Once again, someone has been killed riding an ebike.
And once again, we have to take the police at their word that the victim was on an actual electric bicycle, rather than the e-motos and hacked bikes that too often pass for ebikes.
It’s also apparently unknown what kind of ebike she was riding, whether she was alone or with others, how fast she may have been going, if she struck the curb as a result of carelessness or because of some sort of obstruction or uneven pavement, or even if she was wearing a helmet. Which may matter, for a change, because she died as the result of a fall, although we don’t know if she suffered a head injury.
Anyone with information is urged to call Traffic Investigator Vishal Rattanchandani of the Huntington Beach Police Department’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team at 714/536-5231.
It’s not clear if the police or the medical examiner’s office will release more information, or if this is all we will ever learn about this crash.
This is at least the 58th bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the eighth we know about in Orange County. It’s also at least the second this year in Huntington Beach, which was recently named the state’s most dangerous city for bicyclists.
I can’t remember the last time a migraine knocked me out like that, or affected me so badly for so long after the pain was finally gone.
I’m told my migraines, and the associated dizziness, stem from a traumatic brain injury suffered in the infamous beachfront bee incident that put me in the ICU for a few days 20 years ago.
The impact knocked me cold for several minutes, erasing any memory of the crash and leading to one of those life-after-death visions you read about, which, real or hallucinated, both shattered and cemented my own personal faith.
The ER doctors at Santa Monica’s St. John’s hospital told me my helmet probably saved my life. But in those pre-MIPS days, it did nothing to prevent the concussions I suffered.
The first migraine I ever had came four years after that, and they’ve continued to grow more frequent and worse in the years since.
I’ve often been a critic, not of bike helmets, but of the overpromises made by so many people who equate bike helmets with seat belts or air bags, as if they would somehow magically protect you from a multi-ton motor vehicle traveling at highway speeds.
They won’t.
Even the best bike helmets are intended to protect you from relatively low speed falls off your bike, not collisions. But as I’ve learned the hard way, that limited protection can still make a huge difference in your health decades after a crash.
Now the Canadian-made Pikio Si Oblik has been rated the safest ever by the testing institute at Virginia Tech. It’s hard to recommend a helmet that costs nearly $400, especially when you can get a decent MIPS model for so much less.
But based on my own experience, it might be worth it.
Meister tells WeHo Online that the council didn’t receive any other options other than the bike lanes when they voted to approve the project — even though the street was subject to nearly a decade of discussion and public meetings — and she prefers a plan that would replace the bike lanes with parking spaces, calling it a “compromise.”
Although the C-words I would use are “capitulation,” and “convenience,” as in a surrender to the whims of motorists who are used to parking on the deadly street.
Never mind that protected bike lanes have been shown to improve safety up to 90% for all road users, while maintaining parking would only serve to keep the corridor deadly by forcing bike riders to use the single remaining lane or ride in the door zone.
Parking proponents will undoubtedly be out in force at the meeting, and will need to be met with an equal and opposite demand to improve safety for everyone. The alternative will be to keep Fountain Ave unrideable and unsafe to walk along and cross, as well as to drive.
If that’s the plan, they might as well save the money to pay for ghost bikes and white tires for all the victims yet to come.
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More evidence that ICE is out of control, after a Long Beach man was intentionally run down by ICE agents as he was riding an ebike and struck with an unmarked vehicle, then tased twice and handcuffed face down in the gutter, suffering a broken arm in the attack.
Ricardo Gonzalez was attacked by agents on Saturday, apparently because of the color of his skin, since they had no other means of determining his immigration status as he was riding his bike. Never mind that Gonzalez was born in Hanford, California, making him a US citizen by birth, despite Trump’s efforts to change that.
Note to ICE agents: Maybe try to determine someone’s citizenship and immigration status before you run them down with an SUV — or better yet, just don’t run them down in the first place.
Here’s what these critics miss: A bike lane makes a road safer even when no one is riding in it. Wide lanes invite speeding and inattention. Narrowing them slows traffic, and the striped buffer puts extra feet between moving cars and people on the sidewalk. Federal data cited by city staff show bike lanes on arterial roads cut car-bicycle crashes roughly in half. If anything, the city should go further and add bollards or other barriers, so a drifting driver hits a barrier before a person. That would also make riders feel safe enough to use the lanes more.
Now consider the money. Many roads in northwest and southwest Bakersfield were built with two lanes each way but enough pavement for three or four, on the theory that traffic would someday need it. At the pace we grow, that day is decades away, if it comes at all, and these roads will need rebuilding long before then. Where were the fiscal watchdogs when we paved all that unnecessary asphalt? Repurposing a few feet of it for the safety of everyone is a bargain by comparison…
And when it comes to bike infrastructure itself, fiscal conservatives have been making the case for years. The Kern County Taxpayers Association, hardly a group of free spenders, has long pushed for a better network of bike and walking paths across the city, including more than 50 miles of trails along abandoned and underused rail lines. When the region’s leading fiscal watchdog says safe places to walk and bike are worth the investment, critics who call it waste should take note.
None of this is a liberal plot to take away anyone’s car. It’s about two things conservatives have always championed: freedom of choice and public safety. People should be free to choose how they get around, whether that’s driving, biking, walking or some mix, to save money on gas, to get some exercise, or to let their kids gain a little independence. But that choice only means something if every option is reasonably safe. Too often, it isn’t. A parent may hesitate to let a 12-year-old ride to school. A retiree may not be able to safely walk to the corner store. Someone who can’t afford a car, or can’t drive one, may be taking their life in their hands just crossing the street. Keeping people safe is among the most basic jobs of local government, and the right to get home alive shouldn’t depend on being encased in a car. Responsible spending, personal choice, public safety and strong families are supposed to be conservative values. Safe streets serve all four.
Maybe someone should show this to Sean Duffy, our current Secretary of Transportation, and tell him enough with the “DEI bike lane” crap.
And I say “current,” because no one seems to have job security in this administration, except for those who seem to least deserve it.
My colleague Lily Janiak, our San Francisco Chronicle theater critic who bikes to shows and everywhere else, coaxed me along like a mother duck, warning me about the risks of tires sticking in streetcar rails, getting “doored”, and even other cyclists. Struggling to remember it all, I felt certain I was going to die.
In the process, I’ve gotten healthier, spent less money and saved time cruising past traffic jams. But the results extend beyond all that (and the smugness that often comeswhen cyclists lecture about health, money and traffic). I’ve become a better journalist and a better community member. I may not live longer — did I mention that I bike in San Francisco? — but I’m definitely doing a better job working for you.
Unfortunately, the story is hidden behind the paper’s draconian paywall. But it’s worth finding your way around it if you can to give it a read.
Years ago, Maximilian Schnell left his job and his life in Paris and began a nomadic lifestyle on his bicycle. The road has given him freedom and adventure. And he has set himself grueling physical and mental challenges.
Perfect Road, a documentary from Danish directors and cousins Adam and Christian Bonke, follows him on an extreme journey through some of Europe’s highest mountain passes, while also providing a meditation on modern life and character study. For one, even in an age of digital nomads, Schnell’s lifestyle pushes the envelope. And then, his relationship with his partner Nina makes him question his life priorities.
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We’ve seen this video before, depicting a Slovakian mountain biker outrunning a bear, possibly without even knowing he was doing it.
In one of the most shameful episodes I’ve seen, a Quebec City family called off a planned ghost bike ceremony for their 11-year old son after receiving “hateful” messages; a member of the group Souliers et vélos fantômes Québec — Ghost Shoes and Bicycles Quebec — called the comments “wildly inappropriate.” Seriously, there’s not a pit deep enough for anyone who’d send something like that to parents whose child had just been killed, under any circumstances.
There’s a special place in hell for anyone who would crash into two six-year old kids as they’re riding their bikes in Half Moon Bay, and just drive off leaving them on the side of the road; 37-year old Robert Schumann faces multiple charges after cops used a drone to track him down as he bravely hid in the woods to avoid capture. Fortunately, the children are hospitalized in stable condition. Once again, however, you’ll have to work your war around yet another unproductive paywall.
National
Aussie pro cyclist Lachlan Morton succeeded in setting a new record for the old Pony Express route last week, beating the relay team that carried Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address to California by nearly 12 hours, while covering the 1,966-mile route in 6 days, 21 hours and 15 minutes. Although Morton did have the advantage of paved roads, pneumatic tires and something slightly more aero than a horse.
A London writer who wisely chooses to remain anonymous justifies why they’ve ridden though roughly 40,000 red lights and have no plans to stop, although kindly choosing not to ride through red lights and crosswalks when pedestrians are present.
Two German men are retracing the route of China’s Long March by bicycle; the military maneuver by the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army became a defining chapter in modern Chinese history, leading to the defeat of the forces of Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War.
Competitive Cycling
Former cycling scion Taylor Phinney finished eighth in the men’s individual pursuit at the 2026 UCI Track World Championships, while beating his personal best by a massive 11 seconds, nearly seven years after he retired from road racing. Although his wife Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney is still kicking ass on the women’s road circuit.
Gil Cedillo killed a man in Highland Park Wednesday night.
No, the former CD1 councilmember wasn’t behind the wheel when a man riding an ebike was run down from behind on North Figueroa, but he might as well have been.
Now yet another man has lost his life, exactly where traffic lanes should have been narrowed and bike lanes installed over a decade ago — just the latest in a string of violent collisions that have left at least five people dead since 2015, keeping the corridor on LA’s High Injury Network.
The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The driver remained at the scene.
Video from the scene shows a mangled ebike resting on the curb, but it’s not clear enough to tell what kind of bike it is, though other sources describe it as a bicycle.
There’s no way to say for certain that the victim could be home with his family tonight had Cedillo had not been elected to replace a termed out Ed Reyes. But he would have had a better chance if the safety project approved by Reyes had been allowed to move forward.
I honestly don’t have the words left to express the sadness and anger I feel right now, after writing about seven other fallen bike riders in the last 14 days.
But Gil Cedillo has this man’s blood on his hands, and I hope his loved ones allow him to lie in repose on Cedillo’s doorstep, figuratively if not literally. And I hope they have a damn good lawyer.
This is at least the 53rd bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the 18th in Los Angeles County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
After ignoring bicycles since the last election cycle — pun intended — Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Karen Bass made a theatrical production of signing a resolution dedicating a whopping $1 million for CicLAvia and other open streets events.
“As a lifelong biker and native Angeleno, I know how important open and slow streets events like CicLAvia are to our city and the L.A. region. These events connect communities, bring people together, support local businesses, and help us reimagine public spaces in the second-largest city in the country,” said Mayor Bass.
Which is enough to fund two — count ’em, two — CicLAvias. But it’s better than nothing, which is what Metro’s budget originally included.
And speaking of which, CicCLAvia returns to the Heart of Downtown on October 11th, celebrating 16 years and one day since the first one on 10-10-10.
And yes, I still have the T-shirt. But either it shrank, or I didn’t.
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On the last possible day for California bill signings, Gavin Newsom signed Encinitas Senator Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, defining the difference between ebikes and e-motos.
SB 1167 establishes a clearer distinction between legal electric bicycles and higher-powered vehicles that are not e-bikes under California law. The legislation reinforces the state’s existing 750-watt and maximum speed limits for e-bikes while strengthening requirements for how e-bikes and other electric vehicles are labeled, marketed, sold, and operated.
Now let’s hope the cops and press read it, and stop confusing the two every chance they get.
San Diego is the top SoCal city at six, followed by Irvine at eight. Meanwhile, Los Angeles checks in at a relatively lowly, and overrated, 24, with green Long Beach just two notches higher.
And what sets the greenest cities apart is they’re all in blue states, which probably isn’t what Fox News had in mind.
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Thanks to Megan for forwarding a flyer for a rally in memory of two bike riders killed on the same street on or near UC Davis, as she says the university “punts” on safety measures, as well as responsibility.
A Washington State bike rider was found badly injured in the bushes next to the roadway, with “at least” six broken ribs, broken jaw, a broken eye socket, broken clavicle, several abrasions and a brain bleed, but the cops don’t think he was a hit-and-run victim, insisting he said there wasn’t a car involved, even though all he remembers is waking up in the hospital. Which is pretty fucked up for just falling at less than 12 mph.
I guess we’re going to ease back into this slowly.
I’m apparently still affected by the adverse reaction to the Moderna covid and flu shots last week. I had hoped to play catch-up today, and cover most if not all of what we missed last week.
But after falling asleep mid-sentence and running my laptop battery down to zero, it’s clear that I still don’t have my strength back — something I discovered after thinking I was okay on Saturday and nearly passing out at a WeHo dog event.
But at least I got to see a nice bakfiets someone rode to the dog park. Even the corgi stopped to check it out.
Due to the resulting time constraints, I’m going to be an asshole today and not take the time to look up who sent me what. So thank you for sending me stuff, even if I don’t credit you individually.
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I promised someone last week, before everything went to hell, that I would look into the death of man killed by a driver while riding an ebike in Arleta early in the morning of Sunday, September 13th.
A crowdfunding campaign posted by his brother has raised over $17,000 of the $20,000 goal to help pay for funeral expenses, describing in heartbreaking detail how much he loved, and was loved.
However, as we have discussed before, it’s difficult to determine whether a fallen ebike rider was on an electric bicycle or an electric motorcycle, since the police and the media can’t seem to tell one from another. And while any death is tragic, only the former are the subject of this site.
So unless I know for certain that the victim of a crash was riding a ped-assist bicycle, and not some other form of two-wheeled electric conveyance, I’m not including them in the already too high count of SoCal bicycling deaths.
And yes, even one is one too many.
So while my heart goes out to the family and loved ones of Oscar Adrian Lazaro, I won’t be adding his name to a 51 others who have lost their lives riding a bicycle in our deadly corner of the country.
But if anyone can convince me he was on a legal Class 1, 2 or 3 ebike, I’m more than willing to reconsider.
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Gracias por nada, Los Angeles.
Or rather, thanks for a whole 2.2 miles of new bike lanes installed in the last fiscal year, from June 2025 to June 2026. Except that’s lane miles — i.e., counting each side of the roadway separately — so we’re really talking about a whole one and one-tenth mile of net new bike lanes.
Streetsblog’sJoe Linton wrote earlier this month that the City of Los Angeles, not to be confused with the other 87 cities and various unincorporated areas that make up LA County, built a whopping 7.5 miles of new bike lanes. But at the same time, the city removed 5.3 miles of already existing bike lanes, resulting in the wholly underwhelming 2.2-mile net total.
They also improved a whole 14.1 miles of existing bike lanes, which usually translates to adding a row white plastic bendie posts and calling it protected, as if those wands will somehow magically ward off a couple tons of ballistic steel and glass.
Which is like trading the family cow for a handful of magic beans. I mean, your family does have a cow, right?
And people wonder why I’m voting for Nithya Raman, if only because she’s not Karen Bass — the current mayor who not only supervised the non-building of bike lanes for the last three-and-a-half years, but also personally intervened to keep Forest Lawn Drive deadly.
Not to mention my current state Assemblymember, who voted to make it virtually illegal to fix the deadly street after a more than $300,000 lobbying campaign on behalf of Forest Lawn and Mt. Sinai cemeteries, in what can only be seen as a blatant attempt to drive more business.
Pun intended.
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Speaking of things that suck, as we seem to be this morning, yet another person traversing the county without benefit of a motor vehicle was killed by a driver before they could reach the other coast.
According to the New York Times, 24-year old Norwegian Joachim Lanham was killed by a driver in Kansas while attempting to rollerblade from Los Angeles to New York.
Lanham was 22 days into his journey when he was apparently run down by an 82-year old woman, once again raising the question of what the hell someone that old was doing behind the wheel. Except that in many, if not most cases, auto-centetric road designs and the lack of viable options doesn’t give them any other choice.
I’m just tired of people coming to this country on a tourist visa, and being sent home in a box.
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If you’ve been hanging around this site for awhile, you’ve probably seen my complaints that, despite common perceptions, bike helmets aren’t the life-saving equivalent of seat belts and air bags, and do little to protect again high-speed crashes or injuries to other parts of the body.
No word on what the man actually did, or attempted to do. But the 63-year old woman responded by whacking the guy with her bike helmet — and continued to chase after him, yelling and smacking him with it, until a stranger intervened to protect her.
And him, apparently.
One more reason you should always have a helmet handy, evidently.
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Metro Bike says “Westward ho!” by expanding service between West Los Angeles and DTLA, as well as Downtown Los Angeles southward to the Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor.
Twitter post
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Kyle writes to say that Bike Streets is launching in Torrance.
They’re looking for 20 people willing to log every ride with Bike Streets and help build a Low-Stress Torrance Bike Map; you can sign up at bikestreets.com/join.
According to Kyle’s email,
Bike Streets takes a practical “Network First” approach to making biking safer and more accessible.
Instead of waiting years for individual bike lanes to be designed and funded, Bike Streets helps communities:
• Map the safest, lowest-stress streets and paths that already exist
• Connect those routes into a usable bike network
• Identify dangerous intersections and missing links that prevent the network from working
• Focus resources on fixing those critical gaps
• Start with practical, lower-cost improvements while working toward permanent infrastructure
The goal is to create a connected network that people can use now, and then continually improve it over time.
I think this is an approach worth learning about for anyone interested in making it easier and safer for kids and families to bike around their communities.
He says the project began with a podcast video from Avi Stopper of Strong Towns.
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A Bay Area TV station says a new bike trail offers a safer way to ride into Sausalito.
You can all sleep better tonight, knowing the NTSB, aka National Transportation Safety Board, is on the case of the Milligan University massacre. On the other hand, it’s not comforting to know that Tennessee thinks a bicycling route with a 55 mph speed limit is somehow okay.
A 32-year old man documented his ride in the Race Across America, better known as RAAM, finishing the more than 3,000 race in 11 days, 23 hours and 3 minutes in a tribute to his father, who is suffering from prostate cancer; his film The Road to Why is now available on Apple TV and Amazon.
A man was killed by a pickup driver while riding an ebike in El Monte Monday night.
But what happened still isn’t clear. Nor is it clear whether the victim was riding a ped-assist bicycle, or some other kind of electric bike.
To be honest, I wasn’t planning to write about this crash, because the mangled bike lying in the roadway appeared to be very heavy with wide fat tires, looking more like an electric motorbike than a bicycle.
But video from KCBS-2 clearly shows the bike had operable pedals, so the victim, identified as 48 year-old Estaban Martinez, could have been riding an electric bicycle when he was killed.
All we know for certain is that Martinez, who went by Steve, was found lying unresponsive on the sidewalk on the on the 4100 block Richwood Ave near Bryant Road around 10:45 pm Monday, with his bike and shoes in the street next to him.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics.
The pickup driver remained at the scene until she was taken away by police, possibly for blood alcohol test, according to the station.
Unfortunately, that’s all we know with any certainty at this time. Neighbors say Richwood and Bryant has been a problem intersection for some time, with motorists frequently running the stop sign.
There is a name briefly visible on the side of the bike as it was loaded onto a truck to be taken away, but I’ve been unable to make it out, even with magnification.
Family members remembered Martinez as the father of five children, aged 7 to 30, and a proud grandfather.
According to KCBS,
“He was just so loving. He joked around a lot, played with the kids a lot,” said Martinez’s sister, Josefina. “When we had parties, he was always the one interacting with the kids. The kids loved him; my kids love him.”
They say that Martinez had just gotten the e-bike for his birthday recently, and that he had left his home a few blocks from the crash Monday night to visit a friend.
In the end, maybe it doesn’t matter what Martinez was riding. Because once again, a loving father is gone and a family has been violently ripped apart because the victim chose to travel on two wheels instead of four.
Anyone with information is urged to call the El Monte Police Department Watch Commander at 626/580-2109.
This is at least the 46th bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the 15th we know about in Los Angeles County — a number that is probably far higher, since the LAPD has stopped publicly reporting most traffic deaths.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Steve Martinez and all his family and loved ones.
And you can find the t-shirt in today’s photo, and a few other ghost bike tees, by clicking on the Swag button on the upper right. I’d really like to stop posting them if drivers would just stop killing us.
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Speaking of ebike deaths, which I was really trying not to do, someone was killed riding an ebike in Arleta early Sunday.
Actually, KTLA says the victim was killed after being struck by the SUV, as if a) the victim was beaten or strangled after being stuck by the vehicle, and b) the driver of the SUV somehow had nothing to do with it.
You can do better, KTLA.
As usual, there’s no word on what kind of ebike it was, whether the victim was riding a legal ped-assist bike or an illegal e-moto or dirt bike, since neither the cops nor the press can seem to distinguish between them.
At least Hoodline managed to add that section of Osborne Street is on Los Angeles’s Vision Zero High Injury Network — suggesting that the city still cares about such things — with 20 total vehicle fatalities and 16 pedestrian or bicyclist collisions from 2010 to 2020.
According to traffic collision statistics released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Aug. 27, a total of 187 people were killed in traffic crashes in Los Angeles between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15 this year. That represents a 5% increase from 178 deaths during the same period last year.
Injury crashes also increased by about 7%, from 971 to 1,043, while bicycle-related injury crashes surged 37% to 144.
The only real surprise that bicycle-related injury crashes surged more than a third is that anyone is still tracking the number, since no one bothers to tell us anymore.
The time has come to demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence from our local leaders.
SAFE will join our coalition partners at Los Angeles City Council on September 15th to drop our open letterdemanding that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council immediately declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and address this public health crisis.
Thank you for signing on and joining this movement. Your signature helped us reach more than 1,250 signatures on this campaign, showing our local leaders that Angelenos want streets that are safe to use.
The next step is here, and we need you with us as we deliver that message directly to City Hall.
Please join SAFE on September 15th at 9:30 am in City Hall to help us deliver our open letter and make our voices heard. We are asking everyone who has signed this letter to attend the City Council meeting and give public comment.
Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment, making it clear to our local leaders that traffic violence is an urgent public safety crisis that deserves their attention.
Event Details
Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
Time: Meet at 9:30 a.m.
Council Meeting Begins at 10:00 a.m.
Press Conference following Public Comment
Location: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Entrance on Main St.)
After public comment concludes, advocates will leave the Council Chamber and regroup outside on the steps of City Hall for a Press Conference.
Thank you again for adding your name to this campaign and standing with us. We have built the movement. Now it is time to bring it directly to our local leaders.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email (aaron@streetsareforeveryone.org) or by calling my cell (818.697.2621)
We hope to see you at City Hall on September 15th.
Unfortunately, I won’t be there, as much as I’d like to be.
The meds I take to keep from acting out my dreams, and possibly inadvertently killing my wife in my sleep, means I will likely be unconscious at that hour. And even if I tried to shake off the effects of the drug and show up, I’d be too sick from it to even make it there.
So please, if you can, go in my stead and be my witness before the council to demand they take urgent action to stop people from killing us.
God knows, we’ve got enough ghost bikes in this damn city.
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LA mayoral challenger Nithya Raman announced her plan to make LA cooler and more livable before the ’28 Olympics.
Rhetorically, the administration’s charge of bike lanes being some form of diversity, equity, and inclusion makes no sense. If riding a bike is so easy, then how can we classify it as unique enough to be diverse? Children ride bikes. It’s far less exotic than, say, operating a motorcycle, which takes a special license in every state. Maybe if we had a dedicated lane for a penny-farthing, I’d buy this explanation. If I were tooling around on one of those, I’d never get where I was going, because scores of beautiful women would be stopping me every few feet.
Conservative disapproval for bike lanes stems from a blinkered, irrational view of culture, and more accurately, masculinity. Trumpists have teased Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg for riding bikes. But I’ve been teased for not being able to ride a bike. Shouldn’t I be lauded for my commitment to machismo? My belief in the petrol-powered conveyance deserves commendation. My parents’ inattention to my development actually made me cooler, right?
If anything, I’m the diversity in this scenario. I can’t use a bike lane. I’ve been excluded from significant parts of the road. I can’t even walk in the bike lane. I should be furious, writing pointed, profane letters to my city councilperson, begging them to release me from my shackles. Or better yet, I should demand the city taxpayers pay for me to take bike lessons, so I can be accommodated. I’m the weirdo here. The one who has to explain my predicament, to feel excluded from the general population. Except, I’m not going to complain.
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American cars are getting fatter, along with our citizenry.
Twitter post
Twitter post
Twitter post
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A 30-year San Diego bike rider says the sharrows on Mira Mesa may be a death trap, but the solution can’t be to make Mira Mesa more congested, suggesting bike riders should be directed to quieter streets. As I recall from nearly 40 years ago, nothing could make Mira Mesa more congested. Although the San Diego Union-Tribune evidently doesn’t want you to know about it, since it’s hidden behind its draconian paywall.
This is the cost of traffic violence. An associate vice president of Brigham Young University, and the director of BYU’s nationally recognized David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies was killed while riding his bike last week; Vincent Stanley Benfell III was 63.
Around 30 riders in Birmingham, Alabama honored two forgotten victims of the fight for civil rights, 53 years after 13-year old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by white teens while riding on the handlebars of his brother’s bike, and 16-year old Johnny Robinson fatally shot by a cop, the same morning as the infamous bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four young girls. Do I really need to mention that both young men were Black? I didn’t think so.
To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention for the past two weeks, Spain’s Enric Mas won the Vuelta for the first time, after three previous second place finishes; Mas finished two minutes and 15 seconds ahead of Primož Roglič, and another half minute over Austrian Felix Gall.
The driver remained at the scene following the crash, and cooperated with investigators.
And no, CBS8, he was not struck and killed by a Tesla. Whether or not the driver was at fault, the car had one. As we’ve discussed many times before, whether or not Harris ran the red light depends a lot on whether there were any independent witnesses who saw the crash, other than the driver who killed him.
Harris was also riding a legal ped-assist ebike — or at least an ebike that was sold as one. The website for the pink Zooz ebike he was riding stresses that they are sold as Class 2 ebikes with a maximum speed of 20 mph.
Although it’s not hard to find instructions online for how to easily “uncork” at least some of their ebikes to exceed the legal speed limit.
But again, whether the bike was uncorked or otherwise does not change the outcome in any way. Or the tragic loss of a young man with virtually unlimited possibilities.
This is at least the 45th bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the 10th we know about in San Diego County — an average of more than one a month.
My deepest sympathies and prayers for Owen Harris and all his family and loved ones.
The second trailer was to, in the official Assembly summary of the legislation, “Prohibits reducing vehicle lanes on a road serving two cemeteries in a city exceeding two million people unless specified public hearing, voting, and finding and declaration requirements are met.” This description fits one street in the entire state: Forest Lawn Drive in Los Angeles. This trailer is a political hot potato, as the fate of the Forest Lawn Drive safety project has become a major issue in the mayor’s race. Streetsblog Los Angeles explains:
Many Streetsblog readers are familiar with recent disputes over the city’s planned Forest Lawn Drive safety improvements. Briefly, in 2023, the city Transportation Department (LADOT) and City Councilmember Nithya Raman announced plans to reconfigure Forest Lawn Drive, making it safer for both drivers and bicyclists. Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries strongly opposed the project. The project was delayed, but was nonetheless ready to be installed this summer, until it was paused by Mayor Karen Bass.
If the governor signs it — and there is no reason to believe he won’t at this point — it would be virtually impossible to build the fully vetted, funded and shovel-ready project as long as Bass remains mayor, and difficult if she’s defeated this November.
It has also convinced me to vote for the opponent of my current Assembly Member, Rick Chavez Zbur, who signed a letter opposing the project and supported the backdoor legislation. I plan to reach out to his opponent, Democrat Colin Hernandez, this week to get his stand on the issue.
Other legislators who signed the letter include 52nd District Assemblymember Jessica Caloza, 44th District Assemblymember Nick Schultz, 54th District Assemblymember Mark González, and 26th District Senator Maria Elena Durazo.
If any of those represent you, I would at least ask them why they oppose safe streets. And consider voting for someone who doesn’t.
The bill would also allow local governments to establish a speed limit for bicycle paths and multiuse trails, encouraging limits of 15 or 20 mph, or 10 mph in areas with heavy pedestrian use or limited visibility.
And it would require ebike sellers and distributors to provide written disclosures that include an ebike’s classification under California law and maximum speed and wattage, as well as the state ebike laws and age and helmet requirements. It would also require integrated front and rear lights for any ebikes, along with a speedometer for all Class 2 ebikes.
Streets For All is hosting debates for city council candidates in West Hollywood and Santa Monica.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bike just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Wichita, Kansas op-ed argues that the city is spending “more than any city ever should” to “facilitate a hobby enjoyed by a relative handful of people,” by building an artistically designed bike and pedestrian bridge ” that will serve “(maybe) hundreds of people in a city of 400,000.” Just wait until someone tells him what it costs to build a bridge for cars.
They get it. More than 1,500 people turned out for London’s Critical Mass ride on Friday, which doubled as a protest over a recent intentional hit-and-run that resulted in a murder charge for the driver, with riders calling for a lifetime ban for drivers who use their cars as a weapon.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
I think I need an English to English dictionary. After a British teenager refused to move her bike on a train for someone with a fancy racing bike, an online commenter responded “Nta, doesn’t matter how ‘swish’ the other dude’s bike is, it doesn’t give him the right to touch yours.” Google says “NTA” means “not the asshole,” while “swish” translates to “stylish, fashionable, smart or high-class.”
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Local
Streetsblog reports LADOT has installed new Toronto barriers on a portion of the bike lanes on Imperial Highway near LAX, as well as a new rigid plastic barrier on Crystal Springs Drive in Griffith Park, and plans to extend the protected bike lanes on Hollywood Blvd an 1/4 mile east onto Sunset Blvd. And no, I don’t know the difference between a Toronto barrier and a Jersey barrier. But I do know which term Donald Trump would prefer.
The San Diego Readerlists the city’s mot treacherous spots for bike riders, including Friars Road, Nimitz Blvd, University Ave, Pershing Drive and Genesee Ave. Although lately, the answer to that seems to be “everywhere.”
Thanks to a $1.25 million grant from the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, shade structures and native trees will be installed at five rest stops along the Coachella Valley’s 50+ mile CV Link pathway. Despite the illustration accompanying the article, palm trees aren’t native to the California desert, nor are they technically trees, being a member of the grass family.
Queensland, Australia passed a tough new ebike law, mandating that ebikes to meet EU standards, banning any ebike riders under 16, requiring at least a learners permit to ride one, and limiting speeds to just 7.5 mph around pedestrians.
I’ve been remiss in failing to remind you to stay safe during the current heat wave.
If possible, ride early or late, avoiding the peak afternoon hours when temperatures will be flirting with or surpassing the 100° mark, depending on where you are.
If you’re riding recreationally, try to stick to the coast, where temps will be significantly cooler, or try to ride shady streets when possible.
Stay hydrated. Drink more than you think you need, and stop frequently to cool off.
And use lots of sunscreen. You don’t want to end up with a face that looks like mine right now.
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The Los Angeles city council took bold action to halt the spread of illegal e-motos and electric dirt bikes in the city on Tuesday.
The motion from Heather Hutt, John Lee and Traci Park instructs LADOT, LAPD, city attorneys, the Bureau of Street Services, LA Metro and the Bicycle Advisory Committee to report back in 90 days with suggestions on how to best regulate electric motorbikes on a number of issues — most of which are already covered by state law, or by bills up for a final vote in the state legislature this week.
The only topics that aren’t covered by current or pending state laws would require ebike education for anyone under 18 or without a valid driver’s license, and regulate storing and charging any type of two-wheeled electric vehicle to prevent hazardous waste and battery fires.
They could have asked the city attorney to draft an ordinance covering those two issues and voted on that, but that wouldn’t have given them a performative platform act like they’re doing something without actually doing anything.
And as we’ve seen in the past, those 90 day deadlines are extremely elastic, often stretching months or years past the promised due date.
So once again, hats off to the city council for taking the kind of bold, decisive non-action we’ve come to expect from them.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The editor of the Putney News, in the eponymous jolly olde London neighborhood, says it’s time to talk about dangerous bicyclists, as the number of pedestrians killed or injured by bicyclists last year was up 71% over 2015 — although that was a total of just 234 in a country of 65 million people, with just two people killed. Yes, two. And yes, one is one too many, but that hardly seems like reason to panic.
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Local
One letter writer in the LA Timesdefends bike lanes on Forest Lawn Drive, while others call for speed cams, speed bumps and sarcasm instead of lane reductions.
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Seattle finished work on a new bike lane, just two months after a 76-year old woman was killed riding her bike there. Although it works even better if you build it before someone gets killed.
Most of the story is hidden behind a paywall, but a Republican writer for the conservative Washington Examiner says she used to think bike lanes were DEI projects, too, until she watched her father take his last breath after getting hit by the driver of an SUV on a notoriously dangerous South Carolina road. (Correction: I originally identified the writer as a man, although you would have thought the name Chrissy would have tipped me off.)
Four men face murder charges for lynching a falsely accused bike thief in Rio’s upscale Copacabana neighborhood; two security guards and two food delivery riders allegedly beat the victim to death after accusing him of stealing the bicycle, which he actually had borrowed from his sister.
An Edinburgh, Scotland writer issues a non-declaration of war on cars, which he says have already won, but instead takes apart the “car-centric society we accept as normal, confront(s) Edinburgh’s disgrace, its poverty, and show(s) that a cycling city, where the bike is how most people make most journeys, is the healthier, fairer alternative.” Well said.
