332 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So 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.
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.
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The Los Angeles Times offers a detailed voter guide to the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure, including a look at what it does and doesn’t do, as well as who supports and opposes it.
And there’s a lot more of the former than there is the latter.
The paper also provides election guides for the six-way race for the CD6 seat currently held by Imelda Padilla on an interim basis, as well as the two men challenging Nithya Raman in the reconfigured CD4.
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Update: This ride has been postponed until next Sunday due to risk of rain.
Safe Streets For SGV is hosting a moderately paced, nine-mile bike ride on Sunday to call for safer streets and promote better connections between Alhambra and South Pasadena.
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State Senator Scott Weiner describes his bill that would require speed governors in all new cars, which would “only” allow drivers to break the law by 10 mph.
Which sounds perfectly damn reasonable to me.
“I don’t think people have personal freedom to drive in a super dangerous way..”
State Senator @Scott_Wiener with me to discuss his new bill that would require all new vehicles sold in CA install speed governors to limit a vehicle’s speed to 10 mph above the speed limit. pic.twitter.com/jPD4X8hmNZ
— MarlaTellez (@MarlaTellez) January 30, 2024
Thanks to MYVOTECD1 for the heads-up.
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The latest episode of Bike Talk is available online now.
A listener, Reese, speaks for connected, protected bike lanes in Utah. 2:00
News: With pedestrian and cyclist deaths in Los Angeles at an 8-year high, the departing Los Angeles Police Chief blames their reckless biking and walking habits. In California, SB 961 calls for all new cars to have speed governors. A Die-in against traffic violence at LA City Hall. 7:12
When a 14 year old on his bike was hit by an uninsured motorist in Chicago, personal injury lawyer Jonel Metaj took the case all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. Now, people in Illinois with uninsured motorist coverage will be protected when biking and walking, too. 18:57
Alison Cohen is the founder of Bicycle Transit Systems, which operates bikeshare in cities throughout the US. She explains how BTS came to be threatened with replacement by Lyft in Los Angeles. 33:00
A Bike Thought by Stacey. 52:23
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Not only was Farrah Fawcett one of us, but she could clearly do “Look Ma! No hands!” with the best of them.
Born on this day, February 2:
Farrah Fawcett, actress (1947-2009), here showing an adeptness for riding with no hands.
Happy #BicycleBirthday, Farrah! pic.twitter.com/lefk3q94op— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) February 2, 2024
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It’s now 43 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 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.
This is why people keep dying on the streets. A couple of young Frenchmen walked without a single day behind bars for an eight-month series of attacks in which they leaned out of a moving car to push at least a dozen bike riders off their bikes and into ditches, and hit at least one man repeatedly with a small truncheon; they were both sentenced to two-year suspended sentences after telling the judge they were really, really sorry. No, really.
No surprise here. A pair of Australian teenagers were arrested for intentionally running down two Melbourne bicyclists in a stolen car last week, leaving the men with serious, potentially life-changing injuries, and posting video of the attack online. They joined a now worldwide social media-inspired trend of teens stealing cars and intentionally attacking people on bicycles — including recent attacks in Huntington Beach and Las Vegas — for no other reason than they can.
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Local
Metro announced plans to improve streets, bus stops and bike lanes along the 710 Freeway corridor, after cancelling plans to widen the freeway in the face of public opposition.
Seven Culver City cops will join the Police Unity Tour, riding 300 miles to honor fallen officers.
State
San Diego and Imperial counties will share $12 million in state infrastructure funding, including for bike and pedestrian projects.
The atmospheric river that poured through California yesterday left a Santa Barbara bike lane closed due to flooding, with no projected opening date.
National
Bike Rumor picks the year’s best bike handlebar bags.
SRAM issued a recall for all aftermarket 12-speed eTap AXS Red, Force, Rival and Apex shift-brake levers produced before July 2023 that were not installed by a bicycle dealer, telling owners to stop using them immediately.
Forbes recommends fat biking as one of “three winter adventurers (sic) you can’t afford to miss in Anchorage.” Especially since they finally have snow this year.
A kindhearted Maine high school resource cop called on a local bike shop to donate a refurbished bike for a kid who was struggling with attendance, leading to a new program accepting donated bikes for students.
A Baltimore letter writer says traffic calming doesn’t work, and new bike lanes will never lure people out of their motor vehicles, because cars.
After losing his own vision, a New Orleans man created a tandem bicycling group to allow blind people to keep riding.
International
Momentum offers seven “examples of stunning and inspiring bicycle infrastructure around the world.” None of which are in Los Angeles. Or North America, for that matter.
A longstanding worker-owned bike shop in London’s Brixton neighborhood is begging for donations to help it withstand the worst year in its two decade history.
Singer Harry Styles is one of us, spending the last day before he turned 30 riding through London in a quilted orange puffer jacket.
A new London study suggests male Sikh bike riders might not benefit from bike helmets, because the style and thickness of their turbans could already provide the best possible head protection.
British ebike brand Gocycle is introducing a futuristic take on the family e-cargo bike — as long as you have at least seven grand burning a hole in your bank account.
Unbelievable. A road raging Jersey teenage was acquitted of manslaughter for killing a bike rider with a single punch to the face, claiming he was frightened by the victim, despite repeatedly honking at him and getting out of his car to confront him after the man deservedly flipped him off.
This is who we share the road with. Italian saboteurs are cutting down speed cams, and ripping out speed humps to fight for their God-given right to speed.
The Jerusalem Post highlights the best selling bike phone mounts. One of which I already own.
A pair of Aussie researchers say e-scooter injuries are rising, but there’s not enough data yet to say if they’re more dangerous than other micromobility methods, such as bicycles.
Competitive Cycling
The first win of the 2024 cycling season goes to Belgian Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Tim Merlier.
Finally…
Why you shouldn’t trust your bike to the cheapest lock you can find at CVS. What happens when you let a Magic 8-Ball write your bike lane headlines.
And when the mayor’s office says just kidding about scrapping the city’s annual bike ride.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
