Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to hear the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
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The campaign for the Healthy Streets LA ballot initiative kicked off this week
The measure on the March ballot would require the city to build out the already approved Mobility Plan whenever a street gets repaved.
Here’s how California Local effectively framed the issue.
In 2022, a year in which 312 people died in Los Angeles traffic—more than half, 159, pedestrians—the city council in California’s largest city took up a measure that would have required the city to put new traffic safety features in place whenever it repaved a street.
The 15-member council rejected it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, 2022’s traffic fatality numbers, the worst in 20 years, only got even worse in 2023. That year, 330 human beings lost their lives in L.A. traffic, according to police statistics (the numbers did not yet include the final week of 2023). Now, in 2024, the measure, known as “Healthy Streets L.A.,” will get another chance, and this time the verdict will be up to Los Angeles voters.
The city approved the innovative Mobility Plan in 2015 to improve safety while providing safe and efficient alternatives to driving.
Then promptly put it on the shelf and forgot all about it; only a tiny fraction of the plan has been built out in the more than eight years since.
In that time, traffic congestion has only gotten worse in Los Angeles, and our streets even deadlier.
But now you can force the city to do what the city council didn’t have sufficient courage and political will to do, simply by casting your vote for Healthy Streets LA in the March 5th election.
And help make our streets safer and more inviting for all of us.
Crazy stat from @healthystreetla – in 2022, more pedestrians died on Vermont Avenue than in the state of Vermont.
Los Angeles is the most dangerous city for pedestrians in the United States! https://t.co/uKpuo0SwZl
— L.A. in a Minute (@LaInaMinute) January 16, 2024
https://twitter.com/bikinginla/status/1747516957098934559
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Extending the popular Ballona Creek bike path took a small step towards becoming reality, as CD 10 Councilmember Heather Hutt introduced a motion directing Los Angeles officials to seek funding from the state Active Transportation Program.
The motion — council file 2023-0616 — will be heard at today’s meeting of the LA City Council Transportation Committee.
However, the proposal could be complicated by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget, which borrows $200 million from future ATP spending to help close a budget gap that may or may not exist.
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Jury selection began Tuesday for 60-year old Hidden Hills socialite and philanthropist Rebecca Grossman, who stands accused of murder in the death of two young boys as she raced through Westlake Village at speeds up to 81 mph.
Grossman, the co-founder of the Grossman Burn Center, is accused of killing 8-year old Jacob Iskander, and his 11-year old brother Mark as they crossed the street more than three years ago.
The married woman was allegedly having an affair with former Dodger Scott Erickson, and was zig-zagging Erickson’s car as they raced to a nearby home after drinking in a local restaurant.
Neither car stopped after Grossman allegedly slammed into the two boys as they crossed the street with their family, while riding a scooter and skateboard.
According to the Los Angeles Times,
“The speed was insane,” (Nancy Iskander) said of the two SUVs. “They were zigzagging with each other as if they were playing or racing.
“They didn’t stop before the intersection. They didn’t stop at the intersection. They didn’t stop when an 11-year-old was on the hood of the car. … Nobody stopped,” Iskander testified.
In fact, Grossman continued nearly half mile after the collision that killed the boys.
The details of the crash are horrific, justifying the charges.
Grossman, 60, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death in connection with the fatal Sept. 29, 2020 collision. The murder counts are somewhat unprecedented as Grossman was not charged with driving under the influence, which is typically used to prove gross negligence in vehicular fatalities…
Jurors will probably hear from former L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Apodaca, who specializes in traffic crashes. During the preliminary hearing, he testified that he calculated Grossman was driving 71.7 mph when she struck the boys and that the car computer showed 73 mph. Under cross-examination, he said the older child, Mark, was struck by the vehicle and thrown 254 feet, the farthest he has known a human to be tossed in a crash.
Another deputy, Rafael Mejia, testified he had found Grossman a third of a mile away from the crash, stopped at the curb and saying she didn’t know why her airbag had been triggered.
Everyone is presumed innocent until they’re convicted, even overly entitled accused killers.
Let’s just hope her money doesn’t buy an undeserved acquittal.
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27 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 30 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law, and counting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A columnist for the London Times wrote about a new study showing bike commuters enjoy better mental health, before devolving into a nearly deranged anti-bicyclist rant about “a mass of angry, intolerant, semi-psychotic Strava men.”
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Local
No news is good news, right?
State
Former Caltrans deputy director for planning and modal programs Jeanie Ward-Waller is back working with Calbike as a consultant; Ward-Waller worked for the bike advocacy group prior to being hired by Caltrans, before she was fired by the agency after blowing the whistle on a Sacramento highway project.
California’s daylighting law is now in effect, prohibiting drivers from parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk, whether marked or otherwise; California law presumes there is a crosswalk at every intersection even if it’s not painted, unless there’s signage indicating otherwise.
Encinitas approved $1.1 million in bicycle safety improvements, a year after declaring a state of emergency following the death of a 15-year old Brodee Braxton Champlain-Kingman as he rode an ebike in the city.
Santa Barbara is the latest California city to approve a Vision Zero plan; the city intends to focus on bike riders and pedestrians in an effort to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. But as we’ve learned from painful experience, any Vision Zero is only as good as the commitment of city officials to actually implement it.
A Clovis man pled not guilty to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for crashing his $170,000 sports car head-on into a 51-year old Fresno college instructor and mother of five as she rode her bicycle, after he allegedly failed to negotiate a curve and crossed onto the wrong side of the road while speeding.
Sad news from Merced, where a 49-year old man was killed in a collision while riding his bicycle; police blamed the victim for wearing dark clothing and not having a light on his bike.
More sad news, this time from Sonoma County, where a woman was killed when she took a a curve at high speed on her bicycle and went off the roadway, crashing into a tree that had fallen near the shoulder.
National
Momentum rates the best American cities to live in for bicyclists. None of which is Los Angeles, of course.
A new short film streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Google Play documents filmmaker Daniel Troia’s seven-month ride from New York City to San Francisco without food or money, relying on the kindness of strangers as a hidden camera captures the best and worst of humanity.
International
He gets it. Quebec’s coroner responded to the death of a bike-riding father killed by a speeding driver with a suspended license by calling for increased penalties for reckless drivers. There should also be jail time for anyone who drives on a suspended or revoked license.
Glasgow, Scotland is giving low-income residents free bikeshare memberships.
The London Cycling Campaign released a new report titled “What Stops Women Cycling in London?,” which reveals a “shocking” level of abuse directed towards women bike riders, with nine out of ten saying they’ve been subjected to abuse just for riding a bicycle. Although that probably only comes as a shock to most men.
Ireland’s Minister of State accuses the country’s drivers of developing a culture of recklessness. Sort of like drivers in Los Angeles. And probably everywhere else.
A new Spanish study of eight cities around the world reveals that humble bike buses are a route to bicycle activism.
A 26-year old Indian man is riding from that country to Australia to promote environmental awareness.
Where to ride with family and friends on your next trip to the Unites Arab Emirates.
Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Cambodia has opened a new bike bridge to make it easier to visit the legendary Angkor Takeo Temple by bicycle.
Kiwi bicyclists gave scathing reviews to new “bland, ugly” barriers installed on a bike path to slow riders, while local officials insisted the barriers are working to prevent crashes.
Competitive Cycling
Thirty-two-year old Olympic gold medalist track cyclist Melissa Hoskins was remembered by family, friends and teammates at her funeral in her hometown of Perth, Australia yesterday; her husband, pro cyclist Rohan Dennis, faces charges for allegedly running over her after she fell from the hood of his pickup as she tried to open the door.
The Washington Post discovers the many joys of mucking through the mud that is Belgian cyclocross.
The fledgling National Cycling League announced the teams competing for this year’s cup, as nine of the teams who took part last year will return in 2024. Unfortunately, none are based in Los Angeles.
A bike transport company has finally released 186 bikes held hostage in a contract dispute following the Triathlon World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain last fall; however, the owners will have to retrieve them from a Los Angeles warehouse.
Finally…
There could be less shrinkage in Wisconsin, as the state senate voted to ban naked bike rides. Impress your family and friends with a doctorate in cargo bike urbanism.
And maximizing torque through weird bike engineering.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
Is it just me, or were there no negative comments about the Encinitas bike lanes? Generally reporters go out of their way to find someone to complain.
Regarding best cities for cycling article: Reviewers apparently have never been to Irvine, CA and Newport Beach, CA which has by far the best cycling infrastructure in the US. I cycle there over 35 miles on a path before even being concerned with a car and that is just one of many cycle tracks in those cities.
The Wisconsin Senate does not have the autonomous authority to ban naked bike rides. They have passed bills to seek to do so, but those bills must next be passed by the other house (the Wisconsin Assembly), and then given to the governor to sign, which he very well may not do, choosing to veto instead. Under the current legislature schedule, the soonest that could happen would be April 4.
You’re right. My wording was clumsy.