Germany isn’t just doing things right when it comes to the pandemic; the country also reached a 60-year low in traffic fatalities, despite a record high in traffic collisions. However, German bicycling deaths are up, climbing 16.8% over the past decade.
CyclingTipstakes a ride up the the Col de la Loze, the highest point on this year’s Tour de France — again, assuming it happens — and the fourth highest climb in the French Alps.
Except that study was already conducted ten years ago, when the city studies, and unanimously adopted, an entire network of Slow Streets, then called Bicycle Friendly Streets, as part of the 2010 bike plan.
A plan whose entire existence seems to be forgotten these days.
He’s the 2-time defending national champ in a sport you may not be familiar with. From South Central LA, Justin Williams is the best Criterium Cyclist in the country and one of the only African-American riders. Now, he’s using his platform to grow his sport and support the current protests in a push for equality everywhere.
Note: If the video doesn’t show up on your browser, just click the link above.
Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.
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Major cities around the world are taking advantage of the pandemic slowdowns to install popup and permanent bikeways and pedestrian improvements.
For years, Mahatma Gandhi commuted to work on a bike on a 16km round-trip. Last year, a statue of Gandhi on a bike was unveiled in New Delhi—now that's the kind of statue I can get behind! pic.twitter.com/zjSufuhhO8
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Pasadena police busted a bike-riding armed robber after recognizing the description given by the victim as a local transient; officers recovered some of the money, as well as the bike he was riding. Which is cop talk for saying that was probably stolen, too.
Car clogged Mumbai is getting 24 bicycle councilors, one for each of the city’s 24 districts, with a goal of making the city the bicycling capital of the world by 2030.
It had become clear in recent months that the Feds had Huizar in their sights, after a string of lower-level aides and go-betweens copped pleas that clearly implicated him.
Huizar, who was largely responsible for the bike-friendly Complete Streets makeover of Downtown Los Angeles in recent years, was charged under the RICO act for running a corrupt enterprise.
His arrest, along with the conviction of former San Fernando Valley Councilmember Mitch Englander, raises questions of whether anyone else was involved, and who else the Feds could be looking at.
The remaining city councilmembers voted unanimously to suspend Huizar from the council after his arrest; he was urged to resign before his term ends at the end of the year so Councilmember-elect Kevin de Leon can take over the seat.
Let’s hope de Leon turns out to be as much of a supporter of bicycles and Complete Streets as Huizar has been.
Speaking of DTLA, it looks like Olive Street is about to get an upgrade.
While a bus lane is still under consideration with @metrolosangeles, LADOT crews began marking the street last night for a bike lane upgrade with striping soon to follow. Here’s a look of what the street will look like once implementation is complete. pic.twitter.com/DyUcemToSX
You might want to avoid Laguna Niguel’s Camino Capistrano for awhile.
Construction Alert! Camino Capistrano in Laguna Niguel will be impacted through August. OCBC has expressed concerns about the design of this project and has offered suggestions to improve it. Be careful! @bikinginlapic.twitter.com/3hdHHgktSk
— Orange County Bicycle Coalition (@OCbike) June 23, 2020
Retired Belarusian pro Kanstantsin Siutsou got a four year ban for doping; the former Giro stage winner failed a test for EPO two years ago. Like that ban will really sting since he doesn’t compete anymore; it’s like firing someone two years after he quit. But hey, the doping era is over, right?
I continue to be surprised by the unexpected donations that have been coming in to support this site lately. Thanks to Carlos A and Bernard B for their generous donations to keep SoCal’s best bike news coming your way every day.
And note to Bernard — You’re welcome!
Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already.
The driver was reportedly traveling at least 75 mph — over twice the legal speed limit — while swerving around cars and onto the wrong side of the roadway in the moments leading up to the crash, and just missing a woman riding her bike.
The scooter rider, who has not been publicly identified, wasn’t so lucky; two other people were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Fortunately, the newly reopened restaurant hadn’t begun its lunch service yet, or the situation could have been much worse.
This is exactly the problem many people have been warning against for weeks, myself included, as Los Angeles has failed to take any significant action to slow traffic on streets lightened by the coronavirus pandemic.
While traffic has seen a significant uptick in recent weeks, there still aren’t enough vehicles on the streets to slow people who can’t seem to keep their foot off the gas pedal.
Other cities around the world have taken advantage of the lighter traffic to reduce road capacity, carving out additional space to walk or ride bikes in an effort to slow traffic and provide safe alternatives to driving.
Yet LA has done nothing more significant than change the timing of some traffic lights.
Now an innocent person is dead because of it.
Thanks to John Damman for the heads-up.
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Speaking of who we share the roads with, an Eagle Rock driver can’t seem to grasp the concept of Slow Streets.
Or maybe just that they don’t belong to people in cars.
Driver in gold sedan honked and shouted “not a bike zone, I called the city about this!” before forcing their way through. The success of Slow Streets shouldn’t be measured by angry, misinformed people that call the city but instead by the happy families using the street. pic.twitter.com/alo8nMPVw8
They may be responsible for similar attacks in Culver City and Marina del Rey.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Sexual Assault Section at LAPD’s Operation West Bureau, 213/473-0447.
Because no one should have to put up with this crap.
Period.
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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Patrick Pascal forwards a series of photos showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same on DTLA’s 7th Street, where the newly protected and buffered bike lanes are still nothing more than parking lanes for Downtown’s entitled drivers.
Photos by Patrick Pascal.
He also notes that the cop shown here spends a lot of time on the street. But never seems to ticket anyone on four wheels.
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A new video prepared for the NACTO’s Bike Share and Cities for Cycling Roundtable talks with disabled people to show they ride bikes, too — and need to be taken into account when infrastructure plans are considered.
Frequent BikinginLA contributor Megan Lynch is one of the riders they talk with; you’ll find her around the three-minute mark.
She stresses that, in addition to her comments in the video, bike parking needs to accommodate less traditional bicycle designs used by handicapped riders, including recumbents, ebikes and adaptive bikes.
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Gravel Bike California offers a video guide to one of the best climbs in Los Angeles.
Thanks to CiclaValley’s Zachary Rynew for the link.
Would someone please tell the Fountain Valley Fire Department that a bike helmet isn’t the best way to prevent head injuries and death? It’s a lot better to ride safely and defensively, and avoid crashes in the first place; helmets should always been seen as the last resort when all else fails. Not the first.
A coalition of Connecticut organizations, businesses and individuals have called the state’s electric car rebate program inequitable because it only applies to electric cars, arguing it should offer rebates on more affordable ebikes, as well.
Police in New Jersey’s Long Beach remind residents and visitors that traffic safety is a shared responsibility. Which is true, unfortunately, since no one can seem to get the people in the big, deadly machines to behave.
A London TV presenter is encouraged by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s proclamation of a golden age of cycling and decides to give it a try, but finds the experience terrifying.
The Guardianexamines one of the UK’s toughest bike rides, the 79-year old Cape Wrath Challenge, on eleven miles of single track through Scotland’s windswept moors to a craggy Victorian lighthouse.
June 16, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LADOT drops DTLA bike lanes in favor of parking, Pomona thinks bike lanes are for kids, and LAFD on bikes
One quick note.
I renewed my annual membership in the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition last night.
With the LACBC facing financial difficulties stemming from the coronavirus crisis, as well as major financial mismanagement by the previous executive director, who shall forevermore go unnamed here, it’s more important than ever to join or renew your membership.
Or just make a donation to keep the LACBC fighting for your right to ride safely on our streets.
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I have a confession to make.
Ever since the company my wife works for — correction, worked for — shut down for the coronavirus lockdown, never to return, I haven’t been able to dig into the details on bike projects the way I’d like.
As much as I enjoy having her around, I miss those nine hours or so to myself everyday to gets things done.
Fortunately, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton is here to take up the slack.
But what I didn’t realize was that those bike lanes are only planned for just over half of the 1.3 mile project.
As Joe explains it,
Overall this is a good project. It’s a worthwhile improvement over what is out there today.
I did get a little frustrated about bike lanes on these streets. The city is adding left-side bike lanes (a one-way street best practice – like bike lanes on Spring and Main Streets) but only on about 0.7-mile of the overall 1.3-mile project – just over half the project. The issue is parking – there are two blocks of on-street parking that would need to be removed. While I personally would favor removing that parking, I understand it’s not easy politically.
I am still frustrated though that the city is basically throwing out 7 blocks of bike lanes because just 2 blocks are difficult. I wrote a letter to try to get the city to do the remaining 5 easy blocks of bike lane – which would connect Pershing Square with the downtown library.
That’s right.
LADOT, which is supposedly tasked with implementing the mobility plan, bike plan, Vision Zero, and the mayor’s Green New Deal plan to dramatically reduce driving in the city, is skipping a full seven blocks of bike lanes in favor of two lousy blocks of car parking.
In Downtown Los Angeles, no less, which UCLA parking meister Donald Shoup describes as having more parking per acre than any other city.
No, anywhere.
Which pretty much tells you where people on bicycles rate in the city’s transportation hierarchy these days.
Like several steps below cars. And maybe a step or two above road kill.
He suggests emailing city officials to politely request that they install additional bike lanes, at least on the five blocks where it doesn’t require the removal of parking spaces, and wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.
And he even provides a sample letter, while stressing that you should put it in your own words.
Email addresses:
councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
mayor.helpdesk@lacity.org
seleta.reynolds@lacity.org
and bcc Joe Linton at linton.joe@gmail.com)
Sample letter:
Honorable Councilmember Huizar, Mayor Garcetti, and General Manager Reynolds –
I write to you in support of adding bus and bike lanes to the greatest extent possible on 5th and 6th Streets downtown.
BSS is repaving these streets starting June 15th. LADOT announced that bus lanes will be added from Figueroa to Central, and left-side bike lanes will be added from Spring to Central.
Thank you all for your role in bringing much needed bus lanes, which will improve transit, air quality, equity, and quality of life for Angelenos.
Thank you all for the needed bike lanes, which will improve safety and health. I urge you though to extend the bike lanes further than the current announced length. It appears that LADOT is skipping seven blocks (Figueroa to Spring) of bike lanes to preserve two blocks (Hill to Spring) of parking.
At a minimum, the city should install a left-side bike lane for the missing five blocks – from Hill to Figueroa – where there is sufficient space and no parking removal necessary. Adding this bike lane would keep cyclists safer, as well as keeping us out of the bus lane, making the bus lane more effective.
Sincerely,
[name]
[street address]
I’ll send my email later today. And I hope you will, too.
Because there’s no reason our safety should take a backseat to a parked car.
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Apparently, bike lanes are for kids in Pomona. Or at least, they now come under the Youth Services budget.
Library funding, landscape maintenance, and park facility maintenance now being counted as part of the "youth services" budget pic.twitter.com/HK6WTIyOeo
— henryfung@onewilshire.la/bsky (@calwatch) June 16, 2020
Thanks to Eric Griswold for the heads-up.
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Who needs a firetruck or paramedic unit when you’ve got bicycles?
The Sonoma bicyclist killed in a hit-and-run a couple weeks ago has been identified as a 35-year old Romanian entrepreneur, who was killed when a passing pickup driver struck him in the head with the truck’s wing mirror; the damaged truck was found a few miles away, but the driver still hasn’t been arrested.
April 22, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA cuts budget for failing Vision Zero, fight for more space on coronavirus slowed streets, and a 7-year old gets bike safety
Los Angeles has failed on Vision Zero.
The program remains a vastly underfunded afterthought, both on LA streets and in the halls of power.
If they bother to think about it at all, that is.
Which is why it took shutting the city down for Covid-19 to make any impact on the rate of fatal traffic collisions. And which are bound to rebound as soon as the lockdown ends.
So what is the obvious next step for the City of Angels?
Let’s all give a round of applause to Evangelina Gatto, better known as Evie to her friends and family, for her outstanding creative skills and love of bicycling.
We’ve given the Governors Highway Safety Association their share of criticism over the years.
But they get it right this time.
NOTE TO MEDIA: When writing about traffic safety, please use the term "crash," not "accident." It's more accurate. "Accident" suggests something unforeseen & that no one is to blame. Motor vehicle crashes are predictable results of specific actions. #CrashNotAccident#DriveSafepic.twitter.com/586DJCbPHI
This is why people keep dying on our streets. Witnesses saw a Pennsylvania driver toss a beer after running down a kid on a bike, his car smelled of weed, and he had seven convictions for driving without a license. And hadn’t had one since 2001.
The UK is being sued over its £28.8 billion plan road expansion plan — the equivalent of over $35 billion — for violating the country’s commitment under the Paris Agreement; the same people halted a planned expansion of London’s Heathrow airport using a similar argument.
The new and improved — and significantly cheaper — ebike from Dutch bikemaker VanMoof looks like a big hit, with positive reviews from The Verge, The Next Web, and Forbes, with prices starting a couple notches below two grand.
Thanks to Dennis E for his generous donation to help support this site. I’m truly blown away that someone would dip into their own funds to help out during the current financial crisis.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already.
April 17, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Metro bus layover blocks San Fernando Valley bike lane, three easy steps to safer streets, and biking through the pandemic
What good is a bike lane when it doubles as a layover space for Metro buses?
That’s the question Steven Hallett asked in an email to CD12 Councilmember John Lee.
With more and more bicycles on the road, clear, safe, unobstructed bicycle lanes are vital. While there are several I would like to point out, I will address only one at this time. Just east of Porter Ranch Dr on Rinaldi St in Porter Ranch There is a bus layover zone that blocks the bike lane. It is just around a curve and is blocked by bushes, so when I am on my on a bike, I cannot see it until I get very close forcing me to either use the traffic lane or stop and wait for the traffic lane to clear. To be clear, I am not talking about a bus stop (pick-up / drop off), but a layover where one, two, and sometimes three buses are parked for an extended periods of time waiting for their run to start. On top of that, the bike lane where the buses park is very damaged —sunken and very cracked (bus stops usually have a concrete pad, this lay over zone does not!). I have been on the MTA web site to try and find out what “Rule 2.15” is that allows (illegally!) buses to park in the bike lane with no success. I certainly couldn’t park my truck there just because I wanted to! I have also emailed various departments at the MTA with no response what-so-ever, not even a polite response. I am including pictures showing the blocked bike lane, the No Parking Anytime (NO PARKING ANYTIME) sign, and the MTA sign with the reference to ‘Rule 2.15. It is your responsibility to make our community safe!
We’ll see if he gets a response from Lee, who isn’t exactly known for his concern for anyone who doesn’t get around by car.
Especially since he hasn’t gotten anywhere with Metro.
Robert Leone forwards a trio of reasonable and easy steps from the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition on how to make streets safer for people on bikes and on foot.
Too bad LA’s city leaders aren’t on their mailing list.
Publicize a reduced speed advisory to 15 mph for residential streets to keep everyone walking and biking safe. More people are walking and biking in their neighborhoods to get exercise and travel to essential services nearby. With less car traffic, people are speeding down roads, endangering those walking and biking. A reduced speed advisory publicized by the city and local police would help raise awareness and lead to fewer crashes and injuries among people and less burden on the healthcare system.
An additional step would be to adjust signal timing to slow vehicle speeds and ensure safety
More space for the increased number of people walking and biking. Our biking and walking networks are insufficient to meet the needs of people getting exercise outdoors and traveling while maintaining six feet of social distance. We recommend identifying streets where bikeways and sidewalks could be expanded, creating quick build or pilot bikeways and sidewalks on streets that have excess vehicle lanes. SVBC is ready to help identify streets and rally volunteers to install signs and barricades to make it work. (Oakland announced April 10 that they would be closing 74 miles/10% of streets to cars– see plan).
Switch the pedestrian phase of traffic signals to be automatic and ensurethat bicycles are captured at traffic signals. Adjusting pedestrian signals so pushing a button is no longer needed to cross the street limits the amount of surfaces a person must touch, helping curb the spread of COVID-19. This is simpler for some cities than others depending on how their traffic signal system operates (either a central operating space or having to go out to individual signals). Thank you to San José and Redwood City for already doing this!
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.
Angry English villagers stop just short of getting out the pitchforks and torches, ripping the sheets off someone’s bed to demand that bicyclists stop “panting” in their village and just stay away. They’re assuming that it’s the people on bikes who may be infected with the virus, when it’s just as likely the people on two wheels risk of catching it from the villagers. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.
Bike Santa Fe’s Brian Kreimendahl forwards news about the arrest of a killer hit-and-run driver, who says she thought she’d just hit a traffic cone instead of the bike rider she left dying on the side of the road. And swears she only had one drink that night. Sure. Let’s got with that.
Evidently, you can’t drive away from justice. After a Toronto woman repeatedly flipped off a person for filming her blocking a bike lane, she drove off before police could give her a ticket. But it will be coming in the mail, anyway.
A writer for Bike Radar says his new Surly fixie is keeping him sane during the UK’s coronavirus lockdown. Something most people who ride bikes can probably relate to.
April 16, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Taking streets back from cars, petition to implement Mobility Plan during LA street work, and traffic is a virus
A couple quick notes.
First, thanks to everyone for the kind words after yesterday’s meltdown. I love what I do, but sometimes it can be a lot to handle. Especially now.
Second, I ran out of time to dip into my inbox tonight. So if you sent me something this week, I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.
And finally, my apologies if I failed to credit anyone in today’s post. I’ve lost track of who sent me what over the past couple days, but I truly appreciate your help. Even if I do have mush for brains sometimes.
Once again, a hit-and-run driver has carried the victim home with him. A North Carolina pickup driver fled the scene after hitting a bike rider, who landed in the back of his truck; the driver’s girlfriend found the victim an hour after the crash, seriously injured with multiple broken bones and no idea how he got there.
Horrible news from North Carolina, where two teenage boys sharing a bicycle were killed when they were struck by a driver; police were quick to blame the victims for wearing dark clothing and not having lights or reflectors on their bike. Evidently, the car must not have had headlights, either.
And yes, that means the predominantly black, Hispanic and immigrant neighborhoods mostly south of the 10 Freeway, along with other area in East LA and the San Fernando Valley.
It is the first Friday of April, 15 days after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a statewide shelter-in-place order. In Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other large cities in California—as well as in many other states—bike shops have been classified as essential businesses, a move that has been celebrated by some and derided by others. Some critics have argued that bike shops primarily cater to privileged fitness-oriented hobbyists and that putting shop staff in harm’s way (and risking community spread of disease) to serve recreational riders is unwise. But that assumption renders invisible the thousands of neighborhood shops in cities across the country that serve customers who mostly rely on bicycles to facilitate their livelihoods, customers from some of the most economically vulnerable communities in the U.S.
In LA, for example, Paisano’s and other shops in neighborhoods like Compton and South Los Angeles provide a vital service to people who depend on bicycles to get to and from work. These small businesses are perhaps 15 miles and universe away from LA’s affluent coastal suburbs where bike shops are typically stocked with $300 bib shorts and $10,000 road bikes.
Shops that many of us are familiar with, or at least heard of.
Along with others you may not know, like Linares Bike Shop, and Filipe’s #2 in Pico Union.
Shops where new bicycles sell for as little as $200, purchased on layaway. And where essential takes on a whole new meaning for people who have no other way to get to work.
Census data indicates that one in eight households in the city of Los Angeles don’t have a car. That figure is considerably higher in a low-income community like South LA.
Consider the neighborhood known as South Park—where Paisano’s is located, as well as another popular shop called Linares. Here the community is 79 percent Latino, 19 percent black, and zero percent white. According to data compiled by the real estate brand Trulia, households in this zip code have only 0.37 vehicles per capita, roughly half the median in LA. And according to an analysis published by the Los Angeles Times, the median household income in South Park is $29,518.
Many customers rely on their neighborhood shops because they don’t have the luxury of doing repair work themselves. “If you have a bad cut, you go to a doctor,” says Tejeda, who notes that most of his customers lack even the most basic tools like pumps and levers. “People bring their bikes here. It’s a trade for a reason.”
According to Flax, though, the owners are scared.
Scared of a virus that could come in undetected, carried in by a careless customer or some other visitor. And perhaps even more scared of losing their employees and businesses to a prolonged economic slump.
When asked how things are really going, Linares looks at his feet for a minute and bites his lower lip. “I’ve started closing the shop earlier now. I’m worried a lot about the business,” he says, pointing to the register. “What we make today is what me and the employees have for the day.”
And this.
When asked how business is going, Ambrosia gets animated as he responds in Spanish. “He says business has gone down a lot because people have no money, no jobs,” Mendoza says, translating before he adds his own commentary. “He is scared to work in the shop now, but he has no choice. He needs money for his house.”
Bike shops like these are the backbone of these neighborhoods and our communities, and need to be saved.
But the question is how.
The people in the local communities can’t do it. Too many are on the bottom rungs of society as it is, and the ones most hurt by the shutdown of so many businesses.
A crowdfunding campaign might make sense. But it would be hard to bring in enough donations to make a difference, and harder still to distribute it equitably to the many shops that so desperately need help right now.
If these businesses were more sophisticated, we could just visit their webpages and buy something, anything. Maybe pay off those layaways, or buy one of those sub-$200 bikes and give it to someone who needs one.
But few even have a website, and fewer still are set up for e-commerce.
As in, none.
So the best solution may be to take your bike in for service if you can, and maybe pick up something while you’re there.
Will that be enough to save these shops, and the countless other small local bike shops that are struggling to survive in these desperate days?
Probably not.
Maybe someone smarter than me has the answer.
Because you might never visit one of these shops. But we’re all going to miss them when they’re gone.
On the other hand, Los Angeles is closing paths, parks and trails, and just telling bike riders and pedestrians to stay home, while allowing motor vehicles to maintain their near-exclusive hegemony over the newly nearly empty streets.
Streets for All and the LACBC are working to get street closures here. Whether they’ll be successful remains to be seen.
Last year, 244 people were killed in traffic collisions on city streets, a decrease of 0.8% compared to 2018, according to preliminary figures from the city. The victims included 134 people who were walking and 19 people biking.
The data may change slightly with additional analysis, officials said. But the early figures suggest another year of lackluster progress for Vision Zero, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s initiative to eliminate traffic deaths on city streets by 2025.
That’s two more bicycling deaths than I showed in my records. Which isn’t too surprising, since too many fatal crashes never make the news.
But instead of placing blame on the city’s insistence at nibbling on the edges of traffic safety, rather than making the wholesale changes to LA streets that define a true Vision Zero program, the city insists on pointing the finger at texting drivers.
Which is a major problem, of course.
But Vision Zero is supposed to be about accepting that people will always make mistakes behind the wheel — like texting, for instance. And designing roadways in such a way that those mistakes don’t become fatalities.
According to the story,
The Transportation Department made more changes to streets in L.A. in 2019 than in the prior two years combined, said spokeswoman Connie Llanos. Those 1,529 modifications to crosswalks, traffic signals, intersections and other elements of the street are designed to improve the safety of the street.
Yet none of those modifications included a single road diet or protected intersection.
Or, to the best of my recollection, a single new protected bike lane.
Rather than making simple changes to intersections, the city needs to take aim at changing the city’s car culture, said John Yi, the executive director of Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group.
If zero deaths is really the city’s goal, “we need to have a visionary plan that matches the scope of that goal,” Yi said. “We have failed to do that.”
There is every argument for making those kinds of wholesale changes to the streets, from saving lives to reducing traffic congestion and fighting climate change.
And only one reason not to — city leadership that fears angry voters, and lacks the political will to do what they know must be done if this city, and the people in it, are to survive and prosper.
Yet they were elected, not to follow the will of those who scream the loudest, but to actually lead their constituents by making the hard choices to do the right thing, and build a city that works for all of us.
Not just impatient drivers. Or wealthy homeowners.
And not one that continues to kill too many of it’s most vulnerable road users.
This time, the former editor-in-chief of Bicycling and near-daily bike commuter goes on a polite rant over a recent highly biased article blaming bike lanes on the Bay Area’s Richmond–San Raphael Bridge for making poor, suffering teachers late for work.
Not, say, all those other drivers on the bridge.
This is how efforts to build safe and convenient places for cyclists are demonized—as something that screws up the lives of motorists struggling to get somewhere important. This is how American car culture operates in 2020, when record numbers of cyclists are killed by drivers and efforts to do something about it are viewed as impractical and an attack on the driving public’s way of life.
Swan’s story is better reported than its clickbait headline might suggest, but upon close examination it reads like inadvertent propaganda. Though she name-checks the real problems plaguing miserable commuters, the central premise of her piece lends credibility to the absurd idea that the basic needs of embattled, working-class commuters are being trampled upon by people riding bikes…
He goes on to point the finger where it really belongs.
Let’s be frank. The congestion on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (and roadways in every U.S. city) can really suck. But it doesn’t suck because of cyclists or bike lanes. The traffic sucks because of sprawl and cheap gas and Americans’ love of cars. The traffic sucks because cities and states don’t put enough effort into housing, carpooling, telecommuting, micromobility, and financial tools like congestion pricing (in which motorists pay a modest surcharge to use roads at busy times, a tactic that has decreased traffic in European cities). These systemic problems—less suited to cranky populist headlines—are the real cause of traffic.
As with anything Flax writes, it’s a good read.
But more to the point, it’s an important one. Because we face this same sort of seemingly innocuous bias on a daily basis, with drivers failing to the real traffic problem is facing them back in the mirror.
And it’s not caused by bikes, bike lanes, or the people who use them.
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Repairs are finally underway on a storm damaged section of the Arroyo Seco Bike Path.
The LA Daily News is hosting another candidate forum in CD12 on the 17th.
The @ladailynews is holding a CD12 election forum on Monday, Feb. 17! Submit your questions for the candidates at dnmetro@dailynews.comhttps://t.co/xBqtPOXim6
Life is cheap in Washington, where a man walked with time served after copping a plea to vehicular homicide for fatally right-hooking a 75-year old bike rider while driving stoned, despite a commitment to never drive after using medical cannabis for a bad neck. Evidently, DUI and homicide is just no big deal up there.
Chicago Streetsblogsays the city needs a Rapid Response Team, arguing that inaction in the wake of tragic crashes is unacceptable. Which is exactly what I argued for before and after Los Angeles announced its Vision Zero program; every death should be immediately investigated by a multi-disciplinary team to determine contributory causes and prevent another one.
New York City could soon require side guards on large trucks to prevent bike riders and pedestrians from being pulled underneath. These should be mandatory everywhere, for reasons that should be obvious.
A DC website questions whether “war on cars” is a useful term, after a WaPo reporter insists the district is waging one. Probably not, considering only one side is dying, and it ain’t the people in motor vehicles.
They get it. A column in Cycling Industry News says if the bike industry wants to draw new customers, people need to feel safe riding their bikes. Which is the best argument for why bikemakers and bike shops should get involved in local advocacy. But few do.
One place you can cross off your bike bucket list — the mean streets of Gaborone, Botswana, where bicycles are unwanted and unwelcome, along with the people who ride them.
