Search results for bikes have rights

LA and Metro ignore HLA-mandated bike lanes on Vermont, and Gov. Newsom may not understand the risks of speeding

October 7, 2024 / / No comments
Just 84 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

Conceptual rendering of bike lane-free Vermont courtesy of Streetsblog LA.

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Sadly, no surprise here.

A large collection of Los Angeles advocacy groups, led by Streets For All and ACT-LA, are complaining that Metro’s plan for bus lanes on Vermont Ave don’t comply with the requirements of Measure HLA.

The ballot measure, initially sponsored by Streets For All, passed with overwhelming support in the March primary election, winning two-thirds of the vote in the City of Los Angeles.

It ordered the city to comply with a very simple requirement to build out the already approved Mobility Plan 2035 whenever streets in the plan get resurfaced.

Or maybe not so simple, since LA officials have apparently been busy dragging their feet and looking for loopholes ever since.

According to Streetsblog LA, Metro has been working on plans to add bus lanes to Vermont for over a decade, scaling back what had been 12 miles to just six.

And just bus lines.

Advocates see Vermont as a key opportunity. If you can’t go big, be thorough, and make transit and transit riders a top priority on one of Metro’s and the nation’s highest ridership corridors, where can you?

The Alliance for Community Transit (ACT-LA) is currently circulating a letter (sign on as an individual or organization) in support of improving Vermont for people on bus, bike, and on foot – from Sunset Boulevard to the Metro C (Green) Line Athens Station. ACT-LA and two dozen organizations are calling for following features all along the nearly 12-mile-long project:

  • uninterrupted bus lanes
  • protected bike lanes
  • pedestrian scrambles at high injury and bus transfer intersections
  • tree planting, non-hostile shelters, signage, wayfinding, trash bins, and a bus rider bill of rights at every stop
  • wait time displays and public water at all major intersections
  • electrification of buses along the corridor
  • preserving all street vending and expanding the sidewalk in areas with high vending concentrations

But Metro’s current scaled-back, penny-pinching plan includes “little for pedestrians, and nothing for cyclists.”

Metro somehow claims that’s consistent with the mobility plan, and “helps support” Measure HLA.

Streets For All disagrees. And they should know, since they wrote the damn thing.

This week, the advocacy group Streets for All, the main proponent of Measure HLA and one of the signatories of the ACT-LA letter, wrote to Mayor Karen Bass and Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins in support of Metro’s Vermont project proceeding in full compliance with Measure HLA. The letter states:

“As designed, the BRT project brings (welcome) improvements to Vermont Avenue… Those trigger the City’s obligation to install Mobility Plan enhancements. Therefore, were the City to issue permits for the project without assuring implementation of its Mobility Plan enhancements at the same time, the City would violate its ordinance, waste public funds, and allow Vermont’s dangerous conditions to remain despite the voters’ mandate.”

Streets for All notes that the project complies with the city’s plan for transit and pedestrian facilities, but not for bikeways.

It would be bad enough if this were a one-off. But Streetsblog includes a long list of current projects that don’t appear to comply with the mobility plan or HLA.

HLA gives Angelenos the right to sue to force implementation of the measure, and that could be where we’re heading.

Los Angeles seems to be daring these organizations to take them to court, either thinking they won’t do it, or in hopes of somehow getting the measure overturned.

Which seems unlikely, since it’s now part of the city charter.

We thought we had won when HLA passed. But clearly, this battle is just getting started.

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Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, notes that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a wide range of traffic safety measures passed in the last legislative session.

These range from mandating that Caltrans follow its own Complete Streets policies, to bills extending the statute of limitations for hit-and-run if the driver flees the state.

But Newsom dropped the ball when it came to speeding drivers, vetoing a bill to increase the penalty for speeding more than 26 mph over a 55 mph limit, as well as a bill to mandate an audible warning when drivers exceed the posted speed limit by more than 10 mph.

You can read SAFE’s full article explaining both Newsom’s reasons for the vetoes, and why they think he was wrong.

But for now, let’s just say they raise serious questions over whether the governor truly grasps the dangers posed by speeding drivers to everyone around them, both on and off the roadway.

If he did, he would work with the legislature to fix the bills or to craft alternatives that he would favor, rather than just killing them with a stroke of the pen.

People both in and out of motor vehicles are injured and dying at ever increasing rates, many through no fault of their own.

And speeding is one of the leading causes of that.

If the governor doesn’t understand that, nothing will improve until he leaves office.

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A bike ride on Saturday, October 19th will explore the new bike lanes on Hollywood Blvd, which many people noted weren’t ready for prime time during the recent Hollywoods CicLAvia.

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It’s now 292 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And an even 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Call if a false alarm this time. It turns out the dangling wire a Milwaukee bike rider was nearly decapitated by when it wrapped around his neck as he rode past a light pole was part of an Eruv that had fallen, used by a Jewish community to allow them to move about celebrate the Sabbath more freely.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Seriously, if videos show bike riders avoiding a newly constructed Melbourne, Australia protected bike lane, there’s probably a reason for it.

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Local  

A travel writer visits Los Angeles, and finds it surprisingly bikeable — as long as you’re on a guided bike tour, and do much of your riding on bike paths.

 

State

About damn time. Caltrans is finally getting around to adding bike lanes on San Diego’s busy Friars Road. I wasn’t comfortable riding on Friars when I live down there, and that was nearly four decades ago.

 

National

A British travel writer rode his bike 4,000 miles through the heart of conservative small town America, relating what he learned about “guns, politics and Trump.”

Your next road bike could be 3D printed — and the most aero bike ever built  — while your next racing tires could inflate themselves, automatically adjusting for differences in terrain.

An Idaho reporter talks about the interesting and crazy people he bumped into riding his bike down the left coast.

He gets it. A Boston writer says bike lanes don’t just benefit people on bicycles, they help everyone — yes, even businesses — improving safety and accessibility, traffic flow, and environmental sustainability.

Cambridge, Massachusetts is making $1.5 million in safety improvements to a local street, weeks after a father was killed when a driver lost control and drove up onto the sidewalk he was riding his bike on. As usual, only making the improvements they knew they needed after it’s too late.

A New York woman is being called a hero after she stopped her car to save the life of a man who suffered a heart attack while he was riding, giving the experienced triathlete CPR on the side of the road until paramedics arrived.

New York City is encouraging safe and fun bicycling through their Biketober initiative, with events scheduled throughout the month in all five boroughs. Just let me know when to show up for Biketoberfest.

He gets it, too. An op-ed from a South Carolina writer says the problem isn’t dangerous bicyclists, but speeding drivers — and it’s time to slow them down.

 

International

Road.cc explains everything you need to know about bike cams but were afraid to ask.

A newspaper in Edinburgh, Scotland talks with local bike riders about what makes them feel unsafe on the road, including potholes, narrow roads and dangerous drivers.

A London man got his stolen ebike back by posing as a locksmith, knowing the thief — or the schmuck he sold it to — would need a new one to make it work.

A British bicycling instructor is using his bike cam to bring bad drivers to justice. Too bad that’s illegal here. 

Cycling Weekly explores why twice as many bicyclists are killed riding on rural roads in the UK compared to busy city streets, and what can be done to bike riders safe on country roads.

A government minister in the Netherlands wants to see a quarter of all bike riders wearing helmets within the next decade, in a country where only four percent currently do.

Hong Kong’s police chief calls for mandatory bike helmets, as bicycling deaths rise in the city; six of the eight bicyclist killed this year weren’t wearing one. Yet somehow, no one seems to be calling for banning large trucks and SUVS, or any of the other multitude of factors that could be causing the jump, besides what the victims did or didn’t have on their head.

An Aussie man decided to move to China permanently after touring the country by bicycle, personally witnessing the changes in the countryside in the two decades when he lived and worked in Guangdong.

 

Competitive Cycling

Mathieu van der Poel won this year’s Men’s Gravel World Championships riding an actual gravel bike this time, instead of riding his roadie.

Pro cyclist Lachlan Morton shattered the record for riding around Australia, completing the 8,800 mile journey in just 30 days, nine hours and 59 minutes, and beating the old record by nearly seven days — despite a close call with a kangaroo.

Good news, as Belgian cycling star Wout van Aert is back on his bike for the first time since a devastating crash in the Vuelta last month.

 

Finally…

Forget a tent on your next bike tour, and tow a trailer — unless your trailer is a bike, of course. Sometimes it takes a village to get your stolen ebike back.

And we may have to deal with predatory LA drivers, but at least we don’t usually have to worry about migrating great white sharks.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bike-riding NHL star and brother killed by accused drunk driver, and transportation safety bills on governor’s desk

September 9, 2024 / / 2 comments

We’re back, more or less. 

I’ve been out for over a month after surgery to replace two tendon and fix a number of tears in my right shoulder. I’m now looking at a long recovery, with six months of rehab before I’m back to normal, let alone get back on a bike.

Or whatever passes for normal at my age. 

I’ll do my best to keep this site going on a regular basis, but may face some issues going forward depending on how well rehab goes. 

Before we move on, though, let’s take a moment to consider that the new tendons holding my shoulder together came from caring people who donated their bodies after death.

We tend to think of organ donation as involving hearts and lungs, livers and kidneys. But corneas, skin, bones and yes, tendons, also stem from that same kindness. 

And I couldn’t be more grateful for them. 

So if you haven’t signed your organ donor card, what the hell are you waiting for?

Now let’s catch up on some of the bigger stories we missed over the past 34 days, before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Photo by Tembela Bohle from Pexels. 

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Just 113 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Let’s start with the biggest — and worst — news of the last month.

It was just over a week ago that 31-year old NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his 29-year old brother Matthew were killed by an (allegedly) extremely drunk driver while they were riding their bikes in New Jersey.

The brothers were run down on a rural road in Oldmans Township on Thursday, August 30th, the night before they were supposed to be groomsmen in their sister’s wedding.

Needless to say, the wedding is off for now.

They were run down from behind after the driver, identified as 43-year old Sean Higgins, passed one car on the left, then attempted to pass an SUV on the right when it moved left to go around the Gaudreaus.

Higgins failed a field sobriety test, telling police he had five or six beers before the crash, and that his drinking probably contributed to “his impatience and reckless driving.”

He was arrested at the scene, and charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.

Higgins serves as a Major in the US National Guard, while working for a nonprofit substance abuse treatment center. Which means he should have known the risk of driving under the influence.

A crowdfunding campaign for Matthew Gaudreau’s wife, Madeline, who is pregnant with their first child, has raised nearly $645,000 — over 21 times the $30,000 goal.

Meanwhile, USA Today points out that the NHL star was just one of hundreds of bicyclists killed in the US each year — make that over 1,000 in 2022, actually — while Streetsblog says the real story is the systematic failures that led to the Gaudreau brothers deaths.

And the BBC issued a non-apology, saying they were sorry a bicyclist “did not appreciate” their headline which called the crash an “accident.”

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Streetsblog offers an update on transportation bills on the governor’s desk after being approved by the legislature, including:

  • SB 960 requires Caltrans to follow their own Complete Streets policies
  • SB 961 is a severely watered-down version of the bill which would have forced automakers to prevent drivers from speeding more than ten miles over the speed limit; the law now just requires an audible warning
  • SB 1297 extends the states speed cam pilot program to PCH in Malibu
  • SB 1261 limits the placement of sharrows to streets with speed limits of 30 mph or less
  • SB 689 eliminates the need for a separate Coastal Commission study in order to convert a traffic lane to a bike or transit lane
  • SB 1271 requires that only ebikes with UL or EU certification can be sold in the state

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While we were gone, the Glendale City Council narrowly approved the city’s draft transportation plan, along with safety improvements to La Crescenta Ave, after an extremely contentious debate.

Meanwhile, Glendale will consider a a proposal to build the nine-mile Arroyo Verdugo Greenway at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

In 2021 the City began a high-level study which envisioned the Wash as a nine mile green space from its confluence with the LA River up to Crescenta Valley Park. It includes bike and pedestrian trails with access to business and entertainment venues, and connects several important city centers, services and a multitude of neighborhoods that make up a large core of Glendale.

Walk Bike Glendale urges you to attend or call into the meeting, or email the individual council members in advance.

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Streets For All is hosting a virtual Mobility Debate with the candidates for the Burbank City Council Thursday Evening.

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Once again, the Los Angeles County Sheriff department demonstrated how little their deputies know about bike law, when former LA-based pro Phil Gaimon — star of the Worst Retirement Ever videos on YouTube — had to educate one on why the ticket he was about to get was against the law.

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It’s now 263 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 39 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

After a 14-year old boy was seriously injured by a garbage truck driver while riding to school in La Mesa, California, the city’s NBC station demonstrated how to get the story wrong, with a headline suggesting the boy collided with the truck, rather than the other way around. Nope, no bias there.

A road-raging 19-year old Zion, Utah woman chased down a bike rider and rammed him with her car as he tried to flee, after arguing and spitting at her when she ran a stop sign and nearly hit him. Evidently, she felt a crashing need to finish what she’d started. 

When a road raging driver attacked a group of Black Baltimore bicyclists with bear spray, the community responded with a love ride.

Police in Dublin, Ireland are investigating an apparent road rage attack by a driver who pushed a bicyclist up against a barrier and repeatedly hit him with his fists as bystanders tried to stop the attack.

A 59-year old German man was arrested for sabotaging mountain bike trails by stringing wire across them to fell unwary riders; for once, the charges fit the crime, booked on suspicion of attempted murder. Velo says attacks like that are not something you need to fret about, though.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A bike-raging New York bicyclist was busted for allegedly punching a woman jogger in the face after they argued when his handlebars made contact with her as she ran in the opposite direction on an Eastchester bike path.

A British woman says it made her ashamed to ride a bicycle when another rider crashed into her after jumping a red light, and called her a “stupid bitch.”

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Local 

The New York Times considers whether Los Angeles can really pull off a carfree Olympics just four years from now. Short answer, no. Longer answer, hell no.

Caltrans is still conducting its Pacific Coast Highway Master Plan Feasibility Study to determine just what safety improvements people want — or rather, are willing to tolerate. So if you bike, walk or drive along PCH in Malibu, you owe it to yourself and everyone else to take part. 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton examines the first six months since Measure HLA passed with overwhelming support, mandating the city to build out the eight-year old mobility plan whenever a street gets resurfaced. So far the news isn’t good, with work on Reseda Blvd moving forward while everything else stalled out — including the city’s workaround on Vermont Ave in South LA to avoid triggering HLA.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge summarily denied a CEQA lawsuit from Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City to keep Culver City from removing the protected bike lanes through downtown, calling it “the weakest petition (he’s) ever seen in an environmental case;” the group vowed to appeal.

WeHo Times reports on a “tumultuous” community meeting to discuss bike lane designs on Willoughby, Vista/Gardner and Kings Street; as usual, most of the complaints centered on parking and outreach. The city also accepted an $8.2 million grant for transportation and safety improvements, including Fountain Ave, where protected bike lanes are planned.

Santa Monica is dropping speed limits on over 30 miles of streets to improve safety.

The southwest San Gabriel Valley is moving closer to a Metro-funded improvement project linking the First Street, Riggin Street and Potrero Grande Drive corridor, including 5.3 miles of bike lanes through Rosemead, South San Gabriel, Montebello and Monterey Park.

LA County received over $60 million in grants for safety improvement projects, including projects in Long Beach, Palmdale and South LA.

The LA Times picks up the story of how Bike Index’s Bryan Hance uncovered an international bike theft ring on his own when authorities didn’t give a shit show any interest.

 

State

Calbike talks with Wes Marshall, author of the new book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer.

The Voice of OC questions whether deadly Beach Blvd will ever be safe for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Family members are urging any witnesses to come forward who may have seen the hit-and-run crash that critically injured 71-year old Bob Hilborn as he rode his bike in Chula Vista last month.

San Diego is conducting a survey to get input on the forthcoming bicycle master plan.

A man riding his bike on Highway 1 suffered several injuries — and got a couple traffic tickets — after falling over 100 feet when he ignored “road closed” signs and a warning that he would probably die by attempting to ride across a rock slide that shut down the highway. And he nearly did.

 

National

A new bill in Congress would finally mandate federal standards for hood height and visibility in order to protect pedestrians, bicyclists and other people outside the vehicle, after research showed SUVs and trucks with high front ends and blunt profiles are 45% more likely to kill pedestrians in a crash than smaller cars and trucks.

A recent study from Oregon State University shows that the Idaho Stop Law, aka Stop as Yield, does not result in dangerous behavior by bicyclists or drivers; Velo says of course it’s safer for bicyclists. Gavin Newsom vetoed two bills that would have legalized it in California.

A new book from Rob Walker of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy looks at 20 Apps, Ideas, and Innovators Changing the Urban Landscape.

Apple TV+ premiered Ghost Bike, a short film about a mother who meets a stranger in a Greek diner, who may hold the key to solving her son’s untimely death — apparently on a bicycle.

A writer for BuzzFeed offers 22 very tongue-in-cheek reasons why wearing a helmet is “literally one of the absolute worst decisions a person can make.”

Your next ebike could be a Ford Bronco. Or maybe a Mustang.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is accused of holding up a bill to improve ebike battery safety in a misguided attempt to halt regulations he thinks could lead to a ban on gas stoves.

The New York Times examines what the city could learn from the recent reimagining of the streets of Paris.

A Miami man is on trial for murder for chasing down and fatally shooting a man as he rode in a club peloton, although the defense insists it was self-defense after he was attacked by armed bicyclists with guns that were apparently secreted in their spandex kits and mysteriously disappeared afterwards; a Key Biscayne paper somehow described the incident as occurring in “the ultra-machismo world of the Miami cycling community.”

 

International

Momentum recommends the world’s most beautiful bicycle routes; just three of the 30 routes are in the US, with none in California.

Fifty-five-year old former Canadian IndyCar driver and 2003 ChampCar World Series champion Paul Tracy suffered a dislocated shoulder and three broken vertebrae when he was struck by an SUV driver while riding his bike last week.

A 29-year old British drug dealer was sentenced to a well-deserved 14-years behind bars for the hit-and-run crash that killed a bike-riding man, before driving off to make his weed deliveries.

It turns out the ever-feuding Gallagher brothers from the newly reunited British band Oasis are two of us; Road.cc lists other bicycling musical greats and songs about bikes.

Ireland’s Finance Minister justifiably complained about a new bike shed that cost the equivalent of $372,000 to hold just 18 bikes, when a competitor could have built it for $22,000.

A new German report says distracted bicycling is on the rise, blaming it for a significant, but undetermined, increase in crash risk. Never mind that many of the 10 to 17% of bicyclists who use their smartphones while riding are probably just using navigation or bike apps. 

A new Chinese study shows how ebikes are changing the landscape of transportation, including reduced reliance on motor vehicles and improved mobility for people of all ages.

 

Competitive Cycling

A Parisian website recounts all the paracycling medal winners from the Paris Para-Olympics.

Bicycling writes that America’s Kristen Faulkner was told she had just a 6% chance of winning gold in Olympic road cycling, just before she did it. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.

Olympic bronze medalist Wout van Aert is done for the season, after a knee injury suffered in a major crash required a series of transfusions to prevent infection.

Sad news from Las Vegas, where five-time Venezuelan Olympic cyclist Daniela Larreal Chirinos was found dead in her home during a welfare check, at age 51, after not being seen for several days; she apparently died from choking on her food.

Six bicycles “beyond any monetary value” that were ridden by Peter Sagan, Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe and Egan Bernal were stolen from the Netherland’s Shimano Experience Center last week.

 

Finally…

We may have to dodge LA’s flighty drivers, but at least we don’t have to duck dive-bombing magpies — then again, we don’t have to worry about herds of leaping deer, either. Now they’re out to get us on beachfront bike paths, too.

And that feeling when wild horses couldn’t stop your ride. Thanks to Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette for that one. 

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3.9-mile Reseda protected bike lanes saved by 2009 outcry, and LA doesn’t suck as much in new bike rankings

June 27, 2024 / / Comments Off on 3.9-mile Reseda protected bike lanes saved by 2009 outcry, and LA doesn’t suck as much in new bike rankings
Just 187 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Funny how things circle back around.

According to Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, completion of the Reseda Boulevard Complete Streets project means the boulevard now has the longest continuous protected bike lane in Southern California.

The newly complete bike lanes stretch nearly four miles, from Plummer Street to Victory Boulevard.

Just like you’ll see in the tweet below.

 

But it was just 15 years ago that we nearly lost them forever.

That’s when the news broke — courtesy of this site — that LADOT’s bike planning engineers had been told not to bother working on the bike lanes, because the West Department of Transportation was going to install Peak Hour Lanes on the boulevard instead, which would have turned the street into a virtually un-bikeable car sewer.

Similar lanes had gone in throughout the San Fernando Valley in the 1990s and 2000s, back in the bad old days when the highest priority of traffic engineers was maximizing vehicular throughput and level of service.

Fortunately, there was a huge reaction to the story, with countless people calling LADOT, councilmembers and other city officials to complain — resulting in the agency canceling plans for the peak hour lane less than 24 hours later.

And claiming, implausibly, that it was never actually their plan to install the peak hour lanes.

Yeah, right.

Linton called for an apology from the agency for deliberately misleading him, then-Streetsblog LA Editor Damien Newton, former Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey and myself. But also said he’d be willing to accept an apology in the form of actually building the bike lanes.

Which is what finally happened.

So thanks to everyone else who raised hell over it. If you were one of them, pat yourself on the back.

And thank you for your service.

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The rest of the world is catching up with the new City Rankings released by People For Bikes that we mentioned on Monday.

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Congratulations.

The California Public Utilities Commission has selected you to beta test driverless cabs from Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, whether you actually want to or not.

The commissioners reaffirmed its approval for the company to operate its autonomous, or self-driving, cabs on the streets of Los Angeles. Never mind the seemingly magnetic attraction they and their competitor Cruise have seemed to have for bicyclists and pedestrians in San Francisco.

But never fear.

You should be able to protect yourself by carrying an orange cone with you when you ride.

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Feel free to ride Benedict Canyon again.

https://twitter.com/LADOTofficial/status/1805722708660863180

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Gravel Bike California celebrates its fifth anniversary by highlighting the best gravel rides in the state.

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It’s now 189 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And three full years since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A Santa Rosa man suffered a badly broken leg when he was targeted and run down by a road-raging driver while riding his ebike to work early Saturday morning, after the driver yelled at him to “get the fuck off the road.

Police in Victoria, British Columbia were accused of repeatedly using their vehicles as weapons to intentionally hit people riding bikes or scooters, or on foot. That should constitute a deadly use of force, just like firing a gun to stop a fleeing suspect, since any collision or fall off a bicycle or scooter can be deadly.

This is what a punishment pass from a British camper van driver looks like.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels who are behaving badly.

A 32-year old Hasidic man who had a bag of dog shit thrown at his face by a bike-riding New York bigot predicted his attacker will receive a slap on the wrist if he’s ever arrested, and won’t spend a day behind bars. Sadly, he’s probably right.

A British bike rider was trapped in a literal shitstorm when a farmer covered him in manure after catching him with a tent on the man’s land without permission while on a bike tour.

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Local 

Congratulations to Streetsblog LA, after their SGV Connect was honored as Best Regular Podcast by the Los Angeles Press Club for their coverage of last year’s Arroyo Fest.

Los Angeles has launched the city’s Let’s Play Outside campaign, complete with a ten-point kid’s bill of rights for outdoor activities, including riding a bicycle.

Speaking of LADOT, the city transportation agency shared additional details about the Hollywood Boulevard Safety and Mobility Project, including mostly parking-protected bike lanes from Gower Street to Lyman Place, and eventually east to the six-way intersection at Sunset Blvd, Virgil Ave and Hillhurst Ave.

Culver City Walk ‘n Rollers totaled up the savings from students riding their bikes to school in the city, with students burning 65,770 calories and removing 1,452 pounds of carbon from the atmosphere by walking or biking 5061 trips.

 

State

San Marcos has a brand new bouncing baby bike park.

Kern County was scheduled to accept state and federal funding to build a north-south companion trail to go with the county’s 35-mile Kern River Parkway, which runs east-to-west. Or vice versa, if you prefer.

Sad news from Kern County, however, where a Bakersfield bike rider died after being struck by a driver while riding in a crosswalk; the county suffered six fatal collisions in just the last week.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has reached a turning point after moving from outsider status to getting a seat at the table with government contracts and the ear of top officials.

When Napa’s street sweeper’s couldn’t fit in the city’s new protected bike lanes, the local bicycle coalition bought a human-powered street sweeper that’s towed behind a bike to do the job, instead.

 

National

NPR show The Indicator from Planet Money examines how Bike Index founder Bryan Hance cracked the case of high-end purloined bikes unexpectedly popping up for sale at a bike shop in Mexico. And yes, you can register your bicycle(s) with Bike Index or report them stolen for free, right here on this site.

A group of Hawaii teenagers reached a settlement with the state over climate issues, with the governor agreeing to take bold action to address climate change, including providing safer options for green transportation — like bicycling — to reduce motor vehicle traffic.

Portland, Oregon is investing $20 million over the next five years to increase access to electric bicycles for moderate- to low-income residents

It was summer Bike to Work Day in Colorado yesterday, including in my bike-friendly hometown. Although some question the lack of recognition for those who bike to work every day.

A San Antonio, Texas man faces sentencing after pleading guilty to killing a woman riding a bicycle, while driving under the influence; prosecutors argued he had at least 11 drinks before getting behind the wheel.

A Central Texas mom says she cried like a baby after a total stranger replaced her eight-year old son’s stolen bicycle upon reading her social media post about the theft.

Ghost bikes are disappearing off the streets of Austin, Texas, apparently thanks to city maintenance workers who don’t know why they’re there.

Heartbreaking news from Michigan, where an 83-year old Florida man was killed while riding his bicycle, just after reaching a lifetime goal of riding 200,000 miles; he was leaving his son’s house to visit his daughter when a driver ran him down.

Just weeks after NY Governor Kathy Hochul cancelled plans for congestion pricing in Manhattan, a new study shows New York has the world’s worst traffic congestion, costing the city $9.1 billion a year in lost productivity; Los Angeles is #7 on the list.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence is one of us, looking “loved up” as she rides a bikeshare bike with her husband on the streets of New York.

 

International

Once again, life is cheap in the UK, where a teenaged driver who killed a bike rider, just weeks after passing his driving test, walked without a single day behind bars after he was sentenced to community service and a lousy £240 fine — the equivalent of just $303.

A Manx bicyclist — no, not that one — just finished a five-day bike ride across the French Alps on a foldie, raising the equivalent of over $7,500 for an Isle of Man hospice along the way.

France Today shared nine of the country’s best bike routes that anyone can bike.

A team from the Netherlands set a new world’s record for the world’s longest tandem bicycle at an incredible 55.35 meters — aka 181 feet 7 inches — perfect for when you really don’t get along with your stoker.

 

Competitive Cycling

This year’s Tour de France hasn’t even started yet, and it’s clear last year’s Vuelta winner, American Sepp Kuss, won’t make the podium in Paris next month, after withdrawing due to Covid.

Bicycling shares the North American cyclists still competing in the Tour, remembering that yes, Canada is part of North America. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

 

Finally…

You can ride in just about any clothes, but maybe rethink the bell bottoms. Nothing like putting crocheted woolen boobs on your bike to fight breast cancer.

And your next car could be a three-wheeled California-made bike.

On second thought, no it can’t.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Multiple drivers accused of intentionally running down bike riders; Congress looks at why bigass vehicles are killing us

June 19, 2024 / / One comment
Just 196 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025..

………

Happy Juneteenth! 

My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. Even though the situation is getting better, I’m still ending my days exhausted after caring for my wife and the corgi, while still dealing with my own injuries.

And Tuesday night it just got the better of me. 

………

Apparently, they really are out to get us.

Video captured a truck driver appearing to intentionally run down pair of Texas bicyclists from behind, before fleeing the scene, running over one of the bikes — and possibly one of the victims — in the process. Thankfully, a still photo shows the driver being led away in handcuffs by police.

Thanks to TacoTheCat for the heads-up.

Meanwhile, a bike rider in Hamilton, Ontario is urging police to charge a road-raging driver who appeared to intentionally crash into him, breaking his pelvis; the driver conducted a punishment pass with his pickup and trailer, after approaching from behind honking and swearing — then swerved his trailer into the victim, knocking him off his bike. He later found video the driver allegedly posted online showing him following and swearing at other riders.

And police in the UK are looking for a driver who filmed himself deliberately running down an ebike rider before fleeing the scene, leaving the victim with serious, but not life threatening injuries.

………

About damn time.

Streetsblog is reporting that the Government Accountability Office, aka the investigative arm of Congress, has launched exactly that into the question of why today’s massive motor vehicles kill so many bicyclists and pedestrians.

Hey, it’s Congress. Nothing is obvious to them these days.

The ever-growing stain our national reputation is partially attributable to our ever-growing cars, trucks and SUVs, some experts argue. Between 1993 and 2023, the average vehicle on U.S. roads swelled by 1,000 pounds, while simultaneously getting four inches wider, 10 inches longer and eight inches taller — bloat that’s driven by the increasing sales of pick-up trucks and SUVs.

That’s enough to bring the hoods of America’s best-selling cars, like the Ford F-series pick-ups, up to chest level for many adults, all but guaranteeing crashes that cause to vital organs rather than the legs, which are more survivable. The swelling size of the U.S. fleet has also increased the size of blind zones so much that drivers often can’t even see long lines of children right in front of them, and made it far more likely for pedestrians to be pulled under the wheels rather than pushed up onto the hood, where they’re less likely to be killed.

Let’s hope they get to the bottom of it, and discover what’s behind this perplexing — to government officials, anyway — jump in traffic deaths.

And actually do something about it for a change.

………

The great bike helmet debate goes on, fueled by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s call to wear one following his bicycling crash, which somehow angered a lot of people.

However, it didn’t anger a bike-riding UK writer who insisted Ramsay was right, while expressing her astonishment at “reckless cyclists without helmets,” who she argues can be more threatening that people in cars.

No, really.

………

Streets For All says they’ll be at Sunday’s South LA CicLAvia, with a booth at the Exposition Blvd Hub. Which just happens to be located right next to the Expo/Western Metro Station on the E (nee Expo) Line.

………

It’s now 180 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And three full years since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, a whistleblower has filed complaints with the San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG and the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, alleging that the CEO of San Diego nonprofit Pedal Ahead faked data for the ebike distribution program and mixed the program with his private businesses.

Pedal Ahead is the organization that has been selected by CARB to operate California’s moribund ebike voucher program — which is now likely to be dead in the water until the state can claw back its funding, and find someone else to run the damn thing.

And a Mastodon user writes that demand is high for Atlanta’s ebike voucher program, with 1% of city residents applying. But says infrastructure has to catch up. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

This is what people who call for licensing bicyclists are really asking for. And why.

Residents of a wealthy Sydney, Australia suburb have filed a civil right complaint alleging that a proposed new bike lane somehow infringes on theirs.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Ventura police arrested a 13-year old boy accused of being just one of a number of “disruptive” teens on ebikes, who allegedly stomped a homeless woman, threw rocks at another woman, and spit on people they passed; however, the rest managed to get away.

………

Local 

Work has finally begun on the long-discussed and much needed makeover of Hollywood Blvd, with the first phase being implemented Gower Street and Lyman Place.

City, county and state leaders unveiled plans to improve LA’s massive Sepulveda Basin, including connecting already existing segments of the LA River bike path on either side of the park.

West Hollywood is cracking down on e-bikeshare and e-scooter users who violate the city’s rules.

The documentary about LA’s killer highway, 21 Miles in Malibu — which just happens to be the exact length of PCH through the coastal city — won three Silver Telly Awards at the prestigious 45th Annual Telly Awards; the film was produced by Michel Shane, whose 13-year old daughter was killed by a motorist on the highway in 2010.

Santa Monica police are conducting yet another bike and pedestrian safety operation, this time lasting this entire week, ticketing any traffic violations that could endanger either group, regardless of who commits them. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit for the rest of this week, so you’re not the one who gets written up.

 

State

Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry updates the progress of traffic safety bills in the state legislature, including a much-needed speed cam pilot program on PCH in Malibu (SB 1297), the ever-shrinking requirement for a warning device to notify drivers when they exceed the speed limit (SB 961) — which started out mandating speed limitation devices to keep drivers from going more than 10 mph over the speed limit — and a bill to redefine ebikes and require only EU or UL certified batteries (SB 1271). Although the latter bill would be a lot stronger if it simply reclassified all throttle-controlled ebikes as electric motorcycles. 

Palo Alto approved plans for protected bike lanes along El Camino Real, along with narrower traffic lanes and restrictions on right turns, overcoming months of opposition.

 

National

Once again, bike riders are heroes, after people participating in an ebike tour in Yavapai County, Arizona rescued a woman who had driven her car off a 20-foot embankment.

A Phoenix, Arizona man has been charged with 2nd degree murder for killing a bicyclist in a hit-and-run as he fled a domestic violence situation.

A boy in New Mexico got his custom lowrider bicycle back just in time for his 12th birthday, after it was stolen from a museum lowrider exhibit.

Convicted murderer Kaitlin Armstrong has been ordered to pay the family of her victim, gravel champ Moriah “Mo” Wilson, $15 million as judgment in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her parents seeking a more modest $1 million; Armstrong murdered Wilson in Austin, Texas two years ago over a perceived love triangle with pro cyclist Colin Strickland. But good luck seeing any of the money while Armstrong serves her 90-year sentence — and won’t even be eligible for parole until she’s 67.

Chicago bike riders rejoiced as news broke that a driver had been towed for parking in a bike lane.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A retired Minnesota police chief was killed when he was run down by a semi driver while riding his bicycle; the truck driver doesn’t appear to have been charged.

Mauritanian refugees are fixing bicycles in an Ohio city while they wait to learn whether they will be allowed to stay in the US.

Tragic news from Pennsylvania, where a man was found dead after riding his bicycle into downed power lines on a trail.

Leaders of a Black church in DC are demanding changes to a new protected bike lane, alleging the bike lane barriers block access for older parishioners and members with disabilities.

 

International

An editor for Cyclist says stop complaining about the high cost of bicycles, even as the price for high-end ebikes continues to climb.

Momentum lists the world’s top ten bicycling destinations. None of which are Los Angeles. Or in the US, even. 

That’s more like it. Toronto has a page on the city website explaining why licensing bicyclists doesn’t work.

That’s more like it, part two. The city council in Colchester, England has ordered traffic officers to stop ticketing people riding bikes through the city center, after they were accused of running amok by threatening to fine people who were actually riding legally.

A BBC presenter settled a defamation case filed by broadcaster and cycling advocate Jeremy Vine for the equivalent of over $95,000 for calling Vine a “big bike nonce” and a “paedo defender.”

The New York Times goes for a bike ride along France’s three-century old The Canal du Midi through the scenic Occitanie region.

 

Competitive Cycling

Outside examines how Durango, Colorado’s Sepp Kuss became cycling’s “chillest champion.”

 

Finally…

Los Angeles can take pride in being America’s 5th best city to bike in the nude. And the next time someone complains that no one is using the new bike lanes, show them this.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Los Altos bike rider busted in apparent pretext stop, and San Francisco marks a full decade of Vision Zero failure

April 1, 2024 / / One comment
Just 274 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’re now up to 1,030 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us! 

………

It’s now 103 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 34 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, Calbike offers an update on the virtually moribund program based on a recent virtual public work group, saying the program’s soft launch really is underway — and they believe the statewide launch will happen “soon.”

No, really.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

An English bike rider underwent extensive surgery to repair a broken elbow after someone sabotaged a bike trail by placing a large tree branch across it; a group of youths were seen “fleeing the scene,” though no one seems to have actually seen them move the branch.

A disabled British man suffering from Parkinson’s disease won his battle to have barriers removed that blocked his recumbent bike from a section of the National Cycle Network, reaching an out-of-court settlement to move the barriers, which were designed to keep motorbikes off the bikeway.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A self-professed Boulder, Colorado bike rider accuses his fellow bicyclists of brazenly breaking the law, alleging that Boulder bike riders “want all the rights of both cars and pedestrians without any of the responsibilities.” Actually, bicyclists already have the same rights, as well as the responsibilities, regardless of whether they may or may not want them. And it’s not like drivers or pedestrians behave any better. 

………

Local 

Streetsblog offers more details on Metro’s cancellation of a plan to have ride hailing provider Lyft operate the Metro Bike bikeshare system, saying the contract will stay with Philadelphia-based Bicycle Transit Systems (BTS) — and its unionized local workers — for the foreseeable future.

A retired Santa Clarita motorcycle cop says yes, you can get busted for biking under the influence.

 

State

A city planner on TikTok explains why bicycling rates are sometimes higher in cities with less favorable climates, comparing California’s traffic-challenged painted bike lanes with safer off-road bike paths in the Yukon and British Columbia.

Work is beginning on repairs to the landslide plagued Beacon’s Beach bike path in Encinitas, which could reopen in time for Memorial Day.

A new musical making its US debut at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater tells the tale of the first woman to ride a bike around the world in the 1890s — even though it barely shows an actual bike.

San Francisco opened a new quick-build bike lane leading to the city’s Oracle Park baseball field, linking to a new bikeshare station and the Giant’s bike valet. Meanwhile, anyone wanting to ride to LA’s Dodger Stadium continues to be on your own.

A Marin paper complains about a compromise plan to remove the “costly” bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge four days a week, citing the “underwhelming” use by bicyclists while arguing that it doesn’t go far enough. Even though officials say the bike lane isn’t to blame for the massive traffic tie-ups on the bridge.

 

National

Dozens of people turned out for a Portland bike ride and ghost bike installation in honor of a homeless man who was killed by a driver while riding a bike, observing that he always stepped up to help others.

The Seattle suburb of Bellevue tossed the city’s commitment to Vision Zero out the window, exposing city staff members to needless personal and professional attacks.

An Indiana man was the victim of a bizarre attack while riding his bike when he was pepper sprayed and stabbed in the neck with a box cutter, in an apparent case of mistaken identity; as the victim lay on the ground, his attacker asked his name, then responded “Wrong guy” before running off, later telling police he was “Done with people.

‘An Indiana nonprofit gave out more than 750 refurbished bikes to kids in need to mark the Easter weekend.

A Virginia man managed to morph his ice cream bicycle business into a bike-and-mortar hot dog stand.

Raleigh, North Carolina will use a $150,000 federal grant to pay ebike riders up to $1,500 in exchange for usage data on where and how they ride.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Florida man celebrated his 90th birthday with a 90-mile bike,

 

International

Momentum writes in praise of the humble beater bike for urban commuting.

Next City considers how chilly Montreal became a year-round bicycling success story. Meanwhile, sunny Los Angeles continues to be a hot mess for bike riding. 

Huge masses of people turned out for an Edinburgh bike ride to protest plans to halt the city’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods.

Shop owners in Manchester, England accuse a new bike lane of killing their businesses by preventing customers from parking in front of their shops. Although as we’ve seen other places, anecdotal claims of sales declines are often contradicted by sale tax receipts, or more easily explained by other reasons.

No bias here. London’s Daily Mail complains about the “menace” of ebikes, noting that the 260 illegally modified ebikes seized by police last year was double the number in 2022. Even though that works out to less than one a day — and the vast number of ebikes on the streets weren’t modified, legally or otherwise.

Bike riders in Macedonia argue you can’t have a smart airport in a smart city without first building smart streets.

Dubai will now use AI-powered robots with facial recognition to identify scofflaw bike riders and e-scooterists, and automatically send tickets for traffic and helmet violations,

 

Competitive Cycling

World champ Mathieu van der Poel won Sunday’s Tour of Flanders, making his move on a brutal cobbled climb with 26 miles to go, staying in the saddle when other riders jumped off to run their bikes up the hill; Elisa Longo Borghini sprinted for the win on the women’s side.

The five-day Redlands Bicycle Classic will return for its 38th annual edition on April 10, featuring a number of new twists — including a record number of women in the peloton.

Cycling Weekly says forget Giro’s weird and wacky time trial helmet, because everything bicyclists have put on our heads since bikes were invented are mystifying and ridiculous.

Smile and the world smiles with you — but put on a grumpy face if you want to mess with the competiton at your next race.

 

Finally…

Who needs a warehouse, when you can mount a DJ set and a set of speakers on a bicycle, and conduct your own rolling rave? Seriously, who wouldn’t want shag carpet pedals?

And that feeling when your ebike goes up in flames outside Buckingham Palace.

……... 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Metro Bike union beats back Lyft contract, $2.45 million in San Diego pothole case, and helmet law targets indigenous riders

March 28, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 278 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’re slowly gaining signatures, up to 1,027 now, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us! 

………

It was a light bike news day yesterday. So if no news is good news, this may be one of my best pieces ever. 

The better news is, that means you can get out on your bike that much sooner today. 

………

It’s now 99 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Drivers in Manchester, England are accused of making a mockery of a controversial green bike lane by parking their vehicles in the bikeway.

………

Local 

Public radio station KCRW’s Press Play discusses long overdue plans to reduce traffic lanes, widen sidewalks, and add bike and bus lanes along the Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame.

Santa Clarita approved an extension of the Bouquet Canyon Trail, providing a connection between Bouquet Canyon Road and the city’s Central Park.

Actor Robert Downey Jr. is one of us, going ebiking in the ‘Bu with his son, while demonstrating that TMZ doesn’t know what the hell a BMX is.

 

State

A San Diego bike commuter and long-distance runner says that complaints over the curb-protected bike lane where an Encinitas father apparently fell to his death suggest that critics just don’t want to share the road with slower bicyclists.

A San Francisco website says it’s not Vision Zero that has failed in the city, but San Francisco’s piecemeal, reactive approach to fixing the problem.

Sad news from Napa, where a 45-year old man was killed in an apparent hit-and-run, after he was found lying in the street near his bicycle, suffering from serious injuries.

 

National

There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run semi driver who left a bike-riding 81-year old Queens, New York man to die in the street.

New York has authorized the use of e-cargo bikes to replace delivery vans in the city, many in the form of cute little pedal-powered mini box trucks.

 

International

Life is cheap in Scotland, where a man convicted of careless driving in a crash that left a bike rider with life-changing injuries walked without a day behind bars, after getting a lousy $1,900 fine and a 15-month driving ban; meanwhile, his victim may never be able to ride a bike again.

Irish pro cyclist Imogen Cotter is urging drivers not to make like a bunny, and slow the hell down over the Easter weekend.

The Netherlands is proposing banning performance modification kits designed to boost ebike speeds beyond the strict limits set by the European Union.

 

Competitive Cycling

American Matteo Jorgenson became the first American to win the one-day Dwars door Vlaanderen classic on Wednesday by attacking with a little over four miles to go, after favorites Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven and Biniam Girmay crashed out in a spill that took out more than a half-dozen riders; Jorgenson also won the prestigious Paris-Nice earlier this month.

The crash could jeopardize Olympic favorite and defending silver medalist van Aert chances of competing in the Paris Games after breaking his collarbone and several ribs, as well as knocking him out of the upcoming Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.

Belgian cyclist Tiesj Benoot blames himself for the crash that injured van Aert.

On the women’s side, Dutch great Marianne Vos took her first Dwars door Vlaanderen win, outsprinting Shirin van Anrooij at the finish.

Twenty-eight cyclists competing in the Isle of Man road race won lifetime bragging rights, after Manx-native Mark Cavendish finished 29th.

 

Finally…

It’s time for the annual donning of the tweed. Your next e-cargo bike could take its tech from F1.

And that feeling when an illegal bike jump could be a real blast.

No, literally.

……... 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Feeling suckered by CA ebike voucher program, CD4’s Raman wins re-election, and why people keep dying on the streets

March 15, 2024 / / Comments Off on Feeling suckered by CA ebike voucher program, CD4’s Raman wins re-election, and why people keep dying on the streets
Just 291 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,017 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us! 

Photo by Max J from Pexels.

………

Let’s start with a look at California’s virtually moribund ebike incentive program, and its ongoing failure to launch.

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a woman is demanding action after police determine there’s “not enough detail” to charge a hit-and-run bus driver who just drove off after knocking her off her bike.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

London’s Telegraph complains that the city is building more floating bus stops, even though some bicyclists don’t stop for pedestrians like they’re supposed to. Seriously, don’t do that. It only takes a few seconds to observe the right-of-way, and let pedestrians pass.

………

Local 

Alhambra’s city council unanimously approved a new bike and pedestrian plan, which was delayed for two months to get more community input. Although as we’ve learned the hard way, getting a plan approved is meaningless unless it’s actually funded and implemented, regardless of apparent support.

A paraplegic Palmdale man says riding a handcycle in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon fulfills his wildest dream.

LA County will spend $250 million to widen the Old Road in Stevenson Ranch to six lanes, while adding a protected bike lane in each direction. It costs an average of $1 million a mile to build a protected bike lane, which means they could build ten miles of protected lanes on both sides of the roadway, and still return $230 million change.

Santa Monica once again learned the hard way that free parking isn’t free; it cost the city $26,000 in lost revenue to provide free parking in city lots the last three days before Christmas, which resulted in exactly no benefit to local businesses.

Speaking of SaMo, the city is encouraging bicyclists to register their bikes through Bike Index or Garage 529 before May’s National Bike Month; you can sign up for lifetime free registration with Bike Index right here, as well as report a stolen bike or check their nationwide stolen bike registry. Full disclosure, I don’t get a damn thing for hosting Bike Index on this site, aside from the satisfaction of helping thwart bike thieves.

 

State

Survivors of a fallen Bakersfield bike rider filed a claim against the county, alleging dangerous conditions on the roadway where she was killed by a driver last year, including inadequate lighting, traffic signals and signage.

San Mateo bicyclists and traffic safety advocates are demanding answers after a hit-and-run driver left a bike-riding 62-year old woman with a broken back.

 

National

A new AI-powered device promises to use “computer vision” to alert bike riders to cars and other dangers on the roadway. So they expect us to rely on the same technology that draws people with three legs, and makes up various “facts.”

He gets it. Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus says the reason more people aren’t biking is too many cars, with too many driven without regard for others.

Now this is a bike travel guide, as a Boulder CO weekly offers tips on where to stop for food and drinks on your next long-distance ride.

Denver promises to plow bike lanes, as the city prepares to get up to 20 inches of snow, though bike riders are warned they may have to share traffic lanes with motorists. And yet, we’re somehow told that no one will ride a bike during LA’s temperate winters. 

Kindhearted Indiana cops gave a new bike to a 12-year old boy whose bike was destroyed when he was hit by a bus; fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.

That’s more like it. A bill in the Vermont legislature will give bike riders priority at intersections and require a four-foot passing distance.

New York Streetsblog celebrates the new Citi Bike bikeshare dock at the former Shea Stadium, now Citi Field, allowing bikeshare users to ride to a Mets game. But then you’d have to actually watch them play, so hard pass. 

A $9.6 million federal grant will fund a nearly nine-mile bike and pedestrian path between two Mississippi towns, as part of a project to widen US 90 from four to six lanes. So call it a win-lose for the environment and induced-demand. 

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine argues there should be tax incentives to buy and ride a bicycle. There should be some on this side of the border, too.

A BBC radio host is riding the “staggering distance” of 500 km across the country — the equivalent of 310 miles — to raise funds for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day. Or as randonneurs call a distance like that, Tuesday.

Bike-riding BBC host Jeremy Vine is suing a former Man City soccer player for calling him a “bike nonce.” Which I might find offensive, too, if I knew what the hell it meant.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly tips two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar to win Saturday’s Milan-San Remo, the longest one-day race in pro cycling.

The UCI Ethics Commission fined Soudal Quick-Step team boss Patrick Lefevere for making disparaging comments about women, including suggesting that women drink too much, and that many female pros aren’t worth pro cycling’s current minimum wage.

 

Finally…

This is what it looks like when unloved bicycles are left to die alone. Just let the billionaires pay for a pod to change out of your sweaty clothes after a bike commute.

And that feeling when you promise to ride a bike to see your friends, after getting busted for driving an uninsured vehicle with an expired driver’s license.

At 103 years old.

………

Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today. 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

EVs present danger to all road users, how Measure HLA ballot measure changed the city, and Laemmle’s bike the Oscars

March 11, 2024 / / Comments Off on EVs present danger to all road users, how Measure HLA ballot measure changed the city, and Laemmle’s bike the Oscars
Just 295 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,010 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!

………

A new study shows even a total worldwide switch to EVs would perpetuate what the authors call “car harm,” such as death, injury, disease and other miseries, because the current system “prioritizes speed over safety.”

 

The report concludes:

  • In 2019, 43% of people killed by motor vehicles were walking, using a wheelchair or riding a bike.
  • Motor vehicles kill more than 700 children a day. Traffic deaths occur at the highest rates in Africa and Southeast Asia, and, in the US and Brazil, crashes disproportionately kill Black and Indigenous people.
  • SUVs, which make up nearly half of car sales globally, are eight times more likely than traditional cars to kill children.
  • Traffic-related air pollution is linked to circulatory and heart disease, lung cancer, asthma and, according to a cited study, “acute lower respiratory infections in children.”
  • Other car harms include drunk driving, drive-by shootings, carbon monoxide poisoning and, in the US, traffic stops that “are a setting for police violence against Black, Latine/x, and Indigenous people,” they write.
  • Access to oil has played a role in a quarter to half of wars between countries since 1973.
  • The electric car, a juggernaut of the energy transition, “fails to address a majority of the harms,” they write, including crashes, sedentary travel, inequality and cities designed more for cars than people.

 

Greg and Tish Laemmle, owners of the Laemmle Theater chain and descendant of early Hollywood royalty, led a group biking to the Oscars yesterday.

………

GCN tests whether an experienced amateur can descend at the same hair-raising speeds as a pro cyclist.

………

It’s now 82 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A writer for Streetsblog complains that an NYPD precinct is responding to complaints about ebike riders by targeting riders of traditional human-powered bikes, because they’re easier to catch.

A Scottish mountain biker was lucky to escape without serious injuries after someone booby trapped a trail with buried spike strips they had welded together to cause maximum damage.

A British woman learns the hard way what happens when you hug the edge of the road, as several drivers pass her bike way too close — including a large truck.

No bias here, either. The UK traffic lawyer who calls himself Mr. Loophole for getting scofflaw drivers off the hook continues his campaign to force bike riders to carry ID and have numbered license plates on their bicycles. Apparently forgetting that it’s the dangerous drivers he represents who are the real problem. 

………

Local 

A letter from a former LA resident argues that the passage of Measure HLA is proof that NIMBYs aren’t the majority, no matter how loudly they scream.

Arnold is apparently in the clear, after the woman suing the former governator for crashing into her bike with his massive SUV dropped her lawsuit.

A 40-year old man was airlifted from the Haines Canyon Mountainway in the Sunland/Tujunga area after injuring his back in a mountain bike fall Sunday morning.

Culver City is asking the state for a $4 million grant to replace existing bike lanes with protected lanes on a 1.75-mile stretch of Overland Avenue between Washington and Sawtelle Boulevards.

 

State

An op-ed from the leaders of Hispanic rights organization LULAC and the California Alliance for Jobs calls for an “all of the above” approach to transportation infrastructure to keep people working. But what they really mean is keep spending billions on highways — even though bike and pedestrian projects create more jobs.  

San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood received a $3.3 million state grant for enhanced bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

A Simi Valley letter writer calls out the “dismal condition” of the city’s major streets and bike lanes, thanks to a “multitude of ruts, cracks, potholes.”

San Francisco bike shop owner fear the city’s new ban on dangerous lithium-ion ebike batteries, along with a requirement for any store that sells them to install sprinklers, could put them out of business. Meanwhile, a British member of Parliament calls the batteries “unexploded bombs.”

 

National

A travel website recommends 20 American cities to visit without a car.

Jalopnik says bike lanes are good for business, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. So there.

Electrek says riding an ebike instead of driving can really impact your wallet — in a good way.

Bicycling drama Hard Miles is set for a nationwide April 19 premier date; the fact-based film tells the story bicycling team made up of inmates from a Colorado correctional school as they ride from Denver to the Grand Canyon.

Give your kid an early start on the biking bug with a new book large-format picture book for kids ages 3 to 6 that follows a mom and her son on a bicycling adventure.

This is who we share the road with. Life is cheap in Vermont, as the driver who killed motorcycle-riding actor Treat Williams walked without a day behind barsl, despite pleading guilty to negligent driving.

A writer for Forbes offers advice on how to stay safe riding a bicycle in New York traffic. Or any other traffic, for that matter.

The mayor of Baltimore’s security team parked in a bike lane for over an hour while he attended a candidate forum, despite the city’s recent crackdown on bike lane violators.

 

International

An Irish man just returned home for bicycling across Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan as part of a multi-stage ride around the world, while attempting to meet as many people as possible along the way.

A conservative Irish counselor claims she was never told that a Limerick road project included segregated bike lanes — even though she posted on Facebook four years ago how delighted she was with them.

Velo looks at the best bike tech from small brands only Belgians have access to.

A bicycling organization hosting a series of of bicycling“camps in spectacular destinations throughout Türkiye, formerly known as Turkey in the English-speaking world.

Rappler rides a 120 kilometer — 75 mile — bike route through central Manila to rate the roadway quality, and concludes not so much.

David Seymour, leading of New Zealand’s rightwing Act Party, wasn’t injured when he went over his ebike handlebars to avoid a driver, then suffered verbal abuse from a bystander who complained about what he was doing to the Māori, even though he is one.

 

Competitive Cycling

Twenty-four-year old American Matteo Jorgenson won the Paris-Nice stage race on Sunday, capping the biggest victory of his young career, as Cycling News offers a blow-by-blow recount of the final stage; Bobby Julich in 2005, and ex-Tour de France champ Floyd Landis in 2006, are the only other Americans to win the iconic Race to the Sun.

Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard claimed a dominating victory in the seven-day Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, as the Visma-Lease a Bike cycling team took both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico in the same year for the first time.

Ghana’s national cycling team blamed substandard equipment for their poor showing in the ongoing Africa Games, competing on their own aluminum-frame bikes and using the same gear they train on.

This year’s 38th annual Redlands Bicycle Classic will take place on April 10th through this 14th.

 

Finally…

If you’re carrying illegal narcotics on your bike, put a damn light on it and don’t ride on the sidewalk. Your next ebike could have four wheels and look more like a dorky little car. Or maybe be made of recycled plastic.

And an NFL cheerleader turns gravel racer, while a track cyclist turns astronaut.

………

Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today. 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

LA Times declares overwhelming victory for Measure HLA, and yet another meeting for California ebike voucher program

March 7, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 299 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,007 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!

………

Okay, now we can celebrate.

Because yesterday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times joined KNBC-4 in declaring Measure HLA has passed.

Backers of a citizen-sponsored ballot initiative that forces Los Angeles to add hundreds of miles of bike and bus lanes — to make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists — declared victory on Wednesday.

Measure HLA was leading by a wide margin, according to semifinal results released by the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk on Wednesday.

“This says people in Los Angeles want change, they want safer streets, and they want the city to follow through on their promises,” said Michael Schneider, who has led the HLA campaign and is executive director of the advocacy group Streets for All, which conceived the measure.

The measure, otherwise known as the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal, requires the city to build out the Mobility Plan 2035, which was overwhelmingly approved by the city council in 2015 — then promptly put on the self and forgotten.

In fact, you could count the percentage of the plan that has been installed in the nearly decade since on your hands, and still have plenty of fingers left to tell the city how you feel about their decided inaction.

HLA, which goes into effect next month, will require the city to built out the mobility plan any time a one-eighth mile, or 660 feet, segment of street contained in the plan is improved or resurfaced.

The city will be required to track their progress online. And if they don’t fulfill their obligation, residents can sue to force compliance.

Backers overcame opposition from a handful of city council members, along with pro-motorist pressure group KeepLAMoving, and the city’s chief financial officer, who loaded the cost estimate with over $2 billion in barely related expenses that the city would have been required to spend anyway.

The measure was also opposed by the Los Angeles firefighters union, which took a bizarre stance against improving traffic safety while expressing fears it would somehow slow their response times — even though road diets, bus lanes and bike lanes have been shown to improve emergency responses by allowing vehicles to bypass traffic.

The Times applauded the passage of HLA, noting that it will finally spur action from City Hall to increase alternatives to driving.

People are frustrated with congestion but they don’t have great alternatives to driving. Buses get stuck in the same traffic. There aren’t enough protected bike lanes. And too many neighborhoods lack smooth sidewalks, crosswalks, shade trees, street lights and other basic amenities that make it easier for people to walk.

Measure HLA will ensure those alternatives finally get built, after too many delays by City Hall…

Opponents tried to argue that L.A. is a city of cars and nobody wants to use bike lanes or bus lanes or pedestrian amenities. But they missed the point of Measure HLA — which is that the streets today are bad for everyone, motorists included. If the Mobility Plan isn’t implemented and people don’t have safe alternatives to driving, then traffic congestion and, most likely, the number of traffic fatalities will only get worse.

Fortunately, the passage of Measure HLA means the Mobility Plan is no longer a choice for city leaders. It’s a mandate.

But not everyone was in agreement.

The conservative Southern California New Group somehow considered HLA “controversial,” despite the support of nearly two-thirds of voters in the primary election.

And cited a notorious pro-driving activist to back up that contention.

Jay Beeber, executive director for policy for the National Motorists Association and executive director for Safer Streets L.A., said the measure sounded good but would lead to “a whole host of problems for the city.”

Beeber said voters just created “a massive congestion problem in the city, and they are going to live with that decision for a long time. Most people who read the measure are expecting that it’s just simply roadway improvements and not that it’s going to be taking away car lanes, not that it’s going to be creating congestion, not that it’s going to push traffic into their neighborhoods, not that it’s going to increase (emergency) response times.”

The question now is whether opposition groups will file suit in an attempt to block the measure. And whether city leaders will seek ways to slow walk its implementation, or attempt to bypass it completely.

Which seems likely, given the city’s extensive track record of broken promises.

It seems a very long time ago that the corgi and I met Streets For All founder Michael Schneider in Pan Pacific Park to sign the Healthy Streets LA ballot petition.

………

It’s now 78 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Despite a promised launch this spring, the California Air Resources Board will hold yet another online work group next Thursday to gather input for implementing the ebike incentive program.

Because evidently, nearly three years just wasn’t enough time to work it all out.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

London police apologized after dropping the charges against a bike rider who filmed a distracted driver using a handheld phone, just one day before he was set to go on trial for allegedly riding “without due care and attention.”

No bias here. A Dublin, Ireland city councillor strongly denies being anti-bicyclist, despite calling for mandatory registration and insurance for bike riders, which is currently required only by the North Korean dictatorship.

………

Local 

The Pacific Palisades Community Council will discuss plans for a pedestrian and bike bridge crossing PCH at tonight’s public meeting; the bridge will connect Will Rogers State Beach to George Wolfberg Park, named for the longtime community and bicycle advocate.

Santa Monica police will conduct more bike and pedestrian safety operations today and tomorrow, ticketing any violation that endangers anyone in the two groups, regardless of who commits it. So as usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit line, so you’re not the one who gets written up and fined. 

 

State

State Senator Scott Wiener explained his latest bill in the state legislature in an online preview of the upcoming Calbike summit; SB 960 would require Caltrans to fully implement its own Complete Streets policies, similar to Measure HLA.

Bicyclists question a Caltrans Complete Streets plan for El Camino Real in Palo Alto, arguing that the bike lanes planned for the street are intended for roadways with speeds up to 35 mph, while speeding drivers often exceed that.

Heartbreaking news from Dublin, California, where a 10-year old boy suffered “significant injuries” when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike. But at least the driver stuck around after the crash.

The Director of Mobility for the Oakland mayor’s office says he dreams of a day when he can just stick to bicycling, and not have to worry about being stopped for Biking While Black. Read it on AOL if Bicycling blocks you.

 

National

A travel website lists 12 beautiful rail trails across the US, along with the upcoming 3,700-mile Great American Rail Trail that’s currently under construction.

Seattle-based ebike maker Rad Power has introduced four new models featuring a heat-absorbing resin coating the battery to prevent corrosion and “thermal events,” like unexpectedly exploding or bursting into flames.

You now have to be at least 18 years old to ride an ebike in Phoenix, which means that ebike-riding school students are breaking the law.

A bill in the Illinois legislature would require cities specify the safety features and degree of separations between motorists and bicyclists in any maps showing bike lanes.

 

International

London has quadrupled the city’s bike lane mileage since the current mayor took office eight years ago.

A website for the “world’s urban leaders” examines how the Parisian e-scooter ban has affected the city’s mobility, as well as the booming bike use in the French capital.

After a Brisbane, Australia ghost bike was removed by city officials and reinstalled by bicyclists a half-dozen times, advocates put it on a trailer legally parked in a bike lane, instead.

The Australian Bicycle Network examines the safety in numbers effect, noting studies that show more bikes on the streets improves safety for everyone.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Iran, where rising track and road cyclist Ariana Valinejad died a week after she was injured when a gas leak in her home exploded; she was just 20 years old.

Colombian pro Santiago Buitrago soloed to a mountaintop win on stage 4 of Paris-Nice, passing Australia’s Luke Plapp to take the leader’s jersey. And no, I never heard of them, either. 

CNN says Team Visma-Lease a Bike’s “outlandish” new Giro bike helmets are under review by pro cycling’s governing body. The helmets include a full face shield, apparently to hide the embarrassment of the people wearing them. 

 

Finally…

That feeling when new bike racks nearly kill your business by preventing drivers from illegally parking in front of it. Who needs a marching band when you can pedal, instead?

And let’s hope they at least read the poor bike its rights. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the photo. 

Photo by Steven Hallett

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Santa Monica cops cool with vehicular assault, opponents misrepresent HLA, and group rides offer up close view of LA

February 16, 2024 / / Comments Off on Santa Monica cops cool with vehicular assault, opponents misrepresent HLA, and group rides offer up close view of LA
Just 319 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can. Just 55 signatures to go to reach 1,000!

………

I’ll be off for President’s Day on Monday, but we’ll have a guest post from Cal Poly Pomona history professor John Lloyd critiquing the new bill that would impose an online test and permit before anyone without a driver’s license can buy or ride any type of ebike or e-scooter, and ban kids under 12 from riding them. 

Meanwhile, Calbike doesn’t like the damn bill either, saying it “would create an unnecessary new bureaucracy and mostly harm youth of color in California while not taking the steps necessary to make our streets safer for all users.”

………

What happens when you get threatened with a motor vehicle in Santa Monica?

Apparently nothing.

Even if you catch it on video.

In this case, Twitter/X user Mobility For Who reacted to a driver attempting to run a stop sign with a polite “Whoa, buddy!”

The driver naturally responded politely in kind.

Yeah, no. The driver responded with an angry honk as the bike passed in front of him, then revved his engine and squealed his tires in what can only be interpreted as a threat, which had the intended effect of scaring the hell out of Mobility For Who.

Unless you’re a Santa Monica cop, that is.

In that case, they try to blame the victim for using a handheld phone — which isn’t illegal, even if it was true. Also for running the stop sign, which again wasn’t true.

And while the cop was correct that road rage itself isn’t against the law, the actions resulting from it often are. Even just exiting your vehicle to approach another road user is prima facie evidence of assault, according to an LAPD officer.

In this case, what you see on the video is, at a minimum, a misdemeanor case of assault with a deadly weapon — which means threatening someone, rather than actually making contact.

As others pointed out on Twitter/X in response to these posts, had this occurred in Los Angeles, it would have made a good case under the city’s cyclist anti-harassment ordinance.

But not in Santa Monica, or anywhere else in Los Angeles County.

I’ve met with the police chief in Santa Monica, along with representatives of BikeLA Neighborhood Chapter Santa Monica Spoke, to address the department’s lack of enforcement to protect bicyclists and other vulnerable road users.

And left with promises they’d look into it, and ensure the law was enforced fairly against dangerous, aggressive and/or threatening drivers.

But that was four chiefs ago, as the department’s revolving door on the top floor has prevented any continuity or progress in protecting the rights and safety of vulnerable road users. And allowing street level officers to regress in their commitment to protect bike riders and pedestrians, instead of the current policy of just enforcing laws against them.

I encouraged Mobility For Who to meet with the current chief, whoever that may be now, to press their case — if not for this case, then for the next person it happens to.

And yes, I do know the current chief is Ramon Batista.

For now, anyway.

But that’s the problem. Whatever progress we might make by taking our concerns up with the chief would only last as long as he does in that role. And if past history is any indication, you might be better off buying ripe bananas than counting on the Santa Monica Police Chief to stick around.

It’s a problem that will have to be addressed with, and by, city leadership, who can require the department to better protect people walking and on bikes.

Or more likely, the inevitable lawsuit that will come from their failure to do anything.

………

The Healthy Streets LA ballot measure continues to make news.

A rally in support of Measure HLA, as it is referred to on election ballots, brought out four of the six City Councilmembers in favor of the measure to encourage voters to mark yes on their ballots.

According to Streetsblog’s Joe Linton,

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez spoke movingly of meeting a 29-year-old man who had barely survived a car crash. The victim’s mother told Hernandez that “before, he was very active – he would ride his bike everywhere.” When Hernandez met him, “he was in a bed in a hospital, having been there for months already… he got hit while he was riding his bike…”

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez spoke of the urgency of passing Measure HLA. “These High Injury Network streets happen to be in the most poor areas of our city – the ones that have historically been redlined – and it’s mostly working class people that are biking, walking or taking public transit… who are being killed every single day,” he said.

Both Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Katy Yaroslavsky spoke of their fears as mothers of young children, and how scary it is to cross unsafe streets just to walk their kids to school.

Raman drew attention to the need for Mobility Plan improvements to be implemented citywide, “in a way that is connected, that enables people to get out of their cars.” She concluded by calling Measure HLA “smart public safety-oriented policy-making.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles firefighters union held their own event to oppose Measure HLA, while demonstrating both their lack of understanding of mobility issues, as well as an inherent windshield bias and commitment to car culture.

Take this quote from California Professional Firefighters President Brian Rice, who Linton says was repeatedly dismissive of bicycles and transit, in addition to displaying his own misinformed conservative political bias.

“I hate to tell you men and women, California – and Los Angeles in particular – this is a car community. You may not like it,” Rice declared, “but it is.” Rice derisively asked, “Do you really think you’re going to see buses go faster than 12 miles an hour?”

Rice declared that “a small group of elite… Democratic Socialists” are behind Measure HLA…

However, many of the people behind the measure are far from elite. And while I suspect most probably are Democrats, given the political makeup of LA County, none have cited Marx, Che Guevara or Mao in any of their conversations with me.

But I digress.

Rice concluded his remarks emphasizing fiscal issues that firefighters don’t lead with, but which appears to be among their core concerns: spending money making streets safer competes with more resources going to firefighting.

The city released a misleading cost estimate for Measure HLA implementation: $250 million annually. (Safe streets advocates can only wish that HLA gradual implementation could ever result in that kind of annual investment. Measure HLA proponents estimate annual costs to be more like one tenth of the city’s estimate.) The city estimate rolls in some non-HLA costs, including the cost of the city’s annual street repaving program which already has been and will continue to be in the city budget, regardless of HLA. It also inflates per-mile bikeway and bus lane cost estimates well above what the city currently spends.

Nope. No bias there.

A writer for LA Progressive also takes a very non-progressive stand, saying he’ll vote against the measure because it “ignores two essential criteria that bicycling on LA’s streets must be safe and bicycle paths and lanes must directly connect to each other.”

Except that’s exactly what LA’s mobility plan, and by extension, Measure HLA, does.

Former LA City Planner Dick Platkin adds that HLA offers a “deceptively simple way to solve LA’s traffic congestion, just switch from cars to bicycling and walking.”

Even though it does no such thing, since the mobility plan is based on the assumption that most Angelenos will continue to drive, while offering safe alternatives to those would prefer other options.

He goes on to site Councilmember Traci Park, one of the city’s least progressive councilmembers.

And repeats the city’s extreme $2 billion cost estimate, which Linton explained above includes inflated figures, as well as the city’s entire resurfacing budget, which it is already committed to and HLA has no bearing on.

HLA would only add the cost of paint and any additional barriers, along with the basic design costs for each street restriping.

So maybe Platkin should try writing for a less progressing site.

Oh wait, he did.

Never mind that it was the previous LA city planners and engineers who got us into this car-centric mess to begin with.

………

Nice piece from freelance writer Michael Charboneau for the LA Times The Wild newsletter, introducing four group rides offering an up close and personal view of the City of Angels.

He nails his introduction, kicking it off this way.

Riding a bike in Los Angeles is an act of defiance — against car culture, against endless sprawl, against bike lanes that disappear without warning and against gaping potholes. But on the best days, riding a bike is a pure joy. And I’ve found that you can get even more out of those moments with this one easy trick: Ride your bike with other people.

………

Calbike will host a webinar on March 6th to discuss the state bike advocacy group’s campaign to demand Complete Streets on Caltrans Corridors.

Speakers: Senator Scott Wiener; Kendra Ramsey (CalBike); Jeanie Ward-Waller (Fearless Advocacy); Laura Tolkoff (SPUR); Sandhya Laddha (Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition).

Please join us to learn more about our statewide campaign for Complete Streets and Complete Corridors on Caltrans’ State Highway System. Our joint campaign is bolstered by SB 960, authored by Senator Scott Wiener, which will require Caltrans to implement safe streets for people biking, walking, and using transit. Along with the senator joining us, we will also have state and local experts demonstrating the path needed for Complete Streets and Complete Corridors on Caltrans’ roads that run through your community.

………

CicLAvia will kick off their 2024 season this evening with the release of Los Angeles Ale Works seek-la-VEE-ah West Coast IPA, after it was rained out last week.

(Did I hear someone say “Oh please, not another IPA!”? Or was that just me?)

The free event will be held in conjunction with the Ivy Station Night Market, featuring food trucks, music, games, local vendors and kid-friendly activities.

It comes just over a week before the year’s first CicLAvia a week from Sunday on Melrose Ave between Fairfax and Vermont.

In addition to the usual two-wheeled frivolity, I’m told we can expect the first-ever CicLAvia corgi parade, though the time and location are still TBD.

………

It’s now 57 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. The president of a San Francisco merchant’s association offers an alternative to the “well-intentioned, but ill-conceived” Valencia Street bike lane, while offering a gratuitous slap at bike advocates, saying “diehard bike advocates can come across as a little sanctimonious and zealous,” even though “they’re doing the Lord’s work.”

Planetizen correctly says New Jersey’s proposed requirement for liability insurance for low-speed ebikes would have a chilling effect on micromobility, effectively halting any transition away from cars.

No bias here, either. A writer for the London Telegraph says bicyclists are the rudest, most entitled people in the UK today, with Lycra-clad boors giving off “an almost palpable air of smug self-satisfaction, even as they make life miserable for fellow road users.” Just wait until someone tells her about drivers. However, you’ll have to either subscribe to the paper or sign up for a free trial if you want to read the damn screed. 

English authorities have launched a murder investigation following the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle, after reports that he was also assaulted by an occupant of the vehicle, either before or after the crash.

A Singapore driver pled guilty to committing a rash act to endanger the personal safety of others, despite claiming she tried to de-escalate a confrontation with a road-raging bike-riding woman several times.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

And no bias here, either. A 12-year old boy on an ebike somehow collided with a 66-year old Key Biscayne, Florida woman riding a bicycle in the opposite direction, killing the older woman. So local officials immediately called an emergency meeting to ban ebikes and e-scooters, ignoring 1) the crash was caused by one or more people riding where they shouldn’t have in the middle of the street, and 2) the tragic results might not have been any different if both were on non-electric bikes.

………

Local 

Jacobin looks at the LA bikeshare worker’s opposition to the proposed takeover of the Metro Bike operations by Lyft.

LAist offers an overview of the Pasadena city council election.

 

State

A new bill in the state legislature would ensure that all California bridges will remain toll-free for bike riders and pedestrians.

Costa Mesa has received $7.4 million in grants from the Orange County Transportation Authority, aka OCTA, to “create three interconnected, separated bike lanes as part of a major expansion of the City’s bicycle network.”

A Novato driver was busted on felony hit-and-run and driving under the influence of prescribed medication after he ran down two 15-year old boys as they rode their bicycles, followed by crashing into a pickup a block away; fortunately, everyone is expected to survive their injuries.

 

National

The Consumer Products Safety Commission has ordered a recall of Bell Soquel Youth Helmets due to risk of injury resulting from a balky strap.

Portland bike advocates want to change the narrative after bicycling rates rebounded slightly, following last year’s precipitous drop.

Oregon has their own ebike bills under consideration, including one opposed by Portland’s The Street Trust that would create California-style ebike classifications, and legalize ebikes for kids under 15, while banning throttle-controlled ebikes for the same age group.

Denver is down to just four bike messengers for the entire city, including one world champ.

A potential new helmet padding design developed at the University of Colorado could absorb as much as 25% more impact than existing foams, improving protection from bicycle helmets, as well as other types of helmets.

Kindhearted Texas cops bought a new bike for a local boy after his was destroyed by a hit-and-run driver.

New York celebrated a full decade of Vision Zero, despite just a 12% reduction in overall traffic fatalities and a record number of bicycling fatalities last year.

That’s more like it. A Mississippi man will spend 12 years behind bars after pleading guilty to the DUI death of a Tupelo bike rider.

 

International

Bicycling says bike riders in Nuevo León, Mexico are fighting to take back their streets, following two decades of drug cartel violence. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

The first woman to win the 3,000-mile Race Across America has been disinvited to speak at an Ottawa, Canada Women’s Day event because she served in the Israeli Defense Force 30 years ago.

Canada’s bicycling minister says he didn’t mean what he said when he said the country will stop funding large highway projects. Or so he says.

A new report says Croydon is failing bicyclists and pedestrians, as the only London borough not seeking funding for greater bicycle infrastructure and bus priority lanes. Their semi-pro football, aka soccer, team kinda sucks, too.

The CEO of British foldie maker Brompton answers questions for Cycling Weekly, saying “People see us as a little, quirky, odd bike.” Which is exactly how most people view them.

 

Competitive Cycling

American Magnus Sheffield says he’s “incredibly lucky to be alive” after crashing on the same descent that killed Swiss cyclist Gino Mäder in last June’s Tour de Suisse, adding it’s a reminder of how fragile life can be. Amen.

A Guyana bike race celebrates the country’s “rich history of bicycling excellence.”

 

Finally…

That feeling when something gets lost in translation between Dutch bike infrastructure and Chorlton-Cum-Hardy. Or when a bike needs a new forever home after its owner dies.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

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