Day 301 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Damn straight.
Streets For All is urging you to demand that LADOT follow the legal mandate in Measure HLA, and put protected bike lanes on Ohio Ave between Westwood Blvd and Westgate Ave in West LA.
As someone who used to ride that stretch of Ohio several times a week, I can attest it would be a huge improvement over the current situation, which varies from wholly inadequate painted bike lanes to nothing.
Unless they’ve added sharrows to Ohio in the years since I stopped riding there, which studies show are literally worse than nothing.
Tell LADOT to add protected bike lanes on Ohio Ave!
LADOT’s Ohio Ave Safety and Mobility Project looks to reimagine Ohio Ave between Westwood and Westgate, as well as surrounding streets, to provide better connectivity between UCLA and areas West of the 405.
The Mobility Plan 2035 – now required under Measure HLA – mandates protected bike lanes between Federal and Westwood. Unfortunately, due to lack of political will, there are no planned bike facilities on Westgate, Rochester, Saltair, or Texas.
Take their survey and ask for protected bike lanes for the entire stretch
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Streetsblog is recommending four ways you can help keep traffic violence from ruining your Halloween, which is the deadliest day of the year for children.
Which is something to remember before you get behind the wheel this Friday. Or better yet, a damn good reason not to.
Walk or ride a bike if you can, take transit if you can’t. Or at least try to get home before all the little rugrats hit the pavement just before or after dark.
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The open streets event Active Streets: Corazón del Valle rolls this Sunday, transforming five miles of El Monte and South El Monte streets into a vibrant community space, just in time for Dia de los Muertos.
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Christian singer Forrest Frank encountered a man singing one of his songs from an ebike on the Santa Monica bike path, and stopped to join in.
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Thanks to Megan for forwarding this story of a family’s fight to keep their rail bike business going, which she says is a way to preserve rail corridors for future transit use.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Saint Paul, Minnesota group calling themselves Save Our Streets is suing to halt a bike trail project. Which, oddly, is exactly what the project is intended to do.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
He gets it. A Scottish writer says new laws intended to crack down on reckless bike riders are “pointless,” because only nine people were killed by bike riders in the six years leading up to 2022, while 30,000 people are killed or seriously injured by drivers in the UK every year — regardless of how the tabloids try to frame it.
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Local
Pasadena was set to adopt a Vision Zero plan in all but name at yesterday’s city council meeting, pledging to eliminate traffic deaths and significantly reduce serious injuries by 2035. Let’s just hope they take it more seriously than a certain nearby megalopolis we could name, which only managed to make things worse in a decade of neglect.
The high desert community of Lancaster has transformed its downtown area with a nine-block, walkable and bikeable boulevard, as the initial $11.5 million investment has been repaid many times in the 15 years since it opened.
State
No, that wasn’t Britney Spears seen driving erratically in a viral video after leaving a Thousand Oaks restaurant in a white Mercedes that looks just like hers. Unless maybe it was.
Sad news from Bakersfield, where a man riding a bicycle was killed Saturday afternoon when he was run down from behind by a 32-year old woman, who tried to take evasive action after she “suddenly noticed” him while traveling up to 50 mph. Even though a grown man riding a bicycle in broad daylight should have been pretty easy to spot.
Horrible news from San Luis Obispo, where the Executive Director of Bike SLO County has been charged with a single count of a lewd act upon a child, with the victim reportedly under the age of ten; he’s pled not guilty. Let’s hope it’s just a misunderstanding, because there’s not a pit in hell deep enough if he actually did it.
Redwood City cops weren’t able to find the schmuck who stole an 11-year old kid’s bicycle, but at least they found the boy’s bike secreted behind a nearby business.
Sorry, Bay Area bike commuters. The erstwhile bike lane on the Richmond-San Rafael bridge is now a breakdown lane for motor vehicles on most weekdays.
National
People For Bikes says this has been a record-setting year for expanding access for e-mountain bikes. Although whether that’s actually a good thing is still being debated.
Hats off to Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus, who got a shoutout from Northwestern University’s school of journalism, recognizing how he’s grown the site from a leading bike blog to a vital local news site.
A DA in Oregon’s Rogue Valley is reopening an investigation into an alleged reckless motorcyclist who killed a 17-year old boy riding an ebike after discovering new information, including that the boy’s bike did, in fact, have lights on it, and the motorcyclist had admitted to drinking “a little,” but was never tested for drug or alcohol use.
A Seattle bicyclist has launched what he calls a AAA service for ebikes, promising to come to your rescue if you get stranded on your ebike; however, it currently only serves the Seattle area. Although it sounds like reinventing the wheel, since the Better World Club and some regional AAA clubs have done that for years with conventional bikes, and probably now with ebikes, as well.
Close, but no cigar. A Colorado Springs, Colorado TV station repeatedly gets it wrong, saying that bikes aren’t allowed on most streets with a few exceptions, then saying they are — but apparently meant to say it’s only legal to ride on the sidewalk on a handful of streets. I’d say the story was written by AI, but most AI systems would have done a much better job.
Denver opens their final round of ebike rebates for this year, offering qualified residents vouchers up to $950, which can be combined with a state tax rebate of $450. That compares favorably to California’s one successful round of ebike rebates, period.
Evidently, Los Angeles isn’t the only place that will have a Stranger Things bike ride with the upcoming Melrose CicLAvia, as cities around the US will host similar rides on November 23rd, including Houston.
He gets it. A Minnesota writer says it’s easy to complain about bike lanes and make fun of people in spandex, but it’s just a fig leaf for serious traffic safety concerns.
International
Your next bike saddle could be custom-made for your very own butt cheeks.
A new study shows how bike lanes can reveal the hidden inequities of our streets, with painted bike lanes too often “symbols of tokenism rather than transformation, a thin sliver of space separating cyclists from fast-moving traffic rather than a true reclamation of streets for human-scale movement.”
Unsurprisingly, the London man who was repeatedly struck with an axe by motorbike-riding bike thieves says he’s no longer comfortable bicycling by himself. Gee, ya think?
A man who was severely disfigured by a drunk driver while riding his bike became the first person in the UK to receive a custom-fitted, 3D-printed face. Yes, an entire face, which is pretty damned amazing.
Finally…
If you left your muddy mountain bike in the New York woods, I think someone found it. That feeling when you bust into a bike shop disguised as a Beavis and Butt-Head character, and leave like J. Wellington Wimpy of Popeye fame (look it up, kids).
And nothing like being a 14-year old weight weenie.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
