Changing Lanes with Ben Wolf
Nobody Drives in LA chat with filmmaker Ben Wolf about his new documentary, Changing Lanes. The film (shot only on equipment carried by bike) captures the intense community battle following efforts to reconfigure a Brooklyn street in the aftermath of a deadly collision.
I visited Taix, which will serve its last meal on on 29 March after having operated in Echo Park in 1962. After it's demolished, it will be replaced with a Geoff Palmer-style mixed-user. Supposedly Taix will then move into the ground floor. I have my doubts.
ericbrightwell.com/2026/03/06/a...
Next to the New Beverly. See you there!
Yesterday was Los Angeles County's 176th birthday. Basically an excuse for me to think about what counts as Los Angeles and to ponder what Angelenos want Los Angeles to be.
ericbrightwell.com/2026/02/18/h...
I wrote this a couple of days ago, on Lunar New Year (and Mardi Gras). It's basically an essay about Chinatowns and soft power -- and an excuse to compare maps of Chinatowns around the world with American military bases around the world.
ericbrightwell.com/2026/02/17/c...
Does anyone else feel like introductions and conclusions are unnecessary and actually detrimental to essays? I've never had an editor who didn't insist on them. They feel to me like asking a filmmaker to incorporate the trailer at the beginning and end of the film.
🇳🇿Happy Waitangi Day! Today's "No Enclave" celebrates New Zealand's national day. Los Angeles is home to the largest community of Kiwis in the US. 🇳🇿
ericbrightwell.com/2026/02/06/n...
Have you dated in Southern California without a car? Have you looked for love on the bus? Have you found love on a bike? Have another story about navigating the dating scene without an auto? We’re desperately seeking car-free dating and relationship stories from you, our listeners
Link in comments
This is shameful. I voted for my City Council, County Supervisor, State Assembly, and State Senators in part, because I hoped they’d support SB79… and they did. If only Metro riders could vote for Metro’s board.
MaryAnne LoVerme is a teacher and native New Yorker who moved to Los Angeles where she lived, car-free, for 12 years. In LA, she hit the ground running; immersing herself in transit activism, and opening the LA County Store. In 2025, she packed it all up and relocated to a suburb of Paris (France).
I just wrote a piece for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council about SB 79's passage and how, in a lot of ways, it's not a disruption of neighborhood character -- but a return to it. ericbrightwell.com/2026/01/09/a...
Cross-post from Julia Beach's podcast, Friend of the Month, in which Beach and @ericbrightwell.bsky.social talk transit -- specifically in the Silver Lake -- where they both live. Talk turns to the past, when the first train line passed through the neighborhood to convey tourists to an ostrich farm
Happy Kenyan Independence Day! Metro Los Angeles is home to one of the largest communities of Kenyan Americans -- the subject of this edition of "No Enclave"
ericbrightwell.com/2025/12/12/n...
Sign up to our mail list!
A reader of “Ask Silver Lake,” Ruta Vaisnys, inquired about another historic Silver Lake Library, the Hyperion Station Library. Read the updated post!
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/21/a...
Waiting for Chuck Schumer to courageously endorse Zohran Mamdani now that he's been elected.
#wewon'trest
Of course!!
Nobody Drives in LA's co-hosts and hall-of-famers—Eric Brightwell, Ivy Kwok, Kyle Rebar, and Rogelio Pardo—upzoned LA Comic-Con with our panel LA Transit in Pop Culture.
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/27/n...
In August 2024, Mayor Bass announced the the Los Angeles Olympics would be a "no-car Games." Three days later, she "walked" that back to "transit-first games." There's not reason, though, that it can't still be the former. There's already transit to every venue.
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/22/n...
Next month's "Ask Silver Lake" will be this post, about Silver Lake's _original_ libraries... one of which still stands and is seeking a tenant... maybe you!
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/21/a...
I doubt it but don’t really have any idea since we’re operating on group consensus
E Line group ride this Saturday? Train curious? Train veteran? Somewhere in between? Come aboard, we're execting you!
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/15/n...
This month's "Ask Silver Lake" is about Silver Lake's live music venues, my definition of which is pretty broad. What _isn't_broad is a selection of great images of venues or musicians performing in them. If you've got some for me to consider, let me have them.
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/09/a...
@strongtowns.org founder Chuck Marohn with Strong Townish Love Letter to Suburbia author Diane Alisa, @ericbrightwell.bsky.social on the fight for bikes in WeHo, Boston Bikeway Block Party, Bikes, Birds, & BART with @bikingmzstacey.bsky.social, and more. soundcloud.com/biketalk/253...
Happy Spooky Season!
Are you curious about Elysian Heights' Semi-Tropic Spiritualists? Bowery dancing rowdies, ghosts, assaults on cops, newsies and more
He's an hour-long presentation I gave at the Edendale Library on behalf of the Echo Park Historical Society
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/03/t...
Tomorrow! Get free "tickets" now! But if you can't make it, I'm going to record it with my phone.
ericbrightwell.com/2025/10/03/t...
