Metro tells staffers to save open streets, Bass running as Mamdani-lite, and feds blocking bike lanes when we’re already at greater risk

July 24, 2026 / / No comments

The Metro Board read the room on Thursday, and ordered staffers to find the money to continue open streets events.

Future CicLAvias, Beach Streets, Active Streets and other open streets events were put at risk after Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee voted to use the money to pay for fan zones during the ’28 LA Olympics.

Never mind the $100 million they’re wasting on highway projects that will only induce more induced demand.

But after CicLAvia submitted over 3,000 pages of public comments supporting the events, Mayor Bass made a point of stressing her support for bicycling, after barely mentioning bikes during the first three-and-a-half years of her administration.

According to CBS News,

Bass praised CicLAvia for fostering a sense of community following the decision to find additional funding for open street events.

“As a lifelong biker and native Angeleno, I know how important open street events like CicLAvia are to our city and the L.A. region. I’ve participated in many CicLAvias over the years, in neighborhoods all across Los Angeles,” Bass said. “That’s why I’m calling for Metro to identify dedicated funding through 2028 to ensure these events continue with full force.”

Only a very cynical person would think that she’s only supporting us now that she’s running for re-election in Los Angeles with a two-thirds unfavorability rating.

Color me cynical.

2025 CicLAvia photo by David Drexler. 

……….

Speaking of Bass, we’ll let Streetblog’s Joe Linton describe her sudden turn to Mamdani-lite, with calls for free transit and more bus lanes.

In earlier election coverage, Streetsblog noted Bass has been disappointing at Metro, where she wields a lot of power, but has been frequently been absent from meetings. Bass too often sided with transit opponents – actively against the K Line north, but also passively on the C Line and Sepulveda rail.

In New York City and Seattle, support for transit has helped elect left-of-center mayoral candidates. Most famously, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on an oft-repeated pledge to make buses fast and free.

Bass generally hasn’t made transit or transportation a high profile issue in her campaigns or her mayoralty. This year, however, she’s facing a November run-off election against Nithya Raman, who is running to Bass’ left. Perhaps feinting to her left, Bass appears to be focusing on a Metro agenda that at least somewhat echoes Mamdani’s. After nearly four years of Metro inaction peppered with occasional anti-transit actions, however, her sudden boosterism sounds tepid and unconvincing, even when the improvements she has pledged are worthwhile.

Admittedly, I haven’t seen a lot of Mamdani in Nithya Raman’s campaign so far, especially the New York mayor’s likability and commitment to going anywhere and everywhere to support his city and constituents, including those who didn’t support him.

Unlike a certain president I could mention. Or a mayor few of us have ever seen outside of City Hall or Palisades Fire pressers.

Again, color me cynical, but I’m taking Bass’s last minute Road to Damascus conversion to “always” having been a bus and bike supporter with a bag of salt.

Because a grain ain’t nearly enough.

………

Well no shit.

The US Government Accountability Office belatedly discovers that maybe, just maybe, larger blind spots and decreased visibility on large trucks and SUVs could be putting bicyclists and pedestrians at greater risk.

Gee, I wonder what tipped them off?

After noting the rise in bicycling and pedestrian deaths — a 65% increase since 2010 — they continue with this.

A wide range of things could be contributing to this rise in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. For example, a few years ago, we reported that driver and pedestrian behavior, roadway design, and limited visibility at night can affect fatalities.

More recently, in our new report, we looked at the types of vehicles involved in pedestrian and cyclist crashes.

Here’s what we found. Vehicles on U.S. roadways have been getting larger over time—even smaller cars like sedans are growing in size. And studies show that larger vehicles (and certain automobile designs) can create blind zones that limit driver visibility.

Never mind that the previous Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, was looking at regulating oversized vehicles during that last administration.

And they end with this.

Safety standards. Some European countries have already begun implementing driver visibility standards. For example, some commercial truck operators in London must install additional safety equipment to meet minimum driver visibility standards.

For its part, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has begun to research and collect data on the relationship between driver visibility and risks to pedestrians and cyclists. But DOT has not determined a method to measure driver visibility. Having a better grasp on visibility issues would allow DOT to address the risks pedestrians and cyclists face and help meet DOT’s goal of reducing roadway fatalities.

Learn more about ongoing efforts to better protect pedestrians and cyclists in our full report.

So why, pray tell, is the Trump administration hell bent on eliminating any mention of bike lanes on US government websites, as well as restricting funding for “DEI” bike lanes?

Granted, the GAO is a Congressional agency, though it informs the actions of other government branches. But it seems like our government agencies and officials don’t even talk to one another.

Oh wait, they don’t.

Or rather, they don’t listen, which is somehow worse.

Meanwhile, New York’s Newsday nixes the concept of scrubbing bike lanes from government websites. But they hid it behind a paywall because they evidently don’t want anyone to know what they actually thinky. Which seems just a tad counterproductive.

The New Republic doesn’t seem to be a fan, either.

………

A 66-year old reporter for The Eastsider samples the new bicycle pumptracks in Arroyo Seco Park, without major injuries. Or minor ones, for that matter.

Meanwhile, Gravel Bike California visits Santa Clarita’s massive new bike park, as CiclaValley’s Zachary Renew calls it a must see. Or do. Or something.

………

Local 

The Los Angeles Times, which seems bent on becoming the past-tense paper of record, finally catches up to the fact that Santa Monica is now employing AI to catch drivers illegally blocking bike lanes, after literally everyone else has already reported on it.

Shocking news, as it turns out that Three’s Company star Suzanne Summers also played the busty brunette who caused fellow star John Ritter to fall off his bike on the Venice bike path in the opening credits of the ’80s sitcom. A fact so secret, it was only known to every post-pubescent boy and man, gay or straight, living through the Reagan years. 

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

The Associated Press offers advice on bike commuting, saying you don’t need fancy equipment to ride to work. Actually, all you really need is a bicycle with air in the tires and oil on the chain; lights, locks and helmets are helpful, but not deal breakers. 

Trump’s latest round of possibly illegal tariffs go into effect today, though the effect of the increase on most bikes from 10% to 12.5% will probably be minimal.

Momentum examines the best bicycle-friendly places to live in the US if you love bicycling. Because people who hate bicycling rarely seem to seek out the most bike-friendly cities, for some odd reason; San Diego is the only SoCal city on the list. 

A Portland, Oregon op-ed examines efforts to ban right turns on red lights, and the risk right on red poses for people on bicycles. Just like they accuse us of doing with stop signs, most drivers seldom come to a full stop before turning right on a red, unless oncoming traffic forces them to. And they rarely look right at all before making their turn. 

Heartbreaking story from Iowa, where a 25-year old doctoral student remains in a coma four-and-a-half months after she was struck from behind by another bike rider as she was riding her bike across the street for class; a crowdfunding campaign has raised over $64,000 of the $70,000 goal to help pay her medical bills and send her back home to China for ongoing care. Oddly, the story was not behind a paywall the first time I saw it, but was just five minutes later when I went back for more information. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says fall, not summer, is the most dangerous time of year for Wisconsin bike riders, with September the deadliest month of the year. Which only makes sense, since school is back in session, and evening comes earlier.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Another retired university professor has been killed riding a bicycle, this time an 84-year old Engineering professor emeritus from Milwaukee’s Marquette University, who was killed in a collision by a driver Sunday night.

Four people now face charges for the hit-and-run death of a 13-year old Minnesota boy who was riding his bike with a friend; the 30-year old suspect faces hit-and-run and criminal vehicular homicide charges, while the other three are suspected of aiding an offender.

The Boston city council has responded to the death of a city transportation planner killed by a truck driver while riding her bike by reaffirming the city’s commitment to end traffic deaths by 2030. Never mind that they only have three-and-a-half years to make the major changes necessary to save lives, but the victim was also killed on a street that had been scheduled for major improvements, which the mayor put on hold while she was running for re-election.

A Brooklyn website considers the rise of cargo bikes in the city, supplanting the more traditional family minivans and SUVs.

New York bike riders will get just four feet of space in each direction on new protected bike lanes planned for Lower Manhattan, with DOT staff going so far as to call the layout “the smallest we can make it” at a recent public meeting.

New York Streetsblog goes riding with US Representative and Democratic Socialist star — and recent convert to cargo biking — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A new report from New York advocacy group Transportation Alternatives says that daylighting, bike lanes and lower speed limits would put the city’s Vision Zero on steroids.

Continuing the New York segment of today’s entertainment, New Yorkers are divided over whether they want bike lanes on the city’s iconic Park Avenue. Then again, the only subject New Yorkers seem to agree on is whether the Jets will suck again this year.

 

International

Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries was riding his bicycle in London to relax when he learned he’d be starring in DC’s new Clayface movie this fall.

A 60-year old British man was sentenced to 17-to-life behind bars after being convicted for murder for intentionally ramming an allegedly stolen ebike being ridden by a teenaged boy.

A Northern Irish roadway remains unsafe for bicyclists, ten years after a man was killed riding his bicycle on the road.

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovenian Matej Mohorič describes what makes a great descender — besides an unpronounceable name — arguing that “The more you push your limits, the faster you get.” Which could be true, because my life’s been going downhill for years, and only seems to be picking up speed. 

Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz attacked on the final climb to win Thursday’s 18th stage of the Tour de France, as Tadej Pogačar maintained his 4 minutes, 32 seconds lead over the Belgian time trial star Remco Evenepoel, with 22-year-old Mexican Isaac Del Toro in third overall.

Not only was Belgian cyclist Xandro Meurisse rammed off his bike by a road raging driver after Tuesday’s Tour de France time trial, the motorist later tracked him down on Instagram and slide into his DMs to blame him for it; the crash occurred the same day American Brandon McNulty was brake-checked by a driver before Tuesday’s stage.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you get fired as a Turkish governor for looking too good in your bike clothes. That feeling when you’re going to the X Games to compete on your bike, after 1.3 million views on TikTok and a quarter-million likes on Instagram, and you haven’t even seen your eighth birthday.

And here, for your weekend entertainment, are the musical stylings of Marseille BMX world champ Tomas Lemoine.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,

Metro considers defunding open streets today while Bass fiddles, LA County #1 for total CA bike deaths, and new study says “Ebikes bad!”

July 23, 2026 / / No comments

Apropos of nothing, here is the T-shirt that would have been perfect for yesterday’s post, if I hadn’t failed to post it online. 

The phrase comes from an autos über alles advocate who thought he was insulting me, but I took it as a compliment. 

So now you’re free to wear it in all its glory, with or without the BikinginLA logo. You’ll find the other version at the bottom of this post. 

There’s also two versions with all black type if that better strikes your fancy. 

Oh, and today’s headline contains one Nero reference, and one Frankenstein, from the ’31 version.

……….

This is why representation matters.

The future of CicLAvia and other open streets events is at risk at today’s Metro Board meeting, with the agency scheduled to vote on a proposal that would devote open streets funding to pay for fan zones for the ’28 Olympics.

Because they can, evidently.

But not to worry, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass responded with her urgency, failing to even mention open streets of any kind in her first — and possibly last — State of the Agency Address as LA Metro Board Chair.

But at least she didn’t fly off to Africa this time.

To her credit, however, Bass at least mentioned bikes, if only in passing.

Now, as a lifelong bike rider, biking we know is just as much a part of L.A. as anything else — and we are pushing to expand bike infrastructure across the region. Including new stretches along the LA River bike path and Metro Bike Share. That is a whole other component. Every Angeleno should have the option of experiencing L.A. on two wheels.

Unless, of course, they’d like to explore the streets of the city without getting rushed, harassed or threatened impatient drivers, in which case those Angelenos are on their own.

And when’s the last time anyone saw the honorable mayor on a bicycle, anyway?

But at least she seems to get the importance of connecting bike lanes to Metro lines, if only for the benefit the ’28 Games. Although there may be a few of us Angelenos who’d just like to ride a bike safely in our own neighborhoods, or even across town from time to time.

Which is why we need to ensure there’s at least one transit user on the board.

According to LAist, there are now three proposals before the Metro Board to include one or two actual transit users on the board — or possibly “subject matter experts,” whatever the hell that means.

Although frankly, it should be a prerequisite for anyone to be a transit user before being appointed to the board. City mayors and county supervisors included.

Because if you don’t use transit, or some other form of alternative transportation on a regular basis, you shouldn’t be making decisions for all of us who do.

Maybe then, they might start making better ones.

………

Nothing like getting just part of the details.

A new report from Torrance-based Spanish language law firm Los Defensores, which so far only seems to be available via the Bakersfield Californian, shows that Kern County ranked eighth among California counties for total bicycling deaths over a five-year period with 19.

The study, conducted over those heady pandemic years from 2020 to 2024, placed the county sixth in per-capita bicycling fatalities, with 4.15 fatalities per million.

But that’s where things kind of break down.

The story reports that Los Angeles had the highest number of traffic deaths with 79, which makes sense as the state’s most populous county. However, that resulted in a per-capita average of just 1.61 bicycling fatalities per million residents, which ranks God only knows where, since they didn’t bother to say.

Orange County experienced less than half as many deaths at 32 but a little more than L.A. County on a per-capita measurement. But where that puts OC on the state rankings appears to be known only to God and Los Defensores.

Fresno County ranks one spot above Kern in both total deaths and per-capita average, at 22 and 4.31 per million residents, which would appear to put them at 5th and 7th.

Tiny Modoc County led the state’s per-capita ranking with 23.27 per million residents. But considering it only has 8,400 people, that works out to a grand total of one bicycling death over the five-year period.

And no, I did not figure that out myself. I had to rely on an AI chat bot to do the calculations, because I was a fricking English major.

It would be helpful to have the rest of the rankings, but that’s all the paper posted. And if the study is on the law firm’s website, I can’t find it, because I read less Spanish than I speak, and I only speak enough to get myself into trouble.

………

Shocking, I know.

Yet another study — actually, a study of studies — has concluded that ebikes are more dangerous than other bikes.

According to Radio Iowa, a review of 200 studies conducted by the University of Iowa concluded that ebike riders are no more likely to crash than riders of regular bikes.

However, they’re more likely to have single-vehicle crashes, and when they do, they are more likely to result in more serious injuries.

But once again, they’ve lumped every type of ebike together, from Class 1 ped-assist bikes to illegal high-speed e-motorbikes and electric dirt bikes.

(Study author Amir) Ghanbari says, “We found that the crashes that resulted in medical care tended to be more severe in e-bikes, longer hospital stays, and higher rates of head, neck, facial and traumatic brain injuries.”

There are several potential reasons for that, he says, including that e-bikes can go faster than traditional bikes, they’re heavier, and riders are often ill-prepared for their power.

“Riders are actually having a difficult time keeping their balance,” Ghanbari says. “They’re not actually colliding with a car. They are just striking a fixed object or just falling off their bike.”

Something tells me most of those more serious crashes and injuries are on bikes that are a) throttle controlled, and b) exceed the 28 mph max for legal Class 3 ped-assist bikes.

Because the simple act of having to physically pedal tends to limit speeds. And a 20 mph crash on a classic road bike is no more likely to result in major injuries than a 20 mph crash on an ebike.

Yes, many riders have to get used to the speeds they can travel on a Class 1, 2 or 3 ebike. But those are maximum speeds, and only achievable by pedaling faster and harder, unless they also have a throttle control.

Yet that simple observation seems to be beyond the best and brightest minds conducting these studies.

Maybe someday, someone will figure that out, and we’ll actually get a study that provides some useful information about road legal ebikes.

But today is not that day.

………

No bias here.

A letter writer in the Los Angeles Times responded to a recent story about protected bike lanes going in on Pico Blvd.

But all he seems to care about are precious parking spaces, not those seemingly dispensable human lives, arguing that “bicycle lobbyists” have accomplished more than any other special interest group.

Which would likely shock any of us “bicycle lobbyists.” Or activists, even, notorious or otherwise.

…On California roads that are already overloaded with vehicle traffic, we dedicate space and misspend millions of dollars so a minuscule number of entitled people can more easily ride their bikes. And now, our already insufficient parking spots on Pico Boulevard are at risk.

Who are these few bicyclists we spend so much money on? My personal observation is that the majority of them are serial traffic violators, but our police forces don’t bother to ticket most of them.

Just wait until someone tells him what drivers get away with on a daily basis. And the only reason pedestrians get a pass is California legalized jaywalking in most cases.

Yes, bike riders break traffic laws. So do humans.

But as a University of Colorado study showed, while bicyclists and drivers break traffic laws at about the same rate, bicyclists do it for reasons of perceived safety, while drivers just do it out of convenience.

So, we’ll take those parking spaces now, thank you.

………

Thanks to Megan for forwarding this piece from a German news station discussing the battle for the future of mobility in the country’s capital, which is going in reverse when it comes to bike lanes.

………

If it works, it works.

Reddit post

………

Local 

Sad news from Van Nuys, where a 16-year old boy was killed when he was struck by an SUV driver on Wednesday while riding a homemade e-motorcycle.

West Hollywood voted to support a proposal for Bus Only Lanes on La Cienega Blvd between Santa Monica Blvd and Jefferson Blvd, which would also be available to bicyclists, as long as you don’t mind a city bus running up your ass.

 

State

The Bicycle Film Festival returns to San Diego Saturday after an 11-year absence.

A Santa Barbara woman suffered a serious head injury when she crashed the bike she was riding, sans helmet. And yes, that matters this time, since she actually suffered a head injury. Although it would have been nice to know what kind of ebike she was on. 

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 82-year old Redwood City man is about to reach the 50,000 mile mark on the Schwinn Varsity 10-speed he bought 50 years ago. Although that only works out to about a thousand miles a year, but still.

 

National

Good point. A Portland, Oregon op-ed says the city’s ebike rebate program should include regular bicycles, too.

A Bend, Oregon website examines the recent rise in supplemental testosterone, which doping authorities consider a performance enhancing substance, but is now semi-required by the US Defense Department.

Eleven years later, authorities have still never solved the fatal shooting of a 47-year old man riding a bicycle in a small town just miles from my Colorado hometown; investigators determined the same person shot and injured a woman driver two months later.

That’s more like it. A 39-year old Tyler, Texas woman will be 89 years old before she gets out of prison if she serves her full term, after she was sentenced to 50 years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a 19-year old man riding a bicycle. Okay, even I think that may be a tad excessive.

Chicago Streetsblog says the Dutch Reach is not the answer to the city’s dooring problem, and focusing on it only distracts from the need for real solutions.

Hats off to a Boston bike rider who responded to a parked truck blocking a bike lane by taking it upon himself to block a traffic lane, saying “Oh, these poor drivers; they had to merge!” Although the ever-petty Daily Mail insists on calling him “America’s pettiest cyclist.” Which I initially read as “America’s prettiest cyclist,” giving it a whole different meaning.

Massachusetts is installing speed feedback signs along popular bike and scooter routes in an effort to get bicyclists, ebikers and scooter riders to slow down. After all, they work so well with drivers, right?

Apparently, the NYPD is just ignoring New York Mayor Mamdani’s order to halt criminal prosecutions of scofflaw ebikers, admitting that they issued more than 250 criminal summons in the three months after the mayor’s order.

A bicyclist and a pedestrian were both left bloodied and hospitalized following a collision in New York’s Central Park Monday evening. Which is what bike haters tend to forget, that collisions are just as dangerous for the person on the bike as the person walking, regardless of who was at fault.

 

International

An off-duty English cop faces charges for the two-car collision that killed a 16-year old boy riding an ebike last year. Although it doesn’t say if the kid was involved in the initial collision, or just collateral damage afterwards.

British Cycling is launching a free app in an effort to get a million more people off their sofas and onto bikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Well, no shit. Tour de France leader Tadej Pogačar is convinced that the crash that knocked Jonas Vingegaard out of the race with a broken collarbone may have been caused by being awakened at 2 am for UCI’s ridiculous middle-of-the-night drug testing. Someone should wake those officials up at 2 am for a drug test, and see how they do the next day.

A Tour de France cyclist learns the hard way that you have to show up for the time trial on time.

Velo says it takes a staggering amount of gear loaded up in truck to support a professional cycling team. Or in other words, Pogačar has turned this year’s Tour into a one-man race, and they have to write about something.

 

Finally…

Better to ride a triple bypass than to get one. That feeling when the cops determine that a legal ebike is an illegal motorbike with just the spin of a wheel.

And that feeling when auctioneers riff on scofflaw bicyclists for the views.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links /

A conservative case for why bike activists suck, ripping US TransSec a new one, and blaming all ebikes for rise in out-of-context injuries

July 22, 2026 / / No comments

The good news is, I got nine-and-a-half hours of sleep Monday night. The bad news it, my blood sugar was still fucked up yesterday. 

Diabetes sucks. 

And nothing like the feeling that I have the perfect T-shirt to illustrate today’s lead story, only to realize I forgot to do it. 

Oops. 

……….

Um, sure.

A conservative columnist confessed to riding a bike to work. “(Okay, from the railway station to the office. Which is somehow even more stereotypically leftist.)”

But he wishes that “professional activists” would just leave things alone.

It would, frankly, be more pleasant if the professional activists who claim to improve bicycling would stop helping. Because their “help” too often subordinates the interests of the pedal people to the needs of the Everything Leftist Omnicause.

Why, you might ask quizzically?

Because the big, scary liberals in the country’s most liberal city may have gone just a tad too far in suggesting that bike theft victims might want to think twice about calling the police, because interactions with the cops don’t always end well for Black and brown people.

Never mind that a bike thief is just as likely to be white.

Lay aside for the moment the practical impact of a public policy of ignoring bicycle theft on the bicyclists—according to academic research, the often non-white and lower-income bicycle-theft victims—the coalition purports to represent. What is distilled here is the classic Everything Leftist approach to issue analysis. Instead of taking what one might expect to be the single-issue position, even for a largely liberal-to-progressive constituency, that protecting that constituency’s totemic property is important and indeed the core role of a government of laws, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition takes the Everything Leftist position that the police are bad and therefore it is not appropriate to involve them in dealing with bicycle theft…

This is, for class-dynamics reasons, pretty much what one should expect from a representative nonprofit (the nonprofit industry tends to be left-wing) of a left-wing constituency (the GOP is not looking for high-yield voter registrations among urban bicycle commuters) in a very left-wing city (it is, after all, San Francisco), even if some (or even most) of the ostensible constituents might rather follow a more traditional single-issue line.

It gets worse from there.

Never mind that in more conservative areas, bike advocates tend to be as conservative as those around them. Or that even in liberal San Francisco, the bike coalition continues to fight for the rights and safety of bicyclists.

Frankly, I don’t give a damn about someone’s politics, if they’re willing to fight for my right to ride a bike and get home again in one piece.

So if you disagree with something some bike advocate or organization somewhere has said, then disagree with them. Lord knows, I have. But don’t paint us all with the same brush.

And don’t forget who’s out there fighting for you when you ride your bike to work. Because if you get there safely, it’s probably because someone, somewhere fought for your right to do it.

………

A writer for ebike site Electrek deservedly rips our country’s transportation secretary a new one, for the same reason we mentioned last week about the Highway Administration removing proven safety policies like road diets and bike lanes from their website.

Because they felt like it, evidently. No reason was given, nor did anyone with the government even mention that it had been done.

Writer Jameson Dow‘s takedown is simply a thing of beauty. 

So of course, what is the set of incompetents running the US into the ground to do? Well, ignore the science and try to kill more cyclists.

That’s the move made last week by Sean Duffy, the current squatter at the head of the Department of Transportation. Duffy’s transportation “expertise” comes from being a contestant on Road Rules: All Stars, a reality TV travel game show…

But lower congestion and roads that are safe for cyclists are things that Duffy simply cannot abide. If people ride bikes, they’re not using oil, and then the oil industry which has given Duffy hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes over his political career might have slightly lower profits. Congestion, too, hurts all drivers and breathers of air (that’s you), but helps the oil industry as people burn gas while they sit still.

And all of this comes on top of the $23 billion in additional fuel costs that Duffy wants to saddle you with, which he announced on his first day. As a reward for this, oil companies paid for a vacation for Duffy’s family.

This isn’t the only indication of Duffy’s hatred of bikes and love of road accidents. Duffy previously pulled funding for bike lanes, calling them “hostile to motor vehicles.” Notably, in conflicts between motor vehicles and bicycles, motor vehicles are typically the more violent participant.

Go ahead and read the whole thing. It’s worth it.

We’ll wait.

………

I could just scream.

Once again, a major hospital has studied ebike crashes, and concluded that things are getting worse.

And once again, without putting the injury rate in context with ebike ridership, and lumping every type of ebike together, as if a Class 1 ped-assist bike is as dangerous as an illegal electric motorbike.

According to public TV station KPBS,

To better understand trends, the researchers analyzed data from the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, examining collisions involving e-bikes and traditional bicycles from 2018 through 2024. The total number of collisions analyzed were 4,035 involving e- bikes and 58,332 on traditional bicycles.

The results found that injuries on e-bikes occurred on younger riders and on riders more likely to ride at unsafe speeds. They also occurred more frequently in affluent communities.

So, a reasonable conclusion would be that illegal ebikes which allow dangerous speeds are more dangerous than regular bicycles, especially for young children ill-equipped to handle excess speeds.

Not “ebikes are dangerous,” which seems to sum up their report, and every other one I’ve seen.

Even the cops don’t seem to know what they’re talking about. Literally, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The rapid popularity of e-bikes has also made it difficult for law enforcement agencies, regulatory groups and medical officials to quantify what injuries were being caused by e-bikes.

Law enforcement agencies reached by The Times said some local agencies have not collected specific data on e-bike crashes or citations because the problem is so new to many areas and numbers are often difficult to parse, with e-bikes injuries often intermingled with traditional bike injuries.

So they don’t know which injuries are caused by which type of bikes, but they are somehow able to parse out that ebike injuries are worse than regular bikes, whether that ebike is a ped-assist cargo bike or a high speed electric motorbike.

As I’ve said before, any study like this will be worth no more than a few sheets of toilet paper unless, and until, they a) put ebike injuries in context with ebike ridership, and b) clearly define which type of ebike causes the most serious injuries.

It’s a pretty damned easy conclusion to make. Faster and more powerful ebikes tend to result in more serious injuries, on average.

But somehow, all these noted scientists and physicians seem incapable of making that simple observation.

Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

………

I promised you CicLAvia pictures, and by God, that’s what you’re going to get.

David forwards these photos from Sunday’s event.

Photos by David

His photos belie what appeared to me to be a more sparsely attended event than in year’s past. Although that could have something to do with just sadly passing by on our way to celebrate my wife’s birthday.

Then again, it could also have something to do with simultaneous open streets events in Santa Monica and Long Beach — all sponsored by Metro, as in what the hell were they thinking? — combined with the final of the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers an open thread about Sunday’s CicLAvia, along with his usually great photos, while WeHo Times offers photos and a writeup, as well.

The Long Beach Press Telegram reports on that city’s Beach Streets open streets event. But they don’t want you to know about it, so they hid it behind their draconian paywall.

………

Remembering undoubtedly the funniest bike rider in human history.

Or maybe just the funniest human, period.

Bluesky post

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. The planned World Naked Bike Ride has been cancelled in Buffalo, New York, after organizers received a number of death threats amid “overwhelming disapproval” from the community. Which is kind of the point, that participants strip down knowing many will disapprove, so that people actually see them. But if you’re so offended that you threaten to kill someone, get a good mirror, because you’re the one with the problem. 

Police in West Midlands, England seized and destroyed a perfectly legal e-cargo bike after somehow concluding that it was an illegal electric motorbike — even though they claim they only gave the rider a ticket for not having insurance, which isn’t required under UK law.

No bias here, either. Irish government ministers are once again reviving the eternal question of whether bike riders should be forced to wear high viz,  helmets and license plates, the latter of which would have to be as big as your butt if drivers are expected to read it at a reasonable distance; meanwhile, Road.cc quotes an advocate saying “Fewer people cycling or scooting does not make roads safer.” Then again, why not go the full monty and require us to dress up like clowns with our full names and addresses embossed both front and back?

……….

Local 

The iconic Watts Towers are getting new park space in time for the ’28 Olympics, including walking paths and bike racks.

Time is running out to apply for Metro’s Adopt A Bike Program.

Speaking of Metro, the LA County transportation authority wants to flush another $100 million down the highway widening toilet, as if they’ve never heard of induced demand. Or maybe they’re sure just one more lane will solve the whole thing this time.

On that note, Streets For All wants you to contact the Metro Board before tomorrow’s meeting, and tell them to stop defunding open streets, fund transit instead of highways, and fix their damn board structure.

 

State

No surprise here. California might be in the middle of a heat wave wrapped in a climate emergency, but Californians still want their gas-powered cars.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A 72-year old Seal Beach woman is finally home and talking to the media, following two weeks in the ICU and a month in a rehab facility after she was struck by a teen on an illegal Surron e-motorbike, resulting in a broken leg, hand, nose and jaw. And yet, even knowing what the kid was riding, KTLA-7 still manages to conflate ebikes and e-motorcycles.

No bias here, either. A San Diego TV station reports a 53-year-old man riding a bicycle was seriously injured in the city’s Grantville neighborhood Monday night, by a driver who “swerved to miss him…but the bicycle collided with the front right of the vehicle.” So, the driver didn’t hit the person on the bike, because the bike hit the car, and the driver did everything he could to avoid that two-wheeled kamikaze hellbent on getting his blood all over that poor, innocent grill. 

No, an ebike takeover did not paralyze El Cajon traffic, with “Some cars…completely surrounded by bicycles.” Because there is not a single bicycle shown in the video of around 50 teens on electric motorbikes.

Tres shock! A survey of bike riders in Santa Cruz County finds that a majority of bicyclists don’t feel safe on the roads. Kind of like bicyclists everywhere else in the US. 

This is who we share the road with. Eighty-six-year old Paul Pelosi, husband of former US House Speaker Nancy and survivor of a rightwing hammer attack, has been charged with hit-and-run for driving away after hitting a parked Tesla in Napa County.

 

National

Velo says blame UCI rules for why you can’t find a 25 mm rim anymore, even if you pinky swear that you don’t intend to ever race your bike.

Tragic news from Milwaukee, where an 84-year old man riding a bike was killed when he was hit by a public bus, on a street scheduled to get curb-protected bike lanes sometime this year. But whenever it happens, it will be too late.

This is the cost of traffic violence, part two. An Ohio congregation is mourning, after the church’s pastor was killed when he was struck by a truck driver while riding his bike on a shared-use path, and attempted to cross the roadway. However, the driver won’t be charged, because it’s apparently open-season on bike-riding pastors in Ohio.

In a paywalled story, a 39-year old New Orleans woman was convicted of a) killing a 62-year old man riding a bicycle in a hit-and-run, then b) fatally strangling her finance’ just over a year later, while out on bond for the hit-and-run.

The Savanah, Georgia police department is hosting a community bike ride, which is a damn good idea everywhere.

 

International

Momentum looks at the world’s most innovative bicycling infrastructure, but doesn’t seem to have added anything from the last time they repeated this story.

Good point. Alberta bike riders make the case for why the province’s new portal to complain about bike lanes and everything bicycle-related that might conceivably inconvenience drivers even a tad bit has to be open for people expressing the other side of the question, too.

This is the cost of traffic violence, part three. A 71-year old Engineering professor in Halifax, Nova Scotia was remembered as a mentor and father figure, and a leader in the local Islamic community, after he was killed by a careless motorist in a dooring while riding his bike. But hey, at least the driver got a ticket, right? 

A British woman asks for drivers to pay more attention, after she suffered a fractured skull and TBI in a hit-and-run dooring, but doesn’t remember a thing.

Dublin officials are removing chicanes from a local street that had been installed to slow ebike riders after just ten days, because they forced bike riders and pedestrians to swerve onto the sidewalks. I mean, who could have possibly foreseen that placing awkward obstacles in the middle of the street might cause just the teensiest bit of a problem?

A 27-year old driver in Kyiv, Ukraine faces up to ten years behind bars for attempting to pass another vehicle on the right while driving drunk at a high rate of speed, and slamming into a 17-year old boy and his father riding their bikes on the shoulder, killing the younger man instantly and seriously injuring his dad.

 

Competitive Cycling

Another day, another broken collarbone at the Tour de France. This time, it was German rider Florian Lipowitz who crashed at high speed in the final kilometers of Tuesday’s time trial; he was running 5th overall, and had the second-fastest time at the third time check.

World champion Remco Evenepoel won his second straight stage after destroying the field in the time trial, but only made a 28-second dent in Tadej Pogačar’s five-minute lead in yellow. And Lipowitz had been a key consigliere for Pogačar’s team.

Not even the Tour de France is safe from road raging drivers, as American cyclist Brandon McNulty was brake-checked by an angry driver while on his way to the start of Tuesday’s time trial; he was knocked off his bike, but “relatively unscathed.” How do you say schmuck in French? Oh yeah, it’s “schmuck.”

Velo examines why this year’s Tour de France is faster than ever. Which could have something to do with all those broken collarbones. Or maybe they’re because UCI keeps waking cyclists up in the middle of the night for a drug test.

 

Finally…

Maybe if you pedal hard enough, your bike will fly, too. We still don’t know what Einstein’s bike saddle is worth, because it’s relative.

And this is what happens when the headline writer doesn’t bother to read the story.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Move along, nothing to see here — screaming naked neighbor edition

July 21, 2026 / / 2 comments

My apologies.

I dealt with major blood sugar issues on Monday, swinging over 200 points from dangerously low to stratospherically too high, accompanied by a high pulse and low blood pressure.

None of which was probably caused by a screaming naked manic fit when one of our neighbors (allegedly) couldn’t find his drugs, causing him to (allegedly) attack his father, followed by (not allegedly) swimming naked in the building’s (not allegedly) unsafe pool, (not allegedly) screaming insults and curses until the cops came and (not allegedly) took him into custody.

Which is how we all found out he has an opioid problem (allegedly).

I didn’t get to bed until 5:30 am, and stared at the ceiling until long after the sun came up. So I’m going to go to bed and hope too much sleep will give me a reset in the morning.

Because diabetes sucks.

As usual, we’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed. And no, I still don’t know any more about the ebike rider killed in Camarillo over the weekend.

Oh, and did I mention that diabetes sucks?

I didn’t think so.

Opioids, too.

Photo by Etatics Inc. from Pexels.

Category: General /

Ebike rider killed in solo Camarillo crash, Texas driver weaponizes car to kill female boxer, and driver charged in surfing scion’s skitching death

July 20, 2026 / / 2 comments

Let’s start with a report of man killed in an ebike crash in Camarillo around 2 am Saturday morning.

According to a paywalled story in the Ventura County Star, the victim appeared to have struck a tree, while riding without a helmet. However, there’s no word on whether the victim was riding a legal ped-assist bicycle, an electric motorcycle, or an illegal e-motorbike or dirt bike.

Any of which is equally tragic, but only the first would concern us here.

I’m hoping we’ll learn more today, so we may have more later.

Unfortunately, though, this will continue to be a problem until we can get law enforcement to stop lumping every two-wheeled device with an electric engine under the term ebike.

……….

Just call it murder.

The feds have become fond of the term “weaponization,” lately. As in “The suspect weaponized their vehicle” by driving at or near an agent.

However, a road raging Texas driver provided a textbook example by accelerating his vehicle in reverse to murder boxer Hannah Rapp as she was riding her bicycle in Brazos County Saturday morning.

According to Facebook post from the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office (below),

On Saturday, July 18, 2026, just before 10:00 a.m., deputies with the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the 23000 block of FM 159 in reference to a major crash involving a vehicle and a bicyclist.

Initial reports indicated that a vehicle had struck a bicyclist, leaving an adult female lying in the roadway. First responders arrived on scene and provided emergency medical care before the victim was transported to a local hospital. Despite lifesaving efforts, she later passed away at the hospital.

The victim has been identified as 26-year-old Hannah Rapp.

During the course of the investigation, investigators learned that the driver of the vehicle, identified as 31-year-old Charles Medina, had passed two bicyclists traveling along FM 159. After passing the bicyclists, Mr. Medina stopped his vehicle, reversed, and struck one of the cyclists.

At this time, investigators believe this was an isolated incident. The investigation remains active and ongoing as detectives continue to gather evidence and review all available information.

Charles Medina was arrested and charged with Manslaughter. He was transported to the Brazos County Detention Center without incident.

The Brazos County Sheriff’s Office extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of Hannah Rapp during this difficult time.

According to NBC News,

Rapp’s boyfriend “threw his arms up and hollered towards the defendant,” Deputy Sheriff Mike Stumpf said in the statement. “The defendant slammed on his brakes and skidded to a stop before putting his vehicle into reverse.”

Medina then “rapidly accelerated in reverse and struck Rapp with his vehicle, knocking her backwards into the roadway,” Stumpf said.

Rapp’s boyfriend told an investigator that Medina had driven at a high rate of speed within about a foot of them, prompting him to throw his hands up and yell.

He said Rapp’s head struck the car’s rear window when Medina backed into her.

So Medina allegedly passed the two bicyclists at high speed, slammed on his brakes in front of them, then deliberately reverse into Rapp — again at high speed — killing her. And the best they can do is manslaughter, which carries a penalty of just 2 to 20 years? If he had stopped his car, got out with a gun and shot Rapp to death, it could be first degree murder; if he had fired from a moving vehicle, it would likely be second degree murder.

The former carries a penalty of 5 years to life, with the possibility of the death penalty, while the latter is also 2 to 20.

But either way, it would be murder, not manslaughter.

Maybe someone can make that make sense, because I sure as hell can’t.

On the other hand, Medina told investigators he just thought the bike riders were trying to flag him down, and the brakes on his Honda just happened to lock as he skidded to a stop. And he was only doing a mere 15 mph when he bumped into Rapp.

Uh, sure. Let’s go with that.

Never mind that the rear of his car showed significant damage, and there were skid marks from both where he stopped and burned rubber going backwards.

Rapp fought for the WBC women’s featherweight title just last month, losing to Tiara Brown in a unanimous decision. She was living in College Station, Texas, after moving there two years ago to begin her boxing career while working at Texas A&M University.

She was just 26.

According to a fundraising campaign to help pay funeral and medical expenses, she had been riding with her boyfriend and partner Will when she was murdered.

This is how Rapp’s family described her.

Hannah was resilient. She was brave and insightful, always pushing others to do their best. She loved her family so incredibly much, and moving from Indiana to Texas meant distance for her friends and family. Hannah was an inspiration. Even on her hardest days, she continued to bring love, laughter, and light into the lives of others.
Thank you for helping us honor Hannah’s beautiful life. She will be deeply missed, forever loved, and never forgotten. As Hannah would say, “commit to the bit”, and sweet friend, we are committed to fighting for you.
As of this writing, the fundraiser has raised over $16,000 of the $22,000 goal.

 

………

It looks like the driver who was towing surfing scion Kolby Kekoa Aipa when Aipa was killed last year will face charges, after all.

The 20-year old grandson of legendary surfboard shaper Ben Aipa of Aipa Surfboards, Kolby Aipa was skitching on his ebike, holding on to a truck driven by 21-year old Brandon Scott Soleau at speeds up to 50 mph last August when he fell off his bike on PCH in Huntington Beach, and was killed.

Soleau has been charged with vehicular manslaughter, which carries a penalty of up to six years behind bars.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

An alleged Albuquerque  DUI driver reportedly revved his engine and swerved across the roadway between two bike riders before slamming into the front rider, and gunning his engine to finish rolling over the victim, like he was “four-wheeling on top of him,” according to the other rider.

No bias here. Alberta, Canada has created a Bike Lane Portal asks residents to report any bike lanes that cause congestion, slow emergency responses, hurt a business, inconvenience a senior, or raise a safety concern, promising to put Albertans first. Which sounds very much like a promise from a certain American leader. And it’s not as is any Albertans ride bikes, or care if they get home safely. 

A road-raging English driver was convicted in absentia for assaulting a bike rider, but has so-far gotten away with it because the cops can’t find him for sentencing.

Irish cycling legend Joe Barr, who just made headlines for completing a record-setting ride along the legendary Route 66, was assaulted while riding alone in his home country when someone dumped a bucket of water on him from a passing car.

……….

Local 

CicLAvia held its 67th open streets event in Hollywood and West Hollywood yesterday after the route was shortened due to last week’s water main break on Sunset Blvd; we’ll have more on that tomorrow.

A Palos Verdes man is alive today thanks to a nearby neighbor and several police officers who performed CPR for several minutes after he had a heart attack, before paramedics arrived, and he was taken to the hospital.

 

State

Waymo says their driverless cars are safer, but San Francisco bicyclists just want them out of the bike lanes.

 

National

A new double-looped bike lock is designed to secure your entire bike at once.

Trump’s executive order to reduce Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments to about a tenth of their previous size could affect riders using a pair of popular trails, although it’s not clear if the president has legal authority to reduce National Monuments, and opponents say it runs afoul of the Property Clause of the The Constitution (Article IV, Section 3), which grants Congress, not the president, exclusive power to dispose of or reduce federal property.

A group of about 100 Wisconsin “nutters” meet annually to ride antique three-speed bikes along the Mississippi, with the only rule being no lycra in your clothes, no derailleurs on your bike. Although they appear to get there in much more modern automobiles. 

Chicago Streetsblog says the bike crash deaths of transportation planners Riley O’Neil in Chicago and Louisa Gag in Boston should be a turning point for Safe Streets. “Should” being the operative term.

Two men now face charges in the Ohio hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle last month; the 24-year old driver has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter and failure to stop after an accident, while the 22-year old passenger in the truck has been charged with failing to report the crime.

A North Carolina cop is free on $2,500 bond after he was arrested for simple assault for pushing a bike rider off a moving bicycle on Friday, leaving the victim with minor injuries, including abrasions.

 

International

A 23-year old English man has completed a 39-day, 3,100-mile fundraising ride from Estadio Azteca in Mexico City to the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, completing the journey between the first kick of the World Cup and the final whistle of the championship game, raising money for a suicide prevention nonprofit en route.

An Irish advocacy group says there’s no need for performative lawmaking, when existing laws can deal with the problem of illegal ebike and e-scooter use.

Some of the UK’s greatest rugby players are riding 750 miles from Scotland to Dublin in four days to raise funds for motor neurone disease (MND) research. Although let’s hope they’ve got waterproof chain lube for the last leg. 

Bike helmets are becoming more common in the Netherlands, where they had been virtually unheard of, driven by older riders and ebike users.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tadej Pogačar’s road to winning this year’s Tour de France got a lot easier Sunday after two-time champ Jonas Vingegaard, his main competitor for the title, crashed out of the race with a broken collarbone. It will also make my job easier, as I’ll now only have to worry about spelling “Evenepoel” correctly. 

Remco Evenepoel outsprinted race leader Tadej Pogačar to win a mountainous stage 15 at the top of Plateau de Solaison on Sunday; Pogačar now holds a five-minute lead over Evenepoel, with Mexico’s Isaac Del Toro nearly a minute back in third.

Pogačar may hail from Slovenia, but his wheels come from Utah.

Bike Radar names the top ten all-time Tour de France champs without even naming America’s seven-time ex-Tour de France champ. Because as we all know, He Who Must Not Be Named never officially existed. And apparently, neither did Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. 

More tragic news, as Japanese former Olympic silver medalist Toshiaki Fushimi was killed Saturday while racing in a keirin tournament in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture, when he crashed into a safety barrier trying to avoid a crash ahead of him, suffering skull and neck fractures; the two-time KEIRIN Grand Prix champ was 50 years old.

An Indian website traces the rise of Harshveer Singh Sekhon from competing on borrowed bicycle to becoming India’s highest-ranked track cyclist, with ambitions for LA28.

That feeling when your Chicago stage race is delayed by the smoke from a distant fire. Or rather, a hundred or so fires.

L39ION of Los Angeles cyclist Jim Brown won the 90 minute Men’s Pro race in the recent Manhattan Beach Grand Prix, while Chloe Patrick won the 55-minute Women’s Pro riding for Caldera Medical.Aurea; the victories also came with titles as this year’s California State Criterium Champions.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you set a new world record for the most ebikes in a single ride. When you’re a convicted felon riding a Class 3 ebike with a loaded .357 Magnum revolver, live ammunition in a speed-loader, suspected fentanyl, and unprescribed Xanax pills, put a damn helmet on, already.

And barefoot-shaped pedals for riding, uh, barefoot.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Feds scrub bike lanes and speed cams from best practices, and Boston mayor joins vigil for bike advocate killed by her funding cuts

July 17, 2026 / / One comment

Just a quick note before we get started that I have another new T-shirt design behind that SWAG button over there on the right — this time in multiple type and fabric colors to suit anyone’s taste.

Maybe even yours.

………

Apparently, the Trump administration meant it when they threatened to go after “DEI bike lanes.”

Because not only did US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy transfer nearly $2 billion in transportation grants from bike lanes to roads and bridges, now they’ve removed any reference to bike lanes and speed cams from the list of Proven Safety Countermeasures on the department’s website.

According to NPR, which broke the story yesterday,

The FHWA says the changes to its website, which have not been previously reported, are part of a broader review of safety countermeasures to ensure they align with current DOT policies and the administration’s priorities. But critics say the Trump administration is undermining safety strategies that have already been proven to work.

“We should be making decisions about safety based on evidence,” Stephanie Pollack, the former acting administrator of the FHWA under President Joe Biden, told NPR. “It’s hard for me to understand how you could say you’re putting safety first, and then make arbitrary decisions about what does and doesn’t improve safety.”

No shit.

So instead of reducing traffic deaths, the plan seems to be to see just how high they can drive them.

Pun intended.

Then again, maybe that’s why they defunded public media, in an effort to keep them from reporting on this administration’s Dr. Evil-ish machinations.

If you question that wording, consider this statement from a USDOT spokesperson.

“Drivers paying taxes and vehicle fees expect their dollars to be reinvested into our roads, not social initiatives that burden their commutes,” the statement said. “Under Secretary Duffy, the Department is getting back to basics and putting safety first.”

So, they’re putting safety first by taking actions that put safety last.

Got it.

Twitter post

Again, according to NPR,

“It’s not just changing the web page, but it’s really going to put lifesaving projects at risk,” said Josh Naramore, a policy expert at NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

“That list of approved safety countermeasures and all the research really helped change the game for local agencies and even for states to have conversations with the federal government, with state departments of transportation, and even with regional planning agencies,” Naramore told NPR. “So you’re essentially taking tools out of the toolkit that would be available for them.”

For instance, among the measures no longer considered best practices, speed cams have been shown to reduce crashes on urban arterial roads by as much as half, while adding bike lanes on a two-lane road cut crashes by as much as 30%, jumping to 49% on four-lane road, according to a 2021 brochure published by the Federal Highway Administration.

Then again, those figures were backed up by scientific studies. And we’re not supposed to believe in science anymore.

So drivers, start your engines. Speeding is legal once again, and bicycles are just speed bumps on your road to freedom.

And let’s get those traffic death back up to those heady days of the pandemic.

Thanks to Andy for that first link — and sorry it took so long — your email got caught up in spam folder hell.

………

Boston is still in an uproar over the recent bicycling death of a city transportation planner.

As we discussed yesterday, 36-year old bike advocate and Boston transportation planner Louisa Gag was killed by a truck driver while riding her bike to work last Thursday.

To make matters worse, she was killed at an intersection where safety improvements had been promised for years, only to be put on terminal hold by the very mayor she worked for.

Today, an open letter to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu signed by 4,000 people — 2,300 Boston residents — was delivered to Wu’s office.

“For years, we have told you, in public and to your face, that continued delay on street safety would cost lives,” the letter reads. “Last week it cost the life of Louisa Gag — a transportation planner in your own administration, a person who devoted her career to making our streets safe…”

“For at least eighteen months, your administration has stalled and re-studied safety projects that were designed and funded,” the letter continues. “You have told us these projects need more process, more consensus, more perfection. But consensus never arrives for the dead, and a study protects no one.”

Four hundred people rode their bikes to Boston City Hall to personally deliver that letter.

Yet somehow, we can’t even get 1,000 people to sign an open letter calling on Los Angeles officials to declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, no matter how many people get killed.

Or who, for that matter.

And when was the last time you saw hundreds of people turn out on bikes for anything but CicLAvia or Critical Mass? Let alone demand that someone, anyone, in city office actually give a damn about the safety of people biking or walking?

Or the city’s mayor joining the vigil, for that matter.

Mayor Michelle Wu gave an emotional speech to those remembering Gag.

“I can’t stop thinking about Louisa, but especially the Boston that she wanted to live in,” she said. “A Vision Zero city. A city where everyone could access every opportunity.”

“I really struggled with whether I should come here tonight or not,” Wu said through tears. “Whether it would help the healing that is so needed for a community in such grief in pain, and whether I would be able to get any words out at all.”

If it’s happened here, I don’t know about it. But then again, I’ve only been doing this advocacy thing for about 20 years now.

………

So when was the last time you had a deadly poisonous snake stuck in your bike chain?

A woman in Australia was bitten by an eastern brown snake — the second most venomous land snake in a country known for deadly critters — when she accidentally rode over the bigass snake on her bike, and it somehow got caught up by her bike.

Fortunately, it turned out the bite was dry — aka, no venom — after she was rushed to a hospital.

Then again, so was the snake.

An expert snake catcher rushed to the scene, and held the viper’s head as cops dismantled parts of the bike to free it. And yes, they rushed the injured reptile to the nearest wildlife hospital, where it had to be euthanized due to the extent of its injuries.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Schumck. A Florida man faces charges, including aggravated assault and child abuse, for intentionally running a stop sign and driving into an 11-year old kid riding an ebike, then getting out of his car to slap the boy and smash his cellphone, because he said the neighborhood kids were harassing him.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in San Antonio, Texas shot and killed a man riding a bicycle after he refused a traffic stop, then led them on a brief pursuit before he allegedly pointed a gun at them. No word on what they were originally attempting to stop him for, and whether it was worth killing him over. 

A 43-year old woman remains in a coma after a 26-year old man riding an ebike hit her from behind in New York’s Central Park ten days ago, while the rider was allegedly speeding and riding the wrong way in the running lane; there’s no word on what kind of ebike he was on, though witnesses said he appeared to be a delivery rider. But if he was going the wrong way, how could he hit her from behind, unless she was going the wrong way, too?

……….

Local 

The Los Angeles Times belatedly picks up the story about merchants on Pico Blvd fearing the effects of planned protected bike lanes, just like merchants everywhere else, while failing to mention that studies show sales usually go up after protected bike lanes go in, and most people will later fight to keep them.

KNBC-4 reminds us about the Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia and World Cup final watching party, as well as Santa Monica’s COAST26 open streets event and World Cup watching party, leaving out only the Beach Streets open streets and World Cup watching party in Long Beach, all on Sunday.

A pair of 15-year old boys have been identified and detained by Santa Clarita sheriff’s deputies after one allegedly threw a rock at a man riding a bicycle on a Valencia bike trail, while they passed in the opposite direction illegally riding an electric motorcycle on the bike path; fortunately the victim captured their images on his bike cam.

 

State

The Bicycle Film Festival comes to San Diego next weekend.

Damn. A 50-year old Palo Alto woman remains on a ventilator two weeks after she was struck by the driver of a bus, and dragged underneath until a riding companion caught up to it and pounded on the side to get the driver to stop; according to friends, she suffered multiple fractures, including a broken femur and tibia, a fractured pelvis and a collapsed lung, and has already gone through seven surgeries.

San Francisco is closing another street to cars and converting it to a pair of parallel pathways; the former Twin Peaks Blvd is planned as part of a 550-mile trail tracing the city’s ridge lines.

 

National

PeopleForBikes goes back to their City Ratings to look at which US cities are investing in youth bicycling. None of which are Los Angeles. 

That’s more like it. An 18-year old Nevada driver was sentenced to a whopping 25 years behind bars for killing a 62-year old woman and significantly injuring her husband in a head-on crash as the couple was riding their bikes, after the driver admitted to smoking weed prior to the crash; however, he’ll be eligible for parole after just nine years.

The family of 17-year old fallen cyclist Magnus White settled their lawsuit against Yeva Smilianska, the allegedly intoxicated Colorado driver who killed the US National Cycling Team member in 2023, for just a measly $25,000, saying they just wanted to get her out of their lives. Then again, the Ukrainian refugee likely didn’t have any assets, and that’s probably all her insurance would cover — which is why you need to max out the uninsured motorist section on your car insurance, which will cover you when you ride your bike. 

Hie thee to my bike-friendly Colorado hometown for a beer-infused fondo this weekend. But is it really a “tradition” if it only goes back a decade?

Hats off to Laramie County, Wyoming for their new stagecoach-inspired, e-cargo bike powered bookmobile. And no, it’s not the least bit confusing that Cheyenne, Wyoming is in Laramie County, but Laramie is in Albany County, and Albany, Wyoming is in Albany County, too. 

A Houston suburb is surrounding 330 homes priced up to $1 million with 2,100 acres of trails and bike lanes. No word on whether they will follow the new FHWA best practices, and pave over all those trails with eight-lane highways.

The new documentary Cycles of Resilience follows the Black History Bike Ride, an Austin nonprofit founded by cyclist Talib Abdullah to teach people through bike treks to historical sites; according to the MovieMaker site, “learning shouldn’t have to be an act of resistance. But it is, given the efforts of many states and the Trump Administration to erase Black history.”

A Minnesota man took distracted driving to a new level, watching animated porn on his phone as he ran down and seriously injured a man riding a bicycle, leaving the victim with a fractured pelvis, multiple rib fractures, fractured lumbar requiring spinal surgery, a closed head injury, an acute kidney injury and acute anemia. But other than that, he was just peachy.

The Canadian wildfires are casting a pall over the 400-mile Cycle the Erie Canal bicycle ride, with more than 600 cyclists from 37 states and Canada riding from Buffalo NY to Albany along the Erie Canalway Trail.

As predicted, New Jersey’s new law requiring a license and registration for every ebike, regardless of whether it’s a ped-assist cargo bike or an e-motorbike, is turning out to be a total shitshow that no one’s happy with.

The Washington Post explains how people get trapped by obscenely high car payments, as $1,000 monthly payments become more common. Never mind that you can buy a decent used bicycle for a hundred bucks. 

 

International

Cycling Weekly says modern bikes are becoming more like F1 cars, but we’re still sending them to the equivalent of a quick oil change shop for repairs. I, for one, like the idea of an F1-style pit lane, where you can get your tires changed, your bike lubed and your glasses cleaned, and be back out on the road in under ten seconds.

 

Competitive Cycling

Ouch. Australian cyclist Chris Harper says he’s now “ten grams lighter” after losing part of his thumb in a horrific crash on stage 10 of the Tour de France.

Multiple riders went down like dominoes in a high-speed sprint at the end of Thursday’s stage 12 of the Tour de France; Belgium’s Tim Merlier outsprinted what was left of the field for his third stage win in this year’s Tour.

Forget doping. Cyclists at the Tour are now loading up on Urolithin A, a naturally occurring substance derived from pomegranates. Then again, psilocybin and hemlock are derived from naturally occurring substances too, but that doesn’t necessarily make them decent bicycling supplements. 

Outside asks the burning question, if Tadej Pogačar is so great, why isn’t he a global superstar?

Bike Radar offers 24 “remarkable” photos from the Tour de France, from hosing off riders with a firehose in the ’40s, to that gut wrenching shot of Johnny Hoogerland caught up in a barbed wire fence after crashing in 2011.

 

Finally…

Rasta Rolling on a Penny Farthing through the streets of London. Now you, too, can buy the long-awaited Tesla bike, though you may enjoy if more if you’re still a toddler.

And at last, someone has designed coat hangers, not for your coats, but for your bicycling kit.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

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