Just 181 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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Happy Independence Day!
There’s no better way to celebrate the 4th than with a good bike ride, whether you’re riding during the day or to the fireworks at night.
Just remember many people may have been drinking before they get behind the wheel, and many others driving distracted. Or both. And they may not be looking for someone on a bicycle.
So ride defensively this weekend. I don’t want to have to write about you or anyone else.
As for me, if past is prologue, my 4th will be spent all night huddled in a closet comforting a corgi terrified by the near constant bombardment of illegal fireworks outside our Hollywood neighborhood.
Good times.
We’ll see you again bright and early on Monday.
Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels.
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It’s now 195 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 37 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s ebike voucher program ran out after just 18 minutes when over 10,000 people attempted to claim one. This was the program’s second attempt to launch after the website crashed from high demand a few weeks ago.
Neve mind that the launch came just one year after the program was created by the legislature.
That compares with California’s still moribund program, which still hasn’t even attempted to launch yet. And probably won’t anytime soon after serious questions were raised about program administrator Pedal Ahead.
Which oddly hasn’t been mentioned anywhere other than in the local San Diego paper, despite its status as a failed statewide program.
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Sharrows only exist to help drivers improve their aim.
Sharrows should never happen. This driver used the parking lane to pass and cut off the cyclists. This is a 40+mph street. pic.twitter.com/kBzVWwGMue
— Anyone Can Bike (@AnyoneCanBike) July 2, 2024
Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry reports a bill to ban sharrows from high speed roadways is still alive in the state legislature, along with the Caltrans Complete Streets bill, but both have been whittled down to reflect the status quo.
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This has got to be one of the most evocative cycling photos I’ve seen.
The silence after Grand Départ. Firence, Italy. pic.twitter.com/Nj2AkIsU1C
— Maglio Nero (@maglionero12) July 1, 2024
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I forgot she was one of us, too.
https://twitter.com/cyclartist/status/1808199538345230525
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. After new separated bike lanes were installed on San Diego’s Convoy Street, a local TV station focused all its attention on anecdotal reports of customers avoiding the area due to a loss of previously super convenient parking spaces.
No bias here, either. London bicyclists want to know why the Royal Parks Service won’t allow early morning time trials in the city’s Richmond Park over concerns about speeding cyclists, but is going ahead with a much larger duathlon race consisting of running and bicycling.
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Local
The Los Angeles Times looks at California’s deadliest freeways, topped by I-15 in San Bernardino County and I-10 in Riverside County, with 48 deaths and 31 deaths in 2022, respectively. Another reminder that any transportation system that accepts death as a frequent and predictable consequence is an abject failure.
Speaking of freeways, Metro still plans to flush billions down the climate change-inducing, induced demand toilet by expanding the 605 and 5 Freeways.
State
A 77-year old San Diego man suffered severe, but not life-threatening injuries when he crashed his ebike into a raised curb in the Serra Mesa neighborhood.
A Santa Rosa mother joined with local bicyclists to call for the CHP to address an increase in hostility directed towards bicyclists, as well as stepping up the investigation into her son’s death after he was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike.
National
In a bizarre story, a Denver bicyclist was somehow killed when a driver rolled their vehicle over the center freeway divider, raising questions of just where the victim had been riding, which the local media doesn’t seem to be asking.
Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a suspect in the hit-and-run crash that killed an 82-year old man taking part in the five-day Tour of Nebraska last weekend.
A planned overhaul of the main concourse at Chicago’s Union Station will included expanded bike parking options, after respondents overwhelmingly preferred adding secure, indoor bike storage.
New York’s congestion pricing may not be dead after all, as political leaders attempt to persuade the state’s governor to accept a revised plan with a lower fee for motorists driving into Manhattan.
An off-duty New Jersey cop has been charged with a relatively minor third-degree felony for the hit-and-run that critically injured an 18-year old man riding a bicycle; he turned himself in after giving himself time to sober up the next day.
International
Bike Rumor looks forward to the return of the Eurobike trade show in Frankfurt, Germany this weekend.
Megan Lynch forwards a heartbreaking Mastadon post showing the work of an Australian woman who made a quilt from her husband’s bicycling jerseys, after he was killed while riding his bike.
Competitive Cycling
Tadej Pogačar climbed back into the yellow leader’s jersey on stage 4 of the Tour de France, dropping rival Jonas Vingegaard on the summit of the Col du Galibier on his way to a 45 second lead over the peloton.
Velo examines Biniam Gorman’s long journey from impoverished Eritrea to cycling stardom as the first Black African to win a stage at the Tour de France.
Greg LeMond remains the only American to officially wear the yellow jersey, after Tour de France stage and general classification wins by Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, David Zabriskie and George Hincapie were officially erased, as if both the wins and the people who won them had never existed.
Ouch. A Utah paper asks if anyone in America even cares that the world’s premier bike race has started.
Cycling News offers the best deals on bike gear inspired by the Tour.
Eight years ago, US Olympian Kristen Faulkner didn’t even know how to clip into her pedals; today, she’s a medal contender in the individual time trial at the Paris Olympics.
Finally…
Your next ebike could come with drone DNA. Apparently, riding your bike naked with a group is okay; riding naked alone not so much.
And forget debating, make Trump and Biden race bikes.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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