Spotlight Story

Sisterhood of the traveling bikes

Andrea Denike Martinez still remembers the day she got back in the saddle.

It was Earth Day—April 22, 2010. For the first time since a bad bicycle accident fractured her skull and landed her in intensive care several years earlier, Martinez was ready to once again brave L.A.’s streets on two wheels.

Heading out from her Echo Park home, she was pumped up with environmental commitment—and “so nervous,” she recalled.

But moral support was also on the road that day. “I met another girl on a bike going that very same route.” She was a total stranger, but Katherine Gladwin was going in the same direction so they rode together to their jobs near Wilshire and Western.

They not only became fast friends, but started a small women’s cycling crew they dubbed the Bodacious Bike Babes. Since that first commute, they’ve organized and publicized group rides, volunteered at events like CicLAvia, and generally tried to encourage other women to take the plunge into an L.A. cycling world that remains overwhelmingly dominated by men.

Even though they may have felt alone out there at times, Martinez and Gladwin have plenty of company these days. On Wednesday, February 8, a coalition of women cycling advocates is set to gather in Long Beach to announce an ambitious goal: doubling the number of female bicyclists on Southern California streets within five years.

The initiative is led by a relatively new organization, Women on Bikes SoCal, which seeks to promote the “joy, beauty and benefits of bicycling for women.” Its campaign includes establishing the nation’s first women-only scholarship program for League Certified Bike Safety Instructors. (Information on supporting the initiative is here.)

One of the most visible faces of female cycling in Southern California, Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, is among those backing the movement.

On a recent bicycle tour of her city, which is noted for its large and growing network of bike-friendly amenities, Lowenthal made it clear that dressing like Lance Armstrong—and riding like a Tour de France champion—are not required to join the cycling revolution.

“I want to wear my heels. I want to do all sorts of kinds of things that are about regular lifestyle,” Lowenthal said. “You don’t have to be the 50-mile-a-week spandex athlete. You can move about with your children and make it a very family-oriented, healthy, active lifestyle.”

In fact, Lowenthal thinks that the health and well-being of kids can be a powerful motivator in getting women to take up cycling. Childhood obesity is a “crisis of epic proportions,” she said, and there’s nothing like getting mothers on bikes to get everyone else onboard, too. “It is that green light: ‘Well, Mom’s OK with it,’ “ she said.

Still, if current statistics are any indication, there may be an uphill climb ahead.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition reports that only 16% of cyclists spotted during last year’s bicycle count were women—about the same percentage as in the previous count in 2009. A new report by the national advocacy group Alliance for Biking and Walking found that only 20% of those bicycling to work in Los Angeles are women—compared to 33% in Sacramento, 38% in Portland and a remarkable 49% in Memphis.

Ask L.A. women cyclists, non-cyclists and would-be cyclists about the imbalance, and most are quick to sum up the problem in two words: too dangerous.

“A lot of it is people really are deathly afraid of cars, and the way people drive,” said Martinez, 33, co-founder of the Bodacious Bike Babes.

“It’s just too stressful being on the road,” added Kristen Schwarz, 28, who lives in East Hollywood and gave up her bicycle a couple of years ago after one too many encounters with speeding motorists. “It’s tough out there!”

Everyone, it seems, has a harrowing story or two.

“My first experiences in L.A. were pretty terrifying. I went down Wilshire. It was definitely a treacherous route,” said Gladwin, Martinez’s friend and co-founder. “My bicycling career in Los Angeles started in a pretty daunting fashion.”

She’s been struck twice by cars, the first time by a morning rush hour driver who mowed her down on Wilshire. “She stopped and she actually was complaining about heart palpitations because of the trauma she had experienced,” said Gladwin, 29, who was thrown to her knees in the collision. “I was intimidated but I wasn’t going to let that deter me.”

Magdalena Paluch, who interviewed women cyclists as part of a project to create a bicycling app while she earned her master’s degree in industrial design at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, said greater female involvement could lead to big things.

“I feel strongly that if anything will change, most of the time it changes because of the women. We are change agents,” she said. “Women are considered an ‘indicator species’ for biking and public transit because women are risk-averse. If you make it safe for women to bike, it’ll be safer for everybody.”

Cycling advocates agree. They say that creating more, and safer, facilities like “protected bike lanes”—in which riders are buffered from car traffic—and “bicycle boulevards” on slower-moving residential streets is the key to overcoming the perception and reality of dangerous L.A. streets.

Joe Linton, a CicLAvia consultant and longtime L.A. bicycle activist, noted that the gender disparity disappears in countries like the Netherlands, which has a highly developed network of bikeways and a culture in which cycling is considered a safe and commonplace way to get around.

“In very bicycle-safe cultures, women are actually the majority. In daredevil places, or places that are perceived as daredevil, like L.A., women are reluctant, and reluctant to go with kids,” Linton said. In Los Angeles, where men have long dominated the bike scene, it’s easy for experienced, hardcore cyclists to forget how women—and other less confident beginning riders—may view the challenges of the road, he said.

Advocates are increasingly pointing to women riders’ safety concerns as a way of advancing a broader agenda of making streets better for all cyclists and pedestrians, of all ages. “This is a growing issue,” said Alexis Lantz, planning and policy director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.

In fact, the women’s safety argument has been made as part of a push for improvements in Los Angeles County’s Bicycle Master Plan, set to come before the Board of Supervisors in the weeks ahead.

Lantz said it also could be a factor as advocates press for more bicycle resources in the Southern California Association of Governments’ Regional Transportation Plan. And, on the federal level, she said, “Safe Routes to School”  funding—which provides resources for many bicycle and pedestrian programs and is now threatened as part of the budget showdown in Washington—is another area in which women’s street safety concerns are a big part of the conversation.

Beyond the public policy arena, signs are everywhere that women are finally starting to make their move into the bike lane—at least a little bit.

Photos of bike-riding celebs like Zoe Deschanel, Hilary Duff and Vanessa Hudgens are all over the Internet, as are fashion-forward blogs such as Los Angeles Cycle Chic. Monday nights are reserved for women at the Bicycle Kitchen. Although nobody’s done a formal count, popular street-closing CicLAvia events seem to be bringing out large numbers of women. And young female activists are creating crews like Iron Unicorns, dedicated to creating “equality for women cyclists, both on the streets and in society.”

All those are valuable in building the women’s cycling movement, Lantz said.

“I think there is something that everyone can bring,” she said. “Cycle chic is a really great way of promoting cycling for some women. I really think that the more attention brought to cycling, the better.”

Posted 2/7/12

Bike lessons from Long Beach

With the county’s first bicycle master plan in decades heading into the homestretch, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and a team including engineers and members of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition recently hopped on bikes and took a look at what the future might hold.

On their cycling tour of Long Beach—which makes no secret of its aim of knocking Portland off its perch as America’s most bicycle-friendly city—they pedaled along innovative bike boulevards, green sharrows and a spectacular stretch of the Pacific.

Their takeaway: where there’s a will, there’s a bikeway. Ride along for a first-hand view.

Posted 1/19/12

 

Eight ways to a happier 2012

What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Chances are, it’s aimed at a happier 2012. But what works when it comes to improving your day-to-day satisfaction? Can one resolution actually make any difference?

Sure, says Dr. William Arroyo, the Department of Mental Health’s regional medical director. But it may not be the sort of resolution most people are used to making. Here are his tips for a more soul-satisfying year:

1. Resolve to do a self-inventory. “Take note of all the good things, large and small, that were achieved in the prior year,” Dr. Arroyo says. Write them down—you might be pleasantly surprised at all you’ve accomplished. Now take special note of anything that was not only good for you, but also good for your family, workplace or community, and consider doing them again this year.

2. Resolve to give yourself permission to change. This is harder for some people than it sounds, Dr. Arroyo says. Behaviors become entrenched. Friends and families become invested in old habits. “It isn’t always easy to remember that it’s in our nature to pursue good,” he says. “It’s okay to do something differently, especially when doing it the same old way hasn’t worked or has offended those close to you.”

3. Resolve to build pleasure into even into the smallest of budgets. “Maybe you want to manage your money more efficiently,” says Dr. Arroyo, “or allocate for all your bills. That’s fine, but if there’s anything leftover, don’t forget to allocate some resources for pleasure—and pleasure doesn’t have to be expensive. Sometimes pleasure can be just spending time with friends and family, or with those one didn’t have time for in the prior year.”

4. Resolve to be healthy. “And that includes mental health,” the doctor says. “Pay attention to diet and exercise. Avoid harmful substances, whether it’s fatty food, or alcohol or some other potentially harmful thing. But also monitor moods and feelings. If one’s social life is unsatisfactory, think about bringing parts of that to a close. If people around you appear to jeopardize your well-being, think about changing your social circle. Whether it’s foods and beverages or people, give yourself permission to get away from toxic environments.”

5. Resolve to seek peace. “Yoga, prayer, meditation—these work wonders for many people,” says Arroyo. So, he adds, does professional counseling. “Everyone experiences worry and anxiety, but if that’s your primary mood, then it’s probably excessive and you might want to consult with a spouse, a partner, a trusted relative or member of your congregation, or you may want to seek professional help. A little bit of anxiety is normal and useful, but not to the degree where it interferes with your well-being.”

6. Resolve to communicate. “Becoming closer often entails making an inquiry,” says the doctor. If you’d like to be closer to your loved ones, “ask how you can be better with them this year. Be humble. Give the other person permission to let you know when you do something that causes them displeasure—and be willing to change it.” Or, if you aren’t getting what you need from your relationships, resolve to say so: “It’s okay to set limits with others, no matter how close or how distant they might be.”

7. Resolve not to overlook the positive. “One needs to be objective in tough times,” says Dr. Arroyo, “and to keep in mind that there is always more than one way of looking at things. Even in our darkest, most painful moments, there is often a bright side.” Hard times pass, he says, but those who weather them can come away with valuable life experience.

8. Resolve to reach out. “As folks are winding up the year, there’s always a lot of hustle and bustle, and we forget that some people are not as fortunate as we are,” Dr. Arroyo says. “Those who don’t have our means or our health or our rich circle of family and friends could benefit from some demonstration of interest in their well-being—spending time with them, conveying that we care.” Donating to charity isn’t the only route, either. “You can volunteer in an organization,” he says, “or work within your neighborhood.” The key, he says, is to connect and be useful: “It reminds that one is more than the things and money one has.”

Posted 12/30/11

Santa Monica Mountains man on the move

Woody Smeck may speak softly, but he carries a big reputation.

With his wide-brimmed hat and low-key eloquence, Smeck has become the public face of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and in many ways its staunchest guardian.

As superintendent of the country’s largest urban national park for more than a decade, Smeck has presided over the recreation area as it added thousands of acres of new public open space. Working with partners from every level of government as well as those from community and non-profit groups, Smeck has helped shape everything from firefighting practices to educational outreach to preservation guidelines for sensitive wildlife habitats.

And he has been a tireless advocate for the 153,750-acre recreation area, appearing in this video and countless other forums to explain the complexity and importance of the vast natural preserve at the edge of the one of the world’s largest cities.

Now he’s getting ready to to make his mark on another national treasure. In April, he will become Yosemite National Park’s new deputy superintendent. And those who’ve walked the path with him here are already feeling the loss.

“I’m so sad,” said Kim Lamorie, president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, which honored Smeck with its “Citizen of the Year” award in May.

“There is only one Woody Smeck.”

In honoring Smeck, Lamorie credited his “quiet but persuasive ability to finesse funding” of new open space acquisitions. Future generations, she said, will “revel in the wonder of the wild and wonderful resources you have preserved.”

Geoffrey Given, who heads the advisory board for the Santa Monica Mountains campus of the educational program NatureBridge, said Smeck’s impending departure is “a huge loss for Santa Monica [but] a huge gain for Yosemite.”

“He has been an unbelievable advocate and supporter of what we do,” Given said. “At all of our fundraising events, he’d show up in uniform with his flat-brimmed hat on.” Smeck also put his money where his hat was, backing the organization’s educational outreach with funds from his own agency’s budget, Given said.

“I think he has made historic contributions to the National Recreation Area,” added Joe Edmiston, who as executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has worked closely with Smeck for years. “His shoes will be very difficult to fill.”

In announcing the appointment, Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher said Smeck “has the ideal background to helpYosemite achieve unequalled operational and innovative excellence.”

Smeck said Neubacher first reached out to him about joining the Yosemite team about 1½ years ago. With his youngest daughter still in high school, the timing wasn’t right initially. But now that she’s graduating at the end of this school year, Smeck decided to accept the offer.

He’ll head to Yosemite solo in early April and will live in park service housing until his wife, Karen, can join him, probably in July. They plan to buy a home in Mariposa.

The new position could put Smeck in line for greater executive responsibilities down the line—either at another national park or in Washington, D.C.

But he said he’ll miss his Santa Monica Mountains stomping grounds, where he got his professional start in 1991 as a young landscape architect with degrees from Cal Poly Pomona. Smeck reached the recreation area’s top job in 2001. He still marvels that he was able to get there without first transferring to other points around the National Parks system.

“People told me not to expect to stay [in one location] very long,” said Smeck, now 49.

But stay he did—long enough to rub shoulders with influential people ranging from TV documentarian Ken Burns to President George W. Bush.

Bush’s visit in 2003, he said, was a high point—a recognition of the power of collaborative work toward a common goal.

“It was a great opportunity to talk to him about how partnerships work, how cooperative management works, and he genuinely listened to what I had to say,” Smeck said, recalling a 45-minute hike into the Rancho Sierra Vista area of Point Mugu State Park with Bush and a small group that included Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “To get a presidential visit…was very uplifting for everyone.”

He said he’s also proud of completing a general management plan that “provides a unifying framework for preservation and stewardship” of parklands going forward. That plan, created with various state partners and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, established a “cooperative vision” that has informed an array of other actions, including blueprints for fire management and land protection.

His career is a natural outgrowth of an outdoorsy childhood in California’s Central Valley. “I spent my summers hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains—especially Sequoia National Park,” he said. “By the time I was 21, I had experienced most of the Sierra Nevada wilderness.”

His first day on the job in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area started inauspiciously when he got lost trying to find the Rancho Sierra Vista trailhead.

“Back then, you had to drive through residential areas and gravel roads to find the obscure parking lot,” he said. “One of my first assignments was to develop a new entry road and trailhead from Potrero Highway. Today, I’m happy to report that visitors have a very scenic entry drive and wonderful staging area with good signs, drinking water, and clean restrooms to start their park experience at Rancho Sierra Vista.”

As he prepares to venture north to the world-renowned glories of Yosemite’s Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall, he acknowledged that he’ll miss the lesser-known but equally beloved natural treasures he’ll be leaving behind in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“Oh wow, there are so many incredible places. If I had to pick one, the place that’s the closest manifestation of heaven for me is the Old Boney Trail in Point Mugu State Park,” he said. “It is just such a pristine, wild, raw, natural environment. It’s as if you’ve been transported into another world. It is spectacular.”

For Smeck’s photo of the Old Boney Trail and some of his other favorite sights in the Santa Monica Mountains, check out a gallery of his photos below.

 

Posted 12/14/2011

Weighing the costs of recovery [updated]

During the past 18 months, Los Angeles County public health officials have quietly opened a new—and controversial—front in their battle against the painful and costly cycle of addiction, treatment and relapse.

Under a little known pilot project, some 600 uninsured individuals have received roughly 1,500 injections of the drug Vivitrol, which has shown promising results in reducing cravings while allowing the benefits of traditional recovery to take a stronger hold. The publicly-funded project is said to be the largest of its kind in the nation.

Now the Department of Public Health hopes the Board of Supervisors will, in the coming days, approve a request for $3.4 million to expand the delivery of Vivitrol in an even broader effort to determine whether the $847-per-dose injections improve the odds of long-term sobriety—and can do so at a lower overall cost to the public. [See update below.]

“This breaks new ground for the county,” says John Viernes, director of the Department of Public Health’s Substance Abuse Prevention and Control Division. “Many clients, even on a court order, will leave residential treatment after only a few days because the urge to use is so great. If we can get people into recovery faster and decrease relapses, we can serve more people. The whole cycle changes, both in terms of productivity and quality of life.”

The stakes are high: In Los Angeles County, the economic costs of alcohol-related illnesses, injuries, traffic accidents and crime approach $11 billion annually. The Department of Public Health alone spends more than $200 million on substance abuse and prevention programs each year.

Although the drug’s price also is high, Viernes insists it can be lowered through bulk purchase. “The initial cost is high for any new strategy,” he says.

Vivitrol, an extended-release formulation of the anti-addiction drug naltrexone, was approved for the treatment of alcohol dependency in 2006 by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Injected monthly, Vivitrol has been used for several years in private rehabilitation clinics. Last year, it also was approved to assist opiate users in relapse prevention.

Clinicians say the drug helps clients—particularly those with a family history of alcoholism—stay sober long enough to focus on a course of therapy or 12-step program, which is key because studies have shown that long-term recovery rates improve the longer an alcoholic or drug addict remains in treatment.

It’s not a magic bullet,” says Ken Bachrach, Ph.D., psychologist and clinical director at Tarzana Treatment Centers, one of the providers that has participated in the county pilot program. “I view it more as value-added. But if we can get [clients] past six months, they have a much better chance of staying clean.”

Aside from complaints about its administration (a hip injection), the shot’s most common side effects are occasional nausea, headaches or fatigue. Numerous studies have found that recovering alcoholics who combine Vivitrol with counseling tend to stay sober longer, drink less if they relapse and return more quickly to treatment.

Studies done by two insurance providers—Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and Aetna Behavioral Health Care—also showed that the drug dramatically reduced the hospitalization, pharmacy and medical costs of treating the alcohol-dependent.

The Horizon study, which examined the medical bills of recovering alcoholics for 30 months after Vivitrol injections, found that alcohol-related hospital costs fell 52 percent, total medical costs fell 34 percent and combined medical and pharmacy costs fell 49 percent. Among those requiring the most care prior to their treatment, Vivitrol injections cut medical costs by some $70,000 per patient a year.

But the drug has been slow to catch on, partly because of the cost of the injections and partly because clinicians and alcohol counselors traditionally have been more accustomed to treating substance dependencies with behavior modification therapy and oral drugs, if they use any medication at all. Also, many substance abuse programs lack the necessary staffing and clinical licenses to administer injections, so the patient often has to go to a doctor’s office each month to get the shot.

Under the county’s pilot project, the drug has been administered during the past 18 months to uninsured clients in various county-funded recovery programs, ranging from people in court-ordered treatment to homeless indigents, says Viernes.

Those county clients have each received between one and four shots since March 2010 as part of their treatment, Viernes says. So far, he says, both inpatient and outpatient clients who’ve been given at least one dose of the drug have been up to twice as likely to complete treatment as those who have not received injections.

One client, a 45-year-old woman who had endured “over 20 detoxes”, reported that, thanks to Vivitrol, her cravings for alcohol had stopped for the first time since her adolescence. A 52-year-old man, who’d been in and out of 12-step programs since his twenties, reported that after two shots, he could focus on his recovery for the first time—and pass a liquor store without realizing it.

Still, despite such testimonials, UCLA researchers have not been tracking clients long enough to determine the medication’s possible benefits for long-term sobriety. Nor is it clear how long an alcoholic or addict might need the injections. The drug’s manufacturer, Alkermes, recommends 6 months to a year of treatment, although county has tried to maintain a 3-shot limit in its pilot program.

Viernes says most of the county clients required only one or two shots to help them focus better on the other aspects of their treatment. But each case is different. At least one participant cited in a preliminary evaluation of the pilot—a 36-year-old blackout drinker and methamphetamine user with a 20-year habit—was on his fourth injection, possibly because of his dual addiction.

“When they’re done with the Vivitrol, what happens? In the next phase, we’re hoping to find that out,” explains Desiree Crevecoeur-MacPhail of the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, which is conducting the evaluation.

“Medically assisted” treatments like the county’s pilot project are part of a relatively recent trend in substance abuse research. While many addicts swear by counseling and 12-step programs, few manage to avoid relapses along the way, and even the best-regarded recovery programs are not immune to this reality.

At the same time, however, counselors familiar with the so-called “psycho-social model” of treatment have been slow to incorporate pharmacology into their 12-step and behavioral therapy programs, either because of a reluctance to treat addicts with more drugs or because of the psychological underpinnings of addiction.

In fact, an earlier attempt to incorporate Vivitrol into county treatment programs three years ago fizzled in part because counselors were skeptical, Viernes says.

“There was an aversion to using medication as a means of recovery,” he says, adding that this attitude has softened as medically assisted treatment has become more common.

“Now that we’ve seen its efficacy,” Viernes says, “we’ve reached a tipping point where the clients are coming to us for the injections.” He says demand has risen so quickly that the county’s supply of the drug is nearly gone.

Public health officials say the Vivitrol project took shape after the drug’s manufacturer offered some free samples to Tarzana Treatment Centers, one of the county’s contracting agencies, in 2008.

At the time, Vivitrol had been on the market for only two years, but substance abuse workers were familiar with the generic form of naltrexone, which has been available in pill form since the mid-1990s. The pills had received mixed reviews because, while they cut cravings, they had to be taken daily and patients who skipped pills often relapsed.

The injections were designed to sidestep that problem by ensuring that a single dose would, at the very least, help the patient go 30 days without cravings.

“Alkermes donated 100 vials to Los Angeles County, and we did a small trial with about 32 patients,” says Jim Sorg, director of admissions at Tarzana Treatment Centers. Over six months, the Centers would later report, 23 moved on to residential treatment and only four quit against medical advice.

From there, Viernes says, the study gradually grew to include more than a dozen treatment providers, who refer clients to larger centers, such as Tarzana, for injections.

Expansion of the pilot, he says, will give the county three more years to find out whether medically assisted treatment will slow the revolving door of substance abuse treatment—and to decide whether it improves enough lives and cuts enough from the long-term costs of alcoholism to justify the public expense.

In the meantime, providers are hopeful.

“It’s not a guarantee,” says Bachrach of Tarzana Treatment Centers. “It’s more as if a doctor said, ‘I have something that’s not going to cure you, but will increase your chances of recovery.’ If we can give some extra help to people with addiction, why shouldn’t we?”

Posted 12/7/11

Updated 12/13/11: The Board of Supervisors agreed on Tuesday to broaden the use of the drug Vivitrol in county substance abuse treatment, but also asked the public health department to report back on both the long-term efficacy of the medication and how to lower its cost to the county.

Acting on Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s motion, the board agreed to three more years of funding at a little more than a million dollars annually for the innovative-but-expensive injections, which reduce cravings so that people addicted to alcohol and opiates can better focus on treatment.

“Simply put, this medication helps people stay in treatment longer, which is critical because studies have shown that long-term recovery rates improve the longer an alcoholic or drug user remains in treatment,” Yaroslavsky said.

But Yaroslavsky also wanted better information on the so-called “medication-assisted therapy” and on ways to reduce the $837-per-dose the county must pay for the drug.

The department was asked to report back in three months on bulk pricing and how to improve the likelihood of Medi-Cal reimbursement, as well as how to potentially incorporate Vivitrol into DUI programs.

A follow-up report in a year was also requested to look at medium- and long-term patient outcomes and to examine ways in which the shots—if they turn out to be worthwhile—might be expanded to high-risk populations, such as clients in drug court, probation programs and jail.

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