Day 338 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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It’s Day 7 of the 11th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!
Thanks to Bernard, Michael, another Michael, Catherine and Patrick for their generous support to help keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. Along with one donation specifically earmarked for corgi treats.
So what are you waiting for? It only takes a few moments to donate via PayPal, Zelle or Venmo.
Our Fund Drive spokesdog is standing by.
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Don’t count on it.
My News LA reports the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a proposal requiring city departments to report back on what they need to fix the city’s crumbling infrastructure.
The measure gives the departments 60 days to return with a “comprehensive analysis of funding, staffing and resources needed to address deteriorating public infrastructure and bring the city up to industry standards,” including “repair, replacement, maintenance and timely inspection of bike lanes, curb cuts, sidewalks, street trees, storm drains and street lights.”
Like the street lights on my street, which were stripped by thieves for copper wire. And the city says they’ll get around to fixing in six months, at best.
You mean, like that.
But if past is prologue, that 60 day deadline will likely slip by weeks, if not months. If they actually respond at all.
Experience tells us that no one is likely hold them to that commitment. And whatever reports are returned are unlikely to move the needle much.
Because one thing Los Angeles does best is study problems. But never actually, you know, do anything about them.
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Good on them.
Streets For All takes Mayor Bass, LADOT and the Board of Public Works to task for trying to weasel out of their obligations under Measure HLA, as we reported yesterday.
Let’s hope someone actually listens this time.
Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Damien Newton has more on the city’s ongoing efforts to not comply with the simple requirements of the street safety measure passed overwhelmingly by Los Angeles voters.
Not that that seems to matter to city officials.
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The police chief of Gulf Shores, Alabama says the simple competition between various groups for space on the streets is nothing but a “good old-fashioned turf war.”
Not having stuck his far enough into his mouth, he continued,
“Not your traditional turf war. We could call the e-bikers the Crips, the pedestrians the Bloods, the bicyclists the Gangster Disciples and the motorists Mammoth-13. Name your gang.”
First of all, there is no street gang called Mammoth-13. I can only guess he meant MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha. Which tells you how much experience he has with actual gangs.
And while there are inevitable conflicts between various street streets users, particularly in a small beach town with limited road space, I’m not aware of much intentional bloodshed on the roadways.
According to Wikipedia, an estimated 20,000 people have been killed in gang warfare between the Bloods and Crips since their founding in the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of those deaths purely intended.
And that’s just as of 2014.
I have no idea how many people have been killed in that supposed “gang warfare” between pedestrians, bicyclists, ebikers and drivers in Gulf Shores. But I suspect the number may be just a tad lower.
Which is not to minimize the dangers of traffic violence, let alone the incidents of violent road rage.
But comparing people competing for road space to actual gang warfare just doesn’t play in a city like Los Angeles, where far too young lives have been snuffed out over the past five decades just because someone was wearing the wrong colors, or crossed into the wrong neighborhood.
Never mind that the overwhelming majority of killing on our streets — and presumably, his — is done by just one of those so-called “gangs” he’s so worried about.
The one in cars.
And that’s the one gang he doesn’t suggest doing anything about. Unlike bikes, ebikes, scooters and pretty much any other kind of non-motor vehicle conveyance, including feet.
So maybe he needs to just deal with the situation by calling for more bike lanes and crosswalks, and leave metaphors to people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Which is a polite way of saying get your fucking head out of your ass already, chief.
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You’d think all those drivers stuck in traffic would catch on after a while.
But nope.
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UCLA’s bruins4bettertransit teams with LADOT to conduct their own race to determine whether bikes, buses or cars provide the fastest means to get from campus to the E Line station.
My money’s on the bike.
Even without the long-debated bike lanes that would make it even easier, and safer.
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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 Silicon Valley news site reports that bicycle advocates in Sunnyvale scored a victory over disgruntled neighbors, after the city council voted to eliminate parking on one street to make room for buffered bike lanes, framing the issue as “us versus them,” rather than a matter of improving safety for everyone.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Massachusetts woman suffered a shattered left ankle and torn right knee when she was thrown from her horse when a bike rider cut across her path and spooked the eight-year old horse, which then had to be put down.
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Local
Caltrans is improving sidewalks and resurfacing a stretch of Alvarado Street in Echo Park, which already has shared bus/bike lanes, and building 1.7 miles of new bus/bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood.
Torched enjoys the recent Stranger Things Melrose CicLAvia, while pondering the upside down need for corporate sponsorships for all things LA, including open streets.
We’re not the only ones holding an end-of-the-year fundraiser. Streetsblog is holding a fund drive through the end of this month, so toss ’em a few extra bucks, too.
Volunteers from the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition delivered turkeys and other Thanksgiving fixin’s to the Friends in Deed nonprofit to feed people experiencing homelessness or vulnerability.
State
Irvine and Newport Beach joined the parade of Orange County cities cracking down on ebikes, following similar action in Stanton, Huntington Beach, Yorba Linda, Orange and Buena Park.
Carlsbad became the latest San Diego County beachfront city to crack down on ebikes, banning riders under 12, and asking the state to prohibit anyone under 16 from carrying passengers on the back. Although like the Orange County cities, they don’t seem to distinguish between ped-assist bikes and electric motorbikes and dirt bikes.
‘Tis the season. For the 22nd year, elementary school children in Victorville received new bicycles courtesy of a local nonprofit program.
This is who we share the road with. A heartless hit-and-run driver slammed into a group of families crossing a San Bernardino street, dragging a baby stroller down the block and severely injuring two little kids. Yes, a baby stroller.
National
Kindhearted Oregon cops dipped into their own pockets, combined with a steep discount from a local bike shop, to replace a bike for a middle school boy after his was stolen.
More proof bikes are good for business, as People For Bikes examines how the annual El Tour de Tucson boosts participation, community, and the local economy.
A Monroe, North Carolina car dealer is living on the roof of his business until he collects 1,017 bikes to donate to kids in need for Christmas; as of Wednesday evening, he had about 670 bikes to go.
No surprise that Florida ranks second, behind only South Carolina, for people searching online for legal help after a bicycling crash. The only real surprise is that California doesn’t even rank in the top ten — maybe because we know to call the BikinginLA sponsors over there on the right first.
International
How is bicycling better than any dating app? Let Momentum count the ways.
Strava data shows Colombia’s Alto de Patios climb on the outskirts of Bogotá is the world’s most popular bicycling road, followed by a riverside road in São Paulo, Brazil, and a bridge in southwestern London.
A 69-year old Canadian man raised $50,000 riding around the world for cancer research.
Tragic news from Wales, where a 37-year old French fashion designer was killed when she was run down from behind by a driver while on a bicycling vacation.
Cycling Weekly goes looking for the roads, people and culture that make France’s Britany region a “dream cycling destination.”
If you have an Agree C:62 road bike made by German bikemaker Cube in either of the last two years, you’re asked to stop riding it immediately due to a risk of the front fork delaminating and cracking.
Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling site offers their holiday gift guide for bicyclists — and for a change, they’re focused on “thoughtful picks” for women who ride bikes.
A South African woman says she feels energized after she was invited to represent women bike riders a breakfast meeting at Johannesburg business school, after taking up riding to cope with grief following the death of her mother.
Finally…
Cervelo, the choice fleeing felons everywhere. You may not be a deviate, but your bike still can be.
And your next recumbent could really fly.
No, literally.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
