Just 106 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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I neglected to thank Erik G and Robert L last week for their generous donations to help out with my shoulder issues, and keep this site coming your way now that I’m back to work.
Donations of any amount are always welcome, whatever the reason.
And thank you both.
Photo by Richard Rosenthal; no word on whether the city will clear this type of debris.
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The Los Angeles City Council did what it does best, ordering LADOT and the city administrative officer to report back on what it would take to sweep protected bike lanes on a regular basis.
Which doesn’t mean they’ll ever actually do it, of course.
The motion, which was passed unanimously, requires them to report on both the equipment and staffing required to sweep the city’s protected bike lanes every other week. The agencies were also ordered to report on the best practices to maintain protected bike lanes, and what the city does now.
Which clearly ain’t much.
In fact, the city has just two street sweepers designed for protected bike lanes, and only uses them on a quarterly basis — as anyone who rides them regularly can probably tell.
If that sounds cynical, it’s because we’ve been here before. The city has a habit of ordering reports that never come back, and never get acted on if they do.
In fact, we’re still waiting for the city’s “much better” version of Measure HLA, which was supposed to come back to the council long before HLA was overwhelmingly passed by the voters.
So it’s a positive step forward — but only if we stay on top of them and make sure the city follows through on it.
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The driver who killed the hockey playing Gaudreau brothers as they rode their bikes on a rural New Jersey highway was legally drunk after the crash. But not as drunk as he made it sound.
Despite telling cops he had five or six beers before getting behind the wheel, and had an open container in his car, 43-year old Sean M. Higgins had a blood alcohol level of .087, just above the .08 legal limit.
And even though his attorney described Higgins as an “empathetic individual” and “a loving father of two daughters” who just made a horrible decision that night, prosecutors said he had history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
Higgins is being held without bail, charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.
He faces up to 20 years if he’s convicted, and would have to serve at least 85% of his sentence.
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Megan Lynch forwards a crowdfunding campaign for an Australian father who’s at risk of losing his leg after he was hit by a red light-running driver while riding an ebike.
Yet the original article inexplicably ends with a section on the rising rate of ebike injuries — even though his injuries had nothing to do with the kind of bicycle he was riding.
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It’s now 270 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.
Meanwhile, Pasadena is back with its second round of ebike vouchers, offering city residents up to $1,000 to buy an ebike from local dealers.
And that deafening silence you hear is Los Angeles not even considering a similar program.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A man in Rochester NY was critically injured when he was intentionally run down by a driver while riding his bike, after he argued with the driver.
A proposal in the British House of Lords would require visible license numbers for all bike riders and take points off their driver’s licenses for any moving violations, while others compared bicyclists to a plague of mosquitos, and want to chip riders — or at least their bikes — like their cats.
A British man was pushed off his bicycle while riding to work by a “yob” who leaned out of a passing van to attack him, suffering facial injuries, bruised arms and legs, and a swollen knee.
An Aussie parliamentarian wants to make wearing hi-viz mandatory for all bicyclists and scooter riders, rather than just requiring drivers to put their damn phones down and pay attention. And there’s no similar requirement to make drivers dress up like clowns
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Local
Streets Are Fore Everyone, aka SAFE, reports Glendale narrowly approved major traffic lane configuration and bicycle infrastructure improvements to La Crescenta Ave.
The co-captain of the WeHo East Neighborhood Watch Association is denying that a letter purporting to come from his organization, which was used to obtain more than $8 million in funding to fix sidewalks and install protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave from the California Air Resources Board, was actually written by the group and represented their wishes.
WeHo Online complains that no one who actually lives on Fountain is on the bike lane steering committee.
State
A 1.8-mile section of the Ventura River Trail between Ventura and Ojai got a $5 million makeover, including a spiffy new frog mural.
Sad news from Visalia, where a man riding a mountain bike was killed when he was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver.
More sad news comes from Fresno, where a 41-year old man was killed in a collision while riding salmon on Highway 41.
And still more sad news, this time from Sacramento, where a woman riding a bicycle died in the hospital after she was found lying in the roadway; police don’t know yet if she fell or was the victim of a hit-and-run.
About damn time. Sacramento is considering declaring a road safety state of emergency to free up more resources to confront the rise in pedestrian and bike rider deaths. Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, we had a record level of pedestrian and bicycling deaths last year, and no one in city government seems to give a damn.
National
That 1970’s era drop bar bicycle in John Deere green could actually be one.
Gear Patrol considers whether the new bespoke, 3D-printed titanium bike now taking orders from No. 22 Bicycle Company is the future of bicycling.
Kindhearted Colorado cops surprised a girl with a new bicycle for her seventh birthday, after officers tried and failed to fix her old one.
International
Momentum offers a guide to buying your first foldie, and says cargo bikes are better than minivans for the perfect family vehicle.
The leader of a London borough council is tired of abandoned dockless ebikes littering the streets and teenagers zooming along the sidewalks, and wants to have all Lime bikes crushed. Just wait until he learns about all the cars blocking sidewalks and bike lanes, and drivers zooming down the streets.
The owner of a bespoke London bike shop complained about brazen bike thieves targeting the shop with four “Mission Impossible-style” burglary attempts in just the last seven months.
The overwhelming majority of Londoners support the city’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods, but also believe it should be mandatory to use a bike lane if one is available.
Bicyclists in Scotland are complaining that the “birthplace of the bicycle” isn’t exactly bicycle friendly. Then again, there’s also some question whether it’s really their birthplace.
A Welsh woman will spend a well-deserved 45 months behind bars for fleeing the scene after running a bike-riding man down from behind, and selling her car days later to cover up the crime; the victim had to have his leg amputated due to his injuries. And yes, that sentence should have been a hell of a lot longer.
The Guardian’s Peter Walker describes the “five pedaling perils” every UK bicyclist has to watch out for. Which pretty much apply to every bike rider, almost everywhere.
A quartet of British and Dutch marines rode their bikes 360 miles from England to the Netherlands to celebrate the 360th anniversary of the Royal Marines.
More proof that bike riders deal with the same problems everywhere, as bicyclists in Baku, Azerbaijan are complaining about the “incomprehensible” design of the city’s bike lanes, arguing that they weren’t professionally installed.
In a truly heartrending story, someone stole a New Zealand man bike after he rode it the length of the country to raise money for charity; now he’s dying of cancer, and just wants to find it again so he can ride it one more time before he dies.
Competitive Cycling
Three-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar prepared for next week’s road world championships by winning the 13th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal with a dominant solo breakaway.
Samoa named its first-ever national cycling team, with a goal of competing in the 2027 Pacific Games in Tahiti; the country’s new riders range in age from 17 to 53. Yes, 53.
Finally…
We may have to deal with swerving LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about dive-bombing birds. Who needs spandex to ride a tandem — or any clothes at all, for that matter?
And why just ride a moving train when you can jump your bike over it?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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