Tag Archive for air pollution

Happy Bike to Work/Bike Anywhere Day, Gov. Newsom says screw the planet and keep on driving, and Bike Talk talks racing

May 16, 2024 / / One comment
Just 229 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 all face on the mean streets of LA.

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

We made it up another notch to 1,132 signatures, so don’t stop now! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us! 

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Happy Bike to Work/Bike Anywhere Day! Or as it’s known in Los Angeles these days, Thursday.

But at least you can get free Metro and Metrolink rides with your bike today, along with free Metro Bike rides.

Meanwhile, San Diego expects to have at least 10,000 people participate in the city’s Bike Anywhere Day, while the local public radio station tells you how to make the most of it.

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Evidently, California Governor Gavin Newsom wasn’t serious about all that climate change stuff.

Newsom, who Politico described as fully embracing the role of climate governor, had this to say in a press release in 2022.

“Cleaning the air we breathe. Protecting our communities from the harmful impacts of the oil industry. Accelerating California’s clean energy future. Each of these actions on their own are monumental steps to tackling the climate crisis – but California isn’t waiting a minute longer to get them done. We’re taking all of these major actions now in the most aggressive push on climate this state has ever seen because later is too late. Together with the Legislature’s leadership, the progress we make on the climate crisis this year will be felt for generations – and the impact will spread far beyond our borders. California will continue blazing a trail for America and the rest of the world on the swift and meaningful actions necessary for cutting carbon pollution, protecting communities and leading the clean energy future.”

But just two years later, he is proposing a whopping $600 million cut to the state’s Active Transportation Program to address the state’s massive budget shortfall — which Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry describes as “the most climate, energy, and equity efficient program in the entire transportation budget.”

All because he doesn’t want to touch the state’s massive $21 billion highway fund, as spokesperson for the governor claims that diverting highway funds could “negatively impact the key work that Caltrans does to maintain the state highway system.”

In other words, appeasing motorists by building and widening highways and fixing freeway potholes is far more important than, say, saving the planet.

The mealy-mouth hypocrisy is astounding.

Or it would be if Newsom hadn’t long ago revealed just how shallow his commitment is when it conflict with political expediency.

This is how Calbike Policy Director Jared Sanchez addressed the issue in an email to supporters.

There is no deficit in California’s transportation budget. Thanks to federal funding streams, there’s no need for transportation cuts.

Yet, Governor Gavin Newsom cut almost $600 million from the Active Transportation Program (ATP) in his draft budget. The ATP funds projects that make biking and walking safer and more appealing, advancing the infrastructure changes needed to combat climate change.

Tell the Legislature to Restore Full ATP Funding

This cut amounts to eliminating an entire ATP funding cycle, significantly reducing funding for infrastructure that will reduce soaring pedestrian deaths and enable more people to get around safely by bicycle.

The Active Transportation Program needs more funding, not less.

  • The ATP already turned away many worthy biking and walking projects because of a lack of funding, even before this cut.
  • The governor’s budget doesn’t cut funding for climate-killing highways.
  • California can afford to fund the ATP. With rising climate chaos, we can’t afford not to spend money on active transportation.
  • This drastic cut will affect communities across California, forcing local governments to delay planned bikeways — maybe one near you.

Last year, the governor tried to cut the ATP, and the legislature restored the funding. Tell your representatives we need them to protect active transportation again.

Seriously. do it already.

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Megan Lynch offers a photo from last night’s Ride of Silence in Davis, with a promise of more to come. So check back with her later.

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Bike Talk talks with longtime bike scribe Joe Lindsey about this year’s racing season.

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It’s now 148 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 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.

The UK’s Conservative government passed a new law to address a problem that seldom happens, criminalizing causing death or serious injury by dangerous or careless cycling, with a maximum penalty of up to 14 years behind bars — seven years more than the penalty for doing the same thing with a car — as party leader Iain Duncan Smith insisted the anti-bicycling law isn’t anti-bicycling.  Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

I ain’t afraid of no ebike. Police in the UK are developing a Ghostbusters-style electromagnetic pulse, aka EMP, weapon to instantly stop scofflaw ebike or e-scooter riders in their tracks. And probably fry any electronic devices in the vicinity. Thanks again to Megan Lynch. 

Bike riders in Ireland respond to “highly regrettable” new signs on Irish Rail banning bicyclists at peak times, calling it a step backwards eliminates the possibility of muti-modal commuting.

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

A woman hit by a bicyclist in London’s Regent Park earlier this month urged bike riders to slow down, as a British broadcast network clocked bicyclists riding up to 7 mph over the park’s 20 mph speed limit.

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Local 

A writer for Condé Nast Traveler rides along with The Mixed Race, a weekly high-speed, women-led public bicycling group zipping through the streets of Los Angeles every Thursday night.

A WeHo website continues its recent anti-bike lane screeds, arguing that building protected bike lanes will take a sizable investment in staffer time and money. Even though not building them could prove substantially more expensive in the long run, as the city will be required to pay out lawsuits for any bike riders killed or injured where they would have been built.

The South Bay beach cities are considering even tighter restriction on ebikes, following a confrontation between local residents and a group of ebike-riding hooligans. Even though the type of bikes they were riding had nothing to do with the incident. And never mind that they were riding throttle-controlled fat bikes that should be reclassified as mopeds or electric motor scooters. 

 

State

Outside challenges you to three days of bicycling bliss along Southern California’s epic bike trails, starting with the El Prieto trail in the mountains above Pasadena, followed by nearby Tapia Canyon, and the Connect G-Out, Sidewinder, Dogtag and Karl’s trails in the scrubland east of Santa Clarita. And that’s just Day 1.

Bakersfield has seen a 30% jump in reports of bicycling collisions in just the last two years.

 

National

A new report ranks which states are most interested in bicycling, based on the volume of internet searches for “different bike types,” “cycling safety,” and “learning to ride,” which may not exactly be the best way to determine it; Washington, Rhode Island and Vermont top the list, with California all the way down at number eight.

A Chicago public radio station discusses what the city is doing to protect bike riders, as it suffers an average of over 1,400 bicycle collisions each year. Hint: Not enough. 

Crashes between Massachusetts bike riders and pedestrians are flagged as an emerging threat as bike lanes expand in the state. As if pedestrians don’t have a responsibility to look both ways before stepping into a bike lane, and misbehaving bicyclists would be no less dangerous without them.

DC councilmembers are pushing to restore funding for a controversial lane reduction and bike lane project, after the mayor thought he had killed it.

Bicycle advocates in Baton Rouge and New Orleans join a public radio station to discuss how to improve bike infrastructure in the Bayou State.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Georgia man plans to ride 82 miles to celebrate his 82nd birthday, after riding his age every year since he turned 70.

 

International

An op-ed in the Evening Standard says London’s bike riders aren’t killers, and the bicycling community in the city’s Regent Park is “keen” to protect others.

London’s transportation department tells bike riders to improve their behavior around floating bus stops, even though only four people have been hit by bike riders in three years.

Good Net considers how the city’s bicycle revolution is rapidly transforming Paris, as the number of bike riders has overtaken the amount of motorists on the city’s rues.

A new Finnish study shows that people who received their bicycles through a workplace benefit program ride more than five times the miles of the average Finn.

Germany is conducting a study allowing s-pedelecs — ped-assist bikes capable of doing up to 28 mph — on a special high speed bike path to determine if they can safely share bike paths with slower riders.

A new petition in Hyderabad, India, calls on the city to do more to make it bike friendly and promote active mobility.

No surprise here, as the new 100% tariffs Joe Biden imposed on Chinese-made electric vehicles and batteries could double the price of ebike batteries.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tadej Pogačar maintained his two minute and forty second hold on the Giro’s pink leader’s jersey, as Italy’s Jonathan Milan survived a mass sprint to win the race’s 11th stage on Wednesday.

The formerly high-flying Visma-Lease a Bike cycling team is falling apart at the Giro, with the team down to just four riders with ten stages to go after both sprinter Olav Kooij and Cian Uijtdebroeks, who was fifth in the general classification, dropped out and Robert Gesink and Christophe Laporte both crashed out in the first week; team leaders Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard were already out following crashes earlier this year.

World champ Mathieu van der Poel will skip mountain biking at the Paris Olympics to focus on the Olympic road race, after competing in the Tour de France..

Olympic triathlete Taylor Knibb even stunned even herself by earning a second Olympic berth by winning the women’s time trial at the U.S. road cycling championships in Charlotte, West Virginia.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can star in an ebike commercial being shot in Orange County and Big Bear.

And if you’re going to deliver food orders, it might as well be from a Penny Farthing.

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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!

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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.

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

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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: , , , , , , , ,

Bike to fix LA’s crappy air, bikeway on new Gateway Bridge opens next month, and final MOVE Culver City report released

April 21, 2023 / / 2 comments

No surprise here.

Once again, Los Angeles leads the country in crappy air quality.

If only there was some sort of sustainable, non-polluting form of transportation that could improve the health of the planet, as well as those who use it.

Better yet, something that had been successfully proven to work for more than a century.

And was safe and simple enough it could even kids could use it. Or nearly anyone else, for that matter.

Oh well, everyone back in your SUVs.

Photo by Ryan Millier for Pexels.

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It’s finally happening.

The long-awaited Mark Bixby Memorial Bike-Pedestrian lane over the new International Gateway Bridge will open on May 20th, in conjunction with Long Beach’s Pride-themed Beach Streets open streets event.

The new bikeway will finally provide a seamless connection from San Pedro to Downtown Long Beach, while offering sweeping views of the harbor from both the Gateway and Vincent Thomas bridges.

Correction: While the article promises a seamless connection, commenters below clarify that there is no safe bikeway over the Vincent Thomas bridge, and not likely to be anytime soon. 

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Culver City has released the final report on the MOVE Culver City project, showing the overwhelming success of the Complete Street project, which is at risk of being ripped out by the city’s newly conservative majority.

As the tweet below notes, it will come up before the city council on Monday, as Planetizen joins calls to save the project..

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Eco-Village is talking with the Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, tonight about their plans to improve transportation and livability in the region.

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Thanks to to free registration from Bike Index, another victimized bike owner got their stolen bike back.

So what are you waiting for?

https://twitter.com/BRAT_Seattle/status/1649239276822081537

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Berm Peak calls the Penny Farthing the sketchiest bicycle ever made.

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

A New Jersey radio station calls on the state’s drivers to just take a breath and chill out, as conflicts — including physical fights — increase between bike riders and drivers unaware of the state’s four-foot passing law.

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

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies are looking for six ebike-riding suspects who stabbed a Ladera Heights teenager Wednesday night, then chased him on their bikes as he ran for his life.

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Local 

CicLAvia is looking for volunteers.

Bike Walk Glendale invites you to visit their Earth Day booth and buy a T-shirt, and take a survey for the proposed Glendale Bicycle Master Plan.

The Argonaut profiles Santa Monica’s Thömus USA, the only location outside of Switzerland to sell the ebike brand, which is built by hand on site at the Santa Monica location.

 

State

Spectrum News 1 names Southern California’s five best bike trails, including the Long Beach Shoreline Bicycle Path and the San Gabriel River Trail.

The stolen ghost bike honoring fallen Palm Springs bicyclist Nelson Esteban has been replaced, thanks to a generous donor. Let’s hope this one stays around a little longer. 

A Monterey weekly looks forward to this weekend’s Sea Otter Classic, calling it a temple of bicycling for all kinds of bicyclists.

Bay Area bike riders call for improving safety on the Peninsula below San Francisco after a relatively recent convert to bicycling was killed earlier this month.

 

National

Men’s Journal picks the year’s best mountain bikes, while CNN is a fan of REI’s Co-op Cycles Generation e1.1, calling it a near-perfect entry level e-utility bike.

Swedish e-mobility company Vässla has launched a subscription model for their entry to the US, with the “highly acclaimed” Vässla Pedal available for purchase, or a $109 monthly subscription.

A Washington town was required to include bike lanes when they overhauled a local highway, thanks to a state law requiring Complete Streets for any highway project costing over half a million dollars. Which is why the California legislature needs to codify Caltrans Complete Streets policy, which has far too many loopholes.

Phoenix held its Bike to Work Day yesterday, as hundreds of people turned out for a brief ride, followed by breakfast at city hall.

Good news from Maine, where a community organization is working to house a homeless woman living out her car, after she spent the last of her money to buy a new bike and helmet for a three-year old boy when his bike was stolen; meanwhile, community members have raised over $9,000 to pay off the loan on her car.

A Westside New York paper waves a warning flag over increased non-motorized traffic in the city’s Central Park, as ebikes and scooters prepare to join joggers, walkers, bicyclists, unicyclists, scooters, skaters, skateboarders, pedicabs, horse carriages and park maintenance vehicles.

Inspiring story from Bicycling, as a 66-year old man prepares to ride New York’s Five Boro Bike Ride next month, more than five decades and three transplants after he was told at 11-years old that he had only two years to live due to cystic fibrosis. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

New York court workers have thrown in the towel and agreed to observe parking restrictions for the new protected bike lane in front of the courthouse.

A North Carolina writer considers the role of vehicular cycling and taking the lane in the absence of safe bicycling infrastructure.

 

International

The CBC explains the differences between road and track bikes.

She gets it. A Canadian writer says we all want roads that are safe, efficient and pleasant, but no one wants to change for that to happen.

A stoned, wrong way driver will spend the next six years behind bars for the head-on crash that killed a man riding a bicycle, and will be prohibited from driving for 12 years; he had five drugs in his system at the time of the crash, including morphine and “street valium,” as well as several previous traffic convictions, including two for drugged driving. Just one more example of officials keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late.

Adventure Journal remembers Walter Greaves, a one-armed, vegetarian British bicyclist who set a new world record for riding 62,657 miles in 1937 — despite spending 18 days off his bike after getting hit by a driver.

A British refugee support group has provided 175 bicycles to Ukrainian refugees.

CityLab examines how the Dutch mastered bike parking at train stations. Then again, they’ve mastered just about everything else related to bicycles, too.

A Chinese man has ridden his bike 63,000 miles across the country over the last ten years, despite having just one leg.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling journalist Caley Fretz remembers reporter Chris Baldwin, the former press officer for all-diabetic cycling team Team Type 1, followed by a stint with Astana before returning to Team Type 1 successor Novo Nordisk; Baldwin passed away in his sleep from a heart attack last week. He was just 52.

Here’s your chance to own Miguel Induráin’s Tour de France-winning Pinarello for the low, low price of around 82 grand.

Bicycling considers what comes next after the cancelation of the UK’s Women’s Tour, as organizers promise it will be back next year. Read it on AOL if the magazine blocks you.

 

Finally…

If you’re riding your bike while under the influence on your island vacation, put a damn light on it, already. Now you, too, can own your very own Taco Bell bike.

And where the hell did they get my picture?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

LA bike riders suck drivers crap, Buttigieg calls for safe streets for families, and college BMX team needs your help

March 9, 2023 / / Comments Off on LA bike riders suck drivers crap, Buttigieg calls for safe streets for families, and college BMX team needs your help

No surprise here.

Back in the ’60s, musical satirist Tom Lehrer penned an ode to the pollution choking American cities, with the admonition “Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!”

That warning is especially appropriate for anyone in Los Angeles who doesn’t spend their time safely ensconced in a hermetically sealed vehicle.

According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy have concluded that LA’s wealthier — and whiter — communities export their pollution to the neighborhoods they drive through on their way from here to there.

Which, in most cases, means less wealthy, and less white, neighborhoods.

And that people who drive more are exposed to less pollution than those who don’t, and vice versa. Which means people who walk or bike end up sucking down the crap their vehicles spew.

That, my friends, means you and me. Just because we choose to walk or ride a bike.

Particularly if we’re sucking their particulates as we ride in or through urban communities.

Photo by Khunkorn Laowisit from Pexels.

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In an interview with Fatherly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses making it easier to travel with your kids, including making sure families can sit together on airplanes without paying an extra fee, which appears to be the most urgent transportation issue in America today.

Fortunately, he goes on to discuss the need to be able to ride a bike or walk with your kids without getting killed.

And to your question, this goes beyond aviation. We really want to make sure that every form of transportation is easier and safer. That includes designs for roads that benefit safety, including safety for families that are walking or riding a bike together. It’s part of why we’re really promoting active transportation being safer. In our transit, one thing we’re doing for Americans with disabilities is funding the upgrade of old transit stations that are not yet ADA compliant. That’s the right thing to do for the disability community…

I want to make sure that they’re safe, of course, that they can, as they grow up, confidently and safely ride a bike or safely be a pedestrian wherever they go. And I want some of the things that we deal with routinely today to seem antiquated by the time they’re old enough to ask about it, including the rate of roadway deaths. That could eventually, I think, become almost like polio. One of these things parents tell their disbelieving kids or grandkids, that “we used to tolerate 40,000 people dying every year in car crashes. But thankfully, we did the right thing so that your generation sees nothing of the sort.”

It’s good to know he get it.

But we’ll need to keep the pressure on to ensure that commitment to families translates to safer cars and SUVs, as well as streets.

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If anyone has any extra cash or gear lying around, the Lindsey Wilson College Cycling Team needs you help, after someone stole their gear on the way to this weekend’s BMX Nationals in Bakersfield.

Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up. 

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Transportation PAC Streets For All has made their endorsement for next month’s special election to replace disgraced Councilmember Nury Martinez in CD6.

And they call it a draw.

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Portland artist Dr. Nik responded to criticism that his street art looked too much like ghost bikes by going full orange.

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A Missouri cop was suspended after crashing head-on into a stationary bike rider who was waiting to merge onto a rural highway, while the officer was “looking at” his phone.

Not texting, the cop was quick to clarify, as if that somehow made a difference.

Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the tweet.

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This is what it looks like when a Texas driver slams into your live podcast.

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Sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in England are looking for a 40-something man who punched a teenage boy in the nose after narrowly avoiding crashing into him with his bike.

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Local 

Streetsblog says plans to reduce street racing in Angeleno Heights don’t go far enough; the neighborhood was the setting for the first few Fast & Furious movies, and continue to draw heavy-footed fans.

The South Bay Cities Council of Governments is introducing a network of streets designed for slower vehicles, like ebikes, with a maximum speed of 25 mph. And marked by a kind of funky green and blue turtle sign.

 

State

San Diego approved a $2.1 million settlement for a man who spent five days in intensive care after suffering facial fractures, a brain bleed and a seizure when he hit a massive debris-filled pothole while riding his bike on Torrey Pines Road, and wasn’t able to work for five months.

Registration is now open for August’s Tour de Big Bear. And with a little luck, the snow from last month’s blizzards should be almost gone by then.

A Dublin website raises concerns over ebike access to trails allowed by last year’s Omni-Bike Bill, even though it specifically excludes trails in state parks and local areas with their own policies.

Tragic news from Berkeley, where a 42-year old man died five days after setting himself on fire on the UC Berkeley campus, despite the efforts of bystanders who used their own clothes in an effort to put it out — and one man who threw his bicycle at the burning man, as if that could somehow extinguish the blaze.

 

National

Pink Bike offers advice on how to not feel stupid walking into a bike shop.

Forbes offer recommendations for the best lights to see and be seen on your bike. As we noted recently, ultra bright daytime lights are one of the best ways to protect yourself, without donning a hi-viz clown suit.

Bicycling looks at the causes of numb hands while you ride, and what you can do to prevent it. My best advice is to keep moving your hands into different positions, and relax your death grip on the handlebars. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

A Florida columnist offers advice on how to survive a bike ride in the state, which is the nation’s most dangerous state for people on two wheels.

 

International

An Ottawa, Canada jury has rejected a man’s claim that he slashed a neighbor’s throat in self defense in a dispute that began with allegations of a stolen bike. But he hasn’t been found guilty yet, after his defense team called for a psych assessment.

They get it. A UK advocacy group says bicycling must address its lack of diversity, arguing that “The male, white, cycling enthusiast niche has reached its natural limit.”

Life imitated art, as a British bike rider was photographed struggling to push his bike up a snow-covered hill, 50 years after a famed bread ad directed by a young Ridley Scott showed a boy pushing his bike up the same hill.

Aston Martin F1 driver Lance Stroll managed a 6th place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix, just weeks after breaking both wrists and a big toe in a bicycling crash.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar topped last year’s winner, Jonas Vingegaard, in a mountaintop finish in stage four of the Paris-Nice race.

Cycling Weekly says Dutch super-team SD Worx looks unbeatable in the early women’s classics.

Sadly, you’ve already missed your chance to own Tom Pidcock’s race bike, along with bikes belonging to Egan Bernal’s and Geraint Thomas.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can own Audi’s new e-mountain bike — which has a sentence instead of a name — for the low, low price of just ten grand. That feeling when your ebike gets stolen, but you get it back — twice.

And if you’re already an ex-con, maybe leave the ghost gun at home on your next bike ride.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Cost of traffic violence — 3 killed in SD crash, air better worldwide in pandemic, and bike quotes to get you riding

March 16, 2021 / / Comments Off on Cost of traffic violence — 3 killed in SD crash, air better worldwide in pandemic, and bike quotes to get you riding

This is the cost of traffic violence.

Yesterday’s rains drove even more people than usual living on the streets to a San Diego underpass Sunday night, because they had nowhere else to go to seek shelter from the storm.

They paid for it with their lives the following morning when an allegedly impaired driver plowed onto the sidewalk, killing three people and injuring six others, two critically.

Seventy-one-year old Craig Voss arrested for three counts of vehicular manslaughter, as well as five counts of causing great bodily injury while committing a felony, and one count of felony DUI for driving under the influence of drugs.

Police believe Voss was the subject of a call to 911 shortly before the crash reporting a possibly intoxicated driver.

But at least he remained at the scene and attempted to aid the victims.

Beyond the sheer tragedy of three more innocent victims sacrificed on the alter to motor vehicles, it’s heartbreaking that so many people who’ve already lost everything and have to live without a roof over their heads — for whatever reason — aren’t safe along the streets they’re forced to live on.

………

One more sign of the damage done by motor vehicles.

Air quality improved in 84% of country’s worldwide when pandemic lockdowns forced many people to stop driving.

An improvement that will undoubtedly be reversed once businesses open back up and people go back to work.

Especially in places like Los Angeles, where so little was done during the closures to encourage more bike riding, walking and other forms of alternative transportation.

That compares to cities throughout Europe, which are doubling down on their successful efforts to encourage bicycling as a safe form of socially distanced transportation, with 600 miles of “cycle lanes, traffic-calming measures and car-free streets” installed over the last year.

………

Parade Magazine, of all sources, dishes up 50 bicycling quotes to inspire you to get out and ride, including these —

“Everyone in their life has his own particular way of expressing life’s purpose – the lawyer his eloquence, the painter his palette, and the man of letters his pen from which the quick words of his story flow. I have my bicycle.” – Gino Bartali

“Cyclists see considerably more of this beautiful world than any other class of citizens. A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to” – Dr. K.K. Doty

“When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.” — Elizabeth West

………

The good news is the city continues to improve safety for bicyclists in DTLA.

The bad is it seems to come at the expense of the rest of the city.

………

Invest a short 20 seconds of your life to understand the freedom a bike can give someone with a disability.

And how easy it is to take it away.

https://twitter.com/tricyclemayor/status/1371206178944995328

………

I want to be like him when I grow up.

A 77-year old Arizona man turned down his daughter’s offer to take him by car, and rode his bike nearly 50 miles roundtrip to get his Covid vaccine shot.

Although that might be trumped by a much shorter ride from a much older Dutch woman.

………

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

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is cheap in the UK, where a driver with a history of violence walked without a single lousy day behind bars when a judge gave him a suspended sentence for assaulting a young couple who had stopped to fix a flat, first punching the man before knocking the woman down and stomping on her head. Seriously, what the hell are jails for, then?

………

Local

The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee will hold a virtual joint meeting of the Planning and Bikeways Engineering Subcommittees starting at 1 pm this afternoon.

Spectrum News 1 looks at what’s driving pedaling the ebike boom.

 

State

Cooler heads prevail in Santa Barbara, where police reject calls to arrest young bike riders — primarily people of color — for riding bikes and performing stunts on the newly installed bike lane on the city’s State Street pedestrian plaza, with police saying they don’t want to “criminalize children for riding bikes.”

The good guys finally won one for a change, as police busted a pair of burglars who broke into a Larkspur bike shop and temporarily made off with seven bikes worth $29,000, after the owner spotted them inside his store on a live security cam.

Napa’s proposed new general plan envisions making the city’s main streets more walkable and bikeable.

 

National

Planetizen says ending traffic fatalities once and for all isn’t as farfetched as it seems.

That’s more like it. A Nogales AZ man will spend the next seven and a half years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a bike rider, while he was stoned on meth.

In an unusual move, dozens of volunteers teamed with Houston planning and public works officials to paint a new high-comfort popup bike lane. Maybe that could be a model for Los Angeles to finally end the auto-centric stasis on our streets.

Nine of the 21 candidates for a Queens city council seat took part in a bike ride through the district to examine problems and policies before the upcoming election. For years, the LACBC’s candidate surveys asked people running for city offices if they’d be willing to meet or ride with bicyclists if they were elected; even though most agreed, no one ever asked them to.

If you find yourself riding a bike in New Jersey, keep your hands on the handlebars and your feet on the pedals. And put a damn bell on it.

Biking is booming in the City of Brotherly Love, too.

A Virginia op-ed calls for lowering speed limits to 15 mph to save lives. Although here in Southern California, a 15 mph speed limit means most drivers would still do 25 to 30 mph. But at least that would be an improvement for most drivers, who currently do 35 to 45 in a 25 mph residential zone.

That’s more like it. A North Carolina man got 33 to 49 months behind bars for the November hit-and-run death of a bike rider.

Nice move from bikemaker Subrosa, which gave a new bike to a 15-year old Florida boy whose bicycle was destroyed in a hit-and-run crash; the company teamed with Adventure Cycling to give him the first bike from next year’s line, ensuring it will be a one-of-a-kind bike for the next several months.

Bike riders often spot things drivers don’t. Like a body lying near a Florida bike path, for instance.

 

International

Cyclist celebrates world bicycle speed record holder Denise Mueller-Korenek as Monday’s inspirational woman.

Gates Carbon Drive promotes a half-dozen new bikes using the company’s belt-drive products.

A neurodivergent Saskatoon, Saskatchewan kid will get a $3,500 adaptive bike back, after a bike thief was busted when he listed the unique bike for sale online.

A Mexico City woman is forging her own way in the traditionally male-dominated custom bicycle scene as the owner of the city’s only woman-run bike shop.

Damn straight. An English op-ed calls for trusting the experts when it comes to bicycling and traffic planning.

Germany’s Rose Bikes joined ranks with Commencal, Propain, Santa Cruz and other bike brands in announcing price increases due to rising costs caused by the pandemic.

Apparently, things are pretty much the same everywhere, as drivers continue to park in Philippine bike lanes, with most of the scofflaw vehicles belong to the government.

Remarkably, an Aussie bike rider was able to bounce back up when a dash cam video catches him in a frightening crash while trying to ride across a street.

 

Competitive Cycling

Writing for Red Bull, bike scribe Peter Flax profiles multi-time national champ and L39ion of Los Angeles (pronounced “legion”) founder Justin Williams, and his drive to drag cycling into the age of diversity, kicking and screaming if he has to.

Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar continues to hold the lead after the penultimate stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race, with Danish cyclist Mads Würtz Schmidt claiming his first WorldTour stage win.

British barrister and time trial specialist Jonathan Parker claims to have shattered the world record for 100 miles, checking in a slant two seconds under two hours and fifty minutes, beating the existing record by eight minutes.

UCI pulled the plug on the season opening Mountain Bike World Cup downhill race after Slovenian health officials urged them to reschedule due to the ongoing pandemic.

A 16-year old Georgia boy’s only goal was to finish the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational fat bike race; instead, he somehow managed to finish third.

 

Finally…

Turn your body into a mini-electric generator when you ride. Another reminder why your bike should sleep indoors, especially during a massive winter storm.

And maybe this will get drivers to give you a little space.

https://twitter.com/svblxyz/status/1371401312177377280

………

Apropos of that aforementioned winter storm, I love this image from my home state, where the snow is nearly one corgi deep.

Thanks to Dr. Grace Peng for the laugh.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already. 

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

Morning Links: Lawyer says mayor criminally liable for bike lanes, and meetings on Venice and Temple

July 11, 2017 / / 5 comments

Try to read this one without laughing.

I dare you.

A lawyer and regular contributor to City Watch insists that Mayor Garcetti could face criminal liability for a Mobility Plan that places bike lanes on city streets. Where riders are forced to suck in the air pollution from passing cars in what he describes as a violation of California’s CEQA laws.

He even says city officials may be held criminally liable for battery and homicide, comparing the situation to the tainted water in Flint, Michigan.

Which almost sounds sort-of semi-reasonable, until you consider just how far off base it really is.

Starting with the fact that it was the City Council, not Garcetti, which was responsible for the city’s Mobility Plan and the bike lanes proposed therein.

And that several studies have shown that the air inside motor vehicles is dirtier than the air bike riders breathe. Or that the health benefits of bicycling far outweigh the risk posed by bad air.

Not to mention that bike lanes are found on busy city streets in virtually every major city around the world, with no apparent mass die-off of bike riders gasping their last due to auto exhaust.

And never mind that Los Angeles already conducted an environmental review of the city’s bike plan following the debacle in San Francisco, where a single disgruntled man held up implantation of the city’s bike plan for years using a CEQA challenge, until a judge finally threw the case out.

Or that bike lanes were exempted from CEQA review four years ago when Governor Brown signed AB 417 as a result of that case.

Although you’d think a decent lawyer might have looked that up.

But if you ever need someone to file a writ ordering kids to get off your lawn, he may be your guy.

………

If you’re not completely burned out after tonight’s argument over friendly discussion of the Venice Great Streets project at the Mar Vista Community Council meeting, you can do it all over again tomorrow when the Palms Neighborhood Council takes up the subject.

And a public safety meeting will be held tomorrow to discuss a planned road diet on Temple Street in Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown; the Vision Zero project would reduce the street to one lane in each direction, with bike lanes and a center turn lane.

………

The 2018 Giro d’Italia will start just slightly outside the county — in Jerusalem.

Only a handful of riders can still challenge Chris Froome in the Tour de France. And he denies barging into one of them.

Polish rider Rafal Majka abandoned the Tour de France after falling in Sunday’s ninth stage.

Italian cyclist Adriano Malori announced his retirement from racing on Monday, nearly two years after being placed in a medically coma following a crash in Argentina’s Tour de San Luis.

Cycling industry insiders set up a fake motor doping website to see who’d be interested; cycling team managers, industry publications and individual cyclists who wanted to cheat their fellow racers took the bait.

Scottish track cyclist Katie Ford set new records for the greatest distance covered in both six and eight hours, despite suffering from epilepsy.

………

Local

LA County has agreed to settle the case of an unarmed man killed by sheriff’s deputies for $2.9 million; 23-year old Noel Aguilar was shot when he fled after deputies tried to stop him for riding his bike on the sidewalk.

LA Downtown News looks at the first anniversary of the Metro Bike bikeshare program, noting it costs more than similar programs in other cities and doesn’t have a discount program for low-income users.

Architects present plans to revitalize the LA River.

 

State

Solano Beach will raise funds for bike lanes and pedestrian paths by adding a $15,714 fee to the cost of every new single-family home and $11,206 for each new apartment. Which means improving alternative transportation at the expense of desperately needed new affordable housing.

San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies are on the lookout for a BMX-riding booze shoplifter who punched a Rite Aid employee in the face to make his getaway.

Bakersfield police somehow mistake a 5’2”, 115 pound, 19-year old bike-riding black woman for a bald, 5’10”, 170 pound machete-wielding man. So they pulled a gun on her, punched her in the mouth and set a police dog on her.

Santa Cruz installs its first bike box to improve visibility and safety for bicyclists.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition opposes a proposed ordinance that would ban bike chop shops in an effort to reduce bicycle theft, saying it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. The roots of the problem are addiction and homelessness, which are much more difficult to solve. And neither of which are helped by looking the other way while addicts deal in stolen bicycles.

Sacramento is preparing to boot bikes off some sidewalks in the downtown area. But not all of them, since they don’t have money to build bike lanes. Which means, unless they post it on every block, people will have no idea whether or not they can legally ride on any given sidewalk.

The Lake Tahoe basin is transforming itself with 50 miles of existing shared-use trails and another 6.5 miles currently under construction, with plans for nearly 26 miles more over the next five years.

 

National

Ford patents a retractable bike rack that would actually be built into your vehicle. Or you could just forget the car and ride your bike.

A woman is riding from California to Maine to collect stories from inspiring women.

A group of cops and other first responders will ride 500 miles from Dallas to Baton Rouge to honor the eight officers killed in the two cities last year.

Caught on video: This is why you don’t lock your bike to a street sign; a thief simply removes the bolts holding a sign in place and lifts it up to steal an expensive ebike.

A candidate for governor of Massachusetts is one of us, suffering minor injuries when he was thrown from his bike after hitting a pothole.

She gets it. A writer from Massachusetts says the car is not king, and instead of stenciling sidewalks to ban riding bikes, the city should improve bike lanes so people don’t feel compelled to use them.

New York bicyclists are banned from a popular bike path so electric cars can race, instead.

Virginia officials decide to squeeze a bike trail between an expanded freeway and a sound wall, since neighbors won’t allow the bikeway on their side of the wall.

 

International

A poignant story, as a bike-riding former Ottawa, Canada heroin addict who saved the lives of 130 drug overdose victims has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer; a crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $12,000 to send him home to see his parents one last time.

Caught on video too: A pair of British riders are taken down by “yobs” who rolled an old bike into their path. Warning: You may have to sit through an interminable movie trailer to get to it.

A UK police inspector sticks up for officers who intentionally doored a bike-riding theft suspect to make an arrest, even though the helmetless rider could have been seriously injured.

 

Finally…

Either a Virginia newspaper is in desperate need of punctuation, or a bicyclist crashed into a disregarded stop sign. If you’re going to ride drunk, try not to pee on the cop who busts you for it.

And seriously, don’t try this at home, especially not at 62 mph.

In flip-flops.

 

Category: Bike Access, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
 
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