No Impact Man opens today in LA and New York.  My filmmaking partners, Justin Schein and Eden Wurmfeld, and the subjects of the film, Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin will go see the film tonight at the Angelika Film Center in downtown Manhattan.   Michelle and Colin will probably get on their bikes and ride downtown to the Angelika.  The bike ride will take approximately five minutes.  Eden and Justin who live in Brooklyn will walk two blocks to the F train and travel from Carroll Gardens to the Broadway/Lafayette stop.  There, it will be short walk to the Angelika.  Their total commute will be approximately 25 minutes.

I, on the other hand, live in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles.  No Impact Man opens at the Laemmle Royal across town.  There is no subway from my neighborhood to west Los Angeles. (The red line ends at Hollywood.) LA lacks proper bike lanes and auto traffic is not used to the presence of bikers on most routes.  Here’s how taking the bus would go:  I would have to walk 25 minutes (or bike w/no bike lanes) to the nearest bus stop.  There I would wait for (approx. 15 – 30 minutes) to catch the 68/64 local metro line and arrive 25 minutes later at the Broadway/Caesar Chavez stop where I would need to catch another bus — the 704 Metro Rapid Line.   The wait there would be somewhere between 8 – 30 minutes.  I would take this bus to the Santa Monica/Barrington stop.  This leg of the journey would take approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.   And then it’s easy  — a five minute walk to the Laemmle Royal!   To make sure I’m there on time, I would have to leave over three hours before screening time.

Since working on No Impact Man, I have make a much bigger effort to carpool.  So, this morning, I decided to post my desire to carpool to tonight’s screening on my facebook page.  I happen to know many people on the east side of LA who are going to the 7:50 show.   So far, no takers.  I love living in Los Angeles, but I envy cities such as Portland, New York, and Washington DC that have strong biking communities and/or strong public transportation infrastructure.

Good things are starting to happen in LA.   City Hall has come up with a host of very progressive initiatives to improve density and transportation, and restore parts of the LA River basin.   But these changes still seem tentative, politically fraught and vulnerable to backsliding.  So, I’ll be hoping, as I drive the 45 minutes west to the screening tonight, that No Impact Man and No Impact Project and all efforts like it will contribute to greater public awareness and create demand for faster, more progressive change.