Day 129 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
In my rush to put up yesterday’s post before I fell asleep at my keyboard, I somehow lost the link to an important Los Angeles Times op-ed from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider.
In it, Schneider took to task the proposed city budget from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose draconian cuts would make our already deteriorating and dangerous streets even worse.
By law, the city of Los Angeles must balance its budget every year. But Mayor Karen Bass’ current proposal to do so represents a dystopian nightmare for our streets, sidewalks and public transportation system. The city should correct this mistake as it evaluates the proposed budget in the coming weeks.
Angelenos already live with streets deteriorating faster than we can fix them, sidewalks breaking faster than we can repair them and streetlights going dark faster than we can replace them. A recent audit exposed the city’s utter failure to achieve Vision Zero, after promising 10 years ago to bring down traffic deaths. These things are happening under the existing fiscal year’s budget, which already made draconian cuts across the city. With further cuts, expect even worse service for everyday essentials.
Bass describes this budget as just a worst case scenario, hoping against hope for a deus ex machina bailout from the state from her own budget failures, as legal settlements and unfounded pay raises have put the city a whopping $1 billion in the red.
Without a momentary lifeboat from the cash-strapped state, Bass proposes cutting 1,600 jobs — slashing staffing at LADOT and street services, as well as putting off desperately needed repairs and capital improvements.
And if you think “desperately needed” is an overstatement, you haven’t been on Fairfax Ave lately, where frame-busting bumps make mountain biking seem boring, and ever-growing potholes threaten to swallow entire motor vehicles.
Never mind that the eyes of the world will be on the City of Angels starting next year.
Keep in mind that Los Angeles is also about to be under a spotlight on the world stage. We are hosting eight matches of the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2028. We shouldn’t be hosting world-class events on streets full of potholes, broken sidewalks and dark streetlights. It’s a terrible image for Los Angeles, and the coming fiscal year’s budget is our last chance to make progress before the events begin.
It’s more than worth the few minutes it takes to read the whole thing. Because this is the battle we have to fight now, if we want to win any of the other street safety fights to come.
Although not everyone seems to agree.
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Bike-riding tree-chopper Samuel Patrick Groft was ordered to stand trial on 11 felony vandalism counts for chopping down 13 trees with his trusty electric chainsaw.
Police describe the 33-year old Groft as homeless with a criminal record, and someone who was known to them before last month’s DTLA chainsaw massacre.
LA’s street tree superintendent estimated the values of felled trees on city-owned property at $175,000, while the value of all 13 trees was set at nearly $350,000.
And bonus points if you knew LA even had a street tree superintendent.
Groft faces up to six-and-a-half years behind bars if convicted on all count. He remains behind bars on $350,000 bond, for which trees in Downtown Los Angeles are undoubtedly grateful.
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Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC’s next virtual happy hour will feature Marissa Roy, candidate for Los Angeles City Attorney.
Although considering what we’ve seen of the incumbent, she already has my vote.
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That feeling when satire is just this side of reality.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Convenience won out over safety once again, as residents of a wealthy Christchurch, New Zealand suburb successfully defeated a planned bike lane, preferring saving parking spaces to saving lives.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A San Francisco website says yes, the city has an ebike problem, but it’s the “glorified e-mopeds,” not the people on bicycles, who are the problem.
Police in Singapore are looking for the schmuck who slapped a 13-year old boy after they crashed their bikes together.
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Local
Clean Technica says Los Angeles will have to rely on the private sector to have any hope of holding a carfree Olympics.
Metrolink will wave ticket fees for anyone with a bicycle on Thursday’s Bike to Work Day — although you’ll still have to pay to ride Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains.
State
When I was a kid, “Your mother rides a bicycle!” was a schoolyard taunt, but Calbike’s Kendra Ramsey recalls it as a badge of honor.
Encinitas is closing a portion of South Coast Highway 101 in the downtown area to cars on May 18th for the Cyclovia Encinitas open streets event.
The CEO of San Diego Youth Services is taking one last great adventure as he rides into retirement, pedaling over 600 miles from San Francisco to San Diego in hopes of raising $250,000 for homeless youths.
Authorities continue to search for any sign of a 27-year old Black woman who disappeared without a trace two weeks ago while e-bikepacking in the Sierra National Forest.
Sad news from Antioch, where a 33-year old man died in the hospital after he reportedly got off his bicycle, and somehow fell into the roadway and into the path of an oncoming car.
National
Momentum ranks the top ten cities in the US to enjoy a carfree lifestyle. None of which is Los Angeles.
A team from the University of Washington has developed a small, handlebar-mounted sensor that maps when and where drivers pass closer than four feet to someone on a bicycle, which they found correspond to other indications of poor safety, such as collisions. Although I’d say that a collision is the literal definition of poor safety.
A Las Vegas bike shop, twice named one of the nation’s top ten bike shops, offers a blast from the past by hosting a virtual museum of vintage, rare and unusual bicycles.
Bicycling examines the strange case of University of Wyoming art professor Nash Quinn, who disappeared last year after riding his singlespeed bike into the wilderness outside of Laramie. But you’ll need a subscription if you want to read it.
Streetsblog Chicago considers the eternal question of how to convince residents and city officials to support safer street designs.
Donald Trump deflected from tough questions about the failure of the US air traffic control system by mocking former Transportation Secretary Pet Buttigieg for riding his bicycle to work “with his husband on the back.”
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the Atlanta Magnet Man’s bicycle; Alex Benigno began riding an ebike with a trailer mounted with magnets during the pandemic, pedaling through the city collecting an average of five pounds of metal debris swept from the streets.
International
A Canadian woman is attempting to set a new record for riding up and down the full length of the United Kingdom, despite contracting a rare disease when she was 15 that left her unable to walk.
Cyclist introduces Russel Stout, owner of British bespoke aluminum bikemaker Stout Cycles.
That’s more like it. A commercial van driver in the UK was sentenced to 11 years behind bars for killing a bike rider while drinking vodka behind the wheel, and using not one, but two mobile phones; he continued to use his phone for over half a minute as he drove away after the crash, later telling police he thought he’d hit a bird. Must have been a pretty damn big bird, though.
A 51-year old “super fit road cyclist” who had just moved from the UK to France blames the Moderna Covid vaccine for sending her to intensive cardiac care for two weeks, and needing a pacemaker after suffering a complete heart block.
An estimated 10,000 people are expected to ride their bikes tomorrow for Korea’s 2025 Seoul Bike Festival, with riders divided by skill levels, and different speeds set for each.
Competitive Cycling
Road.cc asks whether the women’s Vuelta is already over, as Dutch pro Demi Vollering builds a commanding lead while winning her fifth stage.
Speaking of the Olympics, the Olympics website shines a spotlight on Bike for Future, a Rwandan program using bicycles to help young women build transferable skills, while gaining access to education, employment and entrepreneurship.
The small African nation of Benin is making its move to become a cycling power; the country has already produced elite riders like Biniam Girmay, Louis Meintjes, Kim Le Court and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.
Finally…
That feeling when your “beloved” gravel event is demoted to just the fifth-hardest bovine-themed ride held in a lesser wine region. Or when you post a bike ad on Instagram, and get told to focus on your football/soccer team — and wear a hemet.
And of course Bing was one of us.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
