This week kicks off a multi-episode mini-series at SGV Connect focusing on the LA 2028 Olumpoc games and what the events can mean for San Gabriel Valley Communities. This first episode features an interview with Alissa Walker, co-host of the LA Pod and editor of the Torched Newsletter. When not hanging out with celebrities and appearing on Netflix …

Last week, Chris visited the mutual aid group Memories of El Monte's bi-weekly food distribution at the Klingerman Apartment projects in South El Monte to interview group members and get an update on the construction of their physical location, The People's Cafe. The regular food distribution gives the community the opportunity to receive $200 wort…

(Note: this week’s SGV Connect podcast is being broken into two parts. Part 2, which is a series of interview about The People’s Cafe in El Monte, will be broadcast tomorrow.) Last week, news broke that bids for the next extension of the Foothill Gold Line - from Pomona to Montclair - would be delayed because the only bid to design and build the pr…

The Eaton Fire has left a tremendous scar on Southern California’s culture and politics for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, it’s stopped advancing for some time now, but the statistics are still top of mind: 17 dead, 14,000+ acres burned, 9,000+ structures destroyed, 1,000+ structures damaged. During the early weeks of the fire, social media wa…

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m using this week’s SGV Connect to encourage listeners to start listening to my other podcast, StreetSmart which appears at Streetsblog California. This week’s SGV Connect features clips from three different StreetSmart interviews. The first is with Jeanie Ward-Waller where we de-mystify the California Transportation Commission…

Foothill Transit’s Director of Marketing and Communications joins Streetsblog Editor Damien Newton for an ask-me-anything style interview probing the bus agency’s recent trials and successes. Friesema took questions on: how Foothill’s bolstered services to Mt. San Antonio College and Cal Poly Pomona will connect with soon to open Metro A Line servi…

The post-election special featured a pair of Streetsblog editors, Joe Linton of Streetsblog L.A. and Melanie Curry of Streetsblog California, joining Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon. Most of the talking was done by Curry, Linton and Newton, and the trio kicked off the discussion by outlining the impact of the Trump administration on federal trans…

With many mail-in ballots already in voters hands, it's time for the SGV Connect election special. This week we talk with a pair of experts about two ballot measures that L.A. County voters will decide this fall. First, Damien interviews Supervisor Hilda Solis about Measure G. Measure G was put on the ballot with the support of three of the five Su…

With the Foothill Gold Line Extension to Pomona at 90 percent completion, SGV Connect pays another visit to the Construction Authority’s office to chat with chief executive officer Habib Balian. The podcast can be found below, but you can read a transcript of it by clicking here. For clarity’s (or maybe confusion’s) sake, we are of course referring…

Just last week, the legislative session for the year ended in Sacramento meaning a batch of legislation was passed that, if signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, would change the way the state conducts its transportation business. In this episode of SGV Connect, co-host Damien Newton goes it alone, interviewing Streetsblog California editor Mel…

This week's SGV Connect returns to our regular formula with a pair of interviews by Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon. First, Chris interviews Melissa Mora Hidalgo, a queer entertainment writer living in Whittier. The interview goes back and forth between fun and serious, as the two discuss both her work and the performative allyship that occurs du…

This week Chris brings us a special feature interview with artist Isabel Pan. Pan is the artist in residence at C.A.S.A Zamora in El Monte. Her project has been a documentary-style, slice of life comic strip depicting the impact of sweatshop labor and refugee crises on the children of immigrants in the San Gabriel Valley. Pan’s subject is the son o…

This week’s SGV Connect continues our theme of focusing in on various areas of the SGV for our podcast episodes by looking at the Greater Pasadena area. First, Damien and Chris traveled to El Sereno to meet with some of the Reclaimers, unhoused residents of El Sereno who moved into Caltrans owned properties during the pandemic. Benito, Sandra and F…

This week's SGV Connect is focusing on the election to replace Councilmember and Vice-Mayor Sasha Renée Pérez of Alhambra. Pérez has given up her seat to run for the State Senate. Chris interviews Nicolas Kiet Quach, the president of the Alhambra Library Board of Trustees. While only 18, Kiet Quach is no newcomer to politics having worked for and w…

We continue our tour through the San Gabriel Valley with an episode focused on the City of Glendora, known as the Heart of the Foothills. It might surprise you if you're not familiar with what's going on at this small suburban community, but Glendora is working hard to build out a bike network, calm traffic on its streets, build up a downtown in it…

Welcome to the first SGV Connect podcast of 2024! We start our new year with the first in a new series that focuses on different regions and communities in the San Gabriel Valley and examines both the state of their mobility projects and cultural and community projects. This week, both interviews were completed by Chris Greenspon. The first is with…

Last Friday, Foothill Transit celebrated its 35th anniversary with a party in the parking lot of its West Covina headquarters. Joe Linton and Chris Greenspon were among those on-hand and they had a chance to catch up with a handful of people that helped shape Foothill Transit's past and will guide the agency into the future. Those short interviews …

Jeanie Ward-Waller is not a household name in California, but until recently she may have had the most important job in the state as far as Streetsblog readers are concerned. Ward-Waller served as the Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans, where she not only oversaw many of the great programs that we regularly highlighted …

This week's SGV Connect podcast is a special episode where the Streetsblog San Gabriel Valley team, Chris Greenspon, Joe Linton and Damien Newton, sit down and discuss the great success that was ArroyoFest 2023. All three were at the event but experienced it differently with Linton and his family biking the route, Newton completing the "Run the 110…

This week’s SGV Connect Podcast looks backward at the first year of the GoSGV Bike Share program and looks forward to Halloween and ArroyoFest. First, we speak with Jose Jimenez, the education director for Active SGV about the GoSGV’s first year, celebrated earlier this month. There are over 100 bikes being rented monthly at the moment and over 400…

This week's SGV Connect breaks our regular mold as Streetsblog L.A. editor Joe Linton conducts both interviews on the past and future of ArroyoFest which returns at the end of this month, on Sunday October 29th when a portion of the I-110 will be closed to cars and open to other uses in the morning. First, Linton interviews Robert Gottlieb and Marc…

This week's SGV Connect features a pair of interviews that will change and improve the lives of residents of the San Gabriel Valley. First, we talk with Alhambra Councilmember Adele Andrade-Stadler. Andrade-Stadler is the winner of this year's Elected Official of the Year award given by ActiveSGV at their Noche de las Luminarias. You can read more …

This week's SGV Connect focuses on two different parking programs in Pasadena. As the city closes in on approving its Strategic Parking Plan, we welcome retired UCLA economics professor and parking pricing guru Donald Shoup. Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking which is still considered essential reading for urban planners decades after its origin…

This week’s SGV Connect Podcast is the second part of a two part series on housing and tenants issues in the San Gabriel Valley and features Connie Tamkin, the president of the San Gabriel Valley Community Land Trust. If you missed part one of the series with Allison Henry, one of the leaders of the San Gabriel Valley Tenants Council, you can find …

This week’s podcast is the first in a two-podcast mini-series looking at housing issues in the San Gabriel Valley. In this podcast, Damien and Chris talk to Allison Henry, an SGV housing justice organizer with LA Forward and co-founder of the San Gabriel Valley Tenants Alliance. In the podcast, we discuss the recent and long-term history of the bat…

On Saturday, the Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority is hosting a ceremony to commemorate the completion of the light rail track system for the 9.1-mile, four-station Foothill Gold Line light rail project from Glendora to Pomona. The ceremony is taking place this Saturday, June 24, 2023, at 9:30 a.m., at the D Street railroad crossing (north …

In our first interview this week, Chris Greenspon interviews Nathan Allen, the owner of Underdog Bookstore in downtown Monrovia. In Nathan's own words, "Underdog Bookstore, targets specifically books by and about authors of color, as well as LGBT authors, who we consider underdogs, as well as local vendors." Allen explains the need to create safe s…

This week’s SGV Connect is the second in our “Reclaimers” series, focusing on the efforts of a group of formerly homeless activists in the El Sereno to be housed in formerly unoccupied homes owned by Caltrans. The first interview featured six Reclaimers who shared their personal stories on how they fell into homelessness, strived to be rehoused, an…

We are Reclaimers because we have to because of desperation. - Benito, one of the Reclaimers living in El Sereno. SGV Connect is sponsored by Foothill Transit. Foothill Transit was not consulted about the content of this podcast and the views expressed are those of the participants and interviewer and may or may not be representative of the views o…

This week's SGV Connect features a pair of interviews with former Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole and San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps (SGVCC). Director Norma Quinones. In our first interview, Damien talks with Cole ostensibly about the dozen opinion pieces Cole has written in 2023 about how Pasadena can grow as a city in the future. In the interview…

Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon catch up with Alhambra Councilmember and State Senate candidate Sasha Renée Pérez on the state of her candidacty and what is going on in Alhambra. The interview, the first in a series on the election, pings back and forth between her work in Alhambra and her vision for Senate District 25 This is Pérez's third time …

This week's SGV Connect is a special episode celebrating the centennial for West Covina. Chris Greenspon interviews local historian John Garside about the city's history, covering topics ranging from how the city hall got its name (from a stagecoach company) to lamenting some businesses that closed in recent years. You can read a transcript of the …

Welcome to SGV Connect episode 106, the first episode of 2023. This episode is nearly an hour long with a pair of great, but very different, interviews. First, Chris Greenspon interviews Steve Valenzuela, El Monte poet and writer in residence for the new Zamora Art House in El Monte. The interview touches on Valenzuela’s poetry, his work as a schoo…

It's mid-December, and that means it's time for our annual end-of-the-year SGV Connect Podcast featuring not just Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon, but also Streetsblog LA Editor Joe Linton and Streetsblog California Editor Melanie Curry. After that, we have one last interview by Chris with John Axtell published a literary zine this year about the…

This week’s SGV Connect features an over forty minute interview by Chris Greenspon with author and history professor James Zarsadiaz about his recent book, Resisting Change in Suburbia: Asian Immigrants and Frontier Nostalgia in L.A. (Buy it from University of California Press, here.) Zarsadiaz’s book focuses on six communities, five in the San Gab…

With the next election day less than two months away, SGV Connect sits down with Topher Mathers who reviewed dozens of ballot measures throughout the San Gabriel Valley before Active SGV made endorsements for local measures throughout SGV cities. This is our second podcast focusing on the 2022 election. SGV Connect #100 featured an interview with R…

This week's SGV Connect is a bit of a departure from our usual format. Instead of two interviews, we start with a discussion between Damien and Chris about a lawsuit filed by the City of San Dimas against the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority. The lawsuit calls for a halt to constuction while the issue of where the parking lot for the stati…

This week's SGV Connect features an interview with the director of the Pasadena Department of Transportation and Vincent LaRocca of the new group ride bicycling group SGV Cycling. As Damien notes in our first interview with Pasadena's Laura Cornejo, SGV Connect was long overdue for a story on the Rose City. In the couple of days since we recorded t…

This week's SGV Connect features two interviews by Chris Greenspon on two different, but important issues. First, Chris interviews James Drevno, a Senior Regional Planner with L.A. County Planning. James is working on the East San Gabriel Valley Area Plan which focuses on the unincorporated “islands” that are scattered throughout San Gabriel Valley…

This week's SGV Connect focuses on a pair of local city council races in the cities of La Puente and Monterey Park. The first interview features Ricardo Martinez, a progressive challenger to the incumbent City Councilmember and Mayor Charlie Klinakis. The interview touches on Martinez's personal history, platform, and plans to revitalize the city b…

This week on SGV Connect, we’re bringing you a special interview with Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and then our quarterly update with Melanie Curry of Streetsblog California. Adolfo is a household name in the public radio world, covering higher education at KPCC. He spent the last year on a special assignment, investigating the death of a 90’s Chicano civil…

This week's SGV Connect features an interview with Carlos Morales of the Eastside Bike Club and Stan's Bike Shop. The interview, conducted by Chris Greenspon, discusses Carlos' history as a carfree journalist and how bicycling saved his life. Longtime readers may remember that when Morales wasn't publishing his by-line with Voice Community News, yo…

This week's SGV Connect Podcasdt features an interview by Chris Greenspon with two members of the Memories of El Monte collective, Aron Montenegro and Alma Zarate. Chris visited the collective's new home on 626 Day when Memories of El Monte celebrated their new space and the local holiday. Memories of El Monte is planning to open a soup kitchen in …

This week sees a special #SGV Connect podcast with Damien Newton interviewing Habib Balian, the executive director of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority. As we publish this podcast, the Authority is holding a press conference to celebrate the 50% completion point of the current Gold Line extension out to Pomona. For a full transcript of …

Tonight, Megan Lynch will present "Acesible and Complete Streets" at tonight's meeting of the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition. To get the zoom link, click here and send a note to UC Access. Today, we feature her at SGV Connect for those that can't make tonight's meeting to hear her message. When she's not pushing for transportation planning tha…

May is Bike Month, and we're kicking off the "Chris and Damien" era at #SGVConnect with two interviews that tie-in to bicycling in the San Gabriel Valley. First, Chris visits La Cañada Flintridge to interview Senator Anthony Portantino. Portantino famously became an avid cyclist during the Coronavirus Stay-at-Home orders and has developed his own b…

This week, the Streetsblog team is happy to introduce you to Chris Greenspon, our new writer and podcast co-host in the San Gabriel Valley. Many of you already know Chris from his other podcasting work as host of SGV Weekly, now in its second season. You can download or listen to past episodes at the SGV Weekly website. As has become our tradition,…

Today’s SGV Connect podcast is the last one for the duo of Damien and Kris. As we previously announced, Kris is moving on to a full-time position with Santa Ana Active Streets. We certainly weren’t going to let him go without one goodbye podcast. Kris has written for Streetsblog on and off for over a decade first covering Boyle Heights then after a…

This week's SGV Connect podcast focuses on the Garvey Avenue road project in Monterey Park covered for Streetsblog L.A. last week by Jennifer Tang. Tang and fellow advocate Edwin Sun give an update on the project and discuss some of the challenges advocating for a better project on Garvey. At Tang noted in a different piece for Streetsblog last yea…