Today, #DamienTalks with Brian Addison, the former editor of the Long Beach Post and LongBeachize. Addison was recently named the "Best Online Journalist" by the Southern California Press Club for, in Addison's own words, "writing about the city I love."

Placed between the shadow of the Los Angeles Megalopolis and the Orange Curtain, Long Beach is often overlooked, despite having a population of nearly half a million people and being the 7th largest city by population in the state...larger than Oakland. Long Beach has made great strides towards becoming a more livable city with better bicycle infrastructure and a rising Downtown. The city even bills itself as the "most bike friendly city in America."

Addison and I talk about how the city is doing under its new progressive mayor and how Long Beach is trying to expand its most-bike-friendly infrastructure from high-visibility areas into residential areas.

We’re always looking for sponsors, show ideas, and feedback. You can contact me at damien@streetsblog.org, at twitter @damientypes, online at Streetsblog California or onFacebook at StreetsblogCA.

Thanks for listening. You can download the episode at the Damien Talks homepage on Libsyn.

Today, Damien Talks with Graham Wheat our new Central Valley writer for Streetsblog California. Topics include:his life, transportation habits, journalism experiences and future-favorite-writing-projects. The Bakersfield native and resident has a lot of interesting views, including his big hopes for California High Speed Rail and what it can be for Bakersfield and the rest of the world.

Check it out, I can think of no better way to meet someone than to listen to a conversation between that person and me using my "NPR Voice."

We’re always looking for sponsors, show ideas, and feedback. You can contact me at damien@streetsblog.org, at twitter @damientypes, online at Streetsblog California or onFacebook at StreetsblogCA.

Thanks for listening. You can download the episode at the Damien Talks homepage on Libsyn.

This week, DamienTalks with Dave Snyder, the executive director of CalBike about the current legislative session and generally about how things are going in Sacramento. Spoiler: so far, pretty well.

But the biggest fish is still in the sea. The legislature will come back for a special session in August to try and deal with the state's transportation infrastructure crisis...specifically the lack of funds to deal with such a crisis. Snyder and others are pushing for both a complete streets policy for any "fix-it" project, so that with any new asphalt comes improvements to the bicycle and pedestrian grid and increased funding for other Livable Streets projects.

As you'll hear...Snyder is more of an optimist than I am.

We’re always looking for sponsors, show ideas, and feedback. You can contact me at damien@streetsblog.org, at twitter @damientypes, online at Streetsblog California or onFacebook at StreetsblogCA.

Thanks for listening. You can download the episode at the Damien Talks homepage on Libsyn.

Today #DamienTalks with Ethan Elkind, about the efforts to reform how the state measures transportation impacts of a proposed project. Currently, the state measures how a project impacts car travel time, but a change to state law will turn that rule on its head so that we’re encouraging projects that don’t produce more car trips instead of just mitigating the ones that do.

Not surprisingly, there is pushback. Surprisingly, it’s coming from a group that should gain from the change from “LOS” to “VMT.”

Ethan Elkind is the Associate Director of the Climate Change and Business Program, with a joint appointment at UC Berkeley School of Law and UCLA School of Law. In this capacity, he serves as the lead author of UCLA-UC Berkeley’s grant-funded series of policy reports on business solutions to combat climate change.  He also researches and writes on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), climate change law, environmental justice, and other environmental and energy law topics.  

His book Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City was published by University of California Press in January 2014. 

And we really like Ethan. Jason Islas conducted an interview with him earlier this year for Santa Monica Next: Part 1, Part 2.

We’re always looking for sponsors, show ideas, and feedback. You can contact me at damien@streetsblog.org, at twitter @damientypes, online at Streetsblog California or onFacebook at StreetsblogCA.

Thanks for listening. You can download the episode at the Damien Talks homepage on Libsyn.