Even if I included everything I found, it would amount to what you could find on the back of an average breakfast cereal.
And I’m up against an immutable deadline to get our taxes done. No, not from the IRS; they only want it by 15th.
I’ve been buried up to my neck in tax prep all week because my wife insists it has to be done by this weekend. And she scares me a lot more than the feds do.
So I’m tossing in the towel tonight, and I’ll see you on Monday, when hopefully we’ll have enough news to make it worthwhile, and I’ll have about 1040 pounds off my shoulders and a small woman off my back.
AB 1740 (Zbur) makes it easier to build bike lanes, bus improvements, infill housing, and other multimodal projects in urban coastal communities. Right now, even straightforward street safety projects can get bogged down in the coastal permitting process. This bill would let qualifying urban communities move more quickly on projects that improve safety and reduce emissions, while still preserving coastal access and protections.
AB 1837 (Mark González) extends transit lane and bus stop camera enforcement and makes that authority permanent statewide. Illegal parking in bus lanes and at bus stops slows buses, creates unsafe boarding conditions, and makes transit less reliable. This bill would help keep transit moving and make bus service faster and safer for riders.
AB 1976 (Wicks), the Safe Streets Streamlining Act, tackles the process barriers that delay or kill good street safety projects. It changes local input requirements, ends unreasonable petition requirements for traffic calming, updates the pedestrian mall law, and creates a clearer path for cities to actually deliver the bike, pedestrian, and transit projects they have already said they want. California cannot keep saying yes to safe streets in theory while allowing them to be endlessly blocked in practice.
SB 1167 (Blakespear) cracks down on high-powered “e-motos” being sold as e-bikes. It tightens definitions, changes labeling rules, and requires sellers to clearly disclose when a device is actually a motor vehicle and not a legal e-bike. Real e-bikes are an important transportation tool. But that only works if the category remains clear and trustworthy.
AB 2015 (Wicks) helps cities keep slow streets actually slow by stopping navigation apps from routing cut-through traffic onto neighborhood streets that have been intentionally designed for local access, walking, and biking. If a city has decided that a street should function as a calm neighborhood street, app-based routing should not undermine that decision.
AB 1599 (Ahrens) creates a centralized California Transit Stop Registry. Transit stop data is often fragmented, inconsistent, and confusing across agencies. A statewide registry would make transit data more accurate and useful, improve coordination, and help create a better rider experience. The bill will also help us get more data on what amenities are at transit stops.
SB 1292 (Richardson) gives cities stronger curb management tools to enforce parking violations in places like loading zones, bike lanes, and crosswalks. Curb space matters, and mismanaged curb space creates safety problems, transit delays, and chaos on the street. This bill gives local governments more tools to manage that space better.
AB 2284 (Dixon) requires CHP to publish a list of devices that are being marketed as e-bikes but are not actually legal e-bikes. That kind of transparency would help consumers, schools, local governments, and law enforcement better understand what devices comply with California law and which ones do not.
AB 1833 (McKinnor), the Consumer Driving Data Protection Act of 2026,allows drivers to voluntarily opt into insurance telematics systems, with privacy protections, to better align insurance rates with actual driving behavior. This bill is about allowing safer driving to be reflected more fairly, while preserving strong guardrails around consent, data use, and consumer protection.
SB 1423 (Stern) would steer half of one of California’s biggest transportation funding sources toward projects that actually make streets safer. The bill would dedicate half of STIP funds, one of the state’s largest transportation pots of money, to projects that improve safety for people walking, biking, and taking transit. It would also simplify the application process for the state’s top safe streets grant program and elevate its identity as California’s flagship source of funding for street safety.
Budget Ask: A $200 million annual addition to the Active Transportation Program (ATP), which is our state’s premier pot of street safety funding. Last year, ATP only funded about 30 of the 350 projects that applied.
Meanwhile, Road.cc wrote that BP — the former British Petroleum — is encouraging drivers to deal with rising gas prices by skipping the pump and riding a bike instead. Which actually had me fooled at first.
No bias here. A San Diego letter writer says if you really want to help kids, skip the bike lanes and use the money for libraries, instead. Which sets up a false dichotomy between libraries, which should get better funding, and bike lanes, which improve safety for everyone on the streets, not just kids. Although you’ll have to find a way around the paper’s paywall to read it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Great use of police resources. The Macomb, Georgia Police Department put their new drone to use in less than 24 hours by capturing a 14-year old kid speeding on his ebike. Next they’ll use it to bring in other dangerous desperados, like maybe a bunch of littering nuns.
Bodycam video is raising questions about a Texas cop’s takedown of a 16-year old kid, who make the simple mistake of trying to call his dad when the cop stopped a group of teens for rolling a stop sign; after taking the kid down, the cop then seized and searched the boy’s phone without a warrant.
A British bike rider is suing three police departments for the equivalent of $6.35 million, alleging they covered it up when a driver knocked him off his bike; the cops said he just fell off his bike, even though a witness said she saw the driver clip him. Which sounds a lot like when I was run down by a road-raging driver, and the LAPD concluded I somehow defied the laws of physics by falling to the left while making a right turn, but it never occurred to me to sue them.
China’s longtime bikemaker Flying Pigeon is shedding its traditional image as a self-destructing bicycle-shaped object, and using combination of flexible sensors, artificial intelligence algorithms and the internet of things to redefine the bikes from a simple form of transport into an “intelligent health management terminal.” Unless China Daily is pulling an April Fool’s joke, in which case they got me.
A 17-year British amateur, part of the country’s development team, was left brokenhearted when an insurance company refused to pay for three stolen Pinarello Dogma bikes worth a total of $20,000 because the thieves weren’t violent enough, and just walked away with the bikes instead of breaking in or causing major damage.
One that he says is repeatedly voted as one of the best places to live, as well as a great place to ride a bike.
The cycling here is also amazing. You can find miles of quiet country roads, there’s plenty of mountain biking trails around, and there’s even a disused railway nearby where hundreds of children learn to ride every week.
But it only took the death of someone riding a bicycle to “reveal how sickeningly awful some people in your local community can be.”
Regardless of circumstances and fault, the overwhelming feeling I have is of sadness and loss – somebody lost their life while out on their bike. There is never a reasonable explanation for this, it’s always a tragedy.
However, when I look at the local Facebook group, you wouldn’t think somebody had died, because on posts about it people are instead focused on the person being a cyclist, so it was probably their fault…
It shows how publications like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, and the Telegraph have done their job. Cyclists are dehumanised, and the people in my community demonstrate this better than any study or focus group ever could. If you’re killed on a bike, you deserve it.
Looking at the comments section, there are 19 direct comments at the time of writing. 15 of them are the standard bingo card comments about cyclists’ behaviour with no sympathy for somebody being killed. It’s sickening.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered hundreds of times in writing this site, as has anyone else who has dared venture into the comment section following a news story that even mentions someone on a bicycle. Or who has had the temerity to venture into social media.
If the victim of a crash was on a bicycle, it had to be their fault, because the commenter once saw someone run a stop sign or a red light. Or maybe it’s everyone on two wheels, because none of us ever obey the law.
It’s an automatic case of collective guilt, painting us with the same broad brush used to disparage any group somehow considered “other.”
Even when it comes to people who simply disagree about some simple civic or political matter.
I’ve had my stomach turned by what I’ve seen, heard and read so many times it feels like a washing machine on spin cycle, discovering once again just how truly awful people can be.
Just as it has when I’ve heard hateful comments from people who seemed decent enough until they opened their mouths, apparently assuming that their distasteful opinion is so obvious everyone must share it.
Too often I’ve just kept my mouth shut and turned away to avoid an ugly fight.
I wish I had an answer, some sort of magical solution that would show them just how wrong they are, and shame them for their lack of compassion.
The research, recently published in Brain Communications, was conducted on a much smaller test group, but the people involved all had a specific disorder, drug-resistant epilepsy, that the scientists were examining when they made their discovery.
The study builds upon the already well-proven assertion that ‘physical exercise improves memory and learning in rodents and humans’. During the research period, however, the scientists found that participating in a pedalling exercise for 20 minutes caused ‘ripples’ to occur in a part of the human brain called the hippocampus, which where memories are formed and learning happens. These ripples directly led to an improvement in the subject’s performance in tests.
Those ripples also increased as the subject’s heart rate went up.
So go out and ride hard.
And maybe someday you, too, can pass a whole bunch of cognitive tests just like our president.
A writer for Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website examines how to make bikeshare even better, starting with connected, physically separated bike lanes and more stations in under-served areas.
The legislature, in a typical compromise to avoid passing any major traffic safety legislation, approved a pilot program allowing speed cams in six cities, three in Northern California and three in Southern California.
Streetsblog reports San Francisco and Oakland already have their speed camera programs up and running, while Long Beach and Glendale have finalized locations and approved vendor contracts; San Jose is the other NorCal city included in the program.
The law was later amended to allow a handful of desperately needed speed cams on PCH in Malibu, as well.
The six-city pilot program was a compromise to get a bill that would have legalized them statewide out of committee.
According to Streetsblog, Los Angeles was the last city to move forward with its program, as usual for the notoriously risk-averse and driver-shy city. But the city finally finalized the speed cam locations last week, and will send the contract out to bid with a goal of getting them installed and working by the end of the year.
Yay, us.
In other long overdue news, Streetsblog adds that Los Angeles is trying to work out the details on a program to use cameras to ticket drivers parked in bike lanes.
Here’s a thought.
Let the people who actually use the bike lanes enforce the law by submitting their own photos and videos of drivers blocking bike lanes, and just send the owners a ticket, already.
The helmet scored a 4.61, more than two points better than the next highest rated helmet.
It’s based on the company’s proprietary OBLIK impact management system, designed to reduce both linear and rotational forces; the nearly 20-year old MIPS system only reduces rotational forces.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Someone may or may not have tried to sabotage an Iowa bike path, after the bomb squad destroyed a suspicious device packed with nails and explosive materials left in a backpack along the trail.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A recent University of Arizona grad from Humboldt is setting off with his dad on a 9,600-mile ride to visit all 30 major league ballparks. Although if they really wanted a challenge, they should try riding to all 120 minor league parks in the US alone.
There’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the co-founder of the Bellingham, Washington edition of the World Naked Bike Ride after he was busted on kiddie porn charges; he claimed he was doing research for a children’s book about a child who runs around naked — even though his book was published six years ago.
A Delhi-based white-collar worker swaps his car for a bicycle to commute to work for four months to see if biking every day can help improve the city’s air quality crisis, and finds he can get to work on a bicycle as fast as in a car. A few years back, I spoke with a Delhi-based bike accessory maker, who was comfortable riding that city’s seemingly chaotic streets, but just couldn’t imagine how we manage riding the mean streets of Los Angeles.
Somehow we missed this one last week, as a pro-Palestinian and environmental protestor caused a major smashup in the Tour of Bruges by sitting in the middle of the road as the peloton approached; the same man disrupted the finale of the 2022 Tour of Flanders by running across the roadway, splashed paint on Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, tied himself to a goal post during the Belgian FA Cup final, and sprayed the British Embassy in Brussels with red paint. Yet somehow, he was still allowed within 50 miles of a bike race without adult supervision.
No major news stories this weekend, so let’s get right to it.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Life is cheap in the UK, where a road-raging driver walked with a suspended sentence for deliberately attempting to slam into a semi-professional cyclist, even though the judge bellowed from the bench “What the bloody hell were you doing? Had you hit him and he went under you could have been facing a charge of manslaughter or causing death by dangerous driving. What were you thinking of? You are right to look ashamed.” And even after that, let him off with a slap on the wrist.
A Washington bike rider was lucky to escape with minor injuries when the driver of box truck jumped the sidewalk she was riding on, and fled the scene after hitting her; the driver was later arrested for reckless driving, hit-and-run and driving with a suspended license.
That’s more like it. Denver, Colorado is moving forward with a nearly $1 billion Complete Streets makeover of the city’s streets, with over 500 traffic calming projects which will reduce space for motor vehicles and replace it with wider sidewalks, bike lanes and dedicated bus lanes throughout the city; naturally, critics complain it will increase traffic congestion. However, you’ll have to find your own way past the paper’s paywall.
That’s more like it, part two. A 24-year old Colorado ex-con was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a 41-year old man riding a bicycle in Boulder, Colorado, after he was paroled despite being previously considered a high risk to re-offend on drug crimes.
You’ve got to be kidding. Police in Charlotte, North Carolina blamed the victim when an eight-year old girl was killed by a driver after she rode her bike out of the family driveway into the street — even though the driver was a) driving with a revoked license, b) driving without insurance, c) driving an unregistered vehicle, d) driving with a fictitious registration, and e) may or may not have been speeding.
Life is cheap in Louisiana, where a 36-year old man got just two and a half years behind bars for killing a 64-year old man riding his bicycle, despite pleading guilty to negligent homicide and a number of traffic infractions after striking the victim with a too-close pass. And even though sideswiping the victim’s bike is a prima facie violation of the state’s three-foot passing law.
A couple of men in Italy seriously stretched the definition of “fans” as Velo reports a “rampaging fan” climbed on top of the moving Visma-Lease a Bike team car during stage four of the Coppi e Bartali, attempting to steal a bike off the roof, while another “fan” punched and threatened the people inside; American teenager Ashlin Barry went on to claim his first victory for the team’s development squad.
Good news from Italy, where Debora Silvestri is out of the hospital, more than a week after she suffered severe chest trauma going over a guard rail in a terrifying Milan-Sanremo crash, then landing on a service road after a ten-foot drop.
One of those viewers must have been someone in the police department, because a suspect is now under arrest for the alleged road rage attack.
According to a press release from the Newport Beach Police Department reposted on Fetzer’s Instagram account, a man identified as Corona resident Samir Weiss was busted for assault with a deadly weapon, as well as a charge for obstructing traffic.
They seized the weapon used in the attack as evidence — Weiss’ blue BMW M3.
Video footage of the incident shows the blue sedan driving behind the cyclists in a bike lane, accelerating and honking. At one point, Fetzer’s friend is seen jumping onto a curb with his bike, apparently to avoid the vehicle. The footage also appears to show a passenger throwing water at Fetzer.
According to Fetzer, the situation escalated a few miles later near a Shake Shack, where the driver and several others exited their vehicles and confronted the cyclists. Fetzer said the driver and four other people blocked traffic lanes, made threats and attempted to tackle them off their bikes.
Bizarrely, Fetzer told the Register that Weiss had reached out to him. Not to apologize, as you might think, but to challenge him to fight, MMA style.
Fetzer also shared what he said was a direct message from the driver after the incident.
“Hey bro let’s both sign waivers and meetup for a consensual Full MMA sparring session,” the message reads. “Let’s settle this like men.”
However, I’ve always thought of fighting as something that happened back behind the grade school playground at recess or after class let out for the day.
Although despite the way KCBS frames it, the message didn’t rise to the level of an actual threat, legally at least, since it was framed as a challenge.
But as I learned after reporting an apparent threat I received on here to the LAPD, someone has to actually say they’re going to harm you, rather than just saying they want to.
Or challenging you to “settle it like men.”
………
Transportation for America warns that not only is the Trump administration trying to rip out a popular DC bike lane to make more room for cars, they’re trying to do the same thing across the country by cutting off funding before the lanes can even be built.
The Metro Board approved the northern extension of the K Line Cedars-Sinai, West Hollywood and the Hollywood Bowl, after a last-minute agreement to allow work on obtaining funding to move forward, while an additional one-year study of the effects of tunneling in the area around Lafayette Square is conducted.
According to the Los Angeles Times,
However, in the 24 hours before Thursday’s meeting, Bass met several times behind the scenes with West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman, a major backer of the K Line extension, to come up with an amended motion that allows West Hollywood and L.A. County to work on securing funding that will allow the project to accelerate while also calling for additional study of the Mid-City section and community engagement. The new amendment, Bass stressed before the board voted in favor, would not delay the project or its funding…
Explaining her push for a compromise, Bass said that Lafayette Square is one of Los Angeles’s most significant historic Black neighborhoods. She recounted the history of nearby Sugar Hill, a once thriving Black community that was “profoundly disrupted” by the construction of the 10 freeway.
The difference, of course, is that the Sugar Hill neighborhood was razed by white city leaders who saw no value in a Black community, while the train will go deep underneath the existing homes.
And to the best of my knowledge, won’t involve destroying an inch of the historic neighborhood.
But still.
No one wants to see historically Black neighborhoods harmed. So if it takes yet another study to calm fears while the project moves forward, so be it.
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Good news for our neighbor to the south, who can really use it.
Bluesky post
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Shifter discusses five bicycle advocacy mistakes you didn’t even know you’re making, from thinking it’s you versus the world, to making sure that political leaders who say “no” suffer consequences for their decisions.
Get ready for yet-another bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation in Santa Monica tomorrow, with cops set to ticket any traffic violations that could endanger either one, regardless of who commits it or why. So once again, ride to the letter of the law until you cross back into Los Angeles or Culver City, so you’re not the one who gets written up.
A San Diego op-ed from a pair of local bike advocates responds to a previous argument against plans for a bike lane on Governor Drive in the University City neighborhood, saying there’s simply no other place to put it.
Washington State is rebooting their ebike rebate program, offering vouchers up to $1,200. That compares favorably to California, which no longer has an ebike program because CARB stole all the money and gave it to buyers of electric cars and trucks, forgetting that ebikes are EVs that help get other EVs and gas-burning vehicles off the roads. Schmucks.
Wisconsin offers safety tips for bicyclists, which mostly make sense for a change, noting that “in 2024, a bicyclist was killed or hurt about every 11 hours” in the state. Damn, that guy should be more careful.
A writer for Psychology Todayresponds to rumors about Tadej Pogačar’s win in Milan–San Remo, arguing that while we should never forget previous doping incidents, suspicion can become a psychological defense, and “If every new level is interpreted only through the past, then the past begins to limit the future.” Yeah, what he said.
Nothing like bad bike news to bring out the worst in people, bicycling makes your brain ripple, and add iron to make your bike go
He gets it.
A writer for Road.cc lives in rural Warwickshire, England, just outside of Stratford-upon-Avon, which he calls a beautiful part of the world.
One that he says is repeatedly voted as one of the best places to live, as well as a great place to ride a bike.
But it only took the death of someone riding a bicycle to “reveal how sickeningly awful some people in your local community can be.”
It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered hundreds of times in writing this site, as has anyone else who has dared venture into the comment section following a news story that even mentions someone on a bicycle. Or who has had the temerity to venture into social media.
If the victim of a crash was on a bicycle, it had to be their fault, because the commenter once saw someone run a stop sign or a red light. Or maybe it’s everyone on two wheels, because none of us ever obey the law.
It’s an automatic case of collective guilt, painting us with the same broad brush used to disparage any group somehow considered “other.”
Even when it comes to people who simply disagree about some simple civic or political matter.
I’ve had my stomach turned by what I’ve seen, heard and read so many times it feels like a washing machine on spin cycle, discovering once again just how truly awful people can be.
Just as it has when I’ve heard hateful comments from people who seemed decent enough until they opened their mouths, apparently assuming that their distasteful opinion is so obvious everyone must share it.
Too often I’ve just kept my mouth shut and turned away to avoid an ugly fight.
I wish I had an answer, some sort of magical solution that would show them just how wrong they are, and shame them for their lack of compassion.
But that seldom seems to work in the real world.
And almost never in the virtual one.
………
Bicycling makes your brain grow.
And ripple, apparently.
A new study published in the journal Brain Communications builds on a Chinese study release last year that showed even brief periods of bicycling can cause growth in the hippocampus.
Those ripples also increased as the subject’s heart rate went up.
So go out and ride hard.
And maybe someday you, too, can pass a whole bunch of cognitive tests just like our president.
………
Staying on the subject of health, a medical specialist in iron deficiency and anemia suggests that an iron deficiency could affect your performance long before you actually develop anemia.
So stop by your neighborhood bar and toss back a few rusty nails every now and then.
It’s for your health, after all.
………
Local
Santa Monica is building a new curb-protected bike lane on Colorado Ave.
State
Streetsblog’s Damien Newton says the recent road rage incident in Newport Beach demonstrates the limits of painted bike lanes.
Irvine-based Rivian makes the obvious transition from electric truck builder to ebike maker to autonomous DoorDash delivery bot.
National
Surprisingly, the US Department of Transportation is making $1 billion available through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, despite recent government cutbacks in active transportation funding.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole an adaptive ebike from a Las Vegas teenager with cystic fibrosis.
The traffic “expert” for a Denver TV station just can’t seem to figure out what the lines marking buffered bike lane are for — especially since he didn’t see anyone using it at the exact time he happened to be watching.
International
Cyclist looks at the year’s best insulated bicycling water bottles.
Bike Radar says anti-lock brakes could revolutionize mountain biking, even if they’re not quite ready for mass consumption.
It’s time to don your best tweed and hie thee to Saville Row for London’s most stylish bike ride.
A British bikeshare company is being investigated for false advertising for claiming to give you ten minutes free — but only after you pay to unlock their bikes.
A writer for Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website examines how to make bikeshare even better, starting with connected, physically separated bike lanes and more stations in under-served areas.
A 72-year old man was killed when he hit a low tree branch over an Australian bike path, even though officials had been warned about it a week earlier.
Competitive Cycling
IDL Pro Cycling says British cyclist Lorena Wiebes can still be beaten, despite achieving “Pogačar-like status in the women’s peloton.”
Finally…
If you left your bike on a US military base, get it from the MPs. Who needs a living room when you can have a fully equipped bike workshop?
And now you, too, can have your very own Cookie Monster bike. As long as you don’t need a seat, or pedals or anything.
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
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