Tag Archive for Karen Bass

Streets For All’s Schneider confronts mayor’s draconian budget cuts, and DTLA tree-chopper Groft faces 11 felony counts

May 9, 2025 / / No comments
Day 129 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

In my rush to put up yesterday’s post before I fell asleep at my keyboard, I somehow lost the link to an important Los Angeles Times op-ed from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider.

In it, Schneider took to task the proposed city budget from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose draconian cuts would make our already deteriorating and dangerous streets even worse.

By law, the city of Los Angeles must balance its budget every year. But Mayor Karen Bass’ current proposal to do so represents a dystopian nightmare for our streets, sidewalks and public transportation system. The city should correct this mistake as it evaluates the proposed budget in the coming weeks.

Angelenos already live with streets deteriorating faster than we can fix them, sidewalks breaking faster than we can repair them and streetlights going dark faster than we can replace them. A recent audit exposed the city’s utter failure to achieve Vision Zero, after promising 10 years ago to bring down traffic deaths. These things are happening under the existing fiscal year’s budget, which already made draconian cuts across the city. With further cuts, expect even worse service for everyday essentials.

Bass describes this budget as just a worst case scenario, hoping against hope for a deus ex machina bailout from the state from her own budget failures, as legal settlements and unfounded pay raises have put the city a whopping $1 billion in the red.

Without a momentary lifeboat from the cash-strapped state, Bass proposes cutting 1,600 jobs — slashing staffing at LADOT and street services, as well as putting off desperately needed repairs and capital improvements.

And if you think “desperately needed” is an overstatement, you haven’t been on Fairfax Ave lately, where frame-busting bumps make mountain biking seem boring, and ever-growing potholes threaten to swallow entire motor vehicles.

Never mind that the eyes of the world will be on the City of Angels starting next year.

Keep in mind that Los Angeles is also about to be under a spotlight on the world stage. We are hosting eight matches of the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2028. We shouldn’t be hosting world-class events on streets full of potholes, broken sidewalks and dark streetlights. It’s a terrible image for Los Angeles, and the coming fiscal year’s budget is our last chance to make progress before the events begin.

It’s more than worth the few minutes it takes to read the whole thing. Because this is the battle we have to fight now, if we want to win any of the other street safety fights to come.

Although not everyone seems to agree.

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Bike-riding tree-chopper Samuel Patrick Groft was ordered to stand trial on 11 felony vandalism counts for chopping down 13 trees with his trusty electric chainsaw.

Police describe the 33-year old Groft as homeless with a criminal record, and someone who was known to them before last month’s DTLA chainsaw massacre.

LA’s street tree superintendent estimated the values of felled trees on city-owned property at $175,000, while the value of all 13 trees was set at nearly $350,000.

And bonus points if you knew LA even had a street tree superintendent.

Groft faces up to six-and-a-half years behind bars if convicted on all count. He remains behind bars on $350,000 bond, for which trees in Downtown Los Angeles are undoubtedly grateful.

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Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC’s next virtual happy hour will feature Marissa Roy, candidate for Los Angeles City Attorney.

Although considering what we’ve seen of the incumbent, she already has my vote.

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That feeling when satire is just this side of reality.

NYPD Tickets Dead Cyclist For Obstructing Bike Lane

— The Onion (@theonion.com) 2025-05-02T18:30:00.000Z

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

Convenience won out over safety once again, as residents of a wealthy Christchurch, New Zealand suburb successfully defeated a planned bike lane, preferring saving parking spaces to saving lives.

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

A San Francisco website says yes, the city has an ebike problem, but it’s the “glorified e-mopeds,” not the people on bicycles, who are the problem.

Police in Singapore are looking for the schmuck who slapped a 13-year old boy after they crashed their bikes together.

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Local 

Clean Technica says Los Angeles will have to rely on the private sector to have any hope of holding a carfree Olympics.

Metrolink will wave ticket fees for anyone with a bicycle on Thursday’s Bike to Work Day — although you’ll still have to pay to ride Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains.

 

State

When I was a kid, “Your mother rides a bicycle!” was a schoolyard taunt, but Calbike’s Kendra Ramsey recalls it as a badge of honor.

Encinitas is closing a portion of South Coast Highway 101 in the downtown area to cars on May 18th for the Cyclovia Encinitas open streets event.

The CEO of San Diego Youth Services is taking one last great adventure as he rides into retirement, pedaling over 600 miles from San Francisco to San Diego in hopes of raising $250,000 for homeless youths.

Authorities continue to search for any sign of a 27-year old Black woman who disappeared without a trace two weeks ago while e-bikepacking in the Sierra National Forest.

Sad news from Antioch, where a 33-year old man died in the hospital after he reportedly got off his bicycle, and somehow fell into the roadway and into the path of an oncoming car.

 

National

Momentum ranks the top ten cities in the US to enjoy a carfree lifestyle. None of which is Los Angeles.

A team from the University of Washington has developed a small, handlebar-mounted sensor that maps when and where drivers pass closer than four feet to someone on a bicycle, which they found correspond to other indications of poor safety, such as collisions. Although I’d say that a collision is the literal definition of poor safety. 

A Las Vegas bike shop, twice named one of the nation’s top ten bike shops, offers a blast from the past by hosting a virtual museum of vintage, rare and unusual bicycles.

Bicycling examines the strange case of University of Wyoming art professor Nash Quinn, who disappeared last year after riding his singlespeed bike into the wilderness outside of Laramie. But you’ll need a subscription if you want to read it. 

Streetsblog Chicago considers the eternal question of how to convince residents and city officials to support safer street designs.

Donald Trump deflected from tough questions about the failure of the US air traffic control system by mocking former Transportation Secretary Pet Buttigieg for riding his bicycle to work “with his husband on the back.”

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the Atlanta Magnet Man’s bicycle; Alex Benigno began riding an ebike with a trailer mounted with magnets during the pandemic, pedaling through the city collecting an average of five pounds of metal debris swept from the streets.

 

International

A Canadian woman is attempting to set a new record for riding up and down the full length of the United Kingdom, despite contracting a rare disease when she was 15 that left her unable to walk.

Cyclist introduces Russel Stout, owner of British bespoke aluminum bikemaker Stout Cycles.

That’s more like it. A commercial van driver in the UK was sentenced to 11 years behind bars for killing a bike rider while drinking vodka behind the wheel, and using not one, but two mobile phones; he continued to use his phone for over half a minute as he drove away after the crash, later telling police he thought he’d hit a bird. Must have been a pretty damn big bird, though.

A 51-year old “super fit road cyclist” who had just moved from the UK to France blames the Moderna Covid vaccine for sending her to intensive cardiac care for two weeks, and needing a pacemaker after suffering a complete heart block.

An estimated 10,000 people are expected to ride their bikes tomorrow for Korea’s 2025 Seoul Bike Festival, with riders divided by skill levels, and different speeds set for each.

 

Competitive Cycling

Road.cc asks whether the women’s Vuelta is already over, as Dutch pro Demi Vollering builds a commanding lead while winning her fifth stage.

Speaking of the Olympics, the Olympics website shines a spotlight on Bike for Future, a Rwandan program using bicycles to help young women build transferable skills, while gaining access to education, employment and entrepreneurship.

The small African nation of Benin is making its move to become a cycling power; the country has already produced elite riders like Biniam Girmay, Louis Meintjes, Kim Le Court and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your “beloved” gravel event is demoted to just the fifth-hardest bovine-themed ride held in a lesser wine region. Or when you post a bike ad on Instagram, and get told to focus on your football/soccer team — and wear a hemet.

And of course Bing was one of us.

Singer/actor Bing Crosby shows off the superhero-like riding technique that must have been behind his recording more than 1,600 songs & making over 70 feature films.Happy #BicycleBirthday, Bing! May 3 (1903-1977)

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T04:00:41.134Z

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Another failure as CA ebike voucher website crashes, don’t DOGE LA protest tonight, and bringing HLA to LAC

April 30, 2025 / / No comments
Day 120 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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You’ve got to be kidding.

The California E-Bike Incentive Program had more than four months to work out all the bugs after their disastrous, deliberately throttled first round.

And they screwed the pooch again.

There’s just no good way to put it. Yesterday’s second round of voucher applications was yet another demonstration of the sheer incompetence of the people running this program.

I signed onto the program’s application window on at exactly 5 pm yesterday. Or rather, I tried to. And apparently, so did everyone else.

What I got when I clicked on the “Apply” button was…nothing. So I tried again. And again. And I kept trying, and kept getting the same result — the very definition of insanity,

Until I finally got this.

Judging by the responses when I posted about it on Twitter/X and Bluesky, so did nearly everyone else. A few, very few, people managed to get in.

Eventually, so did I, entering the portal for the voucher lottery with exactly five minutes left in the application window.

Then two minutes later, I was kicked out. And so was everyone else.

The program administrators knew the volume they could and should expect, after more than 100,000 people tried, and mostly failed, to apply for vouchers in the first round.

Yet they somehow still gave just one hour for all those people to apply. Then remarkably — and foolishly — recommended that everyone the enter the room as early as possible, virtually guarantying they would all hit the “Apply” button exactly at the same time.

And bringing the website crashing down, taking the voucher window down with it.

Going forward, they should provide at least a 12-hour window to apply, if not a week, so it doesn’t crash the system. Then inform the winners by email, giving them another 24 hours to get their applications in.

And don’t throttle the damn applications.

Just release all the remaining funding at once, so people at least have a reasonable chance of getting a voucher. Unlike the current round, where the 1,000 available vouchers represented less than 1% of the anticipated demand.

Once program proves successful — and there’s no reason why it wouldn’t — go back to the legislature to request another round of funding.

Then fire troubled San Diego nonprofit Pedal Ahead, which was contracted to administer the program, and consider moving oversight of this program out of CARB, because they have clearly shown they can’t handle it.

No other ebike rebate program anywhere in the US has had as much difficulty launching, and needed as much time, as California. We were the first to approve an ebike voucher program, and the last to get it up and running right

This whole damn thing should be investigated by the state, because it’s hard to believe anyone could be so fucking incompetent by accident.

They also need to figure out what the hell they’re trying to accomplish, because they have two glaringly conflicting goals.

When you visit the California Ebike Incentive Program website, and watch the required video on climate change, the message is about getting people onto ebikes and out of their cars.

But by limiting applications to lower income residents, and favoring people with the lowest incomes, the clear intent is to provide those people with reliable transportation, whether or not they even own a car.

Which is something they should have figured out in those first three and a half years.

But somehow, didn’t.

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Don’t forget tonight’s die-in on the steps of City Hall to protest the mayor’s draconian budget cuts and layoffs, which could set safer and more livable streets — and Measure HLA — back for years.

Even the General Manager of LADOT thinks it’s a lousy idea.

Dying-In Los Angeles – A Protest for Safer Streets: Don’t “DOGE” LA Safety

A coalition of non-profits and road safety advocates will be hosting a protest on the steps of LA City Hall to raise awareness of LA’s dystopian-level budget cuts.

If these cuts go through, there will be no funding for new safety improvements next year — no speed reduction measures, no protected bike lanes, no pedestrian upgrades. Nothing.

Join us at 6pm, April 30th – LA City Hall.

And don’t forget to sign the petition telling Mayor Bass not to DOGE LA safety.

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Streets For All wants your support today for a Measure HLA-style ordinance for LA County.

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Bike Culver City want you to celebrate the cars of the past, while demonstrating that bikes are the future.

We’ve grown up surrounded by cars powered by fossil fuel-burning engines. Many of our fondest memories occurred in a car: our first kiss, riding to a beach party, feeling independent for the first time, experiencing pride of ownership, and cherishing and caring for a beautiful machine. Today, these modes of transport have become cherished relics—too precious to drive, costly to operate and maintain, and plagued by traffic congestion, rude drivers, and their contribution to poor air quality.

Displaying cars as cherished relics is appropriate, given their immense sentimental value. Bike Culver City welcomes over 500 exhibitors to our city on Saturday, May 10th, from 9 am to 3 pm, https://www.culvercitycarshow.com. Please bring your bike to commemorate this event during National Bike Month and send a photo of yourself and your bike in front of your favorite relic to aardus@yahoo.com. We will post the image as part of the Bike to the Future II display at https://www.facebook.com/groups/bikecc. Please patronize our local businesses as you always do.

The Car Show street closures provide thousands of walkers and strollers with the opportunity to enjoy downtown Culver City safely on foot, free from the dangers of traffic, as well as air and noise pollution. Imagine the paradise if downtown street closures were not just a once-a-year event. Join us!

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

After a driver in Baton Rouge, Louisiana struck a man riding a bicycle, he pulled a gun on the victim, ordering him “not to get (his) mf’n license plate” — yet the police somehow responded by telling bike riders to be aware of their surroundings, rather than, say, watch out of angry armed nut jobs.

No bias here. Residents of a DC neighborhood are calling for new protected bike and bus lanes to be removed because delivery drivers are now parking in the one remaining traffic lane, instead of, say, calling for increased enforcement to stop illegal parking.

Japanese bike riders say the country should be focused on building better bike infrastructure, instead of cracking down on bad behavior by bicyclists.

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

An Australian columnist says she’s not opposed to ebikes, but the dangerous bad behavior of ebike riders has got to stop. Although maybe someone can explain why the newspaper chose to illustrate ebikes donated to emergency departments with a picture of ebike-riding young women in tiny bikinis.

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Local 

Culver City announced a 15-week beautification and maintenance program on the Ballona Creek Bike Path, leading to periodic disruptions on Thursdays between 6:30 am and 4 pm.

A Burbank writer for the Sierra Club says trade your car for a bike, and you’ll discover beauty and nature even in the heart of the city.

Pasadena is planning a jam-packed calendar of events to celebrate Bike Month next month, including National Ride a Bike Day, and Bike to School and Bike to Work Days.

Sad news from Castaic, where a man riding a bicycle died after going into cardiac arrest; the victim has not been publicly identified.

 

State

About damn time. A bill moving through the California legislature would require drunk drivers to install breathalyzers in their cars after their first offense.

They get it. The usually conservative Los Angeles Daily News says the California DMV is working to keep dangerous drivers on the road, instead of getting them off.

San Francisco Streetsblog looks at the new curbside protected bike lanes on the city’s Valencia Street, which replace the much maligned centerline bike lanes.

Novato rejected plans for a new bike lane, with the city council voting 4-1 to preserve a lousy 27 parking spaces over saving lives.

 

National

Mountain bike legend Tom Ritchey is crowdfunding his new autobiography, promising to add extra pages if he can get the total up to $75,000 by May 15th.

Trek has launched a new technical support hotline, with help available for any brand of bike through their new AI-free Trek Ride Club app.

That’s more like it. A Portland, Oregon man was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter and an additional 7-½ years for attempted murder for running over and killing a pedestrian, then driving up on the sidewalk and attempting to run down a man riding a bicycle who had yelled at him.

It takes a major jerk to vandalize and destroy a San Antonio, Texas ghost bike.

That’s more like it, part two. An Illinois man will spend the next ten years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a 64-year old man riding a bicycle, after he veered onto the wrong side of the road while driving at nearly three times the legal alcohol limit.

That’s more like it, part three. A repeat drunk driver was sentenced to at least nine years behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run death of a 30-year old bike-riding Ohio man, and had his driver’s license suspended for life.

New York’s congestion pricing plan cut traffic and raised $159 million in just the first three months, but Trump wants to kill it anyway.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Louisiana man is still bikepacking at 78.

 

International

Momentum recommends the best cities to fall in love with your bicycle all over again this summer. None of which is Los Angeles.

An estimated 1,000 Critical Mass riders rode through a newly opened tunnel under the Thames River, where bicycles are prohibited.

Sad news from Scotland, where a 49-year old man was killed by a driver during the Etape Loch Ness, a 66-mile timed ride around the famed home of the Loch Ness Monster, aka Nessie; the ride was on a closed course, but the crash occurred on a road used by riders to return to the start, which wasn’t closed to cars.

A woman plans to ride her bike 1,200 miles across the UK to talk to farm women for her Ph.D, saying the country’s extensive network of bike paths will make it possible.

British TV host and dedicated bike rider Jeremy Vine has sworn off posting his videos depicting bad behavior by drivers and the dangers on the streets due to the abusive comments he gets, including explicit tweets about his wife. Although a British bike racing broadcaster says Vine’s videos made bicyclists look militant and unhinged.

Forbes says Germany offers a “robust cycling network of more than 320 routes, covering some 62,000 miles through country landscapes and storied cities.”

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a truck driver walked without a day behind bars, and can keep driving, after the judge blamed the lack of a bike lane for the death of a 28-year old woman riding a bicycle, and not the man who ran over her in the Kiwi equivalent of a right hook.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly says the American bike racing calendar in sabotaging itself when gravel, mountain bike and road events all occur at the same time.

America’s other ex-Tour de France champ is finally back on his bike, taking part in last weekend’s Belgian Waffle Ride, while saying it took gravel to get him riding again.

Red Bull looks forward to next month’s Giro d’Italia, which will pay homage to the late Pope Francis with a route passing through the Vatican gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica, and in front of the Santa Marta hotel where Francis lived.

 

Finally…

That feeling when mountain bikes break your bones, but horses are what scare you. Anyone can ride around in a circle; try one of these bike races if you want a real challenge.

And your next very expensive Swiss watch can honor everyone’s favorite Italian cycling legends.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Stand up to LA Mayor’s draconian DOGE-style budget cuts, and cars weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands

April 28, 2025 / / No comments
Day 118 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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By the time you read this, I should be home recovering from an early morning outpatient surgery. 

It’s nothing serious. But I’ve been told to expect a lot of pain for the first 24 hours, and will probably be pretty out of it for awhile. 

I wanted to try and write something for tomorrow. But I think I need to take the night off and give myself time to recover. 

So I’m going to let my pain meds wrap me in the arms of Morpheus, and see you again on Wednesday, instead.

And no, I’m not worried. Scared shitless, maybe, but not nervous. But at least writing this should help keep my mind off it for a few hours. 

Meanwhile, the surgery will be performed robotically. So I plan to take a good look at that machine when they wheel me in. 

And if it says Waymo anywhere, I’m going to run like hell.

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Last week, I commented on the mayor’s slash and burn budget for the coming fiscal year, which comes after years of warnings that the city’s spending and pay raises were unsustainable.

Not to mention a seemingly endless series of legal settlements for everything from sexual harassment to injuries and deaths caused by poorly designed and maintained streets, resulting in half a billion in payments in just the last two years.

Most of which could have been avoided if the city spent the money fixing the problems, instead of paying later for not fixing them.

Now Mayor Bass has responded by pulling an Elon Musk-style DOGE act, calling for laying off 1,600 city staffers, something that could have a devastating effect on already understaffed departments responsible for street safety, like LADOT and Street Services.

And that’s in addition to proposing a delay in capital expenditures, like bike lanes and other safety improvements.

Now, I’m the first to admit I’m no financial wizard, and have no idea how to best balance the city’s books.

But I do know we shouldn’t be making cuts that will cost lives and lead to millions more in legal settlements.

If you’re as mad as I am, you can comment on the mayor’s proposed budget at City Hall this afternoon.

APRIL 28, 2025 at 4pm
City Hall Council Chamber, Room 340
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Then turn out on Wednesday evening, preferably wearing red, for a die-in on the steps of City Hall.

Dying-In Los Angeles – A Protest for Safer Streets: Don’t “DOGE” LA Safety

A coalition of non-profits and road safety advocates will be hosting a protest on the steps of LA City Hall to raise awareness of LA’s dystopian-level budget cuts.

If these cuts go through, there will be no funding for new safety improvements next year — no speed reduction measures, no protected bike lanes, no pedestrian upgrades. Nothing.

Join us at 6pm, April 30th – LA City Hall.

I won’t be able to make it because of my surgery, which will lay me up for a couple weeks. But I hope you’ll go and demand safer streets for me.

And maybe do a little yelling.

Because I sure as hell would.

Meanwhile, Damian Kevitt, the founder of Streets Are For Everyone and Finish The Ride — and the bike rider who barely survived being dragged onto the 5 Freeway by a fleeing hit-and-run driver, who was never caught — has started a petition to tell the Mayor not to DOGE LA safety.

Yes, I’ve signed it myself. And I hope you will, and share it with everyone you know.

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Another day, another mass casualty crash on North American roads.

By now, you’ve probably heard that at least 11 people were killed, and dozens more injured, when a man slammed his SUV into the crowd of people celebrating a Philippine holiday in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The driver was taken into custody after being stopped by people attending the festival.

However, police concluded that this was not a terrorist attack, as it first appeared, but rather, the driver was someone well known to police with a history of mental health issues.

Which raises the obvious question of why someone with a history of mental health problems was still allowed to pilot a multi-ton potential weapon of mass destruction.

As Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), put it, a driver’s license is too easy to get, and too hard to lose. 

Driving is treated as if it’s a right, rather than a privilege. And until we change that, horrific disasters like this will keep happening, intentionally or otherwise.

Even the conservative Los Angeles Daily News agrees, calling for removing the license of drivers who have proven they don’t belong on the road.

Yet the state continues to ignore the most obvious way to improve road safety: remove the licenses of those drivers who have a history of driving dangerously. A shocking investigative report by CalMatters called “License to Kill” highlighted California’s inexplicable willingness to allow the deadliest drivers to keep driving.

It’s unfathomable—and appalling that the Department of Motor Vehicles had little to say for itself. The DMV “routinely allows drivers … with horrifying histories of dangerous driving, including DUIs, crashes and numerous tickets … to continue to operate on our roadways,” per the report. Too often they go on to kill. Many keep driving even after they kill. Some go on to kill again.”

Clearly, we have to add mental illness to that list.

And as we’ve noted before, simply suspending a driver’s license offers no guarantee they won’t continue to drive anyway. We need to remove the driver’s access to a motor vehicle, whether that means impounding it, or somehow disabling it until they get their license back.

Thanks to someone who prefers to be anonymous for forwarding the Daily News link. 

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Okay, so they’re not gone yet.

The logo for San Diego’s Pedal Ahead is still on the website for the California E-bike Incentive Project, as they gear up for tomorrow’s second round of deliberately throttled ebike vouchers.

It turns out the nonprofit agency is only semi-fired, and continuing to work with the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, as they look for a replacement.

Which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence things will go better this time, after the disastrous first round.

Thanks to Malcomb Watson for pointing that out.

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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 San Diego letter writer says if the city has to make budget cuts, it should start with the bike lanes.

Horrible news from Chicago, where a 55-year old bike advocate was attacked with a crowbar by a road raging car passenger after he called out the driver for parking in the bike lane, as he was riding home from Friday’s Critical Mass.

No bias here, either. The Mayor of Melbourne, Australia’s inner city called out the “white privilege” of “managerial class people,” saying they’re the only supporters of a bike lane he wants to narrow to restore 69 parking spaces removed to build it.

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

Um, okay. Police in England are trying out a new forensic spray for tagging anti-social bicyclists and motorcyclists, marking their clothes and bikes with a yellow stain that shows up under ultraviolet light, allowing police to identify the miscreants later.

Legislation was re-introduced in the British Parliament to “close a loophole” in the law to allow bicyclists who kill pedestrians to be sentenced to life in prison, just like killer drivers can be, but usually aren’t; meanwhile, The Spectator says “We don’t need a crackdown on killer cyclists;” but you’ll need to subscribe or register if you want to read it.

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Local 

UCLA hosted the annual bicycle-powered Coastalong Music and Sustainability Festival on campus this year, because the usual off-campus venue is under construction.

Santa Clarita has removed the white “paddles,” aka bollards, lining the protected bike lane on Orchard Village Road, because people found them aesthetically displeasing.

 

State

Orange County’s first paved pump track opened in San Clemente on Saturday.

A new 6.7-mile, $31 million bikeway will open this summer, running parallel to the trolley in Imperial Beach to connect the San Ysidro border crossing with the Bayshore Bikeway.

Sad news from Fresno, where a man riding a bicycle was killed by a driver near a freeway onramp; the driver was reportedly cooperating with investigators, even though it sounds like they left the scene.

An op-ed from the communications manager for the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates questions whether spending state traffic safety grant money to ticket bicyclists and pedestrians will make the city safer. It’s also illegal selective enforcement, because police can’t legally enforce the law against one group without equal enforcement against anyone else who commits the same violations. 

Sacramento’s ABC10 offers five things to know about tomorrow’s second round of California ebike incentives.

 

National

Planetizen provides US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy with a data-based explainer on why bike lanes are good, after said there’s no evidence that bike lanes have benefits.

Author Colum McCann responded to a request from the New York Times to explore a significant moment in his religious or spiritual life by submitting an essay about biking across the US in his early 20s questioning his faith, and finding God in the people he met along the way.

Oregon bikemaker Co-Motion Cycles invited the public in over the weekend to see how tandem bikes are made, as the tandem bike industry is reportedly booming. Which would make it one of the few bright spots in the bike industry these days.

An urgent search is underway to find British Paralympian Sam Ruddock after the paracyclist disappeared on a visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago.

The truck driver who plowed into a group ride in Goodyear, Arizona, killing two people and injuring 17 others, lost his bid to get the charges against him dismissed; investigators concluded driver fatigue was the cause of the crash, despite the driver’s claim his steering locked up. Never mind that he had gotten high the night before and still had THC in his system hours after the crash.

In an argument reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s questioning what the meaning of “is” is, voters in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown may have to return to the ballot box to determine the meaning of “recreation,” as opponents of a proposed bike park argue that rules limiting the area to recreational uses mean it can’t be used for a bike park, because riding a bicycle in a bike park somehow isn’t recreation.

Kiwi pop star Lorde is one of us, as the video for her latest song shows her riding a vintage bike through the carfree streets of New York City, grinning from ear to ear. Because who wouldn’t smile if there wasn’t a car in sight on your next ride?

Orlando, Florida turned bikeways into a year-long outdoor art gallery.

 

International

PinkBike offers random highlights from Europe’s largest handmade bike show, ranging from an antique bike horn to a frame-mounted liquor flask.

A new London bicycling festival promises to bring bike markets, BMX events, obstacle courses, live music and a bicycle ballet performance, along with over 30 family-friendly bike rides through nearly half of the city’s 32 boroughs.

A website from the UK introduces readers to a 56-year old woman they call the Iron Empress, who went directly from finishing the London marathon to the British Black Unty Bike Ride through South Africa.

A British man is taking one last bike ride to raise funds for four charities before he has both legs amputated due to a rare genetic condition.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a woman walked without a day behind bars for running a stop sign, crashing into another car and killing a 79-year old man riding a bicycle as collateral damage; she had just gotten the news that her father was dying while using her handsfree phone, and instead of pulling over to deal with her shock and grief, just kept driving until she killed someone.

Sad news from Spain, where a 39-year-old British man died in a fall during the grueling Mallorca 312 amateur bike race, as tributes poured in for the popular rider.

You can now find new bike lanes on the Dvořák Embankment in front of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Prague, Czech Republic.

China’s Xinhua offers photos from Saturday’s I Bike Budapest ride, as hundreds of people turned out to demonstrate the importance of bicycles as daily transportation in the city.

 

Competitive Cycling

An Indiana University student newspaper posted photos and results from the university’s iconic Little 500, including one of the gnarliest crash photos I’ve ever seen; Kappa Alpha Theta sorority won the women’s race, while Black Key Bulls won the men’s race for the second year in a row.

World Champ Tadej Pogacar continued his dominance of the early racing season with a solo breakaway win at Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday, his third win at the 133-year old Monument.

Mauritian cyclist Kim Le Court became the first African rider to win a Monument, out-sprinting Demi Vollering, Puck Pieterse and Cédrine Kerbaol at the finish.

In the latest incident of race fans behaving badly, a spectator was called an “absolute moron” for riding his bike on the Liège-Bastogne-Liège course as the women’s race was ongoing, then latching on to the back wheel of race leader Pauliena Rooijakkers before eventually being ejected by a race marshal.

The Uno-X Mobility cycling team brought back the “unmistakable” green, red and white jerseys of the legendary 7-Eleven team in a homage at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Road.cc examines the most obscure and peculiar sponsors of the pro peloton.

It was repeat news at the California edition of the popular Belgian Waffle Ride, with both the men’s and women’s races won by defending champs Matt Beers and Sofia Gomez Villafañe.

Cycling News looks at the huge crowds, party atmosphere and tough competition of the 45-year old Athens, Georgia Twilight Criterium.

 

Finally…

Everyone has fair-weather friends, so invite them to join you on a fair-weather ride. The late Pope Francis probably had more and better bikes than you have.

And your next bike ride could put you in the spotlight.

Or your legs, anyway.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Bass slash-and-burn budget threatens street safety & CicLAvia, and how to apply for CA ebike vouchers Tuesday

April 25, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 115 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Evidently, I’ve not the only one concerned about the effect of the draconian budget cuts and layoffs proposed by Mayor Karen Bass.

Streets For All sent out the following email yesterday making many of the same points.

This week, Mayor Bass released her proposed budget for 2025-2026. This budget plans to slash most departments’ funding, as well as eliminate 1,650 city positions and 1,074 vacancies. It also proposes deferring capital projects, like planned road and infrastructure improvements.

This budget is a disaster for road safety and even basic services.You can read our detailed analysis here. This budget will result significantly more broken streets and sidewalks. New pedestrian and bike projects, including many Olympics projects, will be delayed. All streetlight repairs will be paused until 2027. Billions in grant funded street safety and mobility projects may be lost. And there may be no staffing to support open streets events like CicLAvia.

There are only TWO opportunities to comment on the Mayor’s proposed budget, and they are both in person:

APRIL 25, 2025 at 1pm
Van Nuys City Hall
14410 Sylvian Street
Van Nuys, CA 91401

APRIL 28, 2025 at 4pm
City Hall Council Chamber, Room 340
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Budget Chair Katy Yaroslavsky will be hosting a session in person:
APRIL 26, 2025 at 11am
Westwood
RSVP for address

Tell the Mayor that cutting funding for our streets will lead to more crashes, costing the City even more in liability payouts – part of why the city is in such financial distress to begin with. This budget would also lead to a near pause of any new projects, and delay existing ones – freezing our infrastructure during a time period when we are about to host the World Cup and Olympics.

While showing up in person is most effective, if you cannot attend you may comment on the council file.

Thank you for fighting for a safe, sustainable, and equitable future for Los Angeles and beyond!

………

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton takes an in-depth look at the second round of the California ebike voucher program, including how to apply.

The Air Resources Board’s long–delayed and controversial e-bike voucher program will be opening its application portal for a second time at 6:00 p.m. on April 29th. This time instead of a first-come, first-serve approach that left out tens of thousands of hopeful applicants, the system will randomly choose 1,000 people who join their virtual waiting room between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.

To join the waiting room, go to ebikeincentives.org and select the ‘APPLY’ button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

He also notes that you are encouraged to arrive early to the portal to file your application.

But don’t bother if you don’t meet the financial qualifications, and aren’t willing to jump through their hoops to document your income — and watch a couple of pretty meaningless videos.

The program is only offering 1,000 vouchers this time, which represents less than 1% of the people who tried to apply for the first round of vouchers.

The 1,000 lucky people will be selected through a form of lottery. You’re encourage to stick around through the full process, until you receive a notification that you either were or weren’t selected to apply.

Surprisingly, it looks like I may actually qualify this time.

But whether I’ll actually bother, given the massive shitshow mess they made of the first round, remains to be determined.

………

Evidently, life is cheap in the UK.

Mansfield Town striker Lucas Akins was sentenced to 14 months behind bars for carelessly killing a 33-year old man riding a bicycle, in a crash caught on the victim’s bike cam.

Yet Akins seemed to demonstrate just how little it bothered him by playing in a League One soccer match the same day he entered his not guilty plea in court.

The team issued a statement expressing their condolences to the family, and said they’re “considering its position with regards to” Akins.

Especially since he won’t be on the pitch for the better part of the next few seasons.

………

PinkBike takes a look at the creation of Bradley Bike Park in San Marcos, calling it “a rideable masterpiece built against all odds on near-flat ground,” and “artistry etched in dirt.”

………

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

A British couple were threatened and spat on by a pair of men who were riding their bikes next to the couple’s car, after they brought the car to a stop, for no apparent reason. Although I would guess thee may be another side to the story, and that maybe the driver did something to tick ’em off. But regardless of what it may have been, nothing justifies violence.

………

Local 

Metro still hasn’t done anything with the long-delayed second phase of the Metro Mobility Wallet, which is supposed to provide participants with $1,800 to spend on any form of transportation, from bus passes and rideshare to bikeshare, or even buying a bicycle. But the program is worthless if the agency doesn’t follow through by actually funding their debit cards.

Speaking of Metro, CEO Stephanie Wiggins will continue to lead the agency for another four — or maybe five — years, after the Metro board voted unanimously to extend her contract, at whopping half a million dollars a year, a 20% increase over her previous contract. Which means they’ll give everyone else who works for Metro a similar pay bump, right?

Redondo Beach says ebike riders are behaving better now.

SoCal’s killer highway claimed another victim, as Torrance residents called for improved safety after a 38-year old man was hit and killed by multiple drivers as he crossed the street Saturday night — including the heartless coward who hit him first, and fled the scene without stopping. Although I wonder whether Killer PCH or deadly Vista del Mar, aka Deadly del Mar, actually kills more people on a per-mile basis. Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the heads-up. 

 

State

Rancho Mirage does Bike Month, or Bike Safety Month, the right way by introducing plan for three bike safety projects, including widened bike lanes, improved signage, and designated bike paths, to be completed by the end of summer.

Los Gatos opened a long-anticipated bike and pedestrian bridge linking Highway 9 to the Los Gatos Creek Trailhead.

 

National

The Seattle Times visits the forested Washington State segment of the 5,000-mile mountain bike trail along West Coast.

A 32-year old man from the US faces charges for crossing into the country from Mexico on a bicycle stuffed with fentanyl and meth.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell kicked off the NFL Draft in Green Bay with a wobbly bike ride onto the stage, in a nod to the Packers tradition of riding borrowed bicycles to the first day of camp. But it wasn’t enough to silence the boos from fans.

Surprisingly, the New York Times picks the Dahon Mariner D8 as the best foldie over Tern’s Link D8, with the famed Brompton taking third.

New York Streetsblog says beyond treating bicyclists like an afterthought, the New York Parks Department has been downright unfriendly to people on bicycles, even though it controls some of the city’s most important carfree infrastructure.

Finishing our New York trifecta, the city announced a whopping 127 Open Streets events to take place this spring and summer, including a belated Earth Day celebration featuring 54 carfree streets and plazas throughout the five boroughs.

Passaic New Jersey opened a small bikeshare system that will be free to local residents.

People in Louisiana just seem to have more fun than the rest of us, even on a five-day fundraising ride through Cajun country.

 

International

Even in the Cayman Islands, bicyclists are demanding safer streets, in the wake of a hit-and-run that killed a bike rider on Easter Monday.

Here’s a few more for your bike bucket list, as Momentum recommends Europe’s best rail trails for a unique bicycling vacation. I’ll take the one that follows the Danube, thank you. Or maybe the one that runs through Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. 

Evidently, congestion pricing and better bikeways work, since London’s Square Mile, aka the sparely populated financial district that employs a half-million people each day — now averages nearly twice as many bicycles as cars, following a 57% jump in bicycling rates in just two years.

London bicyclists are now expected to adhere to a code of conduct in the city’s parks, as a new survey shows 86% Londoners think the parks’ 20 mph speed limit should apply to bicycles, too.

A new survey shows that most British drivers still don’t understand how to share the road with bicyclists, three years after the rules of the road were changed to improve bike safety. The same survey in the US would probably show similar results, even though most of our rules haven’t changed in decades. 

In an unusual move, Irish police, aka Gardaí, reached out to bike clubs to see if any were riding in the area where a 56-year old farmer went missing last month, in hopes that maybe someone saw him. Something they should do more often, since we have a lot more eyes on the streets than they do.

Now you, too, can fix your own light when your ebike maker goes belly-up, like the Netherlands’ VanMoof.

Mind your biking behavior in Japan next April, when police will start fining bicyclists for “minor” violations like using a cellphone while riding, and running red lights.

 

Finally…

Why buy a custom-made bicycle when you can just make your own damn bike? Your next tire pump could look like a tiny little robot.

And why just go for a bike ride, when you could earn crypto with every ride.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Bass risks bike safety with massive layoffs, Trump admin puts science-free brakes on road diets, and tariffs threaten bike world

April 22, 2025 / / One comment
Day 112 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

LA Mayor Karen Bass plans to fill the city’s massive budget hole with layoff notices.

She proposed kicking 1,647 city workers to the curb in her budget for the coming fiscal year, including nearly 100 cops, dropping the department to its lowest level in years.

However, the fire department will be spared in the wake of the massive Palisades fire with a 12.7% budget increase, including 277 new positions, as well as more paramedics, mechanics and fast response vehicles.

There are also plans to combine a handful of city departments, though not the needlessly siloed transportation and street services departments, which should work together to improve our streets, but usually don’t.

The shortfall was largely caused by years of ever-growing legal settlements, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to local news.

The budget originally called for twice as many layoffs, but the number was reduced in part by delaying capital improvement projects. Which could lead to even more of those legal settlements, depending on just what they decide to cut.

It’s also likely that at least some of those cuts will come from LADOT and Streets Services, which are already underfunded and understaffed — resulting in years-long delays in safety improvements that risk more lives, and even more of those legal settlements.

And which helped lead to the passage of Measure HLA last year, which aims to force the city to implement the safety improvements in the city’s mobility plan when streets are resurfaced.

Which will now need to be done over a longer period, with less money and fewer people.

Photo of Mayor Karen Bass from website for Mayor of Los Angeles.

………

You’ve got to be kidding.

After years of research-backed recommendations that road diets improve traffic safety, the Trump administration is putting a heavy foot on the gas, somehow claiming they make the streets more dangerous, instead of safer.

But as usual, they offer no science to back it up.

According to the Associated Press,

Federal transportation officials once heralded road diets for cutting crashes by 19% to 47%, but criteria for an upcoming round of road safety grants say projects aimed at “reducing lane capacity” should be considered “less favorably,” the administration said.

Forcing travelers into more constrained spaces “can lead to crashes, erratic maneuvers, and a false sense of security that puts everyone at risk,” the U.S. Department of Transportation said in an email statement to The Associated Press. “The update reflects the Department’s concerns about the safety hazards associated with congestion.”

Again — and I can’t stress this enough — there is no research offered to back up that claim.

The AP goes on to add this.

Numerous other cities have credited road diets with improving safety.

Philadelphia cited a 19% drop in injury crashes. Portland, Oregon, saw a more than 70% decline in vehicles traveling at least 10 mph (16 kph) over the speed limit. The average speed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, fell by 5 mph (8 kph) on some roads within months.

So rather than Making America Great Again, the administration’s plan appears to be more about keeping our streets dangerous, and dangerously auto-centric.

Meanwhile, taking a cue from Idaho, which just passed and signed a similar bill, a proposed Texas law would ban narrowing roadways to install bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Or as one Idaho website so aptly put it, “New Idaho law treats cyclists and pedestrians like pests.”

All so drivers can continue to go zoom, zoom on every inch of road they currently enjoy.

Safety be damned.

………

Still more tariff news.

Trek, State and Specialized responded to Trump’s tariffs by raising bike prices, while other brands are limiting US releases.

Colorado’s small outdoor manufacturers are “wilting” in the face of Trump’s trade wars, closing shop and laying off long-time workers.

An Aussie website says the entire bicycle industry is being “chilled” by Trump’s tariffs.

………

Streetsblog spotted new bike lanes in the Arts District in DTLA.

New bike lanes being installed in #DTLA Arts District – on Mateo and on Santa Fe – including some parking-protected sections on Santa Fe. Connections to 6th St Bridge (& via Santa Fe to Union Station)

— Streetsblog L.A. (@streetsblogla.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:07:02.308Z

………

The first pedestrian-oriented CicLAmini of the year comes to Pico Blvd in Pico-Union on the 18th of next month.

………

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

In yet another case of anti-bike terrorism, someone deliberately placed large logs behind blind corners on Eugene, Oregon’s sole mountain bike-only trail, which appears to be an intentional attempt to injure trail riders. Or worse.

Once again, bike riders get the blame, as police in Boynton Beach, Florida offer safety advice for the people on two wheels in the face of a more than 50% increase in collisions involving bicyclists, while just giving drivers vague advice to “be more responsible.”

It’s anarchy in the UK, as a road-raging driver walked without a day behind bars for getting out of his van and punching a man on a bicycle in the face for the crime of riding in the roadway, as he shouted “There’s a fucking bike path over there;” he was sentenced to the equivalent of community service, and about about 180 bucks restitution for damage to the victim’s bike.

………

Local 

Bike tour company Another Side of Los Angeles Tours has now suffered two break-ins in just the last month, with thieves using a brick to break a window and walk out with three ebikes worth up to a grand apiece.

Saturday is the last day to offer input on the SGV Greenway Network, which would place bike/walk paths on the upper shoulders of flood control channels in the San Gabriel Valley.

 

State

California drivers will now face stricter penalties for driving without insurance or under-insured, including fines topping $500, loss of driver’s license and impounding the vehicle. The last one is likely to have more impact, because $500 is a fraction of the annual cost of car insurance, and people drive without a license every day. But no one drives without a car.

Fresno is starting work on improving bike safety on three key corridors.

The wife of an 81-year old Palo Alto man has filed suit against the city, claiming he died after falling off his bicycle when he hit an unmarked open construction ditch on a roadway that was supposed to have been closed.

 

National

Now you can turn your old bike into a new ebike for as little as a hundred bucks.

A group of Washington bicyclists is riding ebikes from Seattle to the state capitol in Olympia to protest a new 10% surcharge on all ebike sales.

Bittersweet news from Las Vegas, where a 71-year old man who has dedicated more than a decade of his life to giving refurbished bikes to hundred of kids in need held one last giveaway, before closing up shop as he battles stage 4 prostate cancer.

No surprise here, as bicyclists in Tallahassee, Florida say they increasingly feel left behind and vulnerable. In other words, like bike riders in nearly every other American cities. Especially here in LA.

 

International

Cycling Weekly considers who, or what, wins the battle of the best do-it-all all-surface bikes.

About damn time. London has finally banned trucks that don’t offer clear sightlines to vulnerable road users. Now if only all the world’s other cities would follow suit — starting with this one.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as a British writer recommends a multi-day gravel ride through Cornwall on the extreme southwestern tip of England, with its “sublime coastal gravel tracks, old mine ruins perched on the clifftops, gorgeous villages and ancient history,” all easily accessible from Penzance. No pirates, however. Unfortunately.

The parents of a fallen Dutch bicyclist are calling for stricter enforcement of the country’s bike paths, after their 12-year old daughter was killed by the driver of a Birò microcar while riding to dance class with two friends. Which is how I learned they even are a thing.  

Everything you always wanted to know about riding a bike in Luxembourg, but were afraid to ask.

About damn time, part two. Subaru is introducing the world’s first external airbags designed to protect bike riders in a crash; it works to keep bicyclists from smashing into the windshield by modifying a pedestrian-safety airbag that’s been available in the country since 2016, but oddly hasn’t even been offered an option in this country. Although it wouldn’t do a lot of good on American trucks and SUVs, with their grills too high to provide any protection.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Tour of the Alps paused for a moment of silence, along with all other Italian sporting events, to mark the death of Pope Francis, the first pope I’m aware of who rode a bicycle.

Pro cyclists have been shocked! shocked! by how quickly Remco Evenepoel has returned to form following major injuries from a December dooring, nearly winning Sunday’s Amstel Gold, before settling for third.

An Indiana website offers everything you need to know about Indiana University’s iconic Little 500 bike race.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can turn your non-biking friends into your new riding companions. Why ride with one mirror on your helmet, when you can have two?

And when you’re carrying meth, coke, brass knuckles and a switchblade on your bike at night, put a damn taillight on it, already.

The bike, that is. Not the meth. Or the switchblade.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

New report spells out LA’s Vision Zero fail, and bike riders injured by drivers in South LA and Huntington Beach hit-and-runs

April 16, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 106 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

No surprise here.

In a report that really shouldn’t surprise anyone, a new city audit has shown that LA’s Vision Zero program has failed miserably in ending traffic deaths by this year.

A detailed report conducted by consulting company KPMG, along with a separate LADOT analysis from Fehr & Peers, concludes that “the level of enthusiasm at City Hall” for Vision Zero has decreased since the program was launched, according to public radio station and website LAist.

In fact, half of the program’s 56 “actions and strategies” that were supposed to have been completed five years were still unfinished at the start of last year.

And probably still are.

According to LAist,

“Some of the reasons cited include the pandemic, conflicts of personality, lack of total buy-in for implementation, disagreements over how the program should be administered and scaling issues,” the audit said.

Never mind the city council’s failure to adequately fund the program, as well as efforts by councilmembers to block needed projects in their own districts.

Without political support and lack of communication from council members about the program, Vision Zero becomes less effective, the audit said…

The audit also pointed out that the city overly focused on infrastructure and engineering, to the detriment of public education and regular monitoring of the program’s progress.

To put it mildly.

In fact, traffic fatalities jumped 26% in 2024 compared to when then-Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the program sitting outdoors behind his bigass desk.

According to UC Berkeley transportation safety researcher Matthew Raifman, traffic fatalities in Los Angeles have gone up faster than the national average, with more bike and pedestrian deaths than the other four most populated US cities.

And yes, that includes New York, which has over twice the population.

All of which is exactly what we warned about since the inception of Vision Zero in Los Angeles, when the city conducted an extensive round of public meetings to gather input — and proceeded to ignore the findings, coming up with a plan that left nearly all of it out.

Then addressed the program with the previously mentioned lack of funding and a failure of political will, compounded by a lack of buy-in from, and coordination between, the city’s many siloed departments and agencies.

The report calls for a recommitment to Vision Zero in Los Angeles, while offering a long, long list of recommendations to halt injuries and deaths from traffic violence.

But recommitment isn’t necessary. What is necessary is actually committing to it for the first time, because city leaders never did.

The LADOT report from Fehr & Peers includes an updated listing of the city’s High Injury Network, which is now called Priority Intersections and Corridors, for some unknown reason.

At least we know this report was sent directly to Mayor Karen Bass.

Although whether she’ll actually read it and act on it — or whether it will get buried under countless other priorities, from rebuilding after the Palisades Fire to the city’s massive budget shortfall — remains to be determined.

I wouldn’t hold your breath.

But as they say, hope springs eternal.

………

The LAPD is looking for a hit-and-run driver who crashed into a 15-year old boy as he rode his bike to school on a South LA sidewalk last week, in a collision caught on video.

Sebastian Carrillo was riding along Nadeau Street near Croesus Ave when the driver made a right turn directly into him, either turning short into a driveway or intentionally hitting him, as his father says it looks like attempted murder to him.

Carrillo was lucky to escape with a concussion, as well as cuts, bumps and bruises that required stitches. And no, he doesn’t appear to have been wearing a helmet, even though that’s required for anyone under 18.

The suspect vehicle is described as a newer black BMW, possibly a 2025, with front end damage from the crash.

The City of Los Angeles offers a standing $5,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting injuries.

………

Huntington Beach police are looking for their own felony hit-and-run driver, after a man in a minivan left someone riding a bicycle lying in the roadway with “significant” injuries last month.

The victim was reportedly struck by a Hispanic man between 20 and 30 years old, while riding near Arnett Drive and Irby Lane around 11 pm on Saturday, March 29th.

The suspect vehicle is described as a possible Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey, metallic gray, silver or blue, with likely damage to the bumper, hood and windshield.

The license plate may have the characters 7, T, A and E, though not necessarily in that order.

Anyone was information was urged to call Huntington Beach Traffic Investigator V. Rattanchandani at 714/536-5231, or anonymously to OC Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS.

But unlike Los Angeles, Huntington Beach doesn’t offer a standing reward for hit-and-run drivers.

………

Today marks the 3rd Anniversary of the hit and run that killed Andrew Jelmert in Griffith Park as he trained for the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.

Yet three years later, Los Angeles has still not started a series of fully funded and shovel-ready safety improvements in the park, including a massive traffic calming project on Crystal Springs Drive where Jelmert was killed by a speeding driver, even though that construction was supposed to start last summer.

Streets Are For Everyone will be hosting a remembrance event, advocacy ride and protest this Saturday to call attention to the dangers on the road, as well as the needless red tape holding up the desperately needed work.

As we’ve said before, cars don’t belong in parks. And we certainly don’t need a roadway used by drivers traveling at highway speeds to bypass traffic on the nearby freeway.

………

Good for him.

A New Jersey judge tossed out a defense argument that the blood alcohol content of the hockey-playing Gaudreau brothers contributed to their own deaths.

The judge agreed the issue was moot under New Jersey criminal law, and upheld all of the charges against “allegedly drunken and enraged driver” Sean Higgins, including two counts each of manslaughter and vehicular homicide.

Witnesses to the crash told police that the brothers were riding their bikes single file on the side of the road when Higgins allegedly passed two other vehicles on the right, with two wheels on the grass verge, and slammed into their bikes from behind, killing them both.

Higgins faces a up to 70 years behind bars if he’s convicted on all counts; his lawyers have already rejected a plea of 35 years.

………

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

Authorities in Windsor, Ontario threw the book at a road-raging bike rider, filing a ten-count indictment against the 41-year old man for allegedly following a car full of people after an argument, damaging three vehicles belonging to them, then threatening them with a weapon when they confronted him.

………

Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton spots a new bike lane on Bonnie Brae Street in Westlake, as well as partially-protected bike lanes being installed on Mission Road in Boyle Heights.

 

State

Encinitas bicyclists may be breathing a sigh of relief, after the city’s traffic commissioner proposed replacing the concrete barriers protecting a bike lane on the Coast Highway with a wider, painted bike lane, after 19 recorded bicycle crashes from running into the barriers, including one death.

Police in San Diego are asking for the public’s help in identifying the drivers of two cars who struck a man riding an ebike, and left him in the street to die; they’re looking for a white car, possibly a 2015 to 2023 Dodge Charger with black-and-yellow license plates, and another car that could have been a Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan with a black or tinted glass-topped roof.

Forty Ontario kids got new bikes and helmets courtesy of Los Angeles Kings affiliate hockey team The Ontario Reign, as well as other local businesses and organizations.

Riverside County has jumped on the anti-ebike bandwagon, giving preliminary approval to an ordinance restricting where they can be ridden.

Velo looks at all the new and unreleased gravel bikes from last week’s Sea Otter Classic.

San Raphael is beginning the process of developing a new bike and pedestrian plan to cover the next five to ten years. Let’s just hope they don’t have to go to the voters to force the city to implement it, like a certain SoCal megalopolis we could name. 

 

National

Police in Oregon arrested a third suspect in the death of a Hood River man who was run down trying to stop the suspects from stealing his bicycle.

Life is cheap in Idaho, where a gravel truck driver was sentenced to just 150 days behind bars after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter, for killing a 14-year old boy as he was standing next to his bicycle on the shoulder of the roadway.

A Wisconsin man is riding his bike from Los Angeles to Denver to promote organ donations, as well as meet the two-and-a-half year old girl who received part of his own liver.

The driver who killed a Philadelphia pediatrician as she rode her bike to work at a children’s hospital pled guilty to vehicular homicide, DUI and involuntary manslaughter, among other charges; he swerved into the bike lane she was riding in while driving at twice the legal alcohol limit.

A Georgia state legislator pled guilty to reduced charges after prosecutors dropped multiple DUI charges for hitting a person riding in a bike lane;  he was originally charged with driving under the influence of both alcohol and multiple drugs.

 

International

Momentum explains what a road diet is, and why cities should embrace it — starting with improving safety for all road users.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a careless driver walked without a day behind bars for breaking a woman’s leg in two places as she rode her bike, after the judge sentenced him to community service and took away his license for a whole year.

Students at a Serbian university formed a bicycle inside a heart using their own bodies to show support for Serbian students who rode their bikes to Strasbourg, France to plead for support from European Union leaders for greater freedom in their country,

 

Competitive Cycling

Double Olympic champ Remco Evenepoel is returning to racing this Friday at Belgium’s Brabantse Pijl, after he suffered serious injuries when he was doored by a postal worker while on a December training ride.

Cyclist considers which men’s WorldTour teams are in danger of relegation when the current UCI points cycle comes to a close in a few months.

The spectator who hit Mathieu van der Poel with a water bottle during last week’s Paris-Roubaix said he had too much to drink, he’s really sorry and ashamed, and will take full legal responsibility.

 

Finally…

There may be hope for people who hate presta valves. If at first you do succeed in stealing an ebike from a department store, don’t try, try again.

And if your ex has a new boyfriend, don’t ride your bike over to shoot him. Or maybe don’t shoot him at all, regardless of how you get there.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

LA officials vote against the will of LA voters on Vermont BRT project; LA 50 wants your input; and Bike Oven art crawl

March 28, 2025 / / One comment
Day 87 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

So let’s get this straight.

The Metro Board unanimously approved plans for the Vermont Transit Corridor bus rapid transit project — but without the bike lanes required by law under voter-approved Measure HLA.

According to LAist,

Founder and CEO of Streets for All, Michael Schneider, told LAist in a statement that Metro ignored “the law and will of the voters” by voting to move forward with the design of the project without bike lanes…

The disagreement here isn’t about the bus lanes themselves — Schneider and other transportation advocates in L.A. agree that improvements to transit on the corridor are needed.

But the question is whether Metro, a countywide transportation agency, is required to comply with Measure HLA, a city-level initiative.

Metro doesn’t think so, and it has threatened legal action if it is forced to comply.

To repeat, it’s not a question of whether the bike lanes called that are called for in the city mobility plan are required under HLA, which applies to all but the most minor street resurfacing projects on Los Angeles city streets.

But rather, whether the city ordinance applies to a county agency.

Proponents of HLA — myself included — say it does.

Metro takes the contrarian stand, however, arguing that it only applies to work actually done by the city, rather than projects done by outside agencies on the city’s behalf.

Although a better question might be why Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and CD6 Councilmember Imelda Padilla voted against a city ordinance that they are legally required to implement.

And whether by doing so, they violated their obligations as officials elected to represent the City of Los Angeles, which is why they are on the board in the first place.

Because the people who put them there are the same ones who voted overwhelmingly to approve the measure.

And the same ones they will face when they run for re-election.

Correction: I’m told Karen Bass did not vote against HLA, if only because she missed the meeting. Blame Padilla, CD5 Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, and LA representative Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker. 

Rendering of Vermont BRT project, sans HLA mandated bike lanes. 

………

LA 50 wants your input on who should get the latest round of LA 50 Challenge Grants.

Although they don’t apparently trust us to vote directly on the recipients anymore, but rather just express opinions that will apparently influence their choices.

………

The Bike Oven co-op is hosting an art ride on North Figueroa tomorrow night.

………

Local  

Pasadena police with conduct a bicycle and pedestrian safety operation today, focusing on driver behaviors that endanger bicyclists and pedestrians — although they are legally required to enforce the law equally, whether it’s someone on four wheels, two wheels or two feet who commits the violation. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit lines, so you’re not the one who gets written up.

 

State

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton says the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres may be behind the Dodgers in the standings, but are miles ahead of LA in providing bike and transit access to their home stadiums. Okay, so maybe I was the one who threw in a little shade about the standings. 

Laguna Beach becomes the latest Orange County city to succumb to the spreading ebike panic, adopting an ordinance restricting the speed and use of ebikes in the city. Although once again apparently failing to distinguish between ped-assist bicycles and throttle-controlled electric motorbikes.

Sausalito debates whether to accept a grant for a “controversial” safety project that would require bike lanes in each direction on a dangerous stretch with no crosswalks, where bicycles and cars are forced to share a single lane in each direction, and drivers use the center turn lane for free parking.

Sad news from Woodland, where a man in his 50s was killed when he was run down by a man driving a tractor, while riding in a bike lane on a rural road outside the Sacramento suburb. Although thee’s no word on why the driver was in the bike lane, and why he somehow failed to see the victim despite operating a slow-moving vehicle. And no, tractors aren’t allowed in bike lanes, any more than any other motor vehicle. 

 

National

Blogger Craig Medred takes a deep dive into how the law protects dangerous drivers, when most fatal crashes are just written off as “oopsies.”

Grist considers who will be hurt most by Trump’s freeze on funding for bike lanes and other pedestrian safety projects. That’s easy — everyone. Because as the story says, “infrastructure that prioritizes safety over speed…are proven solutions that protect everyone.”

Nice change in Portland, where the Downtown Neighborhood Association wants fewer traffic lanes, instead of demanding more.

Residents of Chicago’s predominantly Latino Southwest Side debate whether protected bike lanes will improve safety, or lead to gentrification. Even though the bike lanes would protect low-income workers and immigrants who may not own a car, and rely on a bike to get to work, school or other destinations.

In New York City bike-related violence, a food delivery worker was stabbed in the back with a screwdriver when he attempted to defend his bike from thieves trying to take it, and pair of “crazed” men used their own bicycles to beat another man senseless on New York’s Upper East Side.

 

International

British parliamentarians called for urgent reform of the country’s Cycle to Work program by opening the bike voucher system to low-income workers, freelancers and retirees. Because salaried white collar workers aren’t the only ones who could benefit from biking rather than driving.

Momentum says stop bending over, and ride upright on one of these Dutch-style bikes, instead. Personally, I’ll take the Pashley, Guv’nor. 

An Indigenous man riding an ebike in a Sydney, Australia suburb was killed when a police sergeant somehow ran him down with his patrol car while attempting to make a traffic stop; he was found to have $10,000 in cash and three ounces of meth on him after he was killed. Which does not justify the cop using lethal force to make the stop unless the victim somehow threatened him — even if the cop knew or suspected he was dealing drugs.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former Dutch pro Laurens ten Dam says he slept under the stars surrounded by cows and grizzly bears with pepper spray tucked under his pillow last year during the 3,000-mile Tour Divide race from Canada to Mexico.

 

Finally….

Take a stand on apartment bike storage, or turn your bike into an objet d’art. Seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve ridden a fat bike across the Gobi Desert in the middle of winter.

And forget those flammable lithium-ion batteries, and fuel your bike with the stuff that blew up the Hindenburg instead.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Compromise offer on WeHo streets, Caltrans promises bike lanes in San Pedro, and LA failing us on speed cams

October 18, 2024 / / One comment
Just 73 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

I am now officially a non-driver.

Yesterday morning, I went to the DMV to trade my driver’s license for a non-driving ID.

Between my medical issues and the meds I’m on, I simply don’t belong behind the wheel. And I probably never will.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I’ve held onto my license despite not driving for the past several years, just in case I needed it at some point. 

But it’s just not worth the risk I could pose to others. 

I only wish more people would realize that. 

………

In a surprisingly reasonable op-ed, West Hollywood city council candidate Larry Block, who has opposed bike projects in the past — especially in front of his Santa Monica Blvd store — offers a compromise on his opposition to removing parking for a lane reduction and protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave in the largely residential Mid-City area.

Or as he puts it, a little argy-bargy, a term that should be familiar to fans of cycling announcer Phil Liggett.

Bike lane supporters need to recognize the daily needs of disabled residents, emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, and basic services. Bike supporters must understand that residents need access to their driveways, and services like city garbage trucks and emergency vehicles need space to do their jobs. We can’t take away that access in favor of a ‘build it, they will come’ mentality’. Residents also need to accept that many people can’t afford a car, and keeping WeHo vibrant means making room for bikes and other ways to get around. Their safety matters, too, and it’s our responsibility to do what we can.

While there’s a lot we could take issue with there — like how ebikes ca serve as mobility devices for handicapped people, and the myth of bike lanes slowing emergency vehicles — Block goes on to call for developing a master plan to improve safety and livability in WeHo’s Mid-City area.

We should focus on creating a Mid-City Master Plan while working on the Fountain Ave. Streetscape and Bike Lane project. Instead of just arguing about bike lanes, we need to shift the conversation to mid-city livability and make Fountain Ave. improvements part of the bigger plan.

There’s a livability and safety problem on Fountain Ave., and we need to look at the big picture. Let’s discuss a Mid-City Master Plan that incorporates the needs of all residents. But for now, after several accidents on Fountain Ave. in recent weeks, our top priority should be making Fountain safe today.

If this is the approach a bike lane opponent — or possibly former opponent — is willing to take, there may be hope for WeHo yet.

………

As a followup to Tuesday’s piece about an apparent violation of Measure HLA along Western Avenue and 1st Street in San Pedro, Ken Shima forwards a screenshot from CD15 Councilmember Tim McOsker saying the current striping is just a temporary measure, and bike lanes really are coming.

But from Caltrans, not Los Angeles.

As Joe Linton clarified in a comment to Tuesday’s post, HLA applies to “any paving project or other modification,” other than limited work like “restriping of the road without making other improvements, routine pothole repair, utility cuts, or emergency repairs.”

Which would mean it should apply here.

However, as a state agency, I’m not sure if Caltrans is required to abide by HLA, unlike Metro or the City of LA. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on, to make sure those promised bike lanes really do go in.

Regardless of who is responsible for them.

Meanwhile, Linton visits the new bike/walk path along San Pedro’s Front Street from the Vincent Thomas Bridge to just west of Pacific Ave.

………

San Francisco has selected the vendor for the city’s speed cam pilot program, with 33 cams expected to be fully operational by early 2025.

Compare that with Los Angeles, which hasn’t.

Here’s what a press release from Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, had to say on the subject.

“While Los Angeles continues to ignore the problem, San Francisco takes speeding seriously. I commend San Francisco for taking this significant step towards making its citizens safer. Through their selection process, the city has done the hard work and set the stage for other cities to follow,” said Damian Kevitt, Executive Director of Streets Are For Everyone. “Los Angeles and the other pilot cities have no excuse for bureaucratic feet-dragging that is risking people’s lives.”

At the start of 2024, the Chief of Police and Mayor of Los Angeles announced that there were a staggering 336 traffic fatalities, the highest in almost 50 years and more traffic fatalities in 2023 than homicides. Across the state, 35% of fatalities are speeding-related, with over 1,500 speeding-related fatalities in 2021. Traffic violence in Los Angeles continues to get worse, and there is insufficient effort being put into implementing sensible solutions to save lives.

Yep.

That pretty much sums it up.

It took years of fighting in the state legislature to finally pound out a compromise allowing Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale to try a speed cam pilot program, along with three NorCal cities, including San Francisco. That was later amended to allow speed cams on PCH in Malibu, as well.

But all of that appears to be wasted on the City of Angels, which seems to be moving with all due non-haste at its usual glacial pace.

Mayor Bass has often said that she was elected to solve the city’s homelessness crisis.

Too bad that’s the only crisis she seems to think she was elected to address.

………

It’s now 303 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

No bias here. The anti-bike OB-Rag writes that San Diego officials are “quietly picking our pockets” with things like a $155,000 bike counter, which amounts to a rounding error on the city’s $104.6 million streets budget. Let alone the SANDAG’s $1.3 billion — yes, with a B — highway budget.

No bias here, either. A 76-year old Baltimore man died weeks after a driver pulled out of a sidewalk and cut him off while riding on the sidewalk, but the local press somehow blames the victim for crashing into the car. And waits until the penultimate sentence to mention the car even had a driver.

He gets it. An Ottawa, Ontario columnist says Premier Doug Ford’s plan to give the provincial legislature final say over bike lanes is all about politics, not safety or traffic flow, while the mayor of Waterloo says Ford is stepping directly into municipal jurisdiction.

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

A 22-year old Novato man faces a felony hit-and-run charge for fleeing the scene after after crashing his bicycle into an eight-year old boy; fortunately, the kid was hospitalized with minor to moderate injuries. Which raises the question of why a felony charge was filed, which under state law on only applies in cases resulting in serious injuries. 

………

Local  

Pepperdine remembered the four sorority sisters killed by an alleged speeding driver on PCH a year ago, as they were walking from their car to a party; their accused killer was reportedly doing 104 mph in a 45 mph zone. But hey, about those speed cams.

 

State

Congrats to the Costa Mesa Police Department for busting a thief who made off with a family’s e-cargo bike; the department has already returned it to the owner.

 

National

CNN considers the best bike lights, settling on a pair from Cygolite.

Annapurna’s scenic bicycling adventure game Ghost Bike is getting a makeover, and will re-emerge next year as Wheel World, with a lighter design to make it more fun to play. Because ghost bikes may be a lot of things, but fun ain’t one of them. 

Parents, classmates and the Littleton, Colorado community came together to call for safer streets, a year after a seventh-grade boy was killed riding his bike to middle school. Yet another reminder that the time to fight for safer streets if before it’s too late, not after. 

A Tulsa, Oklahoma TV station responds to the state’s appalling NHTSA ranking as the nation’s 6th deadliest state for bike riders by examining safety concerns for bicyclists. Meanwhile, in 6th ranked California <crickets>.

A writer for Business Insider takes a 330-mile bikepacking trip from Pittsburgh to Maryland, and says she’d absolutely do it again, despite the challenges.

Prosecutors have added a murder charge to the long list of charges against the alleged drunken and speeding hit-and-run driver who killed a beloved young doctor out for a bike ride; he was allegedly driving over twice the speed limit with a BAC double the legal limit.

Roanoke, Virginia shows how it should be done, installing multiple temporary bike lanes to encourage people to ride their bikes to the city’s largest outdoor fest. Now they just need to make them permanent.

 

International

Momentum rates the six best foldies currently on the market.

A writer for Bike Radar takes a six-day, 400-mile bike tour along South Korea’s “stunning” Four Rivers route from Seoul to Busan.

A cop in New South Wales, Australia faces charges for dangerous driving for a crash that killed a 16-year old boy riding a bicycle.

 

Competitive Cycling

One of the brightest American cycling prospects, 21-year old Boulder, Colorado resident Jared Scott, walked away from his burgeoning European pro career to become a professional DJ.

A Welsh Continental cycling team learns the hard way the dangers of relying on a bikemaker’s promise that their frames will meet UCI standards.

 

Finally…

How to not pull an endo on your mountain bike. Making a Pashley the star of Swan Lake.

And seriously, who doesn’t need a sidecar for your ebike? Or a corgi car, in my case.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Bass cuts red tape and consolidates road work, LA once again a traffic punch line, and bike helmets don’t prevent “accidents”

October 17, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 74 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

My apologies for yesterday’s unexplained absence. Let’s just say it was a rough night, health wise. 

Meanwhile, my neurologist followed up on last week’s test with the dreaded “you need to come into the office” call. 

Good times. 

Take it from me, kid.

Getting older is like riding an uphill double century with a flat tire, and no spare tube. 

………

About damn time.

Los Angeles Mayor Bass issued an executive order intended to cut through the endless road repair red tape, requiring the many myriad city agencies involved in road work to actually work together, for a change.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

More than a dozen different departments and bureaus deal with the concrete, asphalt, street lighting, bike lanes, storm water drains and parks that Angelenos rely on. For years, the city has made unsuccessful attempts to untangle the byzantine bureaucracy that maintains the streetscape, in which a seemingly simple fix like repaving a corner can conjure up a web of departments, timelines, requirements, studies and objectives.

This directive aims to get everyone on the same page. It disbands a myriad of existing working groups and replaces them with a centralized system.

The order will create a working group composed of the general managers from nine different city divisions to actually coordinate and streamline street and sidewalk work, for the first time.

This replaces the current system where one city department is charged with fixing sidewalks, while another does repaving and a third paints stripes on it, with little or no coordination between the two.

And finally ending our blindfolded road management where the right hand literally doesn’t know what the left is doing.

In theory, at least.

We’ll have to see if and how well it actually works.

But how many times have we been told that bike lanes weren’t painted after street work, because no one told the appropriate agency they were supposed to go in?

Short answer, too many.

Longer answer, too damn many.

This is not the vertical reorganization that bike and street safety advocates have long called for, to move every agency involved in street work into a single agency, with one department head accountable for everything.

But it’s a start.

Let’s hope it ends up being more than that, for a change.

………

Ouch.

Momentum responds to a proposal from “car-loving (Ontario) Premier Doug Ford” to make the province the final arbiter on bike lanes, which should go in “only where it makes sense.”

It is a massive overreach to tell individual cities how to build roads in their communities. It’s also just plain dumb.

The first lesson for anyone planning traffic is that the single-occupancy vehicle is the most expensive and least efficient way of moving people. Ever. Roads cost billions. More roads create more cars. What more road construction fails to accomplish is reducing traffic congestion. See: Los Angeles et al.

Maybe some day, we won’t be the punchline when it comes to traffic failures.

But today is not that day.

Meanwhile, an Ottawa city councillor warns of a looming culture war between motorists and bicyclists if they can’t build any more safe streets.

And Canada’s “Biking Lawyer” claps back at Ford, pointing out problems with the legislation, as well as with the media coverage.

And yet, somehow manages to avoid asking “Are they effing nuts, or what?”

………

Um, no.

A legal website says wearing bike helmets and protective gear while bicycling is crucial to prevent accidents.

Where to even start?

First of all, crashes and collisions aren’t accidents. Somewhere along the line, someone broke the law and/or did something stupid to cause it.

Second, depending on the circumstances, a bike helmet may or may not help in the event of a crash. But it sure as hell won’t prevent one.

Not even this helmet.

And third, what the actual heck do they mean by protective gear? Are we supposed to wear flack jackets with embedded flashers? Or maybe put hi-viz bumpers on our bikes?

Seriously, this appears to have originated with a St. Louis lawyer, which raises the question of why the people who should know better too often don’t.

And makes clear once again the importance of getting — and vetting — a good lawyer if you ever need help.

I can vouch for the ones over there on the left, and would trust any one of them with my case, if I had to.

But do your own research, and choose someone who knows bikes and knows the law, and who you can count on.

………

It’s now 302 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

A bike rider in Edinburgh, Scotland was shocked to find a driver literally parked on top of his bicycle, which had been locked to light post on the sidewalk. Which raises the obvious question of why the driver didn’t notice the bike when they rolled over it. Or care.

Horrible news from Paris, where the road-raging driver of a luxury Mercedes SUV is being investigated for murder after apparently deliberately running down, then running over, a 27-year old man riding in a marked bike lane, after an argument between the men; the driver appeared to hit him twice, before backing up and driving over him — with the driver’s teenaged daughter in the car. A French news site says conflicts between bicyclists and drivers are becoming increasingly common.

………

Local  

LAist has all the information you need to develop your voting game. Except for how to bike the vote.

The planned Complete Streets makeover of Fountain Ave through West Hollywood has become a dividing line between warring factions in the upcoming election for WeHo city council contest, while a new petition calls for saving parking on the street, not lives.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers his photos of Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia, where a good time was once again had by all.

Pre-registration for the Santa Clarita Finish the Ride ends in just nine days, with the various rides rolling on October 27th.

 

State

There may be hope for San Diego-based Juiced Bikes yet, after the company’s intellectual property, branding, and existing inventory and assets were sold to a mystery buyer at a bankruptcy auction.

Santa Barbara’s police chief says potential changes to the city charter aren’t intended to criminalize bicycling, but to instead curb bad actors. Although well-meaning changes to the law meant to address one group too often end up affecting everyone else.

San Francisco mayoral candidates insist the city’s deadly streets can be fixed.

Over 160 Bay Area candidates for local, state and federal officials responded to a sustainable transportation questionnaire with their stands on issues regarding transit, bikes, traffic violence, climate change and accessibility.

 

National

The AP looks at the worldwide boom in lowrider culture, including low and slow rides on custom bikes.

The Washington Post explains how to plan a family bicycling vacation and actually enjoy it.

Women’s magazine Redbook recommends the 17 best ebikes on the market. Because evidently, there must be some unexplained drop-off once you get to number 18, as least for women. 

A Las Vegas woman faces up to 11 years behind bars after pleading guilty to the Christmas Eve hit-and-run that killed a 33-year old bike rider last year.

New York is calling a halt to their version of the Marathon Crash Ride, after a bicyclist riding the closed course before the city’s marathon hit a pedestrian last year.

The owners of a new North Carolina business planned to shuttle mountain bikers to local trails, but have shifted their focus to repairing local trails damaged by Hurricane Helene.

Drivers in Abbeville, Louisiana, like drivers everywhere, can’t seem to figure out what sharrows mean.

No surprise here, as Florida once again ranks as the nation’s most dangerous state for bike riders, with 8.4 deaths per million people; California checks in at a relatively low number six, with less that half that.

 

International

Cyclist recommends the best bike socks to keep your tootsies toasty.

Toronto researchers are using machine learning to determine the best places to put protected bike lanes. Um, like everywhere?

Evidently, things aren’t any better in Cuba, either.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list. A new bike route along both sides of the border between England and Wales links eight heritage sites, ranging from Welsh castles to Roman ruins.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a stoned driver walked without a day behind bars for running down a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk, leaving the man with lifelong injuries — and somehow wasn’t charged with DUI, despite driving at twice the country’s legal cannabis limit. And if you ever wonder why people keep dying on the streets, you can start right there. 

Ninety percent of British residents are afraid to ride in the country’s cities, put off by fear of crashes, road raging drivers and bike thieves.

About damn time, part two. The British agency responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the country’s highways will stop using the term “accident” to describe crashes, concluding “they’re not random events, but preventable incidents caused by human actions.” Now if we could just get someone to admit that on this side of the pond. 

Thousands of Dutch bicyclists are unable to reclaim their bikes, after a bike garage was closed “with immediate effect” when cracks were found in the concrete.

A travel writer spends three days biking around the Japanese island of Kyushu, and calls it an incredible way to see it.

 

Competitive Cycling

Wout van Aert is back in the saddle and pedaling toward ‘cross season after his devastating crash.

Former pro Michael Rasmussen calls the signing of four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome “a fantastic pension plan” and “the worst signing in cycling history,” branding Froome a “half-time clown” after his “undignified, meager” season. Sure, but how does he really feel? 

A horrible solo crash on a steep descent outside of Boulder, Colorado put 1984 Tour de France Feminin winner Marianne Martin in the hospital suffering from a concussion and collapsed lung, with a clavicle fractured in two places, 12 broken ribs — some more than once — and road rash; a crowdfunding campaign has raised over $16,000 of the relatively modest $30,000 for her medical care.

The Belgian Waffle Ride announced a new “unroad” race in Montana for next year, as the California edition moves to Del Mar.

Polish track cyclist Mateusz Rudyk says nothing is impossible with diabetes after winning multiple individual medals at both the world and European championships, despite being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 12.

About damn time, part three. Women were finally allowed to backflip their way to equality with the men at this year’s Red Bull Rampage.

 

Finally…

Seriously, who’d want to be a nuclear engineer when you can build bespoke bikes? Repeat after me — when you’re a ex-con carrying illegal drugs, paraphernalia and a loaded stolen gun on your bike, maybe try not riding salmon and running stop signs.

And that feeling when a bike lane is accused of turning a roadway into an open-air gas chamber.

Nope, no bias there.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

A $7 million SD safety fail, U-T sharrows fail, and taking a pass on what passes for record CA traffic safety investment

October 3, 2024 / / Comments Off on A $7 million SD safety fail, U-T sharrows fail, and taking a pass on what passes for record CA traffic safety investment
Just 88 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

L’Shana Tova to everyone celebrating the new year today!

And apropos of nothing, I’m happy to report I wrote today’s entire post wearing a T-shirt with a bear riding a bicycle, as bears are wont to do. 

Just saying.

………

Call it a $7 million fail — one that ultimately cost the life of a San Diego bike rider.

That’s the amount the city paid out to the family of Marc Woolf, who died 17 months after he was struck by a pair of drivers and paralyzed from the next down, dying of sepsis 17 months later.

Woolf was on his way home from his job at the San Diego zoo in May, 2021 when a driver coming out of a blind driveway backed into him, knocking him onto the other side of the street, where he was hit again by second driver.

But instead of blaming the drivers, Woolf’s legal team accused the city of creating and maintaining poor road conditions.

According to San Diego CBS8, those conditions included —

  • Restricted site lines and distances caused by physical conditions
  • Insufficient red curb prohibiting parked cars
  • Overgrown vegetation
  • Confusing and misleading shared lane striping
  • An improperly maintained light fixture which was not functioning on the night of the incident

The station reports the city finally extended the red curb to improve sightlines along the corridor in response to the crash.

As usual, only acting after it was too late.

Now Wolff’s family is $7 million richer, and the city’s taxpayers are $7 million poorer.

But as his daughter notes, no amount of money can bring Wolff back, or ease the pain the new grandfather suffered for so many months.

Meanwhile, the Union-Tribune blamed sharrows in general for the crash.

The case highlights the potential dangers of “sharrows,” marked bike routes that require cars and bicycles to share portions of roadway instead of giving cyclists areas reserved only for them.

I’m no fan of sharrows, which studies have shown to be worse than nothing when it comes to protecting the safety of bike riders.

But that’s a discussion for another day.

The paper was clearly mistaken, at best, in blaming any and all sharrows for this particular crash, rather than the poorly designed and implemented sharrows on this one particular street.

I’ve heard that some San Diego bicyclists have called on the paper for a retraction.

And they may have a point this time.

………

California is making a record investment in traffic safety and enforcement as traffic deaths continue to rise, according to the Governor’s office.

The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) is awarding a record $149 million in federal funding for 497 grants that expand safe biking and walking options and provide critical education and enforcement programs that will make roads safer throughout the state. This is the third consecutive year of historic funding, exceeding last year’s amount by $21 million.

Yet that record spending to “expand safe biking and walking options” includes just $13 million for bicycle and pedestrian safety programs, up a modest 12% from the previous grant cycle.

Even though bicyclists and pedestrians account for most, if not all, of the recent increase in traffic deaths.

Meanwhile, a whopping $51 million will go to law enforcement agencies to conduct what’s described as “equitable enforcement targeting the most dangerous driving behaviors such as speeding, distracted and impaired driving, as well as support education programs focused on bicycle and pedestrian safety.”

In other words, more daylong — or usually, just a few hours — enforcement actions targeting violations that could put bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them.

Which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been proven to do a damn bit of good reducing deaths or serious injuries among either group.

So if that’s what passes for a record investment, I’ll pass.

………

Streets For All politely reminds Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass that Measure HLA applies to Metro projects in the City of Los Angeles, too.

Never mind that the city’s barely competent and very conservative City Attorney’s Office continues to drag its feet on crafting guidance for city departments regarding the measure, nearly seven months after it went into effect after passing overwhelmingly.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports that new bike lane mileage in Los Angeles fell to a five-year low for the most recent fiscal year, adding up to a massively underwhelming 22.5 lane-miles of new and improved bike facilities.

And remember, lane-miles means they count each side of the road separately, so we’re only talking a measly 11.25 miles of actual street.

Then there’s this.

While there is some year-to-year variation, and some lag time between project planning getting underway and on the ground upgrades, the first full fiscal year does not look like a promising start for Mayor Karen Bass. Bass has prioritized critical housing issues and not paid much attention to safer multimodal streets – at least not yet. FY2024 did see Mayor Karen Bass appoint Laura Rubio-Cornejo to head the city Transportation Department (LADOT). Rubio-Cornejo replaced interim GM Connie Llanos last September.

No shit.

If anyone has heard Bass even mention safer and/or multimodal streets, let me know. Because I sure as hell haven’t heard it.

Then again, the city’s freeze on resurfacing projects to avoid implementing HLA hasn’t helped.

And neither has Bass’ continued failure to meet with us.

………

Momentum wants to see your pics of bike lane fails, of which we should have more than a few.

https://twitter.com/MomentumMag/status/1841505396596342989

………

Presenting the cutest BMX balance bike stunt video you’ll see all day.

………

It’s now 288 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And an even 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, apparently tired of waiting, San Francisco will consider a proposal for their own yet-to-be defined ebike rebate program.

That deafening silence you hear is Los Angeles not considering one.

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

Apparently, elected office provides no protection from dangerous drivers, as an Ottawa, Canada city counselor captures a way-too-close punishment pass on his bike cam while riding past several parked cars.

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

Maybe something was lost in translation, as an Ottawa letter writer complains about the incivility of local bicyclists who “love listening to the music of the folk group With No Headphones,” while riding their bikes without a “ten dollar doorbell.”

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Local  

Looks like they slipped one past us this time, as a planned two-day closure last week for repairs on the Ballona Creek Bike Path only took one day, with the path reopening before some of us (i.e. me) knew it wasn’t.

Start times for the Long Beach Marathon have been moved up due to a high heat warning, with the bike tour now scheduled to start the same time as the runners at 5:30 am.

Speaking of Streets For All, the Los Angeles-area transportation PAC is hosting a fundraiser in Franklin Hills this Sunday afternoon.

 

State

The CHP has received a $1.55 million federal grant for year-long initiative focusing on “educating the public and enforcing traffic safety laws for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.” Maybe they could spend some of the money on educating their patrol officers a little better on bike law and how to investigate collisions involving bicyclists. 

San Diego was dubbed the greenest city in the US for the third year in a row; needless to say, Los Angeles wasn’t, coming in 18th.

San Diego pediatrician Dr. Mike Nelson dropped by a Claremont Mesa fire station to thank the first responders who saved his life when he crashed his bicycle on the way to an appointment a couple months back.

A San Francisco neighborhood is tearing itself apart fighting over a proposal to permanently close a highway to motor vehicles, even though it’s eroding into the ocean anyway.

 

National

Momentum offers ten “amazing coastal cities” in the US for bicycling; Santa Barbara is #9 on the list, while Huntington Beach is #2 — even though three people lost their lives riding in the city in just the last 12 months.

Bicyclists in the Pacific Northwest are challenging online marketplaces like OfferUp to do more to fight the reselling of stolen bikes on their platforms.

An editorial from a local Boston paper says bicycling isn’t safe in the city. Then again, the same could be said in virtually any city in the US. Los Angeles included. 

A proposed Pennsylvania law could authorize parking-protected bicycle lanes for the first time in the state.

Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport is encouraging travelers to skip the taxi and ride their bikes to the airport. Maybe LAX should be taking notes.

More proof bikes make the best emergency vehicles, as a North Carolina family grabbed their chainsaws and hopped on their bicycles to rescue the family’s 87-year old matriarch when they couldn’t contact her after Hurricane Helene.

 

International

Bike Radar considers why mixed-terrain ultra-distance cycling events are rising in popularity.

Residents of a British Columbia city aren’t sold on plans for a new bike path if it means chopping down a tree.

London bicyclists will soon be shuttled through a new motor vehicle-only tunnel under the Thames on special double-decker buses.

The rich get richer, as London bicyclists will soon get a £4 million — $5.3 million — bike route through the heart of the city.

There won’t be any more changes to the UK’s infamous “optical illusion” bike lane, even though it’s led to more than 100 trip and fall injuries. Sounds like they need better injury attorneys over there. 

 

Competitive Cycling

That’s Sir Mark Cavendish to you, as the Manx Missile gets knighted at Windsor Castle. Unless you’d rather call him the new High Performance Ambassador for Aston Martin.

Cyclinguptodate compares UCI to the Mafia for the way they managed the recent Zurich world championships, arguing that the organization implements rules, then neither complies with or implements them.

Rouleur considers the recent rise of WorldTour mega-contracts.

 

Finally…

Maybe your new wireless shifters can be hack-proof, after all. Now you, too, can trade your ten gallon hat for a helmet and bike through LBJ’s Texas ranch.

And maybe you were a bicycling British soldier in a past life, bad teeth be damned.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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