Streets For All’s Schneider confronts mayor’s draconian budget cuts, and DTLA tree-chopper Groft faces 11 felony counts

May 9, 2025 / / No comments
Day 129 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

In my rush to put up yesterday’s post before I fell asleep at my keyboard, I somehow lost the link to an important Los Angeles Times op-ed from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider.

In it, Schneider took to task the proposed city budget from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose draconian cuts would make our already deteriorating and dangerous streets even worse.

By law, the city of Los Angeles must balance its budget every year. But Mayor Karen Bass’ current proposal to do so represents a dystopian nightmare for our streets, sidewalks and public transportation system. The city should correct this mistake as it evaluates the proposed budget in the coming weeks.

Angelenos already live with streets deteriorating faster than we can fix them, sidewalks breaking faster than we can repair them and streetlights going dark faster than we can replace them. A recent audit exposed the city’s utter failure to achieve Vision Zero, after promising 10 years ago to bring down traffic deaths. These things are happening under the existing fiscal year’s budget, which already made draconian cuts across the city. With further cuts, expect even worse service for everyday essentials.

Bass describes this budget as just a worst case scenario, hoping against hope for a deus ex machina bailout from the state from her own budget failures, as legal settlements and unfounded pay raises have put the city a whopping $1 billion in the red.

Without a momentary lifeboat from the cash-strapped state, Bass proposes cutting 1,600 jobs — slashing staffing at LADOT and street services, as well as putting off desperately needed repairs and capital improvements.

And if you think “desperately needed” is an overstatement, you haven’t been on Fairfax Ave lately, where frame-busting bumps make mountain biking seem boring, and ever-growing potholes threaten to swallow entire motor vehicles.

Never mind that the eyes of the world will be on the City of Angels starting next year.

Keep in mind that Los Angeles is also about to be under a spotlight on the world stage. We are hosting eight matches of the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2028. We shouldn’t be hosting world-class events on streets full of potholes, broken sidewalks and dark streetlights. It’s a terrible image for Los Angeles, and the coming fiscal year’s budget is our last chance to make progress before the events begin.

It’s more than worth the few minutes it takes to read the whole thing. Because this is the battle we have to fight now, if we want to win any of the other street safety fights to come.

Although not everyone seems to agree.

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Bike-riding tree-chopper Samuel Patrick Groft was ordered to stand trial on 11 felony vandalism counts for chopping down 13 trees with his trusty electric chainsaw.

Police describe the 33-year old Groft as homeless with a criminal record, and someone who was known to them before last month’s DTLA chainsaw massacre.

LA’s street tree superintendent estimated the values of felled trees on city-owned property at $175,000, while the value of all 13 trees was set at nearly $350,000.

And bonus points if you knew LA even had a street tree superintendent.

Groft faces up to six-and-a-half years behind bars if convicted on all count. He remains behind bars on $350,000 bond, for which trees in Downtown Los Angeles are undoubtedly grateful.

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Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC’s next virtual happy hour will feature Marissa Roy, candidate for Los Angeles City Attorney.

Although considering what we’ve seen of the incumbent, she already has my vote.

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That feeling when satire is just this side of reality.

NYPD Tickets Dead Cyclist For Obstructing Bike Lane

— The Onion (@theonion.com) 2025-05-02T18:30:00.000Z

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

Convenience won out over safety once again, as residents of a wealthy Christchurch, New Zealand suburb successfully defeated a planned bike lane, preferring saving parking spaces to saving lives.

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

A San Francisco website says yes, the city has an ebike problem, but it’s the “glorified e-mopeds,” not the people on bicycles, who are the problem.

Police in Singapore are looking for the schmuck who slapped a 13-year old boy after they crashed their bikes together.

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Local 

Clean Technica says Los Angeles will have to rely on the private sector to have any hope of holding a carfree Olympics.

Metrolink will wave ticket fees for anyone with a bicycle on Thursday’s Bike to Work Day — although you’ll still have to pay to ride Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains.

 

State

When I was a kid, “Your mother rides a bicycle!” was a schoolyard taunt, but Calbike’s Kendra Ramsey recalls it as a badge of honor.

Encinitas is closing a portion of South Coast Highway 101 in the downtown area to cars on May 18th for the Cyclovia Encinitas open streets event.

The CEO of San Diego Youth Services is taking one last great adventure as he rides into retirement, pedaling over 600 miles from San Francisco to San Diego in hopes of raising $250,000 for homeless youths.

Authorities continue to search for any sign of a 27-year old Black woman who disappeared without a trace two weeks ago while e-bikepacking in the Sierra National Forest.

Sad news from Antioch, where a 33-year old man died in the hospital after he reportedly got off his bicycle, and somehow fell into the roadway and into the path of an oncoming car.

 

National

Momentum ranks the top ten cities in the US to enjoy a carfree lifestyle. None of which is Los Angeles.

A team from the University of Washington has developed a small, handlebar-mounted sensor that maps when and where drivers pass closer than four feet to someone on a bicycle, which they found correspond to other indications of poor safety, such as collisions. Although I’d say that a collision is the literal definition of poor safety. 

A Las Vegas bike shop, twice named one of the nation’s top ten bike shops, offers a blast from the past by hosting a virtual museum of vintage, rare and unusual bicycles.

Bicycling examines the strange case of University of Wyoming art professor Nash Quinn, who disappeared last year after riding his singlespeed bike into the wilderness outside of Laramie. But you’ll need a subscription if you want to read it. 

Streetsblog Chicago considers the eternal question of how to convince residents and city officials to support safer street designs.

Donald Trump deflected from tough questions about the failure of the US air traffic control system by mocking former Transportation Secretary Pet Buttigieg for riding his bicycle to work “with his husband on the back.”

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the Atlanta Magnet Man’s bicycle; Alex Benigno began riding an ebike with a trailer mounted with magnets during the pandemic, pedaling through the city collecting an average of five pounds of metal debris swept from the streets.

 

International

A Canadian woman is attempting to set a new record for riding up and down the full length of the United Kingdom, despite contracting a rare disease when she was 15 that left her unable to walk.

Cyclist introduces Russel Stout, owner of British bespoke aluminum bikemaker Stout Cycles.

That’s more like it. A commercial van driver in the UK was sentenced to 11 years behind bars for killing a bike rider while drinking vodka behind the wheel, and using not one, but two mobile phones; he continued to use his phone for over half a minute as he drove away after the crash, later telling police he thought he’d hit a bird. Must have been a pretty damn big bird, though.

A 51-year old “super fit road cyclist” who had just moved from the UK to France blames the Moderna Covid vaccine for sending her to intensive cardiac care for two weeks, and needing a pacemaker after suffering a complete heart block.

An estimated 10,000 people are expected to ride their bikes tomorrow for Korea’s 2025 Seoul Bike Festival, with riders divided by skill levels, and different speeds set for each.

 

Competitive Cycling

Road.cc asks whether the women’s Vuelta is already over, as Dutch pro Demi Vollering builds a commanding lead while winning her fifth stage.

Speaking of the Olympics, the Olympics website shines a spotlight on Bike for Future, a Rwandan program using bicycles to help young women build transferable skills, while gaining access to education, employment and entrepreneurship.

The small African nation of Benin is making its move to become a cycling power; the country has already produced elite riders like Biniam Girmay, Louis Meintjes, Kim Le Court and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your “beloved” gravel event is demoted to just the fifth-hardest bovine-themed ride held in a lesser wine region. Or when you post a bike ad on Instagram, and get told to focus on your football/soccer team — and wear a hemet.

And of course Bing was one of us.

Singer/actor Bing Crosby shows off the superhero-like riding technique that must have been behind his recording more than 1,600 songs & making over 70 feature films.Happy #BicycleBirthday, Bing! May 3 (1903-1977)

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T04:00:41.134Z

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Bike rider killed in South LA hit-and-run last month; LAPD just now bothering to tell us and ask for our help

May 8, 2025 / / No comments

Once again, someone riding a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver weeks ago.

Yet somehow, we’re only learning about it now.

The LAPD is just now getting around to asking for the public’s help in finding the driver, nearly three weeks later.

The victim, who still has not been publicly identified, was riding their bike north on Central Avenue near 120th Street in South LA around 10 pm on Sunday, April 20th, when they were run down from behind by a speeding driver.

The victim died after being rushed to the hospital.

And that’s all we know.

There’s no description of the suspect vehicle or the driver, or not even the age or sex of the victim. We don’t even know whether the victim has been identified, and if so, why the identification is being withheld.

Which gives us absolutely nothing to go on, other than the time and location, after the police inexplicably waited to release any information until the trail was so cold you could almost see your breath.

And didn’t bother to use the hit-and-run alert systems approved by the city and state a decade ago to try to reduce the epidemic of fleeing drivers.

It also raises the question of how many other people have been killed riding a bicycle — or walking or driving — that they haven’t bothered to tell us about.

And just who decided to keep us in the dark, and why.

Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD’s South Traffic Division at 213/677-9791, or 877/527-3247 evening or weekends.

As always, there is a $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles. Although it’s unlikely anyone will collect, given the dearth of information and such an extensive delay in asking for the public’s health.

This was at least the 13th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and just the second that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County. And it’s the first we know of in the City LA, which seems highly unlikely this far into the year.

This is also the fourth SoCal bike rider killed by a hit-and-run driver since the first of the year.

Someone needs to investigate this crap to find out what the hell is going on here.

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , ,

NYPD’s heavy-handed crackdown on bike riders, pose your bike in front of a relic, and WeHo promises Bike2Work pitstop

May 8, 2025 / / No comments
Day 128 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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No surprise here.

New York bicyclists say the new police crackdown on bike riders is excessive, requiring them to appear in criminal court for violations like rolling a stop light or riding salmon, which are usually just ticketable offenses.

Which isn’t to say those infractions aren’t serious.

But you’re not likely to see a driver get the same treatment for speeding or using a smartphone behind the wheel, even though motor vehicles and the people in them pose significantly more danger to everyone around them.

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Bike Culver City says take a photo of your favorite bicycle “in front of your favorite relic” at Saturday’s car show, and show ’em which one is really the future of transportation.

Just don’t try to take a picture in front of me, or I’ll wack you with my walker.

Seriously.

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It looks like we can count on at least one pit stop for Bike to Work Day.

https://twitter.com/heybikela/status/1920267878957261259

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

Seriously? Life is cheap in New York, where a man caught redhanded sabotaging a mountain bike trail faces a lousy month behind bars, as protectors treat it like a silly prank instead of a serious attempt to injure or kill people on bicycles.

Ontario, Canada will appeal the court order blocking the removal of Toronto’s bike lanes, after the provincial premier had the law changed giving him the power to rip them out.

No bias here. A former British weatherman calls for a law prohibiting “idiotic” bike riding, writing “A speeding bicycle with only a bell as a warning is a dangerous weapon.” Because no one knows more about traffic safety than an ex-TV weather guy. Maybe he’d be happier if we just yelled “Get the f*** out of the way!”

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Local 

Metro is offering 30 day Metro Bike passes for just one buck during May’s Bike Month, as well as free use of Metro Bike Hubs.

A Streetsblog op-ed urges Metro not to hire Lyft to manage the Metro Bike program, given their demonstrated hostility to mass transit and workers rights.

 

State

A Cardiff letter writer says the protected bike lanes on the Coast Highway are the most dangerous area for bike riders along the entire coast, and it’s not a good look for a local politician to continue to support it despite the dangers.

A Change.org petition is calling for immediate fixes to San Diego’s confusing and chaotic intersection where Park Blvd, El Cajon Blvd and Normal Street converge, with one man saying he feels very exposed riding his bicycle or a Vespa there.

Huh? An Imperial PD captain says a 14-year old was arrested for riding an ebike on a local highway because ebikes aren’t street legal, without explaining why this particular ebike wasn’t. Because most electric bicycles and electric motorcycles are both very street legal, although 14-year olds aren’t allowed to ride some of them; only illegally modified ebikes and those that violate California’s ebike regulations are banned.

Police in Goleta wrote 100 citations to drivers last month for violating the state’s hands-free cellphone law. Just imagine how many tickets they could write if they actually tried, since the feds estimate that 6.4% of all drivers are using a handheld phone at any given moment. Which seems like a massive undercount, given how many drivers you can see using one just riding a bike or standing on any given street. 

A San Luis Obispo bike rider was lucky to escape with non-life threatening injuries after being struck by the driver of a pickup while walking their bike in a bike lane, and dragged 30 feet under the driver’s truck; the driver was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence of narcotics.

A 33-year old driver was booked on charges of vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run after police tracked him down for killing a 53-year old man riding a bicycle in Visalia over the weekend.

The San Francisco Examiner continues its focus on the failure of San Francisco’s Vision Zero, as a new report says the city lost $2.5 billion over five years due to traffic collisions.

Work is nearly finished on moving San Francisco’s highly unpopular Valencia Street bike lanes from the center of the street to the curb.

 

National

This is who we share the road with. A road-raging Oregon driver is under arrest after intentionally swerving his car into a motorcyclist in the next lane and knocking him off the highway, in an attack caught on dashcam from a trailing truck.

An Arizona judge refused a defense request to dismiss 11 of the 12 misdemeanor charges against Pedro Quintana-Lujan, the commercial driver slammed his truck into a group of bicyclists in Goodyear AZ, killing two people and injuring 19 others. As if misdemeanor counts weren’t already a gift, after the DA refused to file felony charges.

An Albuquerque TV station remembers the woman credited with founding the city’s bicycle advocacy efforts; she passed away in 2010, just months before the bike and pedestrian bridge name for her opened.

The US Forest Service wants ebike riders to bail out their $380,000 in red ink for Colorado’s Maroon Bells, with a proposal to charge everyone on a electric bicycle $5 to access the area. That’s half of the entry fee for drivers, even though people on ebikes don’t cause any significant damage to the roadway or the environment, unlike the people in the big, dangerous and yes, stinky machines.

A Wyoming woman considers why bicyclists trigger road rage for some drivers, after encountering punishment passes and a driver rolling coal on an Idaho highway, concluding that it’s just prejudice against the “other.”

After a Pennsylvania woman ordered groceries from Uber Eats, she was shocked when the delivery man showed up riding an ebike, so she tracked him down through social media, and established a crowdfunding campaign to get his car fixed so he didn’t have to ride a bike anymore. Although he’s probably better off on the bicycle. 

According to an Alabama arsenal, the US Army is challenging military members to ride their bikes 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles, over the next four months, which works out to an easy five miles a day.

A Haitian immigrant will spend the rest of his life behind bars, with no possibility of parole, after pleading no contest to the stabbing death of a married couple as their were riding their bikes back home from Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Florida three years ago.

 

International

Bike Radar offers a complete guide to buying a secondhand ebike. Which beats the hell out of waiting for California’s moribund ebike voucher program.

Frustrated Winnipeg, Manitoba bike riders are complaining about the city’s new  speed limits for bicyclists on bike paths, instead of doing anything about the speeding drivers on a road where a man riding a bicycle was killed almost a year ago.

A British doctor won a £4.5 million settlement, the equivalent of nearly $6 million, after he was paralyzed when the carbon fork of his Planet X gravel bike sheared in two on a grassy hillside.

A writer for Cycling Weekly explains how she managed a six-day gravel ride through Sri Lanka, even though she didn’t own a gravel bike, and had only ridden a total of 29 miles in the previous ten months — and with just six weeks to train.

 

Competitive Cycling

Colombian cyclist Miguel Ángel López lost his appeal against a four-year ban for doping in the international Court of Arbitration for Sport; Ángel López was caught using and holding Menotropin, a female fertility drug that can stimulate production of testosterone in men, during the 2022 Giro. But the era of doping is over, right?

Geraint Thomas, 2018 Tour de France champ, looks forward to one final TdF before he retires after the Tour of Britain.

US cycling legend Dave Zabriskie, the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours, is launching a “groundbreaking initiative focused on concussion recovery and long-term cognitive health” called Cognitive Protocol, saying he learned the hard way that you can’t ride through a concussion.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you go riding through Moroccan deserts in search of camels. Apparently, race motos are no longer the most dangerous problem with pro cycling, interfering fans are.

And now you, too, can own your very own plastic Volvo bicycle for the low, low price of just $133.

Even if it is a featured exhibit in Sweden’s Museum of Failure.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

More non-CicLAvia open streets events, San Diego bike lane one of America’s best, and more Trumpian bike tariff fallout

May 7, 2025 / / One comment
Day 127 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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As we mentioned yesterday, Long Beach will close a pair of streets to cars, while opening them up to everyone else this Saturday with the return of the city’s popular Beach Streets.

The closures will affect Willow Street from Santa Fe Ave to Long Beach Blvd, and southbound Santa Fe Ave from Willow Street to 20th Street, apparently leaving northbound Santa Fe to the people in the big, dangerous machines.

According to the Press-Telegram,

“The Beach Streets West event will include multiple live performances along the event route, including DJ Otro Patrick Miller on the Willow Street bridge overlooking the I-710 Freeway,” the city said, “DJ Desirable D on the corner of Willow Street and Santa Fe Avenue, and DJ Dennis Owens at Long Beach Beer Lab.”

Various local businesses, community groups, and business districts will also host various activities along the Beach Streets route.

Meanwhile. Glendale will followup with with an open streets event of their own at the end of the month.

Here’s what their press release has to say.

Let’s Go Glendale is Southern California’s newest open streets event which will transform a portion of S. Glendale Ave. into a car-free space on Saturday, May 31 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The community is invited to explore the area on foot, bike, scooter, wheelchair or any other way that moves you. Presented by Metro and produced by Community Arts Resources (CARS), Let’s Go Glendale is a free and open event that welcomes people of all ages to discover local businesses, enjoy delicious food, listen to live music and connect with the city’s vibrant cultures in the open streets.

The event features a full schedule of activities along the vehicle-free route filled with arts and cultural performances, civic booths, interactive activities, food trucks, free water, first aid, bike repair and information on local programs. Glendale’s streets will come alive with music and dance from groups such as the all-female mariachi band, Las Colibrí, Armenian folk group, Lernazang Ensemble and Herbert Hoover High School’s Hoover Tornado Marching Band plus Herbert Hoover Jazz. Students from Cerritos, Marshall and Mann Elementary schools will present poetry readings throughout the day. Attendees can also connect and learn more about the city services with representatives from Community Services & Parks, Verdugo Jobs Center, Glendale Fire Department, Bookmobile, the Glendale General Plan Update, the Garden River Bridge Project and much more.

Let’s Go Glendale will be held on 1.3 miles of streets closed to car traffic through S. Glendale Ave. between Lexington Dr. and Chevy Chase Dr. Street closures begin at 6 a.m. with full route closures in place by 9 a.m. The streets are open to participants from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the route will be fully returned to cars by approximately 6 p.m.

For more information and a complete route map visit, LetsGoGlendale.com or interact via Facebook and Instagram. #LetsGoGlendale

Photo of Las Colibrí provided by Community Arts Resources, via Let’s Go Glendale press release.

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Momentum highlights the country’s best new bikeways, which show the rest of the country how it’s done.

None of which are in Los Angeles, of course. But San Diego’s Pershing Bikeway made the list.

Winding through Balboa Park and connecting the North Park neighborhood to downtown, the 2.3-mile Pershing Bikeway is a marquee example of how cities can design for safety and comfort. Developed by SANDAG as part of its Regional Bike Plan, the Pershing Bikeway includes one-way and two-way protected lanes, a separate bike path, and dramatically improved intersections. A newly constructed 75-foot bridge, a traffic-calming roundabout, and pedestrian crossing upgrades—including 70 new street lights—underscore the emphasis on accessibility and visibility. The project’s years-long journey from planning to construction involved extensive public input and overcame initial opposition from motorists concerned about traffic flow.

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More on Trump’s tariffs, as a New Jersey bike company and major Walmart supplier is halting imports from China after paying a whopping $3.1 million in tariffs in just one month.

According to former Kent International CEO Arnold Kamler, because of the tariffs, a Chinese-made wheel that would have cost between $10 and $12 now costs about $30.

And making the same parts in the US would be even worse.

“I can’t even calculate that high,” Kramer said about what he thinks a bike would cost to produce here. “I’ll just tell you one quick story. There was a company that came to us a couple years ago. They wanted to make handlebars for us. Now we used to make our own handlebar for about a dollar-and-a-half, and we saved some money by buying it from Asia. And this company took three months to give me the quotation for a simple BMX handlebar. And the price came back at $12. I said, ‘$12? It’s about 80 cents of steel. How could you be?’ ‘Well, there’s a lot of work.’ And I said, ‘OK, thank you, you can lose my number.’ So, you can take that (as) kind of (an) example…I mean, a $100-bicycle here would be a $1,000 if all the parts were made here right now.”

Which would seemingly put it out of reach for the typical Walmart customer.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs don’t seem to be having any negative effect on Chinese bikemakers yet, with the only real pain felt by American companies.

That’s because bicycle imports to the US are down 17% in anticipation of the tariffs, while worldwide exports from Chinese bike manufacturers rose more than 15% thanks to strong demand from Europe and other areas.

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Gravel bike California visits the Sea Otter Classic.

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

No surprise here, as British bike riders complain about harsher penalties directed their way, arguing that it’s about getting populist votes and not safety — especially since drivers get away with the same things “on a daily basis.”

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Local 

Streetsblog reports on last week’s successful die-in on the steps of City Hall to protest the failure of Vision Zero — and the third straight year that traffic deaths have exceeded murders in Los Angeles.

Walk ‘n Rollers founder Jim Shanman will host a free workshop on bike commuting for adults on Friday morning at the Helms Building in Culver City, just in time for next week’s Bike to Work Day

 

State

The Orange County Register posts their favorite photos from the past month, including an adorable shot of toddlers testing out their balance bikes on the opening day of the San Clemente Pump Track.

The Times of San Diego says it’s great that the city approved an ambitious mobility plan, but there’s currently no money to fund most of it.

Rescuers are searching for a missing 27-year old black woman who disappeared on a bikepacking tour in the Huntington Lake area, and was last seen at last seen at a general store in Shaver Lake on April 24th; Tiffany Slaton was headed for Mono Hot Springs on a blue Lectric ebike puling a red and yellow trailer.

Sad news from San Joaquin County, where a 56-year old man was killed in a hit-and run while riding his bike, after the driver left him in a ditch to die.

SF Gate suggests the best bike bags for commuting and adventure bicycling, each and every one “tested across rain, dust, potholes and city traffic.”

 

National

A man raised over $700,000 for the Ronald McDonald Charities by riding 4,600 miles across the US, a decade after the organization helped his family after his daughter fell into a four-month coma from a rare brain disease.

A Reno website explains and endorses a new Stop as Yield bill in the state legislature, which would allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields, but would not apply to riders on ebikes.

Here’s one for your more casual bike bucket list, with Colorado’s 21-mile Clear Creek Trail offering an urban refuge from the home of Coors Beer to the Denver suburbs.

A Nebraska county commission is standing in the way of a long-planned bikeway connecting the 60 miles between Lincoln and Omaha, after rejecting all the proposed routes through the county.

Streetsblog says the NYPD’s new crackdown on bicyclists has unleashed the worst instincts of individual cops, who shamelessly ticket riders for the slightest infraction — including one rider cited for disorderly conduct and failing to yield to a pedestrian when a cop stepped directly in front of him, forcing him to swerve around him, then stopping to yell at the cop for risking his safety.

An electronic dance music website remembers influential EDM synthwave  producer Starcadian, aka George Smaragdis, after he was killed in a dooring in New York last week.

A kindhearted Virginia cop bought a new bike for a young boy he met while responding to a call, after the boy told him he wasn’t riding bikes with his friends because his bike had been thrown away when he left it outside.

Former pro football and baseball star Bo Jackson held his final Bo Bikes Bama fundraising bike tour to benefit Alabama’s Emergency Relief Fund, calling it a day after 14 years.

 

International

A cycling coach and an expert bike fitter decry the lack of improvements in women’s bike seats, 30 years after research studies highlighted the medical issues women bike riders still face.

Bicycle advocates in Winnipeg, Manitoba turned out to protest the delay of a city report on safety improvements on a road where a bike rider was killed by a driver doing 100 mph nearly a year ago. Something Los Angeles seldom, if ever, does.

A British bicycle insurance company examines the understated details that make bicycling in the Netherlands so convenient.

More on the horrific solo bike crash that injured a Welsh woman riding on a beachfront bike path, as firefighter had to cut her free from her mangled bicycle after a handlebar penetrated her thigh.

Dublin, Ireland is experiencing the same problem as virtually every other city that builds bike lanes, but doesn’t provide the funding to keep them clean.

 

Competitive Cycling

USA Cycling explains when and how to watch the Professional Road National Championships later this month, with the elite men’s and women’s crit and road races live-streamed on FloBikes.

Australia’s Caleb Ewan shocked the cycling community by unexpectedly calling it a career after 11 years, with a record that includes five stage wins at the Tour de France, another five at the Giro and nine stages at the Tour Down Under, as well as two second-place finished at Milan Sanremo.

Six years after Colorado’s last pro cycling race, a British company is attempting to bring the pro peloton back to the state with a five-stage race beginning in 2026; the challenge is overcoming declining sponsorship revenue and increasing costs, as well as finding space in the crowded pro racing calendar.

A Utah website asks “Who are the top American pro cyclists.” Which is a question a lot of us have been asking lately. 

An Escape Collective podcast goes back in time to examine the shotgun shooting of America’s last remaining Tour de France winner, before Greg LeMond’s near miraculous comeback to win the race two more times.

The London Times introduces 28-year old British cyclist Paul Double as he prepares to make his Grand Tour debut in the Giro, after coming up the hard way competing in Italy.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can get paid to take potentially performance-enhancing painkillers, while doing your part for science.

And why wait for the city to finally get around to installing speed bumps when you can just buy the damn thing yourself?

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,

Open Streets season opens, alleged drunk driver with suspended license kills teen fire refugee, and key bike bills in suspense

May 6, 2025 / / 3 comments
Day 126 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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It’s open streets season again.

The City of Bell kicked things off on Saturday with a one-mile carfree event on Gage Ave; as usual, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers photos capturing the day.

Long Beach is hosting its next Beach Streets event from 10 am and 5 pm this Saturday.

According to a press release from the city,

This year’s event route will feature Willow Street and Santa Fe Avenue. Entertainment hubs along the route will feature live music, a kid zone, food trucks and more. More information regarding this year’s event, including a more detailed event route, entertainment, activities and other highlights, will be provided by the City at a later date.

That will be followed by the year’s first CicLAmini the following Saturday, a CicLAvia-style event with a shorter route to encourage people to walk rather than ride their bikes.

Here’s how their press release describes it.

Come enjoy a more pedestrian-oriented, car-free experience at CicLAvia’s 60th Open Streets event, CicLAmini—Pico Union, taking place on Sunday, May 18, between 10 a.m.–3 p.m. The public is invited to enjoy this compact neighborhood route for the day to explore Pico Union along Pico Blvd between Normandie and Union Aves. For all ages and abilities, CicLAmini—Pico Union offers walkers, joggers, bikers, skaters, and those who simply want to play with one’s favorite people-powered way to enjoy this 1.4-mile unique “pop-up park.” Always free, CicLAvia participants just show up anywhere along the route at any time to enjoy the open streets and to take the time to explore one of the most historic neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles…

“CicLAmini—Pico Union includes two hubs, where you’ll find the essentials, community partners, resource booths, photo ops, and more, plus activities for all ages sprinkled throughout the route. CicLAvia encourages participants to jog, walk, ride, skate, and bike along the open space. Free pedicab rides are also available next to each information booth to ensure that everyone, regardless of age or ability, is able to enjoy open streets. Please visit the CicLAvia website for updates regarding local gems, additional activities, and specials offered by local businesses along the route.

………

Sadly, no surprise here.

Word broke yesterday that the woman who killed a popular Loyola high school senior just a month before graduation was driving on a suspended license due to a 2023 DUI.

And yes, she was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence once again after the early morning collision on Sunday, as Levi Braun was walking with a friend along Sepulveda Blvd in Manhattan Beach.

Which means 33-year old Jenia Belt could face a murder charge, assuming she signed the required Watson notice informing her she could be charged with murder if she killed someone while driving under the influence anytime in the future.

She’s currently being held without bail in Manhattan Beach.

Compounding the tragedy, the 18-year old Levi, a three-year captain of his high school tennis team and four year league tennis champ, was living in Manhattan Beach because his family’s home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire.

This is yet another tragic example of the many people who continue to drive — and yes, drive under the influence — after their licenses are suspended.

We will never know just how many of those we share the road with are driving without a license, because only a handful ever get caught. But even one is one too many.

It’s not enough to take away a driver’s license. We also need to impound or immobilize the driver’s car until they get their license back.

It’s clear that nothing else will stop a percentage of suspended drivers — perhaps a sizable percentage — from getting back behind the wheel anyway.

………

Streetsblog offers a disappointing legislative update, with most of the bills benefiting bike riders placed in the suspension file.

Which means they could be revived, but it’s usually just a way to kill a bill without leaving fingerprints, so no one can be blamed for it.

To make matters worse, AB 697, which would allow SR 37 to be widened between Vallejo and SR 121 in Sonoma County moved forward, even though the project would run through protected habitats and wetlands, while endangering protected species.

Widening the highway also runs against California’s climate policies. Although it does make me wonder if we could get bicyclists and pedestrians added to California’s endangered species list.

And whether that would make any difference, given this misguided bill.

………

A group of cops and their loved ones are riding over 800 miles through the heart of California to honor fallen officers.

According to the Santa Clarita Signal, the group stopped in the city to hold a ceremony at the SCV Sheriff’s Station to honor of officers who died in the line of duty.

Law Enforcement United is a group of federal, state and local officers, along with survivors who pedal their bikes to remember the surviving families, according to Rich Gallo, long-ride division director of Law Enforcement United.

“We started in San Francisco on April 30; we’ll end in San Diego on May 7. That’s 851 miles since we went via Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield to Tehachapi and now into Santa Clarita. Tomorrow, we’ll do the circuit through and around Los Angeles and then down into Camp Pendleton into San Diego,” Gallo said.

………

Thanks to John Cinatl for forwarding this item from Safe Routes to School announcing their annual summit this fall.

Get ready to connect, collaborate, and chart a path forward at the 2025 Safe Routes to School Virtual Summit! The 2025 Summit is completely virtual, and early bird tickets are now on sale for just $99!

We’re planning three days of engaging presentations, hands-on trainings, and educational conversations focused on topics that matter most to Safe Routes practitioners, including:

  • Quick win projects
  • Rural Safe Routes programs
  • E-bike safety and education
  • Walking school buses and bike trains
  • Creative partnerships
  • …and so much more!

Speakers are currently being confirmed, but you can expect useful tools, inspiring stories, and a community working to make walking and rolling safer and more accessible for communities throughout the country!

Early bird ticketing closes July 4, 2025!
Don’t miss this deal: register now!

………

Yep. That about sums it up.

Thanks to someone who wishes to remain anonymous for the forward.

………

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

No surprise here. A British road safety expert says a new law that imposing life in prison for bike riders who kill pedestrians is unlikely to significantly improve safety, especially when the biggest threat comes from speeding drivers.

But sometimes its the people on two wheels behaving badly.   

Police in Dorsett, England are already spaying scofflaw riders of ebikes, quad bikes and motorbikes with fluorescent paint in order to identify and ticket them later, as part of a pilot project.

………

Local 

This is who we share the road with. A man in his 70s somehow drove through the security gate at the home of Friends and The Morning Show star Jennifer Anniston, and was held at gunpoint by security guards until police arrived; at last report, there was still no word on whether the act was intentional.

Culver City issued a proclamation in support of Bike Month. Which unfortunately didn’t include restoring the MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes they ripped out, which is probably the only proclamation most of us want to hear from them.

ActiveSGV hosts a three-hour Bikes and Boats Tour this Saturday; the ride will explore the San Gabriel River Bike Path, the Whittier Narrows Recreational Area and the Merced Ave Greenway project, as well as including a free 30-minute paddle boat ride at Legg Lake. Although we all remember what happened with the last three-hour tour. Right, Gilligan?

 

State

Police in Westminster will hold a bicycle and pedestrian safety operation today, ticketing anyone who commits a violation that could endanger either group. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits so you’re not the one who gets written up. 

Redding says forget the state’s failed ebike voucher program, and get one of that city’s $1000 ebike vouchers instead.

 

National

Pee Wee Herman’s iconic cruiser bike from 1985’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure was sold to a private collector for $125,000. Which was over twice the estimated price, and a hell of a lot less than I thought it was worth.

Popular ebike maker E-Cells was the latest bikemaker to bite the dust, bringing the company’s all-wheel-drive, extremely high performance fat tire ebikes to a grinding halt, in part because of Trump’s 170% tariffs on Chinese-made bikes.

A judge in Queens, New York dismissed a lawsuit from a group of Long Island business owners, clearing the way for a protected bike lane through an industrial area that will probably improve safety for their drivers, as well as people on bicycles.

 

International

An Ontario, Canada website reminisces about those halcyon days of North America’s first bicycle craze.

Speaking of Ontario, a small town is celebrating its new crossrides, as opposed to crosswalks, allowing bicyclists to cross the intersection without dismounting. Or, go with me on this, they could just allow bicycles to use the already existing crosswalks.

Bicyclists in Northern Ireland decry the country’s dramatic and dangerous jump in drivers illegally parking in bike lanes.

A Welsh website recommends the rugged, jaw-dropping hiking and biking trails around the UK’s tallest dam that you’ve probably never heard of.

Stars & Stripes warns US service members about Japan’s new restrictions on bicyclists, making it illegal to ride salmon, ride abreast or ride using a smartphone. So much for using your phone’s GPS.

Three thousand people turned out for a race/fondo on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with elite teams competing for the win, and leisurely bicyclists just out for the ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Sports Illustrated celebrates Colorado’s three-day Durango to Silverton Iron Horse Classic, calling the festival founded in 1971 America’s second-oldest bicycling event. Although it’s kind of sad that the second oldest bike event is only 54-years old, which says a lot about this country’s inability to sustain bike races and other bike events. 

My home state scored big in the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships, as Colorado Mesa University and the University of Colorado Boulder won the team omnium titles.

 

Finally…

That feeling when an AI written story wants to give California’s $2,000 ebike vouchers to motorists. Or when just riding your bike without a satnav is somehow a big deal.

And your next bike seat could rock and roll each of your buns separately.

No, really.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Officials stonewall on ebike voucher fiasco, and CA Supreme Court rules cities are obligated to maintain safe streets

May 5, 2025 / / No comments
Day 125 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Once again, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Jeff McDonald is on the story of the massive California Ebike Voucher Program fiasco.

And he sounds as frustrated with all the stonewalling as we are.

State officials have not explained why the enrollment program keeps crashing. Instead, a department spokesperson acknowledged the errors and said the board is committed to figuring out what went wrong and doing a more effective job going forward…

A San Diego charity called Pedal Ahead won the state e-bike contract in 2022. The entity was founded by former political consultant and FBI informant Edward Clancy, who also set up a for-profit company with the same name.

No one from Pedal Ahead responded to requests for comment…

Clancy, who left Pedal Ahead last year, has not replied to multiple requests for comment since the civil and criminal investigations were disclosed. His successor, Scott Anderson, also has not responded to requests.

Aside from all the “no comment” comments, McDonald’s story is probably the best insight we’re going to get into what the hell is going on with this clown show, at least for now.

And there’s no word on when — or honestly, if — we’ll get a redo on the 2nd application window, which suddenly slammed shut on everyone who had somehow managed to get through the crashed website into the application waiting room.

As I said last week, at least part of the problem was opening the window for just one hour, then encouraging everyone to apply early — virtually ensuring they would overwhelm the apparently meager servers and crash the system.

And yes, McDonald had the excellent good taste to quote yours truly.

But you’ll have to read the story to get my take.

Thank you to CARB and Pedal Ahead for allowing me to dig out my favorite fail photo one more time.

………

In a big win for bike riders, the California Supreme Court found that cities have a legal responsibility to maintain safe streets, ruling that they can’t rely on liability waivers to avoid responsibility for dangerous road conditions.

The case involved cyclist Ty Whitehead, who suffered a traumatic brain injury during a charity training ride after hitting a large, obscured pothole on Skyline Boulevard in Oakland. Although Whitehead had signed a release form as part of the event, the Court ruled that such waivers cannot excuse a city from its statutory duty to maintain safe public roads. The Court unanimously found that exempting cities from liability in these cases violates California Civil Code section 1668, which prohibits contracts that waive responsibility for a violation of the law…

The ruling clarifies that municipal liability cannot be sidestepped through fine print and reaffirms that cyclists are entitled to the same legal protections as any other road user. It is especially significant at a time when more Californians are choosing bicycles for health, transportation, and environmental reasons.

That means that if you hit a pothole or crack in the road, or if safety markings are worn or missing, the city could be legally responsible for any injuries, even with a liability waiver.

And I know some damn good lawyers if you ever need one.

………

Speaking of potholes, Streets For All urges you to take action to fight the Mayor’s disaster of a budget.

And don’t get me started on the pitted and cracked hellscape that is Fairfax Ave.

Meanwhile, the street safety PAC applauds CD5 Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky for supporting the ongoing call to reopen the gate blocking bicycle access to the Los Angeles National Cemetery, which would allow bike riders to safely avoid deadly Wilshire Blvd near the 405.

………

This site has long supported Bike Talk and their work to give a voice to bike riders here in Los Angeles, and throughout the US.

Here’s your chance to support them, too — and get a great bonus in return.

………

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

New York bicyclists will now risk a criminal summons requiring them to appear in court for minor offenses like running a stop light or stop sign, as the city naturally responds to the jump in traffic violence by blaming the victims. Thanks to Robert Karwasky for the heads-up. 

No surprise here, as British commenters blame the victim for not riding in the bike lane, after a van driver honked his horn and clipped the man with his wing mirror in a brutal punishment pass.

………

Local 

Crosstown says walking in Los Angeles is becoming increasingly deadlier, with 39 pedestrians killed on the streets and sidewalks of LA through April 12th of this year, up 50% from a decade ago — and they point the finger, as so many others have, at the city’s failure to fully implement Vision Zero.

Last year was also the deadliest on record for animals in the City of Angels, according to Crosstown.

The Sierra Club says the bicycling community — and Los Angeles-based ex-pro cyclist Phil Gaimon in particular — is becoming some of the most passionate protectors of our public lands; Gaimon is also the host of the Worst Retirement Ever YouTube series and the annual Phil’s Cookie Fondo in the Santa Monica Mountains.

 

State

San Diego residents are encouraged to ride somewhere, anywhere on May 15th for Bike Anywhere Day.

A San Diego security cam captured a man and woman stealing a pair of bicycles worth a combined $27,000 from a well-known figure in the city’s bicycling community. Although I can think of a lot better things to do on a date.

Sad news from Visalia, where a 53-year old man was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

More tariff news, as a Visalia couple started a custom ebike business with bikes from Australia, but made with parts from China — which subjects them to a whopping 170% tariff that went into effect after they placed their order.

A San Francisco website introduces the city’s “anti-profit” community bike shop.

 

National

Momentum lists the top ten bicycling cities in the US, according to figures from Strava. And despite everything, Los Angeles actually made the list at #9, with an average commute of 9.5 miles. So much for all those people who say no one would ever bike more than three miles to work, if at all.

National Public Radio looks at Portland’s monthly bike commuting tradition of breakfast on the bridges.

Portland bicyclists came out for a ride to celebrate Star Wars Day, aka May the 4th, many dressed in the appropriate costumes.

Over 1,100 people were left disappointed when the annual L’Etape Las Vegas by Tour de France was cancelled due to heavy rain and unsafe road conditions.

The attorney for a 13-year-old New Mexico boy convicted in the thrill-kill death of a bike-riding man while driving a stolen car says he hopes the boy will be reformed during his time behind bars; the boy received the maximum penalty for a juvenile, sentenced to remain behind bars unto he turns 21.

Colorado-based mountain bikemaker Revel Bikes could soon rise from the dead, following hints of new ownership less than a month after they went belly-up.

Local Queens residents turned out to protest plans to ban bikes from the boardwalk in New York’s Rockaway Beach.

A New York newsletter examines what’s being done to protect bike riders and pedestrians, after a recent rash of traffic deaths.

A whopping 30,000 people took over the streets of New York for New York’s 47th annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour, possibly the world’s largest charity ride.

This is the cost of traffic violence. The popular and influential synthwave artist known as “Starcadian” was killed in a dooring in New York; 44-year old George Smaragdis slammed into the door of a Mercedes when the driver flung it open, then fell under a delivery box truck. And no, I don’t know what synthwave is, either.

Now the trees are out to get us, too, as a Pennsylvania bike rider learned the hard way.

Sad news from North Carolina, where an 18-year-old Mormon missionary was killed, and another rider injured, when they were struck by a driver who literally ran away from the crash.

 

International

Road.cc reviews a $332 anti-axel grinder bike lock, but somehow doesn’t bother to test whether it actually resists one.

Awful news from Wales, where a woman was somehow entrapped by and impaled on her bicycle after falling on a coastal bike path.

Speaking of Wales, a 35-year old man completed a ride halfway around the world, covering over 14 months, 26 countries and 16,250 miles from Cardiff to Australia’s New South Wales.

An English mayor is riding 300 miles from St. Neots in Cambridgeshire, England to St. Neot in Cornwall, Wales, in hopes of repairing a 1,000-year old rift between the two identically named towns that began with the theft of the saint’s bones from the Welsh church.

Inmates at a London prison are being schooled as bicycle mechanics, giving a new hope for the future for “bikes and blokes with a past.”

A Parisian woman finds her place amid the bicycling ghosts from the past. Meanwhile, National Geographic explains how to tour the City of Lights from a bicycle seat like a local. But it will cost you your email to read it.

Sad news from Northern Italy, where a 31-year old top level amateur cyclist died after losing control on a descent and crashing into a wall during the Granfondo di Bergamo.

A writer for Travel + Leisure claims to have found Europe’s most peaceful summer adventure by riding 160 miles through the 20,000 islands of the Finland archipelago.

A European website examines the things you can and can’t do while riding in Spain, where the rain falls mostly on the plain. Or so I’ve heard.

A newspaper in Malta says flimsy painted bike lanes are the wrong way to protect bike riders, but protected and/or elevated bike lanes are the right way.

That feeling when you ride 560 miles across a Kazakh lake without setting foot on dry land. Or wheels, for that matter.

 

Competitive Cycling

The women’s Vuelta a España, aka La Vuelta Femenina, kicked off Sunday with a team time trial through the streets of Barcelona. But it nearly didn’t, amid the chaos caused by a delayed UCI inspection, when the Movistar Team showed up late and only one of the two judges was available, forcing two Visma-Lease a Bike riders to miss the start.

Road.cc makes the argument for why UCI should allow F1-style bicycles designed just for pro cyclists, and not built for or sold to the general public.

One of the best things about bicycling is when you pick you a stray bike rider along the way — alike falling in with Jonas Vingegaard on a training ride.

A new book tells the story of the legendary French cyclist Jacques Anquetil, aka “Monsieur Chrono,” the first man to win all three Grand Tours and the first five-time winner of the Tour de France.

American cycling legend Bobby Julich says your local crit is what draws new cycling fans into the sport.

 

Finally…

Why cats land on their feet, and your bike doesn’t fall over when you ride. We may have to watch out for LA drivers who dart out of side streets, but at least we don’t have to worry t-boning a darting deer.

And that feeling when your dog sticks the landing, too.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Waymo claims autonomous cabs protect peds and bike riders, and tariffs endanger threatened American bike industry

May 2, 2025 / / No comments
Day 122 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Waymo says that after five years in use, their autonomous taxis are up to 25 times safer for bike riders and pedestrians than the vehicles with people behind the wheel.

The company’s cars have completed 56.7 million miles in operation, resulting in a total of 96 crashes with just four serious injuries.

That compares with an average of roughly 78 serious injury crashes over the same distance for human drivers.

I took my first ride in a Waymo  yesterday, and while appreciated the way it braked when necessary due to cars pulling out in front of it, I ended up getting carsick due to the frequent turns to avoid major streets.

No stars, would not recommend.

Photo from Waymo website. 

………

More bad tariff news, as an open letter from People For Bikes warns that Trump’s tariffs will have “devastating impacts” on the already endangered bicycle industry if they aren’t adjusted in the short term.

And went on to point out that companies already assembling bikes in the US are struggling to survive.

………

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

A Washington State bike rider reported being shot with a BB gun by someone in a passing car, suffering injuries on his thigh and stomach. Which police should take just as seriously as any other drive-by shooting, considering the possibility of permanent injuries or a deadly crash.

No bias here. The BBC staged an “us versus them” debate on the hostility faced by bike riders, asking listeners “Is public sympathy for cyclists wearing thin?”

………

Local 

Lime is planning to add 2,000 dockless ebikes across the Los Angeles area, adding to the company’s thousands of e-scooters, calling it the start of a new green era in preparation for the 2028 Olympics. Although the way things are going in Los Angeles, it may be the about only green transportation for the Olympics.

Metro Bike Share is hosting a Westwood to the Waves community bike ride on Sunday, and a Stronger Tides, Stronger Community ride from Mar Vista to Venice on Saturday, May 10th.

Pasadena police will conduct a bicycle safety operation on Friday, May 16th, focusing on behaviors and violations by drivers that put people on bicycles at risk — although once again, it’s illegal to target any one particular group, rather than all road users.

 

State

The owner of specialty fire-glass manufacturer SAFTI FIRST donated 50 new mountain bikes to UC Merced, which will be distributed to several campus organizations including the bike club and the campus bicycle loaner program.

The San Mateo Daily Journal examines the reasons behind an increase in bicycling crashes in urban areas. And for once, the people on two wheels don’t get the blame. 

A pair of San Francisco LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS organizations will host competing fundraising stage rides to Sonoma County next year, in the wake of the demise of the annual AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Novato-based Santa Cruz Bicycles is recalling the batteries for their Heckler 9 Ebikes due to a risk of fires.

 

National

Oregon Republicans want to eliminate funding for all transit, rail and bicycle programs, requiring the state transportation department to focus on its “core mission” to support car and truck drivers. Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up. 

Colorado is implementing a two-year, $167 million to fix the deadly nine-mile Diagonal Highway between Boulder and Longmont, where 17-year old US National Cycling Team member Magnus White was killed by a sleep-deprived, possibly intoxicated driver two years ago.

As the Arkansas Global Cycling Accelerator nears the end of its first session, an Ozarks public radio station talks with one of its first beneficiaries as he works to bring the world’s lightest bike lock to market.

If you build it, they will come. New York built or upgraded a record 110 miles of protected bike lanes, resulting in a record level of ridership, with an estimated 226 million bicycling trips each year across the city. Meanwhile, Los Angeles built less than 107 miles of bike lanes of any type over the last three fiscal years. And has no idea how many bike trips are taken in the city each year. 

 

International

Momentum recommends the best North American rail trails to ride this summer, one of which is actually in (Northern) California.

Road.cc highlights a handful of innovative bike security solutions. I’ll take than underground bike parking vault, please.

Speaking of Lime, a writer for Road.cc says it’s time to stop whining about the dockless ebikes blighting neighborhoods and crowding out regular bike riders, because they’re “currently the jewel in Britain’s diminutive active travel crown.”

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist talks with Spanish ultra-endurance cyclist and runner Juan Dual, who has competed in some of the world’s toughest races, despite having his large intestine, rectum, stomach and gall bladder removed due to a genetic condition causing cancer of the digestive system.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you drop four grand on a Canyon bike on Amazon, and can’t even get next day delivery. Listen my children and you shall hear, of a bunch of people on bicycles re-enacting the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

And that feeling when you somehow manage to sideswipe a parked bus on your ebike.

https://twitter.com/UB1UB2/status/1917566094618829148?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1917566094618829148%7Ctwgr%5Ef063c8238e5fccdd64da3b6ea46151197f8f3f95%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.standard.co.uk%2Fnews%2Ftransport%2Fcyclist-injury-lime-bike-shoreditch-tfl-london-bus-b1225450.html

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

This town ain’t big enough for anti-bike lane columnists, welcome to Bike Month, and the annual Pasadena Ride of Silence

May 1, 2025 / / No comments
Day 121 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

No bias here.

A columnist for the Los Angeles News Group says the situation on LA streets is best described as a Western, spaghetti or otherwise.

It wouldn’t be about cowboys versus Indians. It wouldn’t be about ranchers versus homesteaders. It wouldn’t be about gold miners versus general store operators.

It would be about drivers versus bicyclists.

“Mister, this road ain’t big enough for both of us” could replace “Eureka” as the official motto of California.

According to writer Susan Shelly, it would pit all those good townsfolk who drive cars, delivery vans, ambulances “and other motor vehicles relied upon for timely transportation,” against a group that “apparently is not in a hurry to get anywhere.”

And the group that is not in a hurry — aka the people on bicycles, joined by transit users — have somehow made it their mission to slow down traffic, something the people who have “to be somewhere quickly” don’t appreciate.

So guess who the bad guys are in this scenario?

Never mind that slowing down traffic improves safety and saves lives for everyone. And it’s not the people on two wheels who are out there killing people like a drunken gunslinger shooting up the town saloon.

She goes on to examine the Measure HLA lawsuit filed by Streetsblog editor Joe Linton over the lack of bike lanes in Metro’s semi-Complete Streets makeover of the Vermont Ave corridor, while misrepresenting the debate over the adoption of the city’s mobility plan in 2015.

There was resistance from some council members to adopting a plan that aimed to slow city traffic on major arteries. But advocates said it was simply “a vision statement” and “an aspirational document.” Bonin said it would “help us get active transportation funds from the state.” Council President Herb Wesson reassuringly told reluctant colleagues, “This is a concept. If you choose to vote on this today, it will not be put in place tomorrow.”

It was actually an LADOT official blindsiding advocates when she described the 2010 Bike Plan — which was subsumed into the mobility plan — as merely “aspirational,” just days after a successful fight to get it approved by the city council, who passed it with unanimous support.

And Wesson’s comment was a reference to the plan’s 20-year timeline, which meant that it would not have to be put in place right away. But that never meant it wouldn’t be put in place at all.

Shelley ends with a return to the lawsuit over the city’s failure to enforce the requirements of Measure HLA on Vermont, after describing the measure as something put on the ballot by “fuming-mad bicyclists.”

And never mentioning that it passed with overwhelming support from a broad spectrum of voters.

The city disputes that it is obligated to make these changes, but meanwhile, Metro, a countywide agency, is removing a traffic lane on Vermont Avenue to build a dedicated bus lane, enraging the bike-lane people and causing the movie to have an exciting but complicated subplot.

In the final scene, everyone realizes there’s no money for any of it, and the drivers win.

It’s not the bus lanes “enraging the bike-lane people,” as Shelley says. The “bike-lane people” I know are all in favor of a dedicated bus lane.

Instead, it’s the fact that Metro isn’t also building the bike lane that’s called for in the mobility plan, and so required by law under the terms of HLA.

It’s also not true that the money isn’t there.

In fact, the Vermont Ave project is budgeted at a whopping $425 million. And it will cost a lot less to install bike lanes now while the whole street is under construction, rather that going back and installing them after this project is finished.

But why let a couple inconvenient facts like that ruin a good metaphorical screed?

Never mind that the drivers are already winning.

But then, the cowboys in the black hats usually do win until just before the hero saves the town and rides off into the sunset, to beat her metaphor like the dead horse it is.

Photo by Ahmet Çığşar from Pexels. Think of it as a metaphorical columnist suffering from windshield bias driving ever more car traffic.

………

Welcome to National Bike Month.

………

Bike Month also means it’s time for the annual Pasadena Ride of Silence at the Rose Bowl on May 21st to honor fallen bicyclists.

PASADENA, CA, April 28, 2025 – The cycling community of Pasadena invites the public to join in for the annual Ride of Silence on Wednesday, May 21st, at 6 p.m. This solemn event, now in its 23rd year, honors cyclists who have been injured or killed on public roadways and raises awareness about sharing the road safely.

  The Pasadena Ride of Silence will begin at the Rose Bowl in the north end of Lot I, with registration and check-ins beginning at 6:15 p.m., announcements at 6:30 p.m., and white doves from White Dove Release will be sent off individually to honor the cyclists lost during the last year at 6:50 p.m. At 7 p.m., a police escort will lead cyclists en masse on a slow and silent 7-mile route to Pasadena City Hall, where attendees will observe a moment of silence to honor friends and family lost to traffic violence. The ride will finish at the Rose Bowl with free tacos for all registered participants. 

 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 1,105 cyclists were killed by drivers of motor vehicles in 2022, the highest number ever recorded since the federal government started collecting data in 1975. Experts believe the increase in fatalities is due to several factors: inadequate street designs to include safe lanes for cycling, larger vehicles such as pickups and SUVs, which are deadlier in size and shape, higher horsepower in vehicles, and distracted driving. 

The NHTSA has finalized a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard to make automatic emergency braking (AEB), including pedestrian AEB, standard on all passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029. Making this safety feature standard (previously, it was bundled with expensive tech packages) is part of the Department’s National Roadway Safety Strategy to address the crisis of deaths on the roads and hopes to make U.S. roads dramatically safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike.

“We ride in silence to honor those we’ve lost, to raise awareness for the safety of all cyclists, and to remind the world that we belong on the road too,” said Thomas Cassidy, Pasadena Ride of Silence organizer. 

………

Yep.

That pretty well sums it up.

………

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

A town in Illinois voted to make things more dangerous by requiring anyone on any type of bicycle to ride single file, reducing visibility of bike riders and encouraging unsafe passing, in a misguided effort to reign in teens on ebikes.

………

Local 

NPR picks up the story of DTLA’s bike-riding, chainsaw-wielding tree assassin, and the effect his crimes had on the local community.

 

State

Calbike says bills creating a quick-build bike lane program and creating a bike highways are likely to end up in the Appropriations Committee’s Suspense File, which could lead to an eventual floor vote, or could just provide a way for opponents to quietly kill them.

Streetsblog argues that the California Ebike Incentive Program needed a win after endless delays and the total disaster of the first round of vouchers, and instead ended up with more egg on their face when the website crashed during yesterday’s second round of voucher applications, leading them to cancel the application window.

A new report analyzing state-by-state bike theft data shows California has the nation’s highest rate of stolen bicycles, almost double that of number two Texas.

Irvine is hosting the Orange County city’s second annual CicloIrvine open streets event this Saturday.

New stats have reignited the debate over the curb protected bike lanes on Coast Highway 101 through Cardiff, as a member of the Encinitas Mobility and Traffic Safety Commission reports the 42 crashes since 2020 represent a 400% increase compared to the 14 years prior; however, the chair of BikeWalk Encinitas says there’s no way to know how many lives may have been saved by the barriers.

Life is cheap in San Diego County, where a woman who killed a 71-year old man riding a bicycle while she was fleeing from the Border Patrol with a car full of undocumented immigrants, and driving at twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road, was sentenced to just three years and five months behind bars — even though she had faced up to 20 years behind bars.

A new volunteer Bakersfield bike patrol trained by the National Ski Patrol will provide security and help to people in need on the Kern River Bike Path.

A Sacramento letter writer says yes, cops should ticket all those dangerous scofflaw bike riders. Never mind that people in cars, trucks and SUVs pose a much greater risk to everyone.

 

National

A new study published in the journal PLOS One demonstrated that both seniors riding ebikes and regular bikes showed improved cognitive function compared to a non-bicycling control group, while the ebike group had more confidence in completing the assigned rides.

Seattle bike riders protested a dangerous bikeway design where a protected bike lane ends suddenly and dumps riders into dangerous traffic, prompting the city to install temporary barriers to protect riders.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Residents of Pleasant Grove, Utah are remembering a nine-year old boy was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he was just trying to cross the street on his bicycle; police later took a man in his 80s in for questioning.

Women behind bars in Idaho are being trained to repair bicycles to donate to people on the outside, and will get a bicycle upon their release.

Sad news from my ostensibly bike-friendly Colorado hometown, where a longtime local bike advocate and the leader of a weekly no-drop ride was killed when he was struck head-on by a motorcyclist who made an ill-advised pass of another motorbike rider close to a curve.

Indianapolis just opened a new bridge with two-thirds of the surface devoted to bicyclists and pedestrians, and just one lane in each direction for cars.

Maine’s Acadia National Park offers 45 miles of forested scenic gravel roads that are closed to cars.

A Boston TV station examines the city’s “simmering debate” over bike lanes, after the mayor ripped out protective barriers on a number of bike lanes because angry drivers found them inconvenient.

 

International

No surprise here. A new study shows that pedestrians and bicyclists are far more likely to be killed by today’s massive, flat-grilled pickups and SUVs, with a 44% higher fatality risk overall, and 82% higher for children.

Road.cc examines the pros and cons of hiding an AirTag or other electronic trackers on your bike to help find it if it gets stolen.

A slideshow features bizarre bicycle designs the writers didn’t think were possible. Thanks to an anonymous source for the link.

Canada’s Banff National Park is extending a spring and fall ban on cars on a section of the Bow Valley Parkway through the park, after a successful three-year pilot program.

A writer for The Guardian says it’s no wonder BBC broadcaster Jeremy Vine has stopped posting bike cam videos, because the rage directed towards bike riders is off the scale — and comments from politicians deliberately stirring up anger to troll for votes don’t help.

A Scottish website recommends eight of the best bike paths in Glasgow, for your next trip to the land of Bobby Burns.

A Greek travel website recommends riding your bike around the Aegean island of Spetses.

Great idea. Our German correspondent Ralph Durham reports seeing traffic lights with the poles illuminated by LED lights on a visit to Izmir, Turkiye, turning the poles red, yellow and green to match the traffic signal.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Momentum offers everything you need to know about Japan’s Shimanami Kaidō bike route, calling it a paradise for bicyclists.

 

Competitive Cycling

America’s only remaining Tour de France winner confirmed that he’s running for president of UCI, the umbrella organization in charge of bike racing around the world.

Cyclist recounts the complete history of the Pinarello Dogma, calling it the most dominant race bike in modern cycling history.

 

Finally…

Evidently, a sidewalk-level bike lane without noticeable markings is just a sidewalk. Beating your 75-year old neighbor because of where he put his garbage is not an approved use of an ebike wheel.

And now even shopping cart drivers are out to get us.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Another failure as CA ebike voucher website crashes, don’t DOGE LA protest tonight, and bringing HLA to LAC

April 30, 2025 / / No comments
Day 120 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

You’ve got to be kidding.

The California E-Bike Incentive Program had more than four months to work out all the bugs after their disastrous, deliberately throttled first round.

And they screwed the pooch again.

There’s just no good way to put it. Yesterday’s second round of voucher applications was yet another demonstration of the sheer incompetence of the people running this program.

I signed onto the program’s application window on at exactly 5 pm yesterday. Or rather, I tried to. And apparently, so did everyone else.

What I got when I clicked on the “Apply” button was…nothing. So I tried again. And again. And I kept trying, and kept getting the same result — the very definition of insanity,

Until I finally got this.

Judging by the responses when I posted about it on Twitter/X and Bluesky, so did nearly everyone else. A few, very few, people managed to get in.

Eventually, so did I, entering the portal for the voucher lottery with exactly five minutes left in the application window.

Then two minutes later, I was kicked out. And so was everyone else.

The program administrators knew the volume they could and should expect, after more than 100,000 people tried, and mostly failed, to apply for vouchers in the first round.

Yet they somehow still gave just one hour for all those people to apply. Then remarkably — and foolishly — recommended that everyone the enter the room as early as possible, virtually guarantying they would all hit the “Apply” button exactly at the same time.

And bringing the website crashing down, taking the voucher window down with it.

Going forward, they should provide at least a 12-hour window to apply, if not a week, so it doesn’t crash the system. Then inform the winners by email, giving them another 24 hours to get their applications in.

And don’t throttle the damn applications.

Just release all the remaining funding at once, so people at least have a reasonable chance of getting a voucher. Unlike the current round, where the 1,000 available vouchers represented less than 1% of the anticipated demand.

Once program proves successful — and there’s no reason why it wouldn’t — go back to the legislature to request another round of funding.

Then fire troubled San Diego nonprofit Pedal Ahead, which was contracted to administer the program, and consider moving oversight of this program out of CARB, because they have clearly shown they can’t handle it.

No other ebike rebate program anywhere in the US has had as much difficulty launching, and needed as much time, as California. We were the first to approve an ebike voucher program, and the last to get it up and running right

This whole damn thing should be investigated by the state, because it’s hard to believe anyone could be so fucking incompetent by accident.

They also need to figure out what the hell they’re trying to accomplish, because they have two glaringly conflicting goals.

When you visit the California Ebike Incentive Program website, and watch the required video on climate change, the message is about getting people onto ebikes and out of their cars.

But by limiting applications to lower income residents, and favoring people with the lowest incomes, the clear intent is to provide those people with reliable transportation, whether or not they even own a car.

Which is something they should have figured out in those first three and a half years.

But somehow, didn’t.

………

Don’t forget tonight’s die-in on the steps of City Hall to protest the mayor’s draconian budget cuts and layoffs, which could set safer and more livable streets — and Measure HLA — back for years.

Even the General Manager of LADOT thinks it’s a lousy idea.

Dying-In Los Angeles – A Protest for Safer Streets: Don’t “DOGE” LA Safety

A coalition of non-profits and road safety advocates will be hosting a protest on the steps of LA City Hall to raise awareness of LA’s dystopian-level budget cuts.

If these cuts go through, there will be no funding for new safety improvements next year — no speed reduction measures, no protected bike lanes, no pedestrian upgrades. Nothing.

Join us at 6pm, April 30th – LA City Hall.

And don’t forget to sign the petition telling Mayor Bass not to DOGE LA safety.

………

Streets For All wants your support today for a Measure HLA-style ordinance for LA County.

………

Bike Culver City want you to celebrate the cars of the past, while demonstrating that bikes are the future.

We’ve grown up surrounded by cars powered by fossil fuel-burning engines. Many of our fondest memories occurred in a car: our first kiss, riding to a beach party, feeling independent for the first time, experiencing pride of ownership, and cherishing and caring for a beautiful machine. Today, these modes of transport have become cherished relics—too precious to drive, costly to operate and maintain, and plagued by traffic congestion, rude drivers, and their contribution to poor air quality.

Displaying cars as cherished relics is appropriate, given their immense sentimental value. Bike Culver City welcomes over 500 exhibitors to our city on Saturday, May 10th, from 9 am to 3 pm, https://www.culvercitycarshow.com. Please bring your bike to commemorate this event during National Bike Month and send a photo of yourself and your bike in front of your favorite relic to aardus@yahoo.com. We will post the image as part of the Bike to the Future II display at https://www.facebook.com/groups/bikecc. Please patronize our local businesses as you always do.

The Car Show street closures provide thousands of walkers and strollers with the opportunity to enjoy downtown Culver City safely on foot, free from the dangers of traffic, as well as air and noise pollution. Imagine the paradise if downtown street closures were not just a once-a-year event. Join us!

………

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

After a driver in Baton Rouge, Louisiana struck a man riding a bicycle, he pulled a gun on the victim, ordering him “not to get (his) mf’n license plate” — yet the police somehow responded by telling bike riders to be aware of their surroundings, rather than, say, watch out of angry armed nut jobs.

No bias here. Residents of a DC neighborhood are calling for new protected bike and bus lanes to be removed because delivery drivers are now parking in the one remaining traffic lane, instead of, say, calling for increased enforcement to stop illegal parking.

Japanese bike riders say the country should be focused on building better bike infrastructure, instead of cracking down on bad behavior by bicyclists.

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

An Australian columnist says she’s not opposed to ebikes, but the dangerous bad behavior of ebike riders has got to stop. Although maybe someone can explain why the newspaper chose to illustrate ebikes donated to emergency departments with a picture of ebike-riding young women in tiny bikinis.

………

Local 

Culver City announced a 15-week beautification and maintenance program on the Ballona Creek Bike Path, leading to periodic disruptions on Thursdays between 6:30 am and 4 pm.

A Burbank writer for the Sierra Club says trade your car for a bike, and you’ll discover beauty and nature even in the heart of the city.

Pasadena is planning a jam-packed calendar of events to celebrate Bike Month next month, including National Ride a Bike Day, and Bike to School and Bike to Work Days.

Sad news from Castaic, where a man riding a bicycle died after going into cardiac arrest; the victim has not been publicly identified.

 

State

About damn time. A bill moving through the California legislature would require drunk drivers to install breathalyzers in their cars after their first offense.

They get it. The usually conservative Los Angeles Daily News says the California DMV is working to keep dangerous drivers on the road, instead of getting them off.

San Francisco Streetsblog looks at the new curbside protected bike lanes on the city’s Valencia Street, which replace the much maligned centerline bike lanes.

Novato rejected plans for a new bike lane, with the city council voting 4-1 to preserve a lousy 27 parking spaces over saving lives.

 

National

Mountain bike legend Tom Ritchey is crowdfunding his new autobiography, promising to add extra pages if he can get the total up to $75,000 by May 15th.

Trek has launched a new technical support hotline, with help available for any brand of bike through their new AI-free Trek Ride Club app.

That’s more like it. A Portland, Oregon man was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter and an additional 7-½ years for attempted murder for running over and killing a pedestrian, then driving up on the sidewalk and attempting to run down a man riding a bicycle who had yelled at him.

It takes a major jerk to vandalize and destroy a San Antonio, Texas ghost bike.

That’s more like it, part two. An Illinois man will spend the next ten years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a 64-year old man riding a bicycle, after he veered onto the wrong side of the road while driving at nearly three times the legal alcohol limit.

That’s more like it, part three. A repeat drunk driver was sentenced to at least nine years behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run death of a 30-year old bike-riding Ohio man, and had his driver’s license suspended for life.

New York’s congestion pricing plan cut traffic and raised $159 million in just the first three months, but Trump wants to kill it anyway.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Louisiana man is still bikepacking at 78.

 

International

Momentum recommends the best cities to fall in love with your bicycle all over again this summer. None of which is Los Angeles.

An estimated 1,000 Critical Mass riders rode through a newly opened tunnel under the Thames River, where bicycles are prohibited.

Sad news from Scotland, where a 49-year old man was killed by a driver during the Etape Loch Ness, a 66-mile timed ride around the famed home of the Loch Ness Monster, aka Nessie; the ride was on a closed course, but the crash occurred on a road used by riders to return to the start, which wasn’t closed to cars.

A woman plans to ride her bike 1,200 miles across the UK to talk to farm women for her Ph.D, saying the country’s extensive network of bike paths will make it possible.

British TV host and dedicated bike rider Jeremy Vine has sworn off posting his videos depicting bad behavior by drivers and the dangers on the streets due to the abusive comments he gets, including explicit tweets about his wife. Although a British bike racing broadcaster says Vine’s videos made bicyclists look militant and unhinged.

Forbes says Germany offers a “robust cycling network of more than 320 routes, covering some 62,000 miles through country landscapes and storied cities.”

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a truck driver walked without a day behind bars, and can keep driving, after the judge blamed the lack of a bike lane for the death of a 28-year old woman riding a bicycle, and not the man who ran over her in the Kiwi equivalent of a right hook.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly says the American bike racing calendar in sabotaging itself when gravel, mountain bike and road events all occur at the same time.

America’s other ex-Tour de France champ is finally back on his bike, taking part in last weekend’s Belgian Waffle Ride, while saying it took gravel to get him riding again.

Red Bull looks forward to next month’s Giro d’Italia, which will pay homage to the late Pope Francis with a route passing through the Vatican gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica, and in front of the Santa Marta hotel where Francis lived.

 

Finally…

That feeling when mountain bikes break your bones, but horses are what scare you. Anyone can ride around in a circle; try one of these bike races if you want a real challenge.

And your next very expensive Swiss watch can honor everyone’s favorite Italian cycling legends.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Stand up to LA Mayor’s draconian DOGE-style budget cuts, and cars weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands

April 28, 2025 / / No comments
Day 118 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

By the time you read this, I should be home recovering from an early morning outpatient surgery. 

It’s nothing serious. But I’ve been told to expect a lot of pain for the first 24 hours, and will probably be pretty out of it for awhile. 

I wanted to try and write something for tomorrow. But I think I need to take the night off and give myself time to recover. 

So I’m going to let my pain meds wrap me in the arms of Morpheus, and see you again on Wednesday, instead.

And no, I’m not worried. Scared shitless, maybe, but not nervous. But at least writing this should help keep my mind off it for a few hours. 

Meanwhile, the surgery will be performed robotically. So I plan to take a good look at that machine when they wheel me in. 

And if it says Waymo anywhere, I’m going to run like hell.

………

Last week, I commented on the mayor’s slash and burn budget for the coming fiscal year, which comes after years of warnings that the city’s spending and pay raises were unsustainable.

Not to mention a seemingly endless series of legal settlements for everything from sexual harassment to injuries and deaths caused by poorly designed and maintained streets, resulting in half a billion in payments in just the last two years.

Most of which could have been avoided if the city spent the money fixing the problems, instead of paying later for not fixing them.

Now Mayor Bass has responded by pulling an Elon Musk-style DOGE act, calling for laying off 1,600 city staffers, something that could have a devastating effect on already understaffed departments responsible for street safety, like LADOT and Street Services.

And that’s in addition to proposing a delay in capital expenditures, like bike lanes and other safety improvements.

Now, I’m the first to admit I’m no financial wizard, and have no idea how to best balance the city’s books.

But I do know we shouldn’t be making cuts that will cost lives and lead to millions more in legal settlements.

If you’re as mad as I am, you can comment on the mayor’s proposed budget at City Hall this afternoon.

APRIL 28, 2025 at 4pm
City Hall Council Chamber, Room 340
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Then turn out on Wednesday evening, preferably wearing red, for a die-in on the steps of City Hall.

Dying-In Los Angeles – A Protest for Safer Streets: Don’t “DOGE” LA Safety

A coalition of non-profits and road safety advocates will be hosting a protest on the steps of LA City Hall to raise awareness of LA’s dystopian-level budget cuts.

If these cuts go through, there will be no funding for new safety improvements next year — no speed reduction measures, no protected bike lanes, no pedestrian upgrades. Nothing.

Join us at 6pm, April 30th – LA City Hall.

I won’t be able to make it because of my surgery, which will lay me up for a couple weeks. But I hope you’ll go and demand safer streets for me.

And maybe do a little yelling.

Because I sure as hell would.

Meanwhile, Damian Kevitt, the founder of Streets Are For Everyone and Finish The Ride — and the bike rider who barely survived being dragged onto the 5 Freeway by a fleeing hit-and-run driver, who was never caught — has started a petition to tell the Mayor not to DOGE LA safety.

Yes, I’ve signed it myself. And I hope you will, and share it with everyone you know.

………

Another day, another mass casualty crash on North American roads.

By now, you’ve probably heard that at least 11 people were killed, and dozens more injured, when a man slammed his SUV into the crowd of people celebrating a Philippine holiday in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The driver was taken into custody after being stopped by people attending the festival.

However, police concluded that this was not a terrorist attack, as it first appeared, but rather, the driver was someone well known to police with a history of mental health issues.

Which raises the obvious question of why someone with a history of mental health problems was still allowed to pilot a multi-ton potential weapon of mass destruction.

As Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), put it, a driver’s license is too easy to get, and too hard to lose. 

Driving is treated as if it’s a right, rather than a privilege. And until we change that, horrific disasters like this will keep happening, intentionally or otherwise.

Even the conservative Los Angeles Daily News agrees, calling for removing the license of drivers who have proven they don’t belong on the road.

Yet the state continues to ignore the most obvious way to improve road safety: remove the licenses of those drivers who have a history of driving dangerously. A shocking investigative report by CalMatters called “License to Kill” highlighted California’s inexplicable willingness to allow the deadliest drivers to keep driving.

It’s unfathomable—and appalling that the Department of Motor Vehicles had little to say for itself. The DMV “routinely allows drivers … with horrifying histories of dangerous driving, including DUIs, crashes and numerous tickets … to continue to operate on our roadways,” per the report. Too often they go on to kill. Many keep driving even after they kill. Some go on to kill again.”

Clearly, we have to add mental illness to that list.

And as we’ve noted before, simply suspending a driver’s license offers no guarantee they won’t continue to drive anyway. We need to remove the driver’s access to a motor vehicle, whether that means impounding it, or somehow disabling it until they get their license back.

Thanks to someone who prefers to be anonymous for forwarding the Daily News link. 

………

Okay, so they’re not gone yet.

The logo for San Diego’s Pedal Ahead is still on the website for the California E-bike Incentive Project, as they gear up for tomorrow’s second round of deliberately throttled ebike vouchers.

It turns out the nonprofit agency is only semi-fired, and continuing to work with the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, as they look for a replacement.

Which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence things will go better this time, after the disastrous first round.

Thanks to Malcomb Watson for pointing that out.

………

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

No bias here. A San Diego letter writer says if the city has to make budget cuts, it should start with the bike lanes.

Horrible news from Chicago, where a 55-year old bike advocate was attacked with a crowbar by a road raging car passenger after he called out the driver for parking in the bike lane, as he was riding home from Friday’s Critical Mass.

No bias here, either. The Mayor of Melbourne, Australia’s inner city called out the “white privilege” of “managerial class people,” saying they’re the only supporters of a bike lane he wants to narrow to restore 69 parking spaces removed to build it.

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

Um, okay. Police in England are trying out a new forensic spray for tagging anti-social bicyclists and motorcyclists, marking their clothes and bikes with a yellow stain that shows up under ultraviolet light, allowing police to identify the miscreants later.

Legislation was re-introduced in the British Parliament to “close a loophole” in the law to allow bicyclists who kill pedestrians to be sentenced to life in prison, just like killer drivers can be, but usually aren’t; meanwhile, The Spectator says “We don’t need a crackdown on killer cyclists;” but you’ll need to subscribe or register if you want to read it.

………

Local 

UCLA hosted the annual bicycle-powered Coastalong Music and Sustainability Festival on campus this year, because the usual off-campus venue is under construction.

Santa Clarita has removed the white “paddles,” aka bollards, lining the protected bike lane on Orchard Village Road, because people found them aesthetically displeasing.

 

State

Orange County’s first paved pump track opened in San Clemente on Saturday.

A new 6.7-mile, $31 million bikeway will open this summer, running parallel to the trolley in Imperial Beach to connect the San Ysidro border crossing with the Bayshore Bikeway.

Sad news from Fresno, where a man riding a bicycle was killed by a driver near a freeway onramp; the driver was reportedly cooperating with investigators, even though it sounds like they left the scene.

An op-ed from the communications manager for the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates questions whether spending state traffic safety grant money to ticket bicyclists and pedestrians will make the city safer. It’s also illegal selective enforcement, because police can’t legally enforce the law against one group without equal enforcement against anyone else who commits the same violations. 

Sacramento’s ABC10 offers five things to know about tomorrow’s second round of California ebike incentives.

 

National

Planetizen provides US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy with a data-based explainer on why bike lanes are good, after said there’s no evidence that bike lanes have benefits.

Author Colum McCann responded to a request from the New York Times to explore a significant moment in his religious or spiritual life by submitting an essay about biking across the US in his early 20s questioning his faith, and finding God in the people he met along the way.

Oregon bikemaker Co-Motion Cycles invited the public in over the weekend to see how tandem bikes are made, as the tandem bike industry is reportedly booming. Which would make it one of the few bright spots in the bike industry these days.

An urgent search is underway to find British Paralympian Sam Ruddock after the paracyclist disappeared on a visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago.

The truck driver who plowed into a group ride in Goodyear, Arizona, killing two people and injuring 17 others, lost his bid to get the charges against him dismissed; investigators concluded driver fatigue was the cause of the crash, despite the driver’s claim his steering locked up. Never mind that he had gotten high the night before and still had THC in his system hours after the crash.

In an argument reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s questioning what the meaning of “is” is, voters in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown may have to return to the ballot box to determine the meaning of “recreation,” as opponents of a proposed bike park argue that rules limiting the area to recreational uses mean it can’t be used for a bike park, because riding a bicycle in a bike park somehow isn’t recreation.

Kiwi pop star Lorde is one of us, as the video for her latest song shows her riding a vintage bike through the carfree streets of New York City, grinning from ear to ear. Because who wouldn’t smile if there wasn’t a car in sight on your next ride?

Orlando, Florida turned bikeways into a year-long outdoor art gallery.

 

International

PinkBike offers random highlights from Europe’s largest handmade bike show, ranging from an antique bike horn to a frame-mounted liquor flask.

A new London bicycling festival promises to bring bike markets, BMX events, obstacle courses, live music and a bicycle ballet performance, along with over 30 family-friendly bike rides through nearly half of the city’s 32 boroughs.

A website from the UK introduces readers to a 56-year old woman they call the Iron Empress, who went directly from finishing the London marathon to the British Black Unty Bike Ride through South Africa.

A British man is taking one last bike ride to raise funds for four charities before he has both legs amputated due to a rare genetic condition.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a woman walked without a day behind bars for running a stop sign, crashing into another car and killing a 79-year old man riding a bicycle as collateral damage; she had just gotten the news that her father was dying while using her handsfree phone, and instead of pulling over to deal with her shock and grief, just kept driving until she killed someone.

Sad news from Spain, where a 39-year-old British man died in a fall during the grueling Mallorca 312 amateur bike race, as tributes poured in for the popular rider.

You can now find new bike lanes on the Dvořák Embankment in front of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Prague, Czech Republic.

China’s Xinhua offers photos from Saturday’s I Bike Budapest ride, as hundreds of people turned out to demonstrate the importance of bicycles as daily transportation in the city.

 

Competitive Cycling

An Indiana University student newspaper posted photos and results from the university’s iconic Little 500, including one of the gnarliest crash photos I’ve ever seen; Kappa Alpha Theta sorority won the women’s race, while Black Key Bulls won the men’s race for the second year in a row.

World Champ Tadej Pogacar continued his dominance of the early racing season with a solo breakaway win at Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday, his third win at the 133-year old Monument.

Mauritian cyclist Kim Le Court became the first African rider to win a Monument, out-sprinting Demi Vollering, Puck Pieterse and Cédrine Kerbaol at the finish.

In the latest incident of race fans behaving badly, a spectator was called an “absolute moron” for riding his bike on the Liège-Bastogne-Liège course as the women’s race was ongoing, then latching on to the back wheel of race leader Pauliena Rooijakkers before eventually being ejected by a race marshal.

The Uno-X Mobility cycling team brought back the “unmistakable” green, red and white jerseys of the legendary 7-Eleven team in a homage at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Road.cc examines the most obscure and peculiar sponsors of the pro peloton.

It was repeat news at the California edition of the popular Belgian Waffle Ride, with both the men’s and women’s races won by defending champs Matt Beers and Sofia Gomez Villafañe.

Cycling News looks at the huge crowds, party atmosphere and tough competition of the 45-year old Athens, Georgia Twilight Criterium.

 

Finally…

Everyone has fair-weather friends, so invite them to join you on a fair-weather ride. The late Pope Francis probably had more and better bikes than you have.

And your next bike ride could put you in the spotlight.

Or your legs, anyway.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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