Tag Archive for Art Nomura

Silence marks World Bicycle Day in City of Angels, living carfree in LA, and what a real 3-foot passing violation looks like

June 4, 2024 / / No comments
Just 210 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the city’s mean streets.

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

We’re up to 1,178 signatures, so don’t stop now! I’ll forward the petition to the mayor’s office in the next few days. So urge everyone you know to sign it now! 

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Yesterday was World Bicycle Day.

Or as it’s known here in Los Angeles, Monday.

While other cities around the world marked it to greater or lesser degrees, Los Angeles observed the day by ignoring it entirely.

There was no official proclamation from the mayor, who seems to have forgotten we exist, after claiming to be one of us when she needed our votes.

Ditto for the city council, which offers us only vague promises that they can ignore later.

The silence was just as deafening coming from county leaders, the governor and the state legislature.

But at least Bike Metro remembered.

Then again, my inbox wasn’t exactly full of messages from state and local advocacy organizations using the day as a springboard to call for safer streets, better infrastructure, and other steps to get more people on fewer wheels.

Let alone the urgent need to provide safe and efficient alternatives to driving, at a time when our world is literally burning.

Instead, World Bicycle Day was just another opportunity for our elected leaders to once again swipe left, and remind us all that they’re just not that into us.

Meanwhile, the India Times marked World Bicycle Day by ranking the world’s top six bicycle friendly cities, while another site listed their own top ten cities.

Portland, Oregon made both lists. And do I really need to say Los Angeles didn’t?

I didn’t think so.

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Thanks to Culver City-based multimedia producer and Loyola Marymount University Professor Emeritus Art Nomura for forwarding a couple non-commercial video series about the joys of going carfree.

The first, Carfree, Season 1, is described as a 12-part mini-documentary series released last year about the joys and challenges of living carfree, or carfree lite, in Southern California; Carfree, Season 2 is currently in production.

The second is Carfree Epiphany, a series of self-produced 30 second to two minute stories of how people have become and/or are becoming carfree. You’re invited to contribute your own video, with instructions on how to submit it included on the link.

I gave up driving several years ago. And don’t miss driving in this hot mess of a city one bit.

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Define “three-foot passing violation.”

Or at least it would be, if video evidence of misdemeanors and traffic violations counted for anything in California.

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Mexico’s new president-elect is one of us.

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It’s now 166 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, Minnesota becomes the latest state to offer non-vaporware ebike rebates up to $1,500 — just one year after it was approved by the legislature.

Proving just how quick and easy it can be when the people in charge actually give a damn, and don’t have their skulls firmly embedded between their buttocks.

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

Horrifying story from Missouri, where a man was found badly injured 13 hours after somehow surviving a 22-foot fall, after he had to jump off his bike and over a concrete barrier to avoid getting run down by a hit-and-run driver.

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

After three cygnets — aka baby swans — were killed along an English trail, suspicion immediately fell on reckless bicyclists, despite the lack of any actual evidence pointing in that direction. If bike riders were really responsible, there would have been feathers everywhere from the impact with the bike tires.

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Local 

Autoweek says last weekend’s Electrify Expo in Long Beach illustrates exactly who will be hurt by President Biden’s new tariffs on electric vehicles, e-bikes and e-scooters and components. Like the people who might otherwise buy them. And the ones who will have to pay through the nose to do it anyway.

An LA County judge rejected wealthy socialite Rebecca Grossman’s bid to have her conviction overturned for killing two little kids as they rode their skateboard and kick scooter across the street with their parents, citing her speeding and drinking that night, as well as a previous warning from police about the dangers of speeding.

 

State

The Voice of OC looks at Orange County’s efforts to catch up to the burgeoning use of ebikes in the county, and the panic over teens on fast, throttle-controlled ebikes that may be beyond their ability to control safely.

 

National

Strong Towns says sidewalks, bike paths and other public spaces where people can gather are key to building strong towns that are irresistible to tourists.

Sixty members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity are preparing for the group’s annual cross-country ride to raise funds for programs to support people with disabilities.

Outside makes their picks for the very best gravel bikes available today.

Drivers in Anchorage, Alaska are up in arms after the city’s first protected bike lane and lane reduction appeared over the weekend, as the city struggles to maintain its reputation for being bike and pedestrian friendly.

Denver is removing the rubber bumpers from a protected bike lane in front of a condo building, after an 82-year old man tripped over one and broke his pelvis, leading to a series of falls — and eventually, his death.

Kansas Public Radio talks with LA-based author Peter Flax about his new book — Live to Ride: Finding Joy and Meaning on a Bicycle.

The New York Times examines the people responsible for the city’s ghost bikes, and the message they spread about the need to drive safely.

 

International

Forbes says your next vacation should be a self-guided bike tour.

Canadian Cycling Magazine insists Season 2 of The Tour de France: Unchained is even better than the first.

That’s more like it. Police in York, Ontario are using drones to catch drivers who pass too close to bike riders, and don’t give the newly required one meter passing distance — a little more than three feet.

A new study from a Canadian university shows that driver speeds really do go down when there’s a bike lane on the street.

A British driver is on trial for killing a 52-year old triathlete as she was competing in a time trial in 2022, plowing into her from behind despite clear visibility and an open lane to her left — and later telling police he had no memory of the crash, but admitting that he “must” have hit her. Which would seem kinda obvious under the circumstances. 

A new book argues that the Netherlands isn’t the bicycling paradise people think, and communities — even the ones filled with people on two wheels — should ask deeper questions about what their streets are really for. While the country may not be perfect, it’s still a hell of a lot better than pretty much anywhere here in the US. Especially LA. 

Meanwhile, three-quarters of Netherlands residents think using bike helmets is a good idea for ebike riders, even though hardly any actually do.

Over half the residents of Germany’s Hesse state listed building more bike lanes as one of their top priorities, in a state where one-third of the population ride bicycle a multiple times a week.

More proof of the power of bikes, as bicycling became a tool for liberating women in Karachi, Pakistan, after one woman started a girl’s bicycle club.

The general manager of a new Hyatt hotel offers his perspective on bicycling in Kolkata, formerly known to English speakers as Calcutta.

A writer for a Philippine website explains how New Zealand made him feel safe riding a bicycle, as the country does its best to protect active transportation users.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Brazil, where 42-year old cycling champ Lais Saes was killed in a hit-and-run while training with three other women on a dirt mountain road, when she was struck by the driver of a utility vehicle; it took more than an hour for help to arrive at the remote location.

 

Finally…

No, whacking an ebike worker over the head with a motorbike helmet isn’t actually what they were designed for. You can’t drive in the bike lane just because your car self-identifies as a bicycle.

And that feeling when the cops catch a hit-and-run driver because one of your AirPods fell into his car during the collision.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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