Just 112 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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That’s more like it.
A Sacramento middle school was able to reduce tardy arrivals and boost attendance by giving bicycles to students with attendance problems, so they can ride to school.
According to the local CBS NEWS station,
“Attendance is everything,” said Michael Rosales, an attendance technician at Mills Middle School. “The child cannot learn if they aren’t here. The child can’t be social if they aren’t here.”
“Traffic is horrible around here, and sometimes, if we can alleviate that where the child can ride to school, it helps the parents get the other students to their schools on time,” he said.
Now all they need is enough safe infrastructure to protect the kids on their way to class, and make their parents feel comfortable letting them ride there.
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Calbike recounts the bills passed by the legislature this year that they want to governor to sign, including:
- Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961 (Wiener): The second half of Senator Wiener’s street safety package, which CalBike sponsored along with the Complete Streets Bill, will require most cars, trucks, and buses sold in California to include passive intelligent speed assist (ISA) by 2030. ISA gives drivers a signal when they exceed the speed limit by 10 miles per hour and can help prevent speed-related collisions, saving lives. It is already required in Europe and uses existing technology that is widely available.
- Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086 (Schiavo): An excellent complement to the Complete Streets Bill, this measure will require Caltrans to account for where California’s transportation dollars go. It will be an essential tool for advocates who want to make sure our spending matches our climate and equity goals.
- Banning Bridge Tolls for People Walking and Biking, AB 2669 (Ting): This bill makes permanent a measure that sunsets next year. It allows toll-free crossings for people who walk or bike across toll bridges. It will have the biggest impact in the Bay Area, which has several toll bridges with bicycle and pedestrian lanes.
- Bike Lanes in Coastal Areas, SB 689 (Blakespear): This bill limits the ability of the Coastal Commission to block the development of new bikeways on existing roads in coastal areas.
- Limits on Class III Bikeways, SB 1216 (Blakespear): Class III bikeways are lanes shared by bike riders and car drivers. While they may be appropriate for neighborhood streets and some other contexts, they are sometimes used in place of more protective infrastructure because the cost is much lower. This bill would limit the use of state funding to create Class III bikeways on high-speed routes. It was originally in conflict with a provision of AB 2290, but since that bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee, we’re happy to see this measure reach the governor’s desk.
- E-Bike Battery Safety Standards, SB 1271 (Min): This bill requires all e-bikes sold in California to use batteries with safety certifications. It will help prevent most, if not all, battery fires, as those are usually caused by substandard batteries.
- Unsafe Speed Penalties, SB 1509 (Stern): Continuing the speed theme, this bill would increase penalties for speeding more than 25 mph over the speed limit on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or less.
Not included on the list are some key bills that didn’t make it through the legislature, including bills to create a quick build bike lane pilot program at Caltrans, and once again pass a Stop As Yield bill for the governor to veto.
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In a followup to yesterday’s lead story, Meredith Gaudreau, the wife of fallen bicyclist and NHL star Johnny Gaudreau, announced at the funeral of Johnny and his brother Matthew that she is pregnant, too, just like Matthew’s wife — which mean’s neither kid will ever know their father.
Meanwhile, Katie Gaudreau, sister of the two Gaudreau brothers, revealed she learned about her brothers deaths on the day of her wedding, and engraved their initials into her wedding ring as a memorial to them.
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It’s now 264 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 39 full 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 New Jersey radio broadcaster says he’s going to feel really bad when he hits your kid “doing stupid stuff” on his bike.
A Miami cop got fired for driving off when witnesses to a fatal hit-and-run asked him to help the victim, who had been riding an ebike, telling them to find someone else. And he should have been, too.
No bias here. A Toronto cop got into a heated exchange with people on a memorial ride for a fallen bicyclist, insisting they needed to keep moving after they paused near the crash site for a moment of silence.
Yesterday as cyclists on a ghost bike ride prepared to leave the crash site a lone @TorontoPolice officer lost his cool, creating a situation of danger in a roadway. As I tried to assure him we were on our way he threatened to arrest me & thru my bike on the ground 1/3 #bikeTO pic.twitter.com/AMovLvKcf5
— The Biking Lawyer (Dave Shellnutt) (@TheBikingLawyer) September 8, 2024
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A London writer says progressive politicians and responsible bicyclists need to speak up against the “everyday menace of antisocial behavior by cyclists” who dump ebikes and casually break the rules, giving us all a bad name.
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Local
Streetsblog reminds us about this Sunday’s CicLAmini on Broadway in Lincoln Heights.
State
A Laguna Nigel man completed a cross-country fundraising ride from Seattle to New York last month, but is still collecting donations in an attempt to raise $25,000 for the 13 American service members who were killed in the bombing at Kabul airport in Afghanistan three years ago.
San Diego officials defended the planned Normal Street Promenade in the Hillcrest neighborhood — complete with a fully separated bikeway — despite a nearly 50% increase over previous estimates, calling it a model for park-deprived neighborhoods throughout the city.
San Francisco’s successful, but highly unpopular Valencia Street centerline protected bike lane will be moved to a more traditional curbside position, possibly as soon as January.
After a local news site asked a police use-of-force expert to review the recent pepper spraying and arrest of a couple teenagers by a Redding cop, the expert concluded that the cop never gave them the required warnings or attempted to de-escalate the situation.
National
She gets it. A writer for Clean Technica says we can’t let governments regulate ebikes to death.
Glamour recommends the best gifts for bicyclists — some of which you might actually want, for a change.
The tony resort town of Vail, Colorado is offering six free ebikes to essential low-income workers employed in the town, defined there as earning less than $58,000 a year.
Here’s another reason to ride a bike. A Texas couple got married in front of 1,800 people at a Waco bike race because bicycling brought them together. No one can guarantee you’ll find true love, of course. Except you’ll probably love your bicycle.
This is why people keep dying on our streets. A 68-year old man riding near the end of a Fort Worth, Texas group ride was killed when a woman entering from a side street drove through the group, hitting the victim with enough force to kill him instantly — but won’t be charged after she remained at the scene, and was very distraught. Although I imagine the victim’s loved ones were even more distraught.
This is why people stop riding their bikes. A 70-year old Texas man says he’s never getting on another bike after he was the victim of a hit-and-run.
He gets it. A Mad City driver and bicyclist says yes, there are several factors causing traffic problems in the city, but the bike lanes ain’t one of ’em.
A New York father faces charges for failing to secure his guns after his 11-year old son came out carrying a shotgun, and ordered a 13-year old boy riding a bicycle to get away from their house. But it’s okay, ’cause he never pointed it at the kid or anything.
International
Bike Radar offers a size guide for women’s bikes of every type.
The Department of DIY struck in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where someone spray painted their own bike lane and bike box at an intersection where a woman was fatally right hooked by a cement truck driver last year.
Oops. Belfast, Ireland opened a new Grand Central Station for buses without a single bicycle parking space, forcing people to lock their bikes anywhere they can.
A new survey says no, New Zealanders aren’t “sick and tired” of spending tax money building bike lanes, despite what the country’s Transport Minister claims.
Competitive Cycling
Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic tied the record by winning his fourth Vuelta on Sunday, finishing over two and a half minutes ahead of second place Ben O’Connor, while Enric Mas finished third. Sepp Kuss was the top American finisher at 14th.
Brennan Wertz and Lauren Stephens won the men’s and women’s US Gravel National Championships this past weekend.
Thirty-five-year old former pro Serghei Tvetcov successfully transitioned to gravel racing after leaving the WorldTour when he was diagnosed two years ago with chronic myelogenous leukemia, an incurable blood cancer.
Finally…
Bicycling is where carmakers come to die. Who needs a car for a 24-hour Nürburgring endurance race when you’ve got a bicycle?
And that feeling when your campaign ad features your goggle-wearing dog riding in a bucket bike.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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