If you’re just returning from you winter vacation, you probably missed out that the LA River Bike Path was shut down along Glendale Narrows to save us from the havoc El Nino was going to wreak.

Originally the path was set to reopen in either March or April, but the “temporary” barriers didn’t get removed until early June.

Over these five months, I heard many complaints and even did a public radio interview about how this shutdown blocked access to this vital corridor.

On one hand, it’s important to not endanger any lives, but on the other hand this closure seemed like a bit of overkill.

I went a few times down the river during the heaviest rainstorms(cycling no less) and notice that water only filled half of the river’s height.

You can see by the debris, that the river only reached half it’s height during El Nino.

Just to throw some math at you, that doesn’t mean that the river was half full as the banking allows greater capacity as levels rise.

This closure came swiftly, people didn’t have a voice and clean up moved at a yawn inducing pace.

We also got the little dirt kickout area replaced with this:

 

I’m pretty sure at some point a cyclist will fall onto this rocky shale and rip up far more skin than they ever had before.

Next monday, you’ll have the chance to speak up as the Army Corps of Engineers will be holding a public forum discussing future flooding measures in consideration.

Even though I’m not yet complete in hiring a robust polling network, I can easily ascertain that the handling of this situation left a lot of people agitated to highly agitated. Some even exhibited behaviors of both.

The meeting will run from 6pm – 8:30pm inside Friendship Auditorium off of Riverside & Los Feliz.

I think in one sense it would be funny to put up barriers in the parking lot just so they get an idea what we went through, but take the civilized step and show up next Monday to let your voice be heard.