Currently I’m in Los Angeles sleuthing about. This is a mere 5% of the video I’ve collected so far, a little transit, a few bikes, some trains, a bit of Los Angeles, a sausage and more. Know where the sausage place is, because it was great, totally worth a visit when you’re in LA! So here’s a short sneak peek of upcoming Transit Sleuth TV footage… enjoy! Remember, episode 3 is coming out this Monday at 7:30am.
Category / Rail Related
Streetcar Mobile Music Festival, Sleuthing News & Updates, Plus a Sneak Peak of Next Episode of Transit Sleuth TV
The Streetcar Mobile Music Festival, or more simply the #SMMF, was great. (There’s a video sneak peak below, keep reading!!)
I’m currently working on getting the footage put together of the three bands I was able to see. It’ll be on an upcoming episode of Transit Sleuth TV in the coming weeks. Why did I only see 3 bands? It’s all about the logistics of how the festival works, it’s really pretty cool. Albeit it does leave you missing some of the bands.
How the Logistics of Music Work at SMMF
This years festival has a loading and unloading stop where all the bands stage ready to get on and off the streetcars. At the same time an audience builds up at the stop for switching to the streetcars as one arrives with a previously playing band and a new streetcar arrives to embark the next band. Check out this map below for an idea of how it works.
The starting point is also the ending point. A band boards with all their gear at the starting point, which this year was at the eastern stop just over the Broadway Bridge. The stop is N Weidler & Ross (id: 13607). That is is used for quick mobile phone update of when the next streetcar is arriving. At the festival you could see a lot of phones being used to record the bands and see when the next arrivals were coming over the bridge.
Once the band boarded they would play a set while the streetcar travelled south toward OMSI. This year the last stop at OMSI wasn’t taken however, because of construction for the pending connection to the new bridge. Because of this the streetcar was turning at the section of the route tagged turnaround below. Once the streetcar turned the second half of the set would be played while we traveled back north to the N Weidler & Ross stop. There the band, and much of the audience, would disembark and wait a few minutes for the next streetcar to arrive and start the jamming over again with a new loop trip.
Bands
For more information on the bands check out the Streetcar Mobile Music Festival Site and there is a bands section. Here’s a video sneak preview of the band Thanks that’ll be in the upcoming episode of Transit Sleuth TV.
Bicycle Brown Bag, The BBB!
In the coming week on October 17th another Bicycle Brown Bag with Adonia Lugo is coming up. Adonia will be talking about “Recognizing, Supporting and Celebrating Diversity in Bicycle Culture“. From the Bicycle Brown Bag site:
Yes, L.A. has a head start on Portland in the realm of diverse bicycle culture. But a tour of St. Johns or East Portland will reveal the variety of people riding bikes here. As we work to encourage everyone who wants to use a bike for transportation to do so are we missing the “ Invisible Riders” ?
Adonia Lugo will draw on her experiences at Ciudad de Luces (now Multicultural Communities for Mobility) and CicLAvia, as well as her academic work, to address this topic.
A cultural anthropologist and activist, Dr. Lugo blogs at urbanadonia.com about her carfree adventures as a Chicana woman and the belief our cities can be socially just and ecologically sustainable. In Los Angeles, she co-founded CicLAvia and City of Lights/ Ciudad de Luces (now Multicultural Communities for Mobility).
It’d be great to meet and see others, so ping me via Twitter @transitsleuth and let me know you’re coming. I’ll be sure to say hello!
Happy hygge, cheers!
Streetcar Mobile Music Fest #SMMF 2013
The Streetcar Mobile Music Fest 2013 is happening this Saturday (that’s tomorrow). The last one was great, careening around the CL Line and the one before that (or was that just bands on streetcars?) was great too! Either way it’s going to be a great time, so come ride a CL Line Streetcar and enjoy the scenery and music! I’ll be there video recording and photographing the event for fun (thus, say hello) and the intent afterwards is to get a crew together afterwards for dinner and drinks. Of course, somewhere on the streetcar line! 😉
For a quick idea, here’s a video montage from last year.
Cycling, Transit and Sleuthing News and Updates
A few things going on with the sleuth activity as of late. First and foremost I’ve setup a schedule I’ll be aiming for with Transit Sleuth TV. The idea will be to publish an episode every 3 weeks on Monday morning at 7:30am. This frequency is starting as of today, Monday the 7th. So the next episode I hope to publish on the 28th, parts are coming together already. For the latest episode, check out “To Orenco, Mobile Ticketing, Powell’s and Introducing Jonathan Scheff!“. Episode 1 is out too, check it out “Transit Meet n’ How to Carry Wine & Gelato“.
In upcoming episodes I’ll be covering PARK(ing) Day from a few weeks back, commentary included. I had a great ride out and met a number of excellent individuals; Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman, Hart Noecker and many others, Cheers & great job on the event! Interviews with more Portlanders and their ways of getting around; jumping the bus, rolling with the MAX, or how to know a bike boulevard from a bike lane while pedaling along at pace. I’ll also continue the frequent coverage of trip tips & tricks. The aim is to answer the questions like, “how do I get my beer, unbroken, from store to recliner for the big game?” or “how do I carry 40 lbs of groceries home without busting the eggs” and one of my all time favorites, “where are the best” If there is something you’d like to see, leave a comment or ping me directly I’m totally open to new segments, stunts or other bits.
Transit & Biking Round Up
I’ve been reading blogs in the Portland area for a while now, specifically around transit and bicycling. Here’s a collection of the top sites and blogs with some additional sites I’ve researched and collected together. This is similar, and maybe I can light off some similar posts by others in the city that outline other sites they use for their day to day transit, cycling and related lifestyle matters.
- Portland Transport
- BTA Blog
- Bike Portland
- Shift2Bikes
- Northwest Trail Alliance
- Rebel Metropolis
- Active Right of Way
- The Sprocket Podcast
If you know of any other blogs, websites or others out there that provide event information, helpful tips or other information please post a comment and I’ll get a page put together that is dedicated on Portland resources for this.
Portland, Let’s Take the Streets Back! Do More Have to Get Killed?
It seems, even though I understand a lot about the situation, that ODOT is in favor of maintaining roads as dangerous, anti-pedestrian, anti-cycling and anti-livability paths more reminiscent of 1950’s America than modern day realities. I’ve not been keeping track, because it’s damn depressing, but Bike Portland has been keeping track of one of ODOT’s points of disturbing embarrassment. Disturbing as in, ODOT has been extremely slow to act and thus more people have been killed or injured. Portland’s tax bills keep going up and up trying to manage these killings, wrecks and costs associated with roads ODOT is supposed to be responsible for. ODOT however has no motive or real interest based on their mission statement to work on actually improving these roads, were as the city has a distinctive reason to focus on them – the city’s citizens are being killed, maimed or injured in some serious way. For more information on this insanity…
- Fatal Crash on SW Barbur Last Night
- ‘Friends of Barbur’ plans ride, launches beer donation drive for hit-and-run victim and Arrest made in Barbur hit-and-run case.
- Commissioner Novick, PBOT respond to SW Barbur hit-and-run
- Woman hit while walking on Barbur; but help is on the way
- …and in June Jonothan Maus @ Bike Portland summarized SW Barbur Boulevard is an Embarrassment.
So what’s the real solution here? Portland (that’s us yo) takes back its streets. That includes 26, 99, SW Barbur and more. We put these streets on a killing diet (street diet or whatever you want to call them). Let’s take Barbur and turn it into a BRT, cycle-track and pedestrian example of how awesome and livable Portland can truly be! Who wants to prospectively work up a proposal for this with me? Because seriously, the SW Corridor is up for a serious redesign and the effort has started, GET INVOLVED!
Transit Sleuth 