Archive for Morning Links

Bass makes production of signing 2 CicLAvias worth of Metro open streets funding, and Newsom signs bill defining ebikes and e-motos

October 1, 2026 / / No comments

Welcome to the worldwide A Week Without Driving.

Or as I call it, Thursday.

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After ignoring bicycles since the last election cycle — pun intended — Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Karen Bass made a theatrical production of signing a resolution dedicating a whopping $1 million for CicLAvia and other open streets events.

According to LA Magazine,

“As a lifelong biker and native Angeleno, I know how important open and slow streets events like CicLAvia are to our city and the L.A. region. These events connect communities, bring people together, support local businesses, and help us reimagine public spaces in the second-largest city in the country,” said Mayor Bass.

Which is enough to fund two — count ’em, two — CicLAvias. But it’s better than nothing, which is what Metro’s budget originally included.

And speaking of which, CicCLAvia returns to the Heart of Downtown on October 11th, celebrating 16 years and one day since the first one on 10-10-10.

And yes, I still have the T-shirt. But either it shrank, or I didn’t.

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On the last possible day for California bill signings, Gavin Newsom signed Encinitas Senator Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, defining the difference between ebikes and e-motos.

Which Streetsblog’s Damien Newton called the best of all the many ebike bills debated by the legislature this year.

Here’s how PeopleForBikes explained it.

SB 1167 establishes a clearer distinction between legal electric bicycles and higher-powered vehicles that are not e-bikes under California law. The legislation reinforces the state’s existing 750-watt and maximum speed limits for e-bikes while strengthening requirements for how e-bikes and other electric vehicles are labeled, marketed, sold, and operated.

Now let’s hope the cops and press read it, and stop confusing the two every chance they get.

Meanwhile, another bill signed by the governor places a 10 mph speed limit on sidewalks — presumably for ebikes and e-scooters, as well as regular bicycles — and allows local authorities to set speed limits on bike paths and trails.

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Fox News considers what sets America’s greenest cities apart, as WalletHub ranks Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco as the top three in a Bay Area sweep.

San Diego is the top SoCal city at six, followed by Irvine at eight. Meanwhile, Los Angeles checks in at a relatively lowly, and overrated, 24, with green Long Beach just two notches higher.

And what sets the greenest cities apart is they’re all in blue states, which probably isn’t what Fox News had in mind.

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Thanks to Megan for forwarding a flyer for a rally in memory of two bike riders killed on the same street on or near UC Davis, as she says the university “punts” on safety measures, as well as responsibility.

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And credit the very prolific Megan again with forwarding video of a student-led ride in Kragujevac, Serbia as they launch an anti-corruption campaign in advance of elections later this month.

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

No bias here, as a TikTok user complains about being momentarily stuck behind two Colorado bicyclists riding in the roadway next to a “perfectly good” pathway, even though the bike riders aren’t doing a damn thing wrong, and he’s illegally filming them with a handheld phone.

@motorfeed

Cyclists are so annoying. 🤡

♬ original sound – MotorFeed

No bias here, either, as Megan again forwards video of New York residents alarmed by a block completely taken over by ebikes, while failing to even notice the line of cars parked across the street.

Two real rocket scientists sharing an ebike in York, England recorded themselves assaulting a bike rider by trying to push him off his bicycle as they passed — apparently not realizing they were just creating evidence for their own prosecution.

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

The woman hit by a bike rider near Boston University on Tuesday remains in critical condition, but is expended to survive with non-life-threatening injuries.

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Local 

Nice to see our old friend Kent Strumpell in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, arguing that the best approach to bike networks is building them out as quickly as possible.

 

State

San Francisco Streetsblog reports a driver killed a pedestrian at an intersection where a fully funded safety project was supposed to be finished three years ago.

 

National

The bike counter on Seattle’s Fremont Bridge just hit 1 million trips so far this year.

A Washington State bike rider was found badly injured in the bushes next to the roadway, with “at least” six broken ribs, broken jaw, a broken eye socket, broken clavicle, several abrasions and a brain bleed, but the cops don’t think he was a hit-and-run victim, insisting he said there wasn’t a car involved, even though all he remembers is waking up in the hospital. Which is pretty fucked up for just falling at less than 12 mph. 

Bicyclists want safer streets and expanded bike lanes in Louisville, Kentucky. Just like bike riders pretty much everywhere else. 

New York’s city council considers a ridiculous 23 separate bills to rein in ebike riders, or “the scourge of lawless riders” plaguing the city, according to the Post. However, New York’s delivery riders just fear the bills will result in more police stops and racial profiling.

Around 60 bicyclists occupied one lane of DC’s Connecticut Ave during the morning rush hour to call for the protected bike lanes they were promised, until the mayor dropped the plan two years ago citing parking and access for emergency vehicles — even though an ambulance didn’t have any problem passing the protestors.

Speaking of DC, Trump’s plans to turn a popular public golf course into upscale PGA-caliber links could jeopardize a beachfront roadway popular with bicyclists and runners by extending the course to the water’s edge.

New Orleans will offer rebates up to $1,000 on ebike purchases, with the first round limited to 100 people.

 

International

A London bicyclist records a taxi driver squeezing past him on busy Oxford Street, which is set to be pedestrianized later this month.

A British pro cycling site offers a guide to Nova Scotia’s nearly 200-mile Cabot Trail, saying it appears to be ideal for bicycling until you consider the steep grades. Which is the same problem I had with freshman algebra.

Taiwan’s Minister of Transportation and Communications biked a part of the island’s 633-mile Cycling Route No. 2 with other government officials, which differs from Cycling Route No. 1 in allowing people to ride at their own pace. No shit.

Road.cc considers why the West wants Chinese mountain bikes, and the Chinese want Western ones.

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovakian National Team masseur Vladimir Kovacik evidently rubbed pros the right way, saying many top cyclists came up to congratulate him for making it through the first 100 kilometers of the men’s elite road race at the recent World Championships, after he was pressed into service when none of the team members was able to make it to the starting line.

What do WorldTour cyclists think of Artificial Intelli…excuse me, Super Intelligence? We may never know, since I refuse to pay extra on top of my NY Times subscription to get The Athletic, otherwise known as the Time’s sports section. 

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can bid on an actual replica bike owned by the late, great Pee-Wee Herman and his adult theater-wanking alter-ego, Paul Ruebens. New York’s plan to stop homeless people from cycling between the streets and hospitals apparently has nothing to do with transportation.

And shaming the Eveready Bunny by signing a new pro contract at 50.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

LA River path costs double while Valley dog park suffers, last day for CA bill signing, and the fight goes on over deadly Forest Lawn Drive

September 30, 2026 / / 3 comments

The good news is that no one riding a bicycle appears to have been killed in Southern California yesterday, for only the fourth time in the last eight days. 

The bad news is that a report on the Citizen app showed the aftermath of a bike rider struck by a driver in my own Hollywood neighborhood yesterday, at Sunset and Detroit a little before 4 pm.

The video showed police closing Detroit to investigate, which is never a good sign, likely indicating a serious collision.

So fingers crossed.

Rendering of West Valley LA River bike path project shamelessly stolen from LA Streetsblog. And I’ll try to catch up with all the recent email submissions in tomorrow’s post.

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I hate to say it, but she’s got a point.

Writing for CityWatch, Miriam Preissel says she continues to fight the completion of the many named LA River bike path through the Sepulveda Basin, not because she hates bikes, but because she questions how the price tag ballooned to nearly $100 million.

I am not anti-bike. A safe, continuous RiverWay through Los Angeles is a good idea. But taxpayers should still be able to ask a basic question: How did less than three miles of bike and pedestrian improvements become a project approaching $100 million, while five major undercrossings once included in the plan were pushed into the future?

That is where this stops being just a bike-path story and becomes a public-accountability story.

That’s nearly double the original estimate.

Preissel also questions why the bike path has to take a chunk out of the San Fernando Valley’s only dog park, located in Balboa Park.

For years, I have asked a simple question: Why not keep the path on the south side?

The City has never provided what should settle the issue once and for all: a side-by-side analysis comparing the north-side and south-side routes, including cost, engineering constraints, available width, environmental effects and recreational impacts…

In 2023, the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Areas Steering Committee questioned the north-side alignment and said it could find “no supportable justification” for moving approximately a mile of the path from the south side to the north.

The committee also noted that the proposed north-side route would run only a few hundred feet from the existing Orange Line bike path along Victory Boulevard and questioned whether existing bicycle connections might provide much of the same transportation function. It also raised concerns about future floodplain and habitat restoration.

Then there’s the question of lighting, both on the bike path and in the dog park.

The RiverWay is expected to include roughly 233 lights. The dog park still has none.

The park closes at sundown. During the shorter days of the year, that means many working residents may not get home in time to use it. For apartment dwellers, the dog park is not merely a recreational luxury. It may be the only large, legal place nearby where their dogs can run off leash.

Yet the park continues to struggle with basics: irrigation, bare ground, supplies and routine maintenance. At the same time, a nearly $100 million transportation project is moving forward next door.

I wish I had the answers.

I suspect part of it is because construction on the bike path is paid for with grant money, while the dog park comes out of city funds. But if Los Angeles is ever to become the great city it professes and pretends to be, we’ve got to be able to do the basics.

Chop wood, carry water.

This city is failing, and has continued to fail for the past decade, to do the simple things that make a city livable.

Fix potholes. Pick up trash. Get the drug users and people with mental illnesses off the streets, and into housing and treatment programs. And for God’s sake, light and maintain the damn dog parks.

We may have a spiffy new bike trail to show off to the world at the ’28 Olympics, but it will only hide the fact that we’re failing as a city.

Yes, I want all 52 miles of the LA River bike path finally finished, from the headwaters of the Los Angeles River to its mouth to the Pacific in Long Beach.

But I also want a livable city.

Is that really too much to ask?

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Today is the last day for Governor Newsom to sign a number of outstanding bike and traffic safety bills. Anything left unsigned at the end of the day automatically becomes a veto.

Meanwhile, CalMatters looks at the four DUI laws that Newsom signed last week.

Now let’s focus on getting something passed in the next session allowing DAs to charge hit-and-run drivers with second-degree murder for making a conscious decision to flee rather than helping the victim, or at least calling for help.

Is that really too much to ask?

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LA Taco looks at the dispute over improving safety on Forest Lawn Drive.

Which isn’t really a dispute over safety, or even bike lanes. But whether a city street should be kept dangerous to placate the wealthy owners of Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries.

Twitter post

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At least Culver City can get things done. Even if it takes a couple decades.

Twitter post

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As a side note, I revised that Spanish language version of my ghost bike t-shirt to make it brighter and highlight the bike, after realizing the previous version was a tad too dark.

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

A 34-year old North Dakota mother faces multiple charges after allegedly driving her car at a group of children at a reported 55-60 mph before swerving away at the last minute, allegedly because the kids hid her son’s bicycle as a prank before returning it; she says she was only doing 35 to 40 mph, which does not make it better.

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

The arch-right Daily Caller reports that bicyclists berated bystanders tending to the father who was struck and killed by a bike rider while walking in New York’s Central Park. Which is something no one else seems to have reported, so take it with a grain of salt, if not the whole bag.

A Singapore man calls the police after a teen riding with a group of boys accidentally crashed into his bicycle and apparently didn’t apologize sufficiently. He then tells the group they’re “kind of pathetic,” to which one of the kids answered “thank you for the compliment.” I’ll leave it to you to decide which side belongs here. 

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Local 

Volunteers with People’s Vision Zero once again embarrassed city officials by painting their own crosswalk where a 16-year old boy was killed by a driver in South LA last week, and his sister seriously injured. As we noted above, a city that can’t do basic things like install crosswalks will never be great, and barely be livable. 

Jim sends word that Palos Verdes Drive South will be fucked up for sewer repair work until next February, which may block access to the “switchbacks” on PVD East.

 

State

LAist says ebikes are Orange County teens’ ticket to independence, but questions if they’re too dangerous — then actually takes the time to explain the legal classifications for ebikes, noting that only 12% of ebikes used by middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties fit into the legal classification system. And no, that’s not data from Orange County, but there’s probably a correlation there somewhere, and the same goes for LA County beach cities.

The LA Times reports on All Kids on Bikes classes in the Inland Empire, with Rancho Cucamonga kindergarten kids learning how to ride in gym class.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies are cracking down on bicycle and ebike violations in the Ojai Valley, as if the people on two wheels were somehow the biggest danger on the streets.

Road.cc says the phenomenon of Oakland’s scraper bikes continues. I saw my first scraper bike outside a Hollywood Target a few weeks back, although purists would argue it wasn’t a real scraper because it wasn’t in Oakland.

Mill Valley is building a citywide culture of bicycling by focusing efforts on getting elementary students at one school to bike to class, and measuring the results.

Horrible news from Sonoma County, where a woman’s body was discovered in a ditch eleven hours after a hit-and-run driver left her bicycle more than a mile from the crash site. And no, the detail about eleven hours isn’t in this Patch article, but the more detailed information is hidden behind the local newspapers’ paywalls. 

 

National

She gets it. A Salt Lake City op-ed says bicycling deaths like the writer’s father’s aren’t anomalies, but rather, the bloody cost of our car-obsessed world.

Iowa Democrats are calling the Republican candidate for governor a carpetbagger, after the man’s quickly deleted Strava account shows he actually lives across the border in Kansas.

A Boston woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was struck by a bicyclist while walking near Boston University; the rider was also injured, but not as seriously.

The wacky New York Post says the city must rein in ebikes, arguing that ebikes should offer no speed advantage over regular bikes. Apparently forgetting that a skilled rider on fast bike can easily top 30 mph, which tops the maximum speed allowed by legal ebikes.

The honeymoon appears to be over for New York Mayor Mamdani, as Streetsblog contends he is allowing a street to be a fatality waiting to happen.

Two North Carolina men in their 40s were killed while sharing an ebike when they were struck by a 22-year old man; the driver was not arrested or cited, despite a history of five moving violations in three counties since 2022.

Electrek says a ticket issued to an 11-year old Florida boy for riding an illegal e-motorbike shows we don’t need more ebike laws, because the ones we already have are pretty good.

 

International

Momentum surprisingly offers a what appears to be a new story based on 2026 PeopleForBikes data highlighting ten North American cities quietly getting better for bicycling, including our own Long Beach.

The success of the new Gordie Howe International Bridge is reinvigorating historic neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, as bicyclists fill the streets, businesses boom and forgotten landmarks are being rediscovered.

A group of Toronto doctors, nurses and other front-line healthcare workers denounced the province’s move to rip out the city’s popular bike lanes, citing the risk of traffic violence.

A 69-year old Canadian man claimed the record as the oldest man to circumnavigate the earth by bicycle, riding 18,600 miles in 324 days in honor of his late wife.

If you build it, they will come. Gloomy Glasgow, Scotland saw a 74% jump in bicycling rates over just a two-year period after investing, and continuing to invest, in new bikeways.

Thousand’s of bicyclists turned out in Birmingham, England for a viral DJ-led drum and bass bike ride, saying it displayed the dangers bicyclists face in the city.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a 15-year old kid riding an illegal e-moto was ordered to pay just the equivalent of $652 after crashing into a 46-year old father riding a bicycle, leaving the victim hospitalized with life-changing injuries after eight full months.

Spain introduces new bicycling rules allowing bicyclists to take the primary position in the lane and requiring drivers to take more care passing bicycles; however, the law now requires all bike riders to wear a helmet under all circumstances.

An Indian travel website offers a slideshow of the world’s ten most beautiful bicycling routes, including our own PCH on the California coast, which only turns really deadly once it reaches Ventura County.

A man from Kazakhstan is 100 days into a 3,200-mile bicycle journey from the country’s capital to Australia.

Beijing opened a new 21-mile section of what will eventually form a nearly 30 mile greenway on both sides of the Qing River.

 

Competitive Cycling

Outside profiles Brandon McNulty, who most Americans never heard of until he won the men’s world championship last week. And still haven’t.

It was a double victory for the US at the worlds, as American phenom Ashlin Barry became the first-ever Yank to win in the men’s U-23 race.

 

Finally…

That feeling when rising gas prices lead a ’90s pop group to trade their tour bus for Lycra and bicycles. Your next bike could be a Bugatti, for a mere $27,000 — or you could buy your toddler a Tesla balance bike for just $225. Your old bike could be someone’s new prosthetic leg.

And it’s probably not the best idea to punch someone in the chest at a bike lane meeting and call her a “stupid cunt” when you’re an elected semi-city official.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ebike rider killed in Arleta collision, LA installed bike lanes on 1 whole mile of streets last year, and man rollerblading from LA to NY killed in Kansas

September 28, 2026 / / 4 comments

I guess we’re going to ease back into this slowly. 

I’m apparently still affected by the adverse reaction to the Moderna covid and flu shots last week. I had hoped to play catch-up today, and cover most if not all of what we missed last week. 

But after falling asleep mid-sentence and running my laptop battery down to zero, it’s clear that I still don’t have my strength back — something I discovered after thinking I was okay on Saturday and nearly passing out at a WeHo dog event. 

But at least I got to see a nice bakfiets someone rode to the dog park. Even the corgi stopped to check it out. 

Due to the resulting time constraints, I’m going to be an asshole today and not take the time to look up who sent me what. So thank you for sending me stuff, even if I don’t credit you individually. 

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I promised someone last week, before everything went to hell, that I would look into the death of man killed by a driver while riding an ebike in Arleta early in the morning of Sunday, September 13th.

The victim was struck by the SUV driver before 2 am in the 13000 block of Osborne Street.

A crowdfunding campaign posted by his brother has raised over $17,000 of the $20,000 goal to help pay for funeral expenses, describing in heartbreaking detail how much he loved, and was loved.

However, as we have discussed before, it’s difficult to determine whether a fallen ebike rider was on an electric bicycle or an electric motorcycle, since the police and the media can’t seem to tell one from another. And while any death is tragic, only the former are the subject of this site.

So unless I know for certain that the victim of a crash was riding a ped-assist bicycle, and not some other form of two-wheeled electric conveyance, I’m not including them in the already too high count of SoCal bicycling deaths.

And yes, even one is one too many.

So while my heart goes out to the family and loved ones of Oscar Adrian Lazaro, I won’t be adding his name to a 51 others who have lost their lives riding a bicycle in our deadly corner of the country.

But if anyone can convince me he was on a legal Class 1, 2 or 3 ebike, I’m more than willing to reconsider.

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Gracias por nada, Los Angeles.

Or rather, thanks for a whole 2.2 miles of new bike lanes installed in the last fiscal year, from June 2025 to June 2026. Except that’s lane miles — i.e., counting each side of the roadway separately — so we’re really talking about a whole one and one-tenth mile of net new bike lanes.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton wrote earlier this month that the City of Los Angeles, not to be confused with the other 87 cities and various unincorporated areas that make up LA County, built a whopping 7.5 miles of new bike lanes. But at the same time, the city removed 5.3 miles of already existing bike lanes, resulting in the wholly underwhelming 2.2-mile net total.

They also improved a whole 14.1 miles of existing bike lanes, which usually translates to adding a row white plastic bendie posts and calling it protected, as if those wands will somehow magically ward off a couple tons of ballistic steel and glass.

Which is like trading the family cow for a handful of magic beans. I mean, your family does have a cow, right?

And people wonder why I’m voting for Nithya Raman, if only because she’s not Karen Bass — the current mayor who not only supervised the non-building of bike lanes for the last three-and-a-half years, but also personally intervened to keep Forest Lawn Drive deadly.

Not to mention my current state Assemblymember, who voted to make it virtually illegal to fix the deadly street after a more than $300,000 lobbying campaign on behalf of Forest Lawn and Mt. Sinai cemeteries, in what can only be seen as a blatant attempt to drive more business.

Pun intended.

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Speaking of things that suck, as we seem to be this morning, yet another person traversing the county without benefit of a motor vehicle was killed by a driver before they could reach the other coast.

According to the New York Times, 24-year old Norwegian Joachim Lanham was killed by a driver in Kansas while attempting to rollerblade from Los Angeles to New York.

Lanham was 22 days into his journey when he was apparently run down by an 82-year old woman, once again raising the question of what the hell someone that old was doing behind the wheel. Except that in many, if not most cases, auto-centetric road designs and the lack of viable options doesn’t give them any other choice.

I’m just tired of people coming to this country on a tourist visa, and being sent home in a box.

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If you’ve been hanging around this site for awhile, you’ve probably seen my complaints that, despite common perceptions, bike helmets aren’t the life-saving equivalent of seat belts and air bags, and do little to protect again high-speed crashes or injuries to other parts of the body.

However, I may be forced to reconsider their utility, after a woman in Philadelphia used her bike helmet to stop a sexual assault.

No word on what the man actually did, or attempted to do. But the 63-year old woman responded by whacking the guy with her bike helmet — and continued to chase after him, yelling and smacking him with it, until a stranger intervened to protect her.

And him, apparently.

One more reason you should always have a helmet handy, evidently.

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Metro Bike says “Westward ho!” by expanding service between West Los Angeles and DTLA, as well as Downtown Los Angeles southward to the Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor.

Twitter post

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Kyle writes to say that Bike Streets is launching in Torrance.

They’re looking for 20 people willing to log every ride with Bike Streets and help build a Low-Stress Torrance Bike Map; you can sign up at bikestreets.com/join.

According to Kyle’s email,

Bike Streets takes a practical “Network First” approach to making biking safer and more accessible.

Instead of waiting years for individual bike lanes to be designed and funded, Bike Streets helps communities:

• Map the safest, lowest-stress streets and paths that already exist
• Connect those routes into a usable bike network
• Identify dangerous intersections and missing links that prevent the network from working
• Focus resources on fixing those critical gaps
• Start with practical, lower-cost improvements while working toward permanent infrastructure

The goal is to create a connected network that people can use now, and then continually improve it over time.

I think this is an approach worth learning about for anyone interested in making it easier and safer for kids and families to bike around their communities.

He says the project began with a podcast video from Avi Stopper of Strong Towns.

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A Bay Area TV station says a new bike trail offers a safer way to ride into Sausalito.

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A New England-based law firm forwarded their guide to safer electric transportation, covering everything from e-cars to ebikes, electric scooters and hoverboards, for whatever it’s worth.

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Sometimes, it’s the person on two wheels behaving badly. 

A 41-year old father of two died four days after he was struck by a speeding 32-year old bicyclist while walking in New York’s Central Park.

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Local 

Hoodline reports the LA Board of Public Works is set to approve an $84 million contract for a 2.9-mile segment of the Los Angeles River bike through Reseda, but will abandon planned under-crossings in order to finish in time for the 2028 Olympics, forcing riders to cross major streets.

Long Beach, like her larger neighbor to the north, met its target year for eliminating traffic deaths in abject failure, with 35 traffic deaths already this year, including six in just 18 days this month.

Speaking of Hoodline, nice to see their Jake Rodriguez reads this site, and thanks for citing me in his article about the fatal Paramount hit-and-run.

 

State

Construction has started on a bridge extending San Diego’s Fenton Parkway over the San Diego River in Mission Valley, providing bicyclists, pedestrians and yes, motor vehicle drivers with a safe crossing during high-water events.

Sad news from San Jose, where a 32-year old woman was killed by a driver while riding her bike.

 

National

You can all sleep better tonight, knowing the NTSB, aka National Transportation Safety Board, is on the case of the Milligan University massacre. On the other hand, it’s not comforting to know that Tennessee thinks a bicycling route with a 55 mph speed limit is somehow okay.

New protected bike lanes in Queens NY are the physical benefit of New York’s congestion pricing tolls.

A Baton Rouge, Louisiana group is still riding together, ten years after it was started by a 45-year old man to uplift the community.

 

International

Having obviously run out of things to talk about, Momentum continues recycling old articles, in this case linking to a 16-month old Japanese study showing that riding a bicycle can help people over 60 live independently. In other breaking news, researchers have confirmed that ursine creatures do, in fact, defecate in the woods. 

 

Competitive Cycling

In a win that shocked the world, the men’s elite cycling world title went to none other than Brandon McNulty, the 28-year old journeyman becoming the first American rider to take the title since Lance Armstrong in 1993, and Greg LeMond in 1983 and 1989; McNulty won by a 52-second margin in a two-lap solo breakaway.

Aussie Michael Matthews finished second in the race behind McNulty, with Mathieu van der Poel taking bronze.

The women’s world’s were marked by a massive 15-rider crash that changed the outcome of the race; fortunately, the two most seriously injured riders were showing marked improvement a day later.

Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering may have won may have won the rainbow jersey at the Road World Championships, but she was still sanctioned with a 1000 CHF fine — the equivalent of roughly $1,200 — a 25-point deduction in UCI rankings, and a yellow card for “using a non-compliant position or point of support on the bicycle.”

A 32-year old man documented his ride in the Race Across America, better known as RAAM, finishing the more than 3,000 race in 11 days, 23 hours and 3 minutes in a tribute to his father, who is suffering from prostate cancer; his film The Road to Why is now available on Apple TV and Amazon.

Twenty-three-year old Afghan cyclist Fariba Hashimi won silver in the Asian Games, after having to disguise herself as a man in order to train without abuse in the ultra-conservative country.

A 25-year-old Aussie cyclist and coach is back racing just two years after a life-saving heart transplant.

 

Finally…

Speaking of the worlds, the masseur for the Slovakian team had to shave his legs and compete in the race, after none of the country’s team members were physically able to race; he made it 100 km — 62 miles — before dropping out.

Twitter post

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newsom keeps Forest Lawn Drive deadly, Kings County judge gets lousy misdemeanor, and Metro find $1 million under cushions for open streets

September 21, 2026 / / No comments

May you have an easy fast for all marking the Day of Atonement today. 

And Jewish or not, we all have something to atone for. 

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Good news and bad from Sacramento.

On the good side, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ AB 2168.

The bill, which was sponsored by Calbike, is designed to strengthens California’s Active Transportation Program by improving how bicycle and pedestrian projects are chosen and funded, to deliver more connected, accessible walking and biking networks

The bad news is that Newsom also signed SB 194, a last-minute, apparently lobbyist-written bill enabling the state to interfere on behalf of a couple of wealthy cemeteries to keep Forest Lawn Drive deadly. The new law in designed to make it much harder to implement a shovel-ready Complete Streets plan that was supposed to start earlier this year.

Newsom should have had the integrity to veto the law, which was so narrowly written that Forest Lawn Drive is the only street in the entire state it applies to.

Then there’s this response to Street For All’s original tweet. Which tells you a lot about the kind of people we’re dealing with here.

Twitter post

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Life is cheap in Kings County, where County Superior Court Judge Kendra Weber was charged with a lousy misdemeanor, without gross negligence, for killing a 63-year old man riding a bicycle last year.

Weber allegedly hit him from behind after failing to give a safe passing distance.

Yet somehow, the California Attorney General’s office doesn’t even have the decency to mention the victim’s name. But I suppose we should probably just be grateful a judge was charge at all.

Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

………

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits new protected bike lanes in Griffith Park, Hollywood and Arcadia. And writes that Metro has identified $1 million in unspent funds that can be devoted to funding open streets next year.

Metro had zeroed out any funding for open streets events that were not directly tied to this year’s World Cup and the ’28 Los Angeles Olympics, but Supervisor Lindsey Horvath insisted they find some money for next year, later joined by LA Mayor Karen Bass as she struggles for re-election.

Although that amount of funding will cover just two to three events. But that’s better than nothing. Hopefully other sponsors will step up to host more events.

Speaking of which, CicLAvia will return to the popular Heart of LA event in DTLA, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, Echo Park and the Arts District on October 11th. And the Santa Barbara website that brought it up even has the good taste to illustrate the story with a photo of a corgi.

………

WeHo Online talks with the attorney representing the family of fallen bicyclist Blake Ackerman in their lawsuit against the city.

And it’s definitely worth taking a few minutes to read the lengthy piece. Take this brief segment, as the city takes the classic defense tactic of blaming the city, and/or claiming Ackerman’s death was an act of God.

The lawsuit isn’t claiming West Hollywood should have somehow predicted the event. It argues the City knew Fountain was dangerous, said so repeatedly and still did not make the changes it had been considering for years.

“They’ve become local experts since losing their son,” Gammill said of the family. “When things feel avoidable, preventable, it’s harder to swallow.”

“If lightning strikes, that’s just a fact of life. But when it’s not so much a lightning strike and it feels more like somebody left a live electrical cord laying out, that’s just harder to swallow.”

In other words, it may not be their fault that a hit-and-run driver plowed into Ackerman’s bicycle at Fountain and Gardner. But it is their fault that they’ve known for years, if not decades, how dangerous the street is and did nothing to make it safer.

That’s the unforgivable part.

And I will go to my grave blaming myself for not fighting harder to hold the city to account, before it was too late.

………

Speaking of the need for atonement, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the 23-year old Irvine man who struck a man in a wheelchair in Long Beach, and left him there in the crosswalk to die.

Allegedly.

Ethan Chung was booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter. He was apparently arrest later the same day, following the crash at 12:35 am Friday.

………

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

No bias here. A driver gets angry with a bike rider for not using an expensive new bike lane — even though the work isn’t finished and it’s not even obvious what it is yet.

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

A Singapore teenager has been charged with a rash act causing death after the 16-year old boy crashed his bike into a 74-year pedestrian, killing the man.

………

Local 

Pasadena’s new biking and walking plan is now open for comments, with a goal of achieving zero traffic deaths. In other words, Vision Zero by any other name.

The Crescenta Valley Weekly looks at last week’s call for Los Angeles to declare a traffic violence state of emergency, which seems to have fallen on the usual deaf ears at the city council and mayor’s office. After all, you don’t want to piss off driving voters in an election year just to save a few hundred lives. 

 

State

A 20-year old Orange County man was the first in line to return his ebike at the OC DA’s recent ebike buyback event, after spending months on life support following a crash.

A Helendale man was arrested in Irvine with a stolen bike and an outstanding felony warrant from Riverside County, but faces only 6 months in county and a $1,000 fine unless the bike turns out to have a value over $950.

The San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, is building seven bikeway projects totaling 21 miles, annoying at least some drivers in the process. On the other hand, SANDAG followed LA’s lead in returning $17.1 million in unspent Active Transportation funds for four projects after they couldn’t meet state deadlines. Except Los Angeles had to give back over $100 million.

A large group of San Diego bicyclists turned out on Saturday riding everything from pedal bikes and mountain bikes to dirt bikes to honor 14-year old Owen Harris after the boy was killed by a driver while riding his ebike in Pacific Beach last weekend.

A bike rider in Ventura suffered “significant” injuries when they were struck by a driver on Telegraph Road Friday. But the local paper doesn’t want you to know about it, hiding the story behind a paywall, even though it’s likely based on a public report from the city police.

Palo Alto will be moving forward with a pair of long-delayed bicycle projects.

A paywalled story from the San Francisco Standard looks at the city’s alt-cycling movement, described as “an anti-optimized ethos” emerging “from ‘broke people riding old mountain bikes’,” exemplified by a ‘zine called Calling In Sick. Or as it’s called anywhere else, just normal people riding cheap bikes.

 

National

Life is cheap in Tucson, Arizona, where a driver faces another lousy misdemeanor for killing a bike rider in a left-cross collision.

He — or maybe she — gets it. A Salt Lake City letter writer says whether acting as a bicyclist, pedestrian or diver, their safety depends on whether the road itself is poorly planned, or others on the road are acting unsafely.

Great idea. An Oklahoma bike tour took riders through some of the state’s historic Black communities over the weekend.

In a touching story, a group of bicyclists in College Station, Texas rode Saturday to remember Kerry Snow-Alley, a 47-year old woman who refused to let her stage 4 breast cancer define her, describing her as “a beast” on her bike but adding “Off the bike, she was generous, relentlessly positive, and the kind of person who quietly showed up for the people around her;” she died from the disease September 10th.

Two residents of a Wisconsin religious mission rode through rain, chilly temperatures and steep hills yesterday on a 101-mile bike ride to “celebrate their sobriety, express their faith and raise awareness for the program that helped them turn their lives around.”

It only took 30 years, but Minnesota finally finished a 165-mile bike path, one of the longest paved bike trails in the US.

A kindhearted Indiana cop dug into his own pocket to buy a kid a new bike, after the boy got stiffed for a grass cutting job.

Tragic news from New York’s East Village, where a 15-year old girl was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while sharing a bikeshare bike with a 16-year old companion; she appeared to be riding in the handlebar basket when the 57-year old driver hit them both while they were riding in a crosswalk.

Gothamist offers a look at plans for New York’s re-imagined Park Avenue, which will finally be more of one.

A Georgia man ‘fessed up to shooting another man in an argument over the victim’s bicycle, but there’s no word on why they were fighting about it. Regardless, there is no bicycle on Earth that’s worth a human life. Just let it go, already. 

 

International

A Canadian woman became an advocate for safer streets after her husband was killed riding his bicycle; 20 years later, she’s still honoring his legacy by working to keep us all safer. The sad thing is that she still has to do, because 20 years later things still haven’t improved.

An English woman was knocked off her bicycle by a legally blind driver, suffering a broken leg, heel and several toes, as well as lacerations and a fractured elbow, because the man “forgot” to put on his glasses before getting behind the wheel.

The co-chair of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh’s air pollution working group is now advising Scottish bicyclists to wear close-fitting masks when they ride, arguing that bike riders “hugely increased” their intake of such pollutants compared to drivers and walkers by breathing more heavily. Although another study showed that drivers breathe in much more pollutants than bicyclists, because the smog gets trapped inside their cars.

The co-founder of British fashion brand Mint Velvet remembers how she “just crumbled” when she learned her son wouldn’t survive after being struck by a driver while riding his bike ten years ago.

Four out of five Dutch bicyclists say they feel less safe now sharing bikeways with fat bikes and ebikes.

Now we know what killed 36-year old German ultracyclist Max Riese, who crashed into a deer on a high-speed descent near his home in Salzburg, Austria. 

Our old friends Melissa and Chris Bruntlett, now Dutch-based authors and mobility experts, visit Estonia and observe both the progress, and lack thereof, in the country’s two largest cities.

Istanbul’s Visa Maximiles Black L’Etape Türkiye by Tour de France 2026 gave riders the rare opportunity to through two continents on a single 20 to 60 mile route. Although it probably takes longer to say the name than it would to ride the short course. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser threw herself a party for her 36th birthday by winning a second-consecutive women’s elite time trial world title on Sunday. Meanwhile, Remco Evenepoel doubled Reusser’s record, making it four in a row by taking the men’s world time trial title, also on Sunday.

 

Finally…

Now you can own the only three-wheeled e-car prototype built before ebike maker SONDORS gave up on the project. Lime is now willing to rat you out to the cops if you misbehave.

And no, there’s no hypocrisy at all in demanding that bike riders pay a tax for using roads, when owing the government $20 million in unpaid taxes and fees.

Why do you ask?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Measure HLA lawsuits stacking up in LA courts, and Oregon woman ‘fesses up to DUI death of 87-year old SLO bicyclist

September 18, 2026 / / One comment

I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is one damn week I’ll be glad to see in the rearview mirror. Or more precisely, it makes me damn glad I don’t have one. 

Photo from Ekaterina Bolovtsova on Pexels.

……….

Joe Linton offers an update on his lawsuits against the city for failing to comply with the requirements of Measure HLA, which were filed in his capacity as a human being, rather than the editor of Streetsblog LA.

The short version, since we’re trying to play catch up today, is that the city is claiming that HLA is virtually invalid, thanks to the many and varied loopholes city leaders are trying to squirm through.

Meanwhile, the Board of Public Works denied five more Measure HLA appeals filed by Linton, as well as another which may be the first not filed by Linton. All of which will undoubtedly find their way into still more lawsuits, for which the city will inevitable deny any and all responsibility.

And the beat goes on.

………

A 44-year old woman from Bend Oregon faces up to nine years and eight months behind bars for killing 87-year-old Saul Goldberg in San Luis Obispo two years ago

Vanessa Rose Noblitt pled no contest to charges of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving with a blood alcohol concentration greater than .15 percent — way over, actually — causing great bodily injury or death, and hit and run for running down Goldberg as he rode his bike with another man in July, 2024.

Noblitt went on to crash into a parked car minutes later, and was arrested for driving with a BAC over four times the legal limit.

The 73-year old man riding with Golberg suffered moderate injuries in the crash.

………

No surprise here.

The 39-year old suspected car thief who drove an alleged hot Tesla down the Pacific Beach boardwalk before running down a 25-year old woman has an extensive criminal record possibly dating back to his teens.

Juan Antonio Gonzaba faces five felony charges for the incident, adding to the 18 previous criminal cases dating back to 2009 — or maybe 2006. In addition, he has “five prior failures to appear, has been placed on probation 10 times and failed to comply with court-ordered mental health treatment in three previous cases.”

He faces up 24 years and eight months in state prison if convicted on all charges.

Meanwhile, the woman he — allegedly — ran down on the boardwalk non-allegedly suffered two fractured right ribs, two fractured vertebrae and an abdominal laceration; fortunately, her injuries were not considered life-threatening.

………

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

A 41-year old Pennsylvania man faces an attempted murder charge after he allegedly drove onto the opposite side of the road and up onto a sidewalk to intentionally hit a 22-year old man riding a BMX bike with three other friends, accusing the man of stealing the bike.

Maybe there’s something in the water in Pennsylvania, where an aggressive golf cart driver chased a bicyclist on a bike path, shouting slurs and attempting to ram his bike; other riders confirmed this wasn’t the first time it had happened, even if the local police didn’t seem all that concerned.

No bias here. English residents complain about plans for a nearly $3 million bike lane, saying bike riders don’t use the lanes they already have, instead “wriggling” through traffic and blaming drivers when something goes wrong. Never mind that no one will use a bike lane if it doesn’t go where they need to go, or connect with an actual network that does.

A bike-riding British councilor complained that it’s almost like drivers are at war with bike riders, calling on police to get involved with bicycling training in schools. Although I’m not sure how teaching kids to be better bike riders will stop threatening motorists, but still.

………

Local 

Streetsblog reports on the victims of traffic violence urging the LA City Council to declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence, as advocates turned in a petition with over 1,250 signatures. That’s the one I wasn’t able to write about because I was too busy writing about still more victims of traffic violence. Never mind the deafening silence from the council.

Streetsblog editor Joe Linton talks traffic violence on KCRW, arguing that even subtle street safety improvements can slow cars and prevent fatal accidents.

A kindhearted Montebello firefighter bought a new bicycle for a 12-year old boy, after learning the kid walked to his family’s taco stand every day after school to help out.

A Santa Monica City College alum and endurance bicyclist invented a smart rearview safety system after he was rear ended by a driver when a bike lane ended, which sends a haptic warning buzz through the seat post or handlebar. Conveniently turning your bicycle into a very public vibrator. 

The Long Beach Police Department confirmed that the right-hook crash that killed a 68-year old man in Long Beach earlier this month was a hit-and-run, after there was some initial confusion whether they had spoken with the driver after the crash. Although as Bill said in the comments, riding on the sidewalk isn’t the best idea, even if it seems safer — especially when going against traffic, because turning drivers will be looking the other way. 

Speaking of Long Beach, the Long Beach Post says the city’s Complete Streets makeover of five miles of Studebaker Road is the biggest test yet of whether Long Beach can remake itself into a bicycling utopia; needless to say, not everyone loves the idea.

 

State

A memorial continues to grow for the 14-year old kid killed by a driver after running on his ebike in Pacific Beach — although clearly, not everyone feels all that sorry for the boy.

The same can be said for the 13-year old boy killed by a driver fleeing from the cops while riding his ebike in Menifee, as the community continues to mourn his needless death.

A San Francisco writer examines the city’s bizarrely misshapen “bike lane markers of the damned,” which city officials say are the result of repaving. Although that doesn’t explain the weirdly drawn bike lane marker with wheels shaped like circular saw blades, and a rider apparently ready to fall.

Police closed their five month investigation into the bicycling death of UC Davis student Lincoln Sabini, who was killed after apparently losing his balance and swerving in front of on oncoming driver while riding on campus.

 

National

The Interior Department is working to cut red tape for pathways and improve ebike access in national parks, even as the Trump administration is slashing funding for “DEI” bike lanes. Don’t try to make it make sense, you’ll just drive yourself nuts. And there’s no point in driving when you can just bike there. 

Which leads us to a history professor at James Madison University and the author of “On Bicycles,” considering the politicization of “DEI” bike lanes.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, as a 14-year old boy spotted a woman acting disoriented in the Arizona heat, and called for help in time to save her.

No shit. Chicago Streetsblog says the collateral damage death of a 54-year old man riding an ebike — actually an e-moto — at the same intersection where an 87-year old woman was killed in a collateral damage crash while just crossing the street signals the need for major safety improvements.

The Detroit Free Press says check the weather forecast before using the bikeway on the new Gordie Howe International Bridge, or you could get stuck between the US and Canada.

One of the stories we missed earlier this week was New York Mayor Mamdani recommitting to Vision Zero, starting with a new protected bike lane and wider walking path on the city’s iconic Park Avenue. That compares favorably to Los Angeles, where our mayor doesn’t seem to know the city even has a Vision Zero plan, or maybe “had” is a more accurate term. Thanks to Megan for the heads-up. 

A New York college argues that the city’s bike lanes are part of its food supply chain, and the streets plan should say so.

A California man rode his bike over 2,000 miles across the US to begin his freshman year at Brown University in Rhode Island, after jumpstarting his ride when his dad gave him a lift to Colorado.

A New Jersey woman says the state’s new law requiring ebike riders to have a driver’s license means people like her who suffer from low vision will lose their only reliable form of transportation.

Maryland authorities have charged a 61-year old convicted child molester with the kidnapping, rape and murder of a ten-year old boy, who disappeared while riding his bike 33 years ago. Seriously, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough.

 

International

A 61-year old British man was killed in a collision after he busted out of a hospital while suffering from delirium caused by a urinary tract infection, and stole a bicycle to get away.

Momentum continues to recycle their older stories, offering the breaking news that bicycling rates doubled in Paris in a single year — from 2022 to 2023.

A German TV station says Berlin’s streets are becoming a battleground between bicyclists and drivers, and takes to the streets to “find out who really has the upper hand and why tensions keep rising.” Hint: I can tell you what side the casualties are on, even without listening to the report. 

Sad news from Austria, where 33-year old ultra-endurance bicyclist Max Riese was killed by a driver while riding his bike on the 15th of this month; no word on where the collision occurred.

The 40-year old woman who killed two members of a small group ride in Canberra, Australia will face two counts of culpable driving causing death and one count of negligent driving causing actual bodily harm. And no, I don’t know what those charges mean, either. 

 

Competitive Cycling

A physics website explains the paradox in which track cyclists can begin from a standing stop with “non-zero” velocity, meaning they’ve already built up speed before they start moving.

Members of the women’s pro peloton complained that we shouldn’t still be having to have this same conversation, after a controversial ad starring a stark naked Sidney Sweeney promoting a sports betting company, arguing that women athletes deserve to be taken seriously, and for more than their bodies. I saw the ad when it aired on Monday Night Football and was more offended by the betting than the nudity, particularly here in California where online betting remains illegal, except for “prediction markets,” which offer the same thing by a different name. But yeah, that ad felt like it should have aired 30 years ago, except Sweeney wouldn’t have been born yet.

 

Finally…

Make an obscene gesture when a pedestrian complains about riding a bikeshare bike on the sidewalk, and lose your Lime rights. That feeling when Lime bikes pile up on Lime Street (now they just need to get a cocoanut and stir it all up.) If the city won’t build a bike lane where a bike rider was killed, just build it yourself with duct tape.

And if you really loved your toddler, you’d get them a $1,000 titanium balance bike.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Demand a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, stop LA’s nonexistent “war on cars,” and lefties want to kill your palm trees

September 15, 2026 / / No comments

If today’s post seems a little jazzier than usual, it was written under the influence of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which is way better than any drug.

Today’s photo of LA City Hall looking like a big dick to represent all the little ones, male and female, inside. 

……….

More on today’s call for the City of Los Angeles to declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, as I’ve mashed an email notification and press release together.

And yes, there’s still time to get to City Hall if you can make it this morning.

DEMAND A STATE OF EMERGENCY ON TRAFFIC VIOLENCE!

More than 1,300 people and 40 coalition partners have signed SAFE’s open letter calling on the Mayor and City Council to declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and take immediate action.

Now, we’re bringing that demand to City Hall. We need you to show up, give public comment, and make your voice heard.

Tuesday, September 15, 2026
9:30 a.m. Meet at City Hall
10:00 a.m. City Council meeting begins
Press conference following public comment
200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Entrance on Main St.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment. If you can speak during public comment or at our press conference, please confirm with me and review the instructions and talking points for public comment.

We hope to see you at City Hall Tuesday.

WHAT: Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), People’s Vision Zero, and community members will present an open letter to Los Angeles City Council signed by more than 1,300 Angelenos and 43 Coalition Partners to Los Angeles City Hall, calling on Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council to immediately declare a State of Emergency on traffic violence and implement 5 broad strategies to immediately address and reduce serious injuries and fatalities due to traffic violence.

The stats speak for themselves:

  • The City of Los Angeles has had more traffic fatalities than homicides for the past 3 years.
  • In 2025, Los Angeles had 324 traffic fatalities and 16,160 people injured; that’s 3.5% higher than in 2024 (313). (Source: TIMS)
  • So far this year, traffic fatalities are already well over 200 and are currently running 8% higher than the same time last year. (Source: LAPD as of 22 Aug 2026)

In 2015, Los Angeles started Vision Zero, LA’s plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2025. That plan failed, and traffic fatalities are now 34% higher than they were in 2015 (241 compared to 324). (Source: TIMS) Since then, LA has failed to produce a comprehensive plan to reduce traffic violence.

In April 2025, an independent analysis of Vision Zero found 13 key points of failure. All of these boil down to poor coordination and prioritization within and across city departments as well as a lack of political will. None of this has been fixed.

On 11 May 2026, in an email, Ms Tina Backstrom from the LA Mayor’s office stated that Mayor Karen Bass had an Executive Directive on her desk to re-launch Vision Zero and that it would be reviewed and signed within three weeks. This was never done.

Los Angeles has spent more than a decade promising to eliminate traffic deaths. Not only did Vision Zero fail, but things have gotten worse, and now, instead of fixing what continues to fail, the city has chosen to ignore the problem.

I admit, I was unaware of that email stating that Bass would re-launch Vision Zero, which just seems to add to her failings when it comes to traffic safety.

And makes her recent stepped-up support of safety projects — other than Forest Lawn Drive, of course — seem more like the flailing actions of someone desperately running for re-election, than any real change of heart.

But maybe that’s just me.

……….

No bias here.

A former Los Angeles city planner writes that Los Angeles needs to stop the mythical “war on cars,” spewing a lengthy word salad to say that Los Angeles isn’t Amsterdam, which should come as no surprise to anyone.

For one thing, the people in Amsterdam live in one of the world’s happiest countries, which can hardly be said about Angelenos.

Thomas Glick implicitly criticizes CD 4 Councilmember and LA mayoral challenger Nithya Raman for saying people should drive less, while also driving herself.

Oh, the shame!

That will surely make her hang her head and slink away.

Glick also says that bicycling, and bike lanes, are good things. But, you know, bike lanes can get cluttered with palm fronds and other debris after it rains, making them virtually unusable.

Which seems like a far better argument for bike lane-sized street sweepers, than it is for whatever point Glick is trying to make.

Then there’s this.

That is the larger problem. Los Angeles transportation policy increasingly seems designed to satisfy the demands of progressive transportation organizations and advocacy groups such as Streets for All rather than starting with the more basic question: What will actually move the greatest number of Angelenos safely and efficiently?

Mayor Karen Bass, to her credit, has shown that there can be a middle ground. Bass is hardly opposed to public transportation, bike lanes or reducing automobile dependence. But she has also demonstrated a willingness to recognize that transportation policy has to work for the people who actually live here. When faced with significant community opposition to the proposed redesign of Forest Lawn Drive, which would have removed a traffic lane in each direction to create a protected bike lane, Bass ordered the project redesigned rather than simply pushing ahead. Her revised approach calls for protected bike infrastructure while maintaining the existing traffic lanes.

That is the kind of balance Los Angeles needs. The choice shouldn’t be between doing nothing and declaring war on the automobile. We can make streets safer, expand transit and provide better options for bicyclists without pretending that every traffic lane is an obstacle to be eliminated. Bass’s decision on Forest Lawn Drive suggests that even a mayor committed to expanding alternative transportation can recognize that there are limits to how much roadway Los Angeles can take away from the automobile before the cure becomes worse than the disease.

Never mind that the point of the Forest Lawn Drive project wasn’t about building bike lanes, but slowing traffic and saving lives on one of the city’s deadliest corridors.

Which you’d think a former city planner would understand, but apparently not.

And never mind that the project has undergone years of public meetings and revisions to accommodate various competing visions. Or that Bass halted the Forest Lawn project in response to a $300,000 lobbying campaign on behalf of a pair of very wealthy private cemeteries, who are apparently trying to drum up more business at their front step.

So yeah, let’s stop that mythical “war on cars,” and let the people in them keep killing themselves, and others, to the content of their lil ol’ hearts.

And yeah, stop taking away traffic lanes to build those darn bus lanes, too, even though buses move more people far more efficiently than cars can.

So sure, let’s keep Los Angeles deadly. And car and smog choked. And inefficient. And unaccommodating. And progressively less livable.

But whatever you do, don’t do anything to restrict Angelenos God-given right to drive their cars.

Or even suggest that maybe they should do it just a teeny bit less.

………

No bias here, either.

In bicycle-adjacent news, the conservative New York Post writes that “A lefty public transport nonprofit that supports socialist Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman is coming for the city’s iconic palm trees.”

Maybe someone should tell them that their own New York mayor is a loud and proud Democratic socialist. And I didn’t know Streets For All was a “lefty” group, unless traffic safety and urban livability are “lefty” issues.

Besides, they’re right. The only good thing about LA’s palm trees, which are actually a form of very big grass, is they look kinda cool and give the city an iconic image.

But they take a lot of water, provide virtually no shade, and do nothing to cool our over-baked city. And they go up like a torch in any kind of fire, as we see every 4th of July and most Christmases.

Apparently, pointing that out — which many others have done before — is enough to get you labeled a “lefty.” And God forbid, a supporter of a (gasp) Nithya Raman.

Twitter post

………

That’s tonight!

Twitter post

………

A multi-agency Orange County police task force cracked down on traffic violations, writing 102 citations with an emphasis on motorcycle noise violation and illegal electric motorbikes.

According to New Santa Ana, the violations included:

  • 18 citations for loud exhaust violations Loudest reading: 111 dBA, well above California’s 95 dBA limit for passenger vehicles and 80 dBA limit for motorcycles.
  • 2 citations for emissions violations Referred to the State Referee, where drivers must complete compliance testing and repairs.
  • 33 speeding citations Highest recorded speed: 95 MPH in a 50 zone on SR‑1 near El Morro School.
  • 6 drivers cited for unlicensed or suspended license operation
  • 1 vehicle impounded
  • 1 arrest Charges included open container, DUI, and possession of a concealed firearm.

Which leaves 41 violations for…something.

………

Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly acting like total dicks. 

A 51-year old Eugene, Oregon man faces charges for intentionally riding his bike into a 73-year old homeless woman — twice — after she told him to “watch out” when he rode close to her and her dog, leaving her with minor injuries.

………

Local 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass manages to get herself photographed center stage at the groundbreaking for the Spring/Alameda Safety and Mobility Project, making the sort of public appearance she could have, and should have, been making for the past three-and-a-half years.

Good news from Culver City, where the Ballona Creek bike path was reopened on Friday after storm damage from the recent hurricane was repaired.

 

State

Apparently, riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk with your unsecured, un-helmeted two-year old kid on your lap is no big deal in Santa Ana.

Nearly 1,000 ebikes, e-motos and electric scooters were turned in during the Orange County DA’s buyback program on Saturday. Although judging by the video clips I saw, many were of the normal, and legal, ped-assist type, which wouldn’t do anything to reduce the number of dangerous and illegal electric vehicles the program was intended to remove from the roadway. 

San Diego is considering suing bikemakers for deceptive ebike ads.

Here’s why — okay, one reason — paywalls don’t make any sense. The San Diego Union-Tribune hid a story about the identity of the 14-year old kid killed riding an ebike in Pacific Beach over the weekend behind their draconian paywall, even though the kid’s name and other details were readily available from at least a half dozen other sources.

 

National

A website lists five Android apps that are “perfect” for bicyclists, even if you do your riding indoors.

Dominos is relaunching the bicycle with a built-in pizza oven, which they seem to do every few years, but this time as an ebike, presumably for even faster and hotter deliveries. Or maybe just a reliable PR stunt. 

A travel lane is being removed from a Eugene, Oregon street to make room for bike lanes and a combination bus/parking lane, in a city where removing a traffic lane doesn’t seem to be the end of the world.

Evidently, the New York Post thinks Seattle is in California, writing that the driver spotted speeding along a Seattle bike lane was driving next to a “major California freeway.” 

Denver Broncos all-pro safety Talanoa Hufanga’s NFL dreams began with a little red bicycle, riding to high school football games with his dad when he was just five or six years old.

More than 200 Loyola of Chicago students, faculty and staff took part in the university’s annual midnight bike ride, a tradition since 1989.

A 41-year old Louisville, Kentucky man was released on his own recognizance and allowed to drive to medical appointments for his Stage IV cancer, despite being charged with the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle. It’s not that he shouldn’t be allowed to get to his medical treatments, it’s that the man he killed didn’t get any say in any of it. 

An Indiana University researcher uses bikes to develop a heat map.

A Maryland bike shop owner explains why he decided “decades ago” not to sell ebikes to minors, or to parents for their minor kids. Because apparently ebikes were a major problem in his shop decades before they became a problem anywhere else. 

Heartbreaking story from Durham, North Carolina, where a nine-year old boy was killed by a driver on Sunday while riding the bicycle he got for his birthday; his mom said “Just hug your babies. Love your babies. And people need to slow down. If you’re in a neighborhood full of kids, slow down.”

 

International

Travel + Leisure lists ten countries that are made for a two-wheeled vacay, only two of which — Slovenia and Vietnam — are even kinda surprising.

A story from British Columbia seems to miss the most important part, after a 47-year old man pled guilty to second-degree murder in the hit-and-run death of a 54-year old man riding a bicycle, after pleading down from first-degree murder — yet somehow, fails to mention why he was charged with murder in the first place.

In shocking news, the BBC reveals that reckless ebike users pose a danger to people on bicycles. Kinda like reckless people in or on anything, including feet. 

European cities show how to pay people to bike to work — and make it work.

Protests took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after a 51-year old suspected bike thief died in police custody.

A man riding 500 miles to raise funds for his seriously ill partner was beaten by his fellow Poles for wearing a yellow and blue hat, accusing him of being a Ukrainian nationalist, even though the hat was clearly labeled to represent a Polish region.

 

Competitive Cycling

Five Americans to watch at this year’s Worlds.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your donut ride across Los Angeles is just a slightly veiled ad for an energy drink. This is who we share the boardwalk with.

And the latest reason for cops to oppose a new bike lane is because it could become “a highway for illegal ebikes on drug runs.”

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Ebike rider killed in Arleta crash, and demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence at LA council tomorrow

September 14, 2026 / / No comments

Okay, where were we?

I should have known I was tempting fate by going on a rant over traffic deaths. But why the hell did fate take it out on a young kid?

And you can find the t-shirt in today’s photo, and a few other ghost bike tees, by clicking on the Swag button on the upper right. I’d really like to stop posting them if drivers would just stop killing us. 

………

Speaking of ebike deaths, which I was really trying not to do, someone was killed riding an ebike in Arleta early Sunday.

According to KTLA-5, the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was stuck by the driver of a white SUV in the 13000 block of Osborne Street, as if the color of the vehicle had some sort of magical effect on the outcome.

Actually, KTLA says the victim was killed after being struck by the SUV, as if a) the victim was beaten or strangled after being stuck by the vehicle, and b) the driver of the SUV somehow had nothing to do with it.

You can do better, KTLA.

As usual, there’s no word on what kind of ebike it was, whether the victim was riding a legal ped-assist bike or an illegal e-moto or dirt bike, since neither the cops nor the press can seem to distinguish between them.

At least Hoodline managed to add that section of Osborne Street is on Los Angeles’s Vision Zero High Injury Network — suggesting that the city still cares about such things — with 20 total vehicle fatalities and 16 pedestrian or bicyclist collisions from 2010 to 2020.

And why does it take The Korea Daily to report on LA traffic deaths and injuries? The Los Angeles-based paper reports that,

According to traffic collision statistics released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Aug. 27, a total of 187 people were killed in traffic crashes in Los Angeles between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15 this year. That represents a 5% increase from 178 deaths during the same period last year.

Injury crashes also increased by about 7%, from 971 to 1,043, while bicycle-related injury crashes surged 37% to 144.

The only real surprise that bicycle-related injury crashes surged more than a third is that anyone is still tracking the number, since no one bothers to tell us anymore.

……….

A reminder that Streets Are For Everyone is urging you to show up for tomorrow’s LA City Council Meeting, where they will demand that the city declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence.

The time has come to demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence from our local leaders.

SAFE will join our coalition partners at Los Angeles City Council on September 15th to drop our open letterdemanding that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council immediately declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and address this public health crisis.

Thank you for signing on and joining this movement. Your signature helped us reach more than 1,250 signatures on this campaign, showing our local leaders that Angelenos want streets that are safe to use.

The next step is here, and we need you with us as we deliver that message directly to City Hall.

Please join SAFE on September 15th at 9:30 am in City Hall to help us deliver our open letter and make our voices heard. We are asking everyone who has signed this letter to attend the City Council meeting and give public comment.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment, making it clear to our local leaders that traffic violence is an urgent public safety crisis that deserves their attention.

Event Details

  • Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
  • Time: Meet at 9:30 a.m.
  • Council Meeting Begins at 10:00 a.m.
  • Press Conference following Public Comment
  • Location: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Entrance on Main St.)

Instructions and Talking Points for Public Comment.

After public comment concludes, advocates will leave the Council Chamber and regroup outside on the steps of City Hall for a Press Conference.

Thank you again for adding your name to this campaign and standing with us. We have built the movement. Now it is time to bring it directly to our local leaders.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email (aaron@streetsareforeveryone.org) or by calling my cell (818.697.2621)

We hope to see you at City Hall on September 15th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be there, as much as I’d like to be.

The meds I take to keep from acting out my dreams, and possibly inadvertently killing my wife in my sleep, means I will likely be unconscious at that hour. And even if I tried to shake off the effects of the drug and show up, I’d be too sick from it to even make it there.

So please, if you can, go in my stead and be my witness before the council to demand they take urgent action to stop people from killing us.

God knows, we’ve got enough ghost bikes in this damn city.

……….

LA mayoral challenger Nithya Raman announced her plan to make LA cooler and more livable before the ’28 Olympics.

Twitter post

……….

He gets it.

A writer for The Guardian, who confesses the “humiliating” fact that he can’t ride a bike because his parents were too busy arguing or falling asleep to teach him, has this to say about the Trump administration’s attack on “DEI” bike lanes.

Rhetorically, the administration’s charge of bike lanes being some form of diversity, equity, and inclusion makes no sense. If riding a bike is so easy, then how can we classify it as unique enough to be diverse? Children ride bikes. It’s far less exotic than, say, operating a motorcycle, which takes a special license in every state. Maybe if we had a dedicated lane for a penny-farthing, I’d buy this explanation. If I were tooling around on one of those, I’d never get where I was going, because scores of beautiful women would be stopping me every few feet.

Conservative disapproval for bike lanes stems from a blinkered, irrational view of culture, and more accurately, masculinity. Trumpists have teased Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg for riding bikes. But I’ve been teased for not being able to ride a bike. Shouldn’t I be lauded for my commitment to machismo? My belief in the petrol-powered conveyance deserves commendation. My parents’ inattention to my development actually made me cooler, right?

If anything, I’m the diversity in this scenario. I can’t use a bike lane. I’ve been excluded from significant parts of the road. I can’t even walk in the bike lane. I should be furious, writing pointed, profane letters to my city councilperson, begging them to release me from my shackles. Or better yet, I should demand the city taxpayers pay for me to take bike lessons, so I can be accommodated. I’m the weirdo here. The one who has to explain my predicament, to feel excluded from the general population. Except, I’m not going to complain.

………

American cars are getting fatter, along with our citizenry.

Twitter post

Twitter post

Twitter post

………

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

No bias here. A 30-year San Diego bike rider says the sharrows on Mira Mesa may be a death trap, but the solution can’t be to make Mira Mesa more congested, suggesting bike riders should be directed to quieter streets. As I recall from nearly 40 years ago, nothing could make Mira Mesa more congested. Although the San Diego Union-Tribune evidently doesn’t want you to know about it, since it’s hidden behind its draconian paywall. 

………

Local 

Good on them. LA street safety vigilante Jonathan Hale led People’s Vision Zero in painting a new crosswalk at Sycamore and Lexington, after the city refused to so anything.

Los Angeles Mayor Bass took credit for breaking ground on the long-planned Spring-Alameda Safety and Mobility Project, which far-predated her administration.

 

State

A 12-year old Laguna Nigel boy has been appearing before Orange County city councils to call for stricter ebike rules for kids his age, arguing that too many ride too fast, ignore rules and take risks.

Speaking of the San Diego U-T’s draconian paywall, an engineering study has found the Coast Highway bridge in Encinitas is in poor condition. But they apparently don’t want you to learn about it until the bridge collapses under you. 

The deaths of Kellie Standish and William Colby Tucker on PCH in Ventura earlier this year have renewed calls for improving safety on the deadly highway.

Two major safety projects are underway to bridge coastal gaps and improve bicycle and pedestrian safety between Montecito and Summerland.

Sad news from Santa Cruz County, where a driver was arrested on suspicion of DUI after killing a bike rider near Soquel.

 

National

This is the cost of traffic violence. An associate vice president of Brigham Young University, and the director of BYU’s nationally recognized David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies was killed while riding his bike last week; Vincent Stanley Benfell III was 63.

In a bizarre case, an Ohio mom was found dead on top of a train car, 130 miles from where she disappeared while riding her bicycle.

Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, New York are accelerating investments in bike lanes and safer streets, building out the networks necessary to making bicycling a practical means of transportation.

Around 30 riders in Birmingham, Alabama honored two forgotten victims of the fight for civil rights, 53 years after 13-year old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by white teens while riding on the handlebars of his brother’s bike, and 16-year old Johnny Robinson fatally shot by a cop, the same morning as the infamous bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four young girls. Do I really need to mention that both young men were Black? I didn’t think so. 

A 76-year old disabled US Air Force vet started a five-day ride across Florida’s 28th Congressional District, leading a group to support the campaign of retired Navy Commander and Democratic candidate Phil Ehr.

 

International

Momentum asks the burning question why do cities insist on using sharrows when they don’t make bicyclists any safer, and often leave us less safer? That’s easy — they can be installed for pennies on the dollar without removing parking or a traffic lane, so they don’t inconvenience anyone by risking our lives. 

A Canadian writer goes riding with the last remaining bicycle couriers in Vancouver, as digital copies replace the death-defying thrill of zooming papers across the city on two wheels.

Dozens of Toronto bike advocates took to the streets to protest Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move to rip out popular bike lanes and move them to quieter, less direct streets. Although “dozens” of protesters aren’t likely to get his, or anyone else’s, attention.

A British bike nonprofit has found that ebike bikeshares encourage people to try bicycling who might not otherwise.

 

Competitive Cycling

To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention for the past two weeks, Spain’s Enric Mas won the Vuelta for the first time, after three previous second place finishes; Mas finished two minutes and 15 seconds ahead of Primož Roglič, and another half minute over Austrian Felix Gall. 

Congratulations to American Sepp Kuss on his fifth place finish, 8:45 back and one place behind Richard Carapaz.

Bummer. Irishman Eddie Dunbar crashed out on the penultimate state of the Vuelta, breaking his collarbone one day after an emotional comeback win on Peñas Blancas.

Mexico’s Isaac del Toro overcame Frenchman Paul Seixas to win a dramatic uphill sprint to the finish of the GP de Montreal, announcing themselves heirs apparent to Tadej Pogačar for the world championships.

Slovenian Urška Žigart broke her jaw for the second time in three months, prematurely ending her season with a crash on stage 3 of the Faun Tour Femmes.

 

Finally…

No, bike lanes are not just extra pavement that can be used by drivers whenever it’s convenient — and that includes protected bike lanes along Seattle freeways.

And that feeling when you get brake checked by a delivery robot, so you throw it into the bushes.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s post, in which I go on a fucking rant over traffic violence and the abject failure of our basic system of transportation

September 11, 2026 / / 4 comments

I’m done.

I’m fucking done with traffic violence, and the way it rips innocent people out of our world and out of our lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

I’m done with people getting killed and maimed because they chose to ride a bicycle or walk across the street. I’m done with lives torn apart because someone made an innocent mistake, or pushed their luck a little too far.

I’m done with people dying or surviving with lifelong physical and/or emotional injuries because they unknowingly shared to road with the wrong person at the wrong time operating a multi-ton steel and glass weapon of mass destruction.

I am so done with all of it.

I just wish I could say I was done writing about it. Because there was another one last week, and another on Tuesday; a grandfather and a brother.

And there will be another one tomorrow, or next week, or the week after that.

And the bodies will keep piling up, one upon another upon another upon another, until we all yell “Enough!”

¡Basta!

Our most basic form of transportation is an abject fucking failure. Because what else cab you call a system that demands 38,000, 39,000, 40,000 or more human lives every year as tribute, just to get us all from here to there.

Enough already!

It doesn’t matter whether you do everything right, or everything wrong. Fuck up badly enough in the right place, at the right time, and you can walk away. Do everything right, follow every law, dress up like a neon clown and light up your bike and person like a Christmas tree, and you can still lose your life to a drunk, a stoner, a distracted driver texting with their thumbs while they try to grip the wheel.

Wear a helmet, or don’t. It might protect your skull if you fall off your bike. But it doesn’t do a damn thing to protect your midsection or keep your limbs attached.

Drivers seem to think it’s some sort of magic talisman to ward off injury and evil sprits, equivalent to a seat belt or an airbag, encased in a steel frame. Yet it’s only designed to protect against impacts at a whopping 12.5 mph.

But that’s more protection than pedestrians get. They get a couple of parallel white stripes drivers are supposed to stop for, but usually don’t. Or a curb that’s somehow supposed to halt a four-wheeled ballistic missile from slamming into an outdoor diner or a daycare.

Forty-fucking-thousand people every year, give or take. That’s a small city. And that’s just in the US.

Add in all the other people killed in traffic violence in all the other countries in the world, and you’re up to nearly 1.2 million lives lost. That’s like a WMD somehow wiped Dallas, Texas off the face of the earth.

Between 20 million and 50 million more people survive their injuries every years. Some recover in a few days, or a few weeks. Some never do.

Is this really the best we can do?

I’m done.

I’m done with all of it, all the deaths, all the injuries, all the shattered lives and families. All the traffic violence.

I want to scream it from the rooftops, shout it from the middle of Wilshire Blvd. I want to stop every fucking car until we fix this system of death and destruction.

I was in a jury pool several years back, and the defense lawyer asked who among the 20 or so people had been in a crash. Every hand went up. Then he asked how many people in the jury pool had lost a friend or loved one in a collision. Every hand but one stayed up.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve only lost two people close to me.

And somehow managed not to lose my own life through decades of walking, biking and driving. How, I don’t know, because I’ve come so close to disaster so many times, but always manage to walk away relatively unscathed, whether through luck or providence.

I used to say skill, but I don’t believe in that anymore. Because I read, and yes, write, about so many highly skilled people who didn’t.

I’m not done. But I’m done.

I want to keep screaming, keep yelling, keep ranting and raving enough! No more, forever!

But for one of the few times in my life, I have literally run out of words.

Which, I suppose, leads to my next subject. Because in a similar fit of anger and depression and inspiration the other day, I designed a few new t-shirts like the one above, and those below.

Buy one, or don’t.

I hope you’re as angry as I am, and want to yell it to the world. But that’s not the point.

The point is, I had to get it off — and in this case, literally on — my chest.

But more importantly, just fucking stay safe out there.

………

On a related subject, it’s time to storm City Hall on Tuesday, and join Streets Are For Everyone in demanding that the city declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence.

Below is an email I received from SAFE yesterday.

The time has come to demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence from our local leaders.

SAFE will join our coalition partners at Los Angeles City Council on September 15th to drop our open letter demanding that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council immediately declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and address this public health crisis.

Thank you for signing on and joining this movement. Your signature helped us reach more than 1,250 signatures on this campaign, showing our local leaders that Angelenos want streets that are safe to use.

The next step is here, and we need you with us as we deliver that message directly to City Hall.

Please join SAFE on September 15th at 9:30 am in City Hall to help us deliver our open letter and make our voices heard. We are asking everyone who has signed this letter to attend the City Council meeting and give public comment.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment, making it clear to our local leaders that traffic violence is an urgent public safety crisis that deserves their attention.

Event Details

  • Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
  • Time: Meet at 9:30 a.m.
  • Council Meeting Begins at 10:00 a.m.
  • Press Conference following Public Comment
  • Location: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Entrance on Main St.)

Instructions and Talking Points for Public Comment.

After public comment concludes, advocates will leave the Council Chamber and regroup outside on the steps of City Hall for a Press Conference.

Thank you again for adding your name to this campaign and standing with us. We have built the movement. Now it is time to bring it directly to our local leaders.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email (aaron@streetsareforeveryone.org) or by calling my cell (818.697.2621)

We hope to see you at City Hall on September 15th.

There’s still time to sign the petition if you haven’t yet.

………

If you’re still with me — and I don’t know why you would be after all that — l’shanah tovah, and may we never forget the lives lost on the 25th anniversary of this day.

I’ll see you on Monday. And hopefully I’ll have my shit together by then.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Assembly candidate calls for safety on Forest Lawn Drive, whacking out over SaMo bike lanes, and Caltrans talks safety

September 9, 2026 / / One comment

Yesterday, I mentioned that my California Assembly Member, Rick Chavez Zbur, had signed a letter calling for a halt to the shovel-ready safety improvements planned for Forest Lawn Drive this past June.

He also supported, and voted for, SB 194, a last-minute bill introduced in the state legislature that will make it virtually impossible to remove a traffic lane on Forest Lawn for the foreseeable future, assuming Governor Newsom signs it.

So I reached out to Zbur’s opponent in the November election, fellow Democrat Colin Hernandez, for his comments. Surprisingly, he responded right away, sending me the following statement.

Forest Lawn Drive has a documented and deadly safety problem, and we have a responsibility to act before another person loses their life. After years of public input and technical review, LADOT developed a fully funded project designed to slow traffic and improve safety for everyone who uses the road, including drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

SB 194 would block a safety project that has already gone through years of public review and is ready to move forward. Assemblymember Zbur’s support for the bill puts a narrow carveout ahead of urgent safety improvements on one of Los Angeles’s most dangerous streets. I urge Governor Newsom to veto SB 194 and Mayor Bass to allow the Forest Lawn Drive Safety and Mobility Project to proceed. Public safety decisions should be based on evidence and the needs of the community—not special interests.”

So, we have an incumbent who bends to the will of an intense lobbying campaign — to the tune of $360,000 — to halt a much needed safety project, and a challenger who supports it.

I know which way my vote will be going.

I should also mention that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass personally intervened to halt the project, which her challenger, Nithya Raman, had shepherded through years of public meetings and revisions.

So I know how that vote will go, too.

A ghost tire like those pictured above was installed on Forest Lawn Drive on Saturday to honor the four people killed there in the last 13 years, including a man killed in a single car crash last month. 

………

Nope, no bias here.

The Santa Monica city council voted to approve a nearly $2 million contract to move forward with a Complete Streets redesign of 14th Street Tuesday night.

But someone in Santa Monica threw together a hastily designed website that does everything but call Vision Zero a commie plot to drain America of its vital bodily fluids.

The site calls out the made-up dangers protected bike lanes, and their supposed risks to the elderly and first responders.

It places blame for the project squarely on Streets For All, which disavows any involvement with it. And basically calls the LA group a wholly-owned subsidiary of California YIMBYs, bought and paid for by those nefarious Silicon Valley tech bros.

This didn’t start with a traffic study. It started with a movement, and the movement is billionaire-funded.
“Vision Zero” and “protected bikeway” sound like neutral engineering terms. The advocacy infrastructure behind them is not neutral, and it’s not local.

Streets for All, the region’s leading “safe streets” advocacy group, is a fiscally-sponsored project of the California YIMBY Education Fund. California YIMBY and its affiliated funds have taken roughly $15 million from Open Philanthropy — the fund run by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna — plus six-figure checks from Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. This is who is underwriting the advocacy machine pushing this design template statewide…

The bikeway funding is bundled into a state housing grant, not a resident-driven transportation request — and the political infrastructure that put this council in place traces back through Streets for All to the same tech fortunes that fund the YIMBY movement statewide. None of that makes the underlying safety goal illegitimate. It does mean residents are entitled to ask whose priorities are actually being served before a $2 million contract gets signed on a street most of them drive, not bike.

It gets worse.

This isn’t a debate about bike safety. It’s a debate about who gets to move through this city.

“Vision Zero” is marketed as a road-safety program. In practice, on corridor after corridor, it’s a template for taking travel lanes and parking away from drivers and handing that space to a small, specific mode of transportation — engineered by an advocacy and funding network built by tech investors, not by the seniors, tradespeople, and parents who actually drive these streets every day.

The whole thing sounds like it was written by someone who spent five minutes looking up words on the internet, without understanding any of them.

Or maybe just some of the safe pro-car propagandists we’ve encountered before, under different names.

And as loathe as I am to disagree with the site’s bogeymen and women, I think Claude would have done a much better job putting the whole damn thing together.

Twitter post

………

Speaking of traffic safety, Caltrans will take part in a rare webinar scheduled for when most people can actually participate, at 7 pm on Wednesday, September 23rd, hosted by Streets Are For Everyone.

As for asking the hard questions, I’d suggest asking why they’ve spent the past few decades trying to kill us.

………

Once again, multiple bike riders have been killed by a dangerous, allegedly stoned, hit-and-run driver.

This time it happened in Kent, England, on Sunday, when a 22-year old man allegedly slammed into a group of three people riding bicycles. A man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s both died at the scene.

Another woman was hospitalized with minor injuries.

The driver was charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of a road traffic collision and possession of a class C drug.

In the UK, class C drugs include anything from anabolic steroids and nitrous oxide to prescription tranquilizers like Valium.

A 21-year old man was also arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, while 19-year-old woman was held on suspicion of assisting an offender.

………

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

A 20-year old Florida man faces charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and hit-and-run involving property damage after allegedly using his car to intentionally run down bike rider in a Taco Bell parking lot, resulting in minor injuries and a fucked-up bike; the men reportedly knew each other.

………

Local 

A section of the popular Ballona Creek bike path is closed due to storm damage just north of Duquesne Ave in Culver City; no word yet on when it will reopen.

Streets For All is hosting a virtual mobility debate for Santa Monica city council candidates tomorrow evening. Providing yet another opportunity to foist their YIMBY-fueled and tech bro-funded agenda on the unsuspecting citizenry of the fair city. 

Also tomorrow, Glendora will host an open house to discuss the $21.4 million People Movement Project, with eight miles of offroad greenways, and two miles of on-street multimodal improvements.

Monrovia will host a community bike ride and audit supporting the city’s Bicycle Master Plan update on Saturday, and Carson will host an interactive open house for the city’s Bicycle Action Plan.

 

State

Escondido becomes the latest California city to ban ebikes for kids under 12.

A group with the friendly name Friends of Hopkins Street sues Berkeley over plans for protected bike lanes on the eponymous street, preferring their precious parking over human lives. Which seems not-so-friendly to me, but what do I know?

They get it. The Sacramento Bee reports that California has the third most congested traffic in the US, with Los Angeles drivers losing 83 hours a year due to traffic congestion, but adding more lanes will just make things worse.

 

National

There’s not a pit deep enough for the two men charged with stealing an adaptive bicycle from a 10-year old Santa Fe, New Mexico kid with cerebral palsy.

The victim gets the blame in a Colorado crash, when a 32-year old ebike rider was killed in a right hook, and accused of speeding up to pass a semi driver on the right side. Yes, that’s possible, but it’s more likely that the driver didn’t notice the victim on his right until it was too late.

A 31-year old El Paso, Texas man learns the hard way that it’s probably not the best idea to try to run over a bike cop during a traffic stop.

A Michigan TV station says bicycling deaths are rising in the state, and asks if anything will change after a 12-year old boy was killed by a driver while riding his bike. Nothing changed after dozens of little kids were shot to death at Sandy Hook and Robb Elementary, so what makes them think anyone will actually care about a single kid on a bicycle?

A 77-year old New York man was killed in a head-on collision with an ebike rider, who lost control of his ebike in a bi-directional protected bike lane, and crashed into the man’s bicycle. As usual, though, the story doesn’t say whether it was a legal ped-assist bike, or an illegal e-moto.

Heartbreaking story, as Florida man says he watched surveillance video of his bike-riding brother run down and killed by a hit-and-run driver in New York State from 1,200 miles away in Florida, saying the driver didn’t even try to stop.

 

International

Montreal becomes the latest Canadian city to consider going backwards on bike lanes, after building a bike network that has made it North America’s most bike-friendly big city.

A look at London’s leading bicycle cafés.

A London bike rider says he’s embarrassed to be a bicyclist after watching one bike rider after another ride through a busy crosswalk. Seriously, pedestrians are the only road users more vulnerable than we are, so just stop for them, already. 

Leading Euro bikemaker Orbea announced a recall of their 2019 and 2020 Optima urban ebikes due to a possible weak joint that could cause the frame to break while being ridden.

Sad news from Ukraine, where a Ukrainian soldier who had been photographed early in the war riding a bicycle while carrying three RPGs was killed in a Russian airstrike. War sucks. 

 

Competitive Cycling

When we last left our heroes, the Vuelta peloton was taking a well-earned rest day, as Enric Mas held tightly to his red leader’s jersey; Tuesday’s stage 16 saw 21-year old Brit rookie Matthew Brennan take his fourth stage win, with Mas 2 minutes, 6 seconds ahead of Felix Gall, as Primož Roglič stands another 4 second back in third.

Dutch sprinter Dylan Groenewegen suffered a torn rib muscle and a shattered bicycle when he was hit by a motorcyclist while on a training ride, saying “it could have been much worse.”

Tadej Pogačar may be done for the season, but he’ll be back next year, and every year through 2032.

Is anyone really surprised to learn that bra doping is a myth, and maximizing cleavage doesn’t actually do anything to make women faster? Although it would do more to draw more male fans to women’s cycling. 

Velo says pro cyclists are surprisingly bullish on the prospect of wearing airbags to prevent injuries.

 

Finally…

Honestly, who among us hasn’t ridden over 400 miles dressed as an orangutan? Ditching the subway for a $1,300 ebike.

And who needs a motorcycle when you could have a Ducati?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Woman riding ebike killed in Colton, asking Zbur rival for Forest Lawn stance, and body on Ballona bike path

September 8, 2026 / / 2 comments

Glad to see we all made it through the holiday weekend.

I’d like to say we have a lot to catch up on, but there wasn’t a lot of bike news online over the weekend. And of the first four stories I had bookmarked today, three were hidden behind paywalls, and the fourth was written in Indonesian.

So we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.

………

A 38-year old woman, identified as Asandria Jacobo, was killed in a collision while riding an ebike in Colton Friday night.

But as usual, there was no clarification whether she was on a Class 1, 2 or 3 ped-assist bike, or one of the more common e-motorbikes or electric dirt bikes.

Witnesses said that the Jacobo crashed into the side of an SUV after running a red light, but that has not been confirmed by the police.

………

I mentioned last week that my Assembly Member, Rick Chavez Zbur, had signed a letter urging Los Angeles officials to halt safety work on Forest Lawn Drive, and publicly supported and voted for SB 194, a last minute bill to effectively halt any lane reductions on the street for the foreseeable future.

I also said that I would reach out to Zbur’s opponent in the November election,  fellow Democrat Colin Hernandez, for his comments on the bill, and on Forest Lawn Drive.

For the sake of openness, I am sharing the email I sent to Hernandez’ campaign. I’ll let you know if I hear back.

Good morning,

I am the editor of BikinginLA.com, a leading site for bicycle news and advocacy in Southern California, and Los Angeles in particular.

As you may be aware, Forest Lawn Drive has been one of the most dangerous streets in the Los Angeles area, with four fatal crashed in the last 13 years — the last one less than one month ago. After years of public meetings and re-engineering to address community concerns, a fully funded and shovel-ready safety project was scheduled to begin this past June, before it was put on pause at the last minute by Mayor Karen Bass.

Her action came at the urging of the owners of Forest Lawn and Mt. Sinai cemeteries, who together have spent over $360,000 lobbying city and state officials to stop the project, which they believe will cause massive traffic congestion, interfering with mourners’ ability to reach the cemeteries.

Your opponent in the November election, Assembly Member Rich Chavez Zbur, was one of five Los Angeles-area legislators who signed an April letter calling for a halt to the project.

Then the state legislature passed SB 194, which was introduced at the last minute, and written halt any lane reduction projects in cities of 2 million population or more, on streets with containing two or more adjacent cemeteries — which would apply only to Forest Lawn Drive in Los Angeles, and nowhere else in the state. Assuming Governor Newsom signs it, it would effectively halt any safety projects on Forest Lawn Drive for the foreseeable future.

Assembly Member Zbur both publicly supported and voted for the bill.

I am writing to ask if you have any comment on the legislation, or the safety of automobile, bicycle and pedestrian traffic on Forest Lawn Drive, that I can share with my readers, whether you agree with Zbur and Bass in halting the project, or have a different stance on the matter.

I will be happy share any comment you care to provide in response to this email, or by calling the numbers below at your convenience any afternoon or evening this week.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation, and I’ll look forward to hearing from you or your representative.

………

The popular Ballona Creek bike path was closed Monday after a body was found in or near the water around 9 am, just north of Lincoln Boulevard.

The victim had reportedly been dead for a few days when he was discovered, and appeared to have a hole in his head.

The area had been plagued by gang violence in the past, but that seemed to have abated in recent years.

………

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

A 17-year old Irish boy was killed in what may have been an intentional hit-and-run crash; the driver’s car was found partially burned the next morning. He had texted a friend prior to the crash that he was being followed.

………

Local 

The old cliche that they always return to the scene of the crime was right this time, when a man was arrested for stealing a $5,000 bicycle from a Hollywood Hills garage, after he returned to the same neighborhood a few days later.

Secret Los Angeles looks at the not-so-secret plans to close the infamous eight-mile gap in the Los Angeles River bike path through DTLA.

I can personally attest that All About the Cinnamon in Sherman Oaks is the best Black-owned, rap-themed cinnamon roll bakery in the state, if not the nation.

 

State

Calbike Executive Director Kendra Ramsey is a fan of Waymo, seeing expansion of the autonomous cabs as a benefit for bike riders, rather than a concern. Although I’m more excited about the next item, as freed-slave turned successful businesswoman Biddy Mason finally gets her due in DTLA. 

A hit-and-run driver critically injured a 27-year man in Escondido Saturday night, failing to stop after right-hooking the victim as he was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, leaving the victim bleeding in the street with life-threatening injuries; police are looking for a light-colored SUV with tinted windows, possible a Ford Expedition or Explorer.

Police in Salinas arrested a 32-year old hit-and-run driver who killed a man riding a bicycle last month.

A 23-year old man was killed in a collision that was a hit-and-run near Salinas involving multiple vehicles, until it wasn’t; the CHP initially said the victim was hit by at least two drivers, one of whom fled the scene, but they later corrected it to say the victim fell in the roadway and was run over by a pickup driver, who stopped after the crash. No explanation was given for the confusion.

 

National

This is the cost of traffic violence. Friends remember an 85-year old Boulder, Colorado man who was killed by a driver — not a “car,” thank you — while riding his bike; in addition to still riding his bike, he also held several martial arts black belts. The only belts I ever held kept my pants from falling off.

Hats off to 18-year old Finn Fremstad, who graduated from my Colorado alma mater this May, then hopped on his bike a month ago to ride 2,000 miles for his first day at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia. And probably learned more in those 31 days on a bike than he will in his first year of college.

Thousands of bicyclists turned out for Chicago’s 25th Bike the Drive, giving bike riders a carfree experience on 30 miles of Lake Shore Drive, showing riders what the city could be. Just like CicLAvia reveals what Los Angeles could be, but isn’t. 

The Somerville Alliance for Safe Streets explains how Somerville, Massachusetts got down to zero traffic deaths for the past four years. Of course, it’s easier to achieve Vision Zero with a population on just 81,000. But still. 

Streetsblog New York introduces a retirement-aged lawyer and convicted fraudster who keeps suing the Mamdani administration over bike lanes, to little or no success.

A Princeton, New Jersey writer explains that a new bike lane isn’t necessarily an underutilized frill, but rather, could be under used because it’s just part of a still-evolving network.

Tragic news from Connecticut, where a sixth grader was killed by a school bus driver while riding his bike — not in a collision with a school bus, thank you — when the driver apparently turned left as he was passing the bus, since he was struck by the vehicle’s left front wheel.

 

International

No surprise here, as the world’s happiest countries are the top bike-friendly ones, too.

The Onion says Google Maps is introducing crawling directions for bike riders hit by trucks. Although Google Maps also says there’s a Lake America between the US and Canada, so what the hell do they know?

A 51-year old Toronto man spent the last five-and-a-half years riding every street and trail in the city, a total of more than 4,200 miles. Which seems impressive, until you consider that Marc Pappas is nearing the finish line of riding all 7,500 miles of Los Angeles streets. Okay, it’s still pretty damn impressive. 

Road.cc takes a backwards glance at ten British mountain bike brands that have bitten the dust, starting with last week’s death of the iconic Raleigh badge.

Who knew that 20 mph speed limits were bad for drivers’ mental health?

A Bangladeshi writer asks if there’s enough room on the city’s streets for bike riders, since the bike paths are full of potholes and trash.

 

Competitive Cycling

Wout van Aert won the final stage of the Vuelta before Monday’s rest day, his second win in three days, as Enric Mas held onto the red leader’s jersey.

In the final part of a video series, ex-Tour de France winner Floyd Landis explains how and why he blew the lid off the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

A Colorado paper covers the sixth edition of a 643-mile gravel race from my bike-friendly Colorado hometown to tiny Trinidad, Colorado. The town of just over 8,000 people was formerly known as the sex-change capital of the US, until a doctor specializing in the surgery retired or died. Now it seems to be best known for still being there.

 

Finally…

That feeling when the bike path you’re riding on could have been your juice bottle a decade earlier. Or when your new bike shelter is your old wind turbine blade.

And that feeling when Lycra is proibito, and don’t even think about clipless pedals.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

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