BikinginLA

Oh, me?

I was just hard at work Wednesday night, and fell asleep at my keyboard sometime around 2 am. 

When I woke up, I found a screenful of random, nonsensical letters and spaces. And since it made more sense than anything else I’d written all night, I gave up and go to bed.

Image by HANSUAN FABREGAS from Pixabay.

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Nope. No bias here.

A Larchmont op-ed writer creates his very own straw men to refute the argument that Los Angeles can be another Amsterdam. And, not surprisingly, very effectively knocks them down.

Except no one I know expects Los Angeles to be another Amsterdam, unless it’s West Hollywood’s plan to dominate the city’s demand for legal weed.

We just want a city where you have reasonable, safe choices on how to get from here to there, and aren’t forced into a car by default.

According to the writer, Joe Vein,

Supporters of expanded bike infrastructure often respond with examples such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Paris. They are correct to do so. These cities have achieved remarkable success in increasing bicycle use. But acknowledging that success is not the same as concluding that L.A. can replicate it.

Amsterdam occupies roughly 85 square miles. Paris covers approximately 41 square miles. Los Angeles spans nearly 470 square miles and sits at the center of a metropolitan region approaching 13 million residents. More importantly, L.A. County does not function around a single urban core. It operates as a network of major employment centers including downtown, Century City, Santa Monica, Burbank, Pasadena, Culver City, El Segundo, Long Beach, and many others.

Oddly, most advocates of alternative transportation are acutely aware of what kind of city we live in, since we’re often the ones who don’t traverse it in a hermetically sealed vehicle, with the windows rolled up and entertainment system on, without stopping until the GPS says “You’ve arrived at your destination.

We know that far too many people are forced to live far from their jobs. Or choose to, so they can go home to a manicured little suburb with its own police department, and pretend that Mayberry wasn’t just a show runner’s dream.

We also know that most trips in LA County are three miles or less, which can easily be done by bus, bicycle or ebike, or even walking if you’re in semi-decent shape.

Again, according to Vein,

Supporters also frequently cite UCLA research suggesting that some road diets produce less congestion than traditional traffic models predict. However, the research examines whether specific corridors under specific conditions can be redesigned successfully. It does not conclude that all road diets are beneficial. It does not establish that parking reductions are harmless. It does not evaluate impacts on local businesses, deliveries, service vehicles, emergency access, or regional commuting patterns. Most importantly, it does not answer the broader question of whether enough residents will ultimately switch transportation modes to justify the costs.

Actually, I prefer to rely on the US Department of Transportation, even in the Trump era.

A classic Road Diet typically involves converting an existing four-lane, undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center, two-way left-turn lane.

The resulting benefits include a crash reduction of 19 to 47 percent, reduced vehicle speed differential, improved mobility and access by all road users, and integration of the roadway into surrounding uses that results in an enhanced quality of life. A key feature of a Road Diet is that it allows reclaimed space to be allocated for other uses, such as turn lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, bike lanes, sidewalks, bus shelters, parking or landscaping.

Why consider a Road Diet? Four-lane undivided highways experience relatively high crash frequencies — especially as traffic volumes and turning movements increase over time — resulting in conflicts between high-speed through traffic, left-turning vehicles and other road users. FHWA has deemed Road Diets a proven safety countermeasure and promotes them as a safety-focused design alternative to a traditional four-lane, undivided roadway. Road Diet-related crash modification factors are also available for use in safety countermeasure benefit-cost analysis.

I don’t see anything there about enough people switching their mode of transportation to justify the costs. Although I suppose a significant reduction in collisions, and the resulting auto and bodily injuries, possibly could.

Supporters of Measure Healthy Streets L.A., an approved citizen-led ballot measure that mandates safer infrastructure whenever L.A. performs street improvements, often argue that voters have already settled this debate. I disagree. HLA passed and is now the law, but passage of a ballot measure does not transform a policy into a proven success. California has a long history of adopting complex policies through initiatives, often based on compelling slogans and campaign messaging rather than detailed analysis of long-term consequences. Whether one agrees or disagrees with measures such as Proposition 13 (the limits on property taxes statewide in California), it is difficult to dispute that ballot initiatives can produce effects that are not fully understood at the time they are approved.

The proper response to HLA is continued scrutiny—not blind opposition, but certainly not blind acceptance either. Policymakers and residents should continue asking whether the assumptions underlying the measure are sound before irreversible changes are made.

Actually, HLA it wasn’t just voter approved. It was approved by a two-thirds majority.

Which doesn’t mean that two-thirds of Angelo voters are right, and we will seamlessly transition to a multimodal city. But it does mean that two-thirds of Angelenos want to see that change.

And yes, while Vein does skillfully dispatch another straw man, the proper response to any change in policy is continued scrutiny.

Like the change in policy that took Los Angeles from a city with the world’s best private transit systems, to the car-dominated hellscape we live in today. Unless, of course, you’re privileged to live behind one of those nice, quiet, well-manicured lawns of Larchmont.

This city has transformed many times over. From horses and buggies, to bicycles, to the Red and Yellow Cars, to automobiles.

And it’s hard to deny that the last one has failed, as the roads continue to get more crowded and cramped, with no room left to expand, and innocent people get killed and maimed just trying to cross the street or get home from work.

The automotive hegemony of Los Angeles is a failure, by virtually every measure. Yet the people of Los Angeles didn’t vote to get rid of cars. They voted to give themselves an alternative.

Let me be clear: this is not an anti-bike argument. I support cycling. I support recreational riding. I support safer streets. I support targeted bike infrastructure where it makes practical sense. What I question is the assumption that L.A. can or should become Amsterdam simply because Amsterdam has succeeded.

Good for you, Mr. Vein. I’m sure you make your mama proud.

But the people who voted for Measure HLA, and who support those bike lanes and road diets — and bus lanes, and sidewalks, and crosswalks — don’t want to build another Amsterdam.

If we wanted to live in Amsterdam, we’d move there.

We just want our Los Angeles to be the best version of Los Angeles. Is that really too much to ask?

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So far, it’s Metro 3, Linton 0.

LAist is reporting that the judge hearing Linton’s lawsuit against Metro and Los Angeles for violating the terms of Measure HLA — there’s that term again — in redesigning the Vermont corridor denied a request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the work can go forward for now.

Sans the bike lanes that the city’s mobility plan calls for, and which Measure HLA requires — if it’s a city project, as Linton argues, and not just a Metro project, as Metro and the city insist. Although the latter just seems like a blatant attempt to skirt the law.

According to LAist,

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Kristin Escalante denied the request on June 15. Escalante wrote in her decision that the city neither initiated the project nor selected Vermont Avenue for resurfacing and won’t be constructing the project itself.

“Metro’s coordination with the city does not transform the project into one made by or undertaken by the city,” Escalante wrote in her decision.

In April and June, Escalante denied Linton’s requests for pre-trial judgement on two other issues in his lawsuit, including deciding if resurfacing work on Vermont Avenue service roads triggered HLA-mandated upgrades and determining whether the city’s HLA ordinance represents an “impermissible amendment” of the ordinance.

That does not mean, however, that Linton has lost. It just means that the case will now go to trial.

Kind of like the US loss to Turkey in the World Cup last night. Yes, the US lost on a last minute goal, but they will go on to the next round anyway, and have a chance to prove they can win.

So too, will Joe Linton, on our behalf.

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Don’t forget Sunday’s Leimert Park meets Expo Park CicLAvia.

Meanwhile, Bike Long Beach is hosting a feeder ride to CicLAvia on Sunday.

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This is who we share the road with.

A bill that would have required speed limiting technology in all new cars was vetoed by Governor Newsom, who ironically doesn’t like governors, at least when it comes to speed.

California Assembly Bill (AB) 2276, which would have required speed limiting technology only for chronic reckless drivers, died in the Appropriations Committee, at least for this year.

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While he’s not a sponsor here — and should probably reconsider that — attorney James Johnson has long been a friend of this site, often pointing me to stories I might not have heard about yet. Or at all.

Today he discusses the problem of dooring, which is one of the most common types of bicycling crashes, after a bike rider was doored in Felton.

And yes, I had to look up where the hell that is.

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

An Indiana University staffer is in hot water for getting out of her car at an intersection, and pointing a laser-sighted gun at a group of people on bicycles; she insisted she’d been in fear for her safety, claiming the boys on bikes had “surrounded her,” even though witnesses reported the bike riders had waited patiently behind her SUV at the red light, and “had not been causing any issue.”

A Minneapolis bike rider rides up a ramp to discuss illegal parking in the bike lane. And you have no idea how many times I’ve been tempted to do that myself.

No bias here. A New York lawsuit attempts to force the city to return to a policy of issuing criminal citations to scofflaw ebike riders, even though infractions by drivers only result in a traffic ticket. I’m actually fine with that, as long as lawbreaking drivers have to appear in criminal court, too.

Ireland’s Sinn Féin political party has come out against a Safe Routes to Schools project, teaming with a local councillor who insists he’s not anti-bike, and a local coal supplier who warns “there could be a bike lane outside your own door next. There’s a lot to unpack here, starting with a local elected official who supports bikes while opposing bike projects, and a coal supplier(!) warning about bike lanes. And clearly, Sinn Féin ain’t what it used to be, for better and for worse. 

Moving north, a group of 21 Belfast, Northern Ireland residents met to “unanimously” oppose plans for a protected bike lane, due to the possible loss of a small number of trees that “survived the Blitz and the Troubles” and are ‘full of goldfinches,” as well as losing parking spaces in front of the local Airbnbs.

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Local 

A new LADOT survey wants your input on how to improve access to Dodger Stadium. How about a subway stop — or at least a damn people mover — from Union Station?

Calbike says the 5.5-mile Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor through South Los Angeles and Inglewood is an example of what California’s Active Transportation Program can make possible — if it is adequately supported and funded.

A bike rider in Palos Verdes Estates learned the hard way that if you’re carrying meth, drug paraphernalia and someone else’s financial card on your bike, stop for the damn stop sign, already. Thanks to Jim for the heads-up.

State

Speaking of Calbike, they have some new T-shirts and other assorted merch that definitely doesn’t suck.

Let’s thank the Orange Police Department for making it clear that their motorcycle cop was chasing a 13-year old kid on an e-motorcycle and not an ebike, as the officer’s bodycam picked up his play-by-play commentary of the chase.

Encinitas will spend $3.5 million to rip out a protected bike lane that was completed just last year, in a race to beat new state legislation that would require the same level of study to remove a bike lane as there was to build it.

Nine months after Chula Vista’s ebike ordinance went into effect, residents are questioning whether an average of just two citations a month is really a sufficient crackdown on scofflaw teen e-moto riders.

Congratulations, San Diego, you’re getting your very own edition of Streetsblog on July 27th — but now they need your help to make it a reality. Although you’ll have to find your own Joe Linton, ’cause we ain’t giving him up. 

Speaking of San Diego, the East Village Association has lost two-thirds of it’s budget due to a loss of parking revenue — not because of bike lanes, but because the city decided not to share its parking revenue with community parking districts anymore. But someone will inevitably find a way to blame bikes, anyway. 

Oakland’s iconic scraper bikes are back, if they ever went away.

Sacramento will host a two-day Clean Mobility Forum focused on shared mobility and equitable clean transportation at the end of September; CARB is one of the sponsors, so give ’em hell about killing the California Ebike Incentive Program.

National

PeopleForBikes new city rankings finds that small towns are leading the fight for bikeability. Which only makes sense, since it’s easier to make a profound change with less effort and expenditure in a small town than a big city.

Bike riders in Cheyenne, Wyoming celebrated Bike to Work Week, with city leaders citing a strong bike culture going back to the ’70s. Look, I’ll believe things have really changed in the city, where cowboys used to threaten to kick my ass just for riding a bike, when they add a bike rodeo to the Cheyenne Frontier Days. 

Hats off to a Denver-area firefighter who rode an ebike with a dead battery back to the fire station after its owner suffered a medical emergency.

A Texas man did the right thing, and turned himself in for the distracted driving crash that killed a 16-year old boy and severely injured his younger sister as they were riding their bikes — and he only waited four and a half months to do it.

A Minneapolis driver faces a pair of criminal vehicular homicide counts for killing a bike rider while a) on the unholy trinity of alcohol, coke and weed, while also b) speeding and c) driving distracted.

The Chicago Courrier Classic revives ancient alleycat tradition to prove bike messenger culture refuses to die. No matter how hard drivers try to kill it. And them. 

In a surprising move, conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have imposed a 10 mph speed limit for ebike riders within 50 feet of pedestrians, saying it would be hard to enforce (true) and lead to increased surveillance by local governments.

International

A 31-year old “deeply selfish” British man was sentenced to nine years behind bars for killing a retired math teacher riding a bicycle in a head-on crash, while 16-times over the legal limit for cocaine. And yes, the UK has a legal limit for coke.

Here’s one for your bike bucket list. A new 205-mile gravel route in southwest Scotland connects Dumfries and Galloway through a series of three interconnected loops. Let’s see Gravel Bike California make a video about that one. 

Dublin, Ireland’s monthly Critical Mass Ride will turn into a music-filled pre-Pride Ride tonight.

The Eurobike trade show will move to a biannual basis following the 2027 show, after it lost a number of major exhibitors.

Competitive Cycling

Likely Tour de France competitors are dropping like flies, as the Visma-Lease a Bike team says Edoardo Affini ‘will be monitored’ after he was taken away by ambulance following a high-speed crash at the Italian Road Championships.

Not only did ultra-endurance cyclist Victor Bosoni smash the existing record to win the Tour Divide, he finished two days ahead of second-place Laurens Ten Dam, even sleeping eight hours a night; he broke the record by a whopping 11 hours, finishing in 11 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes.

Finally…

Now you, too, can own an Eddy Merckx team bike that was definitely not ridden by Eddy Merckx. You can be replaced by a self-riding bicycle robot capable of an unassisted acrobatic front flip. Pinarello is now haute couture.

And clearly, bike lanes and sex workers don’t mix.

Voulez-vous coucher a vélo ce soir ?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.