LADOT chief and NACTO president Seleta Reynolds explains how Los Angeles is adapting urban mobility for the digital age — including an emphasis on transportation happiness.
To achieve that, she says,
We are currently drafting a Mobility Bill of Rights to identify core principles like reliability, safety, comfort, equity, transparency, and community that should be the foundation of services we provide or allow to serve Los Angeles. Each of these principles has a set of key performance indicators that we will baseline with Angelenos in order to guide improvements to existing service, like taxis and transit, and help us to regulate new services as they come into the city.
Of course, if the city really wants to increase transportation happiness, they’d place a greater emphasis on bike riding and safer streets, since bike riders are the happiest commuters.
Today’s photo show a new bike box next to Hollywood High School.
………
The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee will meet this Tuesday at the Hollywood City Hall.
………
Local
CiclaValley notes a Baby on Board sticker doesn’t stop a driver from texting.
A Santa Clarita radio station reports on the Santa Clarita Valley Bicycle Coalition’s introductory bike ride along local trails this Saturday.
Santa Monica is hosting a safe streets open house tomorrow night to consider a makeover of 17th Street.
State
Bike riders offered warning about the dangers of self-driving cars before Uber decamped for Arizona to avoid regulation restrictions in California — and before Elaine Herzberg was killed as she walked her bike across a Tempe street.
Australian BMX champ Sam Willoughby continues to make progress at his San Diego home, two years after a crash in competition left him paralyzed from the chest down.
A San Diego Op-Ed says the city has to prioritize bikes and transit if it’s going to have any hope of meeting its climate goals.
Palo Alto is already backpedalling on ambitious plans to install eleven roundabouts, even before the first one opens.
After a news story last week revealed San Leandro police could be breaking the law in their crackdown on teen bike riders, they respond by accusing bicycle flash mobs of disrupting traffic. Which does not justify illegal bike seizures or assaulting kids on bikes.
Bike rentals have begun for the year in Yosemite. Although someone should tell NBC Bay Area to hire a decent proof reader; pretty sure they meant rentable, not rentalable.
National
A 1,300-mile bike ride this month will connect all three 9/11 crash sites for the first time.
A Missoula MT letter writer says studies show businesses don’t need wide streets to succeed, and the city can make better use of excess capacity. Which should be mandatory reading for anyone who complains about LA lane reductions.
Bicycling brought $137 million in health and business benefits to Northwest Arkansas last year, after two counties build 163 miles of bike trails over the last ten years.
An Indiana reporter says you don’t have to be a bicyclist to not want to see another ghost bike.
A new US bike route route could be coming to southern Kentucky.
A Connecticut reporter learns the benefits of bikeshare firsthand.
Pedaling in Palm Beach in the 1930, on the first balloon tires, in a bike club founded by the Schwinn founder’s son-in-law.
Streetsblog says instead of the failed pedestrian bridge that collapsed and killed several people, why not a complete streets makeover of the entire roadway?
International
A proposed Quebec law would dramatically jack up fines for scofflaw bicyclists.
The Guardian reviews MAMIL, the documentary featuring LA’s Eastside Bike Club, and partly filmed at Stan’s Bike Shop in Azusa.
A local paper examines why Cambridge is the UK’s leading cycling city.
The family of a popular Welsh chef and triathlete who was killed in a crash while on a training ride last year are opening a school in Fiji in his honor.
A new British survey shows ebikes are a hit with riders over 55, while a Kiwi columnist suggests ebikes will be a passing fad like adult tricycles. Note to world: If anyone ever calls me a “silver cyclist,” I’ll go buy a cane and beat them mercilessly with it.
A Zimbabwean man has died in Belgium, over a decade after he was brought to the country to train as a cyclist as part of a TV show.
Pakistani women ride to protest sexual harassment and fight to reclaim their place in public spaces.
South Korean bike makers struggle as air pollution and a lack of infrastructure discourages people from getting on their bikes in the country.
Singapore learns that a heavy hand is no panacea when it comes to dealing with abandoned dockless bikeshare bikes.
Hong Kong puts the blame on reckless bike riders for last year’s nearly 2,000 crashes, rather than the people in the big, dangerous machines.
Competitive Cycling
Dutchman Niki Terpstra won this year’s Tour of Flanders in a solo breakaway; countrywoman Anna van der Breggen took the women’s title. A massive crash caused Team Sky’s captain to get DQ’d for riding off the course. SoCal’s Coryn Rivera discusses the emotions she went through after winning last year’s race
Don’t expect any resolution to the Chris Froome doping allegations anytime soon; the case is expected to continue until after this year’s Tour de France.
A Denver Post columnist questions the wisdom of underground bike races on public trails, but doesn’t seem to really mind. Although someone should tell him that LA’s Wolfpack Hustle Marathon Crash Race hasn’t been held for a few years now.
Finally…
It may be a bicycling paradise, but you still have to follow the rules. Your next bike seat might look funny, but feel better.
And nothing like skitching at highway speeds, sans helmet.
Not that one would help at those speeds.
