Bike Girl Loves Plans

Bike Girl loves plans. There is nothing more elegant than a well laid, and well executed plan. She also loves bicycles. In fact, she even named herself after bicycles (BIKE Girl people, BIKE Girl).
Because of those dual loves, and her current address in Los Angeles, one would think Bike Girl would be ecstatic about the Los Angeles Bicycle Master Plan. It has a good name. It has bikes, plans, Los Angeles, and it's the Master of all plans. Bike Girl would love to peruse the plan and participate in the debate about the plan.

But unfortunately, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation does not want Bike Girl to comment on the plan.

The LADOT even went so far as to make sure that not a single meeting is in Bike Girl's area. It is no secret that Bike Girl has her base of operations in City Councilman Tom LaBonge's district. One would think that the "Bicycle Councilman's" constituents would want some say. But no meetings are in Hollywood. Plus, there are none in the hipster-cycling meccas of Echo Park and Silverlake. Nor is there a meeting in cyclist-dense East L.A.

Bike Girl could also submit comments online, but oh! only until November 6th. Bike Girl has a very busy schedule of bike riding, bike racing, bike wrenching, bike blogging, oh, and working. How could she possibly get through 212 pages, with 351 pages of appendices by then?

Our beloved protagonist is not the only one the LADOT does not want to comment on the Bicycle Master Plan. It has strategically timed the 6 month late release of the plan so that Neighborhood Councils cannot review the plan. Bicycling Activist Dr. Alex Thompson says the short deadline for comments makes it nearly impossible for his NC to react.

Bike Girl may even go so far as to say the deadline makes participation "infeasible."
Cyclists who want to participate in debate on the Master of all Los Angeles Bicycle Plans can e-mail West LA Councilman and City Council Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl at Councilman.Rosendahl@lacity.org. Ask for the deadline be pushed to January 4th, 2010.

Bike Girl Owns N Bicycles

(Photo by Gary Kavanagh)

Some noir protagonists sit in smoky bars downing whisky neat to pass the time in this cold, cruel world. Bike Girl has a different addiction. Hers involves slouching over a keyboard browsing craigslist for the perfect other bicycle.

Bike Girl once heard that the appropriate number of bicycles to own is N + 1 bicycles, with N being the number of bicycles one already owns. Anyone who knows anything about Math can see that this could lead to financial ruin. Or at least, a space issue in one's studio apartment.

Due to a lapse in willpower and the negative influence of a colleague, Bike Girl has made yet another impulse bicycle purchase. She now owns not one, not two, but four bicycles. (Three of which are functional)

Bike Girl justified the purchase, saying that by buying this bike, she would actually be paring down her collection. This bike was supposed to serve the functions of two of her other bicycles, which she promised herself she would sell. While parting with one of these may be possible, Bike Girl is extremely attached to the other.

It is not a particularly great bicycle, but Bike Girl's hopeless romantic side has formed an emotional connection with it. For one, it is Bike Girl's favorite color. For two, it has fenders which are good for the beach or for the occasional puddle. For three, Bike Girl rescued it from the bottom of a pile at the co-op and nursed it back to health with pure love.

While bicycles are certainly a wonderful functional machine for transporting people and things from Point A to Point B, they are also simply wonderful machines. But if Bike Girl continues to appreciate them as art pieces, friends, and souvenirs, she may have to find a larger apartment.

Haven’t had enough? Bike Snob describes the N + 1 phenomenon in this entry.