I noticed that truck over there on the left while walking the dog yesterday.
And was struck by the truck’s murder grill — not literally, thankfully — which seems designed to inflict maximum damage on anyone or anything unfortunate enough to come into contact with it.
Any person struck by it, whether walking or bicycling, would likely be thrown forward as if struck by a giant hammer, then run over by the multi-ton truck if the driver was unable to stop in time.
Yet people wonder why traffic deaths continue to climb in the US, and not in other countries with more rational safety policies.
Never mind that there’s no license plate on the front of the damn thing.
I don’t know the city well enough to offer any informed thoughts, but it looks to be heavy on Class 3 bike routes, aka sharrows, which are usually worthless for anything other than wayfinding, if not actually dangerous.
Monrovia's Draft Safety Action Plan and Bicycle Master Plan are open for public review. These plans shape how streets are designed for people who walk, bike, and ride transit.
Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette offers a short Facebook reminder to max out the Uninsured Driver coverage on your auto insurance policy, which will cover you on your bike if you crash, or get hit by a driver with no insurance or inadequate coverage.
The family of fallen Australian bicyclist James Rapley learned that the hard way, after the stoned driver who ran him down on Temescal Canyon in 2013 had no insurance or financial resources, leaving their lawyer unable to collect a dime, despite his efforts.
The opposite happened when I was struck by a road raging driver who refused to accept liability, and my own auto insurance covered every penny of my medical bills.
It was a painful lesson well learned.
Thanks to Phillip for the heads-up.
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A new short film from Shimano traces the rise of the inclusive All Bodies On Bikes group, with over 4,000 views in the first day.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
There’s a special place in hell for the 61-year old Florida man who was arrested for animal cruelty after allegedly beating and kicking a puppy, simply because it couldn’t keep up as he dragged it behind his bike, despite telling police he was “training” the dog. Maybe someone should tie him behind a bicycle and train him, instead.
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Local
A Redittor raves about the San Gabriel River bike path after riding over 30 miles from Santa Fe Dam to Seal Beach, then back again, as commenters tell him hush before everyone finds out.
They get it. A Streetsblog San Francisco op-ed says California has to stop expanding freeways, because “While transit, bike, and safety projects struggle for funding, the state keeps writing blank checks for freeway widening boondoggles. It’s time to tell our lawmakers: enough!” It’s long past time to stop flushing money down the induced demand-inducing toilet.
Albuquerque, New Mexico will now require drivers to stop at crosswalks for bicyclists and pedestrians, and student drivers in the state will have to take a three-hour course on driving around vulnerable road users, after a mother turned her grief over the death of her bike-riding daughter into a campaign to improve safety for all of us.
New York Mayor Mamdani is calling a halt to the previous administration’s policy of giving criminal summons to scofflaw bike riders, rather than traffic tickets, for even minor violations; the policy was considered unfair to delivery riders who need their bikes to earn a living. Although it was also unfair to anyone on two wheels, who were treated more harshly than motorists, despite posing less risk to those around them.
The Delaware-based Lycra Company, makers of Lycra, Coolmax, THERMOLITE, Supplex, and Tactel, is the latest bikewear-related firm to go belly-up, after the company couldn’t stretch to cover up to a half billion dollars in debts.
London’s epidemic of Lime Bike Leg could be ending, after the company redesigned their bikeshare ebikes to remove a heavy center bar that could trap a user’s leg under the bike if it fell over.
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.
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…
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.
Ready or Not, L.A. Bike Lanes are Coming!
I sit down with @schneider of Streets For All to debate whether L.A. can REALLY become a transit friendly city:https://t.co/Iro9FSfMwF
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
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
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On the other hand, I can understand the need to lash out at someone, after something like that.
Which leaves us with a lot to catch up on. So let’s see how much we can get to before I have to pack it in for the night.
And it’s a sad commentary that I’m looking forward to shoulder surgery next week just so I can get a couple good hours of sleep.
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Photo shows former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signing the city’s soon-forgotten Vision Zero plan behind his massive outdoor desk, courtesy of Streetsblog.
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Just 151 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
In fact, it’s most likely to be noticed as nothing more than just a blip in their busy schedules, if they notice at all.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Maybe we should replace the current city seal with one bearing the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. Although, now that I think about it, trained monkeys could probably do a better job building a safer city.
The site also reports that drivers in Los Angeles continue to flee from fatal crashes in ever-rising numbers, with 62 hit-and-run deaths in the the just first six months of this year alone — more than double the total of two last pre-pandemic years, with 28 in 2018, and 29 in 2019.
Which would equate to roughly 10 to 12 deaths from traffic violence in a city of LA’s size, with nearly four million people.
And that’s a hell of a lot fewer than we’re likely to endure this year.
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This is who we share the road with.
A commenter at a Glendale City Council meeting freely admits that he thinks his time is more important than the life of someone riding a bicycle, and will gladly speed to cut you off.
Maybe someone should have cut him off.
Here’s the guy from the Glendale council meeting who bragged about threatening cyclists with his car. “I will cut you off…and I’m not afraid to say it in front of a police officer…my time is more important to me than you riding your bike.” pic.twitter.com/nCxiRQlvoy
And topping this week’s Tour de Road Rage, two men in Highland, California pulled out guns and shot each other to death — in front of one victim’s kids, no less — after one man clipped the other driver’s car mirror while lane splitting on his motorcycle.
Which is all probably fair warning before you lose your top the next time a driver cuts you off or passes too close, because they may be armed and dangerous.
Then again, they’re already driving a multi-ton lethal weapon, anyway.
Gravel Bike California marks this weekend’s Tour de Big Bear with a series of single-track jewels guided by local host and Dirty Bear organizer Robin Brown.
A large part of the problem seems to come from issues with the program’s administrator, a program known as Pedal Ahead. It was selected under raised eyebrows by CARB back in 2022 and tasked with managing the program. However, (Streetsblog’s Melanie) Curr) insinuates that personal connections between a former CARB board member and the founder of Pedal Ahead may have led to its application being granted extra weight despite proposing a significantly different incentive program than that envisioned by the state…
But a slew of complicated issues still needed to be solved, ranging from how the vouchers would be distributed to what types of e-bikes would be eligible and whether online retailers would be allowed to participate, just to name a few.
Over a year was spent trying to work out answers to these questions and many more, often complicated by rethinking earlier decisions and creating new project proposals.
All in favor of just scrapping the damn thing and starting over say “aye!”
After a good criminal investigation or two, that is.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Bend, Oregon family discovered the hard way that the law isn’t always clear-cut when it comes to ebikes, after a middle school student suffered a fractured collarbone and elbow when she was struck by a 17-year old boy riding one — and the cops said there’s nothing they could do.
Researchers from UC Santa Barbara will use a $480,000 Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant to train AI to design a bicycle and wayfinding network for Santa Barbara County, while San Jose will get a similar, if considerably smaller, grant from Toyota to use AI to improve traffic safety. Never mind that we’re talking about the same advanced tech that draws people with three legs, thinks some Nazi soldiers were Black, and suggests shows Netflix couldn’t pay you to watch. Or maybe that’s just me.
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Chicago has now installed a spacious curb-protected bike lane on a deadly street where drivers killed two teenagers riding bikes in separate crashes recently, and is in the process of building a nearby neighborhood greenway.
July 19, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on More on unsafe 6th Street Viaduct bike lanes, missing South Bay bike lanes amid climate crisis, and the joy of bike riding
Which surely could have bought better bike lanes than these.
As you’ll recall, the bridge, which pays homage to the classic but crumbling 1930s original, was built with a safe, barrier-protected walkway. And unsafe, Class IV semi-protected bike lanes on the other side of the barrier, protected only by easy-to-drive-over rubber curbs with big, squishy white bollards on bendy posts that wouldn’t stop anything.
Apparently, that was intentional.
LADOT was tasked with striping the pavement on the bridge and also worked with the construction contractor on the design and installation of the bike lanes, according to spokesperson Colin Sweeney. He said the decision to place the bike lanes outside the concrete walls that protect the pedestrian walkways came from Caltrans.
“Since there are no shoulders on the viaduct, Caltrans requested that the bike lanes be ‘permeable’ to act as an emergency lane,” Sweeney told LAist, saying the bike lanes offer “the highest level of protection that could be accommodated by the width of the bridge while also allowing emergency vehicles to enter if needed.”
Never mind that it’s also permeable for out-of-control truckers and distracted drivers, who will only feel a little jolt before slamming into someone on a bicycle.
And never mind the east end of the bridge, where’s there’s no protection at all — forcing riders to mix it up with usually speeding, and too often uncaring motorists.
Let alone the lack of safe connections leading to or from the bridge.
To call it a fail from a bike rider’s perspective is a massive understatement. Like maybe a $588 million understatement.
But this quote from the story sums the sad situation up as well as anything else.
"There’s a reason we don’t put screen doors on submarines" is the best sentence I've read all day. https://t.co/ZsDei6gMA5
— Mariana Dale (she/her) (@mariana_dale) July 19, 2022
Yet just like LA’s bike and mobility plans, the South Bay plan has been largely forgotten by the cities it was supposed to save, and has now been downgraded even further with a Local Traffic Network replacing the promised bike lanes, as CO2 levels — and the risk to bike riders — continue to climb.
Many of them children on their way to school, as the piece points out. Kids who should have had a safe route there by now.
But now won’t. And won’t have cleaner air to breathe.
As well as the inherent contradiction of being a serious cyclist when riding is so much fun.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Someone asks about a large group of bike riders in downtown Santa Barbara, and the online conversation quickly devolves into accusations of wealthy white recreational bike riders running stop signs. Sort of like any other online discussion of bikes.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Once again, a bicyclist on a cross-country tour has been killed. A rider with a group riding to California from Savannah, Georgia died in an apparent collision outside Norman, Oklahoma. Although the only mention of a driver was to say they weren’t at fault.
Los Angeles police are looking for a driver who ran down a cyclist near USC and fled the scene, leaving him to bleed in the street.
The rider was hit by a small white car at the intersection of Vermont Ave and 36th Street around 1:30 Friday morning. The cyclist, described only as non-USC student in his 20s or 30s, suffered major non-life-threatening injuries.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD South Traffic Division at 323/421-2577.
It’s long past time to get heartless cowards like this off the streets and behind bars where they belong.
Let’s hope WeHo, self-proclaimed as The Creative City, will take a creative approach to carving out a significant chunk of street space to keep cyclists safe and encourage more people to ride. While the city has made some recent moves to accommodate bikes, it’s time to show cyclists the same welcome and tolerance they famously show everyone else.
You don’t have to do a lot of riding, walking or driving in West Hollywood to realize that the relatively compact, traffic-choked city could benefit greatly by providing more viable alternatives to driving. Aside from some steep climbs on the lower reaches of the Hollywood Hills, it is — or at least, should be — a near ideal location for promoting bicycling.
And maybe they could show the Biking Black Hole to their west how it’s done while they’re at it.
While it’s still early in the process, the best way to ensure your voice is heard in the new plan is to join the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition, an LACBC affiliate chapter that does a great job of engaging civic leaders and fighting for the rights of bike riders.
Many thanks to Matt Baume for the tip. And hey, I’m more than willing to consult, if they’re willing to waive all those technical requirements and stuff.
Your final chance to comment on the latest draft of the 2010 bike plan comes at 8:30 am on Thursday, when the Los Angeles City Planning Commission meets in the Council Chambers at City Hall.
However, you may not want to rush, since it’s item 10 on a very crowded agenda. You may want to pack a lunch.
Damien Newton says TranspoComm chair Bill Rosendahl promises that he won’t let the plan leave committee until the cycling community is happy with it, but it’s better to fix it now — and notes there are still problems to fix.
The ultimate local cycling odd couple of CicLAvia meister and LACBC founder Joe Linton and Bikeside President Alex Thompson join with Bikeside’s Rach Stevenson to say cyclists will be worse off if the bike plan is adopted, and offer a detailed evaluation to back it up.
Stephen Box says when it comes to the bike plan, the city Planning staff is guilty of embellishing reality. And Josef Bray-Ali had previously called it the best looking pile of horseshit he’s seen in ages.
The LACBC contends no plan is ever perfect, and this one includes a number of hard-fought recommendations — including giving priority to projects that will benefit low-income riders and provisions for accountability — and deserves our support.
My take is that, as it stands now, the plan provides a decent framework to move forward, but could still stand significant improvement. Whether or not it will make a difference on our streets depends entirely on what kind of support it gets at City Hall, and how it’s interpreted by the next head of LADOT.
If Mayor Villaraigosa can somehow entice New York’s Janet Sadik-Khan or Long Beach’s Charlie Gandy to come to Los Angeles, this plan could make L.A. a cyclist’s paradise. But if the city promotes or hires someone with the same old auto-centric focus that has destroyed the livability of so many parts of our city, it will be a roadmap to failure.
But the real question is, what do you think?
If you can’t make it Downtown on Thursday, you may want to drop into room 280-A of Beverly Hills City Hall to hear an update from that city’s new Bicycle Ad Hoc Committee; the meeting begins at 9 am.
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Walter Karabian, the former State Assembly leader who drove his car into a parking lot attendant at a USC game — apparently intentionally, since he hit her several times — pled no contest to a lesser charge on Tuesday. He was sentenced to a paltry 40 hours of community service and three years probation.
So the next time a parking attendant won’t let you into a full lot, feel free to run her/him over; evidently, it’s really not that big a deal.
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The Long Beach Post interviews Ronnie Sandler, one of the organizers behind Friday’s failed Long Beach Critical Mass, who details their many attempts to get a permit for the ride — the lack of which was cited as a primary reason for the heavy-handed police crackdown.
The article also states that Long Beach courts have already ruled that fixed-gear bikes don’t need a separate brake, since they are able to comply with the requirement that a bike be able to leave a skid mark on clean, dry pavement — which seems to be one of the key issues here.
It will be interesting to see how the city attempts to rebuild the bike-friendly image that has been shattered virtually overnight, or if they simply ignore it and hope we’ll all forget.
And there were problems with the Los Angeles Critical Mass, too, as bike cops reportedly waived cyclists through red lights while motorcycle cops ticketed the riders for following their instructions.
Bell’s newest helmets feature built-in headlights, but is that enough to overcome the geek factor? The Guardian looks at the race to improve nighttime visibility. Great Britain’s transportation department wants children to play a game where they get run over if they aren’t wearing bright colored clothes — even if they do everything else right. A 10-year old cerebral palsy victim has a life-changing operation that may allow him to fulfill his dream of riding a bike. An Aussie police chief says cyclists who ride without headlights are just as dangerous as drivers who don’t use them; as the Witch on a Bicycle points out, he could use a refresher course in physics. Cyclelicious looks at Japan’s mamachari blog focusing on that country’s Mama bikes.
Finally, Dan Maes, the tinfoil hat-wearing candidate for Colorado governor who suggested that Denver’s bike share program was a UN plot, may not have been the night’s biggest loser, but with just over 10% of the vote, he was close. And the bike-friendly Denver mayor behind the program was elected as the state’s new leader.
Sort of like watching someone tease a caged animal that has long ago given up fighting back. And yes, I have seen that, in a less enlightened time and a far less enlightened place; it evokes the same sort of stomach-twisting pity I’ve felt watching our government in action.
Maybe that changed yesterday.
This is how the Transportation Committee chambers looked when the hearing was scheduled to begin
After a seemingly endless delay in the scheduled 2 pm start time that left cyclists wondering if the committee had blown them off — followed by visibly livid committee member Richard Alarcón storming out of the meeting just moments after the members finally arrived and an impromptu hearing on the issue of overnight RV parking in Venice — the nearly bike-only Transportation Committee meeting finally began.
And truncated though it was, it was worth the wait. If only to watch committee Chair Bill Rosendahl get his back up and start demanding answers from the people who work for this city.
Because of the late start, two items — updates on the Sharrows program, which has been delayed to near-infinity, and the proposed bike-sharing program — were dropped entirely.
A third motion to increase the number of bike parking spaces required for new developments was touched on briefly, only because an audience member wanted to comment on it after going out of his way to attend the meeting. Although why it should be limited to new developments is beyond me, when City Hall doesn’t even offer adequate bike space.
This is what passes for bike parking at L.A. City Hall
From the beginning, Rosendahl ran the short-handed meeting with a firm hand. In addition to the Alarcón storm-out, Bernard Parks was missing in action and Tom LaBonge had to leave before the last, and most important, issue was discussed — leaving just Rosendahl and the recently elected 5th district representative Paul Koretz.
When the representatives from LADOT and the Planning department mentioned Federal funding that may be available in connection to the new bike plan, Rosenhdahl asked, “Do we need a resolution to get that? Because I want to get that money.”
He followed up with a list of 12 hard-hitting questions prepared in conjunction with bike activists Stephen Box and Alex Thompson; to be honest, though, the limited responses offered were far less important than the fact that someone was finally starting to ask them.
Bike Coordinator Michele Mowery’s insistence that the plan the city presented was the one that Alta Planning delivered brought audible murmurs of “bullshit” from the audience — or it could have just been me. Her answer may have been technically correct, but very few people actually believe this is the plan that Alta wanted to deliver.
She also was taken to task by audience members for “playing the race card,” suggesting that L.A.’s diversity makes it more challenging to build to a functional bikeway system than it is in a city like Portland — “a homogeneous community that is very white, and very progressive with respect to transportation,” while L.A. is a “very diverse, disjointed city of 4 million people.”
Dr. Alex has already written a very hard-hitting response to that; if you haven’t read it, click here and read it now. Well, maybe when you’re done with this. But seriously, read it.
Complementing Rosendahl’s newly newly demonstrated commitment, Koretz was also a pleasant surprise.
Throughout the meeting, he spoke very little, sitting quietly until audience members were making their comments. Then he interrupted briefly to note that he also rides a bike, but isn’t comfortable riding on L.A. city streets. And asked if this plan would allow inexperienced cyclists to get where they want to go.
The overwhelming answer was no.
Rosendahl responded firmly to my comment that all the work spent on this bike plan is a waste of time unless there was a commitment to actually build it — unlike the 1996 plan, which had no apparent use other than as a very large and clumsy paperweight.
He insisted that he will make sure the final plan is built — the first commitment any city official has made to this plan, including the people responsible for it. “There’s been enough talk,” he said. “No more words, it’s time for action.”
That attitude was also in evidence when representatives of the LAPD appeared to update the council on recent cycling cases, including the Hummer Incident, as well as the West L.A. case I wrote about recently — noting that no arrest has been made, but the matter has been referred to the City Attorney for possible charges.
When the respected Commander Greer — recently promoted to Assistant Commander of the Detective Bureau — mentioned that a report has been completed on the Hummer case, but not yet approved, Rosendahl said he wanted a copy prior to the next meeting, approved or not.
And in a huge win for cyclists, Cmmdr. Greer announced that all officers below the rank of Lieutenant will be required to complete a brief online course on riders’ rights and responsibilities, created by a group a bike officers. Rosendahl pushed them to take a step further, insisting that the department needs to create a bike training module for the police academy — something I’ve repeatedlycalled for on here.
Of course, it wasn’t all good news. The Commander noted that Lt. Andre Dawson, recently appointed by Chief Beck as the point man for cycling complaints, will no longer be involved in the process and asked that cyclists no longer contact him.
However, the committee saved the best for last.
The most important issue of the evening — and yes, by then it was evening — was the proposed anti-harassment ordinance.
After hearing from several cyclists, Koretz said he’d heard a few stories about the problems cyclists face on the roads, but had no idea it was so widespread. With that, he made a motion to forward the proposal on to the Public Safety Committee, which was quickly seconded by Rosendahl — meaning that it carried, since they were the only two members left at that point.
However, it was not quite the win that LAist suggested last night. What passed was merely a proposal requesting that the City Attorneys’ office write such an ordinance, similar to the one that recently became law in Columbia, Missouri. Mowery suggested that it cover such topics as hurling projectiles at cyclists, threats or verbal abuse, using a vehicle to intimidate cyclists, and passing too close to — or buzzing — cyclists.
Its small win, the first step in what will undoubtedly be a long and complicated process.
