Just 6 days left in the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!
Sadly, no one donated yesterday to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
So don’t let that happen again! Take just a moment and give now!
………
Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program this fall as promised: 2
………
If you haven’t already, sign and share the petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to listen to the dangers we face just walking and biking on the streets of LA, and city’s ongoing failure to build the safer, more livable transportation system they promised.
………
We made the national news, for all the wrong reasons.
CNN reported on LA County’s killer highway, the four Pepperdine students killed by a speeding driver earlier this year, and the 58 people killed along PCH in Malibu in just the last 13 years.
“I should have been there and I usually would be there,” (Pepperdine senior Bridget) Thompson said. “I can just picture them in the car on the way there. I know they were listening to music and I know they were singing along.”
The girls parked and were walking along the Pacific Coast Highway when prosecutors say a BMW going 104 miles per hour slammed into several parked cars before hitting and killing Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams – all Pepperdine seniors…
Thompson is now among those demanding safety changes along the iconic Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. She helped dedicate a memorial on the scenic highway, which stretches the California coastline, featuring 58 white tires — one for each of the lives lost on the road in Malibu since 2010.
It’s a heartbreaking story, but a necessary one.
Maybe a little national humiliation is what we need to finally get some long-needed changes made.
Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the heads-up.
………
The Illinois Supreme Court reaffirmed a horrific ruling that officially makes bike riders 2nd class citizens on the streets.
The court ruled that cities aren’t responsible for injuries to bike riders from poorly maintained roads that don’t have bicycle infrastructure, reasoning that bicycles are allowed to use such roadways, but aren’t the intended users.
Apparently, drivers are.
Not only does the ruling absolve cities of responsibility to maintain safe streets, it also provides a disincentive to build the infrastructure that would make them liable.
And makes it clear that we’re nothing more than guests anywhere else.
………
More information on the Colorado hit-and-run crash we mentioned yesterday.
The driver of one Ford Mustang was passing another on a sweeping mountain curve, and slammed headfirst into three bicyclists traveling in the opposite direction.
The driver fled the scene, then he and his passenger abandoned the car a short distance later with the airbags deployed. The driver of the other car attempted to give chase after checking on the victims, but crashed into a guardrail.
It seems almost miraculous that only one of the victims was seriously injured. A second rider suffered major road rash after flying over the car, while the third rode into a ditch to avoid the crash.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Portland finished ripping out a bike lane that had allegedly been installed by mistake, after the initial work to remove it had been halted by protestors blocking the trucks.
They get it. Velo says ebike licenses won’t make the streets any safer, and rider regulation won’t stop the 7,500 pedestrians killed by cars each year.
………
………
Local
Yay, us. Los Angeles has topped both 300 murders and 300 deaths from traffic violence for the second year in a row.
No word yet on whether West Hollywood adopted its Vision Zero plan last night.
Santa Monica is considering a ballot measure for next November to tax parking garages to pay for transportation projects, including Vision Zero.
Redondo Beach has completed work on its portion of the new Diamond Street Bike and Pedestrian Path, after Torrance bailed on building its part of the pathway connecting the two cities.
State
Sad news from San Jose, where the Bay Area’s Mr. Roadshow died Sunday after a long battle with a degenerative muscle and nerve disease; prior to the paper’s draconian paywall, I often linked to his stories when he got it right, or to criticize when he missed the mark. Gary Richards was 72.
A Streetsblog op-ed says the contentious centerline protected bike lane on San Francisco’s Valencia Street could lead to a more pedestrianized, safer street that allows commerce to flourish — if cooler heads prevail, which seems unlikely.
National
Electrek lists their most popular ebike news stories of 2023.
Police in Goodyear, Arizona recommended that the driver who plowed into a group bike ride, injuring 19 people and killing two, face just eight misdemeanor charges after the local DA had rejected the case.
A Michigan man faces a murder charge for fatally stabbing another man in a fight that began over a bicycle. We’ve said it before — no bike is worth a human life. Just walk away.
He’s a Harvard administrator and amateur bike mechanic.
A man in the Bronx is still waiting for the ebike he ordered from Amazon, which was never delivered over a month later.
A kindhearted former Trek staffer is collecting and refurbishing bicycles to donate to people in Ghana and New Jersey, as well as homeless people in California.
An Alabama district court judge gave her former bailiff, now a college president, the new ebike she won in a raffle, to replace the bike that was stolen on his first day working for her.
International
‘Tis the season. Momentum offers a “Bikemas” guide to the best-selling bicycling gifts this holiday season.
A Canadian bike lawyer provides a guide to avoid getting doored, and what to do if you do.
Britain’s Bike Project is changing lives by donating refurbished bicycles to refugees.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is planning to charge owners of massive SUVs triple the normal parking fee in the central city, and double in other parts of the city in an effort to tax them off the streets.
Sad news from Swaziland, where award-winning travel photographer Steve Walton died after breaking his back in a fall off a narrow footbridge while riding his bike during an October safari; he was 69.
Here’s another one for your bike bucket list — a “magical ride” island hopping over bridges in the Indonesian city of Batam.
Competitive Cycling
Top triathletes are renting bikes to compete in the world championships, after the financial failure of a shipping company left many riders rides in limbo.
Orange Factory Racing is pulling out of mountain biking after 30 years.
Pez Cycling News considers what the shutdown of GCN+ and the shift of bike racing coverage to Max — formerly HBO — will mean for US cycling fans.
Finally…
When you’re riding your bike despite several outstanding warrants, put a damn light on it, already. Your next tandem ebike could have three wheels — all in a straight line.
And your next bike trailer could be amphibious.
Even if your bike isn’t.
………
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
Doses of bad news here today.
Incredible that the liberal Illinois Supreme Court would not hold municipalities responsible for bad roads that injure cyclists! Unbelievable!
AND
From Goodyear Arizona, I know that if it was 1990’s or 2000’s the Vehicular Crimes Division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office would have charged the guy who killed 2 cyclists with Manslaughter and plead it down to a Felony with some prison time at a minimum. He smoked pot and had traces of THC in his blood at the time of the crash, failed to control his vehicle–that is good enough to go. But today big city prosecution offices have been liberalized in their charging, prosecutors are not as aggressive, and we are all more in danger.
Very disturbing.