Just 215 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 all face on the mean streets of LA.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’ve inched up to 1,151 signatures, so don’t stop now! I’ll forward the petition to the mayor’s office later this week, so urge anyone who hasn’t already to sign it now!
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My apologies, once again.
Yesterday’s unexcused absence was the result of too many demands on too little time, resulting in my blood sugar circling the drain.
I’m just trying to get through one day at a time, while devoting myself full-time to caring for my injured wife, our uninjured dog and our ultra-messy apartment, while still trying to squeeze in enough time to write about bikes and do the work I love.
Because I really don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next several weeks until she finally gets back on her feet.
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Streets For All founder Michael Schneider strikes again, continuing to fight the good fight with another transportation related op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
Schneider takes California Governor Gavin Newsom to task for his ill-advised budget cuts to the state’s Active Transportation Program, in the face of the ongoing climate emergency.
California has ambitious climate goals: By 2045, the state wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85%, drop gas consumption 94% and cut air pollution 71%. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California is the transportation sector, with passenger vehicles making up the largest portion of that.
Curbing pollution from passenger vehicles won’t be easy. And if the state invests in the wrong infrastructure, those goals could become impossible. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal would be a big swerve in the wrong direction.
The $600 million Newsom calls for cutting from the ATP, at a rate of $200 million a year, won’t begin to make a dent in the state’s massive budget shortfall — let alone California’s bloated $18 billion highway fund.
Yes, that’s $18 billion, with a B.
Yet Newsom seems to think shifting the money from the already underfunded Active Transportation budget to filling potholes and widening highways will somehow send a message.
About what, I don’t know. Because it barely adds up to more than a rounding error in the state transportation budget.
Newsom might as well pile the money in the middle of the 5 Freeway and torch it, for all the difference it would make for the state’s highways. Which would probably cause a lot less harm to the environment than what he has in mind.
Yet that $200 million missing from the state’s Active Transportation budget could fund up to 200 miles of separated, mixed-use pathways. Or 2,000 miles of the kind of separated bike lanes that Los Angeles transportation officials like to pretend are protected.
Or even adequately fund California’s moribund joke of an ebike rebate program.
Any of which could actually get people out of their cars and benefit the environment, rather than continuing to do harm.
We can only hope the state legislature rejects Newsom’s proposed budget cuts.
Actually, we can do more than that. A lot more.
Like reach out to our elected representatives and demand — okay, politely request in the strongest possible terms — that we stop flushing massive amounts of money on wasteful highway spending, and put it to far more climate-friendly use.
Here’s what Schneider has to say.
…This month, the commission approved the controversial expansion of Interstate 80 between Davis and Sacramento, which will also cost hundreds of millions of dollars — equivalent to all funded active transportation projects in 2023. Why would we pump more money into projects that work against our climate goals?
The Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, under climate champion and Chair Sen. Scott Wiener, would most likely be amenable to rejecting the proposed cuts to active transportation. If so, it’s critical that L.A.-area Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Budget, gets on board as well. It would take both the Senate and the Assembly to override the governor’s proposal.
You can contact Asm. Gabriel here.
Meanwhile, Calbike reports the legislature’s proposed budget rescinds the governor’s cuts to the Active Transportation Program, so maybe some gentle encouragement is more appropriate.
Now they just need to stop wasting money on induced demand-inducing highway projects, and put it to better uses that won’t kill the planet.
Or those of us who live on it.
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Calbike provides an updated report on the bike bills still under consideration in the state legislature as it reaches the halfway point in this year’s legislative session.
As we noted before, the bold initiative to require speed limiting devices on all new cars has been modified to instead require easily ignored warnings for speeding drivers. It was also changed to accommodate the trucking industry’s reluctance to require life-saving sideguards, in an apparent attempt to keep their trucks as deadly as possible. .
The legislature also voted to keep bike riders in bike lanes at risk of right hooks by drivers. Although they probably wouldn’t phrase it quite like that.
And Oceanside Assemblymember Tasha Boerner’s bill to require a separate ebike license for anyone without a driver’s license has thankfully been amended to allow a local pilot of ebike age restrictions and an education diversion program for bicycling tickets, which is already allowed under state law.
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Freed from the Wall Street Journal’s draconian paywall, bike-riding Journal columnist Jason Gay offers a warm remembrance of bike-riding UCLA and NBA superstar Bill Walton, who died this week at 71.
Velo’s Bruce Hildenbrand remember’s the famous Deadhead, too.
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This is who we share the road with.
A Michigan man used Zoom to call into a court hearing about getting his suspended driver’s license back — while he was driving.
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It’s now 161 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
Meanwhile, as California dithers, the price of ebikes — along with children’s bikes and some carbon-frame bikes — is about to take a big jump, as the Biden administration is allowing a 25% jump in tariffs to take effect.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Damn good question. Momentum considers why riding a bicycle in the city is turning into a culture war.
Sacramento is planning to put an end to drivers illegally taking over a local bike path to avoid traffic.
Someone sabotaged the 52nd edition of Colorado’s Iron Horse Bike Classic on Saturday, tossing tacks on the roadway that flatted the tires of up to 50 riders — and could have resulted in serious injuries. Or worse.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
No bias here. A Washington resident blames speeding bicyclists after his doorbell cam captures video of a woman stepping onto a trail in front of a bike rider, who rings his bell in warning, before she gets hit by another bike rider coming the opposite way. Which sounds a lot more like someone crossing the trail without paying attention.
Streetsblog reports New York police are flooding the city’s popular Prospect Park amid a rise in tensions and vigilantism, after someone on a bicycle slammed into a pedestrian.
Bizarre story from the UK, where a man says he was threatened by a bicyclist just for complimenting the man’s bicycle as he walked past. Something tells me there has to be more to this story, which only makes sense if the bike rider somehow interpreted the compliment as a threat. Or was a complete psycho.
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Local
Metro offers a look inside their free Adopt a Bike program to provide bikes to residents of vulnerable communities, donating bicycles abandoned on the transit system each month.
Burbank’s popular Chandler Bike Path will mark its 20th anniversary this August, and My Burbank thinks that’s cause for a celebration.
Police in Hermosa Beach began a crackdown on scofflaw ebike and electric motorcycle riders. Which sounds a lot like illegal selective enforcement, unless they are equally targeting law-breaking drivers who put ebike riders at risk.
Caltrans wants your input on what new bike lanes planned for PCH in Long Beach will look like.
State
A 73-year old writer for Daily Kos explains why an old guy like him would ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles for next week’s annual AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.
The somewhat less-than-urbanist San Diego Reader says the bike lanes in Serra Mesa are out of control, road diets don’t always work, and the people of San Diego never voted for bike lanes. Except they did, when they elected officials who openly supported bike lanes. And just a hint — it’s not the bikes or bike lanes that make traffic back up, it’s too damn many cars.
A San Diego letter writer says the poor put-upon drivers who block bike lanes are only doing it because of a “deplorable” lack of convenient legal parking spaces, and no one uses them, anyway. Apparently not even the bike riders who complain about people blocking them with their cars.
Sad news from Kern County, where a 63-year old Oildale man was killed after allegedly riding his bike without lights after dark and crossing directly in front of an oncoming vehicle.
A confusing, over-capacity Oakland intersection is losing its slip lanes, and getting protected and buffered bike lanes.
The UC Davis student newspaper looks at the history of biking culture in the bike-friendly city. Although as frequent contributor and UC grad student Megan Lynch likes to point out, both the campus and the city could be a lot friendlier.
National
Planetizen examines the challenge of keeping scofflaw drivers out of new bus and bike lanes.
Departing Oregon US Rep. Earl Blumenauer thinks bicycling is on the verge of its big moment, and he wants to catalyze that revolution before he leaves Congress at the end of the year.
The Guardian reviews Matthew Modine’s Hard Miles, the fact-based movie where he leads a group of troubled Colorado teens on a grueling 700-mile, two-wheeled journey of discovery.
A 61-year old Black man is riding 1,000 miles from New York to Chicago to encourage Black Americans to adopt a healthier, plant-based lifestyle.
A Streetsblog op-ed calls on New Jersey to reject its misguided war on ebikes.
A North Carolina woman offers bike safety tips, seven months after she was sideswiped by a reckless truck driver while riding her bike, resulting in a long journey to recovery.
International
A pro bike mechanic says not everyone likes bicyclists, but everyone loves a small terrier of questionable parentage riding a bike in a rucksack.
Rapha has released its first bicycling-specific hijab as part of the company’s new modest-wear collection.
Good on him. The mayor of Quebec brushed aside opposition calls for a tax on bicyclists, arguing it would merely divide the population while punishing low-carbon road users.
Parents in Manchester, England are up in arms over a bike path “plonked” in the middle of a playground, forcing kids to cross it to use various equipment. As much as I hate to admit it, I wish I could say all bike riders are conscientious, polite and safety-conscious, but human nature dictates some will always be otherwise.
An “independent” study commissioned by Lime says London could reduce rental bicycle clutter on the city’s streets by simplifying ebike rules and creating more dockless bikeshare parking.
The Telegraph, which has been fanning the flames of bike hatred in recent weeks, surprisingly posts a bike-friendly column about what Britain can learn from the rest of Europe when it comes to protecting bicyclists.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old English man will mark his birthday with a ten-day, 450-mile ride up the west coast of Scotland.
The UK’s two leading political parties both promised the proposed dangerous cycling law that could imprison bike riders who kill for up to 14 years will be approved after the upcoming election, regardless of who wins. Meanwhile, British bike hero Chris Boardman says the moral panic about bike riders who kill is hateful and wrong, when drivers kill thousands more with impunity.
A new Swedish study shows the right road markings can support the development of bicycling.
Indian bicyclists are counter-intuitively looking forward to monsoon season, when the added greenery fueled by the monsoons offer a boost to their rides, despite the risk of soaked jerseys.
A 28-year old Ghanian man is riding 500 miles to the nation’s capital on a mission to prove bicycling can serve the main form of transportion for his fellow countrymen and women, despite the country’s severe weather conditions.
Congratulations to the third-generation head of Shimano on entering the ranks of Japan’s richest people.
Competitive Cycling
Australian cyclist Jay Vine has finally gotten the okay to resume “gentle” training, after recovering from spinal injuries he suffered in a high speed crash during April’s Tour of the Basque Country.
Colombian cyclist Miguel Ángel López — 3rd place finisher in the 2018 Giro and Vuelta, and 4th in the 2022 Vuelta — received a likely career-ending four year ban for doping yesterday; he’ll be 33 before he’s allowed back on a bike again.
More proof bikes mean life in disasters, manmade and otherwise. According to Cycling Weekly, “A Palestinian paracycling team based in war-torn Gaza now uses its bikes to transport food and supplies to local neighborhoods while keeping the Paralympic dream alive.” Seriously, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Now you, too, can have your name and logo on the Visma-Lease a Bike team jerseys for the Tour de France. I’d buy space for a BikinginLA patch, but somehow I don’t think an annual income in the high five figures would cover the cost.
Finally…
Your next bike could power itself with hydraulics instead of pedals. No, the law doesn’t say you can ride your bike naked — but it doesn’t say you can’t.
And your next bike ride could be a real high wire act.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
