I was born in January 1978. That makes me 45 years old. And I say today, with confidence and no equivalence, that 2023 is the best year to listen to music that has ever existed. Not only is the music being made now fantastic, but there has never been a…

It feels strange to be writing about books at all this year. I made a very conscious decision to go out more, and thus spent less time reading. I just had less patience for reading in general, which is particularly evident in the absence of fiction on this list. But…

These are the books I actually read this year, even if they were all written earlier than 2021. Let’s start with the novels: Brooklyn — Colm Toibin

The main problem for improving LA transportation is that most of our ideas for a safer, more sustainable network are not popular enough. Taking space on the street away from cars for bus-only lanes? Not popular enough. Taking space to put in protected bike lanes? Not popular enough. Implementing safety-oriented…

This is a list of the 8 books I most enjoyed this year. These are mostly older books- in fact none were published this year. I check a lot of books out from the library and don’t make it past the beginning on most of them. …

This article discusses the power of the community to shape decisions about transportation infrastructure and how we use our streets for getting around — things like whether a bike lane gets installed, whether car parking is free, whether a general traffic lane becomes a bus-only lane, or whether e-scooters are…

Earlier this year, I wrote a three-part series of articles outlining the way that transportation policy gets made by elected officials. But it’s worth discussing elected officials at the local level (City and County) and how they relate to their communities in a little more detail. …

In the past few years, I’ve really enjoyed reading memoirs. So I decided to compile a list of my favorites. A few guiding principles: Life is too short to read long books. …

Indirect Policy-Making: Appointments, Budgeting, and Oversight — My previous articles in this series discussed why elected officials make transportation policy and how they make policy “directly” using the legislative process. This article will discuss three “indirect” ways that elected officials exert control over transportation policy: (1) Appointment; (2) Budgeting; (3) Oversight. (1) Appointments