BikinginLA

Happy Bike Day, formerly known as Bike to Work Day.

But since they’ve removed the “to Work” part, that means you don’t have to go to work today, and can spend the day riding your bike anywhere.

No?

Hence its other name, Bike Anywhere Day.

So whatever you’re doing and wherever you’re going, get out on your bike for at lest part of it, and just be glad you’re not stuck in a car somewhere.

Poor suckers.

Photo by Sabine van Erp from Pixabay

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In honor of Bike Day, LA Metro, Metrolink and other local transit systems are offering free transit and bikeshare rides today.

FREE RIDES are being offered on Pasadena Transit and Dial-A-Ride buses THURSDAY, MAY 18, in celebration of #BikeToWorkDay. View route schedules at: https://t.co/vXTm8q5OQT pic.twitter.com/gcaAWuta6E

— City of Pasadena (@PasadenaGov) May 18, 2023

Metro is also offering free food and coffee at the NoHo Metro Station today, and the Downtown Santa Monica Expo Line tomorrow.

And Spectrum News 1 reminds us about Sunday’s Watts CicLAmini, the first of LA’s new compact open streets event designed for walking, instead of biking.

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Sunset4All sent out an urgent email yesterday urging action in support of the project.

The group, which is working to convert a section of deadly Sunset Blvd from its current car sewer configuration into a Complete Street that serves all road users, as well as the surrounding community, is concerned that new CD13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez may be backsliding on his campaign promises to get the vital project built.

I’m including there full email below, so you can voice your support.

The city is finalizing its list of projects for 2024 grant applications.  RIGHT NOW SUNSET4ALL IS NOT ON THAT LIST.  Furthermore, the city has failed  to meet with our community crowdfunded engineers for almost two years.  We need the Council office to take action NOW by instructing LADOT to submit a 2024 ATP grant application for Sunset4All, prioritize Sunset4All for all state and Federal grant opportunities, and ensure LADOT collaborates with the engineers our community paid for!

We urgently need you to remind Councilmember Soto-Martinez to keep his campaign commitment:

“Obviously there are much larger plans I am very passionate about supporting…I will literally throw my entire support behind. The one at the top of my head is Sunset4All…That’s the one that’s gonna get a lot of support my first four years certainly”
— Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez -December 22, 2022

There are two actions you can take:

1) Call Councilmember Soto-Martinez’s office and tell them to ensure a 2024 ATP grant application is submitted by LADOT on behalf of Sunset4All and to prioritize Sunset4All for all state and Federal grant opportunities.  
*Even if you’re not a constituent, the goal is to get his and his staff’s attention.

OFFICE PHONE NUMBER:  213-473-7013

2) Email Councilmember Soto-Martinez using our email template on the link below:

Send an email to CD13 to support grant funding

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Caltrans wants your input on plans to close the bike lane gap on Santa Monica Blvd in West LA, west of the 405 Freeway. (Clicking on the second image will make it easier to read.)

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US News and World Report — yes, it’s still a thing, evidently — is out with their ranking of the best places to live in the US for the 2023 and 2024, based on the country’s 150 largest cities.

Which is apparently why places like Long Beach and Santa Monica didn’t make the list.

While my bike-friendly Colorado hometown checks in at 23, you have to hit the Load More button twice before getting to any Southern California city, with sunny San Diego just making the top 100 at 93.

Santa Barbara, which sits outside most definitions of SoCal, comes in at 123.

Then you have to drop all the way down to 139 before you get to Los Angeles, below such garden spots as Brownsville, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Apparently, our notorious car-centrism weighed heavily on our relatively pitiful ranking.

Just as surely as the positive platitudes are true, so are the negative ones. Notorious traffic jams and hours of delays are the norm for those who drive the many freeways covering Los Angeles. But all the mileage is not wasted. Those same freeways take residents between coastal beaches, rugged mountains, tree-lined forests and stark deserts all within an hour of the downtown area.

If only there was some sort of cheap, clean and efficient means of transportation that could get people out of their cars and defuse those notorious traffic jams.

But at least we beat out Bakersfield.

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Seriously, nothing says LA like an impatient driver forcing his way into a memorial bike ride.

The bike community coming together for the #RideOfSilence. Believe it or not, there was an instance in which a sports car driver forced their way through the group cause they didn't wanna be inconvenienced. The irony. #BikeLA #GhostBikes pic.twitter.com/McCwuxtDQl

— (╯°□°）╯︵∀⊥ᴚƎ∩H ⋊ƆIᴚƎ (@ElRandomHero) May 18, 2023

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Nice to see plans to extend the Ballona Creek bike path getting local neighborhood support.

Although after more than three decades living in Los Angeles, I didn’t even know there is a Sepulveda Creek.

Our effort to turn Centinela and Sepulveda Creeks into green, bikeable, walkable places took a step forward tonight with the @marvistacc passing a letter of support for a feasibility study. @DelReyNeighbor passed the same last week.

Stay tuned for next steps! pic.twitter.com/kOi5s7fPtF

— Streets For All (@streetsforall) May 18, 2023

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Somehow, I don’t think this is how protected bike lane barriers are supposed to work.

David Drexler forwards a Nextdoor photo of a “truck operator having difficulty trying to decide how to park with the new (controversial) curbed bike lane on 17th street in Santa Monica.”

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

San Luis Obispo’s anti-bike curmudgeon is back with yet another screed calling on the city to end its “bike lane insanity.” Seriously, someone get this guy on a bike, already. Thanks to Jeff Mellstrom for the link.

A local British counselor complains that building bike and walking paths on the grounds of a 12th century abbey will restrict the activities of dog walkers, because they could “cause accidents when not in control.” Although it’s not clear whether he’s referring to the dogs or bike riders being out of control.

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Local 

The Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, wants your opinion on plans to shape their transportation, housing and climate policy for the next few years; the group may be awkward and ponderous, but they’ve also made some good moves to support active transportation in recent years. Thanks to Kent Strumpell for the heads-up.

Bicycling talks with LA-based ex-pro Phil Gaimon about whether drivers know bike laws — or whether bike riders do, either. And advises against confronting people whose transportation can transform into a multi-ton weapon. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Metro offers a first look at the 5.5-mile Rail-to-Rail walk/bike path currently under construction along the neglected Slauson corridor right-of-way in South LA.

The Beach Cities Health District is building short bike and pedestrian path on Prospect Ave near their Redondo Beach headquarters, part of the South Bay Cities planned 200-mile bike network.

That’s more like it. Long Beach is addressing bikeshare affordability by creating the Bike Share for All program, allowing low-income people who live, work or attend school in the city to purchase an annual bikeshare pass for just five bucks. Even I could afford that.

 

State

Calbike says it’s time to divest from regressive road building and invest in Complete Streets, active transportation and transit. And calls on you to demand that AB 1525, the Equity-First Transportation Funding Act, get a hearing before the full state Assembly; the bill would require 60% California’s transportation budget be spent in disadvantaged communities.

A Santa Barbara columnist calls on local residents to kick the car habit and embrace their inner bicycle.

Streetsblog says the bike path to San Francisco via Treasure Island, with a 17 percent grade, is only for the strong and confident.

 

National

Left-leaning The Nation says it will take “unprecedented investment in infrastructure and public transit” to break America’s car-dependency.

Seattle’s public health staff offers some of the best advice I’ve seen on how to share the road with people on bicycles, including “become a bicyclist” and “Just be nice!”

Seattle police weren’t nice, though, actually earning money while developing tactics to use bikes to confront angry protesters.

A Reno newspaper talks with local bike riders about their experiences, including one with a four hour, 67-mile round trip ride to work.

A Michigan man accused of killing a bike rider while fleeing from police in a high-speed chase will stand trial later this year after rejecting a plea deal.

A Dayton, Ohio website recommends a trip to the Bicycle Museum of America in New Bremen, where you’ll find over 200 bicycles on display, along with other bike artifacts.

When a St. Louis woman challenged 50 local leaders to go carfree for just one day, only nine managed to do it.

The kindhearted Maine homeless woman who used the last of her money to buy a new bike for a three-year old boy after his was stolen received over $11,000 donations to pay off the car she has been living in.

The white New York hospital woman captured in a viral video trying wrest and whine a bikeshare bike out of the grasp of the Black teenager who had rented it has been placed on leave by Bellevue Hospital pending a review of the incident.

Sayfullo Saipov, the convicted New York terrorist who killed eight people and injured dozens of others as he rampaged down a Manhattan bike path in a rented truck four and a half years ago, will spend the rest of his life in Colorado’s Supermax prison after he was sentenced to eight consecutive life terms. So that means when he dies, they’ll dig him up and toss him in a cell until he dies again, and start the process over. Right?

In a powerful statement, Pennsylvania bicyclists marked bike week by posing ghost bikes on the steps of the state capital representing the people killed riding bikes on the state’s roadways. California’s state capitol building doesn’t have enough steps for the roughly 160 ghost bikes we’d need every year.

A relatively recent convert to bike advocacy offers advice on how to make urban riding in DC safer and less intimidating, most of which applies anywhere. It’s also one of the few pieces I’ve seen that gives biking advice from a Black woman, rather than to them.

The DC area is getting a new 18-mile protected bike path — as long as you don’t mind the roaring noise and breath sucking fumes that come from riding next to a major freeway.

The Washington Post talks with the Red Bike guy who gained viral fame for shouting down Neo-Nazis from a bikeshare bike.

A Florida man fears 2023 will be a bad year for bike riders, after he was twice struc by drivers in separate incidents since the first or the year.

 

International

Bicycling examines the takeaways from the recent Velo-City conference, where leaders from 60 countries discussed how to make cities better for bicyclists, including using cargo bikes as a real solution to traffic. Once again, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

The 70-something British woman who was knocked down, then run over by a drunk ex-cricket player while riding her bike suffered life-changing injuries, and suffers from nightmares every night a year later; the driver was sentenced to just two years, despite testing over four times the legal alcohol limit.

A group of people abused by priests made a bike pilgrimage from Germany to Rome to share their concerns with Pope Francis, and urge him to use his power to heal and prevent abuses in the Catholic Church.

Listening to your earbuds while biking in Spain could cost you the equivalent of $216.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former Giro winner Tao Geoghegan Hart is out of the race after breaking his hip in a crash that also saw race leader Geraint Thomas and second-place Primož Roglič hit the pavement. You can read it on AOL this time if Bicycling blocks you. 

Russian pro Gleb Syritsa stripped naked to show off the gruesome road rash he suffered in a crash during the opening stage of the mathematically challenged six-day Four Days of Dunkirk stage race.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you base you helmet choice on advice from Good Housekeeping — yes, the homemake magazine. Your new bike tubes could be made from your last ones.

And we may have to deal with bearish LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about t-boning a real one.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.