Day 112 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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LA Mayor Karen Bass plans to fill the city’s massive budget hole with layoff notices.
She proposed kicking 1,647 city workers to the curb in her budget for the coming fiscal year, including nearly 100 cops, dropping the department to its lowest level in years.
However, the fire department will be spared in the wake of the massive Palisades fire with a 12.7% budget increase, including 277 new positions, as well as more paramedics, mechanics and fast response vehicles.
There are also plans to combine a handful of city departments, though not the needlessly siloed transportation and street services departments, which should work together to improve our streets, but usually don’t.
The shortfall was largely caused by years of ever-growing legal settlements, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to local news.
The budget originally called for twice as many layoffs, but the number was reduced in part by delaying capital improvement projects. Which could lead to even more of those legal settlements, depending on just what they decide to cut.
It’s also likely that at least some of those cuts will come from LADOT and Streets Services, which are already underfunded and understaffed — resulting in years-long delays in safety improvements that risk more lives, and even more of those legal settlements.
And which helped lead to the passage of Measure HLA last year, which aims to force the city to implement the safety improvements in the city’s mobility plan when streets are resurfaced.
Which will now need to be done over a longer period, with less money and fewer people.
Photo of Mayor Karen Bass from website for Mayor of Los Angeles.
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You’ve got to be kidding.
After years of research-backed recommendations that road diets improve traffic safety, the Trump administration is putting a heavy foot on the gas, somehow claiming they make the streets more dangerous, instead of safer.
But as usual, they offer no science to back it up.
According to the Associated Press,
Federal transportation officials once heralded road diets for cutting crashes by 19% to 47%, but criteria for an upcoming round of road safety grants say projects aimed at “reducing lane capacity” should be considered “less favorably,” the administration said.
Forcing travelers into more constrained spaces “can lead to crashes, erratic maneuvers, and a false sense of security that puts everyone at risk,” the U.S. Department of Transportation said in an email statement to The Associated Press. “The update reflects the Department’s concerns about the safety hazards associated with congestion.”
Again — and I can’t stress this enough — there is no research offered to back up that claim.
The AP goes on to add this.
Numerous other cities have credited road diets with improving safety.
Philadelphia cited a 19% drop in injury crashes. Portland, Oregon, saw a more than 70% decline in vehicles traveling at least 10 mph (16 kph) over the speed limit. The average speed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, fell by 5 mph (8 kph) on some roads within months.
So rather than Making America Great Again, the administration’s plan appears to be more about keeping our streets dangerous, and dangerously auto-centric.
Meanwhile, taking a cue from Idaho, which just passed and signed a similar bill, a proposed Texas law would ban narrowing roadways to install bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
Or as one Idaho website so aptly put it, “New Idaho law treats cyclists and pedestrians like pests.”
All so drivers can continue to go zoom, zoom on every inch of road they currently enjoy.
Safety be damned.
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Still more tariff news.
Trek, State and Specialized responded to Trump’s tariffs by raising bike prices, while other brands are limiting US releases.
Colorado’s small outdoor manufacturers are “wilting” in the face of Trump’s trade wars, closing shop and laying off long-time workers.
An Aussie website says the entire bicycle industry is being “chilled” by Trump’s tariffs.
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Streetsblog spotted new bike lanes in the Arts District in DTLA.
New bike lanes being installed in #DTLA Arts District – on Mateo and on Santa Fe – including some parking-protected sections on Santa Fe. Connections to 6th St Bridge (& via Santa Fe to Union Station)
— Streetsblog L.A. (@streetsblogla.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:07:02.308Z
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The first pedestrian-oriented CicLAmini of the year comes to Pico Blvd in Pico-Union on the 18th of next month.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
In yet another case of anti-bike terrorism, someone deliberately placed large logs behind blind corners on Eugene, Oregon’s sole mountain bike-only trail, which appears to be an intentional attempt to injure trail riders. Or worse.
Once again, bike riders get the blame, as police in Boynton Beach, Florida offer safety advice for the people on two wheels in the face of a more than 50% increase in collisions involving bicyclists, while just giving drivers vague advice to “be more responsible.”
It’s anarchy in the UK, as a road-raging driver walked without a day behind bars for getting out of his van and punching a man on a bicycle in the face for the crime of riding in the roadway, as he shouted “There’s a fucking bike path over there;” he was sentenced to the equivalent of community service, and about about 180 bucks restitution for damage to the victim’s bike.
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Local
Bike tour company Another Side of Los Angeles Tours has now suffered two break-ins in just the last month, with thieves using a brick to break a window and walk out with three ebikes worth up to a grand apiece.
Saturday is the last day to offer input on the SGV Greenway Network, which would place bike/walk paths on the upper shoulders of flood control channels in the San Gabriel Valley.
State
California drivers will now face stricter penalties for driving without insurance or under-insured, including fines topping $500, loss of driver’s license and impounding the vehicle. The last one is likely to have more impact, because $500 is a fraction of the annual cost of car insurance, and people drive without a license every day. But no one drives without a car.
Fresno is starting work on improving bike safety on three key corridors.
The wife of an 81-year old Palo Alto man has filed suit against the city, claiming he died after falling off his bicycle when he hit an unmarked open construction ditch on a roadway that was supposed to have been closed.
National
Now you can turn your old bike into a new ebike for as little as a hundred bucks.
A group of Washington bicyclists is riding ebikes from Seattle to the state capitol in Olympia to protest a new 10% surcharge on all ebike sales.
Bittersweet news from Las Vegas, where a 71-year old man who has dedicated more than a decade of his life to giving refurbished bikes to hundred of kids in need held one last giveaway, before closing up shop as he battles stage 4 prostate cancer.
No surprise here, as bicyclists in Tallahassee, Florida say they increasingly feel left behind and vulnerable. In other words, like bike riders in nearly every other American cities. Especially here in LA.
International
Cycling Weekly considers who, or what, wins the battle of the best do-it-all all-surface bikes.
About damn time. London has finally banned trucks that don’t offer clear sightlines to vulnerable road users. Now if only all the world’s other cities would follow suit — starting with this one.
Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as a British writer recommends a multi-day gravel ride through Cornwall on the extreme southwestern tip of England, with its “sublime coastal gravel tracks, old mine ruins perched on the clifftops, gorgeous villages and ancient history,” all easily accessible from Penzance. No pirates, however. Unfortunately.
The parents of a fallen Dutch bicyclist are calling for stricter enforcement of the country’s bike paths, after their 12-year old daughter was killed by the driver of a Birò microcar while riding to dance class with two friends. Which is how I learned they even are a thing.
Everything you always wanted to know about riding a bike in Luxembourg, but were afraid to ask.
About damn time, part two. Subaru is introducing the world’s first external airbags designed to protect bike riders in a crash; it works to keep bicyclists from smashing into the windshield by modifying a pedestrian-safety airbag that’s been available in the country since 2016, but oddly hasn’t even been offered an option in this country. Although it wouldn’t do a lot of good on American trucks and SUVs, with their grills too high to provide any protection.
Competitive Cycling
The Tour of the Alps paused for a moment of silence, along with all other Italian sporting events, to mark the death of Pope Francis, the first pope I’m aware of who rode a bicycle.
Pro cyclists have been shocked! shocked! by how quickly Remco Evenepoel has returned to form following major injuries from a December dooring, nearly winning Sunday’s Amstel Gold, before settling for third.
An Indiana website offers everything you need to know about Indiana University’s iconic Little 500 bike race.
Finally…
Now you, too, can turn your non-biking friends into your new riding companions. Why ride with one mirror on your helmet, when you can have two?
And when you’re carrying meth, coke, brass knuckles and a switchblade on your bike at night, put a damn taillight on it, already.
The bike, that is. Not the meth. Or the switchblade.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
