BikinginLA

Day 321 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

You can cancel those plans to attend Los Angeles Board of Public Works meeting, in-person or online, today.

Apparently acknowledging their “oopsie” in scheduling hearings for appeals of Measure HLA denials without the required ten day notice, they have rescheduled the appeals for one week from today, on November 24th.

You’re urged to attend the meeting in person to support Joe Linton as he challenges the denials of seven projects he says met the requirements for implementation under Measure HLA.

Because it’s a lot harder to ignore a room full of bicycle and traffic safety advocates in person than a bunch of people waiting to comment online.

………

The Long Beach woman accused of killing one bicyclist and injuring two others on PCH in Huntington Beach last month has pled not guilty.

Forty-three-year old Amber Kristine Calderon entered the plea to three felony hit and run charges in the death of 45-year old minister and father Eric John Williams, as well as critically injuring the other two men.

Calderon is free on a relatively paltry $100,000 bond; no word yet on the results of her toxicology tests.

………

Sunday was the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which included a moving commemoration surrounding Los Angeles City Hall.

According to a notice from Streets Are For Everyone,

WHAT: As part of World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Victims (WDoR), Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), The Emily Shane Foundation, The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Auto Club of Southern California (Auto Club) and other traffic safety organizations will hold a visual tribute Sunday, November 16, to honor the 711 people killed in traffic crashes across Los Angeles County in 2024.

Volunteers will cover a nearly four-block radius surrounding Los Angeles City Hall Park Center with 711 empty black chairs, each adorned with a yellow rose. The display symbolizes the empty seats left behind at dining room tables, outdoor patios and upcoming holiday gatherings, highlighting the impact traffic violence has on the Los Angeles County area. Families of victims are invited to honor their loved ones by bringing a photo or personal memento, or by writing their loved one’s name on a remembrance card to place on one of the empty chairs.

WHY: In 2024, 711 people were killed in Los Angeles County due to traffic crashes. In 2023, there were 814 people killed in crashes on Los Angeles County roads. WDoR is a global event held every third Sunday of November to remember people left behind by traffic violence or personally impacted by car crashes – and a call to action to support safer streets and improve road safety.

Let that sink in.

Seven-hundred-eleven dead on LA County streets.

Then let something else sink in. Because as of this writing, no Los Angeles news outlet has even bothered to cover it. Or at least not post it online.

Evidently, people dying of traffic violence is just an everyday thing around here. Literally.

I’m not in the mood to punch down tonight. But as much as I appreciate this tweet/post from LADOT, they are the ones responsible for creating the road conditions that contributed to far too many of those deaths.

As well as the ones who haven’t fixed them.

Meanwhile, San Diego residents turned out Sunday to call for safer streets on the World Day of Remembrance, hosted by Families for Safe Streets San Diego.

More than 250 people mounted the steps of the Massachusetts State House to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, and demand stronger traffic safety laws to combat a rise in bicycling deaths.

And a ten-mile bike ride was set to roll Sunday from Bethesda, Maryland to Washington, DC for the World Day of Remembrance; past rides have drawn more than 1,000 people.

………

In yet another study that shouldn’t surprise anyone, researchers in the UK have found that free bicycle programs in some of the most disadvantaged areas resulted in improved health and wellbeing, as well as reduced social inequality for those who use them.

Sport England commissioned the report on behalf of the Active Wellbeing Society and examined the effects of free bike schemes in Birmingham, Essex, and Ealing. Their results show that the scheme, which includes wraparound support of bike lessons, maintenance and group rides free of charge, also strengthened community cohesion and encouraged more sustainable, environmentally-friendly behaviours. The schemes receive public funding but also rely on volunteers.

More than 12,000 bikes have been distributed since 2015 through the respective schemes (Birmingham Big Bikes, Essex Pedal Power and Let’s Ride Southall) and are estimated to have delivered an average return on social and economic investment of £11.80 for every £1.

That works out to $15.55 for every $1.32 invested.

The more than 1,200 bicycles distributed in three cities also resulted in significant reductions in preventable deaths and disease.

Comparing the data to the Office for National Statistics found that the scheme prevented 16% of expected new cases of disease among participants and 6% of expected deaths. The participants’ life satisfaction, when measured on a scale of 1-10, also increased by averages between 0.5 and 1.8.

So what the hell are we waiting for?

I mean, besides safer streets to ride them on.

Meanwhile, another study shows that households that use cargo bikes can cut their car miles in half.

………

They get it.

But you may not be out of luck if you live in the San Gabriel Valley.

………

‘Tis the season.

The kindhearted staff at a Duluth, Minnesota ski and bike shop collected over 300 pounds of food from their equally kindhearted customers, and delivered it by bicycle to a local nonprofit.

Hundreds of volunteers turned out in Pensacola, Florida to build over 500 bicycles to donate to local kids in need.

………

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

No bias here. A Kansas City letter writer says she supports safe infrastructure for bicyclists, but the city is going too far in prioritizing bike riders over drivers by removing traffic lanes on several major streets. As if drivers still don’t have near-total dominion on the overwhelming majority of city streets.

No bias here, either. The author of a Portuguese website dismisses a lawsuit filed by a bike advocacy group to keep the new mayor Gaia from ripping out a bike lane, because he never heard of them.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

You’ve got to be kidding. It turns out that the yellow bicycle that 2019 Tour de France champ Egan Bernal rode into Paris wasn’t stolen after all — the Colombian cyclist staged the whole thing as a publicity stunt to promote his gran fondo. Let’s hope that nobody goes. 

………

Local 

KTLA-5 reminds us that the Melrose Ave CicLAvia this coming Sunday will host a takeover by Netflix’ Stranger Things.

The Los Angeles Times reports we have a limited opportunity to save an El Sereno open space for a new park offering panoramic views of the LA area, but only if the 110 acre Elephant Hill Open Space can be saved from developers, and local landowners convinced to sell.

The LAPD arrested a man they called “the Mountain Bike Bandit,” accused of committing over 20 burglaries and escaping by bicycle.

Apparently having ended crime in Hermosa Beach, local officials touched briefly on the decrease in crime at a recent public forum, before devoting all their attention to the problem of, yes, ebikes.

 

State

Ouch. Jalopnik blames “now-deceased cycling-obsessed weirdo” John Forester for making bike riding worse for everyone else by instructing people to be “the kind of stereotypical, aggressive rider that so many people love to hate,” arguing that you now usually just find “obsessive weirdos” like the San Diego-based Forester in enthusiast forums. I may disagree with many Forester followers, but I’d describe the ones I know as passionate bicyclists, not “obsessive” or “weirdos.”

Sad news from Berkeley, where a man in his 60s was killed by a pickup driver while riding a bicycle on iconic Telegraph Ave near UC Berkeley.

More sad news, this time from Rancho Cordova, where a man was killed when he crashed his bicycle into a pole; police concluded it was a solo bike crash, and there was no foul play involved.

 

National

Life is cheap in Oregon, where a driver walked without charges for killing a 21-year old college student as she rode her bike in a crosswalk, after the driver in the right lane stopped for her, but the driver in the next lane blew right through the crosswalk as if it wasn’t there and the other driver had just stopped at random; cops said they couldn’t prove there was a “gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe” in a similar situation. Other than, you know, stopping for someone in a crosswalk and not killing someone. 

National Geographic says Seattle is a city best explored by bicycle.

A transit user and advocate pulled off a surprising upset to win the race for mayor of Seattle.

Geek Wire considers the rise and fall of the once-mighty Seattle-based Rad Power Bikes, which is now on the brink of shutting down.

Sad news from Moab, Utah, where 56-year old Moab trail builder, mountain bike racer, pizza maker and campground host Fred Wilkinson died of natural causes while camping earlier this month.

Further adventures in bad headlines. Judging by the headline, a Salt Lake City TV station says a driver was charged with manslaughter for killing an ebike, because it doesn’t mention the person on the bike at all.

Advocacy groups are trying to raise the final $5 million needed to close a 3.6-mile gap in the Teton Pass trail system in Teton National Park, part of the 180-mile Greater Yellowstone Trail; engineers call it the “most technically ambitious pathway ever proposed in the Tetons.”

A group of bicyclists calling themselves Cyclingxsolidarity once again took to the streets of Chicago on Sunday to buy out food vendors so they could go home and stay safe from ICE agents.

When demand for Minnesota’s ebike voucher program was so great it crashed the website, it spurred a university study and forced the state to fix the technology. When the same thing happened in California, they just cancelled the whole damn program after a single round. 

A writer for Cycling Weekly calls Bentonville, Arkansas one of the weirdest places he’s ever been, but also one of the best American cities for bicycling.

A kindhearted New Jersey cop gave his own bicycle to a former D.A.R.E. and police youth academy student after the kid’s was stolen.

Around 800 people took part in the 26th edition of a 500-mile bike ride from the mountains of North Carolina to the coast.

 

International

Momentum recommends 12 “amazing” cities to explore by bicycle in the coming year. None of which are Los Angeles.

A cycling psychologist explains how to avoid bicycle burnout.

The London borough of Camden responded to resident surveys by releasing plans to redesign several streets that advocates termed “mind-glowingly good.” Which shows what can be done when cities actually care enough to listen to their residents.

That’s more like it. The British government is now dropping the previously recommended 12-foot lane width, and advising that traffic lanes should now be limited to 10 foot 8 inches to keep drivers from passing bicyclists without changing lanes.

While American cities continue to restrict ebikes, Dutch and Belgian seniors are using them to avoid slowing down as they age.

An Indian news site argues that “the bicycle, hailed worldwide as the greenest, cheapest way to get around,” remains the forgotten road user in Guwahati, “ridiculed by drivers, overlooked by planners, and left to dodge death daily.”

Cambodia’s ancient Angkor Archaeological Park now draws an average of over 100 bicyclists each day with a roughly 14-mile route through forests and rice fields, as bike tourism continues to grow post-COVID.

In a story we’ve heard far too often, a New Zealand man is giving up on bicycling after he and his wife were nearly struck by a driver after swerving their tandem to avoid a dooring.

 

Competitive Cycling

French cyclist Hugo Toumire announced his retirement from the pro tour at just 24, after the Cofidis team lost its WorldTour license, and he was diagnosed with endofibrosis.

Spain’s Aleix Espargaró decided that life as a pro cyclist isn’t compatible with life as a pro motorcyclist after all, and gave up his brief one season experiment with both.

Tragic news from Australia, where multi-time world paracycling champ Paige Greco died at her home Sunday after “experiencing a sudden medical episode;” she was just 28.

UCI is trying to turn the clock back half a decade, reducing key measurements on WorldTour bikes to cut their aerodynamics and slow them down a little in an effort to improve safety.

Cyclist rates how every women’s WorldTour team did this year.

Nothing like testing your new race bikes in a tunnel full of helium bubbles and laser beams.

Dutch cycling officials are trying to set up Mathieu van der Poel and Puck Pieterse to complete in both road cycling and mountain biking in the ’28 LA Olympics.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you learn to ride a bike, but still don’t know the difference between Lance and Neal Armstrong. Or when bicycling is less passion and more lifestyle.

And before you jump into a lake to avoid a traffic stop for a bicycling violation, make sure you can swim first.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.