BikinginLA

Just 211 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 jumped up to 1,173 signatures, so don’t stop now! I’ll forward the petition to the mayor’s office in the next few days. So urge everyone you know to sign it now! 

Photo by Ana Arantes from Pexels.

………

Happy World Bicycle Day!

………

Just a quick note before we get started. 

I’m finally starting to feel a little better, almost two months after falling and injuring my ribs and back, and re-injuring my shoulder. My ribs are almost back to normal, and my back is getting there. On the other hand, I think my torn rotator cuff is just screwed at this point.

Also, a very kind person reached out to me last week and offered to come over and help around our apartment — the second time that’s happened since my wife and I have both been injured, after another BikinginLA reader generously offered to come do our shopping for us. 

I won’t embarrass them by sharing their names, but I truly appreciate their offers of help. And the kindness and generosity of the readers of this site, which I see every year during our fund drive, and throughout the year. 

So my sincere thanks to both of these people, and everyone who has given from their heart to help keep this all going. 

And speaking of keeping the lights on, please take a moment to thank Pasadena bike lawyer and longtime bicycling supporter Thomas Forsyth for renewing his ad for another year. 

Thank you. 

………

As you may know, I’ve been complaining for some time about Culver City’s regressive move to rip out the highly successful MOVE Culver City project.

Not only did they move quickly to remove the protected bus and bike lanes, combining them into a single shared lane, but they made the move without conducting the required environmental review.

A lawsuit contesting the removal without a CEQA review was filed in November, and will be heard Wednesday at the Los Angeles County Superior Court at 111 North Hill Street.

If you can make it, show up to show your support for the Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City, aka FFMCC, who filed the suit. And let me know what happens.

Here’s a press release from the group explaining the case.

Friends and Families for Move Culver City Invites Members of the Public to Attend the Hearing on June 5th for its Lawsuit Against City’s Planned Removal of Protected Bike Lanes and Pedestrian Protections from MOVE Culver City Project

Culver City, CA – Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City (FFMCC), a local advocacy group, invites members of the public to attend the hearing for its lawsuit to stop Culver City’s removal of critical infrastructure without proper California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review on June 5th at 1:30pm in Department 15 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. The group first raised concerns and filed a lawsuit challenging the Culver City Council’s plans to remove key transportation upgrades in October 2023. The Culver City Council disregarded its own data, hundreds of public comments, letters and warnings from the community, elected officials, businesses, lawyers and environmental and mobility advocates when it first voted to begin the process of removing elements of its MOVE Culver City project in April 2023. Local advocates assert that the City Council’s approval of a CEQA exemption to these modifications is a violation of the law, as it would remove a protected bike lane and pedestrian features to accommodate an additional lane of vehicular traffic without disclosing, analyzing, or mitigating the impacts of those changes in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

Despite the warning, in January 2024, the Culver City Council voted to approve funding for a construction contract related to the removal of safety upgrades in the Move Culver City Corridor.

Following the vote, FFMCC filed a lawsuit in October 2023. A copy of the opening brief can be viewed here.

“We’re confident in the strength of our case and expect the judge to rule in our favor,” says Yotala Oszkay Febres-Cordero, Chair of Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City, the plaintiff in the case. “The city clearly violated CEQA by voting to exempt the project from environmental review, ignoring the indisputable fact that replacing a protected bike lane with an additional lane for cars, and removing pedestrian safety features, poses significant threats to public health and safety. This is precisely why CEQA was enacted, to provide notice to and protect communities when a planned project generates these environmental threats.” FFMCC is represented by attorneys Ellis Raskin, Jillian Ames, and Jenny Dao of Hanson Bridgett LLP.

In moving forward with this trial, FFMCC hopes to show the City that proper CEQA review pursuant to state law must be adhered to before any environmentally hostile modifications are made to the MOVE Culver City corridor.

About Friends and Families for Move Culver City

Friends and Families for Move Culver City was formed in response to the Culver City Council’s 3-2 vote to declare modifications to the MOVE Culver City project exempt from CEQA and to proceed with the removal of protected bike lanes, pedestrian protections and safety measures, and the addition of vehicle lanes along Washington Blvd and Culver Blvd in Culver City. Following the council vote on 9/11/2023, a GoFundMe was organized which raised more than $15,000 in less than two weeks, with nearly 200 donations from community members opposing the City’s plans.

………

Bike Talk talks with the author of The Art of Cycling in this week’s episode, dropping on Thursday.

James has a great philosophy on life and biking in his book. Interview drops Thursday June 6th at https://t.co/VtD1myEFck @bikinginla @heybikela @biketalkpfk

— Taylor Nichols (@Taylor_Nichols7) June 2, 2024

………

The popular bike blogger known as Bike Shop Girl has created a new website focused on the cargo bike life.

Yesterday was my last day at Tern, and today, I am launching Cargo Bike Life to build a community and resources for those who want to be part of something bigger.https://t.co/iBl3tfAZjl pic.twitter.com/ruRolIqwFy

— Arleigh Greenwald (@bikeshopgirlcom) June 2, 2024

………

It’s now 165 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And three full years since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

An English bike rider suffered broken bones and a punctured lung when masked “thugs” on motorbikes pushed him off his bike while riding on a segregated bike lane, in what may or may not have been a bikejacking attempt.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Montreal saw a 20% jump in tickets issued to people on bicycles from 2022 to 2023. Which either means people are riding worse, or the cops are cracking down more.

………

Local 

LAist explores the pushback on traffic safety efforts, as people fight to keep the roads dangerous and keep their God-given right to go zoom zoom all they want, damn the consequences.

Pasadena is already on the verge of being a 15-minute city.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole an adaptive custom tricycle from a young Lawndale girl with a rare neurological disorder.

 

State

Calbike remembers the late, great Bill Walton.

A travel website selects seven surprisingly scenic and bikeable cities in California. Although they list Los Angeles at number six, just ahead of San Diego, which suggests they’ve never actually been here.

The annual AIDS/LifeCycle Ride is underway, with people from around the world riding 540 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles this week; the fundraising ride will end in LA this weekend.

Sad news from Fresno, where a 50-year old man was killed riding in the downtown area; police blamed the victim for making an unsafe turn.

A new Marin County bikeway is a downpayment on a long-planned north-south bikeway reaching across the entire county.

Bay Area bike riding is about to get safer, as work begins to install 22 bicycling turnouts on deadly Mt. Diablo. Then again, when you name a mountain after the devil, you’re tempting fate, anyway.

 

National

Momentum lists the best US bike routes to check out this summer.

Paramedics in Anchorage, Alaska gave a young girl a new bicycle after a “distressing” incident that left her impaled by the brake lever on her bicycle, threatening her femoral artery.

An Arizona man says he could have been killed after he was knocked off his bike by the wing mirror of a passing RV.

Tragic news from Colorado, where an eight-year old girl was chased down and killed by a raging moose as she rode her bike.

Life is cheap in Texas, where killing a kid riding his bicycle is just an “oopsie.”

A New York man was the victim of illegal parking, killed when he crashed his ebike into an unattended semi-truck and trailer double parked in the traffic lane.

The sitting President of the United States was sitting on a bike seat in Delaware this weekend as he went for a ride with his son, Hunter, who will go on trial this week on federal gun charges.

He gets it. A writer for the Palm Beach Post says bicyclists risk their lives to ride in West Palm Beach, and it’s time the city did something to protect them.

 

International

A new study shows making a habit of riding a bicycle can keep your knees young.

Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail patiently explains why it’s not a good idea to put bike lanes in the middle of the road. Something San Francisco probably should have read before the whole Valencia Street fiasco.

A ten-year old British girl was injured when some jackass threw a kid’s bike off a multi-story housing unit, hitting the child below.

Bollywood actress Rakul Preet Singh is one of us, as she shares her thoughts on biking in Mumbai for today’s World Bicycle Day.

The India Times profiles billionaire bike rider and software entrepreneur Sridhar Vembu.

Beijing, China is experiencing an ultra-cycling boom, but hopes for the country’s hydrogen-powered bikeshare bikes are rapidly deflating.

A group of Aussie professors, lecturers and researchers examine why so few of their countrymen and women ride bikes, and offer suggestions on how to get the country back on two wheels.

 

Competitive Cycling

Australia’s Lachlan Morton and Germany’s Rosa Maria Klöser won the men’s and women’s divisions, respectively, of America’s premier gravel race, the Life Time Unbound Gravel 200 in Kansas over the weekend. Read it on AOL this time if Bicycling blocks you. 

Morton won in a record time, despite making a wrong turn on the course.

A columnist for Cycling Weekly says it’s okay if pro cyclists hate cycling sometimes, because the rest of us have our ups and downs, too.

Tadej Pogačar’s agent proclaims post-ride beers are good for you.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your local bikeway has been around for 126 years. Your next graphene-reinforced bike lock could be axle-grinder resistant.

And who needs a bike seat when you can weld three chairs to your mamachari bike?

………

Thanks to Cassandra Fulgham for her donation to help support this site — and possibly help defray that ambulance ride and ER visit. As you probably know by now, donations of an amount, no matter how large or small, are always welcome and appreciated, whatever the reason.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin