Maybe I just don’t understand the planning process.
It was my understanding that the Bicycle Advisory Committee for the new Expo Line extension was formed to get the input of knowledgeable bike riders prior to construction, in order to develop a safe, separated bike route stretching from the beach to Downtown to encourage more people to leave their cars at home.
I didn’t realize that it was just an attempt at greenwashing. Or that the apparent purpose in forming the Expo BAC was simply to placate the bicycling community while dangerous, cost-cutting designs were forced through by those charged with planning and building the bikeway.
At least, that’s how it looks right now.
Members of the Expo BAC have complained both publicly and privately that their input has been ignored, and that corners are being cut in a rush to complete the designs and speed up construction. And that as a result, dangerous design flaws are being incorporated into the plans that will put riders at risk and discourage usage — ensuring the expensive failure of what has long been one of the county’s most anticipated bikeways, and which, if designed properly, should be one of the most heavily used.
I implore you use your authority to step in and slow down the process, and require that those charged with designing and building the Expo line extension and its associated bikeway listen to the bicycling experts you yourself appointed, and work with them to incorporate their suggestions.
The success of this project — and the safety of those who use it — depends on it.
Sincerely,
Ted Rogers Bikinginla.com………
Tyler Farrar takes stage one of Colorado’s USA Pro Cycling Challenge, as Levi Leipheimer defends his title. The Denver Post asks why not let the peloton ride through the famous Tour of the Moon course through Colorado National Monument.
Meanwhile, the uglier side of cycling rears up once again as the judge dismisses Lance’s case against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
………
Planning begins for a CicLAvia to the shore. The Los Angeles bike parking map is now available online. Once again, Beverly Hills goes for the short-term money, rather than open up the city for bikes and pedestrians. A Baldwin Park cyclist is injured after reportedly riding into traffic; funny how often cyclists are blamed after they’ve been taken from the scene by ambulance. CLR Effect, aka the former Claremont Cyclist, reminds riders to contact their Assembly Members prior to Friday’s vote on the state’s proposed three-foot passing law; Better Bike urges you to help make safe passing a reality here. Long Beach considers signing up with Bike Nation.
Orange County will spend $9 million to install 28 miles of new bikeways. Former World Champion OC cyclist Mark Hoffenberg still wears the rainbow bands on the podium. A 16-year old San Diego girl rides her bike to the hospital after being stabbed in a fight. A bicyclist hit by an Imperial County Irrigation District meter reader reportedly came out of nowhere, riding on the wrong side of the street. Sunnyvale becomes the latest city to adopt L.A.’s groundbreaking anti-harassment ordinance. A commenter first says cyclists need to obey the law, then says the law has to be changed when others point out what he’s complaining about isn’t actually against the law; thanks to former LADOT Bike Blogger Christopher Kidd for the heads-up. Neighbors say the 81-year old road raging motorist who drove onto a golf course to run down a cyclist is a nice, non-testy individual and say the rider must have had it coming; a writer says it’s time to change the conversation. A 75-year old Burlingame cyclist is killed after swerving into a truck passing from behind — something many cyclists would recognize as a possible reaction to a too-close pass.
If you’re afraid to ride, try riding in ways that don’t terrify you at first. Too many people are dying on the streets of Las Vegas, the sixth most dangerous metro area in the U.S. Bikeyface suggests better urban planning. Seventy-nine year old Willie Nelson cancels a Colorado show, in part, due to a bicycling accident. A brief list of rules for riding in my hometown. Another day, another pedestrian injured by a New York cyclist. A Pittsburgh paper says cyclists aren’t always to blame in collisions; in fact, riders are only responsible for about half. A Tampa Bay cyclist collides with a crossing guard trying to avoid a motor vehicle collision.
Bicycling asks the Cannibal what made him the greatest cyclist of all time. Yet another list of the top 10 bike-friendly cities around the world — and once again, only one is in the U.S. ER docs think an injured Calgary cyclist suffered a stroke until GPS data shows he was the victim of hit-and-run. In just a tiny overreaction, a London cyclist spends a night in jail for riding in a no-biking zone. A London police office went airborne while driving at twice the speed limit before hitting a cyclist. A UK auto magazine says three-quarters of cyclists break the law — but cites offenses that aren’t against the law. An Aussie nurse saves a severely injured cyclist from an internal decapitation.
Finally, Town Mouse buys a Paper Bike for her Mum.
……..
On a personal note, thanks to Bike and Hike LA for renting a bike to my 15-year old nephew from Colorado last week. After a highly enjoyable ride on along the beach, I think he’s even more committed to becoming an Angeleno at the earliest opportunity.
And I learned that it is in fact possible to have a good time while riding slowly.
Who knew?
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Incredible number of really interesting stories here! I’ve just spent two hours clicking on these links and I’ve only scratched the surface of what you’ve provided. How on Earth did you find all these?
What’s clear, from what I’ve read so far, is that there’s more than enough misunderstanding, ignorance, poor law enforcement, victim-blaming and plain old hatred being directed at cyclists and cycling issues. It’s crazy! I mean, what threat do we cyclists pose, to warrant the outright abuse that is directed our way? All we do is ride bikes. A bicycle is a transportation option, not a nihilist weapon of mass destruction.
This is the time when you get kicked off transit for being overheard talking democrat by union crack heads addicted to Rush all night long every night.
Bikes beg for a redefinition of the GNP to incorporate concepts of otherwise elemental things, like waste, being in a alternative catagory of spending.
Until such time however much of the ‘gnp’ remains as getting us to burn, or otherwise behead, kill, and bury, ourselves merely or much more commonly our loved ones but that matters very little in the scheme of things- what matters rather is that we spend less doing that and getting from one place to another. SPend less on road, on mechanics, on rubber and war.
How’s a defense contractor gonna make payroll if this catches on?
There are ‘energy’ voters- but are there really any bike people? To be that in that single issue way- fundamentalistic, but good?
It’s not hard to say- the answer is no. Like ‘girls gone wild’ rich spoiled white boys the leaders among us ‘tend’ to be not us at all- but there to monitor or identify inambitious courses for us to so enjoy.
So again I have to disclose I’ve never yet succumbed to the temptation of trying to make the market more efficient by getting even filthier rich myself- I hold no equity in any publically traded corporation.
AONE though is such a corporation and for many years all signs have been that iit is the enemy of the people in not manufacuring for the bike community but rather being exquisitely creative in obtaining seed money and even financing from uncle same to build robots to compete wiht Saudi Princes for the next wave of child smash detective obliterating needs.
Tongiht I even read a kind of ‘penthouse’ for the masses piece on a new BMW, aka ‘NAZI’ mobile, and long was teh wind in it about how sixty k or so allows you to use other then lead in the battery, to spare a token few kids on some foreign land the income that might put some relative with smarts into a haover many buck laptop’ed room to google up some fact about AIDS or revolution etc.
Again about how it stops so noticably at red lights! The motor noise goes silent so fast- dammit how can they do that to us carryed onthe NYT’s or whatever rag it was…
It’s hot in there- ask any cat cooked up from not getting out before yo udrive off.
Not a good place for most modern llightweight able to start you car more then once a trip batteries.
But 123 is there- selling, and this means you can goto you local autostore and ssay… I got me one of those new bmw’s and they’ll interupt you and say ‘nah we can’tsell you headlight get your two wheels off our tarmac’ but if you talke fast enough you might be able to get out.. battery.. can i have the battery- can you order me a battery i need a spare see as my neighbor he’s a .. greeenie ya know and he’s like staring at me when i come barreling round the corner liek he’s some sort of robin williams wannna be so i jsut run my stereo louder and have upgrades now i got 2kw subwoofer in all four cornes ya know so i dont’ even see him with his flashing lights and paintball barrages i liek the extra paint see i got lots of gas i’m not indigent ya know if he’ll color me up like that it jsut draws the chicks right?
Well anyway at some point they start fidddlign with there computer and say.. that’ll be $800 ic an get it for you by next .. whatever day and how man y and you hold your self real still and don’t hestiate you say well whre can you give me a break man, do igot to buy a hundred of em’ as that’s a lot of money for someo even aryan kinda lead ya know and he’ll say yah yah i can do you 7 percent off if ya buy adozen and then you whip that plastic and guess what?
for less then the cost of a minivan ya got yrousel a power line replacement- ya can toss em in the trunkabout now and head outto yoru friendly solar lunatics place whose spent his life savings tryign to keep the coal in the ground not realisign they’d start drilling holes for fat boy fission bombs to get the stuff gasssy like so it can be put in apipleline dry, no water, no miners, just a dam pipe yous pin up like cotton candy in the b ack of a no longer good enogh for gonzo porn production panel van- and aobut now there out there looknig like NIckolson had to do a live version of his “pledge” too many times and ready to give yo adealon that juice they got all stacked up and no use for- so they” charge you up cheap and then boy oh boy cna you cost those towelheads a dime adn still bring your toys wiht you to work- what ‘s a man to do without his jetski in the lotwhen he’s coldcalling allday- you can’t expect himt o be satisfied with aphoto onhis desk when he can have it just minutes a way to fondle ya know?
ANwyway it’s barely four dimes last check- it could be thiryt something cents with that as it’s business model, it’s stock in trade as one might nearly say, but the thing is those boxes are light, and they ugh last like forever if all youdo is pop ’em in the freezer at night.
Forever.
Bikes are so solved- there done, no room for further improvement really- they onloy need the 123 turbo- not exhaust pushing like water sucks up the coal breath, but water bottle sized cells to spare us derailers and like san franciscoo coped for a bit with there hills no diesel bus maker could handle but prompltly put down so genlty nobody noticed half dozen years ago the child killier third in door opener so it could shut it ‘electric transit inc’ I”M NOT KIDDING adn ya know it doesn’t take ten grand man..
not efven agrand for the battery
and we sit
we pedal
this company is for sale.
at literally a nickel or two of what it’s lost so far per dollar trying to monopolise the world without freeing it of it’s addiction to shells that make turltles look naked, make tortoies seem like gold foil wrapped not the heavy armor mocked by rabbits truth be told.
WE can buy this company. WE have weeks, maybe months.
Its’ not going to be friendl ythough- ya gotta expect resistnace. To save our kids from slaughter many many man ypeople will lose there jobs. There kids will haveh ot goto public schoools. Ours wil survive, but still, they aint not saints with kids of theere own outther and they don’t know us.
They live in cold climates much of hte year, dark, needing chevron etc. bright islands wasting energy as there clarion call to ‘we wont’ make you feel bad here- no truth zone, just come on overwe’ll get yuou that happy ending without any reality interfering.
THey, autoworkers, engineers, desingers, old farts with model t’s drivine into unventilated mega mauls more then annualyu like we are all having so few yeasr left and already ready to go we welmoce the extra kick downthe stairs.TEhy are the enemy.
EVIL as anuything or anyoen on this planet.
and tehy know it!
belive that
growo up
they profit from killing the innocent.
and we canstop them
China instead wants to help them. Cigareettes are not doing it well enough- they can’t be another Japan. Or stop people from eating rice or being happy- so they need the cars, to loot the peoples ‘free’ time, to claim it, to enslave.
It is not there people- no, that cliche applies.
It’s the heirs to those who pulledthe triggers on there jews- there bright lights- there evolved leaders just momenjts ago for some of us.
Yes drink Tea- but also, also we must realise that this is real. This company is not private YET. It c an be owned and managed legally.
Selling batteries to all- to all with the money, the hundred bucks trucht be told to not haveot spend thousands to get the best deerailer money can buy- or any that’s not completley obsolete. Derailers though- basically obsolete.
If not always completley- if sometime incorporating gee whiz tech like ELECTROMAGNETISM! YIKES? NO MAGNETS! NO yeast, no aspirn, no caffiene, no milk, no flour, no carrots or dour, smile smile smile..
fine
the the rest of us- the sane, simple, majority- the potato b aking steak grillling salt shake shake shaking of this earth we want it, we can afford it, and only those whose funders are evil cardoers would lead us astray.
It’s what we ‘ve been wating for our entire lives.
Yougot it.
Wheels fo us! For our boddies! not for GMC. NOt for nascar- that’s for the weekend.
But for daily use.
Several times a day! Cuz it’s fun and cheap and fastest and safest and cleanest and greenest and brilliant.
But.
It’s going private.
beyodn our reach… likethe mythical hundred mile per gallon crap of yesteryeasr- only it’s thousand of miles per fossil fulul gallon sipping miracle shit.
and it’s up to us.
buyit.
own it.
use it
feel good about saving us from us. polar bears and orangatangs and toddlers with our faces and names and futures will survive if and only if we do.
but the cow
then the milk can spare our kids seeing us see them as they bleed out on the curb because cars are still legal becausewe had mnths teo end them buy blowing up this bridge tothe future and using it for people instead.
I assume Long Beach drank the Hemlock and they concede they diddn’t actually publicise the RFP so please tell us BEFOER Eit’s too late not after !! Please! (I did reead all youroo wrote above before composing my ‘indirect’ response but do hope I’m wrong having been unable toconfirm I’m notyet about ‘3rd’ generation (as in C- quality more like it…)
http://longbeach.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=1188069&GUID=D55FD4A0-99B3-49CF-85FC-064A123A2D57&Options=&Search=
http://longbeach.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=2078610&GUID=149879F1-5382-489F-A129-9450DDEA35FE
“The Request for Proposals (RFP) was posted via our electronic bid system on June 25,
2012, and 798 potential bidders specializing in bike sharing programs were notified of
the bid opportunity. Of those bidders, 38 downloaded the RFP via our electronic bid
system. The RFP document was also made available from the Purchasing Division,
located on the seventh floor of City Hall, and the Division’s website at
http://www.longbeach.gov/purchasing. The RFP announcement was also included in the
Purchasing Division’s weekly update of Open Bid Opportunities, which is sent to 30
local, minority and women-owned business groups. Two proposals were received on
July 18,2012. Of those two proposals, none were Minority-owned Business Enterprises
(MBEs), none were Women-owned Business Enterprises (WBEs), none were certified
Small Business Enterprises (SBEs), and none were Long Beach businesses (Local).
Bike Nation, Inc., of Tustin, CA (not an MBE, WBE, SBE or Local), was determined to
be the most qualified proposer.”
My ass they are! SHIT
THe mainly shil list of realtors etc. is still public but the acutal rfp is password protected that’s how they kno wonly 35 or whagever found out about it and snaged a copy – but teh addenda is availablerightnow at leeasts via:
http://www.planetbids.com/LongBeach/BMfiles/20120710165350298%20RFP%20PW%2012-025%20Addendum%20One.pdf
Ok.. I just watched the bike hater, the phd’s, the lunatic, and the sober adviser all be ignored, spit on, b arely restrained, or otherwise routine window dressing inthe last third ofthe first hour at
http://longbeach.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=12&clip_id=5960
SO sad.
40 jobs- but no real b ikeds. just pipe bought from “northwest” i guess that means out of state, the bag lady probably contributed as muc has the lady who literally was prommised ajob oif she got them to vote yes.
So nation confessed.
The only other bidder is unmentioned.
oneo ofthe 35 yeah- but which one?
A shil among shil’s.
probably a relative of nation…
lest it be dleayed long enough to render cars extinct- to render gps for the sharers as opposed to just agimmicik and decoy ot thieves.
thieves detered by maknig sure it’s crap not worht the risk to steal mainly not by any modems..
we have hto goto court.
whre i’m fromthe ‘defacto’ years arfe for lesser.
its’ utterly outrageous.
talk about years
teh reality is this is shock and awe
and when they arrive
and all the singers of therepraises actuallly try riding htem
they’ll say
at best
how quaint
and not realise that for most it will there only taste- there innoculation from catching our disease- of droppign there cars.
by the time one of these executives has his ‘strange’ tell- tell how it was all bought and paid for by ‘friends of ford’-it will be late- and we’ll be past the tipping point globablly in 2022.
2022
how much now just hours in to back out
i’l lcut the check! tell me how much!