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SGV Connect

SGV Connect is Streetsblog Los Angeles' podcast that explores the people, places, projects and events that make up the changing face of transportation in the San Gabriel Valley. SGV Connect is hosted by Damien Newton and Kris Fortin. This feed also hosts SGV Connect's predecessor podcast, #DamienTalks.
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Now displaying: August, 2017
Aug 31, 2017

This week, Damien talks with Frank Ching, the Senior Director, Parking Management for Metro about the early feedback and impacts of the new parking program at the El Monte Bus Station. Earlier this week, Metro began charging $2 for parking at the Bus Station to riders' TAP accounts as a way to make certain that those parking in the lot were actually doing so to use the bus service.

The early impact shows that the program is working, the need for an overflow lot has vanished and at least anecdotally there has been little change to ridership. This experience mirrors what has happened when fully subsidized parking is replaced with a fee-based system in other Metro lots.

In today's podcast Ching not only discusses the program in El Monte and rail stations across the county, but also the future of the program and any near-term tweaks that could be coming to the parking plan at the El Monte Bus Station.

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.”

Whole Foothill Transit is mentioned in this podcast, they were not involved in the content for the podcast in any way.

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

Aug 17, 2017

This week, Brian Velez talks to a pair of horse riders in the San Gabriel Valley about their experiences, challenges and all of the reasons to choose riding a horse as their preferred form of transportation. 

The first interview is with Alejandra from Avocado Heights. A horse owner, Alejandra tells stories and outlines the costs of owning, caring for and riding a horse both in terms of money and time.

The second interview is with Deputy Hector Beltran, with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office. Deputy Beltran tells stories from his time as a horse owner, including a sad tale of a horse's death after being spooked by a driver. He also explains some of the rules and regulations for owners and riders in L.A. County.

This is one of our longer interviews, the podcast runs nearly a half hour and we do our best to only lightly edit for brevity.

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.”

Catch past episode of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn and iTunes.

Aug 9, 2017

Nisei Week is an annual festival put on by the Nisei Week Foundation in Downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo District. The nine day festival features everything from a parade, to a film festival to a competitive eating competition with pretty much everything else in between. A full schedule of events can be found on Nisei Week's official website.

Today, #DamienTalks with idori Mizuhara with Community Arts Resources and Cory Hayashi with the Nisei Week Foundation about this year's festival which begins at the end of next week. Hayashi does a great job of briefly laying out the history of the event and highlighting some of his favorite parts of this year's festival. 

Mizuhara works on the Go Little Tokyo campaign with Metro and the Little Tokyo Neighborhood Council. This campaign is designed to help the community thrive during construction of the Regional Connector in the area and to preserve the cultural events, and places that help make Little Tokyo a unique place to live, work and visit. The campaign, is working to provide transportation options beyond the car for people visiting the festival. Read more about that effort at Go Little Tokyo's campaign website.

A quick programming note, we are not going back to the #DamienTalks format for our podcast in the San Gabriel Valley. #SGVConnect will return in the next week or two with the promised podcast on mobility for horse riders.

(Disclosure: This is a sponsored podcast that Metro pitched to us and agreed to sponsor. No discussion was made as to any editorial comments made by me nor did Metro receive any questions from me ahead of time. If you would like to sponsor a podcast, email me at damien@streetsblog.org)

Aug 4, 2017

After watching bike share systems come to neighboring cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Long Beach and others; in July it was Pasadena's turn to launch its own bike share system. Shortly after the launch, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (COG) earned a grant to expand bike share to 14 other cities throughout the valley.

Today, SGV Connect's Damien Newton talks with Streetsblog Los Angeles editor Joe Linton and the Pasadena Complete Street Coalition's Blair Miller. Miller is also a member of the City of Pasadena's Transportation Advisory Committee.

In our conversation, we discuss the rollout of bike share in Pasadena and how the system is working and being perceived. From there we transition to a discussion of the regional network of Metro bikes and other systems before talking about future bike share systems that will be coming to cities throughout the San Gabriel Valley thanks to the state grant received by the COG.

"Bike share is an exciting opportunity because we hope it will get more people out and riding," Miller concludes. "I hope that Los Angeles, Pasadena and other cities in the San Gabriel Valley can keep going in the direction their going to get more people out and riding."

Towards the end of the discussion, Linton mentions an upcoming piece by Streetsblog L.A.'s Sahra Sulaiman that looks at some of the equity issues (pricing, location) that surround bike share in Los Angeles and throughout the world. He hopes that the COG's plans take reporting on these issues seriously to insure that bike share is a system that works for as large a group of riders as possible. 

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.”

Catch past episode of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn and iTunes.

 

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