Here’s your chance to tell the feds to stop allowing massive trucks and SUVs that seem intentionally designed to kill anyone outside the vehicle.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, is asking for input to draft new crashworthiness regulations to help improve safety for vulnerable road users, like bike riders and pedestrians.
Tell ’em it’s long past time to make vehicles safer for vulnerable road users like us.
Meanwhile, as long as we’re talking about feds, the US Department of Transportation has introduced their new Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer.
The tool is designed to help city planners, advocates, and elected officials plan more equitable transportation investments targeting traditionally underserved communities.
Which may be a mouthful, but it’s badly needed to help correct the deadly inequities on our streets, where people in low income communities or communities of color are more likely to be killed while biking or walking.
Photo by David Drexler from Long Beach Beach Streets (see below).
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Yesterday we shared David Drexler’s photos from the official opening of the new Mark Bixby bike-ped path over the International Gateway Bridge.
Today he’s kind enough to share a few photos from Saturday’s Beach Streets open streets event in downtown Long Beach.
Let’s just hope he got there early, and it was more crowded than the photos suggest.
Photos by David Drexler
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Good question.
Unfortunately, you can find substandard bike lanes like this in underserved neighborhoods all over the LA area.
https://twitter.com/gatodejazz/status/1660863095927873538
On the other hand, this is what you end up with when elected leaders actually give a damn.
Cycling the Indianapolis Cultural Trail … one of the most impressive urban #cycling facilities in North America. pic.twitter.com/9XlTyPlrXS
— Jason Thorne (@JasonThorne_RPP) May 21, 2023
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Calbike is urging you to contact your state assemblymember to call for passage of AB73, the latest attempt to pass the Bicycle Safety Stop, aka Stop as Yield.
The bill is intended to improve safety by allowing bike riders to roll through stop signs when there’s no conflicting traffic, and it’s safe to do so.
Assuming it can get past Governor Newsom’s veto pen this time.
AB 73 is another attempt to pass a bicycle safety stop-as-yield bill in CA. It has been shown to improve safety for people on bikes and reduce inequitable enforcement. @CalBike has a great information page https://t.co/ojgRbImp9L
— John Lloyd (@boyonabike62) May 22, 2023
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Put this on a T-shirt, and I’m all in.
Tous les Deux
Oil on paper
Artist: Christian Raffin pic.twitter.com/UyXiW142aE— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) May 22, 2023
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The creator of Sherlock Holmes was one of us.
And he’s right.
“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle & go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
-Arthur Conan Doyle#botd May 22, 1859 pic.twitter.com/JeIGsfNXV1— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) May 22, 2023
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
No bias here. After an elderly Hawaiian man died crashing his bike in an apparent solo fall, officials said his death wouldn’t count towards the county traffic fatality totals because he was riding a bicycle instead of driving a car.
No bias here, either. The Dallas Morning News reports someone stole a Dallas city bus, then crashed it into several parked cars and a bicycle. But they wait until the penultimate paragraph to mention that someone was actually riding that bike at the time; fortunately, the bike rider wasn’t injured.
A car passenger was caught on camera throwing trash at a British man as he rode his bike, even though he was riding with his four-year old son.
Look at the prizes prat thinking it clever to throw crap at me and my son riding down Manchester road earlier.
Around 1pm wharncliffe side. pic.twitter.com/5Vg8Lvuk59— twisted fish (@mouldie099) May 21, 2023
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Two Louisiana schools were put on lockdown when a man was seen carrying a rifle on his bicycle; police gave the all-clear when they determined he was just taking it to a pawn shop.
Commenters are praising a Dollar General manager who used her car to run down an alleged shoplifter making off on his bicycle, even though she could — and perhaps should — be charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
https://twitter.com/4Mischief/status/1659997986284355586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1659997986284355586%7Ctwgr%5E100edd9a18e866a2b8543c811c1d87f8ae365e1e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fdollar-general-employee-chase-down-thief-viral-1801733
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Local
Streetsblog offers photos and an open thread from LA’s first CicLAmini on Sunday.
Urbanize reports on Saturday’s opening of the new Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle-Pedestrian Path on the Long Beach International Gateway Bridge, offering expansive views from 205 feet above the Port of Long Beach.
Right now, you can get $600 off a new e-cargo bike from LA-based Cero One.
State
San Diego bike riders are dealing with a problem familiar to riders in other parts of the state, as trash and debris from a homeless camp piles up on an Ocean Beach bike path leading to the beach; a homeless advocate blames downtown sweeps that push homeless people to other parts of the city. Although as inconvenient as it is for people on bikes, not having a home is probably worse.
Fresno bike riders will get new protected bike lanes on four busy streets.
Unlike most other major US cities, San Francisco continues to improve safety for bike riders, as bicycling deaths dropped 58% over last year, averaging just 1.4 fatal bike crashes for every million residents. That compares to approximately 3.5 bike deaths for every million residents in Los Angeles last year.
This is who we share the road with. A Sacramento area man was killed by a 17-year old driver after successfully shepherding a family of baby ducks across the road.
National
Bicycling warns about the swayback position, saying you should check your posture on your bike if you get lower back pain. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.
Road Bike Action considers how an ebike can help people improve their general health and well-being by leading a more active life.
Men’s Journal recommends the year’s best gravel bikes.
Travel + Leisure recommends the unpaved, 100-mile White Rim Road in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, which takes three to four days to travel by bike.
Denver’s ebike rebate program is accomplishing its goal of getting people out of their cars, helping replace an estimated 100,000 vehicle miles per week.
A 62-year old Chicago man was the victim of a vicious attack when he was struck with a construction sign by another man while riding along a sidewalk, then beaten with his own bicycle, all for no apparent reason; he was hospitalized in critical condition.
Michigan parent groups are urging the state to adopt a mandatory helmet law for children, even though helmet laws have been shown to reduce childhood bicycling rates.
Anonymous donors have given over $3,000 to a private fund in Kalamazoo, Michigan to help solve crashes involving bicyclists.
New York is producing a series of themed self-guided route maps to encourage people to explore the city by bike.
A writer for the American Conservative says the outrage over the hospital worker who tried to wrest a bikeshare bike from a black teenager just reflects America’s “racism shortage.”
Frightening crime in Mobile, Alabama where a man riding a bicycle was forced off the road by a couple in a pickup, then robbed of his bike at gunpoint.
International
Cycling Weekly has declared this ebike week, offering a series of articles offering tips, advice and know-how.
In a result that shouldn’t surprise anyone, the removal of a highly praised bike lane in Vancouver’s Prospect Park has only resulted in more traffic congestion, not less, suggesting that maybe the bike lane wasn’t the problem after all.
A pair of writers for Outside take a blind ride down Quebec’s newest lift-accessed mountain bike park. Which probably doesn’t mean what you think.
Sports journalist Claude Droussent discusses his new crowdsourced guide to the best bicycling routes throughout the continent.
British motorists are “furious” about a confusing new road layout with a center-running bus lane, a spacious two-way bike lane, and walking paths on both sides of the road. All of which seems pretty damn clear to me.
The leader of a Malta bicycle advocacy group says narrowing traffic lanes without providing protective barriers for bike riders will only encourage speeding.
A writer compares riding on the volcanic island of Tenerife to a lava-filled moonscape, ending with a dinner of fresh squid at a bike-friendly hotel.
Competitive Cycling
Legendary sprinter Mark Cavendish is calling it a career, confirming that he plans to retire at the end of this year; the director of the Tour de France called him the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour, and in history, period. Meanwhile, Wale’s Geraint Thomas says he has no plans to follow his friend into retirement.
England’s Lizzie Deignan says the increasing ability of both men’s and women’s cyclists mean the sport is getting harder than it’s ever been, which she says it great.
Retired ‘cross champ Hannah Arensman spoke out about why she quit the sport after losing a podium spot to a transgender woman, who Fox News insists on calling by her former male name.
Finally…
Your next ebike could come with a built-in Bluetooth speaker, even if you can’t hear it over city traffic. Evidently, you can still ride a bike, even when you’re next in line for the throne.
And that feeling when you go out for a ride on your ebike, and end up in the Giro.
— Cycling out of context (@OutOfCycling) May 22, 2023
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
