Streetsblog takes a look at the highly biased survey from NIMBY traffic safety deniers Keep Pasadena Moving, chock full of leading questions designed to get just the responses they want about traffic in the Rose City.
But the best way to overcome their extreme NIMBY windshield bias is to get everyone you know who supports walking, bicycling, transit and safe, livable streets to take the survey themselves.
Because you already have, right?
Right?
………
LADOT will finally conduct its first-ever count of bicyclists and pedestrians in the City of Los Angeles.
Something they should have done years ago; previously, the city didn’t have a clue how many people actually biked or walked in LA.
Apparently, they were satisfied to rely on this count done in the early ’80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn7SO1W6RUI
The only prior counts were conducted on a volunteer basis by the LACBC, later in conjunction with LA Walks.
Hardly a valid basis for any city to make solid transportation decisions.
Bizarrely, though, the story implies that the counts will only be done on weekends, which will provide little real information on bike commuting and transportation riding.
Almost as if the city has fallen for the old myth that the only people who ride bikes in LA are the weekend recreational riders.
By contrast, the LACBC counts were done during both morning and evening commutes, as well as on weekends.
However, that may not be totally accurate, as Sean Meredith suggests that the weekday counts may have been contracted out to a private company.
Let’s hope he’s right.
Update: The LACBC confirms that LADOT has contracted out to a private company to do bike and pedestrian count using traffic cameras.
We've been told they hired a company to do weekday counts with cameras and the weekend counts are being done by volunteers. Yes, there should be more locations and we told them so, along with others. But they ARE doing weekday counts. #bikeLA @Maddz4planning
— BikeLA (@heybikela) October 9, 2019
In fact, it may have already been done.
FWIW, I wrote to LADOT about the weekend survey, and they mentioned they already collected weekday data last month, and will use the weekend survey to contrast usage patterns.
— Mark Chaisson (@mjpchaisson) October 9, 2019
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The CHP has arrested 32-year old Ramona resident Chase Richard for the hit-and-run crash that critically injured Michelle Scott in Ramona.
The 53-year old woman was hit while she was riding her bike to work one week ago today;
The damaged car, which had stolen plates, was seized as evidence.
………
This is who we share the road with.
CiclaValley catches the end of a nasty U-turn by a driver who didn’t seem to care he was there.
My front camera was out of battery, but my rear camera still caught this driver who almost made a u-turn into me on Laurel Canyon. CLP# 7KOY224 pic.twitter.com/FX1i2PymdW
— Zachary Rynew (@Ciclavalley) October 8, 2019
Sort of like this impatient North Hollywood driver who uses the bike lane to zoom around slower traffic.
Even though someone was riding in it at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbstjARUPV8
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Local
The LA Times reports the LAPD searches blacks and Latinos far more often than whites during traffic stops, even though white people are more likely to be carrying illegal items. That’s why LA’s mandatory bike registration program — which most people didn’t even know existed — was discontinued by the city council a decade ago, after it was used by police in some areas as a pretext to stop and search people of color riding bicycles.
The Orange County Register offers a schedule of the Long Beach Marathon events, including Sunday’s 20-mile bike ride preceding the race.
State
Berkeley is considering a proposal to require the city to improve streets and add protected bike lanes on any repaving project, while devoting half the repaving budget to bikeways and high-collision streets. The ball’s in your court, Los Angeles.
San Francisco is finally nearing the start of construction on a 2.2 mile, $604 million makeover of iconic Market Street, turning it into a carfree bicycle and transit corridor.
A Sonoma writer looks back at the legendary Coors Classic, which had four starts in the city, along with America’s only remaining Tour de France winner, who won the Coors the year before his first Tour win.
Unruly teenage bike riders participating in a ride out take over the streets of Vacaville, allegedly kicking and slapping vehicles, and attempting to open car doors at red lights. Police took several riders into custody for traffic offenses, even though those are ticketable violations, rather than crimes subject to arrest. Note to Daily Republic: Unless the kids were trying to sell something to the people in those cars, the word you’re looking for is “pedalers,” not “peddlers.”
National
The Netherlands Stop de kindermoord movement of the 1970s may have gotten its start with less successful anti-car demonstrations led by American women in the ’50s and ’60s.
A former bike shop owner says forget the romantic dreams of owning a bike shop, and run it like the business it is. Otherwise, you may end up like these former LBS owners on the other side of the ocean.
Neighbors are upset about a Kansas City sex offender’s front yard bike sculpture. Not because they don’t like it, but because their kids are drawn to it.
A Massachusetts Navy vet is on a three-year, 25,000 ride around the US to promote suicide awareness — one year for each time he tried, and failed, to kill himself. His depression finally lifted when a friend introduced him to bicycling.
This is how you do it. Atlanta will install its first pop-up bike lane for a week to judge the response and effectiveness. And inviting people to come out and help build it.
International
A crowdfunding campaign is raising capital for what promises to be the world’s smallest and lightest ebike conversion kit; they’ve already raised 1246% of the $25,000 goal with nearly a month to go.
The BBC has confirmed earlier studies that determined families that drive to school are exposed to more pollutants that those who walk or bike; bicyclists were exposed to just two-thirds the amount drivers were.
A finance worker’s helmet cam catches his head-on collision with another rider on a London bike path, after he swerved around a construction barrier.
A British roadie magazine tries to answer the question of whether you need a women’s specific bike. And concludes, maybe.
PinkBike ranks Scottish cyclist Danny MacAskill’s top ten stunt videos, and wants you to vote on your favorite.
Here’s one for my bike bucket list, as The Guardian takes us bikepacking across Scotland. Unless maybe you’d rather add the Czech Republic to your mountain bike bucket list.
An Australian bike rider is looking for the Good Samaritan who saved his life after a hit-and-run driver left him unconscious in a ditch.
A Singaporean e-scooter rider will spend six weeks behind bars for crashing into the back of a man’s leg without slowing down. Seriously, they take this shit seriously over there. Thanks to Mike Cane — that’s C-A-N-E, with no R — for the heads-up. Despite how I usually seem to spell his name.
Three people — one mute, another with a bad leg — are riding their bikes over 1,600 miles across two Indonesian islands to prove to themselves that physical impairments don’t need to be obstacles.
Competitive Cycling
Yet-another U-23 rider has lost his life. Twenty-two-year old Italian cyclist Giovanni Iannelli was killed in a fall during Saturday’s Trofeo Bassa Valle Scrivia in northern Italy; he fell in a sprint 100 yards from finish, hitting his head on a fence post with enough force to shatter his helmet.
The drug dealer who says he sold Italian cycling great Marco Pantani his final hit of coke now insists that the former Tour de France winner was murdered in his motel room.
The mountain bike course for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is winning praise from competitors.
The 2023 Tour de France could kick off in Spain’s Basque Country. Then again, if they really wanted to ride the Basque country, they could have just gone to Bakersfield.
Aussie cyclist Brodie Chapman discusses six things she’s learned so far while riding on the Women’s WorldTour.
Finally…
This could be the first published poem about dooring. If you’re fleeing a robbery on your bike, try not to crash into a police car.
And Los Angeles is fun.
But not that much fun, apparently.
