February 16, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: $19 billion tab for LA traffic congestion, and the stupidest things people have said about cyclists
Let’s just follow the lead of LA’s traffic safety deniers and do nothing to provide viable alternatives to driving, while dumping tens of thousands of new cars on the city streets every year.
That will somehow magically make everything better.
Right?
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Another great piece from Peter Flax, as he builds an Anti-Bike-Crank Hall of Fame based on the 10 stupidest things people have said about cyclists.
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from LA Bike Dad, who examines whether you should consider getting a bakfiets, aka cargo bike. To answer the unasked question, you pronounce bakfiets like what I have to wipe off after the Corgi goes out in the rain, along with her front fiets.
State
LimeBike is bringing their dockless bikeshare to San Diego, undoubtedly to the chagrin of the beachfront bike rental owners who just got the city’s bikeshare docks removed from near their stores. Thanks to Frank Lehnerz for the heads-up.
A Marin man has been ordered to stand trial on four felony hit-and-run charges for ramming four cyclists in last year’s Jensie Gran Fondo, apparently intentionally. Although he should also face charges of assault with a deadly weapon, with potential jail time of a lot more than just five years.
If Utah adopts a version of the Idaho Stop law, it will be just the third state in the US to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields. Which means there’s just 47 more to go.
Colorado lawmakers block an attempt to ban red light and speed cameras in the state. Speed cameras are currently illegal in California, while red light cameras are prohibited in Los Angeles. Which makes the Rocky Mountain State smarter, and safer, than either one of them.
A New Zealand man lost 220 pounds after his doctor gave him a bicycle; now he fixes bikes and gives them away to encourage others to ride. If more doctors would prescribe bicycling to their patients, we might have a much healthier and happy population.
However, Bonin wants to work with the authors to ensure that the motion would allow Vision Zero to continue to work as it does now.
And it will give everyone a chance to take a closer look at it, and make sure it be opponents something can later use to halt or delay the Vision Zero program.
Thanks to everyone who phoned, emailed and attended in person to argue against the motion yesterday.
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Local
A writer for The Source questions the benefits of paying people not to drive, in sort of a reverse congestion charge. I’ve long argued that paying a monthly benefit to people who agree to bike, walk or take transit to work could be an effective way to get cars off the streets.
Long Beach moves to ban bicycle chop shops by making it a crime to posses five or more bikes, or parts of bikes, on public spaces with the intent to sell or distribute. And that includes riverbeds, beaches and parks.
People for Bikes says don’t let anyone tell you we don’t know how to rapidly increase bicycling rates in a city, after Calgary boosts bike rates nearly 50% virtually overnight by building a complete bicycling network all at once.
Oregon bicycling groups are taking advantage of the mild winter weather.
A Dallas writer says the 20,000 dockless bikeshare bikes that have invaded the city in recent months demonstrate the need for more bikeways. And more non-spandexed people to ride them.
New York will move a bikeshare dock in Red Hook to keep trucks from crashing into it; some drivers have been unable to negotiate the narrow corner and driven up on the sidewalk to make their turn.
After an English town proposes lifting a ban on bikes in shopping areas, a council member accuses them of wanting to allow “cycle-mad morons in to speed through busy shopping streets causing endless accidents and mayhem.”
A man has been killed in a collision with a truck while riding his bicycle in Pomona this morning.
Unfortunately, that’s about all we know right now.
According to KCBS-2, the victim, described only as a man in his 40s, was struck and killed by the driver of a semi-truck in the 2800 block of Pomona Boulevard, a block east of the 57 Freeway, at 4:22 am.
The driver reportedly remained at the scene of the crash and was cooperating with investigators.
No other information is available at this time.
A street view shows a wide two lane street with a center turn lane in an industrial area, and a wide parking lane that would probably have been empty at that hour.
Meanwhile, a brief video from KCBS-2 says the victim was thrown a significant distance from the crash site, suggesting that the driver may have been traveling at a relatively high rate of speed.
This is the eighth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third Los Angeles County.
The motion from CD2 Councilmember Paul Kerkorian and CD4’s David Ryu talks about refining the Vision Zero model “in order to serve the objective of more effectively increasing the safety of our streets.”
However, according to Keep LA Moving, it’s really about reducing the emphasis on bike and pedestrian deaths, since they only amount to 15% of the total collisions in the City of Los Angeles.
Tomorrow’s motion states that going forward, Vision Zero should “incorporate a data validation process to ensure that the High Injury Network supporting data was appropriate and reliable.” Currently, data is heavily weighted in favor of pedestrians and cyclists, all but disregarding the safety of motorists. According to LADOT’s Vision Zero website: “We also give more weight to counts of Killed or Serious Injuries among people walking or biking, so deaths or serious injuries at all intersections are multiplied by three, while vehicle-vehicle deaths or serious injuries do not receive a multiplying factor. For example, if an intersection contains one fatal pedestrian collision, two severe bicycle injuries, and one fatal vehicle-vehicle, the score would be 10 (3 for the pedestrian, 6 for the two bicycles, and 1 for the vehicle-vehicle).”
In the Vision Zero Action Plan, released in 2017, the LADOT states that “people walking & biking account for roughly 15% of all collisions”. It’s not surprising then that Vision Zero hasn’t reduced accidents and injuries since its inauguration in 2015 because the LADOT is only focusing on 15% of the problem! What’s more, the LADOT says “Vision Zero is an injury reduction strategy, not a collision reduction strategy.” And of course, collisions aren’t being reduced either. Vision Zero needs to concentrate on both reducing the severity of accidents and on the number of accidents that happen!
Never mind that Vision Zero has barely even been implemented up to this point.
Keep LA Moving says LADOT is focusing on just 15% of crashes. But Vision Zero isn’t about reducing crashes, it’s about eliminating deaths and serious injuries.
And drivers, surrounded by two tons of glass and steel, and protected by air bags, seat belts and crumple zones, face considerably less risk in a collision than people walking and riding bikes.
Which is the entire reasoning behind the multiplication factor, because bike riders and pedestrians are several times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a collision.
But Keep LA Moving thinks that doesn’t matter.
Or rather, that you don’t matter. Because the people in the other 85% of the crashes, who are less likely to be injured or killed, apparently matter more to them.
Then there’s their other major lie.
To date the LADOT has focused on “pet projects” in select districts that appease a vocal minority of residents — roads that were never flagged as needing such treatment. Special interests and personal agendas have been allowed to drive decisions rather than actual concerns for public safety.
The road diet on Venice Blvd, in Mar Vista is a prime example. In the 11 years leading up to the Venice road diet, there was one fatality and seven severe injuries to people walking or biking along that 0.8 mile stretch. None of the contributing factors to these tragic accidents have been addressed by the road diet. Rather than analyze these accidents and implement real safety improvements fixing the problems, the LADOT chose instead to implement a road diet. They installed a road diet on a road with 45,000+ cars per day, in violation of their own standards. (The LA Complete Streets Design Guide states that road diets should only be used on streets with excess capacity and volume less than 20,000 cars.) The disastrous and wildly unpopular Playa del Rey road diets, defeated last Fall, had the same issues. In fact, in both PdR and Mar Vista, accidents and injuries increased after the implementation of road diets. Not only on the roads dieted, but on the residential side streets as well, as drivers searched for alternatives to the gridlocked boulevards.
But as they well know, the Venice Blvd project was never intended as part of Vision Zero.
Let’s also bear in mind that the reference to a maximum 20,000 vehicle traffic volume for road diets refers to reducing four lane streets to three lanes, with two through lanes and a center turn lane. Not massive six lane thoroughfares like Venice Blvd, which never should have been built that wide to begin with.
But that doesn’t matter to them, since their real goal is to halt road diets anywhere in the city, willing to trade human lives — yours and mine — to avoid inconveniencing drivers.
Let’s hope that Transportation Committee members Paul Kortez, Nury Martinez and Chair Mike Bonin can resist the pressure from this very vocal and well-financed driver activist group.
If you can make it on such short notice on Valentines Day — I can’t, unfortunately — you need to make your voice heard.
Yet another example of keeping a dangerous driver on the road until he kills someone.
Thanks to Victor Bale for the tip.
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Local
The Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council could try to stop plans for desperately needed bus and bike lanes in Hollywood, and have already drafted a letter demanding that they be removed from the proposed Hollywood community plan. You can let them know what you think at their regular meeting on the 21st. And yes, I plan to be there.
State
Marin’s bike-unfriendly columnist says bicycle-riding tourists should just take the ferry and skip the town entirely. Maybe he should just stand outside the city and yell “Hey, you kids get off our lawn!”
Seriously? The Houston Chroniclepredicts an autonomous car nirvana, where the world will be free from traffic jams, parking tickets and auto mechanics, and no one will want to ride buses or bikes anymore because they’ll be so happy with their driverless cars.
A new survey from a British tire company claims bus drivers are the safest drivers on the road, and bicyclists and van drivers the most infuriating. Something tells me I’d like to see their methodology.
Writing for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Southern California News Group’sSteve Scauzillo takes a great look at the upcoming San Gabriel Valley CicLAvia, saying it’s all about community and discovering your town close up. Nice to see he’s survived the latest round of layoffs at the SCGN to keep covering the SoCal transportation beat.
Pebble Beach blocks the road to bike riders, even though their public-use agreement with the Coastal Commission only allows them to block the road to motor vehicles.
No irony here. Ex-Friends star and current Top Gear host Matt LeBlanc calls people on bicycles “frustrating,” and says he won’t ride a bike in London because “it just seems like a death sentence.” Probably because of impatient drivers like him.
The Guardianlooks at how Copenhagen became Copenhagen, and what the rest of the world can learn from it. Like not listening to all those people who insist (insert city here) isn’t Copenhagen.
The great Katie Compton is done for the season after a nasty cut down to the bone on her knee from a disc brake rotor during a Belgian cyclocross final.
And if you’re tempted to write “Bicycling advocates are wheelie excited” in a story for your college paper, maybe you should consider changing your major.
Except for a bike-riding Palm Springs resident, who calls for better eduction for participants in the rules of the ride.
Even though accused killer Ronnie R. Huerta Jr. was allegedly traveling at over twice the 50 mph speed limit when he lost control and slammed into the victims.
And even though the two victims were doing nothing wrong, and reportedly riding exactly where they were supposed to be.
Nothing they did could have prevented the crash. Unless they had somehow been able to keep Huerta’s alleged foot off his alleged gas pedal. Or keep him out of his damn car to begin with.
Huerta was reportedly released on $75,000 bail on a single count of vehicular manslaughter, though that could change as prosecutors move forward.
Meanwhile, the other victim, 50-year old Alyson Lee Akers of Huntington Beach, was being treated for what was described as “major injuries,” including a head laceration.
Let’s all hope she makes a full and fast recovery.
And that Riverside County officially treat this case with the seriousness it deserves.
Let’s also hope that the ride organizers figure out some way to improve safety. Because two deaths in four years is two too many.
Frequent contributor Mike Wilkinson writes for advice on how to handle the problem of friendly drivers who want to wave you through the intersection.
Dear Dr. BikinginLA:
My wife and I are enjoying a friendly disagreement about what to do when a driver yields their right of way to us. I say it’s confusing and maybe dangerous. She says the drivers are being courteous. We should smile, wave, and go for it.
Although I go to extra effort to ride according to the rules (and laws) of the road, I don’t have too much trouble waving and smiling in low-risk situations. An example would be meeting a driver at a four-way stop. If the driver waves me through, even if that driver was there first, my wife’s words ring in my ears, and I smile, wave, and start pedaling. My wife is very adamant: With all of the hostility from drivers that we hear about, if a driver is kind enough to yield their right of way, we should accept it graciously.
On the other hand, yesterday I encountered what I thought was a dangerous situation. I was on a small 25 mph residential street waiting to cross a 45 mph street with two lanes in each direction. To my surprise, a driver on the busy street stopped and waved me through. I didn’t go, because there were cars coming from the other direction. Soon there were other drivers behind the one who stopped, and the honking began. Eventually the driver who stopped drove away, but I think everyone involved was upset, some of them at me!
I think that in the long run it would be better if everyone took their right of way. We all know that the streets are crazy enough without someone trying to invent new rules, even if they are just trying to be courteous. However, in the real world, I’d be very interested to learn what your other readers have to say about drivers who yield their right of way.
Personally, I appreciate when drivers show me any courtesy, wanted or otherwise.
So I play it by ear. If there’s no one else on the road, I’ll usually wave my thanks and ride through; if not, I’ll wave the driver through while signaling my appreciation.
And if I don’t feel safe, I’ll clip out of my pedal, put my foot down, and won’t budge until it’s safe for me to go. No matter how offended the driver gets.
However, I try not to brag about my Ph.D. in Advanced BS from Whatsamatta U.
Caltrans’ white paper on the Future of Mobility in the years leading up to 2050 includes a section on bikeshare. But not on riding any other kind of bike.
The San Diego Union-Tribune says pedestrian fatalities continue to mount as the city drags its feet on Vision Zero. Not unlike another city I could mention a few hours to the north.
Riding while black. According to the Chicago Tribune, blacks, Latinos and whites each make up roughly a third of the city’s population — yet over half of all tickets issued to bike riders were written in predominantly black neighborhoods.
An Irish writer says “Cyclist bashing is a popular sport among the less enlightened members of the commentariat.” And then proceeds to do exactly that, before concluding that too many cyclists have died.
One man was killed, and another bicyclist seriously injured, when they were struck by an allegedly speeding driver during today’s Tour de Palm Springs.
According to the Desert Sun, the victims were struck when a speeding driver lost control of his car on Dillon Road in Indio Hills, south of Tinker Road, around 9:25 am.
However, that location doesn’t show up using any map site.
The paper reports the driver came up from behind a number of cyclists as they were riding east on Dillon, allegedly traveling at over 100 mph — twice the posted speed limit. He veered onto the dirt shoulder on the wrong side of the road, lost control and veered back across the road to hit the two riders.
The crash reportedly occurred among the trailing riders on the century ride.
Fortynine-year old Lake Stevens, Washington, resident Mark Kristofferson died at the scene.
The other victim was airlifted with serious injuries, while the driver was transported to a local hospital by ambulance.
The case is still being investigated, and no charges have been filed at this time.
This the second death in the 20-year history of the Tour de Palm Springs. It comes just four years after 55-year old La Vonne Koester of Alta Loma was killed during the 2014 edition of annual event, when she allegedly ran a stop sign.
However, other reports indicated that a driver had stopped to wave a group of riders through the intersection, when a second driver came up from behind and was unable to stop before plowing into the riders.
No one was ever charged in that case.
This is the seventh bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first in Riverside County.
Update: The Desert Sun has updated their story to say 21-year old Desert Hot Springs resident Ronnie R. Huerta Jr. has been arrested on a charge of vehicular manslaughter.
The story also corrects Kristofferson’s age as 49, rather than 54 as originally reported; that change has been made to this story, as well.
The second victim has been identified as 50-year old Alyson Lee Akers of Huntington Beach. She is being treated for what is described as major injuries, including a head laceration.
Huerta was also treated for moderate injuries before being taken to jail on the manslaughter charge, where he is currently being held.
Update 2: At the request of Mark Kristofferson’s family, I have removed a bike cam video of the crash scene taken half an hour after the collision, which briefly showed the tarp covering his body.
Update 3: According to the Desert Sun, CHP investigators report the driver did not appear to be under the influence at the time of the crash, but are still waiting for the results of drug and alcohol tests.
Huerta was released on $75,000 bond, and isn’t expected to appear in court until April.
The crash location was corrected to Dillon Road near Avenue 30. The story reports that there were several police officers stationed at key intersections along the route, but none along the 25-mile stretch where the crash occurred.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Mark Kristofferson and his loved ones. And best wishes to Alyson Lee Akers for a full and fast recovery.
The city council also overrode a staff recommendation for white striped lanes with a little green paint at key conflict zones, instead voting for green lanes the entire length, at a cost of around $100,000 — nearly triple the staff’s $35,000 budget.
Which should give you an idea just how cheap bike lanes really are.
The work should be done sometime this spring.
Thanks should go to Beverly Hills’ bike-friendly Mayor Lili Bosse, as well as Better Bike’s Mark Elliot, who continued a quixotic and nearly solitary fight for the lanes, long after others had given up.
And that the reason they are so popular is because they are “vastly superior” transit and other forms of non-motorized transportation.
Many things are already in motion to solve transit agencies’ problems. For instance, in 2015, Los Angeles began a 20-year plan to remove auto lanes for bus and protected bike lanes, as well as pedestrian enhancements, diverting transportation funds raised from drivers and heightening congestion for the vast majority who planners already know will continue to drive.
Such less than effective attempts to cut driving by creating gridlock purgatory suggest we ask a largely ignored question. Why do planners’ attempts to force residents into walking, cycling and mass transit, supposedly improving their quality of life, attract so few away from driving?
The reason is simple — cars are vastly superior to alternatives for the vast majority of individuals and circumstances.
Of course, what he fails to consider from his windshield-perspective perch overlooking PCH is that drivers around Southern California already complain about massive traffic congestion.
And, in fact, one of the reasons bus use is less attractive that driving is that bus schedules are constantly thrown off by all those people in cars jamming streets beyond their practical capacity.
So what traffic planners are attempting isn’t to create a gridlock purgatory.
It’s dealing with the traffic congestion hell we already find ourselves in, and preparing for an otherwise dystopian future in which more and more people try to jam themselves into an already built-out traffic system that can no longer be expanded.
So unless we provide those people with safe, practical alternatives to driving, our streets will continue to get worse with every new car added to the grid.
That means more frequent and reliable transit, and safer walking and biking. Which in some cases will require making traffic worse in the short term in order to make it better in the long term.
As an economics professor, he should understand that.
But as a shill for the motor vehicle industry, he’s doing a damn good job.
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The Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council will discuss the draft Hollywood Community Plan at the William & Ariel Durant Library, 7140 West Sunset Blvd on Wednesday, Feb. 21, from 6-8 pm.
If you live, work or ride in bikeway-challenged Hollywood, you’ll want to be there to support the bike lanes described in Section 6 of the plan.
Because the Hollywood Hills homeowners will undoubtedly turn out in force once again to complain about density and traffic congestion. As well as bike lanes, if they think it will contribute to either one.
Thanks to the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition for the heads-up.
The annual Tour de Palm Springs rolls this weekend, and a letter writer says it’s rude to ride two or more abreast and force drivers to change lanes(scroll down) to go around them. Even though that’s exactly what drivers are supposed to do, unless there’s a solid yellow line.
The former mayor of SLO tries to out-crazy the Coronado NIMBY’s, describing the planned bikeway as “urban rape … not to be performed by a male penis, but by thousands of inanimate bicycles … .” No, seriously.
Nice idea. In an attempt to support sustainable transportation, a Washington couple builds a small Bike Hut on the edge of their property, providing riders in need with spare tubes, chain lube and other small necessities.
A London physician gets it, saying the city’s Camden neighborhood won’t meet its smog reduction goals without a greater emphasis on bicycling and presumed liability. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, presumed liability assumes the operator of the more dangerous vehicle is at fault in any collision, unless it can be proven that the other party is at fault, because they have a greater responsibility to avoid crashes due to their ability to cause greater harm.
An Aussie letter writer says bicycles should be required to have bells, since there’s apparently no other way to politely warn others a bike is approaching. And seems to be under the illusion that drivers politely yield to people on bikes and on foot.
February 8, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Motions to inspect broken bike lanes move forward, and keeping dangerous drivers off streets
Maybe our broken bike lanes might get fixed after all.
Streetsblog is reporting the approval of both of motions calling for the inspection and maintenance of LA’s bike lanes and bike paths at Wednesday’s meeting of the City Council Public Works and Gang Reduction Committee.
However, assuming the motion passes the full council, there’s still a long way to go, as Joe Linton points out.
Greg Spotts spoke on BSS’s (Bureau of Street Services) efforts to address issues keeping street pavement in good repair. The city faces a reported $3-4 billion backlog in street maintenance. With some recent street repaving monies from the S.B. 1 gas tax and Measure M, BSS is stepping up its efforts to inspect and maintain streets, and now has dedicated staff working to inspect and repair asphalt on city bike lanes.
Spotts noted that BSS has identified 300 bike network locations that need “large asphalt repair.” BSS crews are currently working their way through these sites, having completed 19 repairs to date.
Meanwhile, there may be hope for LA’s crumbling streets.
Councilmembers Mitchell Englander and Joe Buscaino say at current rates, streets and sidewalks in Los Angeles won’t be repaired in time for the 2028 Olympics — missing the games by a mere 20 years or so.
But money from Measure M and the new state gas tax increase could provide a source of funding that would allow the city to speed up those repairs.
We can only hope.
Of course, if the proposition calling for the repeal of the gas tax qualifies for the ballot, and California voters decide they’d prefer crappy streets and lower gas prices, all bets are off.
Yes, the CEO of Ford, the company that essentially put automobiles on U.S. streets, is calling for a “complete disruption and redesign of the surface transportation system.”
What Ford is preparing for—and championing through its bike share and microtransit shuttle services—is the fact that streets will no longer be planned around this binary use of cars versus everyone else. And the place for new modes to mix is not a narrow broken sidewalk: It’s the safe, shared, slow, well-maintained street that has walking at its core.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all equation of lane widths calculated to move cars quickly, with pedestrians pushed off to the side, the definition of a city street will change based on what people need, neighborhood by neighborhood, says Greg Lindsay, director of strategy for the urban mobility festival LACoMotion.
It’s a great read. And may challenge your concept of what a street should be.
It did mine, anyway.
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Great idea. A new youth racing program at the LA Velodrome aims to develop at least one track cyclist for the US Olympic Team at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
San Luis Obispo decides to move forward with a modified version of the bikeway that’s been drawing all the bike-hating NIMBYs out of the woodwork. Proof that not all NIMBYs live in Los Angeles. It only seems that way.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune offers tips on how to ride your bike at Mardi Gras, for those lucky enough to go. Pro tip: Avoid Mardi Gras Day, when it’s too crowded move, and go the weekend before when the crowds are smaller and it’s more fun.
Canadian bicyclists are urged to bike commute tomorrow as part of the international Winter Bike to Work Day. Try not to suffer too much under LA’s sunny skies and 80° temperatures.
A French design firm reimagines the dreaded broom wagon. Although they somehow think riders in the Tour de France will be able to hop on board to catch a rest, then rejoin the race when they’re feeling better.
Sad news from South LA, where a bike rider has died following a collision with the Expo Line.
KTLA-5 initially reported last night that two pedestrians were struck by a train in University Park east of USC, around 9 pm Tuesday. The story was later amended to say one of the victims had a bicycle.
Now LA West Media has reported that one victim has died after being transported to a hospital, while the other victim is in critical condition.
Neither has been publicly identified at this time.
The first rider made it. The other two were hit by the empty Expo train, which was on a test run.
This is one more heartbreaking reminder to never attempt to cross train tracks after the warning alarms sound or the gates close.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD at 323/421-2500.
This is the sixth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second in Los Angeles County. The other LA County death occurred in South LA, as well.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones. And prayers and best wishes for the recovery of the second victim.
