BikinginLA

Just 74 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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My apologies for yesterday’s unexplained absence. Let’s just say it was a rough night, health wise. 

Meanwhile, my neurologist followed up on last week’s test with the dreaded “you need to come into the office” call. 

Good times. 

Take it from me, kid.

Getting older is like riding an uphill double century with a flat tire, and no spare tube. 

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About damn time.

Los Angeles Mayor Bass issued an executive order intended to cut through the endless road repair red tape, requiring the many myriad city agencies involved in road work to actually work together, for a change.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

More than a dozen different departments and bureaus deal with the concrete, asphalt, street lighting, bike lanes, storm water drains and parks that Angelenos rely on. For years, the city has made unsuccessful attempts to untangle the byzantine bureaucracy that maintains the streetscape, in which a seemingly simple fix like repaving a corner can conjure up a web of departments, timelines, requirements, studies and objectives.

This directive aims to get everyone on the same page. It disbands a myriad of existing working groups and replaces them with a centralized system.

The order will create a working group composed of the general managers from nine different city divisions to actually coordinate and streamline street and sidewalk work, for the first time.

This replaces the current system where one city department is charged with fixing sidewalks, while another does repaving and a third paints stripes on it, with little or no coordination between the two.

And finally ending our blindfolded road management where the right hand literally doesn’t know what the left is doing.

In theory, at least.

We’ll have to see if and how well it actually works.

But how many times have we been told that bike lanes weren’t painted after street work, because no one told the appropriate agency they were supposed to go in?

Short answer, too many.

Longer answer, too damn many.

This is not the vertical reorganization that bike and street safety advocates have long called for, to move every agency involved in street work into a single agency, with one department head accountable for everything.

But it’s a start.

Let’s hope it ends up being more than that, for a change.

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Ouch.

Momentum responds to a proposal from “car-loving (Ontario) Premier Doug Ford” to make the province the final arbiter on bike lanes, which should go in “only where it makes sense.”

It is a massive overreach to tell individual cities how to build roads in their communities. It’s also just plain dumb.

The first lesson for anyone planning traffic is that the single-occupancy vehicle is the most expensive and least efficient way of moving people. Ever. Roads cost billions. More roads create more cars. What more road construction fails to accomplish is reducing traffic congestion. See: Los Angeles et al.

Maybe some day, we won’t be the punchline when it comes to traffic failures.

But today is not that day.

Meanwhile, an Ottawa city councillor warns of a looming culture war between motorists and bicyclists if they can’t build any more safe streets.

And Canada’s “Biking Lawyer” claps back at Ford, pointing out problems with the legislation, as well as with the media coverage.

And yet, somehow manages to avoid asking “Are they effing nuts, or what?”

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Um, no.

A legal website says wearing bike helmets and protective gear while bicycling is crucial to prevent accidents.

Where to even start?

First of all, crashes and collisions aren’t accidents. Somewhere along the line, someone broke the law and/or did something stupid to cause it.

Second, depending on the circumstances, a bike helmet may or may not help in the event of a crash. But it sure as hell won’t prevent one.

Not even this helmet.

And third, what the actual heck do they mean by protective gear? Are we supposed to wear flack jackets with embedded flashers? Or maybe put hi-viz bumpers on our bikes?

Seriously, this appears to have originated with a St. Louis lawyer, which raises the question of why the people who should know better too often don’t.

And makes clear once again the importance of getting — and vetting — a good lawyer if you ever need help.

I can vouch for the ones over there on the left, and would trust any one of them with my case, if I had to.

But do your own research, and choose someone who knows bikes and knows the law, and who you can count on.

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It’s now 302 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

A bike rider in Edinburgh, Scotland was shocked to find a driver literally parked on top of his bicycle, which had been locked to light post on the sidewalk. Which raises the obvious question of why the driver didn’t notice the bike when they rolled over it. Or care.

Horrible news from Paris, where the road-raging driver of a luxury Mercedes SUV is being investigated for murder after apparently deliberately running down, then running over, a 27-year old man riding in a marked bike lane, after an argument between the men; the driver appeared to hit him twice, before backing up and driving over him — with the driver’s teenaged daughter in the car. A French news site says conflicts between bicyclists and drivers are becoming increasingly common.

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Local  

LAist has all the information you need to develop your voting game. Except for how to bike the vote.

The planned Complete Streets makeover of Fountain Ave through West Hollywood has become a dividing line between warring factions in the upcoming election for WeHo city council contest, while a new petition calls for saving parking on the street, not lives.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers his photos of Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia, where a good time was once again had by all.

Pre-registration for the Santa Clarita Finish the Ride ends in just nine days, with the various rides rolling on October 27th.

State

There may be hope for San Diego-based Juiced Bikes yet, after the company’s intellectual property, branding, and existing inventory and assets were sold to a mystery buyer at a bankruptcy auction.

Santa Barbara’s police chief says potential changes to the city charter aren’t intended to criminalize bicycling, but to instead curb bad actors. Although well-meaning changes to the law meant to address one group too often end up affecting everyone else.

San Francisco mayoral candidates insist the city’s deadly streets can be fixed.

Over 160 Bay Area candidates for local, state and federal officials responded to a sustainable transportation questionnaire with their stands on issues regarding transit, bikes, traffic violence, climate change and accessibility.

National

The AP looks at the worldwide boom in lowrider culture, including low and slow rides on custom bikes.

The Washington Post explains how to plan a family bicycling vacation and actually enjoy it.

Women’s magazine Redbook recommends the 17 best ebikes on the market. Because evidently, there must be some unexplained drop-off once you get to number 18, as least for women. 

A Las Vegas woman faces up to 11 years behind bars after pleading guilty to the Christmas Eve hit-and-run that killed a 33-year old bike rider last year.

New York is calling a halt to their version of the Marathon Crash Ride, after a bicyclist riding the closed course before the city’s marathon hit a pedestrian last year.

The owners of a new North Carolina business planned to shuttle mountain bikers to local trails, but have shifted their focus to repairing local trails damaged by Hurricane Helene.

Drivers in Abbeville, Louisiana, like drivers everywhere, can’t seem to figure out what sharrows mean.

No surprise here, as Florida once again ranks as the nation’s most dangerous state for bike riders, with 8.4 deaths per million people; California checks in at a relatively low number six, with less that half that.

International

Cyclist recommends the best bike socks to keep your tootsies toasty.

Toronto researchers are using machine learning to determine the best places to put protected bike lanes. Um, like everywhere?

Evidently, things aren’t any better in Cuba, either.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list. A new bike route along both sides of the border between England and Wales links eight heritage sites, ranging from Welsh castles to Roman ruins.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a stoned driver walked without a day behind bars for running down a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk, leaving the man with lifelong injuries — and somehow wasn’t charged with DUI, despite driving at twice the country’s legal cannabis limit. And if you ever wonder why people keep dying on the streets, you can start right there. 

Ninety percent of British residents are afraid to ride in the country’s cities, put off by fear of crashes, road raging drivers and bike thieves.

About damn time, part two. The British agency responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the country’s highways will stop using the term “accident” to describe crashes, concluding “they’re not random events, but preventable incidents caused by human actions.” Now if we could just get someone to admit that on this side of the pond. 

Thousands of Dutch bicyclists are unable to reclaim their bikes, after a bike garage was closed “with immediate effect” when cracks were found in the concrete.

A travel writer spends three days biking around the Japanese island of Kyushu, and calls it an incredible way to see it.

Competitive Cycling

Wout van Aert is back in the saddle and pedaling toward ‘cross season after his devastating crash.

Former pro Michael Rasmussen calls the signing of four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome “a fantastic pension plan” and “the worst signing in cycling history,” branding Froome a “half-time clown” after his “undignified, meager” season. Sure, but how does he really feel? 

A horrible solo crash on a steep descent outside of Boulder, Colorado put 1984 Tour de France Feminin winner Marianne Martin in the hospital suffering from a concussion and collapsed lung, with a clavicle fractured in two places, 12 broken ribs — some more than once — and road rash; a crowdfunding campaign has raised over $16,000 of the relatively modest $30,000 for her medical care.

The Belgian Waffle Ride announced a new “unroad” race in Montana for next year, as the California edition moves to Del Mar.

Polish track cyclist Mateusz Rudyk says nothing is impossible with diabetes after winning multiple individual medals at both the world and European championships, despite being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 12.

About damn time, part three. Women were finally allowed to backflip their way to equality with the men at this year’s Red Bull Rampage.

Finally…

Seriously, who’d want to be a nuclear engineer when you can build bespoke bikes? Repeat after me — when you’re a ex-con carrying illegal drugs, paraphernalia and a loaded stolen gun on your bike, maybe try not riding salmon and running stop signs.

And that feeling when a bike lane is accused of turning a roadway into an open-air gas chamber.

Nope, no bias there.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin