Tag Archive for bike lanes

Councilmembers decide not to decide on HLA, public opinion eventually favors bike lanes, and better bike network algorithms

February 13, 2025 / / One comment
Day 44 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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So much for that.

City councilmembers pulled the plug on considering how to implement Measure HLA at Wednesday’s joint session of the Transportation and Public Work committees, after a “fiery” discussion on another matter took up their allotted time.

But they announced proposed amendments to the draft implementation plan, including making projects subject to review and input from the fire and police departments, which is fine as long as they don’t get a veto.

Their input could be useful, as long as the process is how to make projects work, rather than how to water them down. Or kill them.

And let’s not forget that other city’s have invested in compact emergency vehicles to negate the complaint that bike lanes restrict emergency responses. Or that’s LA’s preferred plastic cat-tickler bendie-posts are very easy to drive over with cars, let along bigass firetrucks.

Two other proposed amendments could be more helpful.

First, the draft requires an appeals process for anyone who alleges the city is out of compliance with HLA, but the amendment would make that process optional.

The second would allow the city to expand the scope of grant-funded projects to comply with HLA, as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the funding.

So mark your calendar for February 26th, when the committees are scheduled for their next joint meeting. And hopefully, they’ll actually get around to discussing it this time.

Meanwhile, the city planning department will host a virtual information session on its proposed Standard Elements Table at 6 pm tonight to clarify the minimum features for the differing networks included the city’s Mobility Plan, which are now required under Measure HLA.

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No surprise here.

A new Irish study shows that public opinion usually shifts in favor of bicycling infrastructure once the benefits become evident, despite initial skepticism and the natural bias towards maintaining the status quo.

And acceptance grows once the bikeways are in place, when people can enjoy the tangible benefits they provide.

The study stresses the importance of highlighting the benefits of active travel initiatives, such as reduced emissions, better air quality and public health, and improving safety for vulnerable road users.

However, it also warns against a paternal attitude in explaining the benefits, which risk alienating some people.

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Another new study, this time from Switzerland, uses an algorithm to show where to place bike lanes to design an ebike-friendly city, with minimal impact on other travel modes.

The study concludes the best methods design street networks that present the best trade-off between car accessibility and bikeability, providing both lower travel times for motorists and lower perceived bicycle travel times.

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CicLAvia offers high points along Sunday’s West Adams meets University Park open streets event, including the spcaLA Pet Adoption Center.

Which gives me an excuse to explain that donations made to the national ASPCA — you know, the one with the ostensibly heart-tugging ads showing all those suffering animals — can go anywhere in the country.

So if you want to help dogs, cats and other animals here in Los Angeles — including pets displaced by the recent Palisades, Eaton and Hughes fires — make your donation directly to the spcaLA so your money stays here.

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Local  

Seriously? The Signal reports someone riding an ebike was injured when they were struck by a vehicle in Canyon Country. Except the article doesn’t even mention whether the vehicle even had a driver, while the headline positions it as an ebike collision, as if the rider hit another ebike, or maybe a tree, rather than getting run down by a motorist. 

 

State

More than a billion dollars in climate funds earmarked for California has been blocked, and could be imperiled by Trump’s executive orders.

A student at Point Loma Nazarene University aspires to be a pro cyclist in Europe, but lost a couple years due to PTSD after suffering a fractured pelvis when he was struck by a driver, while another student is aiming to be a professional triathlete.

Officials in the Coachella Valley are discussing how to improve safety on deadly Highway 74, aka the Ortega Highway, after a man was killed in a big rig crash, including the possibility of banning bicycles in certain areas. Which could be illegal, since California law says bikes can only be prohibited on limited access highways when there is an alternate route available — which doesn’t seem to be the case here. 

San Francisco Streetsblog takes a look at an expanded, fully separated and curb-protected two-way bike lane in Alameda.

Our old friend Megan Lynch forwards news that a local Davis bike subscription service is apparently unsubscribing from the college town, after 500 of their bikes showed up for sale on Craigslist.

 

National

The family of a bike-riding Oregon woman killed by a DEA agent, who allegedly ran a stop sign while on a surveillance operation, has filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the agent and the DEA, after the courts ruled he couldn’t be charged because he was working for the feds. Because sometimes a lawsuit is the only hope for justice when the court system fails the victims.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A Sedona, Arizona nationally known artist and photographer was killed by a driver when he tried to pass a slow moving car on his bicycle, while allegedly riding without lights.

A suburban Chicago writer sings the praises of wintertime fat tire bicycling, describing a “magical experience” riding through the snow.

A Maryland legislator has dropped a demand for a title and registration for ebike riders, but his proposed bill still calls for licensing and insuring e-bicyclists; needless to say, the Bike League says nay.

 

International

Momentum clearly hopes you get the Seinfeld reference, saying “these bicycle campers are real and they are magnificent.”

A writer for Cycling Weekly pens a breakup letter to his dirty bike after giving up on cleaning it himself.

Cycling Weekly also rates the best and most portable bike locks, including their top choice that “literally turns angle grinder-cutting discs to dust,” while weighing just 2.8 pounds.

The British government is providing the equivalent of $364 million in new funding to build 300 miles of new bike lanes and walkways throughout England; however, Cycling Weekly says it’s not new, and it’s not enough.

An Aussie writer travels through history on a pioneering gravel ride into the depths of Cappadocia.

A Canadian writer says Taiwan may be one the world’s best places for a bicycling holiday.

A tourist visiting from the UK was killed, and three others seriously injured, when a driver in New Zealand crashed into a four-person bicycle they had rented less than an hour earlier to tour a winemaking region.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel announced plans to skip this year’s road worlds to focus on winning the mountain bike world title.

Cyclist takes a look behind the curtain at a hi-tech Spanish factory where the new kits for the WorldTour’s Ineos Grenadiers are made.

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could come with a detachable bucket. When you’re carrying meth, fentanyl and a wad of funny money on your bike, maybe just don’t.

And why pin down your clickbait slideshow, when you can just recommend riding along “rivers,” “mountain ridges” and “coastal pathways?”

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Man who escaped Palisades Fire by bike gets his paintings back, Berkeley builds bike lanes, and Forest Lawn fights ’em

January 28, 2025 / / One comment
Day 28 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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The good news is, I don’t seem to have suffered any lasting effects from that knock on the head. 

The bad, our corgi ate a grape off the ground, which are highly toxic for dogs, before we could stop her. Although the poison control center tells us up to three grapes “should” be okay for a dog her size. 

So now we’re facing 48 hours of watchful waiting looking for any sign of toxicity. 

Good times. 

Like I said yesterday, it’s just one damn thing after another these days. 

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A legal website reports someone riding a bicycle was killed in a collision at SR 78 and Idaho Ave in Escondido Thursday morning.

However, I have been unable to find any confirmation on the crash, let alone the death of the victim. So if you’ve heard anything, let me know.

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NBC4’s Robert Kovacik returned a pair of paintings to a man who had to leave them behind when he evacuated the Palisades Fire by bicycle.

Francois Auroux was clutching the large oil paintings on his bicycle as he escaped the fire, which began three weeks ago today, when he encountered Kovacik doing a live remote broadcast.

Kovacik offered to hold the paintings for him — which ironically included Man on a Bicycle by Greek artist Alekos Fassianos — promising to return them at a later date, as the falling ash and embers surrounded them.

The two men met again Thursday as Kovacik kept his promise and returned the paintings, which is all that Auroux has left of his home of 39 years, other than the bicycle he escaped on.

However, lost in that story is another, more important story.

Because as residents struggled to get out with their belongings packed in their cars on the gridlocked streets, Auroux was able to quickly pedal to safety.

Yes, he had to leave most of his things behind, and struggled to ride with the awkward artwork. But he was able to get out when many others couldn’t.

I’ve been told by a number of people, including some who barely escaped other major fires in the state, that no one would ever use a bicycle to flee a raging wildfire.

Yet Auroux did, as did several other people who have lived to tell the tale.

A bicycle may not be the best way to take everything with you. But when you have to get out fast, it may be your best choice.

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Last week, we mentioned that Berkley is looking for feedback on the city’s 2017 bike plan, as they prepare to develop a new one. And asked the obvious question, in light of LA’s failure to build out its plan, of just how much of the old plan was actually built.

But for a change, we actually got an answer. In the comment below, we heard from our old friend Christopher Kidd, who is in now charge of the project.

Ted – thank you so much for picking up coverage of the Berkeley Bike Plan Update! I’m serving as the project manager for the update.

Since the old Plan’s adoption in 2017, the City of Berkeley has implemented almost 11 miles of network facilities (include 3.5 miles of separated bikeways) and upgraded 20 intersection crossings on the low-stress network.

More than that, the City has in queue 4-5 more miles of Bicycle Boulevards going into construction in the next 24 months.

And while we’re on the subject, congratulations to Kidd on being named to the board of the California Bicycle Coalition, aka Calbike. He brings a passionate, and very knowledgeable, voice for bike and traffic safety.

Which means we should be in good hands.

And Berkeley, too.

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Streetsblog posts a lengthy thread of public record documents showing Forest Lawn’s efforts to drum up business by fighting bike lanes on dangerous and deadly Forest Lawn Drive.

Received some L.A. City public records today regarding the mortuaries' fight against Forest Lawn Drive safety improvements – a thread. See background at SBLA coverage in December la.streetsblog.org/2024/12/19/c…

— Streetsblog L.A. (@streetsblogla.bsky.social) 2025-01-28T00:57:48.742Z

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The host of the LA in a Minute podcast talks with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider about whether Los Angeles can really become bike and transit friendly.

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Bike Talk talks about SUVs as the new cigarettes.

If we could get smoking out of bars we can make safe places to ride a bike. Check this out @bikelaneuprising.bsky.social @bikelanesla.bsky.social @bikinginla.bsky.social

— (@taylor-biketalk.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T18:20:00.843Z

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In case you wonder why New York bicyclists don’t use the snow-free protected bike lanes, maybe it’s because there’s a school bus driver sleeping in them.

And yes, I can now embed BlueSky posts. 

Love to take a nap in my bus that’s illegally parked in a jersey barrier protected bike lane and force a cyclist to use the sidewalk

— Boba Cyclist 정 (@bobacyclist.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T18:29:12.330Z

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That feeling when your smooth, paved bike path comes to a sudden and weedy end.

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A prewar photo of an early British bicycle, and the man who built it.

Cool is right.

A.L. Whale, 82, riding his 'boneshaker' bicycle with iron wheels. He built the bicycle himself in 1871; it was believed to be the second such machine built in England.Tewkesbury, UK16 May 1935

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T19:37:07.905Z

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

The condition of a Eureka bike rider is unknown, after the bicyclist was the victim of an apparent intentional hit-and-run as a woman in a minivan ran them down, backed over the victim’s bicycle, then fled the scene before causing a number of other crashes; she was finally stopped when two men open the minivan’s doors and pulled her out, holding her for the police. Although it took until the last paragraphs before the story even mentioned that the seemingly sentient minivan actually had someone behind the wheel. 

A 21-year old Michigan man was the victim of an apparent road rage attack when he was run down on his bicycle by a couple in their late teens; both the 19-year old driver and the 18-year old woman he was with were arrested on charges of felonious assault.

Um, okay. An Indianapolis man faces charges for pushing a 14-year old boy off his “motorized” bike and threatening to kill him if he didn’t stop riding it in the street — never mind that the man was infamous in the neighborhood for yelling at kids to stop riding on the sidewalk, too. Which raises the question of where the hell did he want them to ride. 

He gets it. A British Columbia letter writer responds to a driver’s call to tax bicyclists to pay for bike lanes and paths by patiently explaining that it’s the people who ride bikes and buses who subsidize motorists, not the other way around.

A pair of English bike riders had to sweep up a popular bike path themselves to protect other riders, after several bicyclists suffered flat tires when whoever trimmed a hedge lining the path couldn’t be bothered to clean up all the thorns and spikes they left behind.

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

A New York writer complains that she was knocked down by a red light-running bicyclist who blew through the crosswalk she was in, but the police didn’t care because she didn’t get killed.

The good residents of Birmingham, England seem to be fed up with “inconsiderate and dangerous” bicycling and skateboarding, as the city prepares a new public space protection order to address the numerous “near misses and accidents that cause alarm and distress to pedestrians.”

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Local  

A Los Angeles social worker shares the insights she gained about the Holocaust by riding a bike across Poland, where her father, who survived 11 different concentration camps, was born.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s son Pax was involved in another bike crash last week when he “barreled” his BMX into the side of car in Los Feliz, six months after he was seriously injured crashing his ebike. Although it’s unclear from the description if he crashed into the side of the car, or if he was doored by the occupants. 

Now you, too, can be the proud owner of an 1890s cast iron stationary bike for sale for just $600 from someone in Pasadena.

 

State

Your next ebike could be solar powered, thanks to San Diego’s JackRabbit — as long as you don’t want to go very far.

No bias here. A San Diego letter writer, and the former chair of the City Heights Planning Committee, complains about the neighborhood’s empty bike lanes, describing them as “miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles,” while a road project goes unfinished. Never mind that bike lanes are far cheaper and easier to install than road work, and significantly more efficient. Or that drivers still enjoy the lion’s share of the streets.

No bias here, either. A Santa Cruz website declares a proposed lane reduction and protected bike lane project “Carmageddon,” because it would result in the loss of “some” parking spaces. Never mind that the original Carmegeddon, when the 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles was shut down for a whole weekend in 2012 to widen an overpass, failed to materialize when Los Angeles drivers just stayed home. 

Kindhearted cops in Mendota bought a new bike and lock for a young boy, after he called 911 to report someone had stolen his bike from the back of his dad’s pickup.

 

National

A writer for Clean Technica says a single brown wire is all that separates a class two ebike from an illegally overpowered one, which she says proves the idiocy of US ebike laws.

Gear Patrol wants to know why every new bicycle doesn’t come with a built-in phone/bike computer mount.

Sadly, no surprise here, after someone scrawled offensive, racist Nazi graffiti on an Issaquah, Washington bike path. There’s never been a shortage of racists and Neo-Nazis anywhere in the US — including right here in Southern California — but the Pacific Northwest has long been a hotbed. 

Over 200 people turned out for a memorial bike ride to honor an Albuquerque, New Mexico bike advocate and city worker, after he was killed by a hit-and-run driver last week. I can’t recall 200 people ever turning out to honor any fallen bicyclist here in Los Angeles, or any other bike-related cause, even though we have nearly six times as many people. 

More proof that bikes are good for business, as a new report shows bicycling has a $1.4 billion impact — yes, with a b — on the state of Iowa.

New York has opened its trade-in program for delivery riders to take uncertified e-bikes, mopeds and their dangerous batteries off the streets, and replace them with safer, certified ebikes.

A new study from a New York university suggests that people-protected bike lanes, which originated in San Francisco, have made a difference in getting better bike infrastructure built in the US.

Philadelphia is getting the city’s second set of speed cams, after the first one proved successful.

A Florida man was collateral damage when a woman ran a red light and her car was struck by an SUV, sending it barrel-rolling off the roadway and over the victim as he walked his bicycle on the ride of the road.

Florida county commissioners balk at the $40 million price tag to improve safety by building a pair of bicycle underpasses below a dangerous roadway. But no one seems to think twice about a $300 million highway widening job.

 

International

Cyclist recommends the best bike podcasts.

Momentum recommends the top eight bicycle friendly bars and breweries in North America, including one in my bike friendly Colorado hometown. But none in Los Angeles, or anywhere else in SoCal, unfortunately. 

A new Toronto study shows that bike lane placement can be optimized by a scientific approach based on traffic patterns and commuter mobility.

A London writer learns first-hand what it’s like to become a victim of the city’s masked, machete-wielding bikejacking gangs.

Despite numerous studies showing that people who ride bicycles are less likely to die prematurely, a new Scottish study shows the opposite, suggesting that certain sports do prolong life, but riding a bike isn’t one of them.

The European Union has extended its anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese ebikes for another five years to protect the local market.

Despite the Scottish study we just mentioned, a new Scandinavian study says people who bike to work need fewer sick days — yet another reason why employers should encourage bicycle commuting, as well as advocating for safe bike routes.

A Finnish city is called the “winter bicycling capital of the world” for its fabulous cold-weather infrastructure.

Pez Cycling News offers tips on where and how to ride a bike in Florence, for your next trip to Italy.

Evidently, if you want safe, separated bikeways, all you have to do is move to Abu Dhabi.

Must be nice. The newly elected governor of Jakarta, Indonesia is making fixing the capital city’s “suboptimal” bike lanes his first priority.

An Aussie woman set a new world record for the most vertical distance descended on a mountain bike in 24 hours, at 182,831 feet. Although presumably, she had to ascend that much before descending, too.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Trentino, Italy, where 19-year old U23 cyclist Sara Piffer was killed when her bike was struck head-on by a 70-year old man, who claimed he couldn’t see her because the sun was in his eyes, yet her father somehow had the grace to forgive the man who killed her; bicyclists responded by calling for an end to the “massacre” on the streets.

In yet another mass casualty event, six members of the German national cycling team — including former European U23 champ Tobias Buck-Gramcko and World Championship bronze medalists Benjamin Boos and Bruno Kessler — were injured, some seriously, when they were run down by an 89-year old man while on a training ride; fortunately, none of the injuries were life threatening. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, and how the hell can we know before something like this happens.

Gravel greats Ted King, LeLan Dains, John Hobbs and Amanda Nauman-Sheek have been inducted into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame. Raise your hand if you even knew it was even a thing.

The mother of 16-year old SoCal pro mountain biker Cash Shaleen says he’s home from the hospital and slowly healing, though sill unable to walk, after he was struck by the driver of an off-road vehicle while he was working on his own in Glamis, California, last month, badly compressing his spine.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be omnidirectional, with big balls instead of wheels. Your next two-wheeled micro-lending library could look like a beetle. Your next ebike could be a Ford Mustang — even if it bears little resemblance to the four-wheeled original, aside from the paint job.

And even tandem riders sometimes had to deal backseat drivers.

No, literally.

The Tally-Ho Tandem, in which the rider in back gets to control the steering and the wheelies.

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T19:07:55.965Z

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

February meeting on Long Beach Orange Ave bikeway, and new bike plans for CA cities where that actually means something

January 22, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 22 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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It’s another light bike news day, so let’s jump right in. 

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

A Next City op-ed says Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s campaign to rip out Toronto’s bike lanes has nothing to do with traffic, and is all about the battle between “Old Toronto” and the city’s auto-centric suburbs. Or maybe just an egocentric, bike-hating politician. 

Once again, bicyclists have been the victims of anti-bike attack, as a Wellington, New Zealand man was lucky to escape with just a flat tire after someone tossed tacks onto a number of bikeways around the city; as a recent chemo patient, he had to rely on the kindness of strangers to change his tube. Several other people took to social media to report similar attacks, which have been going on since last month.

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

It turns out the French ebike rider we mentioned yesterday who pled guilty to causing the death of a 51-year old man riding a regular bicycle in Yorkshire, England was actually riding an electric motorcycle, which explains the confusion over the charges. Which is why we need to find another term to distinguish between ped-assist ebikes, and electric mo-peds and motorcycles.

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Local  

Long Beach will host a public meeting February 13th to discuss the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway along the city’s deadliest corridor for pedestrians, and part of Long Beach’s Elevate ‘28 five-year infrastructure plan.

 

State

New Streetsblog California editor Damien Newton introduces himself, and says his approach to the site will be a little more “bloggy.” While former editor Melanie Curry will be missed, the site couldn’t be in better hands than Damien, who brought Streetsblog to California in the first place as the founder of Streetsblog Los Angeles.

Goleta is conducting an E-Bike Safety Awareness Week this week, which seems to consist mainly of watching an ebike safety video and the CHP’s online ebike safety and training program.

Berkeley is asking for feedback on the city’s 2017 bike plan, as they prepare to update it later this year; the city has identified ten key projects for the new plan. Although the real question is how much of the old plan was actually built, to give some idea of how seriously to take the new one. 

San Francisco introduced a new bike plan calling for improvements to 385 routes or street segments. Unlike Los Angeles, they actually dust theirs off from time to time. Never mind that LA’s bike plan hasn’t been updated since 2010, unless you count councilmembers removing key streets from the plan before it was subsumed into the new mobility plan in 2016.

 

National

People For Bikes says the new AASHTO and NACTO — aka American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and National Association of City Transportation Officials — bikeway guides offer valuable resources for communities to build great places to ride.

An Oregon legislator says “oopsie” about his new bill that would ban throttle-controlled Class 3 ebikes from sidewalks bike lanes, clarifying that it was probably a “misnomer” on his part, since Class 3 ebikes are ped-asssist, rather than throttle-controlled, and that the law was actually targeted towards small electric motorcycles and mopeds.

Two-way, curb-protected bike lanes have now made their way south to Tampa, Florida, in the heart of the country’s deadliest state for people on bicycles. .

 

International

Momentum ranks the best international bicycle festivals worth traveling for; #1 on the list is Monterey’s Sea Otter Classic. Although what’s missing is any mention of LA’s CicLAvia, though they do include the original in Bogotá.

An Irish minister cancelled plans for a major cut to the Value Added Tax for bicycles over fears that retailers might pocket the savings instead of passing them on to bike buyers. In the simplest terms, VAT is like a sales tax that is built into the retail price, rather than adding it on afterwards; the advantage is that the price you see is the price you pay.

A Dutch university researcher is hitting the road on an ebike equipped with an array of LIDAR sensors to map and identify everything on the road, in an effort to develop an AI system to help drivers avoid people on bicycles.

 

Competitive Cycling

Velo remembers pioneering American cyclist Doug Shapiro, a two-time Olympian, 1984 Coors Classic champ, and just the third Yank to ride in the Tour de France.

 

Finally…

Your next e-mountain bike could be a Porsche. It’s not a high bike theft zone, it’s a Bicycle Redistribution Point.

And that feeling when a reviewer calls a futuristic hubless ebike a death trap and the worst bicycle in the world.

But other than that, he liked it, right?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

CA ebike incentive program launches tomorrow — no, really — and El Segundo bike lanes leave something lacking

December 17, 2024 / / Comments Off on CA ebike incentive program launches tomorrow — no, really — and El Segundo bike lanes leave something lacking
Just 14 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025, a decade of failure in which deaths have continued to climb. 
Yet no city official has mentioned the impending deadline, or the city’s failure to meet it. 

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Just eight days left in the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Terese E for her generous, if somewhat lonely, donation keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way from around the corner, and around the world. 

But time is rapidly running out for this year’s fund drive. So what are you waiting for?

Stop what you’re doing and give now! 

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It’s now 362 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

The California Ebike Incentive Program is finally scheduled to launch tomorrow, so get your application in. They offer these tips to get ready, for better or worse.

Let’s just hope they’re up to the task and have everything ready for the launch after this interminable delay.

We’re counting down the days to our official application launch on December 18, 2024 at 6pm PST — just a few days away!

To help you get ready, here’s a quick checklist of documents you’ll need to have ready when you apply. Documents need to be in a digital format to be uploaded. Digital file types include, but are not limited to PDF files, scans, JPEG or PNG file formats.

  1. Proof of California Residency – California Driver’s License, AB 60 License, or California ID card. The document must be current/valid and issued by the California DMV. If the address on the identification is not up to date, this is a listof documents you can submit.
  2. Proof of Income Eligibility – Provide documents to verify that your annual gross household income is at or below 300% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). The easiest form to submit is a Federal Tax Transcript, easily downloaded or requested by mail from: tax records and transcripts. If you don’t file taxes, refer to this list of acceptable documents.

Taking a few minutes now to gather these documents will help streamline your application so you’re all set to apply as soon as the window opens.

WHAT CAN I DO NOW TO GET READY?

With just a few days ​until the launch of our electric bike incentives, let’s make sure you’re prepared.

Here’s what you need to focus on:

1) Check your eligibility – Click HERE to learn more about eligibility.

2) Watch our how-to apply video – Click HERE to watch our step by step application process video.

3) Prepare your income verification documents – Click HERE to learn more about income verification.

4) Have your current/valid California ID ready and ensure your ID is up to date to avoid any delays.

5) Watch our 2 online training videos – Click the links below to watch our training videos prior to applying.

6) Check out our FAQ’s – Click HERE to review our FAQ page.

For more information, please visit our website ebikeincentives.org.

Let me know how it goes if you apply.

Because to be honest, I’ve kinda lost interest in the whole damn thing.

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South Bay Forward reports El Segundo has striped new bikes on the city’s newly resurfaced streets.

But the news apparently ain’t pretty.

You can submit your own feedback here.

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Seriously, how whacked out does someone have to be to hit a person riding bicycle hard enough to throw him 65 feet through the air, and have no idea they did it — even though the victim’s bike was still embedded in the bumper of the driver’s car?

A 35-year old man in Boca Raton, Florida faces charges for killing a 41-year old man riding a bicycle, seven hours after he took Adderall, Vyvanse and Gabapentin, despite telling investigators he’s in rehab.

And just moments after he passed another man riding in the same bike lane “so closely (the bike rider) could touch the vehicle.”

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‘Tis the season.

America’s Got Talent host Terry Crews, a former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers of Los Angeles, teamed with current members of the team to give new bicycles to hundreds of students at Compton’s McNair Elementary School.

A San Jose nonprofit founded by a surgical nurse has given away over 50,000 bicycles over two decades.

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels took part in a DC bike giveaway, where the Raising Cane’s restaurant chain gave away 100 bikes to kids from the Boys & Girls Clubs.

Over 400 donated bicycles are sitting in a North Carolina Salvation Army warehouse waiting for families to come get their free bike.

A Miami car dealer gave dozens of “gently used” bicycles donated by community members to children from the local Boys & Girls Clubs, for the 42nd straight year.

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

Once again, a UK bike lane has been intentionally sabotaged by “anti-bike psychos” who covered it with caltrops, a multi-spiked weapon dating back to the Roman era, resulting in crashes that caused at least one victim to suffer hearing loss; adding insult to literal injury, victims complained that Scottish police just “didn’t give a shit” when informed of the crime. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

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Local  

Don’t forget tonight’s virtual meeting of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council to discuss the proposed protected bike lanes on deadly Forest Lawn Drive — or at least what passes for protection here in Los Angeles. The project is opposed by Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries, in an apparent attempt to drum up more business.

 

State

PeopleForBikes announced the ten winners of their 2024 Industry Community Grants, including ten grand each going to Calbike, Rich City Rides and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.

Velo recommends five winter bicycling destinations where you can leave your thermal clothes behind, including San Diego and Palm Springs.

Bike Magazine calls Natural State a must-see mountain biking movie; the film premiered in San Luis Obispo earlier this month.

 

National

America Walks has opened applications for their Community Change Grants program to provide mini-grants to organizations working to make walking — and apparently, bicycling — safer and more inviting; one recent grant went to a program to assess pedestrian and bicycle safety in Aptos.

A writer for Cycling Weekly discusses what he learned riding his fixie 100 miles through Arizona’s Sonoran Desert; he calls the bike the best $400 he ever spent.

A Colorado woman pled guilty to tampering with evidence for deleting a text proving she was driving while distracted when she killed a ten-year old boy riding a bicycle; she’s also being tried this week on a second misdemeanor charge, careless driving resulting in death. The crash occurred just an easy nine mile ride from where I grew up.

That’s more like it. A 51-year old Pennsylvania man will spend up to 17 years behind bars for the hit-and-run crash that killed a 31-year old father as he was riding a bicycle.

The Franklin, Tennessee police department locks the barn door after the horses escape, conducting a DUI operation in honor of a 54-year old man killed by a drunken Ft. Campbell soldier while the victim was riding his bike.

According to a new lawsuit, a “deeply religious” business owner is dead because a driver high on “Galaxy Gas,” aka nitrous oxide, killed him in a collision as he rode his ebike on an Atlanta sidewalk; the driver bought a canister of the gas labeled for food and beverage use only at a local smoke shop an hour earlier, and allegedly drove around doing “whippets” to get high.

 

International

Momentum explores the top 15 family-friendly North American bicycling routes and destinations from Alberta, Canada to the Florida Everglades.

A British Columbia letter writer says the city’s multi-use paths are great for recreation, but not so much for bike commuting, and the bike lanes aren’t much better.

 

Competitive Cycling

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website asks if there should be a salary cap for pro cycling, after Tadej Pogačar got a $2.3 million raise that increased his annual pay to $8.3 million. Although that pales in comparison to Shohei Ohtani’s $70 a year — let alone Cristiano Ronaldo’s $200 million in on-field earnings.

Aleix Espargaro took an early retirement from Gran Prix motorcycle racing to join a professional cycling team, just not as a cyclist; he’ll serve as an ambassador for Lidl-Trek team.

Cycling West recaps last weekend’s US national ‘cross championships.

 

Finally…

Nothing like a fully functional, and yes, rideable, steel framed bike too small for a corgi — and named Big Boy, of course. Colnago wants you to wear their clothes off the bike, too, as long as you have $890 to spend on a polo shirt.

And that feeling when your bike stunt garners a round of applause from the ladies who lunch.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Bike riding becomes urban culture war, LA world’s 14th best city, and CA Active Transportation requests dwarf funding`

December 9, 2024 / / Comments Off on Bike riding becomes urban culture war, LA world’s 14th best city, and CA Active Transportation requests dwarf funding`
Just 22 short days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But not one LA city leader seems to give a damn about it.
Or if they do, they’re not saying anything. 

………

It’s Day 11 of the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Eric L, Andre V, Mary D, Robert K, Kathleen S, Jordan G, Liam W, James B, Robert L and John G for their generous donations over the weekend to keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

Now it’s your turn.

So don’t wait. Take a moment, and donate now! 

………

Good question.

Momentum wants to know why riding a bicycle in the city is turning into a culture war.

It’s hard to ride a bicycle to work on a regular basis, and not turn into a bike advocate. People want to be safe, and riding a bicycle for transportation currently comes with significant risks. But, years ago, even with critical mass movements, the world naked bike ride, and similar political actions, the bicycle vs. car debate had a tone similar to other civic debates. There were wins, there were losses, and a very slow, glacially slow, movement forward.

Something changed. Maybe there have been too many wins of late for some, but the fight for safe cycling infrastructure to protect bicycles is reaching a fever pitch.

There have been attacks on those campaigning for safe cycling. The rhetoric is unbearably predictable. In Montreal, often see as North America’s most European city with a progressive take on cycling and cycling infrastructure, thumbtacks were thrown onto bike lanes to get a rather stark point across.

Then again, these days it seems like everything is turning into a culture war.

………

Los Angeles came in at a surprising 14th on a list of the world’s top 100 cities, based on broad definitions of “livability, lovability, and prosperity.”

After a series of recent centennials, including that of the Hollywood Sign and Warner Bros. Studios, L.A.’s focus is now on its “Decade of Sport.” The Memorial Coliseum and the newly built SoFi Stadium will host a slate of global events, from the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the Olympics and Paralympics in 2028, making L.A. the first U.S. city to host the Olympics three times.

The city of storytelling, already ranking #12 in our Lovability index, will only endear itself even more. Cultural investment is equally ambitious. The Hammer Museum reopened with expanded gallery space, while the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is captivating visitors with film history. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is reopening its east campus with 110,000 square feet of new gallery space, and the Natural History Museum’s NHM Commons and the Getty’s PST ART series are also contributing to the booming arts scene (and #10 Culture subcategory ranking).

Transportation efficiency is equally prioritized. The new $1.7-billion Regional Connector Transit Project offers direct rail travel across the county, and LAX’s $30-billion overhaul includes a people mover train and the world’s largest car rental facility. An even bolder move is the high-speed rail project Brightline West, connecting L.A. and Las Vegas by 2028.

Although that comment about transportation efficiency may come as a surprise to anyone who spends more time on our streets than on the rails.

Meanwhile, San Francisco came in at two notches higher than Los Angeles at 12th, while San Diego was 44th, and San Jose 62nd.

London topped the list, while New York was the top American city just one notch lower.

Of course, that high ranking probably came before Los Angeles kicked Gotham’s butt twice in two different sports this fall.

………

No surprise here, as funding requests for California’s Active Transportation Program far outstripped available funding.

According to Streetsblog, the state received requests for a total of $2.5 billion worth of projects competing for the relatively paltry $85 million in available funds.

That works out to enough state funds on hand for just 3.4% of the requests. A number that seems especially minuscule when compared to the $15.3 billion Caltrans budget, making it equivalent to a lousy rounding error for highway funding.

But at least LA County received its share of funding, with projects in Pomona, Inglewood and Rancho Dominguez totaling $35.6 million.

On the other hand, the Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino received exactly nothing.

………

A basketball site reminds us that the late, great NBA star Bill Walton was one of us.

“I love my bike. My bike is everything to me. My bike is my gym, my church, and my wheelchair. My bike is everything that I believe in going on in the Biosphere. It’s science, it’s technology, it’s the future, engineering, metallurgy – you name it, it’s right there in my bike. My bike is the most important and valuable thing that I have,” remarked Wallton, per epicrides.

………

‘Tis the season.

The San Diego Padres donated 250 bicycles to 3rd grade students at Rosa Parks Elementary School in the City Heights neighborhood.

A Louisiana personal injury attorney gave away hundreds of matching green bicycles to kids in six cities across the state.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website lists the “ultimate” holiday gift guide for women bicyclists.

………

It’s now 354 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

The program is finally scheduled to launch December 18th, so get your application in.

………

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

A bike counter shows one of the Toronto bike lanes Ontario premier Doug Ford wants to rip out saw 308 bike riders on Thursday — despite freezing temperatures and snow on the ground. Thanks to Donna Samoyloff for the heads-up. 

A Toronto bike advocate says video of an ambulance driver using one of the city’s bike lanes to get around traffic proves the importance of keeping them, despite the plans of the Ontario provincial leaders

Bicyclists in Bristol, England are being randomly attacked by masked assailants on mopeds who are pushing them off their bicycles, then laughing as they ride off; at least one victim suffered a broken collarbone.

No bias here. A British police commissioner says she’s not anti-bicyclist, just “anti the full-Sky-replica-kit Sunday cyclists who ignore red lights and drive three or four abreast in front of me,” and “don’t contribute in vehicle taxes.” If she’d left it at complaining about riders who ignore red lights, she might have had a point, instead of making it clear she’s just annoyed by riders who inconvenience her personally. 

………

………

Local  

Bike Walk Glendale recommends Option 1 to improve North Brand Blvd, and urges you to contact the city’s councilmembers before tomorrow’s vote.

 

State

Bike riders in San Carlos called for safer streets at a meeting of the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, three weeks after a Stanford data scientist was killed by a driver while riding her bike.

If you were hoping to ride a mountain bike or a ped-assist ebike on Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais, you may have to make other plans, after a judge extended a temporary injunction preventing the Marin Municipal Water District from opening the gates.

 

National

Electrek recommends the best ebikes at every price point to put under your Christmas tree. Or Chanukah bush. Or whatever.

A banking website offers the reasons you should opt for an ebike over an EV.

Seattle is trying to cut the rise in traffic deaths by teaching bike safety to little kids. Although they could do a lot more just by teaching traffic safety to the people in the big dangerous machines. 

Police in the Las Vegas area reminded drivers to pass safely, three months after bicycling deaths topped last year’s total; cops cited 84 drivers for violating the state’s safe passing law in just three hours on Thursday.

Sixty-seven-year old 1984 Women’s Tour de France champ Marianne Martin, the only American to win the grueling 675-mile race, talked with a Denver TV station about the challenges in recovering from a life-threatening solo bike crash that left her with a collapsed lung, 12 broken ribs, fractured clavicle, broken scapula and road rash, after losing control on a steep descent.

A Pennsylvania newspaper looks back to an internationally known local bicycling champ who won a 1896 six-day bike race on a bike he built himself, then ran a bike shop until he was run by a semi-truck in 1955, when he was 89-years old.

 

International

Cycling Weekly says bicyclists are no longer the cool kids, and the real glory goes to paddle boarders this year.

Momentum lists 20 “under the radar” bicycling routes around the world, from Estonia to Laos; New York’s Empire State Trail is the only US route to make the list.

A British man returned home after completing a nearly 4,000-mile bike tour across Europe, only to have his bike and belongings stolen when he stopped for a bowl of noodles in Brighton.

Irish operatic soprano Claudia Boyle is one of us, saying the cargo bike she bought to avoid congestion taking her kids to school is the best investment she ever made, adding “the chats, giggles and memories on the bike is something you can’t buy.”

A Scottish newspaper takes a two-day, 77-mile ride through the Dolomites to Lake Garda along Italy’s DoGa trail — short for Dolomites and Garda — offering some of the country’s best views.

A Ugandan company has developed a solar-powered ebike conversion kit to address the country’s mobility problem.

 

Competitive Cycling

British Olympic champ Katy Marchant suffered a broken arm when she collided with German cyclist Alessa-Catriona Pröpster at Saturday’s UCI Track Champions League in London, and went over the rail into the stands, injuring four spectators; Pröpster was able to walk away after ten minutes, while Marchant was on the floor for half an hour before she was carried out.

Triple Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar has joined the UN’s ‘Make a Safety Statement’ campaign, saying he lives “the reality of the danger of cycling in traffic almost every day.” Seriously, don’t we all?

 

Finally…

Anyone who doesn’t believe in Santa, try thousands of them on bicycles. And no, using a bicycle to weight down a body is not among the recommended uses.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

LA does squat on speed cams, bike lanes boost property values, and judge in DEA case rules running stop sign “reasonable”

December 6, 2024 / / One comment
Just 25 short days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But not one LA city leader seems to give a damn about it.
Or if they do, they’re not saying anything. 

………

It’s Day 8 of the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Ken S, Bonnie W, Mark J, Kent S and Mari L for their generous donations to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy your way every day.

So don’t wait. Take just a moment, and donate now! 

………

According to Streetsblog, not one of the six California cities allowed to use speed cams as part of a pilot program to reduce speeding — or seven, counting late addition Malibu — have actually installed any nearly a full year later.

San Jose, San Francisco, Glendale, and Oakland have publicly announced which locations they are considering for the cameras, while the ‘Bu has begun developing a policy and impact report, as required by law.

But is anyone really surprised that Los Angeles doesn’t appear to have done a damn thing so far?

And stop smirking, Long Beach, because you’re in the same sinking boat with us.

Making matters worse, the proposal for the program originated right here in LA as part of our Vision Zero program. You know, back when we actually had a Vision Zero program.

Maybe someday, our current elected leaders with actually give a damn about protecting human lives, at least as much as our previous leaders.

You know, the ones who were great at announcing new programs, without ever actually implementing them.

At least they’ve that last part down.

………

No surprise here, as a new English study has confirmed that bike lanes improve property values, with home prices in Manchester increasing up to 8% after its bikeways went in.

And the closer homes were to a bike lane, the greater the increase, as people were willing to pay more to live close to a bicycle network.

Which could be the best argument yet to overcome the built-in resistance of homeowners to any changes to the local streets in their neighborhood — or to the loss of trees or parking spaces.

As in, “Yes, ma’am, you may have to start using your driveway for its intended purpose, but your home will probably be worth more.”

………

An Oregon man expressed his displeasure after a judge dismissed charges against the DEA agent who killed his wife of 27 years as she rode her bicycle — while wearing a hi-viz vest, and with multiple flashers on her bike — accusing the agent of “playing Russian roulette with his vehicle pointed at the public.”

His comments came in response to the judge’s bizarre conclusion that the agent “reasonably” believed he could safely run a stop sign while pursuing a suspect at 12 mph over the posted speed limit, without lights and siren.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

………

‘Tis the season.

Cycling Weekly offers this year’s Cycling Christmas Gift Guide for the bike rider in your life. And yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to give yourself the perfect gift this year.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website offers “reasonable” Christmas gifts for bicyclists, because unreasonable gifts are just so passé.

One hundred and twelve Raleigh, North Carolina 3rd graders were surprised with new bicycles and helmets for the holidays, after being told they were just going to an assembly.

………

It’s now 351 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, no bias here, as the New Santa Ana website calls the vouchers bad news for public safety, suggesting they’ll be used by “crazy and sometimes criminal juveniles on e-bikes” to further terrorize California residents.

Just wait until they learn about rebates for all those electric cars and Tesla trucks.

………

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

After posting letters in support of a recent badly misguided and misleading opinion piece attacking DC bike lanes, the Washington Post kept their promise to post letters supporting bike lanes and our basic right to survive on the streets. Although they seem to have ignored my suggestion to just link to my piece dismantling the writer’s arguments.

………

………

Local  

Start the New Year right, or at least the Lunar New Year, with the 47th Annual L.A. Chinatown Firecracker, offering a wide range of runs, bike rides and other assorted activities to ring in the Year of the Snake.

 

State

The popular Cathedral Oaks Road bike path in western Goleta now has a shiny new surface, complete with smoother pavement and clearer markings for bicyclists and pedestrians alike.

Streetsblog takes The San Francisco Standard to task for suggesting that Vision Zero is some sort of unachievable utopian fantasy, arguing that other places have reduced traffic deaths to zero, even if San Francisco hasn’t done enough to get there. Actually, Vision Zero is a utopian fantasy as long as cities adopt it without implementing it, somehow expecting traffic deaths to magically go down. And yes, I’m looking at you, Los Angeles.

 

National

Bicycling explains how the wrong bike fit setup could be what’s making your hands go numb when you ride. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

Sheriff’s deputies in Houston, Texas arrested a 22-year old hit-and-run suspect as she was trying to board a plane to leave the state, just hours after she allegedly killed a man riding a bicycle, then abandoned her car a mile away.

Streetsblog Chicago offers a virtual ride down the city’s new protected bike lane, which was build in a converted parking lane.

 

International

Cycling Weekly explains the differences between the various flavors of gravel riders, even if the lines differentiating them are a little blurry.

Eleven inspirational stories of people who took transformative journeys on their bike. Or maybe twelve, counting the author, who sold her belongings and took a year-long global bike tour.

Momentum introduces the Toronto artist who developed a virtually unwinnable bicycling video game to demonstrate the need for safe bike lanes. And yes, spellcheck, unwinnable is a word, so stop changing the damn thing.

Recently retired Italian cycling champ Domenico Pozzovivo was fined the equivalent of slightly less than 20 bucks for riding side-by-side with another rider while training at Lake Como, which is against the law in the country — but said that after getting hit several times by drivers, “As long as I ride a bike, I will always ride in double file. I prefer to pay a fine than risk my life.”

 

Competitive Cycling

Snopes tracks down the truth about an apocryphal story of a 66-year old Swedish man who earned the nickname “Grandpa Steel” when he won an 1,100-mile bike race, despite being denied entry because he missed 40-year old age limit by a mere 26 years. And finds that yes, an elderly man actually was given the nickname “Stålfarfar,” — or “Steel Grandfather” in English — after finishing first in the 1951 Sverigeloppet race, despite being told he couldn’t compete because of his age. But he was 65, not 66, and wasn’t actually the winner, because you can’t win a race you haven’t entered.

Cycling Up To Date questions whether anything can be done to prevent collisions on training rides, after Remco Evenepoel joined the rapidly growing club of pro cyclists who’ve suffered nasty crashes. I mean, aside from building safer streets, requiring automotive warning and active braking systems, and getting drivers to put down their phones and pay attention to the road in front of them, that is. 

 

Finally…

Avoid the festive faux pas of giving the wrong bike stuff this holiday season. Now you, too, can build your own e-cargo bike using a discarded bike frame.

And seriously, anyone can cross a bridge the easy way.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Teen bike rider murdered in deliberate hit-and-run, Canadian bike lane madness, and assess bike/ped safety in your town

November 25, 2024 / / Comments Off on Teen bike rider murdered in deliberate hit-and-run, Canadian bike lane madness, and assess bike/ped safety in your town
Just 35 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But so far, no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

………

If you missed it over the weekend — and that was easy to do, given the relatively minimal press coverage — a 16-year old boy was murdered by a driver who deliberately ran down his bike in LA’s Exposition Park on Friday.

The boy was part of a group of around 40 kids who got into some sort of altercation with a road-raging driver while riding south Figueroa Street, just above Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, allegedly breaking the car’s mirror.

The teens rode through a gap in the fence surrounding BMO Stadium in an effort to get away from the driver. But the driver followed them into the parking lot and slammed into the victim, then fled afterwards.

The victim died at the scene.

To make this horrific, needless tragedy even worse — if that is even possible — the boy reportedly had nothing to do with the dispute on the roadway, making him an entirely innocent victim.

So far, teenaged victim has not been publicly named.

There is also no description of the driver or suspect vehicle, other than a four-door sedan, with a broken side mirror and likely front-end damage.

The CHP is investigating the killing, since it took place on state property. Anyone with information is urged to call the their Southern Division Major Crimes Unit at 323/644-9550, or the Los Angeles Communication Center at 323/259-3200.

Let’s hope they find this murderous jerk soon, and get him off the roads.

Permanently.

………

No surprise here.

It turns out that ripping out Toronto bike lanes like Ontario Premier Doug Ford — brother of the city’s late crack-smoking mayor — is demanding would actually make the city’s traffic worse, not better.

Meanwhile, a Mastadon user says the hundreds of bicyclists participating in a Toronto protest received a hero’s welcome from both pedestrians and drivers.

And a former Winnipeg city counselor and Canadian cabinet member called for halting new bike lanes, arguing that “Bike lanes have become more symbolic than functional, and symbolism is not enough to justify millions in spending.”

Never mind that bike lanes have repeatedly been shown to boost local businesses and property values while improving safety and livability for everyone.

Which should more than justify the relatively small amount to build new bike lanes, here, there or anywhere.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

Applications are now open for community groups to apply for two programs run by the UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) designed to train people how to assess bicycle and pedestrian safety in their communities, and recommend how to improve it.

………

Be on the lookout for a stolen trailer full of hot bike gear taken from Culver City’s Walk ‘n Rollers.

Not to mention the lowlife schmuck who made off with it.

………

It’s now 341 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

Is anyone really surprised that the leader of an Irish political party says he gets more abuse “week in, week out” while riding his bicycle than he does as a politician?

………

Local  

Streetsblog talks with sustainability advocate, LA County transportation deputy and newly elected Culver City Councilmember Bubba Fish, who restores the city’s narrow progressive majority; losing that majority two years ago resulted in conservative councilmembers ripping out the successful MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes.

Streets For All is encouraging people to become supporting members for just $12 a month, looking to reach 200 members by their member event next month.

Eastern Ave in El Sereno will get a major makeover this fall to bring better bike paths, safer sidewalks, more trees and traffic calming.

 

State

Streetsblog San Francisco examines Emeryville’s nearly completed sidewalk-level Horton Street bike lane.

Sebastopol is looking into the viability of building a multi-use path bisecting the city.

 

National

Now you, too, can build your own ebike out of PVC pipe.

According to the former head of the Federal Highway Administration, barrier-protected bike lanes are a “proven safety countermeasure” that has been shown to reduce crashes “an average of exactly 49 percent on four-lane, undivided collector and local roads” in an urban area, and they have reams of federally compiled data to back it up.

You can find a lot of things while riding your bike, but no one wants to discover human remains along a Phoenix area bike path.

Bike helmets — they’re not just for surviving Oklahoma tornadoes anymore.

New York Magazine considers the best holiday gifts for bicyclists, chosen by bicyclists.

A lifelong Jersey City, New Jersey resident  says a recent op-ed saying plans for a new bike lane are hated by locals relied on cherry-picking opinions while “ignoring both data and the realities of traffic safety.”

The good news is the Pennsylvania legislature didn’t reject a bill legalizing protected bike lanes, but the bad news is they didn’t pass it, either.

Congratulations to workers at DC’s Washington Area Bicyclist Association, who are now officially unionized.

If you’re riding your bike from Delaware to Key West, it only makes sense to honor the late Jimmy Buffet along the way.

 

International

Cycling Weekly asks why cars, trucks and SUVs keep getting bigger, questioning whether it will ever end. And they say modern bikes are so good, they take the worry out of riding.

Bicycling offers advice on how to safely do an Idaho Stop. But you’ll need a subscription to read the story, because this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else. 

Momentum considers the “world’s coolest and most unique” bicycling infrastructure innovations. None of which can be found in Los Angeles. Or the US, even.

A British Columbia judge denied bail to a man accused of trying to use a stolen dump truck to break into an ebike store, after he failed to bust through the security gates despite multiple attempts, just four months after he was arrested for using a forklift to break into a different ebike dealer.

Strange case from Cornwall, England, where a man in his 60s died crashing his bicycle into a parked car, just hours after going missing from a local hospital.

Bike lane opponents in Coventry, England are upset that trees are being cut down to make room for one, but only because they chose saving parking over saving trees.

A writer for the Guardian goes ebiking through Britain’s New Forest National Park.

That’s more like it. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for banning SUVs from the city, warning that they could become weapons against other citizens. Even if the conservative London Telegraph takes great pains to point out that she’s a Socialist — capital S — which has nothing to do with banning SUVs 

A French soccer website criticizes Lionel Messi for his “overpriced bicycle scandal,” after the Argentine superstar introduced his own very high-end bicycle selling for more than $15,000.

New Zealand officials found a 78-year old man safe and well after he failed to return home from a mountain bike ride.

An Aussie program is teaching older women the joys of riding a bicycle. Thanks again to Megan Lynch.

 

Competitive Cycling

Costa Rican pro Andrey Amador called it a career at 38 years old, after he’s been unable to compete since a truck driver ran over his foot and bike while training in Spain last May.

Cycling Up To Date considers five “magical” cycling records Tadej Pogačar could set this year.

American cyclist Neilson Powless, the first Native American to compete in the Tour de France, wants to inspire more Indigenous Americans to get on their bikes.

 

Finally…

Why wait for officials to do something about distracted drivers, when you can just post your own traffic signs saying “Get off your damn phone.” When you’re under house arrest, maybe don’t show up to vote riding a bicycle.

And no, you don’t have to send a thank you note to the driver who gave your kid a new bike after crashing into him and destroying his old one.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Not so much for safety as a shared responsibility, more or less on bike lanes, and just try surviving without one

November 22, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 38 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But sure, raise your hand if you’ve heard a single LA city leader so much as mention it. 

………

He gets it.

A writer for Fast Company says the common refrain of “safety is a shared responsibility” — or “a two-way street” in the parlance of too many newspaper editors — misses the point, absolving those who are really responsible for this country’s inexcusably high rate of traffic deaths.

Innocuous though it may seem, the refrain encapsulates much of what’s wrong with road safety in the U.S., where crash death rates are at least double other rich countries, from Japan to Finland to Canada.

In reality, the duty to prevent collisions should fall on the road engineers, car companies, and public officials who create the system in which people drive, bike, or walk—and not on road users themselves. By lumping everyone together, the phrase blurs that distinction, allowing those who can do the most to save lives to dodge accountability.

It’s worth giving it a quick read, because there are a lot of people to blame for the rising death toll on our streets.

Starting with the people who build and market oversized and over-powered vehicles virtually designed to kill. Not to mention the engineers and politicians who build the roads they speed on.

But the actual victims, not so much.

Graphic from Bike Santa Clarita. 

………

Today’s common theme is bike lanes, And more bike lanes.

Or fewer bike lanes, even, in a few cases.

Velo says bike lanes make the road safer for everyone, not just bicyclists, citing a new study showing that adding bike lanes to a busy intersection makes drivers slow down, whether going straight or turning right.

No surprise here, as San Diego’s notoriously anti-bike lane OB Rag picked up the anti-bike lane screed from the Washington Post we debunked yesterday. And trust me, you don’t want to read the comments. 

A Petaluma op-ed considers the health benefits of the city’s bike lanes, including encouraging people to bike instead of driving.

You’ve got to be kidding. Quebec’s anti-bike provincial government covers its bases by amending the bill allowing them to overrule local governments to rip out bike lanes, by absolving themselves of any liability for anyone killed or injured after one is removed.

Seriously? City officials in Bangkok ripped out a new bike lane just one day after it was installed, reopening the lane to motor vehicles and apologizing for the traffic “chaos” it caused. Never mind that drivers likely would have adjusted to the change if they gave them half a chance.

And heading back to Quebec, a tongue-in-cheek new game clarifies the risks to riders once the lanes are removed. I lasted a whopping 51 seconds before dying in a dooring; thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

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The OC Wheelmen say it’s starting to look a lot like party time.

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Yes, that pretty much sums up the value of hi-viz.

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It’s now 338 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

You’re invited to attend the official opening of the new Bouquet Canyon Trail in Saugus this Monday.

 

State

Calbike is hosting a Zoom meeting December 3rd to unveil their priorities to make California’s streets safer and more sustainable.

More bad news from the Victorville area, where a man riding a bicycle was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver in nearby Apple Valley Thursday night.

Ventura nonprofit Bikes 4 a Cause will offer a free class to teach kids to ride a bicycle tomorrow.

Bad news from Northern California, where a man was killed while either riding or walking his bicycle in Del Norte County.

 

National

Singletraks offers 13 gifts for the “badass” modern mountain biking women in your life.

If you bought your kid a Nerf Barrage Bike Helmet from Walmart, it’s been recalled because they don’t meet mandatory federal safety regulations and could result in a head injury. Never mind why the hell you’d put your kid in a Nerf helmet to begin with. 

That’s more like it. A 27-year old Las Vegas man will spend up to ten years behind bars — and at least four — after copping a plea to killing an ebike rider while speeding and driving under the influence with a suspended license. Although maybe someone should tell the TV station the victim probably had a name, too. 

A writer in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown says the site of the old Colorado State University Rams football stadium would make the perfect site for a bike park to serve kids and adults. I once saw the Rams kicker set the NCAA record for the longest field goal there — which lasted about half an hour until someone else at another college broke it. 

Des Moines, Iowa opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge over the Racoon River.

A Texas man will spend the next 42 months behind bars after pleading guilty to stealing six bikes worth more than $100,000 from Lance Armstrong’s storage locker; no word on whether Lance ever got them back. Although if it makes you feel better, one of the bikes was only worth 500 bucks.

Tragic news, as it turns out the Mississippi woman killed in a dispute over a bicycle that we mentioned yesterday was shot multiple times by her own 29-year old daughter, who now faces a murder charge along with another man.

 

International

Road.cc recommends budget-friendly gifts under the equivalent of $68 for the bicyclist in your life. Hint: You’re probably the bicyclist in your life. Just saying. 

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Momentum offers a guide to biking in Reykjavik, Iceland. Better yet, you’re only 40 miles or so from the active volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula. 

That’s more like it. A British driver with a history of speeding got a well-deserved eight years behind bars for killing a 12-year old boy riding a bicycle, after recklessly weaving while speeding through traffic and roaring his engine.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old Irishman — from Tipperary, no less — is keeping fit by riding his new ebike, after years riding a racing bike.

Aussie adventure cyclist Jimmy Ashby — named Australian Geographic’s Young Adventurer of the Year for 2019 — spent the last 11 months riding his bike from Asia to the Middle East to North America and home again. So what did you do this year?

 

Competitive Cycling

British road champion Pfeiffer Georgi still won’t watch video of her crash at the Tour de France Femmes, when she went over her handlebars in a mass crash and fractured her neck, but she says she’s ready to get off her sofa and back onto her bike — and hopefully make it back to the Tour next year.

Remco Evenepoel’s road to the 2025 Tour de France runs through an American wind tunnel.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be both recycled and recyclable. You can never have enough lights on your bike — or a jersey that says you’re packing.

And if the cops can catch a violent bikejacker less than a day after installing bike path security cams, maybe they should have done it just a tad sooner.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Washington Post meets windshield bias, break-in at Hollywood and Vine Bike Hub, and Metro wants their MOVE money back

November 21, 2024 / / Comments Off on Washington Post meets windshield bias, break-in at Hollywood and Vine Bike Hub, and Metro wants their MOVE money back
Just 39 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But sure, raise your hand if you’ve heard a single LA city leader so much as mention it. 

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Washington Post, meet windshield bias.

Marc Fisher, a columnist and associate editor for the paper, penned an essay purporting to tell “the truth about bike lanes,” which largely doesn’t.

Rather, he suggests that traffic calming and bike lanes are more about intentionally gumming up traffic to discourage people from driving, and encourage gentrification to change the ethnic and economic demographics of the city.

In other words, he tells us he doesn’t understand traffic safety and urban planning without telling us.

The District’s planners are intent on putting many of the city’s most important streets on what’s called a “road diet,” which sounds healthy and nutritious but is actually a recipe for traffic constipation and commuter headaches — and maybe a stealth mechanism for encouraging a wholesale shift in race and class in certain neighborhoods…

Across town, on South Dakota Avenue NE, the fight is ongoing, and, as The Post’s Rachel Weiner reported, this squabble reveals an essential truth about bike lanes as weapons of civic planning: They are often installed not to satisfy the barely measurable trickle of residents who pedal to work but mainly to make car traffic worse enough that people will be discouraged from driving.

He goes on to site the reasons given by city officials for DC’s traffic calming efforts, before rejecting them.

“Just as the big, wide lanes we have now induce speeding and reckless driving” Kapur tells me, so too would bike lanes induce slower driving — and maybe more bike riding.

Not so fast he says, citing federal statistics showing the percentage of residents who bike to work has dropped every year since reaching a peak of 5% in 2017, down to 3% — in 2022.

Never mind that the proportion of DC residents who work from home jumped from just over 7% in 2017 to more than 33% just five years later. So of course the percentage of bike commuters dropped, along with every other form of transportation, as more workers stayed home.

Then he makes a quick pivot to the racial makeup of bike riders, citing a Virginia Tech study showing 88% of bike riders are white.

But as he says, not so fast.

The study he cites dates back to 2008, and involves both the urban and suburban jurisdictions of the greater Washington, DC area, including Alexandria, Arlington County, and Fairfax County in Virginia; and Montgomery County and Prince George’s County in Maryland.

In other words, the largely Black and relatively small population of DC is conflated with the largely white, affluent and much larger populations of the suburbs. So even if a higher proportion of Black DC residents biked to work than in other areas, their numbers would be swamped by all the white suburban residents.

Never mind that the numbers he cites are more than a decade and a half out of date.

But taking the time to uncover more recent data might not support his premise that the whole reason to install bike lanes is to gum up drivers commutes and change the racial makeup of the city.

Nope.

No bias there.

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If you keep your bike — or anything else — at the Hollywood and Vine Bike Hub, you might want to check on it tout suite.

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It’s now 337 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 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, either. A Marin newspaper says the trial part-time removal of the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge makes it clear that the bridge should see a car-only future, in which bike commuters should be happy to be carted across in a shuttle van, climate crisis be damned.

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Local  

The Complete Streets makeover of Fountain Avenue was the clear winner in the recent West Hollywood election, even if it wasn’t on the ballot. And even if opponents don’t think so.

Metro wants its money back for the MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes ripped out by the city’s recent conservative council majority, sending Culver City a bill for the full $435,000 grant.

 

State

A kindhearted California couple who lost their son to suicide drove across the county to give his bicycle to a young boy who lost his father the same way.

Irvine unveiled the city’s first physically separated, Class IV bikeway, a 1.25-mile route near the city’s Great Park.

Circulate San Diego offers an annual recap of the city’s bicycle and pedestrian OTS safety program.

 

National

Electrek shares ten things you really should know before buying an ebike.

Streetsblog explains everything you need to know about D-list reality TV star and new Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Duffy, amid fears he’ll take an axe to anything that doesn’t burn fossil fuels.

Seattle bicyclists can now use an app to report anything from bike lane obstructions and street sweeping needs to missing bike lane signs and road markings.

A novice New York bike rider shares the insights she gained after being talked into a 79-mile fundraising ride to fight breast cancer.

New York’s Central Park Conservancy calls for a major makeover of the park, with a rendering showing separate running and walking paths, along with a bike lane next to a shared traffic lane, presumably for faster riders.

Finishing our New York trifecta, the NYPD has released a photo of the pickup driver who killed a bike-riding woman as he fled from police, who were responding to a burglary call; a witness says the victim rang her bike bell to warn him, saving his life before sacrificing hers.

A woman in Jackson, Mississippi was shot and killed in a dispute over a stolen bicycle; two people now face charges. As we’ve said before, no bike is worth a human life. Just give it up and live to ride another day.

 

International

Clean Technica recommends improving your safety with “unique” bar-end rear vier mirrors, unless you’d rather have one you can attach to your glasses.

A British startup is installing app-controlled smart bike parking docks, which appear to be standard U-racks with a heavy-ass chain attached.

Amsterdam continues to raise the bar for everyone and everywhere else, crafting a new state-of-the-art main bicycling route along the Amstel River.

Italian bikemaker Colnago goes retro with a Columbus steel framed road bike to celebrate their 70th anniversary.

The government of Hong Kong has postponed a requirement for bike helmets until next year, saying they need more time to work out the details.

China Digital Times offers a brief first-person account of the massive Zhengzhou to Kaifeng nighttime dumpling ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Columbian cyclist Nairo Quintana took advantage of the opportunity after receiving the country’s Order of Democracy Simon Bolivar to warn that the country’s athletes face massive budget cuts.

Cycling Up To Date examines how Denmark produces such talented cyclists, from Bjarne Riis to Jonas Vingegaard. Although that’s a question that might be better directed towards Slovenia these days.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can carry your spare wheels in a bigass square backpack. If God is on your side, wouldn’t you actually finish the world championships?

And country star Dierks Bentley is one of us.

 

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Cover your ass with uninsured motorist coverage, new Baldwin Park bike lanes, and dead bear bike framer to head HHS

November 18, 2024 / / 4 comments
Just 42 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Good advice from Oceanside bike injury attorney and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette not to skimp on the uninsured motorist coverage on your auto insurance policy, which could protect you financially, if not physically, if you’re struck by a driver.

It’s a topic we’ve covered before.

Maybe someday insurance companies will figure out that maybe we’d like to be able to buy our own insurance policies, even if you don’t own a car.

Jackass photo from Pixabay, reminding you to, well, you get it. 

………

Yes, please.

Although I’m told this is actually in Baldwin Park, not Baldwin Hills. Just too many Baldwins out there.

And Streetsblog visits LA County’s new Vincent Community Bikeway, with includes stretches of “new creekside bike/walk paths, connected by on-street protected bike lanes.” If you consider car-tickler plastic bendy posts protection, that is. 

………

Bay Area bicyclists rode to protest a proposal to make the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge just part-time during non-rush hours. Because evidently, only drivers need to commute at regular work times. 

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

It’s now 334 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

The families of Ontario traffic victims rallied to criticize provincial Premier Doug Ford’s anti-bike lane bill; it could adversely affect handicapped people, as well.

Hamilton city counselors reject the “war on cars” label, and tell Ford to butt out of the city’s business.

A new survey shows Canadians are all in favor of bicycling infrastructure — as long as it’s not in the roadway.

No bias here. Welsh drivers claim that narrowing a roadway to make room for a bike path is an “attack on your right to drive a car.” Because evidently, they’re entitled to every inch of the road. Or think they are, anyway. 

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

A writer for the Virginia Tech student newspaper correctly points out that both bicyclists and non-riders need to show better etiquette on the roads. But only the bad etiquette from drivers is likely to get someone killed. 

No bias here, either. The London Times calls out “rogue cyclists” who’ve knocked down children and the elderly in the city’s parks. Never mind that sometimes people step into the path of a bicycle without looking, or the overwhelming majority of people who ride safely. And just wait until they hear about all those “rogue” drivers out there.

A British mom criticizes a bike rider for “uttering the worst excuse” after crashing into her disabled son while riding on the sidewalk, saying he couldn’t stop in time. It may be valid to criticize the rider for riding too fast, or even being on the sidewalk in the first place. But somehow expecting him to know her kid had a blood disorder, or being able to stop instantly under any circumstance, is asking too much. 

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Local  

The LAPD is looking for the suspect who fled on a bicycle after shooting and killing a man on Pacific Ave in San Pedro.

Streets For All is calling for anyone who lives, works or shops — or rides, for that matter — in Burbank to turn out tomorrow to support dedicated lines for the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project through the city.

 

State

San Diego residents called for safer streets on the World Day of Remembrance for the victims of traffic violence.

An op-ed from a Petaluma small business owner and safe streets advocate says the city needs to build a bike-friendly future.

They get it, sort of. The Sacramento Bee writes that the city needs funding for safer streets fast, because they’re killing people at alarming rates. But then they hid their editorial behind a paywall, as if no one really needs to see it.

 

National

A coalition of organizations working to end car crash deaths and serious injuries in America penned an open letter calling on the incoming administration and Congress to unite to solve the country’s roadway crisis. I only wish I still had hope that might happen. 

Bicycling says Trump’s proposed tariffs could make your next bike much more expensive. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Life is cheap in Ohio, where a woman got a whole 60 days behind bars — or 59 with time served — for killing a 12-year old boy who was riding his bicycle, after her attorney got a blood alcohol test tossed showing she was over three times the legal limit. But at least her license was suspended for five years. Because as we all know, no one would ever consider driving on a suspended license, right?

Massachusetts bicyclists rallied at the state capital to demand an end to traffic violence.

The night after Trump won the White House and Republicans took Congress, a DC church erupted in anger — over proposed bike lanes, not the election.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Florida jury acquitted a 77-year old woman on hit-and-run charges after a bike-riding man was killed when she cut him off in a crosswalk, because her lawyer managed to convince them she didn’t know she’d hit anyone. Seriously, if you don’t know when you’ve even been in a crash, you shouldn’t be driving. And if you shouldn’t be driving in the first place, you should be held accountable for whatever happens if you do.

 

International

Cycling Weekly wades into the debate over whether or not you should ride your bike after dark. Because evidently, only people who drive need to go out at night. Or home, for that matter. 

They get it. Momentum says governments should start paying people to bike to work to confront traffic congestion, pollution and sedentary lifestyles, like some cities in Europe are doing.

A British radio host completed a 300-mile ride from Wales to Scotland on a Raleigh Chopper bike, raising the equivalent of over $9.4 million for children in need.

LeMonde says anti-bicyclist anger is rising in France. But you’ll have to subscribe if you want to read the whole thing. 

Life is cheap in Singapore, where a former actor was fined the equivalent of a whopping $2,230 for injuring a man riding a bicycle. But at least he was banned from driving for five years. And in Singapore, that might actually mean something. 

An Aussie driver considers why some bicyclists have a capacity to inflame drivers’ emotions — which is putting it mildly — when even riders who don’t move into single file aren’t that hard to pass.

 

Competitive Cycling

Somebody give that boy a sandwich, already.

 

Finally…

You can see a lot from your bike — like a rabbit-like rodent on the wrong damn continent. Even the safest streets aren’t safe when drivers aren’t.

And the guy nominated to head up the US Health Department is the same anti-bike lane schmuck who dumped a dead bear on a Central Park bike path to frame bike riders for its killing.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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