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Take a moment right now to join them to keep up the fight, and bring all the latest bike news coming to your favorite screen each morning.
So don’t wait. Give now!
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Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program as promised this fall: 8
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I did a thing.
Like you, I’m fed up with the traffic violence on our streets, and mad as hell about how little is being done to to improve safety for those of us who aren’t safely ensconced behind a couple tons of glass and steel.
Let alone building a climate-friendly transportation system that’s not firmly routed in the last century.
So I created a petition demanding a public audience with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, similar to the bike summit held by former Mayor Villaraigosa over a dozen years ago.
I hope you’ll sign it.
And help support it, spreading the link far and wide — because if it relies on me alone, it will fail.
Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a public forum to listen to complaints from bike riders and pedestrians about the dangers we face on city streets. He heard us, and took action.
But since then, we’ve been ignored. Mayor Eric Garcetti introduced a number of traffic safety initiatives, but failed to follow through on any of them, and failed to listen to us or meet with us a single time. Now new Mayor Karen Bass has continued to ignore the dangers on our streets.
We’ve given her a full year to focus on homelessness, and housing unhoused Angelenos. Now it’s time to walk and chew gum at the same time, and refocus at least some of her attention on the ongoing carnage on our streets, as bike and pedestrian deaths climb to near record levels.
We demand another public forum with the mayor in attendance, to listen to our complaints about the dangers on our streets, and the urgent need to re-imagine how we all get around in Los Angeles.
Go ahead and sign it now. We’ll wait.
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She gets it.
Kendra Ramsey, the new Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition calls on Caltrans to change its ways, because California will never be the climate leader it professes to be until the state stops building freeways.
And yes, that includes highway widening and building new interchanges, too.
While Caltrans spends billions each year repairing and mitigating the damage done by extreme weather caused by climate change, it continues to create the conditions for more harmful emissions. A planned freeway expansion in Yolo County, between Sacramento and Davis, may involve improper environmental review and misuse of state roadway repair funds. The controversy led to the firing of Caltrans deputy director for planning and modal programs Jeanie Ward-Waller, who planned to blow the whistle on the alleged malfeasance…
Caltrans should be inducing demand for active transportation by building protected bikeways with protected intersections that connect to robust local and regional networks of safe bike routes. It should be adding bus-only lanes and bus boarding islands, widening sidewalks, and improving conditions for people who walk or take transit…
It’s a quick and easy read.
And more than worth the click to read the whole thing.
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That’s more like it.
The stoned driver convicted of killing two Michigan men participating in a multi-day Make-A-Wish fundraising bike ride will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars, after she was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 35 to 60 years in prison.
Which means she’ll serve at least 70 years, with a maximum sentence of 120 years.
So if she does the max, she’ll be 164 when she finally gets out.
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And on a lighter note…
A little fall color in Griffith Park today. #BikeLA pic.twitter.com/16KhuV0zEc
— Joe Anthony (@ohaijoe) December 12, 2023
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‘Tis the season.
San Diego’s Mike’s Bikes, founded by a retired city employee, gives away about 300 bikes, scooters and skateboards each holiday season.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office gave away over 500 refurbished bicycles to local kids for the holidays. Although to be fair, the inmates at the county Honor Farm did most of the work.
A Baptist church hosted a bike exchange on the Navajo Nation, donating refurbished bicycles to kids who pledged to do good deeds or community service.
A Michigan nonprofit says they take bike-shaped rubble and refurbish it into rideable bicycles, donating 500 bikes to people in need this year.
And enough with the gift guides for bicyclists. Road.cc offers a guide for what not to buy for the bike rider in your life to avoid a festive faux pas.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. After San Diego adopted a new Complete Streets policy, the San Diego Reader said “bike lane totalitarians” objected to the numerous exemptions.
No bias here, either. After a British bike rider was mugged, hit in the head with a hammer and had his bicycle stolen while riding on a canal path, the cops just told him to maybe ride somewhere else in the future.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
You’ve got to be kidding. After a Mississippi drunk driver was arrested for killing a man riding a bicycle, the local cops still blamed the victim for riding on a dark highway without lights, while praising the driver for doing the right thing by stopping and calling for help.
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Local
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits nearly-finished bike infrastructure in Little Tokyo, El Monte and Vincent, including the long-promised Alameda Esplanade.
State
No news is good news, right?
National
Turns out ebikes offer less range in cold weather.
Bicycling lists a number of bicycles and ebike discounted on pre-holiday sales, including the REI cargo bike CNN rated as the best overall ebike. This one doesn’t appear to be hidden behind the magazine’s paywall, so click away.
Mountain bikemaker Kona is having a BOGO sale on one of its bikes, too.
Major League Baseball recommends taking a leisurely bike ride or walk to visit minor league ballparks across the US.
The rich get richer. My Platinum-Level Bicycle Friendly Colorado hometown is getting a nearly $1 million federal grant to “find ways to maximize safety and comfort for local cyclists.” We could all use that.
International
Momentum recommends the best hybrid bikes for all-season bike commuting.
Canadian Cycling Magazine recommends five new tech tools to help keep your bike safe, including a power meter that incorporates Apple’s Find My technology.
The Ethical Choice asks if Brits should be paid to bike to work. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, yes, and over here in the US, too.
Novel AI tools developed by a Zurich firm are helping to develop safer bike helmets and better shoe soles by bypassing “the time-consuming and intuition-based design process of metamaterials.” Let’s just hope they work better than most AI chatbots.
You can now get bicycles made by the world’s largest bikemaker, India’s Hero Cycles, at your friendly neighborhood Walmart.
Competitive Cycling
The former head of the Movistar cycling team explains why he gave Colombian pro Nairo Quintana a second chance, saying pro cycling wasn’t fair in banning him for testing positive for the narcotic painkiller Tramadol, which won’t be banned until next year.
Finally…
Now you, too, can own Tadej Pogacar’s very own time trial bike — although it still won’t make you as fast as he is. That feeling when you’re an award-winning actor and a bicycle crash first responder, too.
And a British Columbia teenager made his own “feature length” bike film — if you consider a hair under 30 minutes feature length.
But still.
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Chag sameach!
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
