Tag Archive for Green New Deal

Happy National Bike & Roll to School Day, and the LA Times calls for genuine action on city’s moribund Green New Deal

May 8, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 237 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’re up to 1,131 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us! 

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Happy National Bike & Roll to School Day!

Or as it’s known here in Los Angeles, Wednesday.

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They get it.

The Los Angeles Times writes that Los Angeles needs to take genuine action on the city’s moribund Green New Deal — there’s that word again — to reach its climate goals, not more excuses.

According to the paper, former mayor and current ambassador Eric Garcetti had the easy job of setting ambitious goals for the city, leaving it to his successor to actually carry them out.

You can guess how that worked out.

Plans for more than $40 billion in rail, highway and mobility projects that were supposed to be finished in time for the 2028 Olympics have been scaled back dramatically after Metro was unable to line up even half of the funds needed. A City Controller’s report last fall found that Garcetti’s Green New Deal plan has not accomplished much, lacks meaningful metrics of progress and doesn’t amount to a “comprehensive and actionable set of steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

It’s disappointing that these lofty efforts to make Los Angeles an environmental and transit model have yielded so little.

In the latest instance of lowered expectations, Metro’s staff has for the second time in a year tried to delay the transit agency’s 2030 deadline to convert its entire 2,000-bus fleet to emissions-free electric models, without so much as a vote. In the seven years since Metro adopted the zero-emission policy, it has managed to order only 145 battery-electric buses and get just 50 of them delivered.

A big part of what’s been forgotten in the brief 3+ years since Garcetti breathed the program into life has been any commitment to expanding the city’s bicycle network.

After Garcetti initially left bicycles out of his first draft of the Green New Deal, he followed up a month later by signing a new executive order calling for a “comprehensive citywide network of active transportation corridors, including protected bike lanes, paths along regional waterways and low-stress neighborhood bike improvements,” along with a host of other transportation and energy goals.

In fact, the city committed to expanding the percentage of all trips made by walking, biking and micro-mobility to at least 35% by next year, climbing up to 50% by 2035.

But Los Angeles won’t come close to meeting that goal, after failing to build more than a tiny fraction of the city’s ambitious mobility plan. And it’s not likely to meet the goal for 2035 unless someone lights a fire under city leaders, who so far have shown more interest in delaying, if not halting, any action on building out the plan.

Which is exactly what led to Measure HLA, committing them to building out the mobility plan as streets get resurfaced.

Yet Mayor Bass and the city council have responded to HLA by proposing a cut in transportation funding and a hiring freeze for the already understaffed LADOT and LA Street Services. And slow walking the street resurfacing program to delay implementing the measure.

Ensuring that the city will fail to meet its Vision Zero and Green New Deal commitments for next year, and likely for years, if not decades, to come.

So if you ask me why I’m angry, and why we need to meet with the mayor, there’s your answer.

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A hard-hitting Scottish traffic safety PSA tells drivers to give bike riders a 1.5 meter passing distance — the equivalent of nearly five feet —  “Because it’s not just a bike. It’s a person.”

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It’s now 140 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.

No bias here. After a man riding in a London bike lane was filmed being cut off by a driver turning into a No Entry roadway to make a U-turn, UK pro-driving traffic lawyer Mr. Loophole blamed the victim, insisting the bike rider should be prosecuted for the crash, while bike-riding BBC presenter Jeremy Vine said anyone who thinks the bike rider was at fault “should have their driving license rescinded” — a comment that got Vine labelled as “arrogant.”

No bias here, either. Local residents say the UK’s biggest bike lane is a waste of money because not enough bicyclists use it, and the space should be given back to motorists because “they’re the majority.” Meanwhile, bike riders say they don’t use it because it’s covered in twigs and stones, making it too dangerous to ride.

Welsh drivers claim that a new bike lane and walkway that gives more space for bicyclists and pedestrians than to drivers is “an attack on your right to drive a car,” and part of an “anti-car agenda.”

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

Police in Singapore busted a group of 20 bicyclists for violating the country’s draconian limit of no more than five people riding single file, or groups up to 10 riding two abreast; they were also charged with using “non-compliant active mobility devices,” whatever that means.

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Local 

A Next City podcast discusses LA’s “mobility wallet,” which it describes as the biggest Universal Basic Mobility experiment ever attempted in the US; the program provides 1,000 South LA residents with $150 per month to spend on any form of transportation, from transit and micro-transit to bikeshare and ebikes.

West Hollywood will hold an informational open house in Plummer Park on Tuesday, May 21st, to discuss the planned bike-friendly Complete Streets makeover of Willoughby Ave, and Vista/Gardner and Kings streets.

LA County has approved a nearly $3.4 million settlement in the killing of Dijon Kizzee, who was shot by sheriff’s deputies as he tried to flee from a traffic stop for riding his bike on the wrong side of the road, in the Westmont neighborhood of South LA in 2020.

 

State

Calbike reports on what they hope is the last workgroup meeting for the California E-Bike Incentive Project before it finally launches. They hope.

Twenty-six-year old Christian Joshua Howard pled not guilty to a felony count of hit-and-run causing death for the St. Patrick’s Day death of 51-year old Oceanside postal worker Tracey Gross as she rode her bike home from work.

Sad news from San Jose, where a male bike rider was killed in front of a local high school when a speeding driver ran a red light, and slammed into the victim. But sure, tell me again about that bike rider you saw roll a stop sign.

 

National

Bicycling considers how long it takes to ride a century. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Electrify News says ebikes are the greatest form of green transportation, and now is the best time ever to buy one. Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the links.

Outside recommends the best bike accessories and tools for road and gravel riding.

A writer for Streetsblog says ebikes are the key for creating financially sustainable bikeshare programs.

Strong Towns considers five ways the National Bike to Work Day can miss the mark.

The White Line Foundation, which was founded in response to 17-year old US National Team cyclist Magnus White’s tragic death, will host the memorial “Ride for Magnus: Ride for Your Life” this August along the same Colorado road where he was killed last July.

California isn’t the only state considering requiring speed limiting devices; a New York state bill would require the devices on vehicles belonging to serial speeders, limiting them to no more than 5 mph over the limit, unlike the California bill, which would require the devices on all new vehicles while allowing a maximum of 10 mph over the posted speed limit. The New York approach sounds like a great complement to the California bill, which will take decades to replace every car now on the road. 

New York plans to permanently reroute the city’s First Avenue protected bike lane through an existing underground tunnel in time for September’s meeting of the UN General Assembly.

A Baltimore woman started selling ice cream from her bicycle ten years ago, founding a company that now brings in a quarter-million dollars a year.

 

International

Cycling News lists the best Giro d’Italia inspired bicycling bargains in both the US and the UK.

Momentum says bicyclists will have an unprecedented opportunity to ride through the iconic streets of Paris to the giant Grand Picnic des Champs on the Champs-Elysées at the end of this month.

An ex-pro paracycling champ has made the unusual transition from the New Zealand national team to owning the leading fence painting firm in Waikato, a district of half a million people.

An Australian study shows replacing parking spaces with bike lanes could improve city accessibility and livability without affecting business revenue, calling it a Robin Hood planning tactic

 

Competitive Cycling

Twenty-two-year old New York native Magnus Sheffield is making his Grand Tour debut in the Giro, as the youngest rider on the Ineos Grenadiers, he’s already won the 2022 De Brabantse Pijl, as well as finishing second overall in the Tours of Norway and Denmark.

Italian sprinter Jonathan Milan claimed stage four of the Giro with a “monstrous” effort in the final 200 yards; there was no change among the top three riders in the general classification.

Jonas Vingegaard took his first ride in over a month following a horrific mass crash in the Tour of the Basque Country, and said he’s aiming to make the start line for this summers Tour de France to compete for a third straight yellow jersey.

This year’s edition of America’s top international bike race, the Maryland Cycling Classic, has been sunk by complications from the Baltimore bridge collapse, after the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge fell when it was struck by a massive freighter.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a triple Tour de France stage winner stops to fix your flat. Or when a four-year old girl pedals the bike while her dad rides in the basket.

And we may have to worry about a near miss with LA drivers, but at least we don’t often brake for a “deer miss.”

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Rule change could ban bikes from streets, Garcetti distracted by shiny flying object, and $25k reward in Specialized bike thefts

December 18, 2020 / / One comment

Just six days left in the 6th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to everyone who’s given so far for their generous donations to help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

For everyone else, what are you waiting for?

Time’s running out! Give to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive today!

And come back after 10:30 this morning for a guest post by Phillip Young that could improve your chances of being seen on the road.

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Unbelievable.

If a proposed Federal Highway Administration rule change goes into effect, you could be banned from riding on any street without bike lanes or signage.

Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland writes that a phrase explicitly stating that the absence of bike infrastructure doesn’t mean bikes aren’t allowed is in danger of being changed to say just the opposite.

Image from FHWA website via bikeportland.org

He writes that the change is buried in a major update to the massive Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices published by the Federal Highway Administration on Friday and posted to the Federal Register on Monday.

This change, which has proposed under the Trump administration but will be finalized in the Biden administration — has set off shockwaves in the bicycle advocacy world. It was first pointed out on Twitter this afternoon by League of American Bicyclists Policy Director Ken McLeod.

Reached on the phone from his office in Washington D.C. a few minutes ago, McLeod said the change is so surprising it “seems like a mistake”. “But at same time,” he added, “Why we you trust that it’s a typo? I think we need to treat this seriously and as real.”

Even if it were a mistake, if it wasn’t caught by McLeod it would have likely ended up as binding federal law. The MUTCD is supposed to be updated every 3-4 years, but it’s taken 10 years for this update to happen. That led McLeod to say, if this was done in error, “It could take a long time to fix.”

Let’s hope it really is a mistake.

And not one more last-minute rule change slipped in by the outgoing Trump administration.

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It’s going to be a long two years.

That’s how much time is left in LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s final term, after the mayor was apparently snubbed by the Biden administration, despite rumors he was a prime candidate for a cabinet-level position.

Because instead refocusing on the city’s long forgotten Mobility Plan, the failed Vision Zero program or the mayor’s own Green New Deal that promised to change how Angelenos get around, he’s shifted his attention to this shiny object — a proposed flying taxi service, which will benefit only those rich enough to use it.

And allow the wealthy to zoom over LA’s clogged and deadly streets, while the rest of us are forced to slog it out down here on the ground.

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Mike Wilkinson forward news that Lakewood is taking comments on a new master plan that would impact Rynerson Park, an important access point for the San Gabriel River Trail.

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Specialized is offering a $25,000 reward to recover the bicycles, many of them one of a kind, that were stolen from their Morgan Hill CA headquarters over the weekend.

The thieves made off with $160,000 dollars worth of prototypes, race-winning bikes and personal bicycles belonging to employees that were on display in the building.

Anyone with information can call Morgan Hill Police Department Cpl. Mindy Zen at 669/253-4917 or the department’s anonymous tip line at 408/947-7867.

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A virtual memorial ride will be held on Zwift tomorrow to honor the five Las Vegas bicyclists killed by an alleged meth-addled truck driver.

The ride is being hosted by a former Vegas police officer who was on the ride at the time of the crash.

You can read the story on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you out.

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This is why you should register your bike with Bike Index.

It’s free. It lasts a lifetime. It’s transferable. It’s used by the LAPD.

And it works.

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Everyone needs a bike day every now and then.

Even him.

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Local

No news is good news, right? 

 

State

Streetsblog explains what to do if you’ve been victimized by the driver of an illegally modified pickup rolling coal.

A San Jacinto bike rider suffered major trauma to both legs when he was struck by an alleged drunk driver early Thursday morning; he was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

San Francisco considers dropping the speed limit to 20 mph in the city’s deadly Tenderloin District. Or better yet, why not the entire city?

Bay Area advocates complain that a new $6 million bike and pedestrian access tube in Alameda would be just as useless as the one it’s supposed to replace.

A planned Ripon bike path is being threatened by habitat for a rare threatened species of beetle.

 

National

Yes, there is haircare hope for Black bike riders. Again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you out.

The Verge tries out Harley Davidson’s new ebikes, and likes just about everything but the price. Meanwhile, New Atlas looks at ebike makers who did things differently this year.

Moving piece from Singletracks, as an Idaho man takes to his mountain bike to ride through grief over the death of his sister. I did the same thing on my roadie after my dad’s death, and again with my mother and both my in-laws; there’s something about riding that allows you to process loss in ways you can’t otherwise. Or I couldn’t, anyway.

They get it. Missoula, Montana is considering a plan to reduce speed limits on residential streets to 20 mph to prevent crashes and reduce their severity. Meanwhile, Los Angeles and other California cities continue to let drivers push speed limits ever higher thanks to the deadly 85th Percentile Law.

Texas Monthly talks with Austin bespoke bikemaker Nao Tomli.

‘Tis the season. A Texas investigative reporter helps out a family in need with nearly $2,000 in gifts, including bikes for all the kids.

‘Tis the season too. An Ohio group donates 24 bicycles to boys victimized by domestic violence, despite being shut down most of this year.

New York bike advocates complain that many of the city’s bike lanes are too wide, inviting people to drive or park in them; the city’s sanitation department wants the wide widths to accommodate their garbage trucks and snow plows.

Streetsblog New York says the NYPD’s bike safety tweets would make a pretty good comedy routine. Except they’re not funny.

New York continues to experience Vision Zero in reverse, as the city’s streets keep getting deadlier, despite earlier progress.

The family of a Florida bike rider call for lights to be installed on a Jacksonville bridge after an 18-year old boy hit a wall when the sidewalk ended, flipping him over; sadly, his body wasn’t found until a week later.

 

International

This year’s bicycle shortage could just be foreshadowing even worse supply problems next year.

A writer for Treehugger says her only regret in trading the family car for a cargo bike was not doing it sooner.

The founder of British bikeshare firm Beryl writes that bikeshare can help drive gender parity in bicycling.

A UK bike nonprofit urges local councils to be brave in the face of angry opposition to active transportation projects.

A fact-checking site says not so fast about that survey showing Brits ready to dump the Conservatives in anger over bike lanes.

The British manufacturer of the illegally overpowered electric trail motorcycle Simon Cowell was riding when he broke his back says it’s not their fault he cranked the throttle too far.

 

Competitive Cycling

Belgium’s Woot van Aert won the Crystal Bicycle award as the country’s best cyclist.

 

Finally…

You gotta love a new high-end aero bike inspired by The Clash. Where to catch a draft in a bike race.

And that feeling when your latest object of lust was built in the ’90s.

No, the 1890s.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already. 

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

Garcetti opens new DTLA bus and bike lanes, Cowell not injured on ebike, and Richmond advocate runs for council

August 11, 2020 / / One comment

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the opening of the new 5th and 6th Street bus lanes and protected bike lanes in Downtown LA yesterday.

Although he seemed to forget the work of Skid Row residents and advocates in fighting for safe bikeways through the crowded city corridor most Angelenos prefer to avoid.

As well as taking credit for street improvements that don’t seem to be happening anywhere else outside of DTLA.

But let’s hope he’s serious about LA’s Green New Deal, which promises to reshape how we get around the city, while dramatically reducing the average miles driven by Angelenos.

And that he actually follows through this time.

Or am I the only one who still remembers the city’s abortive Vision Zero program?

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Forget those reports about Simon Cowell breaking his back riding an ebike.

Not to mention the breathless reports about the supposed dangers of electric bicycles.

Because this one wasn’t. Unless by ebike, you mean something just this side of a motorcycle.

Or maybe the fastest ebike on Earth, even.

Although anything that’s throttle controlled or travels faster than 28 mph requires a driver’s license, registration and a helmet under California law.

Meanwhile, Cowell took the time to thank the medical workers who cared for him, calling them “some of the nicest people I have ever met.”

And said maybe he should have read the manual first.

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This one made me smile.

Najari Smith, the founder of Richmond’s nonprofit Rich City Rides bike co-op, made the announcement that he’s running for the local city council this fall.

Like LA’s East Side Riders Bike Club, Smith works through the co-op to aid local youths and uplift the community, as well as helping people get on bikes who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

And knows firsthand what it’s like to get unjustly busted for Biking While Black.

Now we just need to talk the East Side Riders John Jones III to do the same thing here in LA.

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

A Half Moon Bay bike rider was repeatedly stabbed in a case of sidewalk rage after getting in a dispute with a man about riding on the sidewalk; his attacker now faces a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Um, okay. An Iowa woman is under arrest for threatening to kill a bike rider and slapping an apparently unidentified “Hardee’s cup of liquid” out of her hand.

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Local

The Órale Boyle Heights podcast talks with the man behind Peatónito, Mexico’s legendary pedestrian rights superhero, now living in Los Angeles.

Another measure of how much LA traffic dropped during the coronavirus lockdown — road rage incidents were down, too.

Tafarai Bayne, chief strategist for CicLAvia, makes a pitch for the LA open streets event.

Gerrard Butler is one of us, looking good on his knobby tired ebike on a spin through the ‘Bu.

 

State

San Diego is promoting bicycling in the city with a new Better by Bike blog.

Bakersfield is starting work on a seven-mile extension of the city’s Kern River bike path, which will result in a nearly 40-mile bikeway.

 

National

They get it. NPR says now is the time to start riding a bike, while a suburban Chicago site says bicycling is one saving grace of Covid-19.

Writing for Business Insider, former Chicago and DC DOT Director Gabe Klein teams with Kay Cheng to make the case for making the country’s Covid-19 street closures permanent.

Self talks with a couple of experts to recommend the best bikes for women. Not that their experts don’t know what they’re talking about. But there are countless others — including more than just one woman — they could have spoken with who know as much or more about the particular needs of women riders.

A surprising report from Reader’s Digest visits 15 “visually stunning” pedestrian bridges across the US, many of which are open to bike riders, too. Actually, the real surprise is that Reader’s Digest is still around.

A Colorado site says gravel biking is showing real staying power.

Houston is finally getting around to banning blocking bike lanes, and allowing scofflaw drivers to have their vehicles towed.

A Kentucky newspaper trots out a long-discredited stat to argue for a mandatory bike helmet law, calling them “a cyclist’s best line of defense,” without distinguishing between adults and children. No, the best defense is avoiding crashes in the first place through safe riding techniques, defensive bicycling and better infrastructure; helmets should always be seen as the last line of defense when all else fails. And they’re only designed to protect against slow speed falls, not high speed impacts.

New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare is backtracking on promises to put more ebikes on the streets, cutting the promised number from “thousands” to “hundreds.”

A frontline doctor treating Covid-19 patients in the Bronx says his daily bike rides have kept him sane, despite working 38 days straight.

Now that’s more like it. A new West Virginia insulation factory will give employees who commute by bike priority parking when it opens next year.

 

International

Bogotá, Columbia, has embarked on a bike lane building spree that could set the standard for Latin America, with 550 miles of bike lanes slated for completion within four years.

Coventry, England, is making an effort to return to its bicycling roots, despite its status as the UK’s Motor City equivalent,

London’s Evening Standard recommends all the gear you need to become a bicycle commuter. Or you could just get a bike and start riding.

Auto insurance claims for bike crashes have nearly doubled in the UK in recent months, presumably due to the increase in ridership due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Streetsblog questions whether it’s time for the US to adopt the Madrid Model of sandwiching bike lanes — or rather, slow vehicle lanes — between higher speed traffic lanes, saying it’s already showing safety improvements by moving riders from the edge of the roadway.

An Indian writer calls for a bicycle revolution to “drastically change the socio-economic and demographic distribution” of bicyclists, in a country where bike use is too often limited to the poorest households.

Singapore’s new pedestrian code of conduct calls for people on foot to use sidewalks and crosswalks instead of bikeways when they’re available. And not bury their faces in their phones.

An op-ed by a New Zealand physician says slowing speeds is a good start, but actually fixing the streets will make a bigger difference.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling says Max Fennell, the first black pro triathlete, wants more black athletes to realize their potential in endurance sports.

Doctors continue to say Dutch pro Fabio Jakobsen could return to racing if he wants, while predicting a long and arduous path to recover from the injuries he suffered in the Tour of Poland; speaking and eating will be a challenge, along with “aesthetic damage” to his face.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can go bike touring while pulling your very own mini-camper trailer. And apparently, your regular bike clothes just won’t due for gravel grinding.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

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

Bonin promises actual implementation, biking & walking mean happy commuters, and expensive cars mean bigger jerks

February 27, 2020 / / One comment

This could be good news, for a change.

The LA City Council’s Transportation Committee approved a motion calling on LADOT to come up with a plan to implement the city’s Green New Deal and the mayor’s recent Climate Directive.

In addition to calling for a 30% improvement in bus speeds, it calls for the development of active transportation corridors for walking, bicycling and micromobility, with “at least one major regional project and one neighborhood-oriented network per year.”

It now goes before the full council, and if approved, will require LADOT to respond with an implementation plan this July.

So what we basically have is a motion for a plan.

And as we’ve learned the hard way, Los Angeles is very good at coming up with plans, but not so good at actually putting them on the pavement.

Like the 2010 bike plan. Or the more recent halfhearted non-embrace of Vision Zero.

Perhaps sensing the growing frustration, Transportation Chair Mike Bonin had this to say.

Let’s hope he means it.

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In what may be one of the most telling surveys ever, a Utah university finds that, given the choice, three-quarters of drivers and car passengers would rather teleport to work, along with two-thirds of transit riders.

But only 35 percent of bike riders and 28 percent of people who walk to work concurred. Which tells you that the overwhelming majority of people who walk or bike to work actually like it.

As opposed to the overwhelming majority of people stuck in traffic who don’t.

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Once again, science confirms what most of us have already figured out.

The more expensive a driver’s car is, the more likely he or she is to act like an entitled jerk behind the wheel.

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Not only did a driver in Lincoln CA fail to stop after crashing into a man on a bike, he kept going for another quarter mile with the badly injured victim lodged on the roof of his SUV.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the 85-year old driver said he didn’t know he’d even hit anyone.

Which seems a little odd, given the crumpled hood and shattered windshield directly in front of his steering wheel.

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A San Diego TV station tells the tale of how nine-year old Connor Stitt of San Marcos rocketed to internet fame when ESPN featured a video of his arial acrobatics.

We showed the clip back in December, but it’s worth seeing again.

And again.

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Presenting the world’s lightest balance bike, for all those three and four-year old weight weenies in your life.

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Local

The 13-mile Park to Playa Trail connecting Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area to Playa del Rey is nearly complete; all that’s missing is a soon-to-be-built bridge allowing people and small animals to cross busy La Cienega Blvd.

Curbed quizzes LA council candidates on the bike issues currently facing the city, including housing, homelessness and cars.

More on the near-fatal crash that sent renowned LA chef Walter Manzke of Republique fame to the ER with several broken bones; he was getting out of his car near his upcoming new bistro Bicyclette when he was run down by the driver, who stopped, for a change.

Bike the Vote LA endorses Trisha Keane in Pasadena’s 2nd Council District, while Streets For All reminds us they endorsed Sarah Kate Levy in CD4 and Loraine Lundquist in CD12. I cast my vote for SKL yesterday, in case you’re wondering. And it was so much fun, I’m thinking about going back and doing it again tomorrow. 

 

State

Pink Bike raves about a mountain biker’s perfectly sculpted jumps on a California trail. Call me crazy, but a split scrotum does not suggest a successful landing in my book.

A reminder to never leave your bike on a car rack. A would be Seal Beach bike thief was interrupted by the owner as he tried to make off with a $3,500 bicycle.

An Oceanside bike rider was severely injured when he was struck by an SUV driver after allegedly running a stop light.

A San Diego man is suing the city, claiming its new pump track is too dangerous because it allows bike riders and skateboarders to use it at the same time — even though the injuries he’s claiming came in a “brutal attack” by a boarder, rather than a crash.

Palo Alto is resuming work on building a network of bike boulevards, which was halted two years ago because some residents couldn’t figure out how a roundabout works.

No bias here. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, if you’re not white, male and earn $250,000, the city’s bike lanes aren’t for you. Except, of course, for the 75% of regular bike lane users who earn less than that, and the 33% that are female. Or who don’t otherwise fit with their highly skewed premise, based on notoriously unreliable census data.

A Bay Area woman got drunk, and apparently decided driving in the new barrier protected bike lane on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was the perfect way to bypass all that car traffic in the other lanes.

 

National

A writer for Gear Patrol explains why good bikes are so expensive. Except there are a lot of good bikes out there that aren’t.

Meanwhile, the apparently unrelated Gear Junkie offers tips on how to build up your own mountain bike.

A bike-riding Oregon teenager was very lucky to escape with just minor injuries when he was struck by a driver doing 55 mph.

A New Mexico City councilor doesn’t like the census, early childhood education, the state’s red flag law or the Democratic primary. But he does like bike lanes, so he can’t be all bad.

An eleven-year old South Dakota boy has ridden his bike to school every day for six years — nearly 1,000 days in a row, rain or shine. Or snow.

Kindhearted Kansas business owners gave a new top-of-the-line gravel bike to a woman battling colorectal cancer.

Got to give him points for persistence. A Brooklyn bike thief broke through the roof of a building to steal a bike, then walked it out the front door.

Anti-safety vigilantes are tying yellow ribbons around trees on New York’s Staten Island to warn drivers about speed enforcement cameras.

 

International

A British ebike rider faces charges for killing a pedestrian by plowing into her at 30 mph — ten miles faster than legally allowed.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is testing a system to electronically slow the fastest pedelec bikes down to the speed of regular bikes. Now try it on cars, please.

A Berlin firm is hosting the first-ever virtual world bicycle conference.

Mumbai is working to become bike-friendlier with bike mayors for each of the city’s 24 districts, along with two junior bike mayors. Which is about 26 more than you’ll find in Los Angeles.

An Australian city votes to spend $2 million to rip out part of an $8 million protected bike lane network that was only finished two year ago, claiming it’s causing too much traffic congestion. No, it’s all those cars causing that traffic; take more of those off the road and the congestion goes away.

 

Competitive Cycling

Four American women are working together to win three spots in the mountain biking events at the Tokyo Olympics.

 

Finally…

If you’re riding your bike with a stolen handgun, a sock full of meth, ten fake or stolen IDs, a criminal record and an outstanding warrant, maybe try riding a little closer to the curb. Ramming your bike into a police car is not likely to hurt it — or help you get away.

And you only wish this was your commute.

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

Bike registration and green transportation at LA council this week, new CicLAvia to the sea, and selective enforcement in NYC

February 25, 2020 / / Comments Off on Bike registration and green transportation at LA council this week, new CicLAvia to the sea, and selective enforcement in NYC

Mea culpa.

Once again, I accidentally hit the wrong damn button and posted this piece before it’s ready.

My sincere apologies for premature publication.

I know they say it happens to everyone.

But still.

Image by Christelle Olivier from Pixabay.

………

Let’s start with a couple items coming up before the Los Angeles City Council this week.

Because, after a long hiatus on the subject, the council is once again talking bikes.

Twice, no less.

Although one of those times, bicycles are rolled up with bus lanes, clean transit and reducing the amount of cars on our streets.

First up, the full council will address a motion allowing the LAPD to establish a free voluntary bicycle registration program at today’s meeting.

Key word, voluntary.

And free.

Except I can almost guarantee someone — Koretz, perhaps, maybe Cedillo — will argue that it should be mandatory, taking us back to the bad old days when police used missing registration stickers as a pretext to stop bike riders, particularly when their skin tone was something other than white.

The police are proposing a partnership with a still-unnamed nonprofit bike registration program, allowing easy online bicycle registration and reporting of stolen bikes.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly what you’ll find with the links to Bike Index at the top of this page — with the exception that reporting with them doesn’t currently link to an online theft report with the LAPD, though that would be easy enough to fix.

However, it’s also what you can find with their only major US competitor, Project 529, formerly known as the National Bike Registry.

At this point, it’s not clear whether they will announce their choice at today’s meeting, or if they’re only looking for authorization to set up a program with a company to be named later.

Then Wednesday afternoon, the council’s Transportation Committee will take up a motion directing LADOT to develop a plan for a network of bus lanes and active transportation corridors as part of the mayor’s Green New Deal.

Except the city council already adopted those plans with the 2010 Bike Plan and the Mobility Plan 2035 it was subsumed into.

So it’s questionable just what they’re asking the LADOT to spend the next four months doing.

Unless, of course, the city is already tossing out everything they’ve already done, and starting over all over again.

That’s a good question to ask, if anyone is planning to be there.

Or we could just wait until LADOT reports back in July to figure out just what the hell is going on.

………

The next CicLAvia will revisit the popular route from Mid-City to the Sea.

https://twitter.com/_KennyUong_/status/1232160027059712001

………

No selective enforcement here.

A New York bike rider complains about getting a ticket for not having a bell on her bike when she stopped to take pictures of three cops ticketing a bicyclist for not using the bike lane.

And ignoring scofflaw drivers in the process.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

………

No surprise here.

Not only did an ebike rider soundly defeat a driver in a race through LA traffic, he even beat the camera crew — despite giving them a half hour head start.

………

Best argument for universal single-payer healthcare, as former pro Phil Gaimon gets shafted stuck with a quarter million dollar hospital bill following a crash, despite being insured.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. 

An English bike rider barely escapes a close call when a driver pulls out directly in front of him. Note to bike riders: Edit down your bike cam videos. No one needs to see a full minute or more of peaceful riding before some idiot in a car does something stupid.

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

A man on a bicycle was interrupted by a neighbor while attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail at an occupied San Jose home, and set the fence on fire instead of his apparent intended target.

Not all police chases are on four wheels. Sometimes it’s someone on a bicycle trying, and failing, to get away.

A London man paid out the equivalent of nearly $38,000 after hitting a woman who was crossing the road while looking at her phone.

………

Local

Streetsblog offers an open thread on Sunday’s South LA CicLAvia. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make this one, because I being interviewed, along with a couple other people, for a story about the foster corgi; hopefully that one will appear in print and online in the next week or two.

A Santa Clarita bike rider was injured in a collision with a motorist near the College of the Canyons Monday afternoon; no word on the condition of the victim.

 

State

If you’re riding in Santa Maria today, look out for a crackdown on traffic violations that endanger bicyclists and pedestrians. The standard protocol applies. Ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit line so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

Over one hundred bike riders turned out to honor a Bakersfield bike mechanic who helped keep them on their bikes, after he passed away earlier this month.

Rancho Cordova approves plans for a $3.6 million bike and pedestrian bridge over US 50, connecting two sides of the city divided by the highway.

San Francisco Streetsblog says it’s time to ban cars on Market Street for real.

 

National

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released $562 million in highway safety grants, including a relatively paltry $14.3 million for bike and pedestrian safety programs throughout the US.

Bicycling calls the new $2,200 Batch E-Commuter ped-assist ebike an affordable and efficient solution for bike commuting and other daily outings. Evidently they have a different definition of affordable than the one I use.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a bicycle from an autistic Seattle teenager while he was looking for his lost phone.

A Minnesota letter writer opposed to a proposed bike lane somehow feels the need to point out that most bike commuters are men, and most bicycling injuries are suffered by…wait for it…men.

Someone stabbed a Chicago man after knocking him off his bicycle as he rode on a bike path, for no apparent reason, in an apparently random attack before running off and leaving him there. Special thanks to Block Club Chicago for that lovely photo of the victim’s blood pooled on the ground inside the crime scene tape. Really nice.

VeloNews talks with a Vermont gravel race promoter about riding a bike throughout her pregnancy. Never mind that’s she’s married to popular former pro Ted King.

No bias here. A Long Island NY town is preparing to crack down on “objectively moronic” teenagers who pop wheelies while impeding motor vehicle traffic, by impounding their bicycles. If they think that’s bad, just wait until they hear what drivers do.

A Streetsblog NYC op-ed suggests Uber could use its data to keep their drivers out of bike lanes.

Nice guy. A New York truck driver blames the victim for a crash last year that took the life of a three-year old boy, and threatens to sue Streetsblog for reporting the facts in the case.

A Florida city is seriously considering armed bicycle guards. Except they’re talking about armed security guards on bicycles, not armed people guarding bicycles, which is a much better idea.

This is who we share the road with. A Florida man spent the day drinking at a bar, accidentally ran over his girlfriend after leaving the bar, then went back to the bar to keep drinking; remarkably, investigators waited several hours to administer a blood test, by which time he had sobered up. He had also gotten arrested a year ago for attacking a bike rider after nearly crashing into him.

 

International

Treehugger says cargo bikes and ebikes will “eat” delivery vans and cargo haulers. If any of us survive the onslaught of massive SUVs and pickups over the next few years, that is.

Cool graphic as a London man slowly sketches out the city’s street grid, one bike ride at a time.

Scottish bicyclist Josh Quigley is looking forward to resuming his journey around the world on a new bespoke bike given to him after he barely survived a 70 mph crash on a Texas highway.

Hell must be getting pretty crowded, because here’s a special place right next to the other jerk for whoever stole a wallet and phone from a Kiwi woman as she was in surgery after getting hit by a driver.

An Aussie woman can thank an off-duty nurse for saving her life after she was critically injured when she was struck by a bike rider

A group of Australian bicyclists will ride sans skid lids to protest the country’s mandatory helmet laws while promoting the benefits of bike riding. Just keep on depressing bicycling rates by fining people hundreds of dollars for riding without a helmet. It’s not like the country is literally burning or anything.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling asks the burning question of whether road bikes are already as good as they can get, or if there are still better ideas being stifled by bike racing’s governing body. I’d put my money on the latter, but what the hell do I know.

VeloNews talks with Dirty Kanzaa winner Colin Strickland, who’s trying to push American cycling in a whole new direction.

 

Finally…

Who needs a velodrome when you’ve got an empty parking garage? And if you’re going to do a story about a man who enjoys taking his bird for a bike ride around the neighborhood, you might want to show a picture of the bird, you know, on the bike.

Or at least mention it in the story.

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

Garcetti orders bold climate plan, couple killed by drunk driver on Goleta bike path, and Corona DIY hit-and-run investigation

February 11, 2020 / / One comment

Maybe he means it this time.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive directive yesterday to enhance portions of the city’s Green New Deal.

Which would be a big deal, if he actually follows through this time.

There’s a lot to like in the plan. Starting with a commitment to active transportation; according to My News LA, the plan would

— promote walking, bicycling and micro-mobility with a comprehensive citywide network of active transportation corridors, including protected bike lanes, paths along regional waterways and low-stress neighborhood bike improvements;

The order also calls for more cool streets and roofs, a congestion pricing pilot program, zero emission buses, and increasing transit speeds by 30% in the next ten years.

More importantly, it calls for reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled through expanded use of transit, walking, bicycling and micromobility.

And of special interest to many of us, more frequent open streets events.

But as always, the devil is in the details.

It remains to be seen whether that implementation plan for an active transportation network means we’ll finally get around to building out the hard-won 2010 Bike Plan that was unanimously passed by the city council when Garcetti was still council president.

Or if they intend to re-invent the wheel yet again, with or without our input.

Curbed reports the mayor at least struck the right sense of urgency.

“Can we make this happen?” Garcetti asked Monday, speaking broadly about the city’s sustainability goals. “We don’t have a choice.”

But they added —

It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to achieve one of the key goals laid out in the city’s Green New Deal: A nearly 50 percent reduction in the number of miles LA residents drive daily.

Although it’s not a bad sign that the NRDC is on board with it.

The problem, of course, is that we’ve been here before.

Any progress on the bike plan, or the mobility plan that subsumed it, ground to a near complete and total stop after Garcetti took office as mayor.

And any real progress on the mayor’s own Vision Zero plan came to a halt the first time drivers complained about a road diet.

The result that not only have bike and pedestrian deaths not declined by 20%, as the plan called for by this year, they’ve actually gone up.

So this could be the beginning of the groundbreaking, tide-turning movement to re-invent the City of Angels into the more livable — and survivable — city so many of us have fought for.

Or it could be just another bold plan that will soon by gathering dust on the shelf.

It’s all up to Mayor Garcetti.

And whether he’s suddenly found the political will to see it through.

Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels.

………

This is who we share the roads with.

Or in this case, a bike path.

Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk website reports that a married couple was killed in a collision while walking their dog on an offroad Goleta bike path Sunday evening.

The driver, later identified as 39-year old Eric Mauricio Ramirez Aguilar of Goleta, fled the scene on foot.

A writer for the site estimated that Aguilar had to have driven at least 100 yards on the bike path before coming to a stop, slamming into his victims somewhere along the way.

Police took the alleged drunk driver into custody three hours later in nearby Carpinteria. He was a passenger in a car, whose driver was returning from Ventura County after learning that Aguilar was a wanted man.

Authorities threw the book at him, and deservedly so.

According to the site,

Aguilar was booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated causing injury, hit and run causing death or injury, fleeing the scene after committing manslaughter, and driving while intoxicated, with an enhancement for causing the deaths of more than one person.

He remained in custody Monday night, with bail set at $100,000.

Fortunately, the dog somehow survived the crash, and was turned over to a family member.

Let’s hope Aguilar gets the hard time a crime like this calls for.

But let’s face it.

As long as drunks continue to get behind the wheel, we’re not safe anywhere. And no amount of jail time can bring back the lives they take.

………

This is who we share the roads with, too.

After a Corona mother was killed in a hit-and-run while riding her motorcycle last week, leaving behind eight kids, her husband made it his mission to track down her killer.

Remarkably, he found the car parked in a nearby apartment complex, with passenger side damage matching the details of the crash.

Police arrested the 85-year old driver, Tashiro Isa, on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter.

Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive.

Thanks to Ted Faber for the heads-up.

………

The LAPD is asking for your help to find the heartless coward who fled the scene after backing into a 92-year old man, leaving him bleeding in the street.

https://twitter.com/LAPDCTD24/status/1226947569722376194

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Or as we call it here in balmy Los Angeles, Friday.

………

After a British truck driver knocked a bicyclist off his bike in a left hook, the equivalent of our right hook, the driver refused to admit he was behind the wheel — and walks with just a fine and points against his license.

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Take a quick break with mountain biker Greg Williamson doing “dusty laps” on a dry and dirty Kiwi singletrack trail.

I think Dusty Laps will be the name of my new cowboy alter ego, although Twitter user Mumen Rusto suggested that could be my porn name.

But no one wants to see that anymore.

………

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

An Aussie state department of transportation posts a simple question about bicycling rules online. And opens the floodgate for an avalanche of bike hate.

A Tokyo bicyclist catches a punishment pass and a brake check from a school bus driver on his bike cam — while riding in a bike lane, no less.

Sometimes, though, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Sacramento police are looking for a man who fled on a bicycle after robbing a business and threatening the employees at gunpoint.

………

Local

Streetsblog adds its voice to those calling out against plans to widen dangerous Magnolia Blvd, which is already on the city’s Vision Zero High Injury Network.

Bike riders aren’t the only ones being inconvenienced by the closure of the Arroyo Seco pathway; horse people are calling for the equestrian trail to be reopened, as well.

While Los Angeles talks about safer streets, Santa Monica is actually doing something, as the city announces plans to make over deadly Wilshire Blvd to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians.

Sad news, as longtime bike industry vet Jim Whitsett died of an apparent heart attack before South Bay Cycle, his new 2,100 square foot Manhattan Beach bike shop, could open this coming weekend.

 

State

My point exactly. A writer for California Streetsblog argues that the state is missing a significant opportunity to fight climate change by failing to offer the same sort of rebates for ebikes that they do for electric vehicles. Except we should go further, and offer them for any bicycle intended to replace at least one car trip a week.

They get it. An editorial in the Times of San Diego says driving like maniacs is the root cause of bike and pedestrian collisions.

Fifty-six-year old Julian resident Craig Wendell Nelson faces up to four years and eight months behind bars after pleading guilty to the hit-and-run death of Kevin Wilson as he was riding his bike on a rural road east of El Cajon last month; police eventually found Nelson hiding under some bushes after abandoning his car.

It takes a major schmuck to steal a ghost bike, like the one that was installed for fallen bicyclist Raymundo “Ray-Ray” Jaime following the Palm Springs hit-and-run that took his life; the killer of the 30-year old father is still a large.

Palo Alto considers fixing a “terrifying” intersection used by around 4,000 cars and 20 bicycles per hour during the morning rush. Maybe more bike riders would use it if it wasn’t so scary.

San Francisco bike riders are calling for a concrete barrier along the Embarcadero bike lanes.

Uber says Sacramento ranks second in the world for shared rides, if you include bikeshare and e-scooters along with ride hailing.

 

National

VeloNews says 2020 is all about gravel and e-bikes and smart-bikes and materials and versatility.

Bicycling says blame a stiff neck for your numb hands.

New York bike riders can’t use the city’s bike lanes because they were built wide enough for street sweepers and snow plows, which makes them wide enough for people to drive and park in, too.

New York is finally getting around to questioning whether dangerous drivers should be taken off the road before they kill someone. Not after, like the woman with eight speeding and red light violations who killed a couple kids as they were walking in a crosswalk.

Florida bike riders are up in arms after an 18-year old bicyclist was cuffed and arrested after allegedly running a stop sign; the officer says he and another bike rider refused to stop when ordered to, while the riders say they just didn’t hear him. Advocates also want to know why the kid from Puerto Rico was the only one to get busted. Thanks to Victor Bale and J. Patrick Lynch for the links.

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine unveils the secrets bike mechanics don’t want you to know, like maybe you’re putting your bar tape on wrong.

The English city of Coventry just got Britain’s first bicycle mayor. Meanwhile Los Angeles, with ten times the population, is still waiting.

I want to be like her when I grow up. A French woman who may have been the world’s oldest person was still riding her bike as she approached 100.

The Netherlands ranks second in Europe for bicycling fatalities. Which isn’t too surprising, considering they also have one of the continent’s highest rates for bicycling.

An arrest warrant has been issued for an Aussie man who failed to show up for sentencing after pleading guilty to killing a bike rider; the victim frequently posted videos of close passes while calling for a safer passing distance.

Macau leaders shut down hiking trails and bike lanes to combat the novel coronavirus, telling everyone to just shut yourself in and exercise at home.

 

Competitive Cycling

Twenty-three-year old Tour de France champ Egan Bernal will lead the Ineos team in this week’s Tour of Columbia.

New Zealand’s Georgia Williams is making a comeback to the women’s pro cycling tour after being knocked off her bike by the increasingly common Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, aka RED-S, which prevented her from getting enough fuel for her body while making her bones more brittle.

 

Finally…

Your next bike helmet could fold up to fit in your briefcase or backpack; let’s hope it also protects your head. Now you, too, can compete in the world’s greatest bike races without risking all that road rash and broken bones and stuff.

And apparently, Los Angeles used to be a lot better for bicycling.

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

New hope for Venice Blvd, entitled drivers and anti-bike bias, and an antidote for overly aggressive car ads

February 3, 2020 / / Comments Off on New hope for Venice Blvd, entitled drivers and anti-bike bias, and an antidote for overly aggressive car ads

There may be hope for Venice Blvd yet.

Recently formed political advocacy group Streets For All has unveiled a new website to promote — or maybe fight for — a Complete Street plan that goes far beyond the limited lane reduction and parking protected bike lanes in Mar Vista.

The group is demanding that the city live up to the promises it made in approving the city’s mobility plan, Vision Zero and Green New Deal Sustainability Plan, and implement dedicated bus lanes, protected mobility lanes and pedestrian improvements to create a safer, cleaner, and more livable Venice Blvd for everyone.

It’s a worthwhile goal.

Venice is one of the few streets that runs from DTLA all the way to the coast, making it a prime thoroughfare for anyone needing to cross the city.

It also cuts through countless neighborhoods along the way that could experience new life and improved safety for the people living nearby.

And it could — and should — provide safe and affordable mobility options for people who don’t own cars, or who choose not to drive. for whatever reasons.

But the most important thing is, all they’re asking for is what the city already promised to do.

Isn’t it time we held our elected leaders to their word?

………

No bias here.

An entitled Antioch driver says his car should somehow have priority over all those entitled bicyclists who ruined his recreational drive along the coast.

………

No bias here, either.

A Missouri writer complains that the traffic statistics bike advocates cite are just lies, and that the Complete Streets that don’t even exist in his little town cause road rage.

No, seriously.

And he goes on to blame people on bicycles for causing the injuries suffered by pedestrians.

But then concludes this way.

I hope that I’ve dispelled some concerns and encouraged others to give bicycle riding a try. Perhaps we’ll meet soon. I’ll ring my bell!

Um, sure.

I feel much better now.

………

And definitely no bias here.

A writer for a right wing Central California site goes on a tirade about bike lanes and Compete Streets, saying gas tax money is being “stolen” for bike and transit projects.

Even though that’s exactly what the state said they’d be used for.

And accusing governor Newsom of using road diets to force “California residents to reach back to the 19th Century when bicycles and trains were the only transportation, other than horses and wagons.”

Damn. That sounds wonderful.

She’s on to us, comrades.

………

That’s more like it. Or maybe not.

A Belgian bike thief got a well deserved three year sentence after a judge ruled the theft was an ecological crime, because it forced the victim to use a less-clean form of transportation.

But don’t expect him to serve that sentence anytime soon.

He’s already been sentenced to a total of nine years for a massive rap sheet that includes 44 arrests with 17 convictions.

But he hasn’t spent a single day behind bars.

Yet.

………

Curbed’s Alissa Walker takes car makers to task for relying on ads that portray their cars, trucks and SUVs being driven recklessly on the same streets where people keep dying.

But here’s an antidote to those heavy footed, over aggressive Super Bowl ads.

https://twitter.com/tomflood1/status/1224104266291392512

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Blink and you’ll miss it.

Hidden in plain sight in Jeep’s Groundhog Day Super Bowl ad was the official reveal of their upcoming 750-watt ebike. Or maybe it’s actually twice that powerful, capable of literally ripping a bike chain to shreds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhzGUcENWo

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Can’t find the carbon fiber mountain bike frame you want? Just build your own.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

An Iowa woman got a whopping 40 years behind bars — yes, four zero — for killing a man riding a bicycle in a Cedar Rapids parking lot while driving at twice the legal blood alcohol level; she claimed she was only trying to run over his bicycle, but he just happened to be on it at the time.

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

A New Mexico man was busted after riding his bike up to an undercover cop posing as a prostitute, then asking if he could pay her later because he wouldn’t have the money until Friday. Then finally agreed to pay her with the hamburger he was carrying.

………

Local

Curbed says the proposed makeover of Hollywood Blvd would be a big improvement, but hardly radical compared to San Francisco closing Market Street to cars.

Selena Gomez used to be one of us, but now she’s unloading the bikes she used to ride with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber.

A writer for the New Yorker apparently thinks you can see the air in LA most days, and just breathing here feels like smoking three cigarettes — let alone riding a bike. Maybe I’ve been privileged living on the Westside most of my time in LA, but in 30 year as an Angeleno, I can count the times I’ve experienced that on one hand with most most of the fingers closed, not counting nearby wildfires. 

Burbank is making traffic improvements around three schools to create safe routes for students who walk or bike to school. Unfortunately, though, those improvements don’t appear to include bike lanes.

 

State

San Diego’s Ocean Beach Bike Path will be closed for construction work most of this month, starting today.

The owner of The Bikesmith in San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood has been wrenching bikes for 50 years, earning the sobriquet Bikesmith Bob. Correction: Somehow Pacific was autocorrected to Pacificas last night. This bike shop is in Pacific Beach, as Robert Leone pointed out.

The annual Tour de Palm Springs rolls this Sunday, bringing riders from 46 states and four countries to the roads of the Coachella Valley.

Speaking of the Coachella Valley, the planned CV Link bike path around the valley continues to move forward, thanks to a $29 million state grant; however, the once 50-mile trail has shrunk to just 40.

Streetsblog says San Francisco’s 28-year old Critical Mass movement deserves credit for banning cars from Market Street, with one of the founders saying the rides made it possible for the “tepid, wimpy bike coalition people to do their thing.” Ouch. Especially considering the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is one of the country’s most successful and progressive advocacy groups.

 

National

CNN suggests Lyft should be doing well, but it keeps shooting itself in the foot.

Life is cheap in Washington, where a possibly impaired driver walks with a ridiculous two days behind bars after copping a plea to vehicular homicide in the death of a 75-year old bike rider — about 14 months and 28 days less than the typical minimum sentence. He claimed he didn’t know his medication could cause impairment, despite being on it for the past four years.

Denver officially shutters its docked bikeshare system after ten years, but looks forward to exploring other forms of micromobility.

A solo bike crash last year left a nationally recognized spinal surgeon in Houston a quadriplegic, after he caught his front wheel while riding in a park and went over the handlebars. It’s a sad commentary on our society that even someone like him needs to crowdfund money for the things not covered by insurance.

A Good Samaritan bought new bikes for two Texas boys after theirs were stolen outside their school; the local police also pitched in some new locks.

Illustrating the difficulty in keeping dangerous drivers off the roads, a Milwaukee driver confessed to the hit-and-run death of a bike rider — even though he’s never held a driver’s license.

No bike helmet requirement for Indiana kids, after a state legislator backed off on his proposal because his peers in the legislature considered it too intrusive.

Data from Atlanta’s pop-up protected bike lane experiment confirms that sharing road space benefits everyone.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a backpack from a Baton Rouge bike rider after he was killed by a pair of street racing brothers.

A New Orleans carnival krewe teams with a local neighborhood to call attention to bike and pedestrians safety, eleven months after an extremely drunk driver plowed into a group of bike riders near a Mardi Gras parade at 80 mph, killing two; Tashoni Toney will serve 90 years hard labor after pleading guilty in the crash.

This is why you don’t just toss old tires away. A Florida manatee has been spotted once again after having a bicycle tire stuck around him for at least a month.

 

International

A Toronto writer goes on an anti-Vision Zero rampage, insisting it was created by leftists to drive traffic down to turtle-like speeds and force drivers out of their cars.

A former British soldier set a new Paralympic hour record nine years after losing a leg when he was run over by a tank.

A driver in the UK got eight weeks behind bars for calling a bicyclist wearing a pink jersey “gay boy” and spitting on him; that was his big mistake since authorities traced his DNA through the sample he deposited on the victim. Unfortunately, the original article is hidden behind a paywall, so scroll down Road.cc’s page for the story.

A writer for the Guardian predicts an epic disaster if Great Britain allows e-scooters to infest the country, both for pedestrians and the people riding them. The scooters, not the pedestrians.

You might want to rethink that dream of bicycling the Emerald Isle. Bicycling fatalities have risen an average of 8% a year over the last decade, four times the rate of the next-worse European countries, France and the Netherlands.

Paris provides a prime lesson in what a real climate mayor would do to reinvent a city before it hosts the Olympic Games. Or even just let it live up to its potential.

How about a family bike tour along the Danube from Vienna to Budapest?

 

Competitive Cycling

Those proclamations that the era of doping is over might be just a tad premature. Danish and Norwegian media are reporting that Jakob Fuglsang, the world’s number two ranked cyclist, has been spotted training with Lance’s alleged doping doc Michele Ferrari, who has been banned for life from working with athletes due to his involvement in Armstrong’s US Postal Service team doping scandal.

Bicycling offers five takeaways from this year’s Cyclocross World Championships — including a surprising medal for the US in the women’s U-23 race.

Spanish cyclist Mikel Landa became just the latest pro to have a run-in with a car bumper while training, after he and a riding parter were both run down by a hit-and-run driver last week; fortunately, neither was seriously injured.

Three time men’s ‘cross champ Mathieiu van der Poel faces a tough choice between mountain biking and competing in the Grand Tours.

Columbian cyclist Egan Bernal is going to have some nasty road rash after wiping out rounding a bend on a high-speed descent during the country’s national championships.

 

Finally…

If you’re carrying meth and a pipe on your bike and riding with an outstanding warrant, put some damn reflectors on it, at least. Same goes for carrying heroin and a loaded gun, with a warrant from another state.

And your next ebike could look like a vintage motorcycle.

But why would you want it to?

………

Ride safe out there. If this wind gets any stronger, we may have to change the name of this site to BikinginOz.

And I don’t mean Australia.

 

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

Morning Links: Eric Garcetti strange choice to chair global mayors’ climate group, and lots of upcoming bike events

October 11, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Eric Garcetti strange choice to chair global mayors’ climate group, and lots of upcoming bike events

In a surprising move, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has been chosen to chair the C40 group of global mayors as they confront climate change.

Maybe the other 90-plus mayors haven’t taken a good look at what’s happening on our city streets lately.

Or more precisely, what’s not happening.

Garcetti was chosen to follow Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo as chair, who earned her bona fides by taking dramatic steps to cut auto use and emissions in the city, including closing down a major highway along the Seine, banning diesel cars from the entire metro area by 2025, and removing all gas-powered cars from the city’s streets five years later.

By comparison, Garcetti has talked about, but not implemented, Vision Zero and a citywide Green New Deal. And ripped out road diets and bike lanes in Playa del Rey because some people got mad.

He claims he’s going to make implementing a Global Green New Deal his top priority.

Maybe he could start by doing something about the sheer number of motor vehicles on the streets, and providing safe, convenient alternatives to driving. Something he’s failed at miserably in the six years he’s been mayor.

But maybe all those other mayors know something we don’t.

We can only hope.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers ten specific steps Garcetti could take to show he’s taking the climate emergency seriously — all of them good.

And the LA Times says fighting global climate change will take political courage at home. Something else Garcetti has failed at miserably so far.

Paris’ green revolution has been both wildly popular and incredibly controversial — in part because the transformation has been so swift. But the mayor has been unrelenting in her campaign, showing what is possible when a major city commits to fight climate change on the ground.

Garcetti could do something similar in Los Angeles. He could, for example, build bus-only lanes, protected bike lanes and safer streets. He could set a powerful example for the entire world by starting to transform a city famous for its cars (and the traffic and pollution and greenhouse gases they bring) into one that people can navigate without them.

But unless Eric Garcetti can rediscover the political leadership he showed as council president under former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, you can probably plan for a very hot future.

Photo of Eric Garcetti at C40 group taken from press announcement from the mayor’s office.

………

Let’s catch up on some upcoming bike events.

You’re invited to tomorrow’s slow roll and model-building workshop to envision a more bike-friendly Elysian Valley.

This Sunday Lyft and Santa Monica Spoke are sponsoring a Lyft Scooters Safety Event with free test rides, skills training, refreshments and helmet giveaways at the Santa Monica Bike Campus.

The California Bike Summit returns to Los Angeles this Tuesday through Thursday at the Center for Healthy Communities in DTLA, sponsored by Calbike.

Volunteers are still needed for the 12th Annual Bicycle and Pedestrian Count in Long Beach on October 17th and 20th.

Phil Gaimon’s Hillclimb World Championships will head up Santa Barbara’s famed Gibraltar Road on the 19th. Cookies will be had by all.

CicLAvia will team with Strava to present A CivSalon: Who Do LA Streets Serve? on October 22nd.

The San Gabriel Valley’s 626 Golden Streets open streets event returns on the 26th of this month, with a route through El Monte and South El Monte.

San Diego’s CicloSDias open street event will walk, roll, skate and stroll the streets of our neighbor to the south on October 27th. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

Peter Sagan’s Gran Fondo Roadie-Oh comes to San Diego November 8th through 10th.

Pasadena will host the 2nd Annual Pasadena Adaptive Sports Festival on November 9th, with eight adaptive sports including handcycling.

The San Diego Padres will host their 7th Annual Padres Pedal the Cause at Petco Park November 16th to raise money to fight cancer.

The last CicLAvia of the year will roll a straight route down Sherman Way in the San Fernando Valley on December 8th.

………

Local

Less than half of all UCLA employees drive alone to the university, compared to just 23% of students. But just 3.5% of students and staff bike to campus, in a sign of how little Los Angeles has done to provide safe riding routes through Westwood.

South Bay letter writers say people on bicycles aren’t the problem, it’s the people in the big, dangerous machines.

 

State

New rules are reining in San Diego’s e-scooter Wild West.

The man who allegedly ran down a Ramona woman as she rode her bike to work last week pled not guilty to a charge of felony hit and run.

A Vallejo cop takes the fifth in a lawsuit over the shooting death of a man who was stopped for not having a light on his bike; he was also one of the cops who fatally shot a man who was sleeping in his car in a Taco Bell parking lot with a gun in his lap.

 

National

A new study shows wearing a bike helmet can reduce your risk of a facial injury by 40%, but does nothing to reduce the severity if you do suffer one; despite those results, the researchers recommend that bicyclists should wear the equivalent of a full-face motorcycle helmet.

The Verge offers tips on how to buy an ebike. Step 1: Find the bike you want. Step 2: Pay for it. Step 3: Enjoy!

If you can get past their paywall, the Wall Street Journal concludes that smart helmets are probably safer; you can now get the new Lumix Matrix smart helmet at the Apple Store.

Bicycling says its not just an Apple Watch that can call for help if you fall off your bike. And offers 15 great trails to add to your mountain bike bucket list.

Don’t count on a driverless Tesla to spot you. Or avoid you, for that matter.

Kindhearted Sioux Falls SD residents join with a local business to buy a new handcycle for a man suffering from a rare cancer after he had a leg amputated.

A Minneapolis man decides to honor his late brother with a “fantastical” diagonal ride across the US from Northwest Washington state to Key West, Florida.

Michigan bike advocates say put a bell on your bike.

Senior players on an Ohio high school football team pitched in to buy a new bicycle for a freshman teammate, after the one he used to ride to school was stolen.

Evidently, it’s not just the NYPD that insists on using a new bike lane as a parking lot.

New Orleans Saints quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is one of us, relaxing after games by riding his beach cruiser home. But he’s willing to have the fans join him.

This is who we share the roads with. A white Florida man gets 20 years for fatally shooting a black man in a dispute over a lousy parking spot.

 

International

Trump says he’s aware of the wife of an American diplomat who claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid responsibility for the hit-and-run death of a British motorcyclist, but is noncommittal about sending her back to face charges, and puts the blame on Brits for driving on the wrong side. But his notes tell a different story, clearly stating that she will not be going back to the UK.

Dyson drops its plans to build an electric car. Which is too bad, because we could really use a car that vacuums the road at the same time.

Expect to pay an extra 30 rupee baggage fee to take your non-foldie bike onto a Bangalore Metro train — which works out to just 42¢.

A South African website offers advice on how bicyclists can stay safe on the roads. Which for once doesn’t start and finish with “wear a helmet.”

A plus-sized former rugby player worked with another Aussie man to build an unbreakable high-end road bike for heavier riders.

 

Competitive Cycling

A sports website says riding in the Tour de France would be murder on your body, no matter how athletic you are.

Some of pro cycling’s better known names still aren’t under contract for next year, including American’s Taylor Phinney and Brent Bookwalter.

 

Finally…

Some people think the answer to everything is found in the Bible, like whether to build a bike path. If you’re riding a stolen bicycle while carrying garden shears, brass knuckles and a shotgun, put a damn light on it, already.

And let’s end today with a couple minute mountain bike break.

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

Morning Links: Video of Incycle bike thieves, LA’s Green New Deal, and don’t set your mom on fire over a bike

February 14, 2019 / / One comment

More on the attempted theft of a $10,000 mountain bike that left the manager of the Incycle Chino store critically injured.

Incycle store manager Megan Rodriguez suffered a broken hip, ribs and foot, as well as a fractured skull, when she was run over by the thieves’ truck as they tried to get away with the bike.

Store mechanic Raul Ureno was able to retrieve the bicycle from the back of the truck after chasing them down in his car, but wasn’t able to prevent them from getting away.

According to KTLA-5, police are looking for the following suspects.

Police described one of the suspects as a white male, possibly in his 20’s, standing at around 5 Feet 9 Inches tall, weighing 190 Pounds. He had a full beard and was last seen wearing a black baseball cap, sunglasses, black Hollister hooded sweatshirt, ripped denim jeans and black shoes.

The second man was described as a white or Hispanic male in his 20’s, standing at around 5 Feet 11 Inches tall, weighing 165 Pounds. He was last seen wearing a white and blue baseball cap, sunglasses, a black jacket with a gray hood, a red and blue flannel shirt, black pants and black shoes with white lining.

The driver was described as a white female with a thin build and short stature. She has light-colored hair and was last seen wearing round frame sunglasses, a thick black hooded sweatshirt and red lipstick.

The truck they ran down Rodriguez with is described this way.

The three fled in a blue-gray GMC Sierra truck with a black paper plate on the rear and chrome detailing on the sides, handles and mirrors. The rear driver door is missing the chrome trim. It is possibly a 2008 model.

Security video shows the suspects casing the San Dimas Incycle store before moving on to hit the Chino Incycle location.

As of this writing, a crowdfunding page for Megan Rodriguez has raised over $16,000 of the $25,000 goal in less than 24 hours.

However, it also shows Rodriguez slipping under the truck’s rear wheel as she tried to stop the thieves; you may not want to see that.

There’s a $10,000 reward for information leading to their arrest.

Let’s catch these assholes.

Photo of Megan Rodriguez from GoFundMe page. Thanks to Steve S for the heads-up.

………

Curbed looks at the proposal for a Green New Deal for Los Angeles to fight climate change.

We’ll know city leaders serious when they finally commit to efficient, clean transit and safe bike lanes and sidewalks, and take concrete steps to reduce the number of cars on the street.

Including in Paul Koretz’ and Gil Cedillo’s auto-centric districts.

Until then, it’s all just more talk. And more BS.

Just like all the other far-reaching the city has adopted, and forgotten.

………

No, it’s not a safety measure to make pedestrians wave a brightly colored flag to cross the street.

The flags should be white.

Because it’s a failure of street design and a surrender to the dominance of motor vehicles.

………

Yes, the dispute was over a motorcycle, not a bicycle.

But the point remains: Don’t set your mother on fire if she refuses to buy you a new one.

Seriously.

………

Local

South LA residents held a vigil for fallen bicyclist James Findley, who was killed by a speeding, street-racing driver on Monday.

KCBS-2/KCAL-9 says e-scooter injuries — and the resulting lawsuits — continue to climb.

The Eastsider looks at plans to build a 1,000-foot bikeway to connect the Arroyo Seco Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail with the Arroyo Seco Bicycle Path along the LA River.

Lawndale residents are concerned that bike thieves are targeting their neighborhood. Someone should tell them that bike thieves are targeting every neighborhood.

The Santa Monica Police Department will conduct their next bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operations this Friday and Monday, targeting any violations that put people on bikes or on foot at risk, regardless of who commits them. So once again, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

State

A San Diego man warns against the dangers of e-scooters after he barely survived a crash when he rode out in front of a driver. The easy way to avoid that is just obey the right-of-way and don’t ride out in front of anyone.

A new Ventura workshop gives homeless people a place where they can fix their bikes and buy low cost parts, while allowing them to work for store credit.

Caught on video: A trip down a San Jose bikeway shows all three major kinds of bike lanes in just three minutes.

A San Francisco TV station says homeless people have set up a used bike shop behind a children’s playground. Or more likely, a bike chop shop, just like the dozens in the LA area.

National

The Bike League outlines a Green New Deal for bicycles.

Bicycling offers tips on how to buy a used bicycle. Although they left out the most important one — make sure it’s not stolen.

A VeloNews podcast examines why the remaining Performance Bicycle stores are going belly up.

A proposal intended to fight bike theft by homeless people in Alaska would make it a crime to possess a bicycle with the serial number removed, with a fine up to $10,000; that would allow police to seize the bike to search for the real owner. Then again, if homeless people could pay a $10,000 fine, they probably wouldn’t be homeless.

Utah’s on-again, off-again bill to legalize the Idaho Stop Law is back on again, after passing a vote in the state House.

The first Colorado city has taken advantage of the state’s new modified Idaho Stop law allowing bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields; the law allows each town to decide for themselves whether to let it go into effect. The problem with that is that what’s legal for bike riders in one town may not be legal across the street, with no way to tells you’ve gone into another jurisdiction, or what the law is there.

The traffic safety denier attack on road diets continues to spread across the US, as demonstrated by an op-ed from the Waverly, Iowa branch of Keep the US Moving — the offspring of LA-based motorist pressure group Keep LA Moving — claiming that road diets prevent emergency vehicles from getting through.

Chicago will host the city’s first-ever summit of black bike riders next week.

A carfree Detroit resident describes how he survived the polar vortex.

A Buffalo NY newspaper marks the passing of one of the few blind bike mechanics in the US.

Good for them. A DC proposal would prohibit drivers from stopping, standing or parking in a bike lane, while limiting the situations where they can even drive into one.

The latest Shift Up Podcast discusses an Atlanta tour company’s use of bikes as a gateway tool to celebrate history and explore the city.

A New Orleans TV station says bike riders are afraid of getting hit by cars in shared bike lanes. Someone should tell them that sharrows aren’t bike lanes. And I’d be scared too.

Miami Dolphins cornerback Dee Delaney kept his word, buying a custodian at The Citadel the new bicycle he promised him as a freshman.

International

Cambridge, England residents are outraged that police apparently have better things to do than ticket people for riding bikes on the sidewalk.

A British man forgives the truck driver who put him in a coma for a month by crashing into his bike when the driver changed lanes without warning, and tells him to get on with his life. The court was almost as kind, settling for a weak slap on the wrist by fining him the equivalent of just $641 and letting him keep his license.

Darn those pesky bike riders, getting in the way of the Netherlands becoming the world leader in driverless cars.

An Aussie writer examines how a Green Wave can make bicycling easier, by setting traffic lights to give bike riders continuous green lights.

Competitive Cycling

Cycling scion Taylor Phinney says he’s all in for April’s Paris-Roubaix classic after last year’s eighth place finish.

The Movistar pro cycling team is the latest to offer a virtual cycling competition, allowing you to compete against the pros from the comfort of your own home.

Pro cyclist Fabio Aru gave the pope his Colnago racing bike to be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to an aid project.

Finally…

Science says sports drinks work, even if they are overhyped. Evidently, you’re not allowed to carry cats on your bike.

And your next car-mounted bike rack could be held on by suction cups.

No, really.

………

Happy Valentines Day to all.

If you find yourself alone this year, take a few minutes to do something nice for yourself today.

Just don’t ride your bike until this rain lets up if you don’t have to. And if you do, light yourself up so drivers can see you despite the limited visibility.

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