Day 157 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Life is cheap in New Zealand.
A road raging driver got just two lousy months of community detention — think curfews and electronic monitoring — and a year of probation for brake-checking two-time paracycling world champ Eltje Malzbender as she was training with a friend on a three-wheeled bike in 2020.
Brian David Mills pled guilty to cutting them off with his van and jamming on the brakes, after yelling “get off the road you fucking bastards,” then fleeing without stopping.
Malzbender took the brunt of the impact on her head, but was lucky to escape with relatively minor injuries.
The judge imposed the lenient sentence, despite what was described as Mills’ “sporadic history of careless driving and violence offenses” stretching back to the late 1980s.
Mazbender recovered in time to compete in the Tokyo Paralympics a year later.
She used paracycling to recover after she was left for dead on the side of the road by another hit-and-run driver in 2016, suffering a traumatic brain injury that left her with lasting injuries including loss of short term memory, co-ordination and the ability to speak.
There’s a special place in hell for anyone who would deliberately injure any disabled person, regardless of what a judge says.
Or should be, anyway.
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Sad news from Italy, where Enzo Staiola, who played the soulful-eyed son in the 1948 Italian cinematic masterpiece Bicycle Thieves, died in a Roman hospital.
Just because they let the kids walk a whole two blocks without adult supervision — for the first time.
But the 76-year old driver gets a walk, because police said it was just an “oopsie.”
“In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children,” police said in a statement.
As long as the adult in question isn’t operating a motor vehicle, apparently. Or responsible for designing a dangerous roadway.
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Gravel Bike California explores the bike culture at the Cub House LA Invitational Bike and Car Show + Swap Meet.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Ab Oklahoma City man was apparently murdered by a road raging driver, after the 37-year old driver was found dead in the street with a gunshot wound, as police concluded he was killed after a confrontation while riding his bicycle.
A pair of San Francisco petitions are calling for protecting transit funding from Newsom’s budget cuts, and keeping the currently car-free Market Street from reverting into a “traffic-choked car-sewer” after the mayor allows driverless Waymo vehicles in.
A “modern-day Paul Revere” plans to ride his bike to every Boston Dunkin’ today, eating a Dunkin’ Munchkin at all 92 locations, and covering 80 miles while consuming 5,000 calories to mark National Donut Day.
A group of British conservation volunteers are accused of leaving a forest a mess, while sending a message that bikes and kids aren’t welcome, after digging up an unauthorized mountain bike track in a Sheffield nature preserve.
The milk of human kindness must be running low in Singapore, where Facebook users were quick to blame a bike-riding victim after she was struck by a left-turning driver, whose view was obscured by a stopped delivery van.
June 5, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Is something rotten in the state of Metro, make Warner Center more bikeable, and help spend OC Measure M funds
Day 156 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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To paraphrase the bard, something may be rotten in the state of Metro.
BTS alleges Metro was set to award Lyft a nearly $200 million contract to operate the city’s bikeshare system after illegally structuring the bid to benefit Lyft.
On May 22, the Metro Board of Directors was set to approve Lyft’s $198 million proposal to operate Metro Bike Share, a countywide rental system of 1,800 public bikes.
It’s possible this is nothing more than a last-ditch effort by BTS and Metro Bike union members to retain the contract they’ve held since 2016.
But if there’s any truth to it, we deserve to know.
And something needs to be done to ensure a level playing field, and guarantee they select the best people for the job.
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Here’s your chance to help make car-centric Warner Center more bikeable and walkable, as Los Angeles moves forward with plans to remake the current office desert.
The city is looking for feedback at the Woodland Hills Farmers Market on June 21st, a short walk or bike ride from the Sherman Way G (Orange) Line Station.
HELP SHAPE THE WARNER CENTER ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION HUB
The Warner Center Active Transportation Hub project supports the transformation of the Warner Center area into an active transportation hub for jobs and housing. Active transportation includes walking, biking, scootering or using a wheelchair – any form of human-powered mobility.
Thanks to everyone who was able to join us at the Open House! If you missed it, check out the meeting presentation online.
ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO CONNECT
Visit Our Booth at the Woodland Hills Farmers Market
Saturday, June 21, 2025 | 9 am – 2 pm
5650 Shoup Ave., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop by and tell us
What would make you want to walk, bike, or roll more often in Warner Center area?
As long as we’re on the subject of public meetings, the Orange County Transportation Authority, aka OCTA, wants to know how you want to spend Measure M transportation funds.
Annual Measure M Hearing set for June 10 to Ensure Accountability of Taxpayer Funds for Transportation
Taxpayer Oversight Committee will hold its 34th public hearing to ensure transportation funding is being delivered as promised to Orange County voters
ORANGE – The Taxpayer Oversight Committee will hold its 34th annual public hearing to ensure that Measure M, the county’s half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, is being delivered as promised to Orange County voters.
This year’s public hearing is scheduled for:
6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10, at the Orange County Transportation Authority headquarters, 550 S. Main St. in Orange.
The independent, 11-member oversight committee was formed to monitor OCTA’s use of Measure M funding, approve all changes to the Measure M Transportation Investment Plan, and hold annual public hearings on the expenditure of funds generated by the half-cent sales tax. The original measure was first approved by voters in 1990 and overwhelmingly renewed in 2006.
The renewed Measure M is continuing to fund balanced and sustainable transportation improvements through 2041, estimated to invest approximately $14 billion in all. The voter-approved plan allocates 43% of funds to freeways, 32% to streets and roads, and 25% to transit, and includes two environmental programs focused on preserving natural habitats and improving water quality through stormwater capture systems.
The first Measure M helped fund more than $4 billion worth of transportation improvements. These include enhanced freeways, smoother streets, synchronized traffic signals, improved intersections, and regional Metrolink rail service – which continues to be funded by Measure M.
OCTA remains committed to relieving congestion, maintaining infrastructure, expanding travel choices for seniors and people with disabilities, and protecting the environment.
Measure M also supports projects that reduce travel times, improve safety, and coordinate traffic signal systems across cities.
Those unable to attend the public hearing can submit comments by visiting octa.net/PublicHearing.
All written comments must be submitted by noon on Monday, June 9.
Written comments may be addressed to:
Andrea West Clerk of the Board Orange County Transportation Authority
550 South Main Street
P.O. Box 14184
Orange, CA 92683-1584
For more information about Measure M or the Taxpayer Oversight Committee, visit octa.net/TOC.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A San Diego letter writer says the San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG’s, approval of a $27 million Complete Streets project to reconfigure University Ave “proved once again that it is run by a consortium of incompetents.” Because he recently drove to Balboa Park without seeing a single bus in the bus lane, or a bike in the bike lane, which apparently serves as conclusive proof no one ever uses them.
No bias here. An Idaho county judge jerked back the permit for a bike park, just ten days before it was due to open, after the owners had built a network of world-class mountain bike trails on their own dime.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A visitor to the Boston suburb of Somerville says they were nearly struck by reckless bike riders three times just trying to cross a street, requiring “evasive maneuvers that would make a Cirque du Soleil performer break a sweat.” Although commenters said having to take a step back isn’t the same as getting hit, and oddly, they’ve never had a problem there.
They’ve got a point. A British bike advocacy group urged Parliament to reconsider a plan for on-the-spot fines equivalent to $677 for bicycling violations in pedestrian zones, arguing that the considerate bike riders are easy to catch, while speedy and/or aggressive anti-social ones will get away scot-free.
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Local
Caltrans is resurfacing a 20-mile stretch of PCH through the harbor area — likely without building the bike lanes and pedestrian improvements required under the state’s Complete Streets policy — ensuring this stretch of LA’s killer highway will remain that way.
Sad news from Merced, where a 27-year old man riding a BMX bike was killed by a hit-and-run driver, who later called police to say he had hit “something;” police blamed the victim’s black clothing and a lack of reflectors, saying the driver was unable to see him from behind on the dark street.
A 16-year old Albuquerque, New Mexico boy, the oldest of the four kids charged with fatally running down a Los Alamos scientist in a stolen car as he was biking to work, will remain in custody pending trial after a judge ruled she couldn’t ensure public safety if he was released. No shit.
An unsigned op-ed by “avid cyclists” says Boston’s “willy-nilly installation of bike lanes is the epitome of virtue-signaling,” and that encouraging senior citizens to use bikes as a means of transportation “is tantamount to inviting them to die or suffer serious injuries,” insisting they’re not being hyperbolic. Although it’s worth noting that Boston has an average of seven bicycling deaths per year affecting people of all ages, which makes it seem kinda hyperbolic.
Like other bicyclists we’ve heard from in San Diego, the OCBC expressed concerns about riders risking injuries by colliding with the raised barriers separating them from traffic.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
When you’re carrying meth and magic mushrooms, and trying to hide an $1,100 bike behind a bush outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, make sure it’s yours — and doesn’t have an AirTag on it.
Los Angeles is narrowing the sidewalk on a 500-foot stretch of Balboa Blvd to make room for more cars — specifically left turn lanes — in a process Streetsblog’s Joe Linton describes as “harmful to city budgets, pedestrians, cyclists, climate, air quality, historic preservation, etc.” After all, who needs sidewalks anyway, right?
MSN reposted the San Diego Union-Tribune article we linked to yesterday about the California Ebike Incentive Program’s apparently successful third attempt at managing the 128,000 people who attempted to apply for a voucher last week, for everyone who couldn’t see it, like me. And I was even quoted in it.
A writer for Cycling Weekly says bicyclists have a right to be angry about infrastructure, but it’s not worth fueling a culture war by haranguing people online. I’ve learned through long and painful experience that it’s just not worth engaging with the haters on social media, because it’s an argument no one ever wins.
LA28 announced venues for an accessible 2028 Paralympic Games, with most of the events located in Downtown LA and Exposition Park. Although it’s questionable how competitors and spectators will get to the games when the city isn’t building the bus and bike lanes they promised to make them car free.
June 3, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Happy World Bicycle Day, protected bike lanes boost bike commuting, and CA Ebike Incentive Program finally gets it right
Day 154 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
You can celebrate by getting out on your bike today and riding somewhere, anywhere. Because the best argument for more and better bicycling is seeing more people on them.
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No surprise here.
A new six-year, 28-city study shows that protected bike lanes resulted in 1.8 times greater bicycle commuter usage compared to standard bike lanes, 1.6 times greater than shared lanes — aka sharrows — and 4.3 times more than streets without any bicycle infrastructure.
Yes, that’s 430%.
Protected bike lanes also showed 52.5% greater bike commuting mileage than standard bike lanes, and a whopping 281.2% more than shared-lanes.
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The California Ebike Incentive Program offered an update on last week’s surprisingly successful round of voucher applications, and somehow managed to avoid patting themselves on the back for finally getting it right.
Although that legal disclaimer on the last line is a winner.
The Los Angeles Times says Gavin Newsom and the California legislature are preparing the biggest CEQA overhaul in a generation, as a result of national criticism that the state can’t build sufficient housing and public infrastructure anymore.
National
Over 22,000 people have signed a petition calling on the US Department of Transportation to prioritize funding for bicycling infrastructure in major US cities.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An 83-year old Sitka, Alaska man continues to ride, after switching to an ebike in his late 70s when he started having trouble keeping up with his younger friends.
A pair of New Jersey women will spend the next six years behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter for killing a 22-year old NYU graduate who was riding a bicycle on a state highway last year, while they were doing 90 mph in a 50 mph zone and illegally passing other vehicles on the shoulder.
Mexico News Daily says Isaac del Torro may have finished second in the Giro after losing to Simon Yates on the penultimate stage, but he won in the hearts of his countrymen.
June 2, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: 30-something man on bicycle killed by hit-and-run driver in South LA; nearly 1/3 of SoCal bike deaths this year hit-and-runs
Once again, someone on a bicycle in Los Angeles has been left to die alone in the street by a heartless coward.
But for a change, we actually learned about it the next day.
The victim, identified only as a man in his mid-30s, died at the scene, his mangled yellow road bike lying nearby in the crosswalk.
Unfortunately, security video was too blurry to provide a description of the suspect vehicle or driver, and there doesn’t appear to be any immediate witnesses.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD South Traffic Division at 323/421-2500, or anonymously via Crime Stoppers at 800/222-8477 or lacrimestoppers.org.
As always, there is a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of LA.
This is at least the 16th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, the fourth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, and just the second we’ve learned about in the City of Los Angeles — which is likely a dramatic undercount.
This is also at least the fifth bike rider killed by a hit-and-run driver in Southern California this year.
Update 2: The LAPD has posted video of the crash, which occurred with other vehicles around, so someone probably saw it. But be warned, it shows the full crash and the aftermath, be sure you really want to see it before you click on the link.
The police have identified the suspect vehicle as a silver Chevrolet Camaro.
“Following the crash, the driver of the Camaro made a right turn onto San Pedro Street, continued northbound, and then turned westbound onto East 98th Street, fleeing the scene without stopping to render aid or identify themselves, as required by law,” police said.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jose Villalobos and his loved ones.
