Just 291 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 to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
As of this writing, we’re up to 1,017 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
Photo by Max J from Pexels.
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Let’s start with a look at California’s virtually moribund ebike incentive program, and its ongoing failure to launch.
It’s now 86 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
The program is now scheduled to launch by the end of July, which is something we’ve heard before. Like, this time last year.
So go ahead Charlie Brown, kick the football. They’re serious this time.
No, really.
Yesterday the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, held a virtual meeting to get still more feedback on the program. Because evidently, three years of input just wasn’t enough.
Here’s how Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry described yesterday’s clown show, um, meeting.
The team held a public workgroup today to update progress on the program, and there’s not much to report. The official program launch is now “sometime in the second quarter of 2024,” but it’s hard to trust that information when the team has been promising to “launch soon” for more than a year.
The main purpose of today’s meeting was to get feedback on a proposal to accept applications via multiple “application windows,” rather than all at once with a single application deadline. The point would be to provide more opportunities for people to apply for the incentives, as well as “the opportunity to fine tune the project between application windows,” according to CARB staff. There was no word on whether the fine-tuning would be an opportunity for CARB staff, for its contractor Pedal Ahead, or both.
Despite the many heart and thumbs-up emojis that floated past while team lead Shaun Ransom was explaining the question, only two of the people who were able to comment during the workshop’s time frame responded to it.
Here’s where the program currently stands.
That compares with Denver’s highly successful ebike rebate program, which has paid out at least $10 million over the past two years — despite having less than 2% of California’s population.
As Curry points out,
That comes to between 500 and 800 individual incentives for that first batch of funding, maybe 1500 for the total amount.
Meanwhile, Denver’s program has funded nearly 8,000 ebike vouchers worth a minimum of $1,250 each, even before this year’s latest round of vouchers.
Which means you’re not likely to get one, even if you qualify.
Then there’s this, as the voucher program continues its failure to address key issues, despite having nearly three years to get everything buttoned down.
Top issues with @AirResources — non-UL certified e-bikes allowed to purchase via voucher; bike shops not near lower income communities; consumer direct brands provide little to no service after purchase; no way of tracking impact on reducing car trips; how to communicate program.
— Ellectrek (@Ellectrek) March 14, 2024
Not to mention that the program was supposed to be run through local bike shops, rather than online sales, to boost their business and provide a local source for service.
So if you’re starting to feel like you’ve been suckered, you’re probably right.
And you’re not alone.
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Bike and traffic safety friendly incumbent CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman won re-election in last week’s primary election, narrowly avoiding a fall runoff by edging over the 50% mark despite being massively outspent by opponents to her right.
Other incumbents winning re-election include Imelda Padilla in CD6, Marqueece Harris Dawson in CD8, and the ethically challenged John Lee in CD12, who has allegedly been implicated in the bribery scandal that toppled his predecessor and former boss, Mitch Englander.
The other ethically challenged incumbent, CD14’s Kevin de León, will face off against tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado, who edged de León in the primary; de León has repeatedly refused to resign, despite being the only councilmember left who participated in the infamous racist phone call that toppled also toppled then-Council President Nury Martinez.
Unelected CD10 incumbent Heather Hutt will face attorney Grace Yoo, who previously lost to Mark Ridley Thomas and Herb Wesson for the same seat; Ridley Thomas was forced to resign after he was convicted on a federal bribery charge.
Anyone notice a theme here?
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This is why people keep dying on our streets.
New York inexplicably gave a driver’s license to a man who had been arrested four times for driving without one. He then proceeded to rack up eight speed-cam tickets in just the last ten months, on a truck that was still licensed out of state.
All of which the state knew about in the months before he killed an eight-year old boy who was walking home from school last week.
Just one more very sad example of keeping a dangerous driver on the streets until it’s too late.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a woman is demanding action after police determine there’s “not enough detail” to charge a hit-and-run bus driver who just drove off after knocking her off her bike.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
London’s Telegraph complains that the city is building more floating bus stops, even though some bicyclists don’t stop for pedestrians like they’re supposed to. Seriously, don’t do that. It only takes a few seconds to observe the right-of-way, and let pedestrians pass.
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Local
Alhambra’s city council unanimously approved a new bike and pedestrian plan, which was delayed for two months to get more community input. Although as we’ve learned the hard way, getting a plan approved is meaningless unless it’s actually funded and implemented, regardless of apparent support.
A paraplegic Palmdale man says riding a handcycle in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon fulfills his wildest dream.
LA County will spend $250 million to widen the Old Road in Stevenson Ranch to six lanes, while adding a protected bike lane in each direction. It costs an average of $1 million a mile to build a protected bike lane, which means they could build ten miles of protected lanes on both sides of the roadway, and still return $230 million change.
Santa Monica once again learned the hard way that free parking isn’t free; it cost the city $26,000 in lost revenue to provide free parking in city lots the last three days before Christmas, which resulted in exactly no benefit to local businesses.
Speaking of SaMo, the city is encouraging bicyclists to register their bikes through Bike Index or Garage 529 before May’s National Bike Month; you can sign up for lifetime free registration with Bike Index right here, as well as report a stolen bike or check their nationwide stolen bike registry. Full disclosure, I don’t get a damn thing for hosting Bike Index on this site, aside from the satisfaction of helping thwart bike thieves.
State
Survivors of a fallen Bakersfield bike rider filed a claim against the county, alleging dangerous conditions on the roadway where she was killed by a driver last year, including inadequate lighting, traffic signals and signage.
San Mateo bicyclists and traffic safety advocates are demanding answers after a hit-and-run driver left a bike-riding 62-year old woman with a broken back.
National
A new AI-powered device promises to use “computer vision” to alert bike riders to cars and other dangers on the roadway. So they expect us to rely on the same technology that draws people with three legs, and makes up various “facts.”
He gets it. Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus says the reason more people aren’t biking is too many cars, with too many driven without regard for others.
Now this is a bike travel guide, as a Boulder CO weekly offers tips on where to stop for food and drinks on your next long-distance ride.
Denver promises to plow bike lanes, as the city prepares to get up to 20 inches of snow, though bike riders are warned they may have to share traffic lanes with motorists. And yet, we’re somehow told that no one will ride a bike during LA’s temperate winters.
Kindhearted Indiana cops gave a new bike to a 12-year old boy whose bike was destroyed when he was hit by a bus; fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.
That’s more like it. A bill in the Vermont legislature will give bike riders priority at intersections and require a four-foot passing distance.
New York Streetsblog celebrates the new Citi Bike bikeshare dock at the former Shea Stadium, now Citi Field, allowing bikeshare users to ride to a Mets game. But then you’d have to actually watch them play, so hard pass.
A $9.6 million federal grant will fund a nearly nine-mile bike and pedestrian path between two Mississippi towns, as part of a project to widen US 90 from four to six lanes. So call it a win-lose for the environment and induced-demand.
International
Canadian Cycling Magazine argues there should be tax incentives to buy and ride a bicycle. There should be some on this side of the border, too.
A BBC radio host is riding the “staggering distance” of 500 km across the country — the equivalent of 310 miles — to raise funds for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day. Or as randonneurs call a distance like that, Tuesday.
Bike-riding BBC host Jeremy Vine is suing a former Man City soccer player for calling him a “bike nonce.” Which I might find offensive, too, if I knew what the hell it meant.
Competitive Cycling
Cycling Weekly tips two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar to win Saturday’s Milan-San Remo, the longest one-day race in pro cycling.
The UCI Ethics Commission fined Soudal Quick-Step team boss Patrick Lefevere for making disparaging comments about women, including suggesting that women drink too much, and that many female pros aren’t worth pro cycling’s current minimum wage.
Finally…
This is what it looks like when unloved bicycles are left to die alone. Just let the billionaires pay for a pod to change out of your sweaty clothes after a bike commute.
And that feeling when you promise to ride a bike to see your friends, after getting busted for driving an uninsured vehicle with an expired driver’s license.
At 103 years old.
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Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today.
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
