I’m back again on the bike on a regular basis, which for a three-year period not too long ago meant 30 miles a day, five days a week, but now translates into 18 miles once a week. Yesterday’s roundtrip to spcaLA in Jefferson Park where I’m now volunteering with the Animal Protection Services Division by which I hope to one day be employed as a Humane Enforcement Officer, included a couple of pleasant surprises — both on the return home.
The first was found as I cut through the main promenade across the USC campus: customized sharrows:
Since it’s not often I cut through TrojanTown, these welcome additions could be old news to the student body, but they’re new to me.
Secondly, after my brief visit to USC, I headed north on Figueroa where I played a friendly and respectful game of leapfrog with a Dash bus heading toward downtown. With the Dash bus behind me in the No. 2 lane and gaining as we neared Washington Boulevard, I spied a large custom tour bus parked at the curb up ahead of me, its width occupying most of what’s a Bus Only (Bikes OK) lane. I could sense the Dash bus would be alongside me just as I was alongside the parked behemoth, and though I should have moved out into the No. 2 lane and taken it, I instead hugged the left side of the bus and hoped for the best, which is what happened when the driver made a full change to the No. 1 lane to make sure there was plenty of room for us to both safely proceed, before transitioning back to the No. 2 lane ahead of me. Nice!
See for yourself in this brief timelapse segment from my handlebar cam: Dash Pass
With conscientious drivers like that it’s no wonder Jerry Brown keeps vetoing the 3-foot safe passing zone bill as something he doesn’t consider necessary… even thought it’s completely necessary and Brown’s a puppet jerk for killing it again last month.
PS. Since I had the bus number from the timelapse, I made sure to go to the LADOT Dash website and submit a commendation to the unknown driver for showing how easy and awesome it is to share the road.
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