My apologies.
I’m feeling just this side of awful tonight. With any luck, it’s just a passing bout of old and diabetic, and I’ll be young, healthy and beautiful after a good night’s sleep.
Hopefully, we’ll be back on Wednesday to catch up on anything we missed.
People are dying to stop people from dying on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
Figuratively, anyway.
The Los Angeles Times reports on Saturday’s die-in on the steps of LA City Hall, saying dozens feigned their deaths to protest the 290 traffic deaths last year in the City of Angels, and the adjective failure of Vision Zero.
“We’re out here today because the city of Los Angeles signed Vision Zero as a directive in August 2015 to prioritize saving lives on our roads — to achieve zero traffic fatalities by 2025,” said SAFE founder and executive director Damian Kevitt, who lost his right leg in a violent traffic incident in 2013. “Not manage or reduce [them] but eliminate traffic fatalities. We are a decade later and we are at 290 traffic fatalities. … It’s a 26% increase in traffic fatalities since the start of Vision Zero…”
“The city has tools, it’s just not using them,” Kevitt told The Times. “In 2024, voters approved measure HLA by a two-thirds margin. It requires the city must follow its own mobility plan … to make roads safer for cyclists, for pedestrians, for better transit.” He also cited state measure AB 645, which in 2023 authorized a pilot program for speed cameras in a handful of California cities including Los Angeles, as “a tool the city could be implementing — it’s speed safety systems.”
In a perfect illustration of just how unserious the city is about ending traffic deaths, CD 13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez was the only member of the city government who bothered to show up.
But hey, Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement.
No, wait. Her office did.
Apparently Mayor Bass had better things to do.
Mayor Karen Bass’ office said in a statement that Bass, who took office in December 2022, “has made street safety a priority by accelerating the implementation of hundreds of new speed humps, signage and intersection treatments which help ensure drivers are traveling slowly and with control near schools. Vision Zero started in 2015 and requires intensive coordination across departments.”
The office pointed to Bass’ October 2024 executive directive to facilitate street repairs, clean parks and infrastructure and city services enhancements ahead of the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympic Games in L.A.
So, evidently, we need a World Cup or Olympic Games to justify saving human lives.
Oh, and clean parks.
Got it.
Kevitt had one parting comment for The Times: “Don’t use the word traffic ‘accident’ when writing about this,” he said.
“In the road safety arena, it’s ‘crash’ or ‘collision,’” he said. “ ‘Accident’ implies non-responsibility. It’s just an ‘oops.’ But when you’re driving drunk or distracted, that’s a choice. If you hit and kill or severely injure someone, it’s not an ‘oops.’ We’re trying to say: This is preventable.”
There’s a lot more to the article, and it’s worth a few minutes to read the other comments from people who have lost loved ones. Or fear exactly that.
Particularly since the Times appears to be the only media source that even bothered to cover it.
Evidently, our deadly streets are no more important to the people who report on them than they are to the people we elect to fix them.
Looks like the joke’s on us.
Because nothing will ever change until city leaders care enough to do something about it.
And the media, and the people, care enough to hold them to it.
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Good question.
Circling the News asks how LA County expects to build a subway under the Sepulveda Pass if it takes three years to even repair a washed out bridge on the beach bike path.
Or fix the noxious “poop spray” fouling it, for that matter.
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Former NFL star Marshawn Lynch is one of us, riding a Lime ebike across Seattle for Sunday’s game between the Rams and the Seahawks.
Which did not end well for the Rams.
https://twitter.com/Schultz_Report/status/2015554538099605571
Then again, my beloved Broncos finished a broken ankle and a snow storm short of the Super Bowl, too.
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No bias here. A Scottish city lived up — or maybe down — to its reputation as “hostile to anyone outside of a car” by scrapping plans for a bike lane through the town center because it would put the “economic vitality” of the town “at serious risk” due to the loss of six whole parking spaces. Yes, six. Never mind that studies have repeatedly shown sales go up when protected bike lanes go down.
An Irish writer says anyone who thinks bikes should be registered is “deeply unserious or misguided.” No, seriously. Tell us what you really think.
A British man is charged with careless bicycling after crashing into a woman when he tried to pass her on a pathway, but he says it was the woman who stepped into his path.
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Bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd, Fairfax Ave and San Vicente Blvd in West Hollywood are getting a fresh coat of Kermit, with a shade of green specially formulated to enhance safety without overly annoying Hollywood filmmakers.
LAist examines Long Beach’s Vision Zero failure, as traffic deaths in the beachside city climb to their highest level in a decade. Although the public radio website may require your email address to read it.
Solana Beach will use a $300,000 state grant to help fund a $1.075 million extension of San Diego County’s Coastal Rail Trail to the Encinitas border.
Megan forwards news that a UC Santa Barbara student bike committee has secured $1.4 million to build a new bike path on campus.
In a surprising example of rationality, researchers at San José State University say the state’s ebike problem may actually be an e-motorbike problem.
What a long, strange trip it wasn’t. A local leader of San Francisco’s World Naked Bike Ride was arrested when he and several other people showed up naked for a tribute to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, in the mistaken assumption their bare bodies would be seen as a tribute to the band.
A Manteca resident claims the honor of being the only person to ever kick Greg LeMond out of a bike race — when America’s last remaining Tour de France winner was 14.
Your next ebike could get a whopping 600 mile range on a single charge.
A homeless man in Florida was been convicted of 2nd degree murder in the death of a 14-year old boy who disappeared while on a bike ride in 2021 — even though the judge had ordered an emergency mental health evaluation days earlier after a bizarre, rambling statement on the stand by the man, who had been ruled competent to stand trial despite a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
Cycling Weekly talks with a woman who used riding her bike through the Scottish Highlands as an escape from a difficult marriage, then rode through her bereavement, and used riding to recover from an illness that cost her 60% of her lung function.
A new study shows that Britain’s “transformational” Place to Ride program has saved the country’s National Health Service the equivalent of nearly $18 million, while resulting in $136 million in ‘social value’ across the UK.
The Republic of Ireland is considering a proposal to mandate compulsory bike helmet use and hi-viz clothing for all bicyclists and e-scooter users. Even though other helmet mandates have been show to reduce head injuries mainly by reducing riding rates, while preventing children from even learning how to ride. And if hi-viz was the answer, no one would ever crash into a fire hydrant, road sign or emergency vehicle.
Parts of the Netherlands are banning the heavy, fat-tired electric bikes they call fat bikes, and we would call electric motorbikes.
A team of British club riders are following the route taken by the Prophet Muhammad from Makkah to Madinah in Saudi Arabia over 1,400 years ago to raise funds to fight pediatric heart defects.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 94-year New Zealand man who survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Holland will attempt to set a new age-group hour record, after already exceeding the record time on his own.
In what has to be one of the most bizarre endings ever to a WorldTour race, Aussie Jay Vine won the Tour Down Under stage rage on Sunday — but only after getting knocked down when a pair of kangaroos hopped through the peloton, crashing into several cyclists, and forcing three riders out of the race; Vine rejoined the stage after switching bikes, but one of the kangaroos had to be put down.
https://twitter.com/SBSSportau/status/2015295885203165577
That feeling when a self-driving car parks in a bike lane, and the company tries to blame the driver. Or when an F1 star takes part in a gravel ride wearing only a banana hammock.
And of course a certain Pasadena kid grew up to be one of us.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
Please make it stop.
For the fifth time in just eight days, someone has been killed riding a bicycle in Southern California.
This time a woman in Woodcrest, in unincorporated Riverside County.
My News LA is reporting that the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was killed when she was struck by a driver in the residential neighborhood south of Riverside Saturday morning.
The victim suffered major injuries when she was hit around 9:40 am, at Krameria Ave and Reiner Circle, and died after being taken to a hospital.
There’s no word at this time how or why the crash occurred, or who may have been at fault.
A street view shows a three-way, uncontrolled intersection at the base of hill in each direction. So it’s possible both the victim and the driver could have been traveling at speed.
According to the My News LA, it’s not clear whether the driver remained at the scene. In fact, there’s no information of any kind about the person behind the wheel.
This is the sixth bicycling fatality that I’m aware in of Southern California this year, and the first in Riverside County.
Update: The victim has been identified as 61-year old Riverside resident Gina Thomas.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Gina Thomas and her loved ones.
So that’s where it’s all going.
The Los Angeles City Controller’s office has developed a dashboard allowing you to examine where each city department stands in relation to the budget, including how much has been spent, and how much remains.
For instance, 44% of the city transportation budget for the ’25-’26 fiscal year has already been spent, most of which has gone into salaries for city employees.
And something tells me they’re not working on bicycles.
Never mind that the entire transportation budget is roughly 11% of what the city spends on police alone.
It’s worth taking some time to check it out.
Because it’s your money.
Actual photo of Los Angeles officials spending your tax money by MART PRODUCTION from Pexels.
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True then. True now.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:7vpdxcialxa6j5s7yh5g5jhf/post/3mcxcnsts5s2q?ref_src=embed&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Froad.cc%252Fcontent%252Fnews%252Fcycling-live-blog-22-january-2026-317755
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Not only that, but one of them looks like a corgi.
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In a brilliant example of cost effectiveness, the leadership of Medford, Oregon voted to rip out a road diet and two-way protected bike lane, spending $1 million to return the road to the previous layout — and another half million to repay a state grant to do the original work.
No bias here. A Killarney, Ireland website is up in arms after spotting a group of bicyclists riding in the street next to a new $4 million curb-level bike lane, saying “If you build it, they will come… or maybe not.” Except a group ride of a dozen or so fast-moving bicyclists is exactly what you don’t want in a bike lane, which should be used by a) fewer bike riders at once, and b) slower bike riders.
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An ebike rider was hospitalized in critical condition after riding out of an A Line train car at a high rate of speed, and falling off the elevated Allen Station in Pasadena.
A Fallbrook kid was struck by a driver while riding their bike and knocked completely under the vehicle, then just got back up and rode their bike home before first responders even got to the crash site; sheriff’s deputies found him at home, and paramedics took him to the hospital.
The owner of a downtown San Diego bike shop is still struggling to recover, weeks after burglars escaped with more than $25,000 worth of merchandise.
Bicycling drops their paywall to promote a handful of products they think will make your rides more fun, or at least make them a few bucks if you buy them. The bubblegum pink inner tube is kinda fun, but the only way anyone will ever see it is if you’re fixing a flat, which is not so much.
Velo says AI will make you faster on your bike, but not the way you think. Especially if you leave the damn thing at home, whatever device you keep it in, and just ride your bike without the extra weight and distraction.
Led by high school students, Washington State advocacy groups backed a proposal to keep the state’s three-tier ebike definitions, while adding a clear distinction between ebikes and electric motorbikes.
A Joliet, Illinois man is suing the city for more than 50 grand, plus medical expenses, after he rode his bicycle into a giant hole in the road without warning, alleging the city knew about the pothole and did nothing to fix it.
An Illinois man is riding his bike across the US, 50 year’s after he was one of 2,000 people who took part in the Bikecentennial, which involved riding 4,200 miles across the US to mark the bicentennial.
Road.cc’s ebiketips website says New Jersey’s draconian new ebike law will remove a viable form of clean transportation off the road.
Richmond, Virginia is moving forward with plans to replace a 113-year old bridge, even as planning commissioners got an earful about the lack of protection for proposed bike lanes.
Police in Savannah, Georgia, have made an arrest in the hit-and-run death of the city’s beloved Flag Man, known for riding his bike with a giant flag, nine months after he was killed while riding his bicycle. Seriously, if you can’t see someone on a bicycle with a giant flag on a flag pole, you’re driving with your eyes closed.
Filmmaker Lee Donaldson makes a pitstop at the Cyclist podcast to discuss his upcoming documentary 525: The Unstoppable Eddy Merckx.
Life is cheap in Nova Scotia, where a drunken hit-and-run driver who killed a 10-year old girl was granted a full parole after just under a year and a half behind bars, less than a third of his four and a half year sentence.
Off.Road.cc says the 1990s was the golden era of British mountain biking.
Netflix is developing a documentary series about the death of Tony Parsons, who disappeared on a Scottish fundraising ride only to be discovered years later when a farmer confessed to his girlfriend that he killed Parsons while driving drunk, and with his twin brother, hid Parson’s body in a peat bog; they were sentenced to 12 years and 5 years behind bars, respectively. The moral of this story: don’t tell your girlfriend about the bodies.
Pro cyclists share their best hacks, habits and kit tweaks to make it through the worst of the winter months.
That feeling when your epic ride goes from Boring to Dull. Your next ebike could be a computer on two wheels.
And aren’t drop bars supposed to, you know, drop?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
Once again, we have to ask ourselves how old is too old to drive.
Because a 79-year old Oxnard driver somehow killed a man riding a bicycle directly ahead of her, on a dark roadway “notorious” for crashes involving bike riders and pedestrians.
According to the Ventura County Star, the victim, identified only as a 23-year old man, was riding on Wooley Road near Industrial Ave when he was run down from behind around 6:30 pm Wednesday.
Police found the victim lying in the eastbound lanes of Wooley, suffering from major injuries. RMG News reports he was taken to a local hospital, but died in transport.
The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators. The grill of her massive older SUV showed damage to the center of the grill, suggesting the victim was right in front of her in center of the lane.
Video showed the victim’s red road bike crumpled on the side of the roadway. There are no lights visible on his bicycle in the video. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have any, either on him or on his bike.
RMG News describes that stretch of Wooley Road as known for “being poorly lit and the site of multiple past collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists.”
So the question remains why she couldn’t avoid someone who, at the very least, should been clearly lit up by her headlights.
We have no way of knowing whether her age was a factor in the crash. It’s possible it could have affected her ability to see the victim on the dark street, or reduced her ability to react in time.
Which is exactly the problem.
Due to limited testing of elderly drivers, we have no way of knowing who can operate their vehicles safely, day or night — and who can’t.
Or who shouldn’t be driving at all.
There’s also a question of why a street known to be hazardous for people walking and biking hasn’t been improved, or at least lighted well enough to prevent crashes.
We’re not likely to get the answers. But those are questions any lawyer will undoubtedly ask.
This is the fifth bicycling fatality that I’m aware in of Southern California this year, and the first in Ventura County.
Update: The victim has been identified as 23-year old Port Hueneme resident Jacob Dildine.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jacob Dildine and his loved ones.
Welcome to our world.
Traffic fatalities in Long Beach have more than doubled in the ten years since the city vowed to eliminate traffic deaths within a decade, rising to the highest level in the last ten years.
That corresponds with the City of Los Angeles, which adopted a Vision Zero program that promised to end traffic deaths by last year.
And you know how that worked out.
Now LA’s Vision Zero is a forgotten program, trotted out only when the city wants to assure us that they are really, truly doing something to reduce traffic violence, without actually holding themselves accountable for it.
Like Los Angeles, most of Long Beach’s traffic deaths have been inflicted on people who weren’t encased in a couple tons of steel and glass.
According to the Long Beach Post story in the above link,
Their greatest toll has been on people outside of cars. Last year, 32 people were killed while walking, biking or riding an e-scooter. That eclipses the number of people murdered here last year: 29.
At least in LA, it’s only the total number of traffic deaths that exceeds the city’s murders.
Photo by Zariflavin from Pexels.
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LADOT has released their 2026 Annual Report, touting their usual list of successes for the past year, modest though they may be.
Including a rather underwhelming, if not pathetic, total of 31 lane miles of new bikeways installed during the last fiscal year. Which includes 1.3 lane miles of sharrows, which studies have shown are literally worse than nothing.
So make it a little less than 30 miles.
And since lane miles count each side of the roadway separately, that amounts to less than 15 miles out of the city’s 6,642 miles of city streets.
Just 0.23 percent.
I also challenge you to find a single mention of Vision Zero anywhere in the report.
If you can, you’re a better reader than I am.
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Interesting idea.
An Idaho legislator is trying to close a loophole in the law, after a judge dismissed a case where a driver hit an ebike rider.
According to the judge, the law in Idaho defines a bicycle as a “human-powered” vehicle, and it wasn’t clear to his or her honor if an ebike is actually human powered.
And that’s the problem. Some ebikes are human powered with an electrical assist, while others are strictly throttle controlled, or a combination thereof.
So defining an ebike as human powered could be the solution to the current dilemma of cities cracking down on ped-assist ebike riders for the problems caused by people on electric motorbikes and dirt bikes.
Something which was made clear by New Jersey’s new law that requires a driver’s license and registration to ride even the slowest ped-assist bike.
Meanwhile, Vermont legislators say the state’s ebike laws can’t keep up with technical advances leading to ebikes that can easily exceed the state’s 28 mph limit.
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We mentioned last month that you can, in fact, use an HSA/FSA — Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account — to buy an new bicycle or ebike, as well as bike gear, using pretax dollars, resulting in an average savings of 30%.
Now Marvin forwards word that Trumed will be the source you’ll have to use.
He adds,
The reason I really like this is because it supports the middle class. if I was poor, I could get help purchasing an e-bike. If I was rich, I could get help purchasing an EV. Finally, with FSA/HSA benefits, I can finally qualify for something that helps me.
The only downside I see is that no one can establish a new or add to an existing FSA/HSA until Nov 2026.
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Streets Are For Everyone will hold a die-in on the steps of City Hall this Saturday to protest the unacceptable level of traffic violence in this city.
In 2025 alone, 286 people were killed on our streets — deaths that were preventable.
This Saturday, SAFE and partner nonprofits will gather to honor lives lost and demand action after a decade-old City pledge to eliminate traffic deaths was missed.
4th Annual Die-In for Safer Streets
📍 LA City Hall Steps, 232 N. Spring Street
🕙 Saturday, January 24 | 10:00–11:00 AMSigning up is appreciated, but walk-ups to the event without signing up are also welcome.
Lives are on the line. Inaction is no longer acceptable.
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Streets for All invites you to register for all their upcoming mobility debates/discussions this month.
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The LA Chinatown Firecracker will be back for the 48th consecutive year on weekend of February 28-March 1, marking the lunar new year with running, walking, bicycling and dog walking events.
Glendale is very slowly moving forward with plans for the Glendale-Los Angeles Garden River Bridge Project, a landscaped bridge, currently in the environmental review stage, connecting with Griffith Park across the LA River.
Santa Monica police will conduct yet another bicycle and pedestrian safety operation tomorrow, as usual, ticketing anyone who commits a violation that endangers either one — even if you’re only endangering yourself, at least in their eyes.
A San Diego bike shop owner is still trying to cope with Trump’s tariffs, after a near year of uncertainty.
Residents of San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood are calling for safety improvements following the death of six-year old Hudson O’Laughlin, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he and his family were riding bikes on the sidewalk — even though all the previous traffic calming measures introduced in recent years were removed following complaints from residents.
A travel website says Northern California’s Forest of Nisene Marks State Park is “a rather secluded and uncrowded haven” for hiking or biking surrounded by towering redwoods.
A nine-year old Washington State boy got a new bicycle from a local group after his broke down, nominated for his leadership and friendship to others — and he immediately named it for his favorite soccer star.
A Texas family is coping with the grief of losing a baby by attempting a long-distance bike ride to raise funds to support families facing high-risk pregnancies. Although how long they consider long-distance isn’t clear.
That’s more like it. Students, faculty and employees of Cincinnati’s Xavier University can now use the city’s bikeshare system for free.
Road.cc recommends the year’s best road bikes.
Cyclist offers recommendations on the best insulated water bottles. Which I misread as “the best insulted water bottles,” which would make for a much more interesting article.
Tragic news from Peru, where 29-year old Florian Berg was killed by lightening on Saturday when the German climate activist was caught in a severe thunderstorm in the Andes, after more than a year spent riding around the world.
Next City says Victoria, British Columbia is one of the best bike cities not traditionally known for it, after tripling its rate of bicycling in just 11 years. Although they can’t seem to spell Victoria correctly. Or British, for that matter.
A Scotsman resigned from the rat race, quitting his high-stress job as a communications director for a renewable energy company for a much calmer career fixing bicycles. As I know all too well after a career in advertising, the problem with the rat race is the rats usually win.
Denmark’s Tobias Lund Andresen outsprinted the sprinters to win the first stage of the Tour Down Under.
Bike Radar asked the pros at the Tour Down Under how to make pro cycling safer, and was told the solution is slower bikes and safer courses.
The first stage of India’s Tour of Pune was temporarily halted due to a crash involving around 30 riders; fortunately, no one was seriously injured, though three riders were forced to withdraw.
French cyclist Simeon Sebastien Green is still competing at twice the age of many his competitors.
That feeling when you’re a legendary British DJ, and the best bike ride of your life started in West Hollywood. Or when the local golf club is infested with ebikes of the non-bicycle variety.
And waxing eloquent about a blue touring bike bought on an informed impulse — for the equivalent of just 270 bucks.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
