My apologies for last night, when I suffered from an embarrassing case of premature publication, mistakenly hitting the Publish button long before today’s post was ready.
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Just 19 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 not one city official has mentioned the impending deadline, or the city’s failure to meet it.
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It’s Day 14 of the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!
Thanks to Daniel M, James Z and Herb S for their generous donations to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
So what are you waiting for?
Stop what you’re doing and give now!
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Now they’re getting serious.
The charges against Sean Higgins, the driver accused in the allegedly drunken crash that killed NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his hockey playing brother, have been upgraded from vehicular homicide to first-degree aggravated manslaughter.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, aggravated manslaughter is defined in the New Jersey’s criminal code as “when a person ‘recklessly causes death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.'”
The brothers were in New Jersey for their sister’s wedding, and were riding their bikes on the night of August 29th, when Higgins allegedly tried to pass another car on the right and slammed into the two men on the shoulder of the highway.
Higgins could be sentenced to 10 to 30 behind bars years for each manslaughter count; he also faces additional charges for DUI, hit-and-run, tampering with physical evidence, and reckless driving.
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Yes, please.
Calbike announced its agenda for the coming year. And this time, it looks to be right on the money.
- Bicycle Highways — Creating a pilot program to establish numbered highways for bicycles in two major metro areas, allowing for speeds up to 25 mph
- Shared Streets — Develop a new roadway classification where vulnerable road users would have the right of way at all locations
- Quick-Build Pilot Program — A program to expedite development and implementation of safe, protected bikeways on the state highway system
- Bike Omnibus Bill — Including clarifying that bike riders wouldn’t need to signal if they need both hands to control their bicycle
- Bicycle Safety Stop — Otherwise known as an Idaho Stop, allowing bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields
- New Bikeway Classification — Create a new Class 5 category for bicycle boulevards
- Clarifying Ebike Policies — Including making it clear that illegal electric motorcycles aren’t ebikes
Now if they’d just try to do something about the state’s unacceptably high rate of hit-and-run drivers.
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The Glendale City Council followed Culver City’s lead by overruling staff recommendations, and voting to remove the city’s only protected bike lane — an ill-advised action likely to make them liable for any bicyclist who gets injured on the street after it’s removed.
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It’s now 357 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
The program is finally scheduled to launch December 18th, so get your application in; Calbike with host a webinar on Monday to go over the application process.
Although to be honest, I’ve kind of lost interest in the whole damn thing.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Utah man faces charges for allegedly ramming into a bike rider during a road rage confrontation; the driver swears he was just trying to politely tell the victim to stay in the bike lane when the rider became enraged and broke his side mirror, and he didn’t mean to hit him — even though witnesses say it appeared to be intentional.
No bias here. A New York councilmember called for mandatory ebike registration to combat “The scourge of e-bikes in our streets, on our sidewalks, and even inside our buildings (that) continues to wreak chaos, injure and maim people, and, tragically, take lives,” resulting in 47 deaths in five years; even the Department of Transportation says it’s a bad idea. And even though most victims were killed in battery fires or by drivers while riding ebikes, rather than caused by them. And they continue to lump ped-assist ebikes together with mo-peds and high-speed, throttle-controlled virtual motorcycles.
Brussels, Belgium is banning bicycles and scooters from the city center, known as the Anspachlaan; a bike advocacy group says all bicyclists are being punished for the anti-social behavior of a very few. Which is exactly how it usually works.
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Local
Metro is finally moving forward with plans to improve transportation for the upcoming LA Olympics, including 14 miles of bus priority lanes, 23 miles of bus corridor enhancements and 60 new Metro Bike Share stations, as well as a number of new first mile/last mile improvements, including new protected bike lanes. Although three and a half years isn’t exactly a lot of lead time to make a number of major changes to the streets.
State
An 18-year old San Diego man suffered a broken leg when he was stuck by a hit-and-run driver, while riding his ebike in a bike lane in the North City neighborhood.
Sad news from Bakersfield, where a man was killed when he fell off his bicycle, and oncoming “vehicle…failed to avoid colliding with” him. Hats off to the Bakersfield Californian for somehow managing to absolve the driver of any agency and responsibility for killing him.
Speaking of Bakersfield, a cop with a strong case of windshield bias responded to a traffic calming project by blaming the victims, arguing that even though it succeeded in slowing traffic, that doesn’t necessarily mean fewer crashes because it doesn’t account for pedestrians who step out ten feet in front of drivers, leaving “literally no time for the driver to do anything,” or bike riders “with no lights, wearing black clothing, riding the wrong direction in the bicycle lane.”
National
Streetsblog has more on the new handlebar-mounted “dashcam” for bikes being developed by a pair of Arizona universities, which are designed to automatically capture images, location data, and other critical evidence when a vehicle passes dangerously to someone on a bicycle.
A pair of Oklahoma men face charges of 1st-degree murder for shooting a man in the back, after accusing him of stealing a bicycle belonging to one of the men’s 10-year old daughter; witnesses never bothered to call 911 because they didn’t think it was a big deal and didn’t want to get involved. As we’ve said many times before, no bicycle is worth a human life. Just let it go, for God’s sake.
Good question. A Massachusetts TV station wants to know why there are utility poles and orange construction barrels in the middle of a new $22 million raised bike lane. Which looks a lot more like a patchwork sidewalk repair job, to be honest.
International
Cycling Weekly talks with American adventurer Neal Bayly, cofounder of the Wellspring International Outreach, who recounts memorable rides through Ukraine and Peru, as well as Bhutan’s Tour of the Dragon, described as the world’s toughest single-day mountain bike race; Bayly says he bikes so much his motorcycle buddies are getting pissed off.
Speaking of Cycling Weekly, the magazine says those bigass bike computers are just getting silly.
A Toronto bike advocacy group has filed suit over the new Ontario law that gives the provincial government the final say on local bike lanes, allowing them to remove a number of popular Toronto bike lanes over the objection of local leaders; the group alleges the new law deprives bicyclists of their legal rights to life and security.
Meanwhile, a Toronto bike advocate suffered a broken leg when he was doored while riding in a painted bike lane. Which makes a far better case for improving the city’s bike lanes than removing them.
A Melbourne, Australia radio station considers the eternal question of what if bicycles had to be registered, as the head of a driver’s organization says all road users should pay for the road — even though bike riders already pay for more than our fair share of the roadway, and studies have shown bike registration costs more to operate than it would bring in.
Competitive Cycling
Remco Evenepoel is joining with the Belgian Post Office to raise awareness for the dangers of dooring, after suffering multiple fractures and other injuries when he was doored while training in Belgium; the 2022 Vuelta champ aims to get back on his bike in February, and hopes to compete two months later.
Finally…
No, bike racks don’t belong in the middle of the sidewalk. Who needs a bike cam when there’s one built into your helmet?
And Colin Jost is one of us, too.
Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
