those ruddy bastards

I'm really annoyed.

I was in LA in mid-August, and on Sunday morning (this was the 18th) decided to drive over to a favorite used book store in east Hollywood, because I'd been there the previous day and noticed signs saying they were having a big all-hands sale the following day.

This is what transpired, taken from my blog report of the trip. "Traffic was fine until I got to Hollywood, where something was going on. Streets were closed and the traffic was packed. It took me 15 minutes to travel five blocks." I was eventually able to turn off on to a side street a few blocks from the bookstore where, to my surprise, I found available parking. The bookstore itself was not over-crowded, and I took twisty and mystifying back streets through the Hollywood hills to get out of there. But the experience was so shattering that, once I got back to my hotel, I spent the rest of the day recuperating, and got out of LA first thing the next morning instead of in the afternoon as I'd intended.

I've just now found out what caused the congestion. I was reading an article on Slate about the future of LA traffic, and found a reference to "CicLAvia, an enormous, movable parade that runs through different parts of Los Angeles some eight times a year and draws about 50,000 participants. Six miles of streets open up to pedestrians, cyclists, joggers, roller bladers, and wheelchair users, with traffic barred at some intersections and directed by police at others."

I'd never heard of this before, but I thought, "eight times a year ... could it ...?" so I looked it up and yep, it did. Sunday, August 18, it was going right through Hollywood, just one long block away from the street my bookstore was on.

And I repeat: I'd never heard of this, either the specific event or the program in general. Nobody had told me.

My absolute opposition to protesters blocking streets to force the public to suffer for some cause does allow for an acceptance of pre-planned parades. You know they're coming, where they're going, when they will stop, and that police will monitor them; travelers can plan around them. But not if they haven't heard about them. I visit LA fairly often, but I'm only a visitor. This project has apparently been going on for some time, but I'd never heard about it. There were no temporary street signs up a block away, even on Saturday, saying "warning: the streets will be congested and Hollywood Boulevard will be entirely closed on Sunday the 18th." There was nothing on the signs in the bookstore announcing the sale adding, "You might want to think twice about trying to get here that day, though."

Now I know. Whenever I go to LA in the future, I'll have to check ahead and see if there's one of those closures going on, the same way I check to see if there are any wildfires going on in the hills near where I'll be. But when it actually hit me, I didn't know. Those ruddy, ruddy bastards.