BikinginLA

Just 11 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025, a decade of failure in which deaths have continued to climb. 

Yet no city official has mentioned the impending deadline, or the city’s failure to meet it. 

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Just six five days left in the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Samer S for a generous donation to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming to your favorite screen every morning.

This year’s fund drive has seen 54 people give anything from $5 to $500. And trust me, I appreciate every dime, because I know how hard it can be to donate when money is tight.

Especially this time of year.

But if you haven’t given yet, you’re almost out of time. So just stop what you’re doing and give now, already! 

Meanwhile, today’s photo shows the corgi’s natural reaction to today’s headline.

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A pair of local cemeteries are trying to bury a plan to improve safety on Forest Lawn Drive, apparently in hopes of burying the rest of us.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports on the conflict over the deadly street, most of which is inside Griffith Park. And which shouldn’t really be a conflict at all.

Quite a few cyclists use Forest Lawn to get to car-free roads inside Griffith Park. It’s one of the flattest routes from the East San Fernando Valley to central parts of Los Angeles. Some cyclists avoid Forest Lawn because of speeding car traffic there.

Many drivers use Forest Lawn Drive to cut through the park to get on and off the 134 Freeway. Though the posted speed limits are 40-45 mph, drivers often exceed 50 mph on a road with limited visibility due to curves. Predictably, this situation results in crashes, injuries, and deaths.

According to the city Transportation Department (LADOT), from 2013 to 2023 Forest Lawn Drive saw 83 crashes, including three deaths/serious injuries. In December 2022, a driver was crushed to death (and another hospitalized) in a two-car crash in front of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Yet for the cemeteries and their supporters, that’s no big deal. I guess when you have thousands of bodies already, what’s a few more?

Never mind all the close calls people have experienced that haven’t resulted in actual collisions. Which is why I stopped using the street, regardless of whether I was driving or riding.

According to Linton, commenters at a pair of recent public meetings, including a representative of the cemeteries, voiced concerns about a lack a lack of data from the city, and creating a permanent traffic disaster.

Even though the city had gone back to the drawing board after the initial designs were presented, conducting more traffic studies and watering down the project.

And even though the city had just presented their data, which showed that the project, which would reduce the current two lanes in each direction with one lane each way, along with bike lanes and a center turn lane, would have no noticeable effect on traffic times.

You can guess what the reaction was, often prefaced with “no one is against biking,” or the evergreen “I’m a cyclist myself.”

As Linton relates,

(Forest Lawn Memorial Parks CEO Darin) Drabing termed the city’s safety improvements “unbelievable,” “unfathomable,” “unnecessary,” and “punishing.” “I just find it unfathomable that we would have to take away fifty percent of the traffic flow in order to… make [bike lanes] more prominent and more secure.” (Note the LADOT does not anticipate taking away any of the traffic flow, but expects that reducing four lanes to three will easily accommodate existing and anticipated traffic.)

Mount Sinai’s Randy Schwab noted that he was in “total agreement” with Drabing. He spoke of “traffic accidents” occurring there “on a blind curve” but then reiterated his opposition to planned safety measures. “Bicycle activity is relatively low” on Forest Lawn Drive and, according to Schwab, “to reduce the traffic by cars by fifty percent” would be “catastrophic” and result in “back up throughout the area.”

Maybe someone could explain to them that a) the project is intended to improve safety for all road users, not just add bike lanes; and b) maybe the reason that “bicycle activity is relatively low” is that people just don’t feel safe riding there.

At the end of one of the meetings, Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council voted 14-3 to oppose the project.

Which isn’t saying much, of you’ve ever attended one of their meetings.

I have, and vowed never to go back after the rude reception I received, particularly from the head of the NC, who runs it like her own fiefdom.

Fortunately, the Neighborhood Council is merely an advisory board, and the final decision rests with CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman, who generally supports bikeways.

But money talks. And in Los Angeles, it too often screams, especially when huge corporations like Forest Lawn get involved.

So if you ride, drive or walk along Forest Lawn Drive — or would like to, if the damn thing felt any safer — take a few minutes to read Linton’s full article, and voice your support for the project on LADOT’s survey form.

Because we’re all going to end up someplace like Forest Lawn or Mount Sinai eventually.

But most of us would like to put that off as long as possible.

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We’ve linked to this story before. But we’ll do it again, because he nails the real problem.

Totally built to ⁦@MUTCD⁩ standards but since ⁦@CA_DMV⁩ does a crap job of retesting #motorists we get…

⁦@bikinginla⁩ ⁦@StreetsblogLA⁩

Claremont’s new bike lanes stir confusion for some drivers – NBC Los Angeles https://t.co/D3QBaW6pKG

— erikgriswold.bsky.social (@erik_griswold) December 19, 2024

And the comments on the video are delightful!@BikeLanesLA @bikinginla

Claremont drivers confused over new bike lanes https://t.co/9Q0WQgDmCj

— erikgriswold.bsky.social (@erik_griswold) December 19, 2024

As long as you keep a clean driving record in California, you won’t have to take another driver’s test for decades, if ever.

Which means many, if not most, drivers on our streets have never been tested on recent law changes, and may not be familiar with them or modern street treatments.

So drivers end up confused by something that is only new to them. And too often, local officials respond by reversing the changes, rather than educating the drivers.

Keeping the roadway, and the people on it, just as dangerous as ever.

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Gravel Bike California rockets around the hills of Whittier.

And if you might even get to see a recruitment ad for the CIA first, like I did.

Thanks to Zachary Rynew for the heads-up. 

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‘Tis the season.

Victorville’s Doris Davies Memorial Bicycle Giveaway distributed over 150 bicycles to children from nearly two dozen elementary schools, for the 21st consecutive year.

An Oakland bike club donated nearly $66,000 to a local food bank.

A local men’s service organization in Navasota, Texas is hosting its third annual Bike and Electric Scooter giveaway this weekend, with plans to distribute over 1,000 bikes and scooters to kids. And no, I never heard of Navasota, either. 

University of Texas wide receiver Isaiah Bond is just the latest college or port athlete to join chicken joint Raising Cane’s to distribute 100 bicycles to children with the local Boys and Girls Club.

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

Congratulations, Irvine and San Diego. You’ve been singled out for having some of the worst bike lanes in America right now — San Diego twice, thank you.

Police in Bristol, England arrested three teenaged boys for a string of mo-ped attacks that resulted in a number of bicyclists being pushed off their bikes, as well as the assault of a woman.

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Local  

Pasadena unveiled its revised City Bicycle Plan at a public meeting yesterday, after a city council committee rejected the previous draft, telling city staff to come up with something more ambitious in the wake of recent deaths; the city also announced plans for a study session on a plan to improve North Lake Avenue.

 

State

Police in San Luis Obispo arrested a 44-year old Bend, Oregon woman for the the July 23rd hit-and-run that killed an 87-year old man riding a bicycle, and injured a 74-year old rider; she had previously been arrested for a second crash that occurred minutes later, while driving at over four times the legal alcohol limit.

Palo Alto begins streetscape improvements to California Ave that could eventually lead to a carfree shopping district.

San Francisco Streetsblog remembers “another person killed by traffic engineers and politicians,” arguing that if there isn’t enough money to make a traffic project safe for everyone, there isn’t enough money to build it, period.

 

National

Iconic mountain bikemaker Rocky Mountain is the latest in a rapidly growing line of bikemakers to restructure in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy.

Pink Bike announces their nominees for value bike of the year.

Cycling Weekly offers its best suggestions for keeping yourself, your bike and your friends dry during wet season, saying there’s no suck thing as bad weather, only unsuitable fenders. They clearly haven’t ridden through some of the downpours I have, then.

Streetsblog Chicago provides a virtual ride along the city’s new raised bike lane.

 

International

Momentum considers whether ebikes are up to the challenge of riding through winter weather in the frozen North. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, probably better than most of the people riding them. 

Cyclist rates and reviews the year’s best roadies. No, the bikes themselves, not the people on them. 

Core 77 considers “radical bike-related designs” spotted this year. Some of which stretch “bike-related” to the breaking point. 

Fuming British residents slam “eco-vandalism” after ten trees were removed for a new bike lane, “all for the odd cyclist.” I freely admit to being more than a little odd, but…oh, they meant it the other way. Never mind.

 

Competitive Cycling

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website looks back at the past road racing season, terming 2024 the year of the crash.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you want your toddler to saddle up on a “little red rocket” of a balance bike. Or when you feel the need to debunk a viral glow-in-the-dark bike path image.

And who among us hasn’t ridden in this exact manner?

Some of us more than once.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.