Bike to fix LA’s crappy air, bikeway on new Gateway Bridge opens next month, and final MOVE Culver City report released

No surprise here.

Once again, Los Angeles leads the country in crappy air quality.

If only there was some sort of sustainable, non-polluting form of transportation that could improve the health of the planet, as well as those who use it.

Better yet, something that had been successfully proven to work for more than a century.

And was safe and simple enough it could even kids could use it. Or nearly anyone else, for that matter.

Oh well, everyone back in your SUVs.

Photo by Ryan Millier for Pexels.

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It’s finally happening.

The long-awaited Mark Bixby Memorial Bike-Pedestrian lane over the new International Gateway Bridge will open on May 20th, in conjunction with Long Beach’s Pride-themed Beach Streets open streets event.

The new bikeway will finally provide a seamless connection from San Pedro to Downtown Long Beach, while offering sweeping views of the harbor from both the Gateway and Vincent Thomas bridges.

Correction: While the article promises a seamless connection, commenters below clarify that there is no safe bikeway over the Vincent Thomas bridge, and not likely to be anytime soon. 

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Culver City has released the final report on the MOVE Culver City project, showing the overwhelming success of the Complete Street project, which is at risk of being ripped out by the city’s newly conservative majority.

As the tweet below notes, it will come up before the city council on Monday, as Planetizen joins calls to save the project..

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Eco-Village is talking with the Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, tonight about their plans to improve transportation and livability in the region.

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Thanks to to free registration from Bike Index, another victimized bike owner got their stolen bike back.

So what are you waiting for?

https://twitter.com/BRAT_Seattle/status/1649239276822081537

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Berm Peak calls the Penny Farthing the sketchiest bicycle ever made.

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

A New Jersey radio station calls on the state’s drivers to just take a breath and chill out, as conflicts — including physical fights — increase between bike riders and drivers unaware of the state’s four-foot passing law.

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

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies are looking for six ebike-riding suspects who stabbed a Ladera Heights teenager Wednesday night, then chased him on their bikes as he ran for his life.

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Local 

CicLAvia is looking for volunteers.

Bike Walk Glendale invites you to visit their Earth Day booth and buy a T-shirt, and take a survey for the proposed Glendale Bicycle Master Plan.

The Argonaut profiles Santa Monica’s Thömus USA, the only location outside of Switzerland to sell the ebike brand, which is built by hand on site at the Santa Monica location.

 

State

Spectrum News 1 names Southern California’s five best bike trails, including the Long Beach Shoreline Bicycle Path and the San Gabriel River Trail.

The stolen ghost bike honoring fallen Palm Springs bicyclist Nelson Esteban has been replaced, thanks to a generous donor. Let’s hope this one stays around a little longer. 

A Monterey weekly looks forward to this weekend’s Sea Otter Classic, calling it a temple of bicycling for all kinds of bicyclists.

Bay Area bike riders call for improving safety on the Peninsula below San Francisco after a relatively recent convert to bicycling was killed earlier this month.

 

National

Men’s Journal picks the year’s best mountain bikes, while CNN is a fan of REI’s Co-op Cycles Generation e1.1, calling it a near-perfect entry level e-utility bike.

Swedish e-mobility company Vässla has launched a subscription model for their entry to the US, with the “highly acclaimed” Vässla Pedal available for purchase, or a $109 monthly subscription.

A Washington town was required to include bike lanes when they overhauled a local highway, thanks to a state law requiring Complete Streets for any highway project costing over half a million dollars. Which is why the California legislature needs to codify Caltrans Complete Streets policy, which has far too many loopholes.

Phoenix held its Bike to Work Day yesterday, as hundreds of people turned out for a brief ride, followed by breakfast at city hall.

Good news from Maine, where a community organization is working to house a homeless woman living out her car, after she spent the last of her money to buy a new bike and helmet for a three-year old boy when his bike was stolen; meanwhile, community members have raised over $9,000 to pay off the loan on her car.

A Westside New York paper waves a warning flag over increased non-motorized traffic in the city’s Central Park, as ebikes and scooters prepare to join joggers, walkers, bicyclists, unicyclists, scooters, skaters, skateboarders, pedicabs, horse carriages and park maintenance vehicles.

Inspiring story from Bicycling, as a 66-year old man prepares to ride New York’s Five Boro Bike Ride next month, more than five decades and three transplants after he was told at 11-years old that he had only two years to live due to cystic fibrosis. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

New York court workers have thrown in the towel and agreed to observe parking restrictions for the new protected bike lane in front of the courthouse.

A North Carolina writer considers the role of vehicular cycling and taking the lane in the absence of safe bicycling infrastructure.

 

International

The CBC explains the differences between road and track bikes.

She gets it. A Canadian writer says we all want roads that are safe, efficient and pleasant, but no one wants to change for that to happen.

A stoned, wrong way driver will spend the next six years behind bars for the head-on crash that killed a man riding a bicycle, and will be prohibited from driving for 12 years; he had five drugs in his system at the time of the crash, including morphine and “street valium,” as well as several previous traffic convictions, including two for drugged driving. Just one more example of officials keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late.

Adventure Journal remembers Walter Greaves, a one-armed, vegetarian British bicyclist who set a new world record for riding 62,657 miles in 1937 — despite spending 18 days off his bike after getting hit by a driver.

A British refugee support group has provided 175 bicycles to Ukrainian refugees.

CityLab examines how the Dutch mastered bike parking at train stations. Then again, they’ve mastered just about everything else related to bicycles, too.

A Chinese man has ridden his bike 63,000 miles across the country over the last ten years, despite having just one leg.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling journalist Caley Fretz remembers reporter Chris Baldwin, the former press officer for all-diabetic cycling team Team Type 1, followed by a stint with Astana before returning to Team Type 1 successor Novo Nordisk; Baldwin passed away in his sleep from a heart attack last week. He was just 52.

Here’s your chance to own Miguel Induráin’s Tour de France-winning Pinarello for the low, low price of around 82 grand.

Bicycling considers what comes next after the cancelation of the UK’s Women’s Tour, as organizers promise it will be back next year. Read it on AOL if the magazine blocks you.

 

Finally…

If you’re riding your bike while under the influence on your island vacation, put a damn light on it, already. Now you, too, can own your very own Taco Bell bike.

And where the hell did they get my picture?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

2 comments

  1. Andrew says:

    Re: the Mark Bixby bikeway, I don’t think it has anything to do with the Vincent Thomas Bridge – that bridge is still extremely dangerous for cyclists and to suggest otherwise could be deadly. Can you check this and correct it!

    Would be a dream for the Vincent Thomas Bridge to accommodate bikes but I believe that dream is a long way off.

    • EricW says:

      Andrew is correct. There is NO way to easily get from San Pedro to Lang Beach. Anaheim Bvld or the PCH are the closest bad alternates. I suggest riding up to 190th st to get across the city.

      This cycling path was an extremely long time coming. I think I recall the path being named for Mark in 2011 or so. And it will be still be impossible to ride over the Vincent Thomas bridge to get across the main channel. I won’t be riding by the time that gets fixed decades from now.

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