My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. Blame it on my diabetes, which took a sudden turn in a southerly direction Wednesday night.
And as I’ve learned the hard way, it’s damn near impossible to get anything done when you’re just this side of unconscious.
So grab some snacks and hunker down for a long haul, ’cause we’ve got a lot of miles to cover today.
Adorable photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels.
………
Let’s start with a call from Caltrans for more input on their Active Transportation Plan from people who ride bikes.
And yes, they specifically said in an email that they really want to hear from us, which is a nice change — and a good opportunity.
But only if we take advantage of it.
Caltrans Calls for Public Input on Active Transportation Plan Survey
LOS ANGELES — Caltrans is looking for public input on its active transportation planning process survey to identify locations for bicycle and pedestrian improvements on the state highway system. The public can play a critical role in shaping the plans by participating in this localized map-based survey.
“Today we must plan and build a transportation system that incorporates alternative means of transportation and that also considers equity,” said Caltrans District 7 Director Tony Tavares. “Public input on our Active Transportation Plan is crucial to the development of safe pedestrian, bicycle and public transit facilities on our highways.”
The public survey will allow residents to tell Caltrans where improvements could be made to facilitate bicycling and walking on or near the state highway system. Survey responses will provide specific data about the type and location of needed improvements, allowing Caltrans to evaluate these locations in developing future projects.
Caltrans wants to align the state’s bicycle and pedestrian network with the needs of local communities, with an emphasis on improving social equity, reconnecting communities, and improving access for all modes of transportation, including people who walk and bicycle. Caltrans will be actively engaging with partners and community members in areas where historic transportation decisions may have created barriers to adequate transportation.
To take the public survey using your computer, tablet or smartphone, please visit survey.catplan.org and click on District 7. This survey is also available in Spanish.
For more information about the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans, visit catplan.org/district-plans.
Here’s what Streets For All had to say about the survey.
Tell Caltrans to add bike lanes on major streets in LA!
Caltrans District 7 still owns many major streets in Los Angeles that are “state highways” including parts of Santa Monica Bl, Lincoln Bl, Venice Bl, and more. They just released a map and survey that allows you to pinpoint specific streets you feel unsafe biking/walking on. Please put pins on the map asking them to add protected bike lanes!
So what are you waiting for, already?
And while we’re on the subject of input, Metro wants yours on first mile – last mile connections to improve biking, walking and rolling access to and from the extension’s first three new Purple Line, aka D Line, stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.
………
Looks like we have a Secretary of Transportation who gets it. And sees bikes as part of the solution, even if he hails from the heart of car country.
This past year, many Americans rediscovered the joy of biking as well as the incredible benefits it can have on our cities and climate. Glad to have talked about this at yesterday's National Bike Summit 🚲 pic.twitter.com/WM0pBS5gB9
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) March 4, 2021
………
The LACBC is out with a self-guided bike tour to celebrate Women’s History Month, including a real-life Rosie the Riveter.
"Fat Tire Presents: Incredible Women Getting It Done” is an 18 mile ride that starts in Downtown Long Beach and makes a loop North to Long Beach Airport before heading back through Signal Hill. @NewBelgiumSoCal @FatTire pic.twitter.com/nrl89p4Xv9
— BikeLA (@heybikela) March 3, 2021
………
More proof that free lifetime registration with Bike Index really does work.
BIKE RECOVERY: "A person found the bike by the alley next to his apartment building. He immediately called me once he saw the post on Bike Index." @bikinginla @iamspecialized pic.twitter.com/zU6jX2gQS4
— Bike Index (@BikeIndex) March 5, 2021
………
Prop 22 may have rolled back protections for gig workers, but at least you get to ride an ebike all day.
Get an E-bike with help from DoorDash and start making money. Sign up for more details.
— DoorDash (@DoorDash) December 14, 2020
………
Um, okay.
A New York expat Zoomed into a community meeting from sunny Santa Barbara CA to complain about a proposed bike lane on the Big Apple’s Upper East Side, insisting no bike riders from Queens would ever spend money at the borough’s restaurants.
And was immediately refuted by a bike rider from Queens who was doing just that.
Here’s me, the Queens Cyclist spending money on that exact street. pic.twitter.com/IrcTATCS5R
— ChainringQueen (@goaliegirl44) March 4, 2021
………
A couple of notable bike notices, as Brompton recalls some of their ebike foldies due to a problem with the firmware.
And two models of Masi bicycles were recalled because a faulty fork steerer tube could lead to dangerous falls.
Meanwhile, Mavic warns that counterfeit wheels being sold under their name could lead to serious injury or death.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Syracuse NY website blames a critically injured bicyclist for riding into the side of a car. Then just casually mentions at the end that the driver a) didn’t have a license, and b) fled the scene.
No bias here, either. The wife of a former advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the war on cars is backfiring, and Low-Traffic Neighborhoods only benefit drug dealers on scooters and wealthy bicyclists. Like herself, for instance. A wealthy bike rider, that is, not a drug dealer.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Bike-riding convicted rapist and former pro football star Kellen Winslow II was sentenced to a well-deserved 14 years behind bars for a series of bizarre San Diego sexual assaults.
An emeritus professor at an Australian university conducts his own private study, and concludes that bike riders treat pedestrians far worse than drivers treat people on bicycles.
………
Local
Despite the pandemic, funding has been approved for two dozen biking and walking projects in LA County, courtesy of Metro Measure M Active Transportation grants and California Transportation Commission Active Transportation Program grants.
CiclaValley says we’re finally getting closer to protected bike lanes on the Los Angeles section of Chandler Blvd, closing the gap with Burbank’s popular Chandler Bike Path.
Metro invites you to use the Metro Bike bikeshare to take a ride on the Westside’s Ballona Creek bike path. Especially if you use Metro Bike to do it.
Harrison Ford is one of us, stopping by the Santa Monica Helen’s to get his bike fixed. Twice.
State
A Lake Forest man tells the story of how his father’s disappearance drove him to drink, and his bicycle helped carry him back to sobriety. And yes, you can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.
Santa Barbara now has a green center bike lane to channel riders through the carfree State Street Promenade.
After a Santa Rosa newspaper wrote about the glut of refurbished kids bikes at a nonprofit bike shop, a bighearted donor gave $2,500 to give bikes to kids whose parents can’t afford them.
National
US House members heard last week that unsafe streets put residents of marginalized communities at risk of inequitable traffic enforcement, as well as dangerous drivers.
Bicycling explains how to build your own DIY pseudo Peloton setup. As usual, Yahoo has the story if Bicycling blocks you.
Why worry about finding a safe place to sleep on your next bike tour when you can just tow a camping trailer behind your bike?
An executive with Ohio-based Huffy says the bike boom still has some steam, and there’s plenty more sales ahead for the company’s bicycle-shaped objects.
A Massachusetts city discovers those orange bendy posts marking a protected bike lane made drivers slow down, then speed right back up after they were removed for the winter. The same held true after the plastic wands protecting a popup bike lane in the UK were removed, too.
Today’s best headline award goes to Streeetsblog NY, for this entry about a vanishing popup bike lane: Northern Boulevard Bike Lane Lost In Time Like Tears In Rain.
The Virginia legislature passed the state’s bike safety bill, legalizing treating stops as yields and riding two abreast; it now just needs the governor’s signature to become law. Anyone who questions the safety of stops as yields should recognize that it only legalizes what most people do anyway, on two wheels or four.
The bighearted owners of a Valdosta, Georgia bike shop are working with the local police to refurbish used bikes and give them to people in need.
If you rode a tall bike to Key West last month, the local paper apparently approves.
Florida prosecutors agreed that a schizophrenic man was legally insane when he turned his car off the road and intentionally slammed into a man and his two sons riding bikes on a pedestrian pathway, killing the father and injuring both boys; if the court agrees, he could be sent to a longterm mental health facility.
International
Covid-19 cut global greenhouse gas emissions last year, but it will take further dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide to keep it going; more safe urban spaces for walking and cycling could help.
A Yucatán business council is all in on plans for bike lanes in the city of Mérida.
Make up your damn mind, already. Just months after Vancouver ripped out a bike lane so drivers could go zoom zoom and park in a park, the matter is coming to a head once again as people fight to get it back.
Life is cheap in Ontario, Canada, where a woman got a lousy one year of house vacation arrest for fleeing the scene after killing a Toronto-area man riding his bike, then lied about how her car was damaged to cover up the crime.
London bike riders continue to be at risk of near-miss terror from aggressive drivers who “treat cyclists like cockroaches.”
Contrary to perceptions, a new study shows London’s Low-traffic Neighborhoods — the equivalent of our Slow Streets — don’t disproportionately benefit more privileged communities.
Britain’s Cyclist magazine features the best deals on bike helmets in the US and UK.
Ebikes now make up 17% of all European bike sales, and growing.
Your next ebike could be a Porsche. Or you could just put all that excess money in a pile, build a straw man and set it on fire.
An Indian writer discovers their grandfather’s detailed diary of a nearly 1,000-mile bike trip from Kolkata to Kashmir in 1933.
A brief photo essay from Chinese news site Xinhua looks at a wheelchair-bound bike repairman in Palestine.
They get it. The next time you get a craving for coffee and donuts in the Philippines’ Quezon City, just make a detour through Dunkin’s first-ever bike-through lane.
Talk about a bad idea. An Aussie city installed speed bumps in a park to slow down speeding bike riders and reduce collisions with pedestrians. Never mind that the speed bumps are likely to increase injuries by knocking people off their bikes, as well as riders swerving to go around them.
Hollywood’s Thor is one of us, as Chris Hemsworth went for an ebike ride through Sydney, Australia with his wife, Spanish model and actress Elsa Pataky.
Competitive Cycling
Rising 21-year old American cyclist Matteo Jorgenson is looking forward to tackling Paris-Nice this Sunday, as well as the Giro in May.
Finally…
Why face front when you can just ride your bike backwards? That feeling when you want your chain to look like it’s made of LEGO.
And apparently, LA streets may have changed just a tad in the last 126 years.
@bikinginla pic.twitter.com/DkVntnO1je
— keith johnson (@keith_johnson) March 3, 2021
………
Thanks to David A for his generous donation to help support this site, and keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
As an aside, there’s no such thing as a small donation; I know as well as anyone just how hard it can be to donate to someone else when you’re struggling yourself, and couldn’t appreciate it more.
Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already.
