them in phased delivery. First, we got the big Oklahoma City events. Some things are going there. 

And then we got kind of a revised version of a few more events. And then this last dump was the rest of the venues, including, I believe, all three announcements that you just talked about. So the ones for your listeners to track will be equestrian events at Santa Anita, cricket at the Fairplex and shotgun shooting in Whittier Narrows. 

It's not just about the venues that are being officially hosted by LA 28 as I'm sure  , there's all these plans for, like fan festivals and viewing parties and cultural events. There's a whole Cultural Olympiad that goes on top of everything else, plus all the Paralympic events as well. None of those venues have been announced officially. 

For example, Pico Rivera has already voted to have a fan festival in their city, just as part of what's going on. Because as you're moving from one venue to another, you might want to stop in Pico Rivera and have a drink or watch whatever sport is on the big screen. So there's going to be a lot more stuff happening. These are just the latest, like official announcements.

Damien - One of the things that we covered with Santa Monica was that the Olympics have sort of a contract they sign with the cities that are doing these events that outline a lot of what you can and can't do. And obviously, Santa Monica is in a different situation, because they're already a tourist hub, and they're so close to LA. They're doing things like planning bus routes to get people from the hotels…but they said no to beach volleyball, so that they didn't have to abide by all the Olympics rules, thinking that they would get a better deal otherwise. 

Is this something that smaller cities in the San Gabriel Valley that maybe don't have a large beach right next to them, maybe aren't considered as touristy as Santa Monica should be, should be thinking about? With all the rules they're going to have to follo worth it or is it just having an event going to be good enough to make this a financially good decision for a smaller city?

Alissa - The thing about beach volleyball is it can be played anywhere. In Paris, they played it just in front of the Eiffel Tower, if you remember. The matches weren't anywhere near a beach. It wasn't even done by the Seine. You really could have put it anywhere. 

The thing about Santa Monica's specific situation is they hired a firm to do this economic analysis of how they would benefit from the games or if they decided not to host anything. And I think the conclusion they came away with was that it was probably going to be a better deal for them for many reasons. They might have had to close the pier for the entire summer, or a large part of the summer to the public. It just didn't make sense for them. They could make more money by just being Santa Monica for the summer and then hosting some of these other little interventions that I was talking about. 

A really big opportunity for them are these things called hospitality houses. In Paris, there were like 30 of them all over the city. 

Every country that's bringing athletes there would set up in some kind of public or private building and have these viewing parties or VIP events. But a lot of stuff that was open to the public and you could go hang out. 

So they've been approached by a lot of countries to host those. So if you've got a few hospitality houses, and you have your own viewing stuff on the pier and then on the beach…you're pretty much set. 

But most of the deals that you're talking about signing are not public. You haven't been able to really go through them.

Long Beach's, for example, is online. It's public. You can look at it and it describes this thing called “Clean Zones,” a square mile around every venue. 

That means you're delivering like a blank slate: there's no advertising, there's no signage. There's very specific rules about trash pickup, and all these other things that have to happen. No street vendors, it seems like. You are making a big trade off when you make a deal with LA 28. 

But for a place like Long Beach who really wants to be put on the map through this and has, to their credit, done a lot of work to prepare…they have this thing called Elevate 28 which is a huge capital program leading up to 2028. They're doing things such as improving infrastructure, not just for the games, but also fixing sidewalks, adding to their cycle ways, and improving parks. Improving fire stations, libraries, all sorts of great things that'll have legacy impacts afterwards. 

Can every city prepare for it that way? Probably not, and maybe not even the city of LA. But for a place like Pomona, to be able to put something at the Fairplex, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal to like the residents of Pomona. The Fairplex is very large and kind of self contained, and does these things all the time.

Damien - I don't have a great grasp of all the geography of where the venues are, but  the event centers aren't located in the middle of town like it would have been for Santa Monica.

Alissa - The Zone would have encompassed all of downtown Santa Monica. So…what do you do in that situation?

Damien - It would have been really intrusive. And yeah, the race tracks and the Fairplex…

Alissa - They've got parking lots, just giant parking lots, yeah? 

Damien - Which raises a different point, though. There was the promise of the car free Olympics, and I don't know how you do that for the Fairplex.

Alissa - They're having the new station opening right there. It'll be open. 

Damien - I'm sorry, yeah, the other one. 

Alissa - Yeah, Santa, Anita, 

The A line gets pretty close, and they'll do shuttles.  You can walk there if you're determined, it's not the worst thing in the world to walk from that station. 

For Pomona, it's really exciting. I rode out there for the LA County Fair last year, and got to look at the station. I'm sure your viewers or your listeners are really excited about this too, but you've got a really cool, brand new station that's going to be opening later this year. It'll basically be right across the street. You got to walk through the parking lot, but you also have two different Metro link options as well that aren't that far away either. 

Santa Anita…it's not that hard to get there from the A line. They'll have shuttles. 

But the other thing that'll be really cool is there's these festival zones around all the venues. So you won't be walking through like a mile of parking lot. You'll probably be walking through a very cool fan experience with other things to do. And they want people to come and hang out and be in the environment, even if they're not necessarily ticket holders to that event. And on days where they don't have the event that day, they'll, it'll still be set up as a cool place to go.

Damien - So this is not going to be as not going to be as, let's say, onerous for the existing residents, as some of the more urban Olympics events venues might be. We've covered the transportation. Is there any other sort of surprises that the cities might be thinking about, or the residents might be bracing themselves for. You're making it sound like a pretty good deal for Pomona and Santa Anita. 

Alissa - Yeah. These places are used to doing this scale of events all the time. The one funny one will be the Whittier Narrows shooting range. I guess you could, you can get pretty close. You can get pretty close. They'll be shuttle buses and stuff. But it's not the end of the world.

Damien - Crowds at past Olympics…you have the shooters’ family. I mean, it’s not like it’s just 20 people in a room (with guns!), but it’s also not 20,000 fans.

Alissa - It's not that far from the A Line station. And, like, they will have little shuttles to get people that last like a little bit. I wouldn't worry too much about the traffic impacts. 

These others are large venues that are used to absorbing large amounts of visitors. And I don't think it'll be spectacularly different. Some of these things are happening at the same time in different parts of the valley at the same time so that’s a little different. 

The one thing I am super concerned about, and the reason that the LA County Fair is being held in the spring, it actually just ended, instead of in the summer, is the heat. 

The Fairplex made this big decision to move the fair out of the summer months and into,  our May Gray veil of outside my window right now, it's perfectly misty and foggy outside, because they were so worried about not just attendees, but also their workers, having very adverse effects from some of the worst heat and also air quality of those summer months. 

So, sticking a bunch of people in the hottest parts of LA County in July and August is not advised. I was thinking that they were going to pivot towards more coastal choices. I understand why they picked the venues that they did, and I think I'm glad overall that they're more transit adjacent, and they're more…they're in LA. They're not in Oklahoma City. But I'm very, very worried about the heat. And you don't hear too much about their plans for that yet?

Damien - Well, I mean, two years, maybe we won't have heat anymore, 

Alissa - Yeah, maybe it'll all be reversed, 

Damien - They got some time. I hear the government's very interested in reversing climate change.

Alissa - They are very. They're going to take swift action and give money to help cities cope with it. It's their top priority.

Damien - All right. Well, we are. We're starting to push 20 minutes, which for our dual podcast, is about how much we aim for. But you had mentioned in our pre-show that you had fun things to cover. Or are there more fun things to come? 

Alissa - One thing that’s exciting is how groups like Active SGV can really get everyone thinking about how to move around differently, not just for the games, but in real life. 

The games offer this tremendous opportunity. And of course, we also have the World Cup coming up next summer. Even though all the action is going to be at Sofi, you will see fan festivals and viewing parties too. There's going to be things popping up around the area next summer as well. 

You've probably heard much about the car free games. The promises of the car free games have really started to walk those back from the top officials. There's a story in The New York Times that I was quoted in today as we're recording this, and they're basically saying, like, "Oh, we didn't really mean it. We didn't really mean car free."

Damien - Aspirational! I haven't read the article yet. But I always love when government officials tell me "something was aspirational."

Alissa - Yeah, I mean, but it's good, it's a good aspiration. I'm still gonna keep saying it, but now they say “transit first,” but now they're even walking that back even more.

I think, because they're concerned they won't be able to get the 2000 extra buses to be able to move people around. Have things like Park and Ride, similar to what the Hollywood Bowl does, to get people on kind of these regional, dedicated bus networks that can move people from one place to another. But in the meantime, we've got to really be thinking about just the very, very small scale. How do we get from one place to another? And things like E bikes, and things like really good dedicated bike infrastructure.

Active SGV is leading the way out there, really getting this stuff in the ground, but also getting people to think differently about how they move. You have some really cool kind of grassroots ideas that aren't official, things like the festival trail, this 50 mile car free Greenway type concept that's going to connect some of the venues. Now, we've got venues that are a little bit further away. How can you plug into that network from the Arroyo and get all the way to the Fairplex?  

People will be wanting to do those types of things, to move around during this time safely, even in the heat of the summer, of course, let's have a lot of hydration zones. 

I would really like to challenge everyone to think about alternatives. Can we get something like a month-long e-bike rental for LA County residents to get cars off the road? You don't want there to be traffic, right? So can we start to think of some solutions that  shift people's behavior, as we saw in 84. A lot of people rode the bus to get to the Olympic events. It was a huge success. And a lot of people who hadn't taken transit before, took it during those weeks. So I think we could, we could really look to the San Gabriel Valley to be a leader in this.

Damien - Well, that's a great wrap up. Anyone that's been listening to it for a while knows that there's actually a lot of really cool things going on in the San Gabriel Valley. And you outlined a lot of them there too. 

When you were talking about E bikes and how the cities have been reacting to them…I'm still going to call it the Gold Line…the Gold Line coming through. But thinking about this major event coming as a way to accelerate that transformation that we've been seeing going on is a very optimistic way to look at it.

Alissa - And we don't need federal money to do it for the most part. So we don't have to rely on those jokers.

Damien - I get the feeling that it's not coming. 

Alissa - I don't know why. I didn't know why.

Damien - All right, well, anyway, thank you so much. We've got two more years till the Olympics, so we might try to check in with you again on this podcast. We generally don't do sports, but here we are.

Alissa - You've actually got three so don't worry, three years. (Damien: Oh, yeah, right, it's 2025) but let's pretend just so we can get all this stuff done last year you're going to be very busy. 

Damien - You'll be on CNN and NBC. Where were you last week? 

Alissa - Netflix, Netflix.

Damien - Thank you so much for spending time with us today, and we always look forward to getting to see you. And I'm gonna use the picture of you with “smart” written over your head that other Streetsblogs plugged in.

Alissa - Perfect. All right, thank you. Applause.

(Note: this week’s SGV Connect podcast is being broken into two parts. Part 2, which is a series of interview about The People’s Cafe in El Monte, will be broadcast tomorrow.)

Last week, news broke that bids for the next extension of the Foothill Gold Line - from Pomona to Montclair - would be delayed because the only bid to design and build the project was hundreds of millions of dollars higher than anticipated.

Earlier today, Damien Newton sat down with Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian to discuss the causes of the delay and how it impacts the timeline of providing rail service to Montclair.

Meanwhile, major construction on the extension from Glendora to Pomona wrapped up earlier this year. Bialin anticipates that Metro will announce next month the exact date that extension of the Gold Line will open to the public - probably sometime later this summer.

During the podcast, Bialin uses the terms “design build” and “construction manager at risk“ to discuss the different processes that agencies and contractors can use when making agreements on how a project will proceed and who carries which liabilities. For those interested, the links on the terms above explain what those processes are.

A transcript of this podcast is available after the embed of the broadcast.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, or Overcast.

Transcript: This transcript is lightly edited for clarity.

Damien Newton
Since the last time we've checked in, there's been a lot of good news, and then last week we had a little bit of concerning news. So let's get the "bad stuff" out of the way, and then we can talk about where we are with the project going forward. Last week, we heard that the next phase of the extension -not the one where the construction is completed, but the next phase - is going to be delayed at least a little bit because bids did not come in as low as hoped. Can you explain what happened there and what the next steps are for the Construction Authority?

Habib Balian
Over the last three years, in preparation to go out to bid for the next phase of the project from Pomona to Montclair, we did our own independent cost estimate. We brought in outside estimators - people that are very well known in the industry - to look at the project, look at our design, look at the specifications, and help us foresee what a potential bidder might bid on the job.

We went about this process, as any owner would, whether you're building a billion dollar light rail or remodeling the bathroom of putting some feelers out there what you think the job is going to cost. We went after it three times over the last three years. We even had Metro look over our shoulder and look at our estimates to come up with a validation of that number. And we rounded out with these estimators and Metro of a range of bids of what we thought the project was going to cost. We then started this procurement. We got some feedback during the procurement that our process to build the project using "design build" was not favorably received by the industry anymore. They don't want to take on that risk.

We, as the owners, want to shove that risk off on the contractors. And that's worked very well for us over the last 20 years and the three phases of the project using design-build. But that model was getting some resistance in the building community.

We also understood that a lot of potential bidders for the job would not be interested in competing with Kiewit (who had been the incumbent contractor for three consecutive projects that we built on the job from Union Station to Pasadena, Pasadena to Azusa/Glendora, and then the Azusa/Glendora border all the way to Pomona). Bidders were saying, 'Kiewit, seems to know the job so well, we may not be interested in bidding a job and competing with them, since they know it so well and probably could outbid us or underbid us.'

So we were very nervous about this. Going into it, we took what we thought were very conservative precautions. We did a lot of outreach to the contracting community. We hosted these forums available for people to ask questions. And we also incentivized potential bidders with $9 million worth of recuperance of the potential bid that any work that they put into it - the design that went into this, the cost of them bidding the job, they would, as a course of a participant, be able to receive a four, three and $2 million payment for the work that they perform.

Any design that they had done in furtherance of a bid that they would be able to give that to us, we would buy it from them, essentially based on their submitting a good bid that was responsive to the procurement.

So even with all those incentives, Bid Day rolled around and, going into it, we knew we were only gonna have one participant. Which made us very nervous that there would be no other bids coming in. We knew that through the RFP process, and basically held our breath for a couple months until the bid came in. The bid came in, it was substantially higher than we expected, I believe, 54% higher than what our estimators and Metro thought the project would cost. We talked to them, went through a best and final offer and were not able to reach... achieve any substantial reduction in it.

Then I took it to the board with the recommendation that we cancel that procurement and instead go out and re-procure through a different contracting method - CMAR (construction manager at risk, as it's known in the industry) - and proceed ahead with the project. It will be a bit of a delay, but it is a plan to get the project built, which is our mandate: to Montclair. We are starting in earnest with that procurement. It'll likely be on the street in June, and we'll be able to hire that designer and then bring on a construction management firm as well, and begin that process. And in furtherance of completing the project, with probably about a year delay we're expecting.

Damien
So with the year delay, could you outline what the rough timeline looks like now, to get that phase?

Habib
So we'll go through a procurement process beginning in June, probably June to September or October. We're nailing down the schedule right now, we will go and we'll seek a designer. That designer will engage them. That designer will complete the design, take it from our 20-30% complete and to a complete design.

About midpoint of that we will start a procurement for construction manager. That construction manager will look over the shoulder and work with the designer to prepare a bid and confirm that they can build the project for our budget. So that will take about two years from now, and then that'll be a 'thumbs up or thumbs down' with that design, with that builder. If it's within our budget, we'll award the contract to them. And then from that point, it's about a four-year construction project. So roughly, 2030-31.

Just as a footnote, should that builder that we bring on - the construction manager - say, 'we need more money,' or 'it's an inadequate budget,' we then have the ability of going out and soliciting a new builder for that project and hiring them and going out for construction based on a new bid.

Damien
So it sounds like a lot's going on, but the plan is still to move forward and to keep going.

Habib
Absolutely. The mandate of the legislature...back in 2000 they determined that the project would go from Union Station to Montclair. Just so, you know, originally [it] was supposed to only go to Claremont, and then it was later amended by the legislature to take it from Claremont to Montclair. That is our mandate.

It's very important for this project to work at its maximum. And that requires it get to these hubs. And the nearest hub for this project is, in fact, getting to Montclair - to the Montclair Transit Center, the bus center. It's very important for ridership and for moving people from the Inland Empire into LA County along the Gold Line route from Montclair.

Damien
Alright, so that covers last week's news. But since the last time we've talked, there was some good news involving construction of the current extension, so to speak. So why don't we talk a little bit about where we are in that process, which I believe is mostly done.

Habib
That's correct: mostly done. We achieved substantial completion by the contractor in early January, satisfied with their work. It was turned over to Metro for them to begin their preparations for operation. They'll start, doing their own testing and training of operators for over the next several months, with the anticipation that they will put it into service some time this summer. Metro - once they get underway with their testing fully - they'll be able to determine, probably in the May period, when they're going to announce a operations date with exactly when they're going to operate it some time this summer.

Damien
I said "mostly" I know your part is mostly done. It's "Metro's part" now that is still worked on. I just wanted to make it clear that when we said completed, it doesn't mean it's opening tomorrow. It's opening in probably July or August, if things go well.

Habib
That's correct. And just footnote to that is keyword is "still on the job." There's a long list of punch-list items that they're completing, some landscaping, some wall improvements, fare gates, something that's been a design change. Metro has come up with different fare gates system that is being retrofitted in. Our design originally didn't have them. Now it does, and they're being built as we speak, and installed.

So,some of those last minute details are being done. So if any of your listeners actually go along the line and take a peek at what's going on, you're still going to see construction workers out there.

There's still activity, nothing to the degree, obviously, of when construction was at full tilt. But right now, there is work going on, some cleanup activities, and handrails and fencing and gating is still going on,

Damien
I think we covered the two big topics on the checklist. Was there anything else you wanted to say before we before we sign off until July?

Habib
We're very excited about July. This is going to be very big for the San Gabriel Valley to connect further into the San Gabriel Valley, into Los Angeles, and ultimately to Long Beach. It's going to be very exciting for passengers, I think, and people are really going to enjoy this ride. It's a great system, and the stations look great. The artwork looks great. So we have a lot to show off this summer.

Damien
Well, we look forward to talking then and when the first phase of the extension open. I got this cool pin set, so I still have my fingers crossed to get another pin… Well, thank you very much. And we will. We'll talk again soon.

Habib
Okay, take care. Damien, thank you. Bye.

The Eaton Fire has left a tremendous scar on Southern California’s culture and politics for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, it’s stopped advancing for some time now, but the statistics are still top of mind: 17 dead, 14,000+ acres burned, 9,000+ structures destroyed, 1,000+ structures damaged.

During the early weeks of the fire, social media was a frenzy of good and bad information on destruction and safety, spite directed at elected officials, renewed revelation about the exploitation of incarcerated firefighters, and finger pointing over the funding and capabilities of Los Angeles City and County first responders.

There have also been scenes of hope, though. Ordinary people have stepped up to bring mutual aid to neighbors, including those who’ve lost everything.  From food, to clothing, shelter, donations, and DIY air filters – L.A. residents have thrown their arms around the survivors, and many have found a greater purpose in doing so.

This week on SGV Connect, we look at how these actions have changed public perceptions of our collective responsibility and power.

In part one of our episode, we’ll get an overview from L.A. Public Press Mutual Aid reporter Phoenix Tso, who covered distributions for both those directly displaced in Altadena, as well as unhoused people affected by poor air quality. A transcript of the interview can be found here.

Then in part two, we’ll listen to how north Pasadena journalist and resident Tamika Adams-Furniss went from fleeing in a terrifying evacuation to spearheading deliveries of home made air filters to her neighbors. A transcript of her interview is available here.

If hearing about these life-changing experiences inspires you to help those affected by the Eaton Fire, but you don’t know where to begin, check out these databases of displaced families’s fundraisers, and organizations distributing donations and supplies.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m using this week’s SGV Connect to encourage listeners to start listening to my other podcast, StreetSmart which appears at Streetsblog California.

This week’s SGV Connect features clips from three different StreetSmart interviews.

The first is with Jeanie Ward-Waller where we de-mystify the California Transportation Commission. A little-heard-of board that approves billions of dollars of state transportation funds every year. In this clip, we discuss why it’s important to have progressives and activists in some of the voting board positions. For the full podcast, and transcript, click here.

Our second interview is with a UCLA researcher who literally may have forgotten more about transportation than I’ll ever know, Juan Matute. In this podcast, we discuss the state of transit funding as the state continues its economic recovery from COVID and loses a funding partner for its most ambitious projects. In this clip, Matute pushes expansion of Bus Rapid Transit, as a way the state can spend smarter. For the full podcast, and transcript, click here.

The third clip is from an interview that we haven’t published anywhere else yet, it’ll debut on Streetsblog California next Tuesday. In this one, I’m interviewing both Adriana Rizzo of Californians for Electric Rail and Roger Rudick, the editor of Streetsblog San Francisco, about the status of High-Speed rail in the state. In this clip, we’re talking about how the project is shaped as a loser in the press, but never actually loses at the ballot box. For the full podcast and transcript, you’ll have to wait until next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Chris is working on a podcast featuring stories from the wildfires that raged last month. Stay tuned.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Foothill Transit’s Director of Marketing and Communications joins Streetsblog Editor Damien Newton for an ask-me-anything style interview probing the bus agency’s recent trials and successes.

Friesema took questions on: how Foothill’s bolstered services to Mt. San Antonio College and Cal Poly Pomona will connect with soon to open Metro A Line service in the San Gabriel Valley Foothills, the agency’s hopes for a bus rapid transit service contract in the 60 Freeway corridor, what level of challenge is still faced after the initial stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the agency’s move towards hydrogen fuel cell technology since its battery electric vendor Proterra went bankrupt.

Plus, as a bonus we heard about Friesema’s favorite local mystery writer, Naomi Hirahara, whose novels are set in the SGV, Chinatown, Japantown, and Manzanar to name a few. 

You can read a transcript of the conversation here, or listen to the podcast below.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

The post-election special featured a pair of Streetsblog editors, Joe Linton of Streetsblog L.A. and Melanie Curry of Streetsblog California, joining Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon.

Most of the talking was done by Curry, Linton and Newton, and the trio kicked off the discussion by outlining the impact of the Trump administration on federal transportation funding, particularly high-speed rail and public transportation. In a new administration, California will face challenges securing federal funding.

In LA County, some important county measures including the “climate bond,” Measure A for maintaining the county’s homeless services and Measure G which will expand the Board of Supervisors and create a county executive position. 

In LA City, progressive Isabel Jurado won over Kevin de Leon, potentially improving transportation and livability. Local elections in the San Gabriel Valley saw Sasha Renée Pérez elected to the State Senate and Nan Wong to the Alhambra City Council.

Find yourself wanting more SGV Connect? You can hear more on County Measures A and G in our last podcast featuring homelessness solutions super hero Shawn Morrissey and Supervisor Hilda Solis. You can also check out our last podcast State Senator-elect Renee-Perez here of an appearance on Greenspon’s SGV Weekly here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of Downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

With many mail-in ballots already in voters hands, it's time for the SGV Connect election special. This week we talk with a pair of experts about two ballot measures that L.A. County voters will decide this fall.

First, Damien interviews Supervisor Hilda Solis about Measure G. Measure G was put on the ballot with the support of three of the five Supervisors and would change the way L.A. County's elected government works. The measure would expand the Board from five to nine members, create new reforms designed to increase transparency for L.A. County departments, and create a county-wide elected position that would serve as the CEO for the County. The reforms to how the Supervisors are elected wouldn't take place until after the next census, so even if it passes dont expext too many changes to happen too soon.

After that, Chris interviews Shawn Morrissey of Union Station Housing. Shawn has appeared twice before on the podcast giving overviews on the county-wide politics around homelessness. Today he's explaining and promoting Measure A. In 2017, voters approved a 1/4 cent sales tax to fund homeless services that will expire in 2027. Measure A would erase that sunset and increase the sales tax to 1/2 a cent.

Both ballot measures need a simple majority to pass. SGV Connect will be back after the election to review what voters decided locally, regionally and across the state.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

With the Foothill Gold Line Extension to Pomona at 90 percent completion, SGV Connect pays another visit to the Construction Authority’s office to chat with chief executive officer Habib Balian. The podcast can be found below, but you can read a transcript of it by clicking here.

For clarity’s (or maybe confusion’s) sake, we are of course referring to the thrice renamed Metro “A Line.” 

Since 2020, tracks have been laid and station platforms have been poured from Glendora to Pomona. Now those stations really look like stations, and the last leg of the route has been funded: $798 million to build the last 3.2 miles to Montclair.

2025 is going to be a big year for the light rail line: construction is expected to finish, stations will be dedicated, and hopefully, service will begin. Listen to our interview with Habib Balian, and check out progress pics from our tour of the construction sites!

AUDIO PLAYER HERE

Thanks as always to Albert Ho, Media Relations Director for the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, for keeping SBLA and its readers up to date on the project.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Just last week, the legislative session for the year ended in Sacramento meaning a batch of legislation was passed that, if signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, would change the way the state conducts its transportation business. In this episode of SGV Connect, co-host Damien Newton goes it alone, interviewing Streetsblog California editor Melanie Curry.

As an aside, both Newton and Curry will be at the Streetsblog San Francisco/Streetsblog California anniversary party next week at Manny’s in the Mission on Thursday, September 12, at 6:00 p.m. along with a bevy of transportation reform superstars including mayors, transit board chairs and Senator Scott Wiener. If you happen to be in the area, drop by and join us. Reserve your ticket, here.

But for now, buckle in and enjoy today’s podcast. A full transcript can be found beneath the audio player below.

Damien

Before we get into the podcast, let me remind everyone that SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Hello, welcome to SGV Connect episode 127. My name's Damien Newton. We have a bit of a throwback episode here in that I am doing it on my own - or well, I'm not on my own, I have a guest: Melanie Curry, the editor of Streetsblog California, who's going to give us an update on legislation that has been passed and is awaiting the signature of the governor…hopefully.

We timed this episode to coincide with our Streetsblog San Francisco/California anniversary dinner next Thursday. If you’d like to join us on September 12, click here for more details.

And a link with all the information is in the email, excuse me, in the text of the story that accompanies this podcast. Boy, I'm struggling today, Melanie. I hope you're on your A game. 

…and she gave a thumbs up. You guys can't see that because we're not recording the video.

All right. So it just so happens that the first couple pieces of legislation we want to talk about were authored and introduced by Senator Scott Wiener, who happens to be one of our guests of honor next week.

Isn't that an amazing coincidence? So why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about these two pieces of legislation? And again, these are passed by the legislature, but awaiting signature or possibly something worse from the governor.

Melanie

Oh, we don't want it to be worse. 

This is one of the reasons that we are giving a Streetsie to Senator Scott Wiener - because he got SB 960, a complete streets bill, passed… again. He's tried three times with this bill and last time it was vetoed by the governor. So we're crossing our fingers that that doesn't happen again.

It's a little bit different this time around. Caltrans pushed just as hard against it as it had in the past. They keep saying, “we're already making complete streets a priority.”

Damien

…um…are they already making complete streets a priority?

Melanie

It's hard to say. At the headquarters level, their talk is good, but how it comes out on the ground is a different story. CalBike is working on a report about that very issue, which they're not quite ready to release, but we'll find out soon what they have to say. 

At any rate, Caltrans says they have a complete streets policy. But they're not really doing it. So what happened with SB 960 is Caltrans pushed back. They got language that they are more comfortable with, which is kind of similar to what they already have: they'll make complete streets when they are working on maintenance projects where feasible, which still gives them kind of a lot of outs. 

However, the bill is a lot stronger than last time around. It specifically includes a requirement to create a transit priority policy at Caltrans - which is a huge difference. It requires better transparency, so Caltrans has to report on their complete streets and how much money they're putting into it. 

It also requires them to come up with a shorter encroachment permit process - which sounds really wonky and kind of is - but it makes it easier for cities to make their own changes on their streets if they want to build a bike lane or something like that without having to go through 

the onerous process that Caltrans makes them do.. 

Anyway, it's been passed. We've got our fingers crossed. It's not the solution, but it's a really good step in the right direction for making Caltrans make complete streets on all of their facilities when they are repairing them..Not freeways, but all the other ones.

Damien

If this is a stronger piece of legislation than last time, doesn't it seem less likely that Governor Newsom will sign it?

Melanie

Well, it's interesting. It's stronger in ways that are outside of the when and where. It's stronger because it has transit priority, which it didn't before. It's stronger because it calls for better transparency and a shorter permit process. But in terms of requiring when and where complete streets are to be incorporated into Caltrans projects, it's really similar to what the current Caltrans policy is. 

It's kind of an interesting argument. [Newsom] said “give Caltrans a chance” when he vetoed a similar bill in the past. But at that time, there was a new Caltrans director. So they got a chance. That was four years ago. They had their chance. We haven't seen any results. So we're back with this bill.

I think it will take something to get the governor to sign it, but it might not be as onerous as it would have been four years ago. I mean, weigh in, call the governor! I don't know. It definitely needed support to get passed by the legislature, but I think it has a better chance than the last one did.

Damien

But that's not the only thing that Senator Wiener's done that has him on our list of “legislation to talk about today.” He's also done something with passive speed enforcement. You might need to explain this one a little bit.

I know you just did a story on it, and I read the story. I could totally talk about this if I had to, but, you know, people would rather hear you talk about it than me.

Melanie

Are you sure?

Damien

I assume.

Melanie

I don't know. My voice can get a little whiny. No, it's not enforcement. It's assist. So it's in-car technology that tells people, hey, you've gone over the speed limit. And it does that with, like, a beep. 

So this one was going to be a great bill. We were excited about it when Wiener first [introduced it] because he was looking for something more active - which is also a, technology that exists where … it prevents you from going over the speed limit. But that was just too crazy. So - not too crazy, it's a known and used technology. European cars have it. But there was too much pushback. So he said, “OK, passive speed limit assist technology in all new cars starting in 2030.”

And that passed. And you know it's better than nothing. A lot of new cars already have this technology…

Damien

…almost every rental car too

Melanie

It would be very surprising if it didn't get passed. It's a help. There's actually surveys that show that drivers like it.

And what's really strange to me is that about six or seven Republican legislators in California wrote this strongly worded letter to Governor Newsom telling him to veto it because enforcement is a better way to [handle this issue]. And they said it puts an “undue burden on the majority of responsible drivers,” which, uh, wait a minute.

Damien

Wait, but they're speeding, right?

Melanie

Yeah. Yet it's an “undue burden.” Like it's going to beep at you. Like one beep. It's only a one-time notification. So I don't know where they get any of that, “Undue burden on responsible drivers?” 

If you're going over the speed limit, wouldn't you want [your car] to tell you? I don't know. I really don't know where this comes from. I imagine all of them just want to speed like crazy for as long as they want to.

Damien

These are the people that obviously rent rental cars and then speed in them.

Melanie

And they don't like that one beep.

Damien

They don't like that beep…Not that I know from my recent road trip what that sounds like.

Melanie

Does it continue or is it just one [sound]?

Damien

I think it depends. The car that we had, it beeped every time you went 10 miles over the speed limit. So, we obviously heard it once and then adjusted our driving for the rest of the drive across the country because, yeah.

Melanie

Yeah. Right. Which is what people want. You know, like what if you're in a place that you don't know? What if you're driving in Oregon and there might be a cop that's going to pull you over?

Damien

Or what if the speed limit drops and you miss the sign?

Melanie

Exactly.

Damien

If we drove through a county and you know at the speed limit dropped 10 miles an hour, and then all of a sudden we went from driving roughly the speed limit to driving 10 miles over the speed limit…that's where we were.

Melanie

And that's where you're likely to get a ticket, too. So it's really helpful to be told by your car.

Damien

Was it the ticket lobby that was against this?

Melanie

You know, I don't know who those people are. I don't know if they're a lobby. They're just Republicans. I could find the letter and read you their names if you want, but they're Republican legislators who just hated it.

Damien

I'm just flashing back, as I always do, to the efforts to set the speed limit…legislation that we fought for for so long and finally got passed by Laura Friedman a couple of years ago, and the dumb arguments we would hear about it.

Melanie

Yeah, it's weird to me…. I'm looking at some of the names of the people that signed it, and I have to say some of them say some really dumb things in the hearings.

So I don't want to say they're dumb, but they're not very well informed.

Damien

We can say that if you want to.

Melanie

And this letter proves that…And they have an agenda that doesn't make a lot of sense. 

Just the idea there, they are law-and-order Republicans and for some reason they really love the idea of giving people tickets to enforce this [issue]. I don't understand their thinking. I have the feeling that's not going to have much sway with Governor Newsom. Who knows?

Damien

I mean, you never know these days. And he's been… he's been more conservative in the past year than I would have thought.

Melanie

Yeah.  I'm not a politician for a reason. I don't understand the way you think about things when you're a politician. It's not always logical.

Damien

Speaking of not always logical, let's talk about a bill that had to do with when you can and can't paint sharrows that was passed, but without the support of its initial sponsor, Streets for All…So what happened there?

Melanie

Gosh, who knows. So, this is SB 1216 from Catherine Blakespear.

This was also a[similar]  provision in another bill from Laura Friedman, AB 2290, but that one was just held back. It didn't go anywhere. 

So what this was trying to do was limit the use of Class III bike routes, which are, you know, they are signs and sharrows painted in the street, at most. They might just be signs, but they were really trying to get away from calling those even bike routes. People like Caltrans will put them down and say, “look, we made you a bike route.” But they don't really have any kind of good standards for when they use them, so the legislature tried to limit their use.. 

Plus, [the sponsors] wanted to eliminate funding for those projects. And actually, they sort of succeeded. When it was in the Assembly [Transportation} Committee, the bill was amended to restrict sharrows to roads that are 30 miles an hour or slower. 

Imagine riding your bike at, what, 10 miles an hour on a 30 mile an hour road, and there's a sharrow there telling you to go ahead and use it. So whoever decided that 30 miles an hour or slower made sense is not a bike rider. And [the committee] would not remove any limitation on using bike route signs, so they can mark a bike route wherever they want, which doesn't also doesn't make sense. 

Thinking of fast streets in the San Fernando Valley, for example, they could just call those bike routes. So when you look on Google Maps, it's going to tell you to go that way…and you get out there and you're like, “ah, I don't want to ride this road.” 

It was so bad that the sponsor, Streets for All, just gave up. But! One good thing about that bill is it does have a provision that says that … Active Transportation Program projects can no longer use [ATP funds] for Class III bike routes, after January 2026. 

I have a feeling that it doesn't really do that much anymore because the people who run the program are pretty aware of what makes a good bike route or a good bike project, and Class III doesn't really count. However, Caltrans is still going to use class III bike routes and claim credit for creating bike facilities. We have to keep our eye on that.

Damien

One piece of legislation that we covered in our Santa Monica publication is Malibu would now be able to put speed cameras on the PCH as part of the pilot program.

There's a lot of reasons this is interesting. 

A) that so many communities want to get in on a pilot program. There were three cities in Senator Ben Allen’s district, but only Malibu made it on this piece of legislation. 

B) is the need for this extremely complicated pilot program that a year after the legislation was passed, no cities actually have speed cameras up. Yet they're allowing other cities - and yet we [already] know from the entire rest of the world that speed cameras work - to join this complicated pilot program.

Do you want to talk at all about this legislation, what it actually does, and if maybe I took all of the thunder away on the interesting things, tell me to be a better interviewer. But if I did not, then fill in some other interesting things about this.

Melanie

SB 1297 from Senator Ben Allen adds the city of Malibu to the speed camera pilot program that was created by AB 645 last year. That was from assemblymember Laura Friedman that allowed Glendale, LA, Long Beach, San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco to do pilot programs with a limited number of cameras under all these really tight restrictions about where they could be, how they could be deployed, how they collected information from them, how they gave tickets, and they had to keep the the tickets out of the court system, and the fines had to be low and all kinds of really really tight restrictions.

None of those cities, as far as I can tell, have put up any cameras yet.

San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose have chosen locations for them, but they're not going to install them until next year. I can't find out about the other cities. At any rate, the city of Malibu will be able to add five cameras along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu [under this bill].

So what do we do about all the other cities like Santa Monica that might also want to put up speed cameras? They're all gonna have to wait. There's so much pushback from privacy groups and law enforcement, all these people who object to these programs. For law enforcement, this will make their life easier, but okay, whatever.

Damien

The whole thing baffles me. Allen introduced this after there was a high profile crash that killed a bunch of Pepperdine students standing on the side of the road late last year. The PCH in Malibu has always been a safety disaster for bicyclists, for pedestrians, for car drivers, for everyone. Allen tried to address this - there are several different project programs that are going on, educational programs, enforcement programs…this effort was sort of added on to those.

But as soon as he announced it, all the other cities in his district were like, “ooh, us too, us too.”

Because cities want these. It just feels weird to me that the state is making it so hard, with a cumbersome pilot program and only certain cities.

This feels like an effort to keep them out, not an effort to promote them.

Melanie

Yeah. What's fascinating to me about it is one of the arguments - which is a valid argument - against this was that street design is a more [effective] way to slow people down.

Yes, it's true. So one of the provisions in the original bill is that other street design changes had to be made. And especially if they put up a camera and it didn't slow speeds, then they had to make those street design changes. 

Well, PCH really needs some design changes. And the ones – the responses that they have [had] to that crash are just pathetic. I'm sorry, they put up speed feedback signs and they put up signs. Education, enforcement, those are fine, but those are not the kinds of things that make people slow down or actually change the street so that people have to drive slow.

We just have so much resistance to creating calm streets. And because the PCH is such a heavily used thruway, people want to zoom on it. It doesn't make sense for people to be zooming on it. But it's just part of our speed culture that we just can't change [yet]. It's a bummer.

Damien

I say romantic, I don't necessarily mean romance; but how many pop culture references over the years feature the hero or heroine in their convertible speeding up the PCH?

Melanie

Absolutely. It's glamorized for sure.

I say people who want to go fast and feel the wind in their hair should roll their windows down and stick their heads out the window while they drive and feel the wind that way because it feels like you're going fast even if you're going like 20 miles an hour.

Damien

Is it a little weird to hear the argument that it's road design that really slows streets down so we can't…we shouldn't do speed cameras 10 minutes after we were just discussing how Caltrans doesn't want to be mandated to do safe road design.

Melanie

Yeah, we're in a very strange tangle trying to make sense out of all of this.

I mean, we can see it, advocates can see it. But the arguments can be complicated. I maintain hope that we will prevail sooner or later. And it's partly because we have super smart people working on these issues. But man, it's not easy. It's not easy.

Damien

There was one more piece of major legislation we wanted to talk about before we might run down some of the other pieces, and that was what's been going on with e-bikes. It doesn't appear like there's much of an effort to make statewide e-bike policy. Instead, it's an effort to define what different communities can and can't do.

Melanie

Yeah, and I wouldn't even call these major legislation.

Both of the authors of these two e-bike bills, [Assemblymembers] Tasha Boerner and Damon Connolly, had started off with bills that were going to require a license to ride e-bikes, at least class 2 or class 3 e-bikes. I'll go over the classifications in a minute. They're all about speed and throttle and stuff like that. But it became pretty clear those bills were not going anywhere. So both of them changed them. 

In Boerners case San Diego and in Donnelly's case Marin County - they allow local jurisdictions to create e-bike restrictions. 

Borners would allow San Diego to pass an ordinance banning children under 12 and from riding class 1 or 2 e-bikes. You have to be 18 to ride a class three e-bike [already]. What is a class 3 e-bike? Let's see, [it’s] a little complicated: You have to use the pedals. You can't use just the motor, but it can go up to like 28 miles per hour using pedals.

You have to be 18 to ride that kind of bike. So Boerner wants it to change it so no one under 12 can ride a class 1 e-bike, which has a little bit of pedal assist up to 20 miles an hour at the most, or class 2, which has a throttle assist up to 20 miles per hour. And then after that, you would have to use your pedals, but [a class 2] could go 28 miles per hour.

Connelly has a similar bill, but he doesn't want anyone under 16 [to ride]. So [his bill would] allow Marin to pass an ordinance to require people to be at least 16 to ride a class 2 e-bike. And they could, if they wanted to, [also] pass an ordinance requiring any e-bike rider to wear a helmet. Even adults. 

So it's a problem because they're inconsistent. They're local ordinances. Local helmet ordinances from the get-go are a bad idea. There's a lot of people from Berkeley who ride into Marin. So like, what are they going to do suddenly? There's a different law for them over there?

Damien

I remember down here when one city was talking about banning scooters and others weren't, and it was like, well, what's gonna happen to someone riding on a scooter when they cross a border…Is it just gonna, like, stop?

Melanie

Yeah. Well, yeah, actually they can. They do put speed limiters on scooters! Not cars…not cars where they could really do some good. 

Those [bills] are like mostly annoying. They both passed, though. They're on the governor's desk. He may well sign them. Whether San Diego and Marin County passed those ordinances is a different question.

Another e-bike bill was from Senator Dave Min, which is kind of [an] interesting [one]. First it says that any e-bike sold in California has to have an e-bike battery that is certified to be safe, either the UL or the EU certification [or the like]. People are worried about battery fires and that would prevent that.

It’s not without its controversy because when they were talking battery standards for the e-bike incentive program, there were a lot of bike sellers who were mad about that. They were selling bikes that didn't have that certification. And they were like, “they're fine! 

But anyway, that passed. So if he signs it, they'd have to be certified.

And then the other thing that [the bill] did was clarify the definition of e-bikes. The reason that was an issue was because there is at least one manufacturer that makes these bikes that they sell as class 2 ebikes. 

So class 2 has a throttle assist and you can go with the throttle up to 20. With pedaling you can go up to 28 miles an hour. So they were selling these as class 2 e-bikes, but they had a switch on them that would allow them to go “off-road.” [That would allow them to] go way faster with just the throttle, which means they're basically mopeds. Min’s bill made those illegal. If  you sell something that's switchable, it's not an e-bike.

Wait, it's not illegal. It's a moped, which means, you know, age restriction and helmet restriction, etc. Because if you can go over 28 with a throttle, it…Yeah, that's not an e-bike.

And the thing is, like, how do you enforce that?

Can a cop tell from looking at it whether a bike is an actual class 2 e-bike or is it something else?

Damien

So let's try and run down the rest of the legislation we had that we were going to at least touch on today.

Melanie

Just a few things…One thing that passed that I think is really important because it makes me nervous is Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry worked really hard to get a bill passed that said you could not have any autonomous vehicle big rigs being tested on California roads unless there was a human operator present.

It was amazing how hard she had to argue for this.

Newsom had vetoed a similar bill last year, so he may veto this again. But meanwhile, the DMV is already … starting to put out draft regulations… for autonomous big rigs.

Isn't that fun to think about: driving on a road like Highway 5 and knowing the truck next to you has nobody in it?

If he signs this, there will have to at least be a person in the vehicle.

Damien

Yeah, he's not, he's not signing that, I bet.

Melanie

Maybe I can just like curl up in a ball and stay home for the rest of my life. Or they hurry up with that train so I don't ever have to get on a highway again.

Damien

You saw the video? I mean, it looks like it's just about finished.

Melanie

Uh no… but okay it's happening.

I would say one more more [bill] that's kind of cool is AB 2503 which gives a CEQA exemption for zero emission trains. There’s a problem with that, of course, as it's another way that they're poking holes in CEQA instead of just reforming CEQA, and also it specifically says zero emission trains and people are still calling hydrogen trains zero-emission trains, and they don't understand why I refuse to do that. So, okay…a CEQA exemption for clean energy trains.

We need that, but still it's not great.

Senator Blakespear had got passed SB 689 so that you would not need to conduct a study to convert a vehicle lane into a bike or a transit lane in coastal areas. That was specifically to overcome problems with the Coastal Commission process. 

And then there's another one, AB 3177. Streets for All sponsored it, and it's a little wonky. It says that you cannot require a new housing project to pay a mitigation fee to be used towiden a road. So that’s big. And then there's one more, AB 2086, which calls for more transparency from Caltrans -  they have to create a dashboard that shows their funding which is very complicated

None of these have been signed, however.

Damien

Right. None of these have been signed. Based on previous years, some of them might not be slam dunks, but if people have heard anything today that they want to weigh in on - again, you can contact your governor.

Sorry. It's a little play of words off the, you know, contact your representative today. Contact your governor. It's the same governor I have. I think he's in state right now. So it's a good time to get him

So again, if you want to talk to us about this in person, we will be in San Francisco next week at Manny's in the Mission at 6 PM on Thursday. Feel free to stop by. Feel free to buy a ticket. Feel free to say hello. More information on that event is on Streetsblog California and Streetsblog 

San Francisco, and of course, links to all of that are included with the text that accompanies this podcast. 

Thank you for your time today, Melanie, and we will talk to you again probably at the end of the year. We'll talk about which of these bills have been signed and not signed and what we're looking forward to in 2025, which is getting closer.

This week's SGV Connect returns to our regular formula with a pair of interviews by Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon.

First, Chris interviews Melissa Mora Hidalgo, a queer entertainment writer living in Whittier. The interview goes back and forth between fun and serious, as the two discuss both her work and the performative allyship that occurs during Pride month. In short, Hidalgo would prefer a city that works to create safe environments for all its residents to one that puts up rainbow flags one month a year.

You can read a transcript of the interview here.

After that, Damien interviews Jonah Kanner, an advocate for safer streets with the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition. Kanner recently authored a post for PCSC's blog entiteled, "Pasadena Is Almost a 15-Minute City." Kanner explains what a 15-minute city is, and what little things Pasadena can do to come ever-closer to joining the 15-minute club.

You can read a transcript of the interview here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Did we mention SGV Connect won a big award at the L.A. Press Club this week? Read all about it here.

This week Chris brings us a special feature interview with artist Isabel Pan. Pan is the artist in residence at C.A.S.A Zamora in El Monte. Her project has been a documentary-style, slice of life comic strip depicting the impact of sweatshop labor and refugee crises on the children of immigrants in the San Gabriel Valley. 

Pan’s subject is the son of a sweat shop worker, Denny. His parents came to El Monte in the late 70’s, fleeing the Vietnam War. They endured the loss of family en route to America, and the struggle of working in the garment industry once here. Pan’s comic strip is titled Má, which is what Denny calls his mother.

Má explores the generation gap and communication breakdown that Denny experienced growing up with parents who were traumatized by their escape from Vietnam and exploited by employers in Southern California. Denny’s mother was a work-from-home seamstress, payed cents per piece, who provided a home for her children. 

Pan - raised in part by working class grandparents - talks frankly with SBLA about the physical and emotional burden of this labor,  as well as the beauty of sharing these experiences with other Monteros. Her comic can be found at Matilija Lending Library in El Monte.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

This week’s SGV Connect continues our theme of focusing in on various areas of the SGV for our podcast episodes by looking at the Greater Pasadena area.

First, Damien and Chris traveled to El Sereno to meet with some of the Reclaimers, unhoused residents of El Sereno who moved into Caltrans owned properties during the pandemic. Benito, Sandra and Fanny return to SGV Connect (their first appearance can be found here) to advocate for affordable housing and community spaces, discuss the ongoing eviction battle between Caltrans and the Reclaimers. Personal stories and experiences are shared, emphasizing the need for accountability and justice from those in power: especially Caltrans, the county’s homeless services provider, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin DeLeon. A transcript of their discussion can be found here.

This discussion references the Roberti Act, passed in the 1970’s to guide Caltrans on how to manage and eventually sell these properties. A good description of Roberti can be found in this article about the competing vision between the Reclaimers and DeLeon for El Sereno.

Rick Cole has been a regular commenter at Streetsblog and Santa Monica Next for years. After his election to the Pasadena City Council in March, we reached back out to him to discuss the need to improve Pasadena's transportation infrastructure and engage the community in a more inclusive and proactive approach to address gentrification. Cole emphasized the importance of prioritizing safety, affordability, and alternatives to car use, and the need for a more inclusive approach to urban planning, involving the public in decision-making processes. A transcript of their discussion can be found here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week's SGV Connect is focusing on the election to replace Councilmember and Vice-Mayor Sasha Renée Pérez of Alhambra. Pérez has given up her seat to run for the State Senate.

We continue our tour through the San Gabriel Valley with an episode focused on the City of Glendora, known as the Heart of the Foothills.

It might surprise you if you're not familiar with what's going on at this small suburban community, but Glendora is working hard to build out a bike network, calm traffic on its streets, build up a downtown in its 'village' area and continue to plan for the coming A Line (Gold Line) Station. Our first interview is with Steve Mateer, who is responsible for executing the vision for a new and green Glendora. We talk about how the City Council is pushing a smart growth vision for the city and how their community outreach strategy has helped reach consensus instead of conflict on new projects such as bike lanes or parklets.

Second, Chris interviews Adam Cousins, the satirist behind the Memes of Glendora Instagram page. The social media site provides a tongue-in-cheek view of suburban life in the San Gabriel Valley.

The audio of our podcast can be found below. If you prefer the written word, you can find a transcript of our interview with Steve here and with Adam here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”