BikinginLA

Day 98 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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A new WordPress feature, which is what this site runs on, shows how many paid subscribers each site has. 

This one, for instance has exactly zero.

Because we don’t charge a dime to sign up, and never will.

Just enter your email in the popup window, or in the box at the bottom of the righthand column, and you’ll find all the best bike news waiting in your inbox every morning, from around the corner and around the world.

Nothing could be easier.

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Streetsblog reminds us that one requirement of Measure HLA, which passed overwhelmingly one year ago today, is that Los Angeles has to post a public-facing website tracking the city’s progress in implementing the law within one year.

Anyone want to bet they’ll make the deadline?

I didn’t think so.

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Speaking of anniversaries, it’s been 100 years since Los Angeles approved one of the worst city ordinances in history, officially giving drivers priority over pedestrians on LA streets.

And yes, over bicyclists, too.

The landmark 1925 Traffic Ordinance set the blueprint for the rest of the country, forming the scaffolding on which we’ve built an ever-rising toll of traffic violence and carnage. Not to mention our history of ever-expanding roadways, too often wiping out entire neighborhoods in the process.

So if you’ve ever wondered why you’re forced to wait endlessly at a corner, waiting for the little walk signal saying you can now use the tiny few feet of roadway provided to people on two feet, or why motorists expect you to hug the curb or door zone to ride a bike, you can thank the foresighted forebears of our ennobled city, made glorious by its endless devotion to the motor vehicle.

I’ll hope you’ll join me in giving them the solute they so richly deserve.

Yes, that one.

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New 30th District Congresswoman Laura Friedman is hosting an in-person town hall at LA City College on Monday.

Friedman was the sponsor of a number of bike-friendly bills when she served in the California Assembly, so she should be open to pleas to maintain federal active transportation and traffic safety funding.

And maybe even spare the struggling bike industry and its customers from crippling tariffs.

Event Details: 

• Date: Monday, April 14, 2025 
• Time: Doors open at 5:30 PM | Town Hall starts at 6:00 PM 
• Location: Los Angeles City College, Student Union Building, 3rd Floor, 855 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029
• RSVP & Submit a Question in Advance: https://forms.office.com/g/1jd8ss9HDX 

Please note: The room has a maximum capacity, and RSVPs will be given first access to the town hall. Seats are not guaranteed, even with an RSVP. 

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

Advocates for a “contentious” curb-protected bike lane in the Houston Heights neighborhood of the eponymous city fear it could be the next traffic safety project on the mayor’s chopping block, after the city already ripped out two similar projects.

No bias here. A Scottish letter writer complains that “cities have been mutilated” by bike paths, because some people on bikes do bad things, and the “idea that more and more cycle lanes will lead to more cyclists avoiding cars, trains or buses is a pipe dream.”

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Local 

Streets For All urges you to turn out at City Hall tomorrow to support pedestrian safety at the dangerous intersection of Glendale Blvd and Fletcher Drive.

Los Angeles City Planning just approved a 53-unit, mostly affordable housing project next to Stoner Park in West LA, allowing the developers to include zero — count ’em, zero — car parking spaces, but also cutting the normally required longterm bike parking spaces in half, from 44 to just 22. And yes, my wife, who grew up in that area, has laughed at that name her entire life. But only because it’s true.

Streetsblog offers an open thread on Sunday’s Hollywood to Koreatown CicLAvia, featuring editor Joe Linton’s usual great photos, as a Redditor asks why not do it every Sunday? Why not, indeed?

ActiveSGV invites you to join them this Saturday on an easy nine-mile exploration of the SGV Greenway Network, beginning at San Gabriel River Park.

The Claremont City Council voted unanimously to ban Class 3 ebikes, which can reach speeds of up to 28 mph, from the city’s Claremont Hills Wilderness Park.

 

State

Drivers are illegally parking diagonally in front of a La Jolla nursing and rehab home, partially blocking the bike lane on Torrey Pines Road. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks is now one of the highest-volume framemakers in the US, producing 2,000 frames a year, with the capacity for 3,000.

Sad news from Bakersfield, where the Kern County Coroner identified a 52-year old woman who died in the hospital 11 days after she was struck by a driver while riding her bike. And no, KGET-TV, she was not struck and killed by an apparently sentient vehicle that was driving itself.

Life is cheap in Bakersfield, where a woman faces just 180 days behind bars and community service after pleading no contest to a felony charge of vehicular homicide, for the collateral damage death of a bike rider — after running a red light while doing at least 65 mph in a 40 mph zone; the other driver in the crash faces just misdemeanor hit and run and vehicular manslaughter charges.

 

National

Bittersweet news, as the wife of hockey star Johnnie Gaudreau gave birth to his son, seven months after he and his brother were killed by an aggressive driver while riding their bikes in New Jersey last August, one night before their sister’s wedding; it’s the couple’s third and last child.

Kindergarten students in a Hawaii elementary school received new balance bikes that can be converted to pedal bikes, courtesy of the philanthropic HDR Foundation and All Kids Bike.

 

 

International

A writer for Cycling News says if he ran the bike industry for a day, all helmet straps would be black and all bib shorts would have pockets.

The vicar of a 170-year old Manchester, England church blames new bike lanes for plummeting attendance, claiming parishioners are now getting lost because of them. Although if only 100 people were attending services even before they were installed, I suspect the bike lanes may not be the problem.

Cape Town, South Africa will now require a license to ride any ebike that can exceed 28 mph on city streets.

Officials in Taipei, Taiwan warned residents not to ride bikes after drinking, with possible fines ranging from the equivalent of $36 to $72; refusing a breathalyzer test could double that.

Less than 12% of Taiwanese bike riders wear helmets, in a country where it’s not required and not part of the bicycling culture.

 

Finally….

Your next ebike bike might be a kayak. That feeling when a revolutionary cross between a chainless ebike and an electric motorcycle disappears from the market without a trace.

And seriously, if you’re riding a bike with meth and pipes secreted in your clothing, put a damn taillight on it.

The bike, that is. Not the meth.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.