Metro and LADOT have been issuing warnings to drivers for violations captured by bus-mounted cameras for the past three-and-a-half months.
But the free pass is over.
Which will not only speed bus traffic during peak hours, but also improve safety for bike riders, who are allowed to share the bus lanes.
Along as you’re willing to ride with a bus running up on your ass.
Spread the word: Starting next Monday – Feb 17 – you could get an automatic $300 ticket if you park in a bus lane! @metrolosangeles & @LADOTofficial have installed cameras on buses to ticket drivers parked in bus lanes or bus stops. https://t.co/tZNYz6xS45
I knew a man, his brain was so small He couldn’t think of nothing at all Not the same as you and me He doesn’t dig poetry He’s so unhip, when you say Dylan He thinks you’re talkin’ about Dylan Thomas Whoever he was…
Ride alongside poets from throughout Southern California to heal from the trauma of the Palisades and Eaton fires “through poetry, music, and shared space,” while raising funds for the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, whose newly acquired LandBack property was damaged in the fires.
A bill in the Washington legislature would allow cities to convert existing streets to shared streets that give priority to bike riders and pedestrians, while limiting drivers to just 10 mph. Although they’ll need to do more than just post speed limit signs, or drivers could push that 10 mph to 20 or more.
You’ve got to be kidding. Charges were dropped against an alleged hit-and-run driver who was arrested at the Houston, Texas airport as she was about to board a flight out of state, due to insufficient evidence — even though video of the crash appeared to show her speeding up to hit the victim without braking.
A 43-year old DC man will spend the next two-and-a-half years behind bars for chasing down another man and stabbing him in the back, after the victim merely touched the handlebars of the other man’s bikeshare bike; no word on charges for the woman who handed him the knife he used to stab the victim.
Former Tour de France champ Egan Bernal capped his comeback from a near-fatal crash by winning both the road and time trial Colombian national championships, three years after he crashed into the back of a stopped bus at full speed on a training ride.
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.
………
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Women’s magazine Redbookrecommends 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.
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.
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.
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.
September 16, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on City Council unanimously orders report on cleaning protected bike lanes, and killer of Gaudreau brothers had .087 BAC
Just 106 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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I neglected to thank Erik G and Robert L last week for their generous donations to help out with my shoulder issues, and keep this site coming your way now that I’m back to work.
Which doesn’t mean they’ll ever actually do it, of course.
The motion, which was passed unanimously, requires them to report on both the equipment and staffing required to sweep the city’s protected bike lanes every other week. The agencies were also ordered to report on the best practices to maintain protected bike lanes, and what the city does now.
Which clearly ain’t much.
In fact, the city has just two street sweepers designed for protected bike lanes, and only uses them on a quarterly basis — as anyone who rides them regularly can probably tell.
If that sounds cynical, it’s because we’ve been here before. The city has a habit of ordering reports that never come back, and never get acted on if they do.
In fact, we’re still waiting for the city’s “much better” version of Measure HLA, which was supposed to come back to the council long before HLA was overwhelmingly passed by the voters.
So it’s a positive step forward — but only if we stay on top of them and make sure the city follows through on it.
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The driver who killed the hockey playing Gaudreau brothers as they rode their bikes on a rural New Jersey highway was legally drunk after the crash. But not as drunk as he made it sound.
Higgins is being held without bail, charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.
He faces up to 20 years if he’s convicted, and would have to serve at least 85% of his sentence.
Yet the original article inexplicably ends with a section on the rising rate of ebike injuries — even though his injuries had nothing to do with the kind of bicycle he was riding.
The co-captain of the WeHo East Neighborhood Watch Association is denying that a letter purporting to come from his organization, which was used to obtain more than $8 million in funding to fix sidewalks and install protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave from the California Air Resources Board, was actually written by the group and represented their wishes.
And still more sad news, this time from Sacramento, where a woman riding a bicycle died in the hospital after she was found lying in the roadway; police don’t know yet if she fell or was the victim of a hit-and-run.
About damn time. Sacramento is considering declaring a road safety state of emergency to free up more resources to confront the rise in pedestrian and bike rider deaths. Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, we had a record level of pedestrian and bicycling deaths last year, and no one in city government seems to give a damn.
The leader of a London borough council is tired of abandoned dockless ebikes littering the streets and teenagers zooming along the sidewalks, and wants to have all Lime bikes crushed. Just wait until he learns about all the cars blocking sidewalks and bike lanes, and drivers zooming down the streets.
A Welsh woman will spend a well-deserved 45 months behind bars for fleeing the scene after running a bike-riding man down from behind, and selling her car days later to cover up the crime; the victim had to have his leg amputated due to his injuries. And yes, that sentence should have been a hell of a lot longer.
Samoa named its first-ever national cycling team, with a goal of competing in the 2027 Pacific Games in Tahiti; the country’s new riders range in age from 17 to 53. Yes, 53.
June 27, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 3.9-mile Reseda protected bike lanes saved by 2009 outcry, and LA doesn’t suck as much in new bike rankings
Just 187 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
But it was just 15 years ago that we nearly lost them forever.
That’s when the news broke — courtesy of this site — that LADOT’s bike planning engineers had been told not to bother working on the bike lanes, because the West Department of Transportation was going to install Peak Hour Lanes on the boulevard instead, which would have turned the street into a virtually un-bikeable car sewer.
Similar lanes had gone in throughout the San Fernando Valley in the 1990s and 2000s, back in the bad old days when the highest priority of traffic engineers was maximizing vehicular throughput and level of service.
Fortunately, there was a huge reaction to the story, with countless people calling LADOT, councilmembers and other city officials to complain — resulting in the agency canceling plans for the peak hour lane less than 24 hours later.
And claiming, implausibly, that it was never actually their plan to install the peak hour lanes.
Yeah, right.
Linton called for an apology from the agency for deliberately misleading him, then-Streetsblog LA Editor Damien Newton, former Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey and myself. But also said he’d be willing to accept an apology in the form of actually building the bike lanes.
Which is what finally happened.
So thanks to everyone else who raised hell over it. If you were one of them, pat yourself on the back.
And thank you for your service.
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The rest of the world is catching up with the new City Rankings released by People For Bikes that we mentioned on Monday.
Streetsblog says a whopping 183 US cities scored 50 or higher, an indication that the local bike culture has firmly taken root. Once again, Los Angeles was not among them.
Heartbreaking news from Michigan, where an 83-year old Florida man was killed while riding his bicycle, just after reaching a lifetime goal of riding 200,000 miles; he was leaving his son’s house to visit his daughter when a driver ran him down.
Once again, life is cheap in the UK, where a teenaged driver who killed a bike rider, just weeks after passing his driving test, walked without a single day behind bars after he was sentenced to community service and a lousy £240 fine — the equivalent of just $303.
This year’s Tour de France hasn’t even started yet, and it’s clear last year’s Vuelta winner, American Sepp Kuss, won’t make the podium in Paris next month, after withdrawing due to Covid.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
As of this writing, we’re stuck at 1,005 signatures, so keep it going, and urge your friends, family and coworkers to keep signing the petition until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
And we can use some video endorsements, if anyone wants to post a video to the petition page explaining why you signed.
I’ll be taking Monday off, because my adventure cycling, formerly Iditarod mushing, brother will be town this weekend, before setting out on the first leg of a planned ride across the US.
As usual, I’ll see you on Tuesday to catch up on anything we missed.
So stay safe out there, because I don’t have to write about you. Unless maybe you jumped off your bike to beat back a brush fire, or something.
Levy flagged down an oncoming train to request the engineer’s fire extinguisher, then used it to knock down the flames until firefighters arrived, preventing the fire from spreading.
The city estimated that if the measure passes, Los Angeles would be on the hook for $200 million a year for ten years to fix its crumbling, buckling and non-ADA compliant sidewalks.
Except the city is committed to spending that anyway, regardless of whether HLA passes.
According to Linton,
So, right now L.A. City street resurfacing is apparently triggering ADA work – whether HLA passes or not.
If HLA passes, street resurfacing will trigger that very same ADA work, plus bus lanes and bike lanes.
The CAO is saying $200 million worth of annual ADA work is “included in the cost” of Measure HLA. But if right now the city is already on the hook for all that ADA work anyway, none of it should be included as HLA costs.
It appears that city leaders are making HLA into a scapegoat. The CAO is exaggerating estimates, pitting bus/bike against walk/wheelchair, all of which the city has neglected for decades. If HLA passes, city leaders can blame HLA (instead of decades of city neglect) for increased budgets for ADA compliance.
Nothing like our city leaders putting their thumb on the scale.
In fact, improving systems of non-automobile transportation would take more cars off the street as drivers switch to carless transportation, decreasing traffic in high-congestion areas. More efficient and safer streets benefit people without cars and drivers alike.
Additionally, gridlock delays affect emergency vehicles: If there’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, ambulances and firetrucks can’t move through. But, on roads with bus lanes, emergency vehicles are allowed to use these lanes to respond in an emergency. Separate lanes that can only be used by buses and emergency vehicles would improve response times, not delay them.
Improving safety requires slowing LA”s speeding drivers by designing roadways to discourage, if not prevent, excess speeds.
The station also quotes the president of the firefighters union as saying “If we pass HLA, we’re going to see chaos all over this city.”
Um, no.
Chaos is what we already have, as traffic congestion builds and drivers slam into one another — and bike riders and pedestrians — with ever increasing, and ever deadlier, frequency.
The whole point of the Mobility Plan 2035 — and Measure HLA, which would force the city to implement it — is to bring order to that chaos by improving traffic safety and providing safe and efficient alternatives to driving.
And highlights the absurdity of their argument that HLA will slow response times for the crashes it’s designed to prevent.
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LADOT says it’s finished work on the new Parthenia Place bikeway.
Although the first thing I notice is that half of the curb side runs through the gutter, which will force people to ride close to the center divider, and needlessly increase the risk of head-on bike-on-bike collisions.
@LADOTofficial e-newsletter says the new Parthenia Place bikeway has been completed. The new two-way parking-protected bikeway is along Parthenia Place between Sepulveda Blvd and Burnet Ave in North Hills. pic.twitter.com/6dwZqqPdDm
We shared this one last year, but it’s worth repeating, as an interventional radiologist at Loma Linda University Heath shares how the hospital saved his life twice — figuratively and literally — following a horrible bicycling collision.
A Conservative Member of Parliament says pedicabs have turned parts of London into the Wild West. Because we all remember those classic westerns where the outlaws lay in wait to rob the pedicab as it rode through a blind gulch.
Tragic news from Spain, where yet another a young cyclist has been killed in a training ride. Although there’s no word yet whether 18-year old Spanish cyclist Juan Pujalte, a member of the Valverde U-23 cycling team, was killed in a fall or a collision.
And this time, I actually managed to manage my diabetes well enough to stay awake to work.
So let’s get right to it.
And apropos of nothing, here’s an AI image of a corgi riding a tricycle.
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A couple quick reminders of events taking place today.
LADOT is hosting a virtual workshop to discuss building bikeways connecting neighborhoods on the Westside, which they could find in the city’s decade-old mobility plan, if they bothered to dust it off.
However, judging by their tweet/post, the actual time is on a need to know basis. But since you may need to know, it starts at 5:30 pm.
Join our virtual bikeways workshop tomorrow! Don't miss out on shaping bikeways that will connect Westside neighborhoods. Your input is essential for safe routes. Register now: https://t.co/NqQP4cPQ3a 2c919f&_x_zm_rhtaid=298#/registro pic.twitter.com/u7LM4x0B1k
The other event takes on a sadder tone, as street safety nonprofit SAFE — aka Streets Are For Everyone — will place a ghost bike for fallen Hollywood producer Bob George, who was killed in a dooring in East Hollywood last month.
I believe that there is a street safety crisis in America.
Losing hundreds of lives to unsafe streets is unacceptable. My bill, the Building Safer Streets Act, will help fix this chronic issue here in PA & across the country. pic.twitter.com/l61S5pjuD6
Discover Los Angeleslooks forward to next month’s CicLAvia – South LA on December 3rd, the final CicLAvia of the year. Just my luck they had to schedule it on my sister’s birthday, when I will be otherwise engaged.
Streetsblog’sMelanie Curry takes Caltrans to task after Director Tony Tavares tweeted that safety is the agency’s top priority, arguing that if it is, it certainly doesn’t show. Maybe he can explain how wasting billions to widen freeways makes anyone any safer.
That’s more like it. An Iowa woman was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for the drunken crash that killed two men and injured another when she somehow mistook a bike path for a freeway onramp; she’ll have to spend at least 17 years behind bars before she’s eligible for parole. Which should give her plenty of time to sober up.
That’s more like it. Several members of the Dallas, Texas city council rode their bikes to work as the city works on its first new bike plan in a decade; one council member said he only felt safe on about half of his ride. Which is probably more than many of the city’s bike riders could say.
You’ve got to be kidding. Life is really cheap in Georgia, where a 28-year old man walked without a day behind bars for the hit-and-run crash that left a 60-year old man riding a bicycle with life-threatening injuries; he jumped a raised median with his car, striking the victim from behind and kept going despite literally running the man over. If you wonder why people keep dying on our streets, this is Exhibit A.
The sister of a fallen Welsh bike rider and two of his friends have refurbished the historic village pub where he used to hang out, and are re-opening it in his honor. Although someone should tell the Welsh news site about this nifty new invention called paragraphs, which would make stories like this much easier to read.
Three climate activists who halted this year’s Men’s Elite Road Race at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Scotland by gluing their hands to the narrow roadway got off with a firm admonishment from the local sheriff, while the fourth was fined the equivalent of $307.19.
We’re learning more about the vehicular rampage in Las Vegas that led to the intentional hit-and-run death of 64-year old retired Bell, California police chief Andreas Probst.
Including that Probst wasn’t the first bike rider attacked by the two teens.
Not surprisingly, X/Twitter owner Elon Musk drove much of the attacks, after accusing the media of a lack of sufficient outrage to meet his demands.
On Sunday morning, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, amplified one of the screenshots, posting “An innocent man was murdered in cold blood while riding his bicycle. The killers joked about it on social media Yet, where is the media outrage? Now you begin to understand the lie.” That post had 68.2 million views as of Monday evening…
The Review-Journal’s social media accounts and other staff also received vicious attacks. When Schnur shared that she’d received 700 notifications on X and an onslaught of angry emails and voicemails, editors jumped in to support her and make sure she was safe.
Executive editor Glenn Cook said that during his 30-plus years in journalism, he’d never seen vitriol of this volume or intensity. “It’s like a fire hose of hatred to the face,” he wrote in a column about the social media outrage.
The attacks were also driven by other rightwing sources, including far-right commentator Laura Loomer and Fox News host Greg Gutfield.
Forty-six-year old Benedicto Solanga was walking with a friend when Gutierrez drove by in his pickup, flipped the men off for no apparent reason, then made a U-turn to come back and slam into Solanga from behind. He died in a hospital three days later.
The Riverside jury also convicted Gutierrez a sentence-enhancing allegation of using his truck as a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony.
There’s no word on whether Gutierrez knew Solanga, or if this was a case of road rage. Or if there was some other reason for his murderous attack.
Gutierrez is currently being held without bail at Riverside’s Robert Presley Jail, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for December 15th.
Deputy Director of Planning and Modal Programs Jeanie Ward-Waller, the former Advocacy Director for the California Bicycle Coalition, is reportedly being “reassigned” in the department.
Curry speculates that the move may have come because Ward-Waller argued too strongly for incorporating the state’s climate plan in highway projects, as “some Caltrans planners are still pushing strategies to get around changing state regulations.”
If so, that is troubling. But sadly, not surprising.
In my efforts to catch up from my unexcused diabetic crash and burn a few weeks ago, I have been remiss in not mentioning next month’s LA Bike Fest, hosted by BikeLA, the former Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.
Huntington Beach is the latest city to consider overwriting state traffic laws to regulate bicycles, including a ban on riding against traffic on the sidewalk.
Even though sidewalks aren’t directional, and a newly passed state law will legalized sidewalk riding throughout the state, if it’s signed by Governor Newsom.
The regulations would also ban going around stopped of slowed traffic, and includes a vague ban on riding in an unsafe manner, and a provision allowing impounding bikes belonging to juvenile scofflaw riders.
Any and all of which could be tossed out by the courts, since the state, not cities, is responsible for regulation all forms of traffic under California law, on two wheels as well as four.
New bicycle, moped, etc. laws will be voted on tonight at city council. They further define what an “unsafe manner” is. It also includes new language for impounding bicycles, mopeds, etc. #HuntingtonBeach#bicyclespic.twitter.com/6Z3QzYuQS6
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
The founder of Streets For All is reminded that plastic bollards are no protection against LA drivers.
I was admiring the new bollards at Rosewood / La Brea @LADOTofficial recently put in to stop drivers from illegally going straight. And as I’m shooting the video…@timfremaux can we add a few more across? Cahuenga / Lexington has more and prevents this absurdity pic.twitter.com/yDHV4XYHIh
Los Angeles is asking the federal government for up to $10.3 million in grant funding for a series of new active transportation and public open space projects, including proposals to reconnect bisected MacArthur Park by closing Wilshire Blvd, and studying the possibility of capping the 101 Freeway in Hollywood to build a new park over it; the city is also teaming with Metro to request another $86 million for new bus lanes, bike lanes, and other active transportation and transit infrastructure projects.
The Cities of Los Angeles and San Fernando are hosting a non-CicLAvia open streets festival from 10 am to 2 pm this Saturday “promoting an active lifestyle and community engagement, all while celebrating the joy of biking, walking, and rolling.”
Sad news from Bakersfield, where a 39-year old woman was killed by a driver when she allegedly rode her bike in front of the oncoming car. Although what actually happened hinges on whether there were any independent witnesses, or if investigators are relying solely on the driver’s statement, since the victim can’t give her side of the story.
Palo Alto parents are demanding steps to improve traffic safety after two children were struck by drivers in separate incidents, including a middle school student who was critically injured while riding his bike.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has introduced a new 12-point ‘code de la rue’ (street code), in addition to France’s existing code de la route (highway code), to help bike riders, drivers and pedestrians better share the city’s streets; the rules include giving pedestrians priority and banning all two-wheeled vehicles from sidewalks, as well as a ban on drinking before driving, biking or scooting.
And repeat after me. When you’re riding your bike under the influence, while carrying controlled substances and already wanted on an outstanding warrant, put a damn light on it.
The bike, that is. Not the warrant.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
August 30, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Pasadena Transportation chief to head LADOT, soft launch for CA ebike rebates, and lousy $500 ticket for AZ sideswipe
Which is pretty much a given in a city where most councilmembers are loathe to rock the boat.
Rubio-Cornejo, who previously led Metro Countywide Planning, replaces underperforming former LADOT and NACTO chief Seleta Reynolds, who left for greener pastures at Metro a year ago.
Despite sky high expectations, Reynolds was largely a disappointment at LADOT, where her hands were tied by risk-averse city officials, and never appeared to have the full backing of former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Whether Rubio-Cornejo fares any better remains to be seen.
We are currently launching a multi-phase California E-Bike Incentive Project soft launch which includes retailer onboarding and training, community-based organization (CBO) outreach and community engagement, and the website launch. The next one to two months will be focused on retailer and CBO outreach, which will be happening concurrently leading up to the application window opening.
The soft launch will focus on four regions in California and we have already begun introducing the program to local CBOs and identifying retailers in the regions to make sure they are fully supported with the appropriate program support, trainings and resources.
So, at least another month or two before we can expect to see any action outside of a few select, unnamed areas. And before we can start seeing more ebikes replace smelly, dangerous, climate-killing cars here in the late, great Golden State.
Anyone who’s been holding their breath waiting for this is probably dead by now.
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You’ve got to be effing kidding.
Life is cheap in Arizona, where the driver who sideswiped a bicyclist taking part in a club ride, sending three people to the hospital, walked with a ticket for an unsafe pass carrying a lousy fine of up to $500.
By his standard, if you earn money riding a bike — like delivery riders — you’re a cyclist. But if you just ride to work once a year, or ride to the park with the kids, you’re just riding a bike.
Then there’s this.
If you routinely spend every Sunday morning rolling en masse along a beachside boulevard, pumping the blood as much as you are metaphorically pumping your fist at an imaginary Le Tour stage gate, then you are a cyclist too and you should probably pay for registration.
You’re on the road. You’re using the infrastructure. You are at risk from other cyclists and you are a risk to pedestrians. Plus, I can’t be the only person to have seen riders sail through red traffic lights…
Never mind that people taking part in group rides are usually in the traffic lane, not using bicycle infrastructure.
Or that splitting hairs must be easier down there, as he somehow expects police to tell whether someone on a bike rides every weekend, or just this once.
Or whether that guy riding to the park with his kids may have just finished a fast half century with the club.
Although his primary concern — I say his, since it has a man’s byline, but is so self-contradictory it could easily have been generated by AI — appears to be forcing bicyclists to carry insurance and get some skin in the game.
As with all these adjustments in the way we live our lives, we need the powers that be to arrange a little quid pro quo. Remove vehicle lanes to encourage more bike riders, so why not extend the reach of the third-party insurance that is included with motor vehicle registration to cover you when on your bike? You’ve paid the fee, does it really matter what vehicle you are using?
After all, you can’t drive and ride at the same time…
Plus, if we want less cars and more bicycles, taxation has to come from somewhere. Surely it would be better to recognise a contribution of your bicycle registration than to just have everything else ratcheted up to account for the gap.
It’s likely this piece is nothing more than an effort to create a little controversy to drive traffic to the site, while signaling to car shoppers that they’re on their side.
But they may find out the hard way all those weekend warriors on bikes buy cars, too.
For the moment, the power to decide what teenagers may or may not ride falls to a nongovernmental authority: parents. Across the country, they are expressing a mix of enthusiasm, contrition and uncertainty about the trendy mode of transportation.
Because apparently, no child was ever injured riding a bicycle without a battery.
The question they fail to answer, as they build their anecdotal case, is whether there have been more more, or more severe, crashes on ebikes than would have been expected on regular bicycles.
Unless and until they can provide that, their entire campaign should be seen as nothing more than anti-ebike fear mongering, with the possible exception of calling out the increased fire risk due to lithium ion batteries.
Since regular bikes hardly ever burst into flames.
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The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee has now been around for 50 years.
Although it continues to remain strictly advisory, instead of being given the regulatory authority of a commission it should have received years ago.
Last Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council celebrated 50 years of the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), which was first established by Mayor Tom Bradley in 1973. Learn more about the history and accomplishments of the BAC at https://t.co/2gslLeA8FOpic.twitter.com/xxAfnjTH77
Phil Gaimon responds to the critics, and arms bicyclists with responses to the 1% of hostile motorists who seem to make up most of the commenters online.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
And suffice it to say it leaves a lot to be desired.
The original measure, which easily qualified for next year’s ballot, requires the city to build out the already-approved Mobility Plan 2035, which subsumed the 2010 Bike Plan, any time a street in the plan gets resurfaced or resealed with slurry.
The council had the option of approving it as written, or sending it to a vote of the people.
They chose the latter, while promising to come back within weeks with an even better, new and improved version of their own.
You can guess how that turned out.
In June of 2022, Council asked the City Attorney to draft their own version of @healthystreetla within 15 days.
14 MONTHS later, the draft ordinance just released is severely deficient.
According to an analysis of the proposal from Streets For All, who wrote the original ballot measure, the city changed the requirement from covering any resurfacing over 1/8 of a mile to 1/4 of a mile, which they say would exclude 80% of the projects in the Mobility Plan’s Neighborhood Enhanced Network, as well as removing slurry seals from the plan.
Correction: I originally wrote that the change to 1/4 mile would exclude 80% of the projects, which was a misreading of the text on my part. I have corrected the paragraph above to more accurately reflect the effect of the change.
Then there’s this.
When defining “standard elements” it was interesting that the City Attorney didn’t simply say “the improvements in the Mobility Plan” but said that it’s the improvements that the Board of Public Works, Director of City Planning and General Manager designate for inclusion in a Project.” In other words, if any of those entities don’t “designate” an improvement to be included in a Project, then it’s excluded, and a bike or bus lane is ignored. This is the first “out” the City has given itself, and it’s a big one.
But wait, there’s more, as they say in the world of informercials.
This next section is a doozy. It basically says that the General Manager of LADOT and Director of City Planning — in “consultation” with LAPD, LAFD, and the City Attorney (three entities often hostile to bike and bus lanes in the first place) — can “revise” Mobility Corridors. In other words, they’re usurping City Council’s authority over the Mobility Plan and taking it for themselves. It’s a dangerous precedent to set that City departments can change the City’s General Plan without Council, and especially dangerous to put it in the hands of LAPD, LAFD, and this City Attorney (who has implied the City shouldn’t be at fault for pedestrian deaths even if the City has failed to implement its own Vision Zero or Mobility Plan 2035 plans).
Read that again.
The city’s revised version would remove the requirement to include any street or project in the already-approved Mobility Plan, and replace with the judgement of city officials likely to be hostile to any changes.
The city version goes on to include a public outreach process, which has too often been gamed by city officials to kill projects they don’t like, or are afraid to implement.
Like shovel-ready lane reductions on Lankershim, North Figueroa and Temple Street, just to name a few.
Streets For All ends their insightful analysis this way.
So what is our overall take on the City’s version? It’s full of holes, exceptions, and bureaucracy, and is not an attempt to actually implement the Mobility Plan during repaving; it’s an attempt to look like it’s doing something, while actually continuing to mostly ignore the Mobility Plan. It also does not address any of the equity additions (former Council President Nury Martinez) had promised, nor does it establish a centralized office of coordination, or provide for a multi year funding plan.
In other words, it’s not nearly good enough. We have raised more than $2,000,000 to get our ballot measure across the finish line this spring. Our polling shows an overwhelming number of Angelenos are sick of the status quo — and will support Healthy Streets LA at the ballot box. If you’re ready for change, join us! You can stay up-to-date, volunteer, donate, and get involved on our website.
See you at the ballot box.
And in the meantime, contact your councilmember to let them know the city’s proposal is dead in the water.
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LADOT appears to be committed to committing climate arson.
In fact, Linton lists a full fifteen streets either currently being expanded or set for expansion, at a total cost of more than $218 million.
Although that’s barely a fifth of what the city is spending to give raises to the LAPD.
Some folks out there may be under the mistaken impression that Los Angeles is not really widening roads any more. Though widening roads is counterproductive in many ways, it has long been and continues to be an incessant L.A. City practice.
That money could make a sizable dent in the city’s bike plan, which could actually get some of those cars off the streets, rather than flushing more money down the toilet by funding still more induced demand.
This far into the 21st Century, it should be clear that we can’t build our way out of traffic congestion.
And that fighting climate change will require getting people out of their cars, and onto their feet or bikes, and into transit.
Widening streets is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
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Reverse angled parking is supposed to improve safety for people on bicycles by improving sightline for drivers pulling out of spaces.
But the new configuration on western Ventura Blvd isn’t exactly winning rave reviews, as bicyclists complain about drivers using the bike lanes to back into parking spaces, as well as double parking to wait for a space to open up, forcing riders out into unforgiving traffic.
OC bike advocate Mike Wilkinson forwards evidence of why you should always hesitate pulling out from a red light, until you know every driver in every direction is coming to a stop.
Bicycle parking at, of all places, the Dutch Formula 1 Grand Prix. Urban planning that preferences cycling even works for the most hardened petrol heads. pic.twitter.com/2l9owZsYtb
BBC host and bicycling advocate Jeremy Vine causes a stir in the UK by saying drivers should pull over and let bicyclists pass in urban centers, since people on bicycles can often travel faster than people in cars — and that drivers shouldn’t be allowed to pass bicyclists at all. Finally, a campaign platform I can get behind.
Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is one of us, after he posted video of going on a cargo bike ride with his twins while vacationing in Yorkshire, England. From the looks of it, the bike was almost as long as his name.
A Nigerian website says bicycling is a must if the country hopes to “be rid of hydra-headed transportation gridlock that often sends road users to nightmarish spasm.”
August 7, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA Times remembers philanthropic Burbank bicyclist Roy Wiegand, and LA wants your input on Forest Lawn Drive
One quick note: I am now on Bluesky, in response to the increasing toxicity on Twitter/X, thanks to an invite from Todd R.
The 60-year-old ultra marathoner and cyclist was refueling after traversing 2,500 miles on his bicycle in 25 days and in the process raising $26,000 to help improve access to clean drinking water for the Navajo Nation.
Wiegand ventured through San Francisco and Yosemite and braved 110-plus degree heat in Death Valley and Las Vegas. He enjoyed stunning vistas in Arizona and New Mexico and stayed at the homes of friends and strangers alike, his posts showed…
In the last few years, he had dedicated much of his time to philanthropic causes, most recently working with the water advocacy group DigDeep to raise money for the more than 700,000 American Indian and Alaskan Native people who lack access to clean, reliable water in the United States.
Funny how killer drivers always seem to take the best of us.
As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance safety for all and improve active transportation infrastructure, LADOT is planning to upgrade the existing bike lanes on Forest Lawn Drive to protected bike lanes between Zoo Dr and Avon St. Take the survey here: https://t.co/v5ZLdk60W7pic.twitter.com/BzEYFCXjl2
Let’s share a little Seattle bike joy from my friends at West Seattle Blog, as a huge mass of people take off on two wheels for a questionably named ride.
Driving home from vacay just now and see this dude riding in the shoulder of I-90 outside of Coeur d'Alene w an “Armed Cyclist” jersey, safe passing flags, dozens of taillights. Absolutely epic. pic.twitter.com/d2PAcWruqa
Is this the result of people tossing unloved and abandoned bikes into the water, or drunk tourists not watching where they’re riding?
Did you know? Every year, between 12,000 and 15,000 bicycles are recovered from the canals of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The city's water authority, Waternet, uses a special claw on a crane installed on a barge.
Thanks to the incomparable Patt Morrison for the heads-up.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
This is who we share the road with. After someone apparently riding a bicycle was injured in a collision at LA’s West Grand Ave and Vista Del Mar, the couple posting the video to Citizen observe the aftermath of the crash, and you can hear the man say “This is why you stay in the bike lane.” Never mind that he apparently has no idea what caused the crash, or why the victim may or may not have been in a bike lane, but automatically assumes the bike rider was at fault. I’m not sure if the link will work; unfortunately, I can’t embed the video. Thanks to Margaret W for the link.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, who understands these things a lot better than I do, takes a deep dive into the complicated, wonky subject of freeway mitigation, which requires Metro to take active steps to offset any increase in driving on future freeway, under California law. And hopefully, he’ll correct me if I didn’t explain that right.
More on Manhattan Beach’s decision to crack down on teenage ebike riders who violate traffic laws, instituting a zero-tolerance approach to scofflaw ebike riders. Although that sounds like illegally biased enforcement, unless the same zero-tolerance applies to motorists and pedestrians, as well as regular bike riders; if not, that could get all the tickets tossed if the kids get a good lawyer.
Anchorage, Alaska took a number of steps to become more bike friendly, approving measures to allow bike riders to treat stop signs as yields, as well as eliminating requirements for lights and brakes and noise signals, and for children 16 to wear helmets; the city also eliminated penalties for jaywalking.
The Michigan woman accused in the DUI killing of two people participating in a fundraising bike ride across the state has had her trial postponed until October; it had been scheduled to begin today.
Katie Archibald overcame grief over the death of her romantic partner, mountain biker Rab Wardell, to lead Britain to gold in the team pursuit, dedicating the win to Wardell.
