BikinginLA

Just 33 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

But no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

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We’ll be taking the next couple days off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and what used to be known as the day after Thanksgiving — better known these days as Black Friday. 

Which means you can spend your time haunting the malls and online retailers in search of the best bargains. Or you can get out on your bike and just be thankful for awhile. 

I know which one I’d choose. 

As always, we’ll be around in case of breaking news over the weekend — hopefully including an arrest in the road-rage murder of 16-year old bike rider Jonathan Flores. 

And come back on Friday, when we’ll kick off the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, so you can watch me grovel and beg for just a small part of your hard-earned funds to help keep this site going for awhile longer, and maintain the corgi kibble fund. 

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At last, a little good news.

After years or rising rates, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, is reporting that early estimates show traffic fatalities actually declined in the US over the first six months of this year, including pedestrian deaths.

According to the NHTSA,

As compared to the first half of 2023, fatalities in key subcategories in 2024 decreased:

• 12% during out-of-state travel
• 9% in ejected passengers
• 8% on urban interstates
• 7% in passenger vehicle occupants less than 10 years old
• 7% in unrestrained occupants of passenger vehicles
• 7% in passengers
• 6% in passenger vehicle rollover crashes
• 6% in passenger vehicle occupants
• 6% in speeding-related crashes
• 5% in rural or urban collector roads/local roads
• 5% involving roadway departure crashes
• 4% at night
• 4% during weekends
• 3% in pedestrians

On the other hand, traffic deaths in California were up slightly over this time last year, climbing a statistically insignificant 0.03%. Although if your loved ones were part of the 0.03%, it’s not so insignificant at all.

Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on bicycling deaths this year.

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A bicycling website asks if the rate of bicycling around the world is rising or stagnating.

Short answer, yes.

A new report from Eco-Counter, a French company founded just to count bicyclists and pedestrians across every continent, shows that bicycling traffic trends in 14 countries declined 1% last year, compared to 2022.

But that still represents an 11% jump over 2019.

And the news is good here in the US, especially when it comes to bike commuting.

For example, in the US, bicycle volumes went up by 1.7% between 2023 and 2022. Whereas counts on recreational bike facilities decreased by 2.1% during this period, counts on commuter paths increased by 6.9%. Bicycle usage is reverting to pre-pandemic profiles, meaning more weekday riding to work and school and less leisure activity.

Which suggests that if we really want bike commuting rates to grow, we need to invest in safe, convenient routes to major employment centers, rather than focusing on recreational paths.

Maybe someone can give LADOT the memo.

Meanwhile, this is what we could have. But don’t.

America: 0.6% pic.twitter.com/mVPXRn3Fnu

— Mark R. Brown, AICP (@CompletedStreet) November 26, 2024

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Our friends to the south are raising funds for safe routes to schools this holiday season.

https://twitter.com/sdbikecoalition/status/1861584562788409398

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It’s now 343 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

The LA city council has finally voted to stop forcing most developers to needlessly widen streets in front of their projects, which UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville called “probably the dumbest regulation” he has ever encountered; the brief street widenings were often incorrectly blamed on nonexistent plans for future bike lanes.

Westside Today offers more on Metro’s efforts to claw back $435,000 it awarded to fund the successful MOVE Culver City street safety project, after the city’s idiotic decision to rip out the protected bike lanes Metro helped pay for.

An e-scooter rider led South Pasadena police on a moderate speed pursuit, reportedly running multiple red lights at speeds up to 35 mph, which was what got their attention in the first place; the suspect was found carrying a replica handgun and an illegal butterfly knife

 

State

Plans for the permanent closure of San Francisco’s Great Highway are still in the concept state, but the early news is more bike lanes, and less parking.

A Sacramento op-ed explains why the city is converting the downtown area to two-way streets, noting that 100% of fatalities resulting from cars crashing into people occurred on one-way streets.

 

National

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes a look at the protected bike lanes and bike/walking paths in a pair of Southern Oregon cities.

A Florida bicyclist and triathlete offers her tips on how to stay safe on the road, but really doesn’t say much, except know and follow the rules for where you live. Which you already do, right?

 

International

Road.cc recommends splurge-worthing presents for bicyclists, for when money is no object. Most of which really aren’t that expensive. Key word: most.

Your prayers for an off-road Brompton have been answered at last.

Good news from Vancouver, where a 15-year old girl is emerging from a coma over a month after she was severely injured in a mountain biking crash, although she faces a very long road to recovery; a crowdfunding campaign to help defray her medical expenses has raised over $71,000 of the $75,000 goal.

Things are looking up on the ‘crash not accident’ front in the UK, where most police departments are now using “incident,” rather than the a-word.

Dockless ebike providers could face fines in London for “willful obstruction” of sidewalks due to “problematic” bike parking. Even though it’s usually their users who dump bikes everywhere but where they’re supposed to be.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling site considers seven wonders of bicycling infrastructure. None of which are in Los Angeles. Or North America, for that matter.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks back at the year’s “record-breaking and heartbreaking” pro cycling season.

The latest battle in pro cycling doesn’t involve people on bicycles, but people arguing about them, as Jonathan Vaughters, head of the EF Education-EasyPost team, blasted “fat cats who have never raced so much as a child’s tricycle” after the director of the Tour de France blamed recent crashes on riders “going too fast.”

Happy 146th birthday to the legendary Major Taylor.

 

Finally…

Maybe Bicycle Face is a thing, after all. When you’re fleeing your 13th arrest, at least do it on a bicycle.

And who says you can’t carry 330 pounds of flagstone on a bike?

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

Oh, and fuck Black Friday. And Putin.