Day 83 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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It’s even worse than we realized.
Last week, I mentioned that at least five people have been killed on Vista del Mar since former Mayor Eric Garcetti ripped out the road diet that was installed in 2017, after Los Angeles shelled out nearly $10 million to settle a lawsuit over the death of a 16-year old girl crossing over to the beach.
Now it turns out, according to LADOT, another 14 people were killed along Vista del Mar from 2003 to 2016.
That’s 19 lives needlessly lost in less than 23 years on the short, four-mile roadway, thanks a wide four-lane design that makes the seemingly bucolic beachfront street a virtual speedway for anyone with a heavy foot.
Yes, an average of nearly one death a year.
So maybe the three-county PCH isn’t SoCal’s killer highway after all, at least on a per-mile basis.
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About damn time.
Somehow, we missed the news last year that the California legislature passed Carson Assemblymember Mike Gibson’s bill to eliminate the statute of limitations for hit-and-run.
AB 2984, named for the three-year old son of Gibson’s wife, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver 36 years ago, was signed by Gov. Gaven Newsom and is now law.
Which means the driver, who was never caught, could now be prosecuted if they ever find them.
Along with all the other heartless cowards who think they’ve gotten away with it, in a state where the overwhelming majority of hit-and-run drivers are never caught, let alone tried.
Gipson also sponsoring a bill in the current session that would require that drivers convicted of reckless driving install intelligent speed limitation systems in their cars, similar to how a breathalyzer can be required for drunk drivers.
Which is also about damn time.
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This is exactly what I’ve been warning about.
Whatever your politics, cuts to funding for active transportation puts your safety, and everyone else’s, at risk.
So fight back.
Meanwhile, several states have banded together under the Clean Rides Network to find ways to fund projects the feds have abandoned.
And yes, California is one of them.
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Streets For All is hosting a virtual lunch tomorrow with Dr. Ian Walker, who they describe as “an Environmental Psychologist who studies motonormativity – the shared bias that prevents us from judging motorized transportation rationally.”
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Once again, someone appears to be deliberately sabotaging a bike trail, as a volunteer group warns about shards of barbed wire intentionally placed on Sacramento’s American River Parkway; so far, the only damage is flat tires, but someone could easily be seriously injured as a result of a blown tire.
A woman in Houston, Texas says a road-raging driver tried to intentionally ram her as she road her ebike, then yelled obscenities and attempted to provoke a confrontation when she tried to take a photo of the driver’s license plate; police say they are investigating.
No bias here. A writer for The Telegraph accuses “rich, Lycra-clad cyclists” of tearing through red lights while riding “hugely expensive” bikes paid for by taxpayers as part of Britain’s Cycle to Work rebate program, as if getting well-off people out of cars and onto bikes somehow doesn’t benefit everyone. Let alone all the not-so-well off people who have also benefitted.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Miami cop has been disciplined for sitting on her ass while a dispute between a bicyclist and a motorist devolved into a full-on assault on the driver by bike riders taking part in an apparent rideout, remaining in her patrol car while the riders “kicked, punched, stomped, smashed a window and even hurled a bike” at the victim’s car.
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Local
City Watch looks forward to April 6th’s Koreatown Meets Hollywood CicLAvia.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reviews the documents, and says it will probably be up to a judge to determine whether Measure HLA, which requires that the city build out the mobility plan whenever streets get resurfaced, applies to Metro.
The former South Bay Bicycle Coalition, now known as SBBC+, offers a community proposal to reconfigure Redondo Beach’s Prospect Ave as a Complete Street.
A new play in Long Beach looks at life through the eyes of a child riding a red bicycle.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department is offering a $30,000 reward for the men who shot and killed Jose Manuel Rangel, following a confrontation on the Clara Street Bridge in Cudahy two years ago as he rode his bike home after visiting his mother.
State
Calbike has come out in opposition to AB 612, which would give fire departments more power to veto street safety projects, despite their obvious lack of traffic engineering training; as we’ve seen, fire fighters often oppose projects designed to save lives, citing unspecified delays in response times that are seldom born out in real life.
No bias here. The San Diego Union-Tribune questions whether it makes sense to pursue the city’s “preposterous” climate goals, arguing that its commitment to building transit and bike lanes is an “embrace of what feels like costly and empty virtue signaling.”
San Francisco becomes the first California city to install speed cams under a pilot program allowing a limited number in three Northern California and three South California cities, as well as on PCH in Malibu. Meanwhile, Los Angeles continues to sit on its ass and do nothing, as usual, as speed-related deaths continue to mount.
National
A writer for The Atlantic sings the praises of ebikes, saying they may be slower than a car, but make your family life so much richer; meanwhile, another writer says they’re great, but not for everyone.
Bloomberg sings the praises of the late, great autodidact and polymath Lewis Mumford, who called out the dangers of overly car-centric cities over 70 years ago.
Take your dog or cat with you everywhere with a new $300 combination pet stroller/bike trailer that converts to a backpack. Hopefully without the animal in it.
Houston lawmakers decide to reinvent the wheel, sponsoring a bill to study whether bike lanes improve safety, as if all the other studies showing they do somehow don’t apply in Texas.
Maine’s highest court has sided with a 62-year old man who was ticketed for not riding single file as he was out with a friend, ruling that the state’s requirement to ride as far to the right as practicable is so vague it’s unenforceable, since only the person riding can decide how far to the right is safe to ride.
Seriously? A Boston cafe owner worries about the survival of her business after a new road diet and bike lanes were installed, as if being located on one of the city’s most dangerous streets for pedestrians is somehow good for her business.
International
No surprise here, as the world’s happiest countries are also places with the highest bicycling rates.
A writer for Momentum shares the most important things she learned on her first bike tour.
Bike Magazine shares the world’s ten most popular mountain biking destinations for your offroad bike bucket list.
Hundreds of Londoners turned out for the return of a drum and bass bicycle rave, led by a bicycling DJ and his cat.
More proof that bikes are good for business, as a rural Scottish cafe catering to bicyclists says if they didn’t they wouldn’t even be in business anymore.
A rising British comedian warns about the dangers of drunken bicycling after crashing his bikeshare bike while riding under the influence.
Life is cheap in Ireland, where a 29-year old mother of three will spend just four years behind bars for the hit-and-run death a 68-year old man riding a bicycle, while driving at not one, not two, not even three times the legal alcohol limit, but a full nine times over the line — yes, nine — after downing a dozen martinis before getting behind the wheel.
Famed painter Henri Matisse’s brother-in-law was one of us, as the struggling artist tried to borrow 150 francs to buy a Van Gogh in 1899, only to learn the other man had blown 500 francs on a new bicycle.
A 66-year-old Chinese grandmother has already biked solo through 12 countries across three continents, on a monthly pension of just $414 a month, despite taking up bicycling just a dozen years ago.
Bike riders in Sydney, Australia may soon have fewer stair to climb, with a $39 million ramp longer than two football fields replacing the stairs they’re currently forced to climb if they want to bike across the harbor.
Competitive Cycling
Dutch pro Mathieu van der Poel won Milan-San Remo after an early attack by Tadej Pogačar failed, leading to a three-way sprint to the finish joined by Filippo Ganna.
A British company plans to bring the world’s best cyclists back to the US next year for the first time since 2019, the five-stage Tour of Colorado will launch in September, assuming they can get all the necessary permits and clearances, and get it on the pro calendar.
Finally….
Your next bike seat could play grab-ass while you ride. Your next bicycle could be a knitting machine; thanks to Steven Hallett for the heads-up.
And build a custom bike for the tallest man in America, and make a friend for life.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
