
Day 92 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Cancel that.
Metro has pulled the plug on this week’s meetings to consider rail proposals for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor.
So if you were planning to attend on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, make other plans.
However, the agency insists this project remains a high priority, and the meetings will be rescheduled soon.
Image from Metro’s Sepulveda Transit Corridor website.
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A Denver TV station reports on the testimony from day two of trial over the death of 17-year old National Team member Magnus White.
The defense admits she killed him, but argues she isn’t guilty of the reckless driving charge because she was asleep at the wheel at the time of the crash.
Although it seems kinda reckless to drive when she was too tired to stay awake in the first place.
Several of the witnesses report that 25-year old Ukrainian immigrant Yeva Smilianska didn’t seem disturbed following the crash, acting unnaturally calm until she finally saw White laying behind her gasping for breath.
One officer said she didn’t seem to understand what had happened, while another investigator said she told him the “steering wheel stopped listening to me.”
Prosecutors also showed photos of White’s badly mangled bike, which the station included in their story.
But make sure you really want to see it, or read what the witnesses testified to before you click on the link.
Because I felt kind of sick after reading it. And not because of Covid.
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In news that shouldn’t surprise anyone, new Caltrans data made available by a 2023 law showed the state transportation agency focused on highways, and paint over protection for bicycles, in recent years.
That’s despite the agency’s ostensible commitment to Complete Streets.
According to Calbike,
Caltrans built 554 new highway miles over the period covered by this data, at a time when California needs to reduce, not increase, vehicle miles traveled. At the same time, the agency built just 160 miles of bikeways, more than half of which were Class 3 lanes where bike riders share the lane with motor vehicle traffic.
While the SB 695 data doesn’t provide enough detail to fully understand Complete Streets projects on state routes, this first release of data shows that Caltrans isn’t doing enough to meet California’s goals to increase biking and walking.
Well, duh.
Anyone who’s tried to ride a bike on state roadways could tell you that.
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It’s happened again.
According to a Sparks, Nevada TV station, a road-raging Reno resident faces an attempted murder charge for using his car as a weapon to deliberately ram a man on a bicycle, leaving the 35-year old victim with life threatening injuries.
Security video shows the driver intentionally target the victim at a high rate of speed, apparently angered by a “minor altercation” that came after he nearly hit the victim a few minutes earlier.
Another reminder that every angry driver is already armed with a deadly weapon, if they decide to use it.
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Seriously?
A sheriff’s deputy in Florida’s Broward County isn’t facing an investigation, despite bike cam video showing him using his patrol car as a weapon to knock a teenaged boy off his bicycle before tacking the kid,
The deputy was responding to a report of juveniles “riding bicycles recklessly and engaging in unlawful activity,” neither of which would justify the use of deadly force when the boy wasn’t threatening anyone’s safety.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
The home of the Idaho Stop could take a big step backward, with two bills on the governor’s desk that would restrict bicycle and pedestrian improvements to a secondary role in highway projects, as well as banning any projects that would result in a narrower roadway.
Welsh bike advocates warn that the country could risk missing the opportunity to get more people on bicycles, as the government shifts its focus to prioritizing walking over biking.
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Local
The Los Angeles Street Standards Committee will vote Thursday to approve the minimum standards to implement Measure HLA. Which is probably exactly what the city will implement, the bare minimum. And raise your hand if you didn’t know the city even had a Street Standards Committee.
State
Calbike reports they’ve joined the Clean RIDES Network, a seven state coalition working to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
San Diego’s ABC10 reports that 21 people were killed in traffic collisions in the San Diego area last month, adding to the 39 killed in January and February. In other words, they did exactly what every local news outlet should do by reporting the dangers we all face on the streets, regardless of how we get around.
National
The husband of the Oregon woman killed by a DEA agent while she was riding her bike has filed suit against the Oregon State Police and state Department of Justice, alleging lapses in training, supervision and policy led to her death.
Washington State is working on connecting existing trails into a network of bicycle highways; meanwhile, Calbike is supporting a bill to bring the first bicycle highways to California.
Thirteen states have now adopted some form of the Idaho Stop Law, aka Stop As Yield, after New Mexico passed a law allowing bike riders to treat stop signs as yields, and red lights as stop signs when it’s safe to do so.
The University of Iowa student newspaper profiles the organizations working to make the local community safer for people on bicycles.
Streetsblog talks with Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin about the bi-partisan Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Act to allow full federal funding of active transportation safety projects, arguing that “the carnage is intolerable.” Which seems a little strange considering how long our government has already tolerated it.
International
Your next Mercedes AMG F1-inspired ebike could have a speedometer that tops out at 60 mph, even though the bike itself is legally required to top out at 20.
The 24-year old Moroccan man who rode his bike to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup is now riding from the tip of Argentina to Alaska, with plans to stop in Mexico, the US and Canada for next year’s World Cup along the way.
UK disability advocates Wheels For Wellbeing calls for the country to reconsider the recent ban on non-folding ebikes on trains, since they can be used as mobility devices. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
The Dutch ambassador rode his bike more than 100 miles to the heart of Bangladesh tiger country to highlight the need to save the endangered animals.
Velo offers highlights from the Taipei Cycle Show, including a nifty little electric tire pump, arguing that some of the tech there could rival the bike industry’s best.
A pair of Aussie researchers consider the problem of drivers who look, but fail to see people on bicycles, and what can be done to keep us safe.
Competitive Cycling
Read all about it, in excruciating detail, as a new medical paper details Egan Bernal’s “remarkable recovery” from the training crash that nearly killed him, or could have left him paralyzed. But didn’t.
Finally….
It’s almost plausible that Paris is confining cars to protected lanes and turning traffic lanes over to bikes. Or that Ontario’s anti-bike premier is jogging in the bike lanes he wants to rip out.
And apparently, bikes can use the full LAN.
You know, in case you need to print something when you’re riding.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.