Tag Archive for dangerous drivers

American expat with TX & CO ties missing after mountain biking in Spain, and focus on drivers to improve elderly bike safety

February 11, 2025 / / No comments
Day 42 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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We mentioned last week that a man from the UK had gone missing while mountain biking in Spain, prompting an all-out search.

Now it turns out that the victim is 50-year old US expat Matt Opperman, who has lived in Spain off-and-and on for several years, after serving as head mechanic for the Australian mountain bike team at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Police concluded that Opperman, who worked for Yeti Cycles, set out on his electric mountain bike two weeks ago yesterday, after finding his black van parked in Segura de la Sierra, west of Alicante, Spain.

Family members say the father of two had planned to stay at a cabin and explore local trails, but hasn’t been seen since.

Opperman is a former resident of both Houston, Texas and Longmont, Colorado.

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels.

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The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office held a bike safety seminar for older riders at a Palm Desert senior center, after two men in their 70s were killed while riding their bikes to start the year.

World-renowned golf photographer John Henebry, Jr., 76, was killed by a driver in Rancho Mirage on New Years Day, while 72-year old Patrick Petre died after he was fatally struck by a motorist in Palm Desert just one day later.

Which suggests that if the sheriff’s department really wants to improve safety for older bike riders, maybe they should start with a seminar on how to drive safely around people on bicycles, older or otherwise.

Because it’s not the people riding bikes who are killing people.

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Streets For All’s latest virtual happy hour will take place tomorrow, featuring newly-elected Culver City Councilmember Bubba Fish.

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NACTO says there’s a lot of new and revised rules in the latest edition of the organization’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide (click to make graphic mo’ bigger).

You know, in case you need a little light reading.

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Local  

Transportation For America says the opening of the LAX/Metro Transit Center Station will be a key step in preparing Los Angeles to host a carfree 2028 Olympic Games, along with a planned 28-mile-long — or maybe 22-mile — zero-emissions, non-vehicular “Festive Trail” linking the major venues currently proposed for the 2028 Games.

 

State

Escondido cops wrote 68 traffic tickets in that city’s latest crackdown on violations that can endanger bicyclists and pedestrians, but didn’t break down how many of those tickets went to bike riders, walkers or motorists.

 

National

A writer for conservative The Federalist says New Urbanism is just a left-wing assault on property rights and personal mobility, and the future of America isn’t a “high-density…nightmare,” but “spacious, family-friendly suburbs where liberty thrives.” Sure, let’s go with that.

In a scenario many Los Angeles bike riders can relate to, a Honolulu bike path has “bumps (that) make bike rides feel more like bull rides” due to ridges and cracks in the pavement caused by tree roots.

Seattle is adding a protected bike lane and pedestrian improvements to a short, two-block street segment connecting a pair of waterfront parks, although stopping short of fully pedestrianizing the street.

Even 5th graders get it. An elementary student in the tiny mountain town of Eagle, Colorado — not far from the famed Vail ski resort — calls for a bike path to replace a popular, but dangerous riding route on a local roadway to improve safety and reduce injuries.

Anti-urbanist President Trump is reportedly in talks with New York’s governor to not only get rid of New York City’s successful congestion pricing program, but also rip out the city’s bike lanes, which have improved safety for everyone. Although it’s questionable what authority he has to force their removal on state and local roadways, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone these days. 

New York takes another dramatic step to slow traffic by installing a “green wave” on a 36-block stretch of Third Ave, where traffic signals that had been timed for vehicles traveling 25 mph have been reset for a 15 mph, allowing bicyclists — not drivers — to travel without stopping.

Even motor-centric Daytona Beach, Florida is getting buffered bike lanes on the state’s coastal highway, as part of a $10 million resurfacing project.

A writer for the University of South Florida takes a look at the bike scene in St. Petersburg.

 

International

Momentum offers a Valentines Day list of “10 enticing ideas to ignite your passion for both cycling and romance.”

Life is cheap in Ireland, where a 62-year old man, who had faced up to ten years behind bars for running a red light and killing an eight-year old boy riding a bicycle, was sentenced to just three years in jail, with one suspended, after the judge considered mitigating factors; the boy’s father says he will never get over the “violence of the impact.”

A new Dutch study shows that promoting bicycling can help create more compact cities, while eliminating bicycle infrastructure increases commuting times and distances and exacerbates traffic congestion, while resulting in a significant reduction in worker welfare.

India’s Supreme Court ruled that cities can’t be required to build protected bike lanes, when the government has trouble providing even basic amenities like housing and hospitals.

 

Competitive Cycling

World road champ Tadej Pogačar may be ready to take on the famed cobbles of the Hell of the North, after he was filmed on a Paris-Roubaix-themed training ride.

 

Finally…

Even bank branches are victims of hit-and-run drivers. Lead a tank into battle on a bicycle, and somehow you’re a laughing stock instead of a hero.

And your next bike could have self-charging shifting and solar-powered brakes.

Okay, maybe not the next one. Or the one after that, even.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

CicLAvia unveils 2025 schedule, starting next month; Waymo says it’s safer than human drivers, which isn’t saying much

January 31, 2025 / / No comments
Day 31 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 
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CicLAvia announced the dates for eight open streets events for the coming year, starting with the West Adams meets University Park route on February 23rd.

Highlights include Koreatown meets Hollywood in April, Historic South Central meets Watts in June, a return to the popular Culver City meets Venice route in August, and a comeback to last year’s Melrose CicLAvia in December.

We’ll also see CicLAminis — shorter routes better suited to walking than bicycling — in Pico Union and San Pedro in May and September, respectively.

Along with the annual return of the ever-popular Heart of LA in October, just in time for another Dodgers playoff run.

Just saying.

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Maybe it’s no surprise that driverless vehicles are safer than the kind with an actual human behind the wheel.

But that doesn’t mean you should let down your guard around them.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

Based on data collected by Waymo, their driverless vehicles had 81% fewer airbag deployment crashes, 78% fewer injury-causing crashes and 62% fewer police-reported crashes than traditional vehicles driving the same distance. Waymo vehicles rely on cameras, sensors and a type of laser radar called lidar to operate autonomously…

A Waymo taxi collided with a cyclist in San Francisco last year and another vehicle crashed into a pole in Phoenix in May. Customers have reported various glitches on social media, including one Reddit user who posted a video of a Waymo driving the wrong direction into oncoming traffic.

And that’s not counting the guy who filmed himself locked inside a Waymo cab as it drove in circles for five minutes, before it finally straightened out and took him to his destination. Let alone the well-documented problems with Tesla and Cruise.

So maybe, just maybe you might be safer sharing the road with a motor vehicle if there’s no one behind the wheel.

But don’t count on it just yet.

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Local  

Nonprofit organization All Kids Bike is helping build the next generation of bicyclists by teaching Long Beach kindergarten students how to ride a bike.

 

State

She gets it. A San Diego high school student says she’s learned how dangerous bicycling can be, despite growing up riding bikes with her adventure cycling father, and as an ambassador with the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, she’s working to ensure her fellow students stay safe on their ebikes.

Bay Area mountain bikers finally got the okay to ride 6.6 miles of trails on 2,579-foot Mount Tamalpais overlooking San Francisco after six years of community outreach and lobbying, only to be stopped in their singletracks by a court order.

 

National

Forbes examines the Bike League’s latest list of Bicycle Friendly Communities.

Police in Boulder, Colorado have finally arrested a suspect in the death of a 19-year old woman, 200 days after her body was found stuffed into a bike trailer and left on the street in the hot summer sun, delaying identification of the victim.

Strong Towns podcast The Bottom-Up Revolution talks with a San Antonio, Texas mom and bike advocate about her path to advocacy and her work improving the city’s bike infrastructure; the city unanimously approved a 25-year bike plan yesterday that could cost up to $8 billion to completely build out. But as we’ve learned the hard way in LA, it’s one thing to approve an ambitious bike plan, but another to actually fund it and approve the work.

A Minneapolis bicyclist explains what you can to keep your bike from being stolen. And yes, he recommends registering your bike.

An Indianapolis paper offers a photo essay of the city’s bike messengers at work despite the frigid temperatures.

This is the cost of doing nothing. An Ohio mayor brings back the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee after it was left unstaffed for several years, in response to the death of a nine-year old boy killed by a driver while riding his bicycle. Although just maybe the kid might still be here if they hadn’t disbanded the damn thing for so long. 

New York got a reminder of the dangers of substandard ebike batteries when the impound yard where they’ve been storing seized and returned ebikes caught fire, covering parts of Red Hook and Brooklyn with toxic smoke; it was the third ebike battery fire at the compound in as many years.

Jamie Foxx is one of us, as the 57-year old actor flashed a smile at the paparazzi as he rode an ebike in Miami.

 

International

Cycling Weekly considers how to cope with seemingly inevitable headwinds. Especially on those days when it seems like there’s a headwind in every direction. 

I want to be like her when I grow up. A Toronto paper examines the stouthearted bike riders who brave the city’s frozen streets on two wheels, including a 78-year old retired school teacher and Viking biker.

This is the cost of traffic violence. An English bike shop owner and advocate was honored as a bicycling organization’s regional campaigner of the year — nine months after he was killed by a driver while riding his bike.

The UK cancels plans to allow bikemakers to double the power of ebikes, after an understandable pushback from the public.

Het gets it, too. Ireland’s former Green Party leader and Transport Minister says there’s “compelling” evidence that building more bike lanes will make the country’s roads less dangerous — especially in the cities, where most of the serious injuries occur.

A Kiwi man confronted a retired, uninsured driver at her home to demand payment for over twelve grand in repair costs to his custom-made bicycle, after she pulled into his path during a group ride, flipping him 180 degrees through the air — and posted video of the confrontation online.

Singletracks highlights five “stunning” gravel trails around Queensland, New Zealand for your next trip Down Under-adjacent.

 

Competitive Cycling

Danish pro cyclist Johan Price-Pejtersen got his national time trial title back, seven months after the country’s governing body stripped it for the crime of riding on a bike path next to the roadway.

Qatar announced a new “groundbreaking” initiative to transform women’s cycling in the Persian Gulf country, with a goal of fast-tracking the next generation of women cyclists to success at the 2030 Asian Games.

 

Finally…

That feeling when the new record for endurance cycling is still 52,000 miles short of the actual record. Your next foldie could be a fashion-forward designer Brompton.

And seriously, just stop saying this, uh, stuff, already.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

High hoods increase risk from speeding, drivers know dangers but do it anyway, and PCH Feasibility workshop postponed

December 11, 2024 / / Comments Off on High hoods increase risk from speeding, drivers know dangers but do it anyway, and PCH Feasibility workshop postponed
Just 20 short 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. 
Then again, it’s hard to make much progress when they failed to fund it, did next to nothing and never took it seriously.

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It’s Day 13 of the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to James T for his generous, if somewhat lonely, donation to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming to your way every day.

So don’t wait — donate now! 

Meanwhile, I’ve been battling some sort of respiratory virus this week. Fortunately, I’ve been vaxxed up the yin-yang against every virus known to man, and some that haven’t been discovered yet. 

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They’re finally starting to get it.

NPR reported yesterday that a new study from the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examining real-world crashes showed that higher speeds are worse for pedestrians, regardless of vehicle height, but those risks are amplified for vehicles with taller front ends.

The IHHS concluded the risk of a serious injury or a fatality increased as the speed in a crash went up, and went up much faster for taller vehicles than it did for shorter vehicles.

Which is exactly what bike and pedestrian safety advocates have been saying for some time.

According to NPR,

It’s the latest study to find that taller vehicles are more dangerous for pedestrians. The majority of vehicles sold in the U.S. are SUVs and light trucks with higher front ends that are often 40 inches or taller, and safety advocates say that’s one reason why pedestrian fatalities nationwide are up more than 75% since reaching their lowest point in 2009. Our fondness for larger vehicles prompted Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, to introduce a bill that would require federal safety standards for hood height, as she told NPR in August…

Federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have taken steps, too. In September, the agency proposed crafting rules for vehicle design to minimize the risk of pedestrian head injuries, among other things. Those design changes would be a good step, says Jessica Cicchino at IIHS. But she’d like to see changes to roads, too, starting with lower speed limits.

Let’s hope that progress continues under the incoming presidential administration.

But I wouldn’t count on it.

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This is why people keep dying on our streets.

According to AAA, most people who responded to a recent survey agreed that behaviors such as speeding or driving while impaired are very or extremely dangerous.

But many of those same motorists admitted to engaging in these behaviors at least once in the 30 days prior to responding to the survey.

And even safe drivers had the same disregard for potential consequences of their actions as their riskier counterparts.

Which suggests that maybe there’s no such thing as a safe driver.

Present company excepted, of course.

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Caltrans announced that tonight’s public workshop to discuss the PCH Master Plan Feasibility Study has been postponed due to Malibu’s 3,000+ acre Franklin Fire.

We would like to inform you that the workshop regarding the Pacific Coast Highway Master Plan Feasibility Study scheduled for Wednesday, December 11th, 2024, has been postponed due to the ongoing fires in the region.  The safety of all participants is our top priority, and we believe this decision is in the best interest of the public and everyone involved.

We will be scheduling a meeting to discuss the workshop content at a later date, which will be communicated to you as soon as it’s determined.

On a side note, we’d also like to share that the Draft Pacific Coast Highway Master Plan Feasibility Study document for public comment is nearing completion and will be posted in our Caltrans Engagement Portal soon.  We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.

Thank you for your continued support and please stay safe.

Meanwhile, PCH is closed between Tuna Canyon Road to Kanan Dume Road as a result of the fire, while Malibu Canyon Road is closed from Mulholland Drive to PCH, and Topanga Canyon Blvd is closed to all but local traffic.

And remember that highly toxic smoke can and will travel anywhere downwind of the fire, so use caution riding along the coast for the foreseeable future.

A simple rule of thumb is if you smell smoke, don’t ride.

Period.

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‘Tis the season.

Road.cc recommends “very last minute” Christmas gift ideas for the bicyclist in your life. And yes, it’s okay to buy something for yourself and hide it in a drawer until after the holidays, just in case you don’t find it under your tree or Chanukah bush, as the case may be.

Bicycling Australia offers a Christmas gift guide to their favorite bike things.

Boise, Idaho’s Boise Bike Project will answer requests from 630 area kids for their free dream bicycle this Saturday.

Outcast emcee Big Boi gave $750 bicycles to Atlanta middle school students for the second year in a row. But you’ll have to settle for reading the caption and the first couple paragraphs, because the rest of the story is locked behind a paywall.

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It’s now 356 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.

No, really.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going. 

Six people have now been pushed off their bicycles by masked attackers on mo-peds in Bristol, England; a woman was also sexually assaulted by three men sharing a mo-ped.

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Local  

Los Angeles Public Press says there’s a glaring lack of bike lanes in Southeast Los Angeles, but local residents are working to change that.

 

State

Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry says the California Transportation Commission has capitulated, and will now include Complete Streets requirements to guidelines for the state’s largest highway funding program.

A San Francisco Redditor says the city’s protected bike lanes are better in theory than practice, because what passes for protection doesn’t keep drivers from parking in them. Although things aren’t much better down this way, either. 

 

National

Bicycling commits bike blasphemy, saying there’s more to life than just riding a bicycle. But most of the story is hidden behind their paywall, so you’re out of luck if the magazine blocks you. 

Seattle Department of Transportation Director — and former LA Streets Services head — Greg Spotts announced his resignation after a little more than two years on the job, in order to find work closer to his mother and father, which could be difficult since they live on opposite coasts. But maybe this is a chance for Los Angeles to get back someone they never should have let get away in the first place.

People For Bikes named Michigan’s Mackinac Island the world’s most bicycle friendly city, scoring a 99 or better out of a possible 100 point in four categories. Although it’s not hard to be bike friendly on an island where cars are banned.

A wider sidewalk could have saved the life of a Boston bike rider, according to the leader of a safety advocacy group; the project had been approved, but construction wasn’t scheduled to begin until two weeks after the man’s death.

A new study from Connecticut’s Hartford Hospital is looking for older bike riders who have passed out while actively riding their bikes, then remained unconscious for several minutes, with no defensive injuries.

A Streetsblog New York op-ed says the city council’s proposal to register ebikes is “impossible to enforce, unnecessary and won’t even work,” while another post called it a Trojan Horse that would fuel anti-immigrant policing.

 

International

I want to be like her when I grow up. A 70-year old Bolivian woman conquered Bolivia’s “Death Road,” making her the oldest-ever competitor in the country’s 37-mile Skyrace, which she had helped found.

Taking a page from Culver City’s playbook, city officials in Bristol, England swear bicyclists will be just as happy with bus lanes as they would have been with bike lanes. Although in Culver City, we already had bike lanes until they ripped them out and replaced them with bus lanes.

 

Competitive Cycling

As we noted yesterday, this is your chance to buy a bike that’s been under your favorite cyclist’s butt during a Grand Tour or some other race.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can ride your mountain bike on an elevated monorail line. That feeling when you get busted at the airport for the crime of having a Garmin in your bag.

Or when you need advice from a car company on what bikes to buy to start riding with your family.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

SaMo approves bicycle anti-harassment ordinance, Brit press demonizes bicyclists, and Wilmington CicLAmini Sunday

May 17, 2024 / / One comment
Just 228 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’ve made it up to 1,134 signatures, so don’t stop now! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she agrees to meet with us! 

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It took awhile, but LA’s bicyclist anti-harassment ordinance is finally starting to spread elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

The Santa Monica City Council unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting harassment of bicyclists, while providing a private right of action for violations in civil court.

They also clarified that the law applies to both human-powered and ped-assist ebikes — but evidently, not throttle-controlled ebikes.

According to Santa Monica City Attorney Doug Sloan,

“Defining activities would prohibit physically assaulting or attempting to physically assault bicyclists because of their status of a bicyclist, threatening to physically injure a cyclist, threatening to physically injure, including by road, cyclists because of being a cyclist. intentionally distracting or attempting to distract a cyclist, intentionally forcing or attempting to enforce a bicyclist off the street or bike lane,” Sloan said.

“It’s important to note that these are purely civil remedies,” he said before clarifying that this does not require city resources to enforce this — it is not criminal. So an aggrieved individual can bring a civil action against the perpetrator. It can include if they’re liable for damages for three times heir actual damage for each violation or $1,000, whichever is greater. Moreover, they can recover attorney fees and potentially punitive damages.

“It expressly says it does not constitute a misdemeanor or infraction. And that’s essentially it,” he said.

That last part is important, because it means a cop doesn’t need to witness the violation, or ticket the driver or file charges.

However, the same problems that have limited the Los Angeles ordinance would likely limit this one, as well.

Unless you record the violation on a bike cam or cellphone, it’s difficult to gather witnesses or other evidence to offer proof of what happened.

And even with the provision for legal fees, it’s hard to find a lawyer who will take a case without the possibility of substantial damages, because the amount of work required doesn’t usually make it worth their time.

Still, it’s a move towards holding dangerous, aggressive and road-raging drivers accountable.

Let’s just hope it spreads to the other 86 cities in LA County.

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No bias here.

The British press continued its demonization of “killer bicyclists” in the wake of a new law imposing a sentence of up to 14 years for killing someone by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate bicycling.

Which is seven years more than motorists face for a similar crime.

The London Telegraph lifted their paywall to breathlessly share a story about “reckless” bicyclists chasing Strava coms — including one person reportedly riding 52 mph in a 20 mph zone, which would be a world record speed.

A columnist for Express says it’s about time London’s “Lycra-clad maniacs” were forced to abide by the rules of the road, including such “trivialities” as traffic lights and crosswalks. Never mind that British bike riders are already subject to most of the same rules drivers are.

However, former Olympic gold medalist, Hour Record holder, and current National Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman puts it in perspective.

https://twitter.com/Boenau/status/1791191381446148550

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Don’t miss Sunday’s CicLAmini open streets event in Wilmington this Sunday. The weather should be cool, dry and partly cloudy, so it should be comfortable whether you’re riding, skating or walking.

https://twitter.com/CaltransDist7/status/1791227045793481121

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GCN considers whether Classified’s new Powershift hub could spell the end of front derailleurs, after it was used by the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team during the Giro’s individual time trial.

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It’s now 149 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Once again, a British bike rider has been pushed off his bike by some jackass in a passing car when the passenger in a BMW leaned out the window and knocked a man in his 40s off his bicycle, and suffered a broken shoulder, cuts and bruises.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A bike rider in Singapore was fined the equivalent of $163 for running a red light while a mother was in the crosswalk pushing her child in a stroller.

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Local 

A new Caltrans plan to rebuild and widen Lincoln Boulevard — otherwise known as PCH — where it crosses Ballona Creek will include new sidewalks and protected bike lanes, along with lighting, landscaping and signage.

The Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition and city Arts and Culture staffers will host a Pasadena Public Art Bike Ride tomorrow morning.

 

State

He gets it. A writer for the Thousand Oaks Acorn says “Bicycling instead of driving is a great way to reduce traffic, cut pollution, and save energy while contributing to California’s climate goals.”

The Big Bear bike parks will be opening in the next few weeks, with Snow Valley Bike Park opening weekends beginning May 24th, and Summit Bike Park opening daily on June 7th.

Pleasanton seniors discuss bike safety, amid concerns that a lack of safe infrastructure will keep older people from biking.

Mission Local shares photos from San Francisco’s Ride of Silence.

San Francisco Mayor Breed promises protected bike lanes in front of City Hall, even if “some supervisors have to give up their parking spaces.”

No bias here, either. A pair of writers for El Tecolote complain about the San Francisco MTA’s approval a $1.5 million contract with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to provide bicycle education for the next five years — which works out to just $300,000 a year — saying it “frees the Bicycle Coalition to hire a phalanx of lobbyists to influence city policy with Supervisors, commissioners, and city staff in all departments.”

Sonoma County is being sued by a woman who suffered a broken neck when she hit a pothole on her bike, on the same street where another woman was seriously injured hitting another pothole ten years earlier.

 

National

If you missed yesterday’s Bike to Work/Bike to Wherever Day, you may still have time to catch it today in New York or Seattle.

Seriously? ABC network officials are reportedly mad that Good Morning America 3 host DeMarco Morgan posted an Instagram photo wearing “skin-tight bike shorts” that “doesn’t leave much to the imagination.” Except he’s actually wearing a very normal bike jersey and padded bike shorts that leave about as much to the imagination as any other spandex-clad bicyclist. 

A self-described “car guy” swapped his four wheeler for an e-cargo bike for a week, and ended up rethinking what cars are really for.

Boise, Idaho intends to become the next bicycle capital of America. Although they may have to get in line behind all the other cities with the same aspirations. 

Idaho bicyclists got donuts and French pastries for Bike to School and Work Day. Meanwhile, LA bike riders got squat.

If you build it, they will come. After going a bike lane building binge in recent years, Chicago has doubled the number of bike trips over the past five years, with the greatest increase on the city’s South Side.

 

International

Hundreds of people turned out for a two-wheeled rave through the streets of Victoria, British Columbia.

Tragic news from the UK, where a “fit and active” 80-year old man died after falling from his bike following an “incident” with a van, after he was forced to ride close to the roadway when debris in the bike path narrowed it to just two feet wide; an inspector looked at the path just weeks before his death, and said it looked just hunky dory.

An Irish advocacy group rightfully complains that less than 350 drivers were fined for parking in bike lanes throughout the entire country in one recent year.

Mobility Outlook talks with the Head of Brand for India’s Hero Cycles, which it says is helping reshape the evolving bicycling culture in India with their ebikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time former world champ Julian Alaphilippe won the 12th stage of the Giro on Thursday in a solo breakaway; leader Tadej Pogačar finished in the main pack to hold on to the pink jersey.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could pay tribute to Vincent van Van Gogh — cutting off your ear is optional. Your next super-ebike mountain bike could be a McLaren, yes, that McLaren.

And there’s a new AI sheriff in town to keep you from cheating on your KOMs.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Urge SaMo council to expand bike network, LA’s bad drivers nowhere near worst, and Measure HLA tops the news

February 27, 2024 / / One comment
Just 308 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can. Just 6 signatures to go to reach 1,000! 

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BikeLA Chapter Santa Monica Spoke is calling on you to reach out to the Santa Monica City Council before their meeting tonight, to urge them to support safer streets and Vision Zero.

Tuesday Feb 27th Santa Monica City Council will hear the City Manager Report – on the Bike Action Plan and a Vision Zero Update — Special Item 3B on the Agenda.

Please join us with an email to Council TODAY voicing your support for more protected bike lanes (support the Bike Action Plan Amendment) and to support our city’s commitment to Vision Zero — to protect vulnerable road users, like people walking and biking, with streets designed to be safer for everyone.

Easy one click email — please do add your comments and personal stories if you can!

Or use this “copy and paste / template” send to:

Re: Item 3B City Manager Report – Bike Action Plan and Vision Zero Update.

Dear Santa Monica Mayor, City Council and City Manager:

I support the City’s commitment to safer streets and more protected bike lanes. Please prioritize improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure and Vision Zero. The City must continue the overwhelming community supported commitment to prioritize and protect vulnerable road users, like people walking and biking, with more protected bike lanes and streets designed to be safer for everyone.

Please support and prioritize safer streets!

Then if you’re not doing anything tonight, show up at the meeting to show your support.

Or if you are, even.

https://twitter.com/MobilityForWho/status/1762275772419768650

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Shockingly, Los Angeles barely makes the American Top 40 of the nation’s worst drivers, a list topped by Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Clearly, the experts at Forbes have never driven the streets of LA.

In fact, nowhere in California ranked near the top, despite the state’s notoriously bad drivers.

  • 22. Fresno
  • 34. Long Beach
  • 37. Los Angeles
  • 42. San Diego
  • 49. San Francisco

No, really.

Clearly, we all need to email them to demand a recount, or send in a fake slate of electors. Or something.

Because on any list of America’s worst drivers, Los Angeles should be #1 with a bullet.

Literally, sometimes.

………

Measure HLA continues to dominate Los Angeles news, as LA Times Letter’s Editor Paul Thornton says the hysteria over bike lanes shows exactly why Measure HLA is needed.

But a letter writer in the Times insists that if you build it, they won’t come, because she somehow doesn’t see any bike riders or buses on the newly expanded Venice Blvd bus and bikeways.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles-based composer bizarrely urges a vote against HLA because it would “only” implement 300 miles of bus lanes, even though the mobility plan it’s based on features bus lanes on nearly every major street.

And a writer for LA Progressive insists HLA somehow won’t work because of US military spending in Ukraine and Gaza, and because HLA ignores connectivity — even though it’s based on LA’s nine-year old Mobility Plan 2035, which contains three separate but interconnected bike networks, which the city would be forced to build out as streets are resurfaced.

………

I want to be like them when I grow up.

Used bike retailer The Pro’s Closet talks with soon-to-be 80-year old Wendy Skean, who raced wheel-to-wheel against much younger riders at the “outrageously cold and muddy” Old Man Winter Rally, where she finished 50th out of 237 women in the 50K event. And in her first-ever race, no less.

Cycling Weekly talks with 76-year old Brit Geoff Nelder, who still averages riding 100 miles a week in winter and 200 in summer, helping him overcome three coronary stents ten years ago.

Or maybe not, as a 73-year old man was killed while riding his bike in a Thai hit-and-run.

………

It’s now 69 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Good question. Escape Collective takes up the burning question of how to get drivers to finally recognize that people on bicycles are human, too.

Someone working with the Department of DIY took matters into their own hands, and added traffic diverters to finally fulfill the New York mayor’s promise to finish work on the street.

A UK sociologist considers why so many people are so triggered by the simple act of riding a bicycle.

After a British bike rider reported a driver for using his cellphone behind the wheel, police took immediate action — threatening to charge the guy on the bicycle after incorrectly concluding the helmet cam video he submitted to them showed him riding on the wrong side of the road.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A Wisconsin petition calls off-trail mountain biking a threat to the red headed woodpecker population.

A New York thief took advantage of the added mobility of the city’s Citi Bike bikeshare to rob four people in Central Park in just under an hour, telling one victim “I rob people for a living.” I mean, you’d hate to see an amateur who doesn’t know what he’s doing attempting a feat like that.

Apparently, bike theft is just an “oopsie” now, after a Korean high school student admitted to “mistakenly” stealing a bicycle to support his siblings, after his mother’s illness.

………

Local 

This is who we share the road with. Wealthy socialite and Grossman Burn Center co-founder Rebecca Grossman faces 34 to life after she was convicted of murder in the high-speed hit-and-run deaths of two young brothers crossing a Westlake Village street with their family in 2020.

LADOT is teaming with CicLAvia to highlight the new protected bike lanes and safety features on Reseda Blvd for four short hours on St. Paddy’s Day. And to prove just how well they work, they’ll still let drivers and their cars use the street.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers his typically great photos capturing the essence of Sunday’s Melrose CicLAvia.

 

State

More on Costa Mesa’s $7.9 million grant from the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Complete Streets program, which will fund Class I bike trail, and two Class IV fully separated bike lanes. Thanks to Richard Duquette for the heads-up. 

San Diego belatedly begins work on a two-way protected bikeway on Balboa Park’s Pershing Drive, nearly three years after noted architect Laura Shinn was killed by a stoned driver.

The Toronto Star tours Santa Barbara’s American Riviera, where everything is a “quick walk, bike or public transit ride” away.

Bakersfield residents get new ebikes through the city’s loan-to-own ebike program.

Velo examines why everyone is freaking out about San Francisco’s center-running Valencia Street bike lane.

A Redwood City site compares university towns Davis and Palo Alto, proclaiming there can only be self-proclaimed California “Bicycle Capital.” Although fellow university city Long Beach would like to have a word.

 

National

A Portland man faces charges for the alleged DUI death of a homeless man on a bicycle; the driver ran away on foot, but was detained by community members after someone fired a shot.

Bicyclists in Goodyear, Arizona turned out for a rally to remember the victims of last year’s crash that killed two people and hospitalized 17 others when a pickup driver plowed into — or rather, through — a group ride; no charges have been filed after the local DA said it was just an “oopsie.”

Elderly Denver residents say a new protected bike lane is an accident waiting to happen, after an 82-year old man broke his hip tripping over a bike lane bumper getting out of a friend’s truck.

That’s more like it. Wichita, Kansas will host a bike ride for city council members to examine the condition of the city’s bikeways, after complaints they have become unrideable due to homeless encampments and broken glass.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole $5,000 worth of ebike and gear from an Oklahoma City bike nonprofit.

Just because you’re a disgraced, seven-times ex-Tour de France champ doesn’t mean you can’t get honored by a bikeway in your Austin, Texas hometown.

A Tallahassee, Florida man is back on his bike and filing suit against the city cop who hit him last year, leaving him with a broken femur and jaw, and multiple fractured ribs and vertebrae.

 

International

The Robb Report highlights luxury biking tours where you can ride alongside your favorite cycling stars. Before they drop you like Freshman English, that is.

A Vancouver Lime Bike only appears to roll on water.

That’s more like it. A British driver will spend the next 12 and a half years behind bars, after he was convicted of hitting a bike rider head-on while racing another driver.

Momentum offers a look at Europe’s best spring cycling destinations for nature-loving bicyclists. Which is not the same as naturist-loving bicyclists.

In other case of keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late, an unlicensed driver in Ghent, Belgium faces charges for the alleged drunken crash that killed two people riding their bikes and injured three others, when he plowed into a group riding together; the driver had the equivalent of 14 cocktails in his blood, despite two previous drunk driving bans.

The Netherlands has ordered a recall of Babboe cargo bikes, alleging the company has not provided the necessary safety information.

In a surprise to no one, China’s Xinhua says access to bicycles improves the lives of women and girls in rural Zambia.

The Philippines’ Bike Scouts are pushing the nation towards a bottom-up approach to natural disasters.

 

Competitive Cycling

Velo says Jonas Vingegaard Hansen could win this year’s Tour de France, after the Danish two-time Tour champ added his wife’s surname, sans hyphen; Vingegaard swept all three stages of Spain’s O Gran Camino to win the GC.

The magazine also celebrates Butch Martin, who became the first Black American Olympic cyclist in both road cycling and track at the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympic Games.

In a Velo trifecta, the magazine relates the “most insane bike change in pro cycling history” when Aussie Michael Rogers swapped his bike for a fan’s nearly identical bike after his derailleur broke off midrace in the Tour Down Under.

US women’s cycling team Cynisca was suspended for illegally dressing a bike mechanic in the team kit to pose as a cyclist, because they didn’t have enough riders to complete in Belgium’s Argenta Classic last year.

Retired major league baseball All Star Carlos Gómez is on track to become the first indoor track cyclist to represent the Dominican Republic in the summer Olympics.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you have no idea you just crashed a Belgian bike race. Or when a winter bike ride means coming home sheathed in ice.

And Finish the Ride is finally getting serious, adding a corgi-endorsed puppy run to April’s two-day Griffith Park event.

Our corg sez she’s all in, as long as there are treats involved. And she doesn’t actually have to, you know, run.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

NYT blames dangerous drivers for spiking road deaths, and LA & Ventura County rides for the release of Israeli hostages

January 12, 2024 / / One comment
If you haven’t already, stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to listen to the dangers we face just walking and biking on the streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

Photo by Artyom Kulakov from Pexels.

………

Today’s must read is a deep dive from the New York Times into the culture of driving to explain why traffic deaths are once again surging, thanks largely to dangerous drivers.

The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak. In a report published in November, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit, concluded that S.U.V.s or vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches — standard-issue specs for an American truck in 2023 — are 45 percent more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller cars.

Above all, though, the problem seems to be us — the American public, the American driver. “It’s not an exaggeration to say behavior on the road today is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Capt. Michael Brown, a state police district commander in Michigan, told me. “It’s not just the volume. It’s the variety. There’s impaired driving, which constituted 40 percent of our fatalities last year. There are people going twice the legal limit on surface streets. There’s road rage,” Brown went on. “There’s impatience — right before we started talking, I got an email from a woman who was driving along in traffic and saw some guy fly by her off the roadway, on the shoulder, at 80, 90 miles an hour.” Brown stressed it was rare to receive such a message: “It’s got so bad, so extremely typical,” he said, “that people aren’t going to alert us unless it’s super egregious…”

Then there’s the problem all of us seem to encounter sooner or later, as drivers cut traffic law corners for their convenience, and take their anger out on the most convenient targets.

And aggressive driving, defined by AAA as “tailgating, erratic lane changing or illegal passing,” factors into 56 percent of crashes resulting in a fatality. (Distressingly, this statistic does not cover the tens of thousands of people injured, often critically, by aggressive drivers, or the 550 people shot annually after or during road-rage incidents — or the growing number of pedestrians and cyclists deliberately targeted by incensed motorists.)…

Every year for the past decade and a half, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has published something called the Traffic Safety Culture Index — a kind of State of the Union of American roads. I had thought the 2022 edition was bleak (the headline from AAA’s news release: “Going in Reverse: Dangerous Driving Behaviors Rise”), but the 2023 report was equally grim. Of the 2,500 licensed drivers who responded to the AAA survey, 22 percent admitted to switching lanes at high speeds or tailgating, 25 percent admitted to running a red light, 40 percent admitted to holding an active phone while driving and 50 percent admitted to exceeding posted speed limits by 15 miles per hour or more — all within the last calendar month.

Worse, a sizable number of respondents said they knew that people important to them would somewhat or completely disapprove of much of the behavior. They did it anyway, despite the risk of opprobrium and despite the fact that, as the AAA dryly noted in an accompanying news release, “a motorist’s need for speed consistently fails to deliver shorter travel times. It would take driving 100 miles at 80 m.p.h. instead of 75 m.p.h. to shave just five minutes off a trip.”

It’s not a quick read. But it’s worth taking the time to read the whole thing.

Because this is the most detailed examination and best explanation I’ve seen for why things continue to get worse on our streets, despite Vision Zero plans — at least in the cities that have bothered to fund and implement them, unlike a certain SoCal megalopolis I could name.

And this is literally who we share the road with.

………

Thanks to Mitchell Guzik for forwarding more information on the LA and Ventura County editions of Sunday’s international series of bike rides calling for the release of hostages from the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israeli settlements, which we mentioned yesterday.

And you can find information on a Dana Point ride on the link to yesterday’s post.

………

South Bay Forward offers a Twitter/X thread recounting the carnage on the South Bay section of SoCal’s killer highway.

Click through for the full thread.

Meanwhile, yet another apparent high speed crash on PCH in Malibu left one person with life-threatening injuries.

………

22 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 30 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law, and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Unintelligible, “barmy” bike lane markings make British bike riders want to go back home and get in bed.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A 75-year old New York man died in the hospital, ten days after he was struck by an ebike rider while walking in the Jackson Heights neighborhood. But at least the bike rider did the right thing and remained at the scene following the crash.

A artist in New York’s Greenwich Village used a graphic novel format to illustrate the pain of getting hit by an ebike rider, along with a shoutout to the mayor calling for ebike licensing and registration.

………

Local 

SoCal Cycling considers why bicycle crashes happen, and how you can protect yourself.

Alhambra residents will get another month to review the city’s new bike/pedestrian plan, after complaints that it was released just days before it was scheduled for a vote.

 

State

Encinitas approved a new bike safety plan, including protected bike lanes, new striping, signage, and school entrances as the first step in addressing the city’s bicycling state of emergency. Maybe if other SoCal cities would declare a bike and pedestrian safety state of emergency, we might actually get somewhere. Are you listening, Los Angeles Mayor Bass?

The CHP is now offering ebike safety instruction in the San Diego region, as ebike riders present new challenges for the state highway patrol.

Goleta is hosting an Ebike Safety Awareness Week next week, after devoting a single day to the subject last year.

 

National

Yes, you can get in shape riding an ebike.

Three US companies are teaming up to introduce a non-flammable replacement for lithium-ion ebike batteries, which have been blamed for a number of deadly fires around the world.

A Denver man has struggled to find justice after he was struck by four e-scooter riders while riding a bike, after Lime refused to release the names of the people who rented them.

Momentum profiles New York’s Cargo Bike Momma, as part of their efforts to celebrate “cyclists with sass and attitude.”

New York installed K-rails to keep drivers out of bike lanes in the Bronx, but drivers somehow manage to park in them anyway.

A Facebook page memorializes New York food delivery riders who have been killed while working, with over 40 victims just since 2020.

Florida bicyclists have responded to the recent wrong-way crash on the coast highway that injured seven bike riders, two critically, by forming a coalition of ten bike clubs to demand safety improvements. Which is exactly what we need on PCH, where it would make a huge difference if all the bike clubs who regularly ride the killer highway would start demanding a safer roadway.

 

International

Bike Radar offers their choices for the year’s best endurance, race, women’s and entry-level road bikes.

That’s more like it. A British hit-and-run driver has been sentenced to six years and nine months behind bars for downing a bottle of vodka while high on weed, ecstasy and coke prior to killing a 54-year old man riding a bike.

France is now offering residents up to 2,000 euros — the equivalent of nearly $2,200 — on the purchase of a bicycle or ebike; the incentive program also includes refurbished bicycles from a professional dealer. Meanwhile, California’s moribund ebike incentive program continues to be nothing more than vaporware.

Electrek recounts a 2019 Danish study showing just 4.9% of cyclists broke traffic laws when riding on bike paths, increasing to 14% when bike paths were not present; that compares to previous Danish studies showing 66% of drivers broke traffic laws.

More people than ever are riding a New Zealand bike trail, which is also seeing a surge in vandalism and bad behavior, including prohibited motor vehicles.

 

Competitive Cycling

New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston won the first stage of the Women’s Tour Down Under to claim her first WorldTour win; 36-year old Aussie cyclist Matilda Raynolds led much of the race in a breakaway in just her second race at the WorldTour level, before being reeled back in by the peloton — despite riding without the aid of a cycling computer.

Former teammates remembered Melissa Hoskins ahead of the first stage of the Women’s Tour Down Under race, after she was killed falling off the hood of a pickup driven by her husband, pro cyclist Rohan Dennis.

Velo talks with the founder of the relatively rule-less LA Tourist Race.

 

Finally…

Who really needs a wheel hub, anyway? Then again, who needs a bike chain or belt drive, either?

And apparently, hover bikes and self-repairing frames are what you get when you ask AI to predict the year ahead in the bike world.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

A call to ban “bike herds” after Florida crash, the American problem of traffic violence, and LA-area bike path news

January 8, 2024 / / 3 comments
If you haven’t already, stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to listen to the dangers we face just walking and biking on the streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

………

Surprisingly, last minute donations are still trickling in for the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. So thanks to an anonymous donor for their generous gift to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day!

While the fund drive is officially over, donations of any amount are welcome anytime, for any reason.

………

Unbelievable.

After an elderly Florida woman driving on the wrong side of the road plowed head-on into a group of eight bicyclists, sending seven to the hospital — two still critical — a local news website responds by firmly assigning blame.

On the victims, of course.

Asking if “bike herds should be banned,” they say the crash “raises new questions about whether bicyclists belong on area roads.”

Often a nuisance to drivers as they ride in packs, Florida law does permit these bicyclists to use a roadway when no bike lane exists. But these bike herds rarely ride at the speed of traffic. They often seem to lack any awareness that in a bike-versus-car collision, the car almost always wins.

Although a much better question would be whether elderly drivers who can’t confine themselves to the right side of the roadway should be allowed on them.

And maybe someone could assure them that we are all quite aware that cars are bigger than we are, and they hurt.

Unfortunately, however, the writer, or writers, aren’t done yet.

Now we ask you, our readers: should packs of bicyclists be permitted on area roads? Should they be permitted to interfere with traffic? Are there times of day where bike herds should be outright banned, or conversely, are there times of day where you believe it would be okay for bicyclists to ride on area roads? And this question: does anyone really believe that tight, brightly colored spandex offers any additional safety for these people at all?

They obviously don’t realize that we only form herds for protection from apex predators in motor vehicles.

And the purpose of our tight, brightly colored spandex is to get drivers to check out our butts and massive thighs, so they might actually see us for a change.

But hopefully not from the front, as they hurtle blissfully along on the wrong side of the road.

Seriously, the site’s whole argument makes no more sense than suggesting schools should be banned to prevent mass shootings.

Meanwhile, the local sheriff’s office is responding to the wrong way crash, in which the elderly driver was 100% at fault, by reminding bike riders of their duty to obey traffic laws.

Because evidently, someone, somewhere, once rode a bicycle through a red light, which somehow caused this whole mess.

But still.

………

A CNN op-ed from journalist Jill Filipovic decries the ever-increasing death toll on American streets, arguing that “Like gun deaths, this epidemic of car-related deaths is a particularly American problem.”

One that she blames in part on the ever-increasing size of American motor vehicles. But she takes it several steps further, to look at other factors contributing to the problem.

Growing vehicle size is a big part of the problem. But it’s far from the only problem. America has too-lax road rules and too few spaces where pedestrians are prioritized. American drivers are too often distracted by cell phones (European drivers, who are much more likely to operate manual-transmission cars, are as a result less likely to have a free hand to hold a cell phone). And enforcement of existing laws is weak: In many areas, officers reportedly have been told not to pull drivers over even for breaking the law.

One solution, she says, is increased camera enforcement — like the speed cams that were recently approved for a handful of California cities, including Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach.

Along with red light cams, which are currently prohibited in the City of Angels, because drivers didn’t like getting caught breaking the same laws they accuse bike riders of breaking.

Then she adds this, making the same case I’ve been making for some time.

If your license has been suspended several times, or if you’ve been convicted of multiple DUIs, or if you have double-digit numbers of speeding tickets in your name, or if you’ve been involved in multiple crashes that were your fault, you should lose the privilege to drive entirely. And if you have a record of this kind of reckless or dangerous driving and then you hit and injure or kill someone, you should pay an especially steep price.

Yet over and over and over again, people with long records of dangerous driving are allowed back on the road; dangerous drivers often aren’t even punished when they eventually maim or kill someone, or see penalties that amount to little more than a slap on the wrist. It is exceptionally rare for a driver, even one with a history of dangerous driving, to be charged with murder when they kill someone on the road. Killing someone with a car is, in the United States, too often essentially a free pass.

It’s worth reading the whole thing.

Because things will never get better until we get dangerous cars and drivers off the roads.

Permanently.

Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the heads-up.

………

Thanks to Joel Falter for forwarding news that the annual maintenance work on the Ballona Creek Bike Path will begin today, with intermittent closures this week that could affect your ride or commute.

You can find a full work schedule on the Culver City website.

………

Now that nearby freeway work is nearing completion, the city is finally getting around to fixing the north end of the LA River bike path. And hopefully, connecting it to new segments in the San Fernando Valley.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1743001554138050647

………

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been tempted to crawl over — or through — vehicles whose drivers carelessly block the crosswalk to enjoy their God-given right to turn right on red.

………

The camera aspect appears to make this look even more extreme, as if it’s not extreme enough.

Thanks to Mike Burk for the forward. 

https://twitter.com/mikeburk/status/1743918919138816270

………

19 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 30 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law, and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

LA-based former pro cyclist Phil Gaimon warned “sane motorists” about “homicidal maniacs on the road” who threaten the safety of vulnerable road users, after a driver responded to the innocuous post below showing Gaimon and friends riding past crawling I-5 traffic — on the shoulder, no less — warning that he would “turn the wheel to the right and ram you” in the same situation. If he actually said he “would,” rather than he’d like to, that constitutes a threat under California law, and should be reported to the police to get that fool off the road before he kills someone.

GCN talks with bicycling historian and journalist Peter Norton about the roots of road rage directed from drivers towards people on bicycles, driven in part by street designs that tell drivers the roads were made for them. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the link. 

No bias here. A Madison, Wisconsin letter writer insists that bike riders need to pay for their own infrastructure, apparently unaware of who actually pays for local streets, or that bike riders cause a minute fraction of the damage to roadway surfaces that drivers do, and we pay the same taxes as anyone else.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Leaked traffic data shows that only 40% of London bike riders actually stop for pedestrians as required at the city’s floating bus stops, where people have to cross a bike lane to get it.

………

Local 

This is who we share the road with. Speeds clearly haven’t declined on PCH, as a speeding Malibu driver slammed head-on into three other cars at over 100 mph, then escaped after bugging out through the brush on the nearby hillside.

An unidentified Hermosa Beach bike shop was the victim of a holiday week smash and grab, after someone broke out a window to make off with a high-end bike. Thanks to Jim Lyle for forwarding the story.

Metro Bike is hosting a bikeshare community ride along the Expo Line Bike Path on January 20th. But shouldn’t the path be renamed the E Line Bike Path now, since the Expo Line doesn’t officially exist anymore?

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Chicago Streetsblog pats itself on the back for convincing a local business to stop illegally telling bike riders they can’t park there.

A Florida man argues that he is a victim of political and social manipulation of physical and circumstantial evidence, insisting that he had a legal and constitutional right to fatally shoot a bicycle-riding man during a confrontation, part of which he live streamed from his motorcycle; he’s been behind bars awaiting trail for nearly four and a half years, largely because he keeps firing his defense attorneys.

The only form of life lower than a hit-and-run driver is someone who’d flee the scene after hitting a Florida paraplegic riding a handcycle. Schmuck.

 

International

Road.cc looks at the history of the bizarre, A-framed, belt-drive Strida foldie, calling it one of the most unusual city bikes ever made. Which is an understatement. 

Costa Rica is dealing with a sharp rise in traffic deaths over the past year, as more Costa Ricans drive like Americans.

So it begins. A Toronto letter writer draws from the standard “But this isn’t Amsterdam” playbook to argue that the city will never be a bicycling paradise like Paris. (Scroll down. No, keep scrolling.)

A woman with no previous interest in bicycling decided to ride 340 miles from her home in Wales to the Eiffel Tower to honor her bike-riding father, after he died following a short battle with brain cancer.

I’m not sure if we mentioned this one from last month, as The Guardian takes a look back at the four-year history of London’s Black Unity Bike Ride, born out of Covid restrictions and a fight for racial justice; there’s a podcast version of the story if you’d rather listen than read. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

Irish police were criticized for confusing messaging that mixed the legal requirement to have lights on a bike with advice not to wear dark clothing, which isn’t required. But others applauded the cops for ticketing a lightless rider in dark clothes.

The attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea could be leading to another round of shortages of bike parts, just as the industry is recovering from the pandemic-era shortages.

A Singapore man explains how he turned his love of bicycles into a fulfilling career running a bike repair shop, despite dropping out of school at 15 — including a stint sharpening his skills in the US.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclists participating in Australian women’s road cycling championship paused for a moment of silence to honor Olympic gold medal track cyclist Melissa Hoskins, who was killed when she reportedly fell off the hood of the pickup driven by her husband, two-time world time trial champ and Tour de France stage winner Rohan Dennis; Hoskins was remembered as a “beacon of strength” and “a freewheeling spirit.”

 

Finally…

If you think pro cycling is hard, try building a Millennium Falcon out of Legos. Prepare for your next road-raging driver with new bullet-resistant ebike batteries.

And probably not the best idea to kick the cop who tells you to get off your bike in a no riding zone.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Give a little for bikes on Giving Tuesday, windshield bias in Santa Monica, and the case of the doubly purloined Pinarellos

November 28, 2023 / / Comments Off on Give a little for bikes on Giving Tuesday, windshield bias in Santa Monica, and the case of the doubly purloined Pinarellos

It’s Day 5 of the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

So take just a moment before we get started to open your heart and wallet in support for our humble little bike blog.

And let’s thank Paul F and Grace P for their generous donations yesterday to help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day!

So don’t wait! Donate today!

………

It’s also Giving Tuesday.

So if you have anything left after giving to our holiday fund drive — or maybe the other way around — send a little love to some of the groups out there working to keep you safe and informed.

Thanks to Valley Duke, Chris Thomas and Gary J. Templeton for their suggestions.

………

Santa Monica is celebrating the official unveiling of the bike and pedestrian friendly improvements on 17th Street and Michigan Ave, which have already survived the slings and arrows of local residents angry over changes to their streets.

Or should I say, “their” streets.

17th Street Bikeway Ribbon Cutting

9 a.m. Donuts, coffee and hot chocolate (while supplies last)

9:30 a.m.  Ribbon cutting ceremony

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Mayor Gleam Davis
  • Director of Transportation Anuj Gupta
  • Chief of Police Ramon Batista
  • Santa Monica Spoke Director Cynthia Rose

10 a.m. Santa Monica High School Marching Band

11:15 a.m. Academia de Danza Ballet Folklorico Flor de Mayo

10 a.m. – noon Guided bike tours

Thanks to David Drexler for the heads-up.

………

Speaking of Santa Monica, a local writer offers a word salad of windshield bias and entitlement, along with support for what she says is Santa Monica’s near non-existent public transit system.

Evidently, she’s not a fan of the city’s Big Blue Bus. Or the continuous rumble of Metro buses on the coastal boulevards.

She starts with the story of her ex-husband’s bicycling crash, when he was run down from behind by a driver who questioned why he failed to see him as he rode home from dinner on Pico Blvd.

Because it was dark? Because the lights there are dim? Because it was late and maybe he was tired?

Because accidents happen. No one need be at fault. And yet, the city bears some responsibility for promoting biking before it’s truly safe, for making it ever-more-maddening to drive a car, and for absolutely refusing to create any realistic public transportation options.

I’ve been horrified to since read about two more recent bike accidents, one fatal. The city council’s solutions are all about increasing safety and visibility — and adding more fines. Safety is a good thing, certainly. But better biking is not a full-scale transportation option. And the current practice of incessantly writing parking tickets is already anti-resident, punitive, and un-Santa Monican. The real problem is that it is nearly impossible to drive a car peaceably anywhere in Santa Monica and it is only getting worse. The city has not invested in public transportation. We need safe, reliable, cheap public transportation, not more rules and more fines.

Except that “accidents happen” shouldn’t be an excuse for carelessness.

Cars are big, dangerous machines, and it’s not unreasonable to expect their operators to pay attention to the road directly ahead of them, and stop before hitting people or objects directly in their path.

Is that really too much to ask?

As for promoting bicycling before it’s truly safe, she’s got a point.

But that’s how you make it safe, by making improvements to the streets and encouraging people to use them, and using that increase in ridership to justify the next round of improvements.

Which shouldn’t be necessary, but it is. Because people like her inevitably complain about the inconveniences they face from each little incremental change on the streets.

That’s followed with more talk about the dangers of riding a bicycle, and holding onto one, along with the usual litany of all the reasons why bicycling is impractical.

Except that people do it every day, under exactly the conditions she complains about.

Also, it can be hard to keep a bike in Santa Monica. I, too, had been regularly biking until my electric bike got stolen from behind my house, and then my beach cruiser. And a biking-first policy isn’t inclusive. Plenty of people can’t rely on a bike — like parents of young children, the elderly or disabled, grocery shoppers, those needing to take important meetings free of sweat and errant hair, anyone who has to get anywhere else in LA.

Never mind that bikes, especially ebikes like the one she used to own, serve as effective mobility devices for the elderly and disabled, while cargo bikes are surprisingly efficient for grocery shopping and transporting young kids.

And as a former ebike owner, she should know as well as anyone how well they work for getting you places virtually sweat-free, especially in Santa Monica’s cool coastal climate.

She’s not wrong about the need to improve public transit, in Santa Monica and throughout Southern California.

But she is wrong about the practical benefits of bicycling, and the need for a virtually carbon-free form of inexpensive transportation as we confront a looming climate crisis.

Not to mention that bikes are fun.

Maybe a little lingering resentment towards her bike-riding ex is tainting her thinking.

………

A team of well-rehearsed Italian bike thieves celebrated the American Thanksgiving Day with a professional heist at the headquarters of Pinarello, stealing 12 bikes worth over $164,000 in just 3 minutes.

The theft was so successful, they staged an encore just 20 hours later, returning to snatch another seven Pinarellos worth more than $109,000.

So if you happen to see a struggling bike team riding brand new Pinarellos next year, it may be more evidence that the cycling financial model really is in trouble.

Or maybe that’s just how they haze rookie riders these days.

………

‘Tis the season.

Forbes offers a holiday gift guide recommending ebikes for every time of riding. Except for people who prefer standard bikes, of course.

And either there was an issue with translation, or Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling blog has written a gift guide for the cyclist band Queen.

………

YouTuber Daily MTB Rider explains why the bike industry is failing.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Maybe there’s hope. A British writer who confesses to pouring gasoline on an inferno with her 2015 call to ban the “menace of bicycles” from the roads says she’s given up her car, taken to public transit and revised her low opinion of men in Lycra.

………

 

………

Local 

Streetsblog examines the new bike lanes, green pavement treatments and a new bike path in Artesia.

LAist offers tips on how to achieve a more walkable, bikeable city.

Long Beach is on the path to getting speed cams.

 

State

Caltrans is moving forward with plans to extend San Diego County’s SR-56 bike path, with construction expected to be finished next year.

Bike-unfriendly Coronado, which famously banned all future bike lanes after residents complained about their dizzying, vertigo-inducing visual effects, is planning a festive Ride the Lights nighttime cycling party for December 10th.

The high desert community of Tehachapi unveiled 1.5 miles of new bike lanes in the Old Town district in an effort to improve air quality and traffic safety, as well as safety for cyclists who train in the area during the off-season.

Bicycling says San Francisco-based subscription service Friiyay is changing the business model of ebike rentals and ownership. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

More NorCal traffic violence, after someone riding a bicycle was killed by a driver in Stockton on Sunday.

 

National

Velo explains why banning right turns on red lights remains a challenge despite rising bicycling and pedestrian deaths, and numerous studies demonstrating the risk.

In the wake of bicyclists killed intentionally by murderous teenagers, extreme speeding motorists and drunk municipal bus drivers, Las Vegas police attempted to improve safety by instructing drivers on bike safety laws, including Nevada’s three-foot passing law. Which wouldn’t have helped with any of those cases. Or the truck driver high on meth who killed five bike riders in 2020, for that matter. But hey, baby steps, right?

While the interminable wait for California’s ebike voucher program to finally launch continues, Denver is wrapping yet another round of the city’s highly successful ebike voucher program with the final launch of the year, with all available vouchers expected to be claimed in less than 10 minutes.

A package of bills in the New York State legislature addresses the exploding risk of ebike fires, with bills mandating safer batteries and fire control equipment at ebike shops. Which raises the question of why any business wouldn’t be required to take the most basic steps to prevent fires.

 

International

Despite the government announcing a more than $10 billion fund to repair England’s notorious potholes, the country’s leading bicycling charity says it’s still not enough to keep bike riders safe.

A British doctor is suing Sheffield, England-based bike designers, builders and sellers Planet X for the equivalent of $12.63 million, after his gravel bike shattered underneath him as he rode, leaving him paralyzed with a broken spine.

Toyota is getting into the e-bikeshare business in Copenhagen.

More proof that bikes are built for disasters, as a Palestinian rides a bicycle past the rubble of a bombed out home, after gasoline has become unobtainable in Gaza.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling says cycling great and former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich confessed to doping and his crumbling life after his career ended, including “cocaine and alcohol abuse, assault charges, and arguably even more drama than Lance.” Although he still has a long way to go to match getting stripped of seven Tour titles. Once again, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Bicycling also says Peter Sagan coulda been a contender. Or at least even greater than he was. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

 

Finally…

Your all-new Holocene aero roadie could be made from your old one. And that feeling when you steal a bike from the bike thief who stole it from the bike shop.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

NY Times misses the mark on ebike critique, witness refuses to report hit-and-run driver, and sharrows ain’t bike lanes

July 31, 2023 / / 3 comments

Before we start, I’ve received a secondhand report that someone riding a bicycle may have been killed in Mentone on Saturday.

It’s possible the report could have been referring to a fatal crash in nearby Highland on Friday, which the police were quick to blame on the bike-riding victim crossing the street outside of a crosswalk.

Even though there is no requirement or expectation that bike riders use one, and many police agencies mistakenly interpret state law as banning bikes from crosswalks.

But whether it refers to the same crash, or a second crash a dozen or so mile way, it’s yet another tragic reminder to always ride defensively, and stay safe out there.

Because you can watch out for dangerous drivers, but there’s no guarantee they’re watching for you.

Thanks to Jeffrey Rusk for the heads-up.

………

No bias here.

The New York Times, which should really know better, published an exceptionally one-sided screed on the dangers of ebikes for teenaged users.

But somehow forgot to mention that the real danger didn’t come from the bikes the victim’s were riding, but from the drivers and motor vehicles that killed and maimed them.

The e-bike industry is booming, but the summer of 2023 has brought sharp questions about how safe e-bikes are, especially for teenagers. Many e-bikes can exceed the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit that is legal for teenagers in most states; some can exceed 55 miles per hour. But even when ridden at legal speeds, there are risks, especially for young, inexperienced riders merging into complex traffic with fast-moving cars and sometimes distracted drivers.

“The speed they are going is too fast for sidewalks, but it’s too slow to be in traffic,” said Jeremy Collis, a sergeant at the North Coastal Station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Brodee’s accident. The investigation is ongoing pending a medical examiner’s finding.

The Brodee in that reference was 15-year old Brodee Braxton Champlain-Kingman, who was killed when he was rear-ended by a driver while changing lanes on his ebike.

Something that could have just as easily happened if he’d been riding a regular bike, and may have had nothing to do with the ebike he was riding. And never mind that he’d still be here if not for the driver who ran him down, regardless of his judgment, or the lack thereof, in changing lanes.

Even though it resulted in nearly universal knee-jerk condemnation of teenagers on ebikes, if not ebikes in general — including a proposed law to ban younger ebike riders and possibly require a license to ride one, regardless of age.

The Times follows it up with a second article discussing just what an ebike is, while considering how safe they are.

Or in their eyes, aren’t.

Here’s how Electrek responded to the stories.

The article even explicitly lists the biggest danger that played a role in that crash, explaining that the boy’s bike “had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit.” And yet the article seems to imply that the e-bike’s presence was the compounding issue, instead of reading into the author’s very own sentence to realize that the true problem was that the road didn’t have anywhere safe for cyclists to ride. There was no protected bike lane.

By all accounts, the e-bike rider was correctly and legally using the roadway in the only way he could. In fact, according to eye-witnesses of the car crash that killed the e-bike rider, he “did everything right,” including signaling his turn…

As Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School David Zipper pointed out, every single e-bike crash listed in the article was a collision between a car and e-bike. None were simply e-bike crashes without the added of a car. “All could’ve been avoided if e-bike riders were protected from cars (or if there were no cars)”, Zipper explained on Twitter.“Fight the real enemy.”

The Electrek article goes on to add this about the second Times story.

Amazingly, the article uses a statistic pointing out how dangerous cars are, but flips it around to imply that because studies have proven that faster moving cars are dangerous, that means e-bikes shouldn’t travel too fast, presumably to also reduce the danger of these small and lightweight machines.

It’s right there. The answer is literally in the body of the NYT article. Unprotected road users (pedestrians and cyclists) are much more likely to be severely injured by cars as the car speed increases. And yet this statistic is used to imply that e-bikes shouldn’t be used at speeds of over 20 mph.

Thanks to Yves Dawtur for the heads-up. 

………

Marcello Calicchio forwards news of a (insert negative descriptor here) Nextdoor user who claims to have witnessed a hit-and-run by an aged driver, but refuses to contact the police, somehow thinking a Nextdoor post is good enough.

Um, sure.

And somehow thinks she’s a victim, because commenters piled on telling her to fulfill her legal and moral duty to report what she saw to the police.

So if you were the victim of a hit-and-run on San Diego’s Highway 76 on Saturday, you know who to contact.

Or better yet, who to have your lawyer contact.

………

Speaking of those new bike lanes/sharrows on Doheny in Beverly Hills, as we were last week —

………

Make it safe and convenient to ride a bike, and people will.

In droves.

………

More than once I’ve found myself singing “The harder they come, the harder they fall,” as I scraped myself off the pavement.

Those times I’ve still been able to sing, that is.

………

That feeling when a mountain biking god, and one of your lifelong biking heroes, is having dinner with his family just walking distance from your Hollywood apartment.

And yes, I would have dropped everything if he’d said to c’mon over.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here, either. A Minneapolis cop used his loud speaker to order a group of bicyclists to ride in single file — in a public park.

Once again, someone has tried to sabotage a bikeway, this time dumping screws and nails on a controversial new bike lane in Victoria, British Columbia. This should be treated as terrorism, since it’s a deliberate attempt to kill or injure innocent people for political ends. But won’t be. 

………

Local 

LADOT wants your opinion on bikeshare, and is willing to give you a shot at a $100 gift card to get it. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the tip.

 

State

A Fullerton writer asks if the city’s bike plan is in danger of being nibbled to death. Although that may be better than simply ignoring it, like a certain megalopolis to the the north.

The Newport Beach Police Department is using mounted cops to crack down on illegal ebikes.

Some residents of San Diego’s Serra Mesa neighborhood are upset about new lane reductions and buffered bike lanes, accusing them of causing traffic congestion and frustrated drivers, even as the traffic in the background continues to move smoothly.

Sad news from the Bay Area, where a 51-year old Santa Rosa man was killed when a pickup driver crashed into his bicycle leaving a parking lot in Rohnert Park.

 

National

Bicycling reports that a new survey shows the Congressional E-BIKE Act, which would cover 30 percent of the cost of a new ebike, is supported by 70% of Americans living in major cities, and nearly half would be extremely likely to buy one if the bill passes. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Even bikes that don’t move can cause dangerous falls, as Peloton recalls more than two million of their popular exercise bikes.

Auto Evolution says the new European-style ebike from America’s last remaining Tour de France winner fits perfectly with the Barbenheimer zeitgeist.

Life is cheap in Arizona, where the “driver” who was behind the wheel watching videos on her phone when a self-driving Uber test car ran down Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a Tempe road with her bike walked without a day behind bars, after copping a plea to just three lousy years of supervised probation. Which is three years more than Uber got, while Herzberg got the death penalty just for crossing the damn street.

Tragic news from Colorado, where a motorcyclist was killed, and a couple riding a tandem bike were seriously injured — the man severely — when the motorcyclist crossed the centerline in a winding canyon, and slammed into their bike before sliding off the roadway; a Boulder paper suggests the motorcyclist was attempting to flee the scene when he crashed a second time.

The Associated Press says the massive RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa puts small town America into focus.

An op-ed from the advocacy director of a Chicago active transportation group says the city may be near the bottom of PeopleForBikes ratings for bikeability, but public support could help make it the nation’s best city for bicycling. Then again, we could say the same about Los Angeles. 

Gothamist says last week’s bloody scooter crash on the Manhattan Bridge bike path has left four people injured and the cycling community shaken, as riders of traditional bicycles compete for space with motor-scooter riders illegally using it.

A Virginia man’s dream European cycling vacation was saved when his stolen bike was recovered by using an AirTag, as well as bugging the hell out of the airline. Thanks to David Drexler for the link.

 

International

Momentum offers a beginner’s guide to learning to ride a bicycle later in life.

A 48-year old Welsh driver has been charged in the death of triathlete Rebecca Comins as she was taking part in a bicycle time trial last year.

London’s Daily Mail describes how a deaf and endearingly daft bike-riding cat became an instant Instagram star.

A retired French school teacher has created his own job, riding his recumbent bike across the country personally delivering handwritten letters “to friends of friends and soon-to-be new ones.”

NPR reports that Berlin bike riders are standing up to the city’s new conservative mayor, forcing him to backpedal on a campaign pledge to standup for the city’s poor, downtrodden drivers.

Life is cheap in India, where an Army doctor got a single year behind bars, seven years after the speeding crash that killed the father of a young child while he was riding his bike.

A nine-year old Guyana junior cycling “prodigy” made waves in her bike racing debut, following in the footsteps of her late father, three years after the former national cycling team member was killed by a drunk driver on a training ride.

This is who we share the road with. After a Singaporean school bus full of kids nearly ran over a bicyclist before smashing into three cars, the bike rider realized there was no one driving the bus, because the driver had apparently fallen out.

 

Competitive Cycling

Gut-wrenching news from Boulder, Colorado, where 17-year old rising cyclist Magnus White, a member of the US Junior Men’s National Team and the 2021 Junior 17-18 Cyclocross National Champ, was killed when he was struck by a driver while training for the world junior championships in Scotland next week; a crowdfunding campaign in his memory has raised nearly $60,000 of the $70,000 goal. We’ve got to stop murdering our children. Let alone so many of our best and brightest.

Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering won the second edition of the revived women’s Tour de France on Sunday, after demolishing her competitors on Saturday’s Tourmalet climb.

Rising American cyclist Veronica Ewers was sent home with a broken collarbone after crashing hard and flying into a ditch on Friday’s stage of the Tour.

The Los Angeles-based Bahati foundation is sponsoring the Ghana Cycling Federation to help groom young cyclists to compete in major international events.

 

Finally…

Forget carb loading and chug a bicarb, instead. Bicycles get blamed for crashes, even when no one is riding them.

And who needs a moving van when you’ve got a bicycle?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

La Brea Ave bus/bike lanes on hold, new bill would mandate bikeways next to light rail, and more proof speed cams work

December 22, 2022 / / One comment

Just three days left in the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Seventy-two short hours to open your heart and wallet to help keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming to your favorite screen every morning. 

The week before Christmas is always one of my most challenging times of year, as preparations for the holiday collide with the pressures of preparing the next day’s post every night. Add to that my wife’s insistence on cleaning every inch of our apartment before guests arrive for Christmas, while dealing with the effects of my varied and sundry health issues — all of which seem to spring from my diabetes in one way or another. 

Never mind coping with the inevitable tragedies made exponentially more tragic by the time of year. 

I always point to the coming holiday, if only for the opportunity it presents for a well-deserved collapse before we return after the first of the year.

But it’s your support that gets me there, lifting my spirits when I need it the most. Whether in the form of the donations that demonstrate appreciation for the work we do here, or the kind words that so often accompany them. 

So let’s thank Brandon H and Kirsten B for coming through late yesterday when it looked like no one would. And everyone else who has given from their hearts to keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

Thank you, sincerely, from my heart to yours. 

If you have donated yet, take a moment to give right now via PayPal or Zelle. Every contribution, no matter how large or small, is truly and deeply appreciated.

And needed.

………

Metro put the installation of new bus lanes on La Brea Blvd on hold for the holidays; the work, which was supposed to begin last week, will now begin sometime after the first of the year.

Bicyclists are allowed to use bus lanes in Los Angeles County, as long as you don’t mind having a multi-ton vehicle run up your ass while you ride. Although the bus lanes are usually enforced only during rush hour, and open to cars and/or parking at other times.

However, some other areas interpret the law differently, and may ban bikes from bus lanes some or all of the time, so be sure to read the signs wherever you ride.

………

A new Congressional light rail bill introduced in the House would mandate bikeways along most light rail lines, along with bikeshare and secure bike parking.

Although the current political divide make the chance of actual passage minimal, at best.

Thanks to Akber Khan for the heads-up.

………

No surprise here, as New York demonstrates once again that speed cams are effective in reducing speeding by drivers.

And even more effective when they’re enforced 24/7.

Unfortunately, automated speed cams are currently illegal under California law; attempts to change that have gone nowhere in the legislature in recent years.

Because apparently, it’s just not fair to punish drivers for dangerously breaking the law.

………

Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, is also raising funds this holiday season; the organization helped lead the successful fight to close roads in LA’s Griffith Park in the wake of recent bicycling deaths.

………

‘Tis the season.

More than 40 Texas kids got new bikes, courtesy of a College Station civic group.

A 77-year old North Carolina woman is gearing up for her last bike giveaway, with at least 1,000 bikes ready for local kids, nine years after she took over for her late husband.

A Georgia group has cleaned, repaired and donated over 400 bicycles for local kids.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A writer of a car website travels the byways of the Boston area looking for bike riders on the legally mandated bike lanes, and is shocked when he fails to see many at the exact time and place when he happens to drive by. Never mind the disconnect that he was forced to use byroads because the highways were choked with rush hour traffic.

No bias here, either. A Nova Scotia letter writer trots out the standard bromide “We are not Amsterdam or Copenhagen” to argue against bike lanes, which they insist are never used. But without building more bike lanes, it never will be, either.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts are looking for a road raging bicyclist who circled back and deliberately rammed a woman who asked him to watch where he was going as she was crossing the street. The suspect was described as a man in his 50s, who certainly should have known better at his age.

………

………

Local 

A British writer samples bikeshare systems in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and finds the City of Angels not at all to his liking, though he does have nice things to say about Metro Bike. Which is okay. Not everyone has to like LA just because we call it home. Although there’s a large enough British expat community here to show his complaints aren’t universally shared. 

Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman digs in on LA Councilmember Kevin de León and his refusal to do the right thing and just resign, already.

 

State

Appropriately for the season, construction is ongoing on the Santa Claus Lane bike path, which will connect bike lanes in Santa Barbara and Carpinteria when its completed next year.

Bay Area bike riders will be able to ride from Berkeley to San Francisco by 2030, when a dedicated bike and pedestrian trail is expected to open on the Bay Bridge.

A 65-year old Sacramento bike rider was lucky to survive when he became collateral damage in a police chase, after the driver of a stolen car bailed from the vehicle and it rolled over the man, trapping him underneath; he was freed when police lifted the car off him with the help of bystanders.

 

National

A new study shows bicycling injuries have decreased over the last ten years, even as ridership — and deaths — have gone up. As usual, read the story on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

Wired reviews the new book Cyclettes by Tree Abraham, which recaps her “delicately composed biographical vignettes” through the lens of bicycling.

New Seattle DOT Director Greg Spotts went on a walking tour with members of a local transportation advocacy group; Spotts led LA’s Bureau of Street Services before he left to take the Seattle post.

Tragic news from Arizona, where a man riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a Tucson ambulance driver; no word on whether the ambulance was on an emergency call or using red lights and siren. Then again, there’s also no mention at all that the ambulance even had a driver, although I think we can safely assume it. 

A Pueblo, Colorado teenager received a new bike just one day after his was stolen, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign and a partnership between the police and a local Walmart.

Chicago gave away 500 bicycles to local residents in the first year of a new program to increase affordable, climate-friendly mobility options; the city plans to give away a total of 5,000 bikes over the next five years.

Three Brooklyn council members demand that ebikes be allowed to return to Prospect Park; ebikes are banned from New York parks, even though they are legal on the streets outside them. Oddly, cars aren’t banned from most of the parks where ebikes are, even though one does much more harm than the other.

Advocates are holding back on their approval for New York’s planned human-scale redesign of iconic 5th Avenue, saying they’ve heard the promises before.  Sort of like Los Angeles bike riders and pedestrians, who long ago stopped chasing after the latest shiny object elected officials dangled in front of us, without following through.

Maryland officials announced no criminal charges will be filed against the truck driver who killed US diplomat Sarah Langenkamp as she rode her bike last August, despite three traffic citations and a lawsuit filed by her husband alleging negligence by the driver, and the company he worked for. Just in case you were wondering why people keep dying on our streets.

An admitted serial killer was sentenced to life in prison after confessing to killing a Florida woman, who disappeared while riding her bike home from work in 1991.

 

International

Kindhearted members of a British Columbia coffee ride dug into their own pockets to buy a new bike for an eight-year old girl, after noting her bike was too small for her, and being impressed that she was riding her bike in conditions they wouldn’t even brave.

A rider for Tom’s Guide rode a Brompton ebike foldie for a month, and liked it. Even if the bike was a tad heavy.

A new study from the UK shows contraflow bike lanes don’t increase crash rates, regardless of the direction of travel, and should be considered on all one-way streets to extend bicycling networks.

Two British men pled guilty to manslaughter in the death of a teenager who tried to stop them from stealing a bike; a third man, the stepfather of one of the men, was acquitted on the same charges.

 

Competitive Cycling

Florence, Italy will host the first three stages of the 2024 Tour de France.

 

Finally…

Your periodic reminder that bike seats are best used for sitting on while riding a bike, not wielding as a weapon. If you have an outstanding felony warrant, maybe don’t ride salmon.

And more proof you can carry anything on a bike.

couch and spare bike moving service
byu/National-Fox9168 inbikecommuting

 

………

Happy Chanukah to everyone celebrating today.

Chag Urim Sameach!

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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