Just 285 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.
We’re still stuck at 1,018 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
Actual image of Metro executive promising to complete LA River bike path, by Schwerdhöfer for Pixabay.
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So much for promises.
We were assured that the final segments of the LA River bike path would be finished in time for the 2028 Olympics, as part of the Twenty-Eight by 2028 initiative to accelerate transportation projects, announced with great fanfare by then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2017.
Here’s how Urbanize described the LA River path projects, both to be funded by LA’s Measure M sales tax increase.
- LA River Waterway & System Bike Path: The missing link on the LA River bike path through Downtown is scheduled for completion in 2025.
- LA River Bike Path and Mobility Hub – San Fernando Valley: LA River bike path improvements in the San Fernando Valley are also scheduled for completion in 2025.
That’s 2025. As in next year.
But now Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports Metro has punted the long-awaited projects off to some undetermined date in the future, likely long after the Olympics have come and gone.
28by28 yanked projects that won't be done by 2028: L.A. River bike path, Sepulveda transit/expresslanes, ESFV rail, lower 710, S.Bay C Line, A/E Wye, SE Gateway Line, Eastside E Line, 10 Freeway expresslanes pic.twitter.com/47nNmOuerN
— StreetsblogLA (@StreetsblogLA) March 20, 2024
I’m told the problem stems, at least in part, from a dispute over who would maintain the pathway, especially as it winds through DTLA and Vernon.
Metro is willing to fund the projects, but isn’t willing to assume responsibility for upkeep. Los Angeles will assume responsibility for the San Fernando Valley segment, but wants LA County to manage the other segment. And vice versa.
But apparently unwilling to sacrifice that catchy 28 by 28 branding, the projects will be replaced with a pair of mobility hubs in North Hollywood and the Sepulveda Basin.
Yay us.
Those weren’t the only projects replaced, of course. Metro swapped out several other transportation projects on the original list that remain unfinished, and likely to stay that way, with lower hanging fruit that will be easier, and/or cheaper, to accomplish — cutting the original $43 billion budget down to a more manageable $20 billion.
So until either the city or the county agrees to hold on to the hot potato, you can count on continuing to take obtuse, circuitous and unsafe surface street bypasses around the missing LA River bike path segments.
Olympics and bike safety be damned.
Just one more in a very long and growing list of promises broken by LA city leaders.
Revised Twenty-Eight by 2028 project list from LA Metro, by way of Streetsblog Twitter/X.
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Evidently, life is cheap in the national parks.
San Francisco’s bicycling community is justifiably outraged after federal prosecutors inexplicably gave the intoxicated driver who killed master’s cycling champ Ethan Boyes last year a very gentle slap on the wrist.
Or more of a soft caress, actually.
The feds got the case because Boyes was killed while biking on federal property in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park.
But instead of throwing the book at the killer DUI driver, prosecutors offered 81-year-old Arnold Kinman Low an exceptionally generous plea deal, with a maximum penalty of one year behind bars.
One lousy year for pleading guilty to misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter and operating under the influence of alcohol.
Even though killing someone while driving under the influence would have resulted in a minimum of four years in state prison, and a maximum of ten, if he’d been prosecuted in a California court.
But at least Low will have to serve the full sentence, since federal prisoners aren’t eligible for parole for terms of 12 months or less.
Small comfort, I know.
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This is who we share the road with.
A 78-year old San Francisco woman was arrested for the horrific crash that wiped out an entire Brazilian family celebrating the parents anniversary. Mary Fong Lau faces a long list of charges for the speeding, wrong-way crash into the bus stop where the parents waited with their two kids; the last surviving member of the family, the couple’s infant boy, died yesterday in a local hospital.
Heartbreaking news from Sacramento, where a two-year old girl was killed when a three-year old boy climbed out of his car seat and into the driver’s seat after his father stopped at a gas pump, and left his pickup running to go inside the station. The boy apparently shifted the truck into gear, and smashed into the girl as she stood near a taco stand at the edge of the parking lot.
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Click through the tweet below for a short thread on the lack of accountability for transportation departments for designing and building streets that are so dangerous, the entirely predictable deaths that follow shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
A driver who killed two children in LA was recently convicted of murder on the grounds that a reasonable person would know that speeding in a residential neighborhood is deadly. What if we applied the same standard to DOTs. “Nobody was surprised” when this man’s child was killed. https://t.co/EVUNfxH4bz
— Bella Chu (@bellachu10) March 21, 2024
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GCN offers tips on how to choose the right size bike.
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It’s now 92 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.
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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 Toronto bike lawyer suddenly had his mic cut after asking a city counselor to denounce anti-bicyclist comments made at a recent public forum that had devolved into a war of words, with one commenter threatening to run over any bike riders that get in his way.
No bias here, either. A UK petition calling for bicyclists to “display registration, pay road tax and have insurance” has closed after drawing just 353 signatures in six months.
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Local
Investing in Place considers the implications of LA’s newly approved Measure HLA, and what needs to be done to prevent implantation from devolving into a chaotic mess, and leaving already underserved communities behind.
Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, is looking for volunteers to help with next month’s Finish the Ride and Finish the Run in Griffith Park.
Metro is offering a new and improved on-demand process to rent their new and improved electronic bike lockers.
West Hollywood approved a Complete Streets makeover for Willoughby Ave, as well as parts of Gardner Street, Vista Street and Kings Road, replacing the existing sharrows with curb extensions, scaled traffic circles, protected bike lanes, wayfinding signs, a mini-park, and enhanced crosswalks near schools.
Pasadena wants your input on a proposal for quick-build Complete Streets improvements along Allen Ave to improve access to the Metro A Line Station, and connect to existing bike lanes on the city’s north side.
Santa Monica cops will conduct yet another Bike & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operation on Saturday, ticketing any driver, bicyclist or pedestrian who commits a traffic violation that could endanger anyone on two wheels or two feet. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits so you’re not the one who gets written up.
State
More on the Encinitas bicyclists calling for removal of a curb-protected bike lane on the coast highway, after a 48-year old man was found dead next to his cruiser bike early Sunday morning, even though there is no indication yet that the barriers played any role in his solo crash; Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette says the rash of bike crashes since the lanes were installed may be an argument to remove those barriers, but not all protected bike lanes.
A Palo Alto website says a proposal by Caltrans to install green bike lanes on busy El Camino Real is the wrong way to go, because it would encourage bicyclists to ride on a busy street interrupted with frequent entrances and exits, and other “ingress and egress interruptions.” Or is it just that only drivers deserve safe, direct routes to wherever they happen to be going?
National
Bicycling reports Strava is now giving you even more data to obsess over. Or you could just, you know, enjoy riding your bike, instead. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.
Cycling Weekly says forget Amazon’s Big Spring Sale if you’re looking for good deals on quality bikewear, although you can find some deals on bike tech.
Bike Portland says a whopping 94.5% of women and non-binary bicyclists responding to a recent survey reported some form of traumatic harassment while riding on the streets. Which should be astonishing, but sadly isn’t.
A Montana man says he hated ebikes, but using one to go elk hunting changed his mind. Although I suspect the elk might have a different opinion.
International
Cyclist considers the best titanium road and gravel bikes, as prices for Ti bikes continue to drop, while simultaneously going pretty damn far in the other direction, too.
Strong Towns examines how cold, hilly Montreal became a year-round bicycling success story.
With a timeline only Los Angeles could envy, Edinburgh, Scotland officially opened the city’s longest bike lane after a ten-year process, with a local councilor complaining that contractors had made a “pigs ear” of the installation work.
Manchester, England bike advocates are calling for the removal of new barriers recently installed to keep “antisocial motorcyclists” off a bridge forming part of the UK’s National Cycle Network, warning that the “unlawful, discriminatory” barriers would block access to anyone with a disability.
New hiking and biking trains will roll out of Prague to take bike riders and hikers to trails throughout the Czech countryside.
After nearly 60 years of riding, a 70-year old Gibraltar man calls for more bike lanes, as well as stricter regulation of e-scooters.
Finally…
Your next ebike could have an electronic crankset with an automatic transmission, and no chain or belt drive. That feeling when a groundbreaking rock opera becomes a Broadway musical because you fell off your bike.
And who needs a mountain when you’ve got an e-mountain bike in DTLA?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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