Tag Archive for Karen Bass

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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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?”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 / / No comments
Just 88 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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

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

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

May 8, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 237 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’re up to 1,131 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us! 

………

Happy National Bike & Roll to School Day!

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

………

They get it.

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

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

You can guess how that worked out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

………

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

………

It’s now 140 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

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

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

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

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

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

………

Local 

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

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

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

 

State

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

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

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

 

National

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

International

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

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

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

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

 

Competitive Cycling

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

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

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

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

 

Finally…

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

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

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Bass visits bike-friendly Paris, gets $900m for LA transportation; living in a state of happiness; and just another Florida oopsie

March 13, 2024 / / One comment
Just 293 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,013 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!

Photo by Matteus Silva for Pexels. 

………

Fifteen years ago, then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had his eyes opened when he visited Copenhagen, and saw how cities can thrive when they provide safe alternatives to driving.

Let’s hope current Mayor Karen Bass gets the same message on her pre-Olympic excursion to Paris, where Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been removing highways and building bike lanes to create a 15-minute city.

Bass will have plenty of money to spend on it, after the city secured nearly $900 million in federal funding for transportation and infrastructure projects ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Although more than $700 million of that will go to rail projects.

But still. The other $200 million could go a long way towards fixing what ails LA.

………

It’s now 84 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 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. A London media personality questions who is at fault in a five-year old crash where a driver cut a corner and hit a bike rider waiting to turn head on — making who was really at fault glaringly obvious.

https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1766515138654306533

Police in Mumbai, India denied permission for bicycling groups to gather for a silent protest to draw attention to unsafe road conditions for bike riders and pedestrians, despite planning the rally for a spot designated for protests.

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

Authorities in Dublin, Ireland are looking for video evidence after a middle-aged woman was pushed off her bicycle by a “group of lads on bikes,” for no apparent reason.

………

Local 

The two leaders of the nation’s largest homeless rescue mission, Hope the Mission in North Hills, are on their way to DC on a 3,500-mile bike ride to advocate for homelessness programs.

Good news for Pasadena, where bike-friendly former city mayor, Los Angeles assistant mayor and Santa Monica city manager Rick Cole has been re-elected to the Pasadena city council, receiving just over 60% of the vote.

Speaking of Pasadena, the city’s police will conduct a bicycle and pedestrian safety operation on Friday, ticketing anyone who commits a traffic violation that could endanger either group, regardless of who commits it; Santa Monica cops will also hold one on Thursday and Friday. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets written up and fined.

Streetsblog talks with South Bay-based writer Peter Flax, whose new book, Live to Ride: Finding Joy and Meaning on a Bicycle, offers a broad look at bike riding, with a common theme that bicyclists have to work together because strength comes from unity. And yes, I’ve ordered my copy.

 

State

This is who we share the road with. An unlicensed driver with four previous DUIs over the past decade hit and killed a pedestrian in Orange Tuesday morning, and was arrested after fleeing the scene and leading police on a short chase. And yes, he showed signs of intoxication as he was taken into custody. Which is what happens when authorities take someone’s license away, but let them keep their keys.

Caltrans will provide millions of dollars for a pilot program to build parks, bike lanes and other amenities to reconnect communities in southeastern San Diego and National City that were divided by the 805 Freeway; the program will also seek to reconnect similarly divided communities in Arcata and San Francisco.

A man suffered major injuries when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike in Palm Desert last night.

 

National

That’s more like it. An Oregon man got 12 years behind bars for killing a woman biking with two friends while under the influence, and in possession of controlled substances. Although it’s shameful that it took seven years for the victim to get justice. 

The horrific story of the Washington mountain biker attacked by a mountain lion gets even worse, with news that the 60-year old woman’s entire head was in the cougar’s mouth for a full 15 minutes before her companions managed to pin it down with a bike frame; a crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $75,000 for the victim.

They get it. The Baltimore Sun, which was recently purchased by the owner of a conservative media group, asks why bike lanes won’t work there, if they’re so successful in Cambridge, Massachusetts, even though the Baltimore bike plan has recently come under from residents and city leaders.

In news that will undoubtedly confound California officials, the District of Columbia will somehow managed to launch their new ebike voucher program next month, just seven months after it was approved by the city council. Which is 26 months less than California’s moribund program’s failure to launch has taken — and counting.

 

International

Momentum offers 33 reasons to start bike commuting this spring, ranging from reducing your carbon footprint to getting some alone time while connecting to your community. Although they forgot to mention that it’s a lot more fun than driving, too. 

British Columbia will invest $50 million in active transportation projects over the next three years.

He gets it. A Toronto columnist questions why the city is cutting funding for safe streets, when it just experienced the deadliest month for bike riders and pedestrians since the heady days before the pandemic.

The Dutch Cycling Embassy explains how fire trucks and bike lanes can peacefully co-exist, despite the largely debunked belief that they slow response times and limit the ability to respond to emergencies.

An Austrian tech company is training AI to enable smart bicycles to analyze their surroundings. On the other hand, would you want to trust your safety to a technology that draws people with three legs, and gets lawyers sanctioned by making up legal precedents?

Dubai opened two new separated cycle tracks in the residential communities of Al Khawaneej and Mushrif, part of the emirate’s goal of building 1,000 km — 621 miles — of bike paths by 2030.

Here’s your chance to mountain bike the Serengeti this fall, while you help fight poaching.

Bike Radar highlights eight weird and wonderful road, gravel and urban bikes from the Taipei Cycle Show.

Police in Australia are revisiting the seven-year old cold case shooting of a 72-year old man, who was shot multiple times in the head and chest by a man who got out of a parked car to fire at him as he rode his motorized bicycle on a rail trail; he somehow survived, but even a half-million dollar reward hasn’t been enough to solve the case.

An Aussie professor says subsidizing micromobility-share programs can benefit people on low incomes or with disabilities.

 

Competitive Cycling

Pro cycling gets its kicks from caffeine.

Ghana’s Sports Minister blamed the country’s Cycling Federation for the national team’s equipment fiasco at the Africa Games, as cyclists were forced to compete using the same worn gear they’d been training on.

Triple world champion Ellen van Dijk won the time trial in the final stage of Spain’s Vuelta Extremadura Féminas on Sunday, just five months after giving birth, while Dutch cyclist Mareille Meijering took the general classification for the three stage race; no American finished in the top 25.

 

Finally…

That feeling when they build a new separated bikeway, and leave a lamppost in the middle of it. Or when you get a call from your dead friend’s phone asking for his bicycle back.

And a snow covered reminder of why we ride in California.

………

Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today. 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Bloated CAO cost estimate weighs down Measure HLA, and draconian ebike regs threaten drag on micromobility

February 20, 2024 / / Comments Off on Bloated CAO cost estimate weighs down Measure HLA, and draconian ebike regs threaten drag on micromobility
Just 315 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can. Just 42 signatures to go to reach 1,000!

………

Measure HLA continues to lead the news, and appears to be the hottest issue on next month’s ballot for Los Angeles.

The ballot proposal, which does nothing more than require Los Angeles officials to keep their official commitments to the bicycling, walking and transit communities, would require the city to build out the already approved Mobility Plan 2035 whenever a street in the plan gets resurfaced.

Despite being passed nine years ago with the overwhelming support of the city council, just five percent of the plan has been built in the years since — meaning an overwhelming 95% of the plan remains vaporware, with just eleven years remaining before it’s supposed to be completed.

Although implementing the plan this way, as streets are resurfaced, will take considerably longer.

Then again, we were told within weeks of its passage that the plan is just “aspirational,” anyway.

The Los Angeles Public Press describes it this way.

Measure HLA, also known as Healthy Streets LA, would require the city to implement Mobility Plan 2035 every time it repaves 1/8 mile of street or repairs 1/8 mile of sidewalk. If it fails to do so, any resident of the city of LA can sue to force compliance.

If passed, the measure could change how the city designs and builds transportation infrastructure. But it could also change the city’s identity as a sprawling metropolis built for cars — where everybody drives and nobody walks, bikes, or takes the bus unless they have to.

Last week, the city tried to sandbag the ballot measure with an astounding estimate of up to $3.1 billion — yes, with a B — to fully implement the measure.

But among the financial tricks they used to inflate the cost was rolling the full amount of street repaving, sidewalk repairs and other costs into the measure, which the city will be obligated to spend whether or not it passes. Along with shoehorning the full cost of the measure into an artificial ten year horizon, raising the projected annual costs to ridiculously high figures.

This is how Streetsblog’s Joe Linton described the report from City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, which he accurately described as “scaremongering bullshit.”

In November, the CAO had forecast bike lanes to cost L.A. $350,000 per mile.

That was roughly double current city costs. L.A. Department of Transportation’s higher quality facilities (for example parking-protected facilities like San Vicente Boulevard) cost just under $200,000 per mile.

Today, the CAO upped its bike lane figure to $1.76 million per mile. I had to look at that number several times – not a typo: $1.76 million per mile of bike lane. Really.

The CAO bike lane cost today is about nine times what LADOT currently spends for a mile of its best bike lanes. And the CAO applies this cost to the Mobility Plan’s protected and unprotected bike lanes.

Other outlets picked up the misleading $3.1 billion estimate, while lacking the context or willingness to put it in perspective.

However, other sources focused on the powerful pro-HLA billboard that says more pedestrians have been killed on LA’s Vermont Blvd than in the state of Vermont.

CityWatch’s self-appointed urban planning expert, who somehow seems to think his expertise as a dermatologist gives him unique insights into the field, says he’s a big hell no on HLA, arguing that it’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing for road diets and transit-friendly housing, while complaining about “councilmembers and paid mercenaries parade around promoting ‘Healthy Streets’ that empower developer and other monied interests.”

Although I suspect many of the people working to pass HLA would love to paid for the countless hours of volunteer time they’re putting in on the campaign.

Former councilmember and retired LAPD supervisor Dennis Zine is also a no on HLA, arguing that it will “further reduce vehicle traffic lanes and cause additional gridlock on roads that are already over capacity,” even though the Department of Transportation says it ain’t necessarily so.

Also writing for CityWatch, civic activist Tim Deegan makes the bizarre argument that HLA will empower progressives, as if no conservatives ever walk, bike or use transit, and hurt the homeless in some unspecified way, as if they somehow won’t benefit from safer streets.

But at least one writer for CityWatch takes the time to consider both sides, while appearing to come down on neither.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports Mayor Bass is standing on the sidelines by refusing to take a stand on HLA.

But at least that’s better than stabbing us in the back like she did with her flip flop on a proposal to merely study the practicality and support for removing the useless Marina Freeway, and replace it with housing and a massive park.

According to the Times, supporters include city councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Eunisses Hernandez, Heather Hutt, Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martínez and Katy Yaroslavsky, along with City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Tim McOsker, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez are opposed, though only Park is actively campaigning against it.

And neither Bass nor Council President Paul Krekorian have voiced support for either side.

Finally, the Daily Breeze and other SoCal News Group papers appear to oppose the measure. But since the story is hidden behind their draconian paywall, we may never know.

………

The other topic gaining a lot of traction over the weekend was the effort by some legislators to reign in the booming popularity of ebikes.

A New Jersey state senate committee approved a bill that would require insurance and registration for ebikes and their riders, while admitting the bill is flawed in its present form, but insisting someone else will fix it.

A writer for CleanTechnica says New Jersey would be foolish to require ebike insurance and registration, which threatens to put the brakes on micromobility through over-regulation.

Advocacy groups say it would harm working-class residents while requiring a form of insurance that doesn’t yet exist.

Meanwhile, Key Biscayne, Florida responded to the death of an elderly woman who was struck by a teenaged ebike rider while riding her bike by approving a temporary ban on all ebikes and e-scooters.

Which is kind of like banning all cars because a single driver is accused of causing a crash, even though they may not have been at fault.

Okay, it’s exactly like it.

Yet everyone appeared to comply with the ban, as police didn’t ticket anyone for breaking it over the weekend. Although I’m very surprised no one violated the ban to challenge it in court.

GCN considers what seems to be lost in all the other arguments, with advice for beginners on how to stay safe riding an ebike.

………

On the same subject, longtime Orange County bike advocate Bill Sellin forwards the following comments from ebike instructor, presenter, author & consultant Clinton Sandusky, with his permission. 

As promised, here are my personal thoughts/bullet points (not representing any organizations I am a part of) on this proposed (Bill Text – AB-2234 Vehicles: electric bicycles. (ca.gov)) by Assemblymember Boerner:
First, I certainly appreciate Assemblymember Boerner’s efforts now and in the past in trying to make riding conventional and electric bicycles a more safe and enjoyable experience here in California! I believe this bill in its current form is highly flawed, will not have the results hoped for, and therefore should not proceed forward for the following reasons:
  • It would make significant changes to existing laws (some of which have been in effect since 2016) way too fast. A more reasonable first step in addressing electric bicycle safety would be the passage of Bill Text – AB-1778 Vehicles: electric bicycles. (ca.gov) — which would raise the minimum age to operate a Class 2 electric bicycle to 16 and require the wearing of a helmet for all persons.  Of course, adherence and enforcement even to this other proposed bill would be a challenge.
  • I have a big concern with the educational component of this bill! Making education mandatory, especially for persons who do not possess a valid driver’s license, poses many problems. 1. How effectively would it be adhered to and/or enforced? 2. The current CHP online course only provides knowledge-based learning vs. more important and needed skills-based (on-bike) learning.  3. We need to take a page from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) from decades ago and first look at and highly promote voluntary education and training.  Adult to youth riders MUST be exposed to a variety of relevant, quality and effective online and in-person bicycle safety and training programs provided by recognized statewide and national organizations.  4. What would the financial burden be to bicyclists taking a course of their choice, whether a no cost or cost-based course?  Will there be provided state or local governmental vouchers?
  • My final concern is a Constitutional one. In California, all classes of electric bicycles are currently defined as a “bicycle” Law section (ca.gov) and a bicycle is defined as a “device” Law section (ca.gov) — not a “vehicle” Law section (ca.gov). Therefore, bicycling (including riding electric bicycles) in California is a right, not a privilege (like for drivers of vehicles) and must not require a valid driver’s license or issued “skills wavier” to operate.  A skills wavier would also be a logistical nightmare to administer, more appropriately by the DMV and not the CHP.

………

Sean Price forwards the following warning for bike riders on PCH. My apologies if it’s hard to read; making it big enough to see seems to blur the content.

………

Writing for the New York Times, author Caroline Paul describes what happened when her mother changed her life by taking up bicycling in her 60s.

Besides being trash-talked on a bike ride with her own mom, that is.

Turns out, my mother’s cycling habit meant that she was checking many of the boxes — health, novelty, community and purpose — needed to age well. (For others, this might come in the form of a language class, a book club, a commitment to mastering a plank.) Yet when my mother went biking, there was something more: She was embracing attributes like exhilaration, exploration, awe, a little bit of recklessness. This provided the final pillar for healthy and fulfilling aging: Dr. Levy’s positive mind-set.

But how? My mom didn’t live in a bubble; she had not escaped subliminal toxic messaging. It was the bicycling, with its demands for physical vitality, the uncertainty of every ride, the grit on the uphill, the inherent wheeeeee aspect of fun on the downhill — all powerful proof of that messaging’s mendacity. As her own beliefs were being subverted, her biking adventures also drew surprised and admiring reactions from peers and from those much younger (like her own children). Wow! Badass! was the elated response, which boosted her own passion for the sport, and her life. (Another thing not expected of older women: passion.)

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

………

It’s now 61 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 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.

Bike riders are forced to dodge a series of curb stones randomly littering a Glasgow, Scotland bike lane for the past month, which are virtually impossible to see after dark.

A whopping eight men in their 20s, 30s and 40s have been arrested in the murder of a British bike rider, who police allege was intentionally run down by the 24-year old driver; the others face charges for assisting in the coverup.

A motorbike rider in the UK is “terrorizing” bicyclists by riding on local bike paths.

A Yorkshire, England cab driver got out of his vehicle to confront a bicyclist in the video below, squaring up to exchange punches before slamming the bike rider against a car.

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

An ebike rider in New South Wales was fined a total of nearly $1,500 for violating the Australian state’s strict ebike rules for operating an unregistered and uninsured motor vehicle, presumably by violating power and/or speed limitations. Meanwhile, a woman was fined a total of more than $2,500 for violating the same restrictions while riding with her child.

………

Local 

The Los Angeles city council voted to instruct city workers to look for ways to close the $100 million funding gap to close remaining gaps in the LA River bike path.

After West Hollywood gave away 50 free bicycles to encourage residents to get around without a vehicle, recipients rode an average of nearly 30 miles a month in a mix of recreation, transportation and commuting. Yet surprisingly, only 20% thought WeHo needs more bike lanes.

Long Beach continues its struggle to meet Vision Zero goals, despite a significant drop in traffic deaths last year.

 

State

Goleta proposes transferring funds promised for a new car, bike and pedestrian bridge to building roundabouts in the Old Town area, after price estimates for the bridge soar to $275 million.

San Francisco is setting new storage and charging rules for lithium-ion ebike and scooter batteries in an effort to reduce fires.

San Francisco will consider design changes to the controversial Valencia Street centerline bike lane, despite a new report indicating it has met the goal of improving safety.

 

National

A writer for CNET says her Apple Watch, combined with an iPhone, changed the way she rides a bike, eliminating the need for a separate bicycling computer.

He gets it. A Seattle writer says if he paid attention to drivers the way they pay attention to him while walking or biking, he’d be dead by now.

Once again, a group of bicyclists were heroes when four Washington state bike riders successfully fought off a mountain lion that attacked a woman riding with their group, subduing the puma by pinning it under a mountain bike frame; the victim was hospitalized with injuries to her face, neck and jaw, but is expected to survive.

A Las Vegas driver learns the hard way that if you’re going to flee the scene after killing a bike rider, take your damn bumper with you. And don’t tell your wife.

In yet another example of keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late, a Florida woman blamed her drug addiction after she was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, with another 15 years probation, for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle; she was somehow still driving, despite 11 previous felony convictions.

Florida investigators concluded the woman who plowed her car into nine bicyclists on a group ride last month suffered an apparent medical issue — then appeared to refute their own conclusion by ticketing her for failing to drive in a single lane, unknowingly operating a vehicle while license was suspended, revoked, canceled or disqualified, and failure to provide proof of insurance; one victim remains hospitalized with significant brain trauma. Although how it’s possible to not know if you have a valid license, or to be held responsible if you’re having a medical problem, is beyond me.

 

International

Condé Nast Traveler recommends the world’s 19 most scenic bike paths, ranging from the British countryside to breathtaking views of Mount Everest.

It took London police less than 24 hours to infiltrate a bike theft ring using a bait bike, jailing ten people and recovering 60 stolen bikes worth the equivalent of $167,000.

Actor Matthew Broderick is one of us, taking a break from performing Plaza Suite with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker, with a casual bikeshare ride through the streets of London.

English police recommend registering your bike, after someone got their stolen Cannondale road bike back four years after it was stolen. You can do that for free right here with Bike Index. 

Just days after a new study suggested turbans worn by Sikh bicyclists can be nearly as effective as bike helmets in preventing injuries, an English man said his turban protected his head when he came off his bike on a wet road and slid underneath an oncoming car.

A pair of bike riders in the UK were also heroes, as authorities look for a couple who paused their bike ride in a valiant, but unsuccessful, attempt to save the life of a 25-year old man they found lying unconscious near a cycle track.

An Irish bike club suffered its second tragic loss in less than a year, when an amateur cyclist and father was killed by a Dublin, Ireland driver.

Velo describes Kortrijk, Belgium’s annual Velofollies bike expo as the best kept secret in bike shows, offering a surprising array of commuting, cargo and urban bikes.

A Sri Lankan company introduced an innovative ebike-based “Eco Hauler,” which is really just a cart towed by an ebike. But still.

An Aussie bike rider politely tells drivers to use their damn turn signals, already.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Vuelta a Andalucía “Ruta del Sol” was shortened from five days to just three due to farmer protests in the area.

A Dublin writer decries traditional gender roles and stereotypes that have limited the participation of women in cycling.

Tragic news from South Africa, where talented teenaged cyclist and national U19 time trial champ Jessie Munton has spent the last month fighting for her life in the ICU, remaining in a coma since she was struck by a driver on a January training ride.

Velo looks back at former Tour de France champ Stephen Roche, saying he was more popular than the pope, JFK or any other celebrity — in Ireland, anyway.

Always wait until you cross the damn finish line to celebrate your victory.

 

Finally…

Riding around the world without leaving the comfort of your home. Get your toddler the latest in e-balance bike technology. Bike riding on Mars means less air, but fewer drivers.

And we now have a new world record holder for the tallest tall bike.

Although the LA-based builder of former record holder StoopidTaller Bike didn’t need no safety rope.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Cops look for hit-and-run driver — and bicyclist, Boerner set to unveil ebike bill for kids, and demand safer streets now

February 7, 2024 / / 5 comments
Just 328 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand LA Mayor Karen Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can. We’re nearly up to 900 signatures, so let’s try to get it up over 1,000 this week!

………

My apologies, once again, for yesterday’s unexcused absence.

Let’s just say diabetes sucks, and get on with it. 

………

Authorities in LA County are investigating a pair of hit-and-runs. Although only one of the suspects was actually in a motor vehicle.

First up is a late January crash in Long Beach that left a bike rider with serious, but non-life threatening injuries.

The victim was riding with a group of bicyclists traveling west on Fourth Street at Atlantic Ave around 9:50 pm on Thursday, January 25th, when he was struck by driver headed south on Atlantic, who fled without stopping.

Police are looking for the driver of a silver Nissan sedan with chrome rims. Anyone with further information is urged to contact Long Beach Police investigators at 562/570-7355.

Photo from Long Beach Police Department

That was followed by the hunt for a hit-and-run bike rider who left an elderly woman lying severely injured in a Sierra Madre street.

The woman was walking near North Baldwin Ave and Highland Ave around 10 am this past Saturday when she was struck by the bike rider, who also continued without stopping.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact Detective Ascano at 626/355-1414, or nascano@cityofsierramadre.com.

And yes, bicyclists have the same obligation to stop after a crash that drivers do, and could face the same penalties if they don’t.

Photo from Sierra Madre police department

………

It looks like Encinitas Assemblymember Tasha Boerner is ready to introduce her promised ebike bill, which will require anyone without a driver’s license to pass an online ebike safety training course before they can buy an ebike in California.

The bill appears to be directed towards children, though it could apply to adults without a license, as well.

It also prohibits any child under 12 from riding any class of ebike, and establishes diversion programs as an alternative to ticketing children, which is already allowed under current bicycle regulations.

Personally, I’d prefer to see that ban raised to 14 years old, and reclassify throttle-controlled ebikes as mo-peds, requiring a driver’s license to operate, and prohibited from being used in bike lanes or pathways of any sort.

I also hope the bill clarifies that the license requirement does not apply to anyone over the age of 18.

And it raises the question of what happens when a parent with a driver’s license buys an ebike for a child without one. Would the parent be prohibited from being able to buy an ebike for their own child?

But we’ll see what ends up in the actual text.

Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the heads-up. 

………

As the previous tweet hinted at, Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, says you have the chance tomorrow to tell Mayor Bass that we need safer streets.

Mayor Bass wants to hear from us!

The UCLA Bunche Center is conducting a series of Community Listening Sessions, as a part of a City of Los Angeles Community Safety Research Study. The study’s goal is to identify and document a broad and representative understanding of the perceptions and realities of public safety (and of its management) of residents in the City of Los Angeles.

Join the discussion and raise your voice about important safety issues in your neighborhood. Please include the need for safety on our streets for cyclists, pedestrians, and all users. With 336 deaths on LA City roads last year, this is a vital safety concern. 

Join this community listening session, and let Mayor Bass know that you want safer streets.

Virtual Community Listening Session
February 8, 2024
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Click Here to Register

………

Streets For All — not to be confused with SAFE — has updated their voter guide for next month’s election, with endorsements for six of the seven LA council races, as well as council races in Glendale and Pasadena.

Meanwhile, Boyle Heights Beat is hosting a candidate forum for CD 14 this Saturday.

Personally, though, I’m still struggling to decide between state Assemblymember Laura Friedman and state Senator Anthony Portantino for my next Congress member, either of whom would provide a strong, bike-friendly voice for traffic safety in DC.

I only wish they weren’t running in the same district, because both deserve to win.

………

Velo marks Black History Month with a trio of articles recounting Black bicyclists from the early days of bicycling.

First up is what they call the little-known story of the US Army’s all-Black Bicycle Corps. Which isn’t so little known anymore, after several historical articles over the past couple years.

Then there’s 1890s Black cyclist Woody Hedspath, who they refer to as Major Taylor Number Two, honing his skills in summertime “colored fairs” during the Jim Crow era before moving on to greater accomplishments.

Finally, they write about Kittie Knox, the young Boston woman who broke racial and gender barriers in the 1890s, becoming the first Black woman to join the League of American Wheelmen, the forerunner to today’s League of American Bicyclists, or Bike League, before they changed the rules to exclude people of color.

………

The Bambino was one of us.

………

Someone finally found a good use for a Tesla pickup.

………

It’s now 48 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 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. After British tabloids attack a Birmingham bike lane as a 10 million pound “waste of money” that “no one uses,” a local paper finds it’s actually one of the most popular bikeways in the city.

Ireland’s Green Party called the Sinn Féin party’s objections to a protected bike lane “populist, anti-cycling, anti-road safety, anti-climate action bolloxology.” Although I kinda suspect they made that last word up.

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

A Portland, Oregon letter writer who seems to have an overly high opinion of his fearlessness and bike riding abilities says the city shouldn’t invest in more bike lanes or public transit until they clean them up and more people use them

Police in Mobile, Alabama busted a man riding a bicycle on multiple drug charges after searching him following a short pursuit, begun because he was exhibiting “suspicious behavior.” Let’s hope he can afford a good lawyer, because “suspicious behavior” is entirely subjective, and not probable cause to make a stop.

………

Local 

The Eastsider reports that Bike LA, the former Los Angele County Bicycle Coalition, has been awarded a $100,000 grant to “evaluate transportation gaps and identify the mobility challenges, needs, preferences, and priorities of Boyle Heights and East LA residents,” one of 12 similar grants across the state. Let’s hope that’s enough to sustain the organization, which has struggled financially in recent years, but offers a much-needed voice for bicyclists in the LA area.

The Los Angeles Times explains daylighting, and why you’ll now need to park further back from an intersection to avoid a ticket.

Santa Monica police will be conducting yet another bike and pedestrian safety operation tomorrow, ticketing any violation that could put either group at risk, regardless of who commits it. So ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets written up.

Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC is hosting a bike ride and fundraiser in Mar Vista this Saturday. Saturday is also the Lunar New Year, so there could be some major dragon energy there.

The Alhambra and South Pasadena bike ride hosted by Safe Streets for SGV and South Pas Active that was scrubbed because of rain last weekend has been rescheduled for this Sunday, when the weather looks more promising. And should give you time to get back home in time for that big sportsball thing.

 

State

Good question. The Los Angeles Times asks why the state is widening the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County, in conflict with the state’s climate goals, which are supposed to be given priority but clearly aren’t. Meanwhile, a new nationwide coalition is calling for a halt to freeway expansion, arguing that “Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis.”

A San Francisco bike rider was lucky to escape with non-life threatening injuries when he was struck by a Waymo driverless car, which evidently couldn’t spot him following a truck through an intersection. They’re called Waymo because they’re probably way mo’ dangerous than most cars with drivers.

San Francisco banned the use or sale of damaged or recycled ebike and e-scooter batteries, along with limiting how many can be stored in a single home.

 

National

Momentum offers more on the groundbreaking new study that shows cities with high levels of bicycling are usually safer for all road users — and by extension, cities that are safer for bicyclists usually have high levels of bicycling.

NPR considers what Vision Zero has and hasn’t accomplished in American cities. The only thing it’s really accomplished in Los Angeles is making traffic violence part of the conversation, without actually doing anything about it.

Cyclist calls Moab, Utah a gravel cycling mecca like nowhere else on Earth.

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld a $2,400 restitution judgement against a bike thief for damaging the victim’s car, after the bike’s owner used it to give chase and cut in front of the thief to stop him as he made his getaway.

A Rhode Island man is suing Trek and Shimano for $2 million, alleging his bike’s brake lever impaled his thigh in a crash due to faulty design.

A New Jersey man was killed when a state trooper driving an unmarked SUV crashed into his bike; no word on whether the trooper was on duty at the time.

A 72-year old Florida woman was killed when her bicycle was rear-ended by a 92-year old woman driving a truck. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive safely. 

 

International

GCN offers five reasons ebikes are better than regular bikes, along with five reasons they’re better than cars.

Momentum recounts the wildest bike lane obstacles, from fat, indecisive squirrels to discarded e-scooters and banana peels.

An English research fellow writes that ebikes offer huge promise for sustainable transport in rural tourist areas.

Bicycling says Paris is now a bicyclist’s paradise after closing 100 streets to cars. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.

A writer for Men’s Journal explains why he’s stoked to ride his bike across Morocco. Which should go without saying, because Morocco.

 

Competitive Cycling

Velo writes about Eritrean WorldTour rookie Henok Mulubrhan, who they refer to as the “new hot prospect” already making waves as an African phenom on a mission.

British Cycling, the governing group for nearly all bicycling in the UK, will take over operations of the annual Tour of Britain, which was at risk of folding after the previous organizer shut down.

 

Finally…

Your next pair of Reebok’s could be an ebike and an e-scooter.

And the 2026 Wold Cup final will take place in a stadium where it’s literally illegal to walk; thanks to Steven Hallett for the link.

https://twitter.com/nikicaga/status/1754270927339020360

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

New petition demands public traffic safety meeting with LA Mayor Bass, and new Calbike ED takes Caltrans to task

December 13, 2023 / / Comments Off on New petition demands public traffic safety meeting with LA Mayor Bass, and new Calbike ED takes Caltrans to task

Just 11 days left to support the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Beverly F, Ken F, Michael W and Todd T for their generous support to keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

And a special thanks to Donna S for her attempt to donate, which was thwarted by international banking hiccups. 

Take a moment right now to join them to keep up the fight, and bring all the latest bike news coming to your favorite screen each morning. 

So don’t wait. Give now!

………

Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program as promised this fall: 8

………

I did a thing.

Like you, I’m fed up with the traffic violence on our streets, and mad as hell about how little is being done to to improve safety for those of us who aren’t safely ensconced behind a couple tons of glass and steel.

Let alone building a climate-friendly transportation system that’s not firmly routed in the last century.

So I created a petition demanding a public audience with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, similar to the bike summit held by former Mayor Villaraigosa over a dozen years ago.

I hope you’ll sign it.

And help support it, spreading the link far and wide — because if it relies on me alone, it will fail.

Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a public forum to listen to complaints from bike riders and pedestrians about the dangers we face on city streets. He heard us, and took action.

But since then, we’ve been ignored. Mayor Eric Garcetti introduced a number of traffic safety initiatives, but failed to follow through on any of them, and failed to listen to us or meet with us a single time. Now new Mayor Karen Bass has continued to ignore the dangers on our streets.

We’ve given her a full year to focus on homelessness, and housing unhoused Angelenos. Now it’s time to walk and chew gum at the same time, and refocus at least some of her attention on the ongoing carnage on our streets, as bike and pedestrian deaths climb to near record levels.

We demand another public forum with the mayor in attendance, to listen to our complaints about the dangers on our streets, and the urgent need to re-imagine how we all get around in Los Angeles.

Go ahead and sign it now. We’ll wait.

………

She gets it.

Kendra Ramsey, the new Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition calls on Caltrans to change its ways, because California will never be the climate leader it professes to be until the state stops building freeways.

And yes, that includes highway widening and building new interchanges, too.

While Caltrans spends billions each year repairing and mitigating the damage done by extreme weather caused by climate change, it continues to create the conditions for more harmful emissions. A planned freeway expansion in Yolo County, between Sacramento and Davis, may involve improper environmental review and misuse of state roadway repair funds. The controversy led to the firing of Caltrans deputy director for planning and modal programs Jeanie Ward-Waller, who planned to blow the whistle on the alleged malfeasance…

Caltrans should be inducing demand for active transportation by building protected bikeways with protected intersections that connect to robust local and regional networks of safe bike routes. It should be adding bus-only lanes and bus boarding islands, widening sidewalks, and improving conditions for people who walk or take transit…

It’s a quick and easy read.

And more than worth the click to read the whole thing.

………

That’s more like it.

The stoned driver convicted of killing two Michigan men participating in a multi-day Make-A-Wish fundraising bike ride will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars, after she was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 35 to 60 years in prison.

Which means she’ll serve at least 70 years, with a maximum sentence of 120 years.

So if she does the max, she’ll be 164 when she finally gets out.

………

And on a lighter note…

………

‘Tis the season.

San Diego’s Mike’s Bikes, founded by a retired city employee, gives away about 300 bikes, scooters and skateboards each holiday season.

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office gave away over 500 refurbished bicycles to local kids for the holidays. Although to be fair, the inmates at the county Honor Farm did most of the work.

A Baptist church hosted a bike exchange on the Navajo Nation, donating refurbished bicycles to kids who pledged to do good deeds or community service.

A Michigan nonprofit says they take bike-shaped rubble and refurbish it into rideable bicycles, donating 500 bikes to people in need this year.

And enough with the gift guides for bicyclists. Road.cc offers a guide for what not to buy for the bike rider in your life to avoid a festive faux pas.

………

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

No bias here. After San Diego adopted a new Complete Streets policy, the San Diego Reader said “bike lane totalitarians” objected to the numerous exemptions.

No bias here, either. After a British bike rider was mugged, hit in the head with a hammer and had his bicycle stolen while riding on a canal path, the cops just told him to maybe ride somewhere else in the future.

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

You’ve got to be kidding. After a Mississippi drunk driver was arrested for killing a man riding a bicycle, the local cops still blamed the victim for riding on a dark highway without lights, while praising the driver for doing the right thing by stopping and calling for help.

………

………

Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits nearly-finished bike infrastructure in Little Tokyo, El Monte and Vincent, including the long-promised Alameda Esplanade.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Turns out ebikes offer less range in cold weather.

Bicycling lists a number of bicycles and ebike discounted on pre-holiday sales, including the REI cargo bike CNN rated as the best overall ebike. This one doesn’t appear to be hidden behind the magazine’s paywall, so click away.

Mountain bikemaker Kona is having a BOGO sale on one of its bikes, too.

Major League Baseball recommends taking a leisurely bike ride or walk to visit minor league ballparks across the US.

The rich get richer. My Platinum-Level Bicycle Friendly Colorado hometown is getting a nearly $1 million federal grant to “find ways to maximize safety and comfort for local cyclists.” We could all use that.

 

International

Momentum recommends the best hybrid bikes for all-season bike commuting.

Canadian Cycling Magazine recommends five new tech tools to help keep your bike safe, including a power meter that incorporates Apple’s Find My technology.

The Ethical Choice asks if Brits should be paid to bike to work. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, yes, and over here in the US, too. 

Novel AI tools developed by a Zurich firm are helping to develop safer bike helmets and better shoe soles by bypassing “the time-consuming and intuition-based design process of metamaterials.” Let’s just hope they work better than most AI chatbots.

You can now get bicycles made by the world’s largest bikemaker, India’s Hero Cycles, at your friendly neighborhood Walmart.

 

Competitive Cycling

The former head of the Movistar cycling team explains why he gave Colombian pro Nairo Quintana a second chance, saying pro cycling wasn’t fair in banning him for testing positive for the narcotic painkiller Tramadol, which won’t be banned until next year.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can own Tadej Pogacar’s very own time trial bike — although it still won’t make you as fast as he is. That feeling when you’re an award-winning actor and a bicycle crash first responder, too.

And a British Columbia teenager made his own “feature length” bike film — if you consider a hair under 30 minutes feature length.

But still.

………

………

Chag sameach!

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

LA Mayor Bass caves to Freeway to Nowhere NIMBYs, and new fed bill aims to protect vulnerable road users

November 2, 2023 / / Comments Off on LA Mayor Bass caves to Freeway to Nowhere NIMBYs, and new fed bill aims to protect vulnerable road users

She gets it.

Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith asks why the city won’t even study removing the 90 Freeway stub to nowhere, after the mayor and other local officials caved to LA’s notorious NIMBYs.

Mayor Bass had initially supported a federal grant request to fund a two-year study of the project, which would scrap the three-mile, lightly trafficked highway, potentially replacing it with low-cost housing and a massive linear park.

But in true LA fashion, the mayor and other local officials were for it before they was against it, listening to the loudest angry voices instead of the voice of reason.

Now, though, my excitement as well as (Streets For All founder Michael) Schneider’s has given way to familiar feelings of frustration. True to form for NIMBY-indulging Los Angeles, the political support he believed was solid has suddenly turned porous.

That includes Bass: “I do not support the removal or demolition of the 90 Freeway,” she said in a statement last week. “I’ve heard loud and clear from communities who would be impacted and I do not support a study on this initiative.”

L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park agrees with her. After conducting a very unscientific poll of her Westside constituents, she wrote in her newsletter that: “The 11th District does not support the demolition of the 90 Freeway. Your voice is why Mayor Bass rescinded her initial support.”

L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell told me that, despite rumors to the contrary, she never decided to back a study or tearing down the Marina Freeway, which abuts her district in the unincorporated neighborhood of Ladera Heights. “But it’s a moot point now,” she said.

As Smith makes clear, what they’re all now opposing is nothing more than a feasibility study.

No one, at this point, is calling for the actual destruction of anything. And nothing regarding this project would be done for years, if not decades, that would inconvenience motorists in the slightest.

The flip-flopping pols cite a lack of public outreach their rapid NIMBY cave-in. Yet the reason there hasn’t been any is simply because it isn’t time yet.

Extensive outreach would be a major part of the study, and there’s no reason to do any outreach now, because there’s nothing to actually discuss at this point.

In other words, it’s not that it hasn’t been done. It just hasn’t been done yet.

So what’s the problem in just studying whether the project is feasible and practical, or even wanted — without spending a dime of city funds?

If the mayor is going to cave to NIMBY voices this easily, it doesn’t bode well for getting anything accomplished on our streets during her administration.

……..

Inland Empire Rep. Norma J. Torres cosponsored legislation calling on federal government agencies to develop methods to better protect pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, as well as providing grants to cities to improved pedestrian infrastructure.

……..

Prosecutors in Austin, Texas opened the murder trial of Kaitlin Armstrong for the shooting death of gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson, revealing that Armstrong tracked Wilson through Strava to learn where she was staying.

In a chilling note, they also said that the last sound Wilson ever made was a scream of terror.

………

A memorial will be held this Friday evening in honor of 69-year old Tania Mooser, the woman killed by a driver in a Santa Monica collision last weekend.

………

San Diego is looking for more feedback on the city’s draft mobility plan.

Let’s just hope they don’t adopt, then ignore, the finished document, like a certain megalopolis to the north.

………

Tell me again why you need an SUV to carry groceries home.

………

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

No bias here. A San Francisco letter writer complains that the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael bridge “is a joke, foisted on the 40,000 commuters” who use the bridge each day “by the loud and elitist bicycle lobby and its virtue-signaling political allies.” Never mind that the gridlock he complains about is caused by too many people in cars, and won’t be relieved by ripping out the bike lane.

Portland, Oregon is in a dither over whether to rip out a bike lane that was “mistakenly” installed overnight without community input, as bike-riding residents block a large truck to prevent its removal after it was already in the process of scraping the paint off.

No bias here, either. A British mayor faced criticism for his “abysmal failure” to fulfill a campaign promise to rip out a bike lane that has seen several bicycling and pedestrian injuries, in addition to being filled with illegally parked cars. But those injuries couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the parking problem. Right?

………

Local 

Incumbent 4th District Councilmember Nithya Raman and challenger Ethan Weaver discussed transportation, transit and public safety issues in a debate sponsored by Streets For All, with both calling for increased efforts to prevent traffic deaths.

This is who we share the road with. The driver of a heavy electric truck somehow went airborne and slammed through the exterior wall of a pizza place in Hollywood. Which explains all the sirens and why there was a police helicopter circling around our apartment Tuesday night.

Santa Monica is creating a “strategic” 700-foot extension to the Michigan Greenway bike/walk project.

He gets it, too. A Manhattan Beach English teacher describes how he gave up his car for a one-hour bike commute to work, asking “why doesn’t everybody?”

 

State

San Diego will hold the 10th Annual Jim Krause Memorial Charity Cycling Ride the Point to support research to combat pancreatic cancer on November 11th.

A man was shot and killed by Riverside County Sheriff’s Department deputies in San Jacinto Tuesday afternoon when he pulled a gun as they ordered him off his bicycle.

Sad news from Bakersfield, where a person riding a bicycle was apparently killed in what the CHP described as a “high-speed collision.”

Santa Barbara is attempting to reduce conflicts between bike riders and pedestrians by installing a bike lane down the center of the city’s State Street Promenade.

San Luis Obispo County will build a 1.25-mile, $7.4 million bike path along the scenic stretch of coastline between Morro Bay and Cayucos, providing an alternative to biking on the busy coast highway.

More sad news, this time from Modesto, where a 36-year old homeless woman was killed by a driver while riding her bike last week.

About damn time. The San Francisco city attorney is suing websites that sell banned license plate covers that drivers use to illegally evade the police, tolls and tickets.

Bicyclists in Napa just got their first buffered bike lane.

 

National

And they get it. Electrek says we need fewer driverless cars, and more carless drivers. They also get bonus points for correctly using “fewer,” rather than the commonly used “less.”

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. The Las Vegas driver who killed BMX champ Nathan ‘Nate’ Miller as he rode his bike in the city claimed he’s a good driver who never had a crash before — despite 19 previous tickets, including for driving without a license.

A Colorado company has developed an online calculator to, um, calculate how much a city could save in both carbon and cash by investing in ebikes. Which serves as yet another reminder that California’s long-delayed ebike rebate program still isn’t rebating anything to anyone. 

Kindhearted strangers pitched in to buy a North Dakota man a new ebike, just one day after his bicycle was snapped in half when he was struck by a motorist.

In another reminder that bikes mean business, a Chicago CEO recounts how he started his waste composting business by pulling a red wagon behind his bicycle to pick up food waste when he was still a kid.

A 45-year old randonneur describes the hit-and-run in upstate New York that left him with a fractured back and sacrum, a trashed bike, and a long recovery.

Artnet News tags along with Filipina American artist Jasmin Sian on her daily 15-mile bike commute on New York’s Hudson River Greenway, discovering how it helps inform her art.

Speaking of NIMBYs, New York’s mayor is attempting to un-install a new bike boulevard that is virtually finished by re-opening a call for community input, while continuing to micromanage bike lane projects and back off campaign commitments to build more.

A Memphis newspaper says the city’s depiction as the nation’s least-bike friendly city doesn’t tell the whole story, and that bicycling in the city is amazing and getting better — despite a death rate 21% higher than average.

 

International

GCN suggests the best Christmas gifts for bicyclists. Can we at least put off the Christmas talk until we put Halloween a little further in the rearview mirror?

Bicyclists in Windsor, Ontario are angry after a recent report showed the city built less than three miles of bike lanes in the last two years.

Life is cheap in the UK, where an “arrogant” speeding driver who killed a 77-year old man riding a bicycle while driving with traces of ketamine, cocaine and alcohol in his system, walked without a single day behind bars, as a prosecutor described his standard of driving as “just below” the threshold for dangerous driving. You would think that, regardless of the drug use, killing someone while speeding would be prima facie evidence of dangerous driving. But evidently, you’d be wrong. 

A British self-described “cycling nut” is suing giant bikemaker Giant for the equivalent of over $243,000, after he broke his back in four places when the fork on his new carbon-frame bike separated from the steerer tube while he was riding, and the bike collapsed under him.

The star of Britain’s favorite TV commercial returned to the same hill he walked his bike up as a child to mark the 50th anniversary of the famous bread ad.

The Dutch city of Maastricht is addressing a plague of “wild parking” — illegally locking bicycles to lampposts or railings — by confiscating the illegally parked bikes and increasing penalties to get them back.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website considers why it took so long to invent the bicycle after the Mesopotamians invented the wheel.

Beijing, China is cracking down on traffic violations — and not just the ones committed by the people in the big, dangerous machines.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cycling star Jeffrey Hoogland broke the 1 kilometer time-trial world record in Aguascalientes, Mexico, averaging over 40 mph from a standing start.

 

Finally…

Apparently, bikepacking isn’t for everyone. Your next ebike could be made by Lotus, if you happen to have an extra 24 grand lying around.

And this is what it looks like to ride the world’s steepest street.

Or not.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

4 murder counts in PCH deaths of Pepperdine students, trial set for LV teens, and Bass flip flops on 90 Freeway removal

October 25, 2023 / / Comments Off on 4 murder counts in PCH deaths of Pepperdine students, trial set for LV teens, and Bass flip flops on 90 Freeway removal

I’m writing this after getting the second in a series of shots directly into my right eye to control retinal bleeding caused by diabetes. 

So please forgive me if I miss a few mistakes today, because I can’t read shit right now. 

Just one more reason diabetes sucks. 

……..

This is who we share the road with.

Sheriff’s deputies re-arrested Fraser Michael Bohm on Tuesday, the 22-year old driver accused of killing four Pepperdine University sorority sisters last week.

Bohm was allegedly speeding on PCH in the BMW he got for his 18th birthday when he slammed into three parked cars, which then crashed into the victims. He stands charged with four counts of murder, and being held on $8 million bond.

Yes, million.

The question is what evidence deputies have developed to justify a murder charge, let alone four. Under California law, elevating vehicular manslaughter to murder would require evidence that Bohm knew his actions were likely to result in death.

Meanwhile, enraged community members stored Monday’s Malibu city council session to demand action to improve safety on SoCal’s killer highway.

That included calls for speed cams, which are currently only allowed in Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach, along with three NorCal cities, under a recently passed pilot program.

But what’s really needed is a redesign of the highway with protected bike lanes, walkways and traffic calming measures to make speeding difficult, if not impossible. And turn LA County’s deadliest highway into the Malibu Main Street it always should have been.

A petition from a grieving father calls for much-needed immediate and long-term action to improve safety on the highway.

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A trial date has been set for next year for the two Las Vegas high school students charged with the intentional hit-and-run killing of former Bell CA police chief Andreas “Andy” Probst.

Jesus Ayala and Jzamir Keys — who were 17 and 16, respectively, at the time of the crash — are scheduled to be tried as adults beginning September 16th, 2024.

Meanwhile, new video has emerged of the teens running down the second victim in a stolen car that day, laughing as they injured a 72-year old man less than an hour before killing Probst.

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Why am I not surprised?

LA Mayor Karen Bass was for removing the 90 Freeway stub and turning it into a linear park and housing before she was against it.

And people wonder why I don’t trust city officials.

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Yet another community introduces an ebike rebate before California’s long-delayed program finally launches.

If it ever does.

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Nothing like getting run down head-on by a driver because he couldn’t see what was directly in front of his car.

………

That’s gonna leave a mark.

This is what it looks like to hit another mountain biker head-on.

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Thousands of bike riders turned out for Key West’s annual Zombie Bike Ride.

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

A Hollister bike rider suffered head injuries when he was intentionally run down by a pickup driver after getting into an altercation with the driver and his passenger at a gas station

New York officials abruptly shut down a vital Queens bike path without any public input, notification or explanation, though a city council member was happy to take credit, blaming it on an “influx of ebikes and cars.”

Huh? A London writer says it’s time to regulate ebikes modified to exceed speed restrictions — which means that they’re already illegal.

No bias here. A writer in the UK says we all need to wear hi-viz vests in order to reduce traffic deaths. Might as well just call for clown makeup to complete the outfit while he’s at it.

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

An Illinois man faces drug and resisting arrest charges after fleeing from cops who tried to stop him for riding without a light; he evaded officers by riding through alleys and people’s backyards, before they tased him as he tried to enter his home.

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Local 

Streetsblog looks at new bus-bike lanes on Sepulveda and Ventura blvds.

Bike Walk Glendale is calling on you to make your voice heard on the city’s Bicycle Transportation Plan, with a pair of public meetings next month.

Streetsblog’s SGV Connect podcast celebrates the first anniversary of the GoSGV bike lending program, while rising local writer Carribean Fragoza reads a nonfiction piece about a scary bike crash while riding alone and underprepared on industrial Rush Street.

Pasadena Now looks forward to Sunday’s first carfree Arroyo Fest on the 100 Freeway in 20 years.

 

State

Calbike talks with board member Yolanda Davis-Overstreet, a mobility justice strategist who directed and co-produced a pair of films on Biking While Black, as well as a guide to the movies.

Huntington Beach opened the city’s first bike boulevard on Utica Ave.

A San Diego man suffered memory loss after an e-scooter crash, unable to even remember getting married or having a kid.

A Hemet middle school student was lucky to escape without injuries when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver, after reportedly riding his bike into traffic without looking while biking to school.

Visalia will soon be the first city in California’s Central Valley to have protected intersections.

 

National

PopSugar presents the best balance bikes for toddlers.

An Oregon legislator wants to legalize ped-assist ebikes for kids under 16, while maintaining the current ban on throttle-controlled ebikes.

Boulder, Colorado is the first city to bring concrete tall curbs to the United States to separate bike lanes and vehicle travel lanes. Even though it looks like standard K-rail. 

Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus offers a photo essay of New Yorkers on bikes.

New York considers a pair of bills to regulate ebike delivery riders, including requiring an ebike safety course and making providers cover the cost for safety equipment and safe ebike batteries.

A Maryland TV station says your next car could be an ebike.

Tragic news from North Carolina, where a man died after he was struck by a driver while riding 67 miles to celebrate his 67th birthday.

That’s more like it. Atlanta is introducing an app showing the location of bike racks throughout the city.

 

International

A group of 19 leading companies in the automotive, bicycling & tech sectors have banded together to develop a smart V2X communication system to help improve the ‘digital visibility’ of bicyclists and other vulnerable road users. As long as you’e willing to wear some sort of digital sensor that matches the one only some drivers are using, anyway.

A writer for Cycling Weekly gets explosive results when she experiments with bicarb supplements — but thankfully, not in terms of gastrointestinal issues.

A Canadian bike rider was lucky to avoid becoming collateral damage when two drivers collided right in front of him.

Police in Birmingham, England used lights and sirens to pull over a woman and her eight-year old granddaughter as they rode their bikes — not for any traffic violation, but just a little friendly safety advice about wearing helmets.

No bias here, either. British tabloids are accusing London’s cycling czar with “cherry picking” stats to show bike ridership has tripled in a busy part of London in order to justify more spending on bike lanes; critics accuse him of counting bicycle delivery riders, who are, in fact, riding bicycles, and would all be using cars if they weren’t.

While Paris becomes increasingly welcoming to bike riders, France’s fifth-largest city is banning bikes, scooters and skateboards from the city center

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovenian cycling star Primož Roglič says he planned to jump to the Bora-Hansgrohe team before the recent drama at the Vuelta, when it became clear that Jonas Vingegaard would be team leader, and super domestique Sepp Kuss won the race. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

Meanwhile, Kuss says he thinks it’s better for everyone if Roglič is on another team. Ditto. 

Video captures “absolute carnage” during the men’s elimination race at Saturday’s UCI Track Champions League, as a mid race crash takes competitors down like bowling pins.

 

Finally…

Presenting an ebike for people who don’t want anyone to know you’re riding an ebike. Your next bike could have an airbag — or you could, anyway.

And you can now get a new ped-assist ebike foldie for less than $900. But you could have had a 121-year old Steffey ped-assist, gas-powered motor-bike instead.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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