I'm still trying to bike all over LA
In the last year, I've made very little progress on my mission to bike all over the map of West LA (and then the rest of the city?? We'll see). However, I have made SOME progress! I'm still using wandrer.earth to track my coverage. Here's the westside at 46%:
Yellow regions are regions where I've exceeded 90% map coverage. The regions are defined by the Open Street Maps API. So far, I've gotten:
- Culver City
- Palms
- Playa Vista
- Del Rey
- Rancho Park
- "West Los Angeles" (the region immediately south of Westwood)
Pink regions have more than 50%, and those light purple regions have more than 25%.
Here's my bike coverage of the region generally:
I still do the vast majority of my riding on the urban street grid. Natural places in LA all have very aggressive terrain; once you try to 100% some of the richer neighborhoods, you also get a taste of that terrain. Here's an example of the topographical complexity I'd have to deal with if I were trying to 100% neighborhoods like Brentwood - red lines are the roads I haven't done yet. Dotted red lines are trails:
The more of this I do, the more I realize this effort could be a lifetime project. The further you go from home, the fewer miles you get per trip. The last 10% of any region is extraordinarily costly, since you're doubling back over many roads you've already covered to get the tiny scraps you missed the first time around.
I'm disovering plenty of interesting things as I go, however. here's a photo of a new "bioswale" next to the Westwood/Rancho Park expo line station:
While I was visiting this place, an enormous red hawk swooped low out of a tree and zoomed off to go hide in a more private spot.
I still wholeheartedly endorse just riding around in grids in the neighborhoods near your home. You can have endless fun deep in the urban street grid of most big cities. You're never more than 15 minutes from a snack, you'll constantly see new places you've never visited before, and you'll develop all sorts of potent opinions about land use and transit equality. Give it a shot!!