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.
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.
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.
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.
December 17, 2024 /
bikinginla / 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
December 9, 2024 /
bikinginla / 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.
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.
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.
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.
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No surprise here, as funding requests for California’s Active Transportation Program far outstripped available funding.
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.
“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.
The program is finally scheduled to launch December 18th, so get your application in.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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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?
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‘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.
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.
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.
Snopestracks 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.
November 25, 2024 /
bikinginla / 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.
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.
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.
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.
@bikinginla please share: STOLEN THIS AM near culver city- trailer belonging to @WalkAndRollers, a nonprofit that goes around the county teaching kids how to ride bikes safely. the trailer contains the essentials: bikes, helmets, edu materials https://t.co/DXR9Dc3Hn3
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
November 21, 2024 /
bikinginla / 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.
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.
There was a break-in at the @BikeMetro Hollywood/Vine hub. Front door smashed and glass everywhere. If you store anything here, check on it asap. Kudos to the staff for alerting me via phone, but y’all should probably post about this too. CC: @metrolosangelespic.twitter.com/2kdJNHkosN
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Yes, please.
Although I’m told this is actually in Baldwin Park, not Baldwin Hills. Just too many Baldwins out there.
A few photos of Baldwin Hills’ recently completed bike path along the Dalton Wash and San Gabriel River – midday today – no riders spotted. It’s on the east side of the river, most folks bike on the longer path on the west side of the river. pic.twitter.com/VyQUd7ueqg
And Streetsblogvisits 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
André Mahé is most known for a controversial win in the 1949 Paris-Roubaix race, in which he came in first after being misdirected by officials. He ended up sharing the victory with Serse Coppi.#BicycleBirthday André Mahé#BornOnThisDay November 18 (1919-2010) pic.twitter.com/aGlk07zaBz
To assess the risk posed to cyclists by rigid bollards, DEKRA conducted two identical collision tests at its Crash Test Center in Neumünster, Germany, with a three-wheeled e-cargo bike driven at a speed of 25 km/h (about 15-16 mph), one against a flexible post and the other against a rigid one.
“In the test against the rigid post, there was a strong deceleration [slowing down] that threw the dummy from the saddle towards the handlebars. The bollard buckled and then acted as a ramp. The rear of the bike was lifted up, throwing the dummy off and causing the bike to tip over.”
“In a real-life situation, the person riding the bike would have suffered serious injuries,” Egelhaaf said.
On the other hand, flexible plastic bollards — like the car-tickler bendie posts preferred by LADOT — allowed riders to simply roll over them, with little or no risk of serious injuries.
But flexible bollards also do nothing to keep inattentive or uncaring drivers out of the bike lanes, and are often flattened within weeks, if not days, of their installation.
So the question becomes whether the risk of falls outweighs the risk posed by motorists and their big, dangerous machines.
I don’t know how to answer that.
The only way to get a actual answer would be to try a real world test on comparable roadways, and measure the rate of injuries on both after six months and a year.
And to the best of my knowledge, no one has done that. Or plans to.
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This is who we share the road with.
A Santa Monica collision resulted in unexpected tragedy after a pickup driver collided with a motorcyclist on the 1400 block of Cloverfield Blvd, near the Specialized bike shop at Cloverfield and Santa Monica.
Witnesses said a driver seemed to intentionally crash into the victim’s motorcycle, after the motorbike rider waved a gun as the two men argued moments before the crash.
The driver claimed he accidentally hit the motorcycle while attempting to flee from the gunman — then he did flee immediately after the crash, turning a road rage incident into a fatal hit-and-run.
All because video showed a driver correctly slow down behind the recumbent rider to wait for a safe opportunity to pass, before a truck driver slammed on his brakes to avoid running up the driver’s ass, and nearly hit an oncoming car headed in the other direction.
And somehow, they managed to conclude this was all the bike rider’s fault.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here, either. A Boston bike commuter says the city’s new bike lanes are a metaphor for the Democratic Party, since they were built to appease a “small, highly vocal minority,” a “depressing number” of whom consider the resulting traffic congestion a benefit, not a trade-off. Tell us you don’t understand traffic calming without saying it.
If you’re going to hate on bicycles, might as well do it poetically, as a British letter writer pens an ode to the local city council’s “absurd” and “crazy” “cycle crusade.”
They get it. A Pasadena study session will consider how to revitalize North Lake Ave and turn it into a Complete Street to make it more inviting to bike riders and pedestrians, as it currently “suffers from excessive space allocated to cars.”
Costa Mesa will host Micromobility America, a trade show for ebike and e-scooter makers, and others in the micromobility industry, this Thursday and Friday.
Sad news from Sacramento, where a 32-year old woman was killed when she was stuck by a driver while trying to ride across the street; naturally, the CHP blamed the victim for riding directly into the car’s path, without mentioning whether the driver may have been speeding or gone through a traffic signal.
Bicycling considers how to say goodbye to the rider you used to be. A lesson I’ve struggled to learn myself. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
That’s more like it. An Illinois driver faces up to 61 years in prison for the drugged-driving crash that killed a man riding a bicycle, after he was convicted on four counts of aggravated DUI causing death and one count of reckless homicide.
Life is cheap in Wales, where an 84-year old driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a bike rider after claiming he just couldn’t see the victim, he was apparently spared jail time by virtue of being old. And once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, if you can’t even see a grown man on a bicycle.
Cyclist looks back to Connie Carpenter’s — now Connie Carpenter-Phinney — win in the first women’s Olympic road cycling race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 40 years before the next American woman would take gold at this year’s Paris Olympics.
According to Caltrans rep Ryan Snyder, California’s new law mandating Complete Streets on Caltrans projects requires bike lanes on the full stretch of highway through the ‘Bu.
“SB 960 mandates that we create bike lanes for the entire length of PCH in Malibu.” He said. “In what is often referredto as the 8 to 80 principle, we must adhere to the concept that bike lanes should be safe for any users between the ages of 8 and 80. We propose that we build buffered/colored and/or protected bike lanes on Las Flores on the mountain side as well as between Las Flores Road and the Malibu Pier area and between the Pier area and the western city limits.”
Respondents preferred a landscaped median to other alternatives, while lane reductions and traffic circles are also under consideration to make space and slow traffic.
Photo shows Los Angeles demonstration demanding protected bike lanes.
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Evidently, getting cut from the football team following rape accusations wasn’t enough for a former University of Washington football player.
He had to follow it up with a road rage attack on a bicyclist.
In a case we’ve been following since March, the victim was riding his bike home after just learning about the death of his college roommate, when Tylin “Tybo” Rogers and his teammate, Diesel Gordon, began following him in their car, honking and yelling at him for the crime of simply being in front of them on the roadway.
The victim responded, as I probably would have, by flipping them off.
Rogers, who was already facing charges for the rape accusations, and Gordon then tried to hit him with their car, before getting out and chasing the victim down a stairwell.
That portion of the attack was captured on security cam video, which was released by investigators on Friday.
Gordon can be heard calling the victim a homophobic slur, then spits on him several times before Rogers shoves the victim to the ground. Rogers then hits him in the face with enough force to send his glasses flying, which he then stomps on.
Both players have pled guilty to misdemeanor assault — which is a gift under the circumstances.
They each face a maximum of just under a year in county jail, and a lousy $5,000 fine.
However, Pasadena’s Union Street two-way protected bike lane comes in at a very respectable #6, which the magazine praises as a “cyclist-friendly corridor (that) connects key destinations and aligns with Pasadena’s commitment to sustainable transportation.”
The new 17th Street complex in Santa Monica was ranked 16th.
Maybe someday, a Los Angeles bike lane will once again make the exclusive list. But today is not that day, my friends
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Seriously? Residents of Queens are fighting a planned 16-mile bike path along the waterfront over fears it will turn the suburban area “into another bustling urban district” and attract scooter-riding bandits, amid the usual cries of “where are we going to put our cars?” I could make a suggestion.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A British tabloid is appalled by the “shocking” moment a man on a Lime bike crashed into a small boy as he ran across a bike lane to get to a floating bike stop — before acknowledging the bicyclist did try to stop before hitting the kid, who darted out in front of of him.
Sad news from San Jose, where a man has died 11 years after he was struck by a motorist while riding a bicycle in the city, and placed into long-term care; the victim was not publicly identified, and there’s no word on whether the driver ever faced charges.
Bike Radar asks mountain bike brands why so many are getting into the gravel bike business. Short answer, because that’s where the money is. Longer answer, it’s the fastest growing category in the bicycle industry.
The Guardian’s Peter Walker says yes, speeding ebike riders are a menace, but the solution isn’t to kick bicycles into the roadway, as Birmingham, England considers banning all bicycles from the city’s pedestrianized streets — especially when the real problem is illegally souped-up ebikes belonging to food couriers.
A Czech driver faces up to five years behind bars for allegedly fleeing the scene after running down a 42-year old man riding a bicycle, before returning to collect evidence of the crash, including the victim’s mangled bike wheel.
