Home deliveries have soared in recent years, spurred by online shopping and the coronavirus pandemic. Vans can travel along clear stretches of road at higher speeds than cargo bikes but are slowed by congestion and the search for parking. Cargo bikes bypass traffic jams, take shortcuts through streets closed to through traffic and ride to the customers door.
“Recent estimates from Europe suggest that up to 51% of all freight journeys in cities could be replaced by cargo bike,” said Ersilia Verlinghieri at the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster and lead author of the report. “So it’s remarkable to see that, if even just a portion of this shift were to happen in London, it would be accompanied by not only dramatic reduction of CO2 emissions, but also contribute to a considerable reduction of risks from air pollution and road traffic collisions, whilst ensuring an efficient, fast and reliable urban freight system.”
In other words, cargo bikes for the win.
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Speaking of which, our German correspondent Ralph Durham forwards photos of the the wide variety of work bikes he found on a recent visit to Strasbourg, France.
Starting with a food delivery bike for a Japanese restaurant…
A postal bike…
And what appears to be a bakery bike.
Finally, he sends this photo of an electric flatbed bike towing a trailer, which was picking up food waste from a restaurant for treatment offsite.
But as drivers and NIMBYs keep reminding us, you can’t carry things on a bicycle, let alone make deliveries.
This is who we share the road with. Three innocent people were killed in a violent Burbank collision when a speeding driver slammed into their car on a quiet surface street; the killer driver may have been racing with the driver of another car, who also crashed.
Sad news from San Jose, where a man died a day after he was struck by a driver when he allegedly ran a red light on his bike. As usual, the question is whether anyone saw him run the light, other than the driver who hit him.
Good news from Tokyo, where BMX cyclist Connor Fields was released from the hospital just five days after a horrific crash during a preliminary heat put him in the ICU with a brain hemorrhage, collapsed lung and broken ribs.
Earlier this week, we mentioned a story with tips on how to ride a bike with your dog.
Something I hope to do with our corgi, once I find a decent e-cargo bike I can mange to ride without her killing me.
And something Adam Ginsberg is already doing with his.
Well now…..it’s just so happens I started riding with our rescued Boston Terrier, Bailey, last July. During one of our daily walks, my wife and I saw a man riding with his dog…but the dog was in a backpack!! I had a good hunch Bailey would enjoy doing the same. So, I employed my mAd Google sKiLlz, and found…..www.k9sportsack.com.
They have all manner of pooch backpack goodness so us 2 legged humans can take our 4 legged family members on adventures. Within a few days, a pack arrived, and I immediately set about training Bailey to ride. My hunch proved correct, and she fell in love with riding.
To help protect her vulnerable eyes, I added a pair of Rex-Specs, too.
Now, we go on rides 2-3 times a week, down to the beach, and thru downtown Ventura, where the city closed off Main Street to cars and opened it up to restaurants, shops, people and bikes (yay!!!).
We get so many great reactions – people from 1 to 100 love seeing us riding around town. We regularly are asked if they can take a picture, and Bailey never says no.
I already have the backpack Ginsberg mentioned, a gift from a fellow corgi aficionado. And a pair of pink corgi-sized goggles that our last corgi never took to.
So maybe I’ll have to give it a try once my hands heal enough to get back on a bike.
An outstanding emergency response/preparedness project award for its COVID-19 pandemic response programs, including the al fresco dining program, slow streets program, automated touchless traffic signals, and support for COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites.
An outstanding bikeways and trails project award for the new protected bike lanes on Fifth and Sixth streets from Spring Street to Central Avenue.
An outstanding applied mapping technology project award for its GIS strategic plan, which uses all available department and city data to create a network to identify priority projects for Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal.
An outstanding big data project award for its pandemic travel behavior study, which analyzed travel trends during the pandemic, affirming long-standing racial inequities created by decades of policies oppressing people of color.
What’s not on the list, of course, is any mention of popup bike lanes created during the pandemic. Because there weren’t any, unlike most other major cities.
Nor was there any attempt to speed up implementation of the city’s mobility plan or traffic elements of the Green New Deal while traffic was lighter during the pandemic, squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
There was also no mention of an award for implementing LA’s Vision Zero program, apparently acknowledging that nibbling around the edges with easy to implement, non-controversial projects will never make a significant dent in the city’s traffic fatality rate.
A rate that’s measured in broken human lives and shattered families.
So let’s all give LADOT a warm and well-deserved round of applause for what they accomplished last year.
While recognizing that it’s nowhere near enough. And that we’ll be paying for a generation for what wasn’t done when they had the chance.
Evidently, I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Yesterday, we asked @LADOTofficial what it would take to double their pace of active transportation implementation as part of LA’s Green New Deal. LADOT built a lot of bike lanes during the pandemic, but it’s not enough and not fast enough to meet our climate and mobility goals. https://t.co/MOIuMhs4pt
And yes, it can be done, if we have the will to do it.
In 2012, #Ghent Belgium’s bike trip mode share was 22%.
They wanted to get it to 35% by 2030.
Thru creative, decisive action, they reached 35% by 2019, in 7 years, 11 YEARS EARLY!@Streetfilms tells the #Ghent story that I learned working there in 2019.pic.twitter.com/pEVhCUh65z
Or rather, he was run over by the police officer responding to the call, who was too busy reading street address numbers to pay attention to the roadway ahead of her.
Never mind the actual crime scene.
And never mind that the initial police report didn’t even mention the collision, which the police chief later wrote off as just an oopsie.
No word on whether it was the oopsie or the gun actually killed the poor guy.
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LA County wants your input on how we’ll all get around in the eastern San Gabriel Valley in the years to come.
More details on yesterday’s tragic news about the fatal driveby shooting of a 22-year old man in South LA, which also wounded an eight-year old girl; the victim was Marcelis Gude, son of the man behind the Twitter account @FilmThePoliceLA, who was apparently mistaken for a gang member as he stood speaking with a woman. The girl, who is in stable condition, was just collateral damage, caught up in the gunfire as she was riding by on her bike.
Thirty-one people have suffered broken bones at the hands and batons of Bakersfield cops over the last four years, including a 37-year old man who was beaten for the crime of not having a light on his bicycle, ending up with a compound fracture and charges for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest by allowing them to beat him.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionprofiles the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, and their efforts to make bicycling safer and more comfortable in the Big Peach.
An Ottawa, Canada man was overjoyed to get his stolen bike back, newly repaired by a local bike shop; he had initially gone viral for wishing the thief well when it was stolen back in January, saying he hoped they treated it with respect and enjoyed the ride.
A British man learns the hard way that just because you’ve safely left your vintage bike outside for the last decade doesn’t mean someone won’t steal it.
Los Angeles is finally getting around to repaving the streets of DTLA that have been torn up for five years of construction on a new subway connector line.
The problem is, they’re busy restoring them to the same failing, incomplete streets they were before.
While LADOT has made great progress building bike lanes in Downtown Los Angeles — the only neighborhood in all of LA that can claim an actual bike network — they’re still stuck in 1990s thinking, falling far short of what they could, and should, be doing.
This is what the longstanding B.I.K.A.S. — aka Bicycle Infrastructure Knowledge Activism and Safety — blog has to say on the subject.
After adding great new transit stations and new transit service – why restore streets back to the way they were in 2014? Why not upgrade them – adding first/last mile bike lanes to access the new stations?
Street restoration includes several wide streets with plenty of space for bike lanes: Flower Street, Hope Street, Alameda Street, and Temple Street. In addition, the city of L.A.’s Mobility Plan designates protected bike lanes on First Street and Second Street. Short new lanes on Third Street would connect a southbound Flower bike lane to its couplet partner northbound on Figueroa.
If Metro and the city of L.A. act now, they could implement numerous new bike lanes improving downtown’s already fairly good network of bikeways. Implementing them when post-construction streets are due for resurfacing saves the city time and money.
Make that pennies on the dollar compared to what it would cost to strip off the auto-centric painted lanes to add bike lanes at a later date.
Although no one has ever accused Los Angeles of thinking long term.
The blog calls for sending “respectful” emails to city officials, including our future ambassador to India, encouraging them to “implement a first/last mile Regional Connector bikeway network.”
Personally, I’d say demand, rather than encourage. But then, I’ve always been a pushy little son of a mother — especially when my safety and that of others who take to two wheels is concerned.
You’ll find a sample email there you can modify to make you own.
Or just use your own words.
But don’t let them get away with reverting to last century infrastructure in the only LA area where we’re actually making some real progress.
The victim was reportedly in grave condition after paramedics found him unresponsive fallowing the 9:31 pm crash near Fairplex Drive and Arroyo Avenue.
No ID was provided for the victim, and no explanation given for how the crash occurred. However, the driver remained at the scene, and was not considered to be under the influence.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Pomona PD Traffic Services Bureau at 909/802-7741.
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Now here’s a bill we should all be able to get behind.
Calbike is calling for your help to support AB 1147, from Burbank legislator Laura Friedman, which would finally move California out of its auto-centric past and present to a safer and more livable future for all of us.
Imagine a separated, limited access bikeway that gives you a frictionless ride across town or commute to work. That’s not science fiction or the fever dream of a Copenhagen urbanist. Bicycle highways and 15-minute neighborhoods, where most amenities and services are within a 15-minute bike ride, are just two of the forward-thinking concepts in AB 1147.
AB 1147 reorients transportation planning away from the car-choked past and towards a climate- and human-friendly future. It’s a visionary piece of legislation authored by Assemblymember Laura Friedman.
AB 1147 also envisions 15-minute neighborhoods, where shops and services are an easy bike ride from homes. Please sign now to help us pass this essential legislation.
And renounce once and for all their auto-centric ways.
Car Free Megacities’s dashboard shows the striking similarities and also the differences between London, Paris and New York — the metrics the cities can use to learn rapidly from each other and take actions that will save lives, make streets healthier, pleasanter places and deliver critical progress toward urgent climate goals.
Maybe if we begged them pretty please we could get them to include a certain Left Coast megalopolis that desperately needs to renounce the error of its ways.
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Good Twitter thread from the estimable Peter Flax on the fallacies behind the usual calls for helmet laws and bike licenses, which once again raised their ugly head in NYC.
And coming soon to an anti-bike rant near you.
It’s worth clicking through on the tweets below to read the whole thing.
The first, most obvious reason: They won't work—in fact they'll make things worse by discouraging riding (which is the intent). Don't be fooled that they'd make anyone safer or add a layer of useful personal responsibility; the point is the optics to look tough on naughty riders.
Don’t count on securing your own Metro bike locker anytime soon.
Want to rent a bike locker so you can ride to a @metrolosangeles Foothill Light Rail Station in @SGVCOG#SanGabrielValley (eastern Los Angeles County) and park your bicycle securely?
— erikgriswold.bsky.social (@erik_griswold) June 7, 2021
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These days, we all feel like refugees on SoCal streets.
Thanks to David Drexler for the photo of a proposed Beverly Hills “refuge.”
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Phillip Young calls our attention to a free exhibit of Italian steel at La Jolla’s The Museum Of __, which is apparently still trying to define just who and what they are.
From the Collection of Ron Miriello June 5, 2021 through July 17, 2021
The Museum Of__ is pleased to present an exhibition of vintage steel bicycles handcrafted and built throughout Italy between 1978 and 1986 from the personal collection of Ron Miriello, a San Diego-based graphic designer, artist, and Italophile. For decades, Italian steel bicycles have been synonymous with finely detailed craftsmanship and storied histories, from their hand-painted lettering and unique details etched in steel, to headtube badges and wool jerseys celebrating the pride of their cities and villages.
Though once there was a bicycle maker in most every Italian town, streamlined manufacturing has shifted the bicycle world’s ethos and desire for more advanced technologies. A globalized industry has challenged the future of these family-run operations in favor of mass-production, but their stories of dedication to the craft continue through a community of devoted collectors of these steel wonders around the globe.
In a bizarre disconnect, a study from Oakland’s Department of Transportation confirms that protected bike lanes are the safest. But they want to rip out the successful protected bike lanes on iconic Telegraph Avenue anyway.
May 26, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Able-bodied mtn biker confronts disabled ebike rider, Metrolink helps promote bikes, and redesigning LA’s worst intersections
A video from last fall has popped up again, causing fresh outrage online.
Justifiable outrage, for a change.
David Wolfberg forwards a story from Boing Boing that picks up a video we posted last September, showing an able-bodied mountain biker complaining about a disabled rider’s adaptive ebike, and demanding to see the rule allowing him to use it on the Indiana trail.
Maybe you’ll remember it.
Lord knows I do.
The story doesn’t end there, though, as reprehensible as this uncomprehending attack on a disabled man is.
Morris…has since said he has been in touch with Terry Coleman, the deputy director of Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), who told him that his bike was perfectly legal to ride on trails.
Morris said: “What I’m on is not an e-bike, it’s an adaptive piece of equipment. And adaptive equipment is allowed on all of the trails throughout all of Indiana. So if you’ve got this equipment, get out and use it, use it in the state parks, use it on these trails.”
Morris also said Coleman told him that the DNR had actually just bought 12 “off-roading wheelchairs”, to give disabled people in the state more access to trails and paths for leisure activities.
So the next time you find tempted to criticize someone else for some infraction, real or imagined, think twice.
Then don’t.
There may be some reason why they’re doing what they’re doing. And it doesn’t really matter whether you understand or agree with it.
Because it’s not your job to enforce the rules, any more than driveway vigilante drivers have the right to enforce their interpretations — or misinterpretations, more often — of bike laws on you.
Try a little empathy and understanding instead.
And maybe make this world a little better for all of us in the process.
Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay.
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Remember this tweet the next time someone insists Los Angeles isn’t (insert more progressive city here).
"We can't change our city. We are not Amsterdam!"#Vienna: 'hold my #Weisswein*'
— Cycling Professor 🚲 (@fietsprofessor) May 25, 2021
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Metrolink is teaming with the LACBC to promote bicycling as Bike Month sinks slowly in the west.
We've teamed up with the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition (@lacbc) to promote the many benefits of cycling as an alternative transportation choice that improves our health and our environment in Southern California. Head to our blog to learn how: https://t.co/8pmx74pNN7pic.twitter.com/hTpO3xYTt6
And particularly now that it’s getting safer to get back on a train.
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Great thread from 18-year old housing and transportation enthusiast Zennon Ulyate-Crow, who is doing the work LADOT should be doing to reimagine some of LA’s most problematic intersections.
Inspired by this tweet, I’ve started a new art project where I’ll be slowly redesigning all the intersections people listed in this thread, alongside other dangerous streets, to make them safer for all. https://t.co/K4uJQ4gtxH
Here’s his latest project, which turns an East Hollywood mess into something we could all live with.
My next intersection is Hollywood/Virgil/Sunset/Hillhurst on the border of #CD13 and #CD4. I removed the car connection to Sunset Dr. and changed Virgil St. to a three lane configuration, continuing the already existing road diet from Santa Monica. pic.twitter.com/CoRaXeK6ly
Let’s hope LADOT is already keeping an eye on him, with the promise of a job once he gets his degree.
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Speaking of LADOT, it seems the ostensibly progressive department ostensibly focused on Compete Streets still hasn’t gotten the message of the mayor’s Green New Deal — that we have to reimagine our streets and how we get around if we’re going to meet the city’s climate change goals, let alone survive.
Or maybe they still have old school engineers on staff who retain their focus on automotive throughput, as an obsolete plan to widen Burbank Blvd rises from the dead.
This stretch of Burbank has a 🚲 lane on it (per the mobility plan!) and a narrow sidewalk. In 2022 @LACityDPW wants to spend $11M of @CaltransDist7 money to:
With auto-centric crap like this is still being pushed by Metro and LADOT, maybe we can’t afford to wait, and need to get Ulyate-Crow working there now.
Or better yet, running it.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to instruct you in how to wear a bike helmet.
#DidYouKnow: When it comes to a bicycle helmet, one size doesn’t fit all. It may take time to ensure a proper helmet fit, but your life is worth it. Learn more about proper helmet fit today: https://t.co/Kp40W736xYpic.twitter.com/LW4RYvRXc7
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. San Carlos has installed a bicycle dismount zone where people are supposed to get off their bikes and walk them across an intersection to “minimize conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists.” Even though bike riders have every right to just ride across the damn street.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Streets For All introduces Destruction for Nada, a much-needed campaign to stop all highway widening in LA County, as Metro considers an induced-demand boosting jump in highway spending at Thursday’s board meeting, along with a proposal to kill the wasteful and destructive $8 billion plan to widen the 710 Freeway. It’s long past time all of Metro’s funding was shifted to transit and Complete Streets.
The post-pandemic reopening is raising a debate over the streets of San Francisco, as advocates call for keeping closed-off streets carfree, while drivers insist they need the roads open to get around. That’s a debate that should be happening in Los Angeles, as well, as the city faces an urgent need to reimagine how people get around in order to meet climate goals, and confront the ever-increasing congestion on our streets. But isn’t.
San Francisco installs the city’s first advisory lane, where bike riders use bike lanes on either side of the street, while drivers in both directions share a single center lane.
Sad news from Northern California, where a man riding a bike in Cottonwood was killed by a hit-and-run driver who just left him on the side of the road to die. As we’ve said before, in cases like that, the driver should face a murder charge once they’re caught for making the conscious decision to let their victim die.
A Chicago man took an “epic” bike ride across Indiana just to dine at the nearest Waffle House. Although the real story is how he was able to make almost the entire trip on offroad bike paths.
Island Pressintroduces Bike Easy, which has played a significant role in the remarkable transformation of New Orleans into a bike friendly — or at least, friendlier — city.
A Canadian girl got a new BMX bike for being honest enough to return a bike a stranger had given her, after learning it had been stolen. Although the question is why did a stranger give her a stolen bike to begin with.
International politics once again reaches into the sports world, as Germany responds to the hijacking and apparent torture of an opposition journalist in Belarus by pulling out of next month’s Elite Track European Championships in the country. And yes, that’s the right move; hopefully other countries will follow their lead.
Thanks to year two of the pandemic, there’s no opening event, no Blessing of the Bicycles, and no pit stops on Friday’s Bike Anywhere Day — the Covid inspired replacement for Bike to Work Day.
Speaking of bikeshare, they’re offering a free 1-ride Metro Bike pass this Friday only, using promo code 052121, or half-off a 365-Day Pass using Promo code: BIKEANYWHERE2021.
You can also get a one-year Metro Bike Hub pass for just $20 this month, two-thirds off the usual $60. Register here with promo code MAY2021.
Hopefully this damn disease will be behind us soon, and we can bounce back with an even bigger and better Bike Week next year.
Photo by Michael Gaida from Pixabay.
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Okay, so I screwed up on Friday.
Thanks to Joe Linton for pointing out that I had the wrong link to LADOT’s virtual public meeting to discuss closing the infamous Northvale Gap on the Expo Bike Path.
The .7 mile gap in the bike path was forced by homeowners in Cheviot Hills, who settled for stopping the bike path through their neighborhood after failing to stop the Expo Line itself — somehow fearing that the bike path would bring some sort of criminal element, who would bike off with their bigass flatscreens.
Metro and city officials decided it would be easier to leave the gap and just build the train line, and come back to to close it at a later date — and at a much higher cost.
But the joke was on the homeowners, since the gap in the bikeway forces riders to take a more circuitous route in front of their homes, rather than on the other side of a wall behind them.
The usual NIMBYs will undoubtedly be out in force to oppose it. So make sure to attend if you can to voice your support.
This is what Streets For All is asking for.
We encourage you to attend and to make public comment asking that:
the bike path be open to people on bikes 24/7 (there is a NIMBY effort to close it after dark)
the bike path have multiple access points to maximize convenience for people on bikes (there is a NIMBY effort to limit access)
the bike lanes on Motor be physically protected from moving car traffic
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Governor Gavin Newsom is tossing bike riders and pedestrians a half-billion dollar Active Transportation bone, although that’s just a small part of the state’s $79 billion pandemic tax windfall.
Looks like Governor Newsom has proposed a $500m bump for the Active Transportation Program in his May Revise. It's not the $2B the CTC had asked for, but it will help fund more projects than was possible a month ago. More in a bit: pic.twitter.com/MrbrVjnv0v
Never mind that he seems to be doing his best to buy a victory in the upcoming recall by spreading state money around to everyone.
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I wasn’t the one who first turned “Jerry Brown” into a verb meaning a dangerously close pass, after he vetoed not one, but two three-foot passing laws before finally signing a much weaker version.
But I sure as hell did everything I could to popularize and spread it.
Now Alissa Walker has turned pseudo-environmentalist Paul Koretz into a verb, as well.
The suspect is accused of assault with a caustic chemical or flammable substance but police decline to provide further details. https://t.co/05OQwjsiX5
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A London paper tries to stir up anger with a one hour time-lapse camera showing barely any bicyclists using a new bike lane, as drivers complain about snarled traffic. Even though it doesn’t look very snarled. It also does say what time of day the video was taken; it was likely filmed at the slowest part of the day.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An unidentified man escaped by bicycle following a failed attempt to scale a wall into Ben Affleck’s Los Angeles home, after he was chased off by paparazzi.
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Local
Metro plans to boost spending on induced demand by 80% in their upcoming budget, devoting $212 million to widening highways and other highway “improvements;” it will be on the agenda of their meeting this Wednesday. Eagle Rock’s resident-driven Beautiful Boulevard will also be on the agenda.
Hancock Park residents opposed LADOT’s Stress Free Connections plan for a safer and more bikeable 4th Street, with the head of the homeowner’s association saying “We want to make the neighborhood safer for everyone, not just those riding bicycles,” apparently failing to grasp that making it safer for bicyclists makes it safer for everyone.
Call it a good argument badly framed. A columnist for the Southern California New Group points out the reasons why bike riders should be allowed to treat stop signs as yields. Although he calls it blowing though stop signs, a phrase that is guaranteed to piss drivers off.
No bias here. A bad take from an insurance company based in the Pacific Northwest, which says there’s a “battle for road supremacy” in Portland and Seattle between drivers and increased numbers of people on bikes. Even though their survey shows half of the people who responded think bikes and cars share the road well.
Tragic news from New Hampshire, where a 69-year old man was killed when he was struck by a bike rider as he was crossing the street. Another reminder to always slow down and ride carefully around pedestrians, who can be unpredictable and don’t always look for bikes when they step out into the street. Which is not to say that’s what happened here.
An Irish man is riding his bike over 1,700 miles from Dublin to where he first met the love of his life in Spain to raise funds to fight Motor Neuron Disease, after she succumbed to the disease at just 31-years old.
And probably not the best idea to jump into a river to avoid the police, after drunkenly smashing your head into a storefront window, and attempting to jack a bike.
Thanks to everyone for all the kind words following my surgery earlier this month.
My fumble fingers are finally functional again, even though the swollen new Frankenhand they’re attached to is still almost, sort of, not really, kind of back to normal.
But it’ll get there. And nearly two weeks after surgery, the pain is already better than it was before, so there’s that.
Meanwhile, we have a lot to catch up on.
It will take a few days to catch up on all the bike news we missed, but I’ll make sure we don’t miss out on anything important.
So let’s get started on the first installment.
And my apologies for the near-total lack of credits today; with one exception forwarded by multiple people yesterday, I lost track of who sent what to my attention during my extended downtime, which is going to be a problem until we get caught up.
Heartbreaking news from DC, where a longtime bike advocate was killed in a collision, just hours after tweeting about the dangers on the city’s streets.
Had to bike through a roundabout over a highway to get my Covid jab. Lifespan maximization function is clearly perfectly well-calibrated. pic.twitter.com/Zw62SRq70w
(Jim) Pagels was struck in a horrific chain-reaction crash along Massachusetts Avenue NW, about a mile from his home on Capitol Hill, his family said. The avid rider and self-described urbanist who was in his second year of a doctorate program in economics, died at a hospital.
Pagels’s sister, Laura Menendez, described her brother as funny, smart and passionate about many things — pursuing his postgraduate studies, playing tennis and board games, and traveling by bike.
“He had a good heart,” Menendez said. “And he was such a huge advocate for bike safety.”
The paper also quotes a friend of Pagels.
“He was so excited about working in that urban space,” said Finn Vigeland, a close friend who met Pagels while the two worked on the Columbia Daily Spectator. “He was well aware of the dangers of cycling . . . but he loved biking, and he wanted everyone to bike. He wanted everyone to feel like this was the best way to get around D.C…
I hope our city leaders hear about Jim and understand the life that was so senselessly taken away on Friday. He cared so deeply about the injustices that led to his death, and he would want us to be furious about it,” Vigeland said. “I hope that knowing that this was something Jim was working so hard to change might prompt people to take bolder action.”
Let’s hope city leaders get the message here, too.
And used the tragedy as a springboard to call for safer streets, and talk with Michael Schneider, founder of LA street safety PAC Streets For All.
It doesn’t take long for their conversation to get to the heart of the problems on our streets.
ME: Six years ago, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti set a goal of zero traffic-related deaths by 2025, part of the global Vision Zero initiative. So far, we’re not on track to meet that goal. My colleague Steve Lopez recently reported that 238 people died in car crashes in Los Angeles last year — only a tiny decrease from 2019 despite significantly reduced traffic due to COVID-19, and just 8% less than the first full year Garcetti’s policy was in effect. What is going on?
SCHNEIDER: Our city is very good at plans and goals and not very good at implementation. Can you imagine if you were a heart surgeon and people were coming in for heart surgery, and no one would let you operate? Vision Zero is a laudable goal, but until we have a City Council and a mayor who will spend the political capital to make the tough decisions and deal with NIMBY blowback to make changes to our streets, it’s never going to happen…
ME: Where has Mayor Garcetti been on safe streets?
SCHNEIDER: Absent. He says all the right stuff, and he hires great people, like Seleta Reynolds. He will never risk his neck at all for a bike lane or a bus lane.
But I think we’re on the cusp of some exciting changes, especially because the city of Los Angeles has now aligned their elections with federal elections, and the turnout is so much larger and so much more progressive. I think we are on the cusp of truly having different political leadership, where a guy like Paul Koretz, who’s termed out, couldn’t win in 2022 and beyond. And where someone like Nithya Raman, who had making the city more bikeable in her campaign messaging, can defeat an incumbent.
Then there was this about the recent failed attempt to make iconic Melrose Ave safer and more livable for everyone.
ME: Talking about blowback, I read the post you wrote about the proposed “Uplift Melrose” project, which would have added protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks and shaded seating areas along a 1.3-mile stretch of Melrose Avenue. There was broad support from local businesses, but City Councilmember Paul Koretz effectively killed the proposal. Why is it so difficult politically to get changes like these approved?
SCHNEIDER: Opponents typically say the following: If you remove parking or reduce car capacity in any way, how are people going to shop or get to businesses? You’re going to kill business. They also ask, “Why would we invest in this when no one uses the bike lanes anyway?” People cite anecdotes of driving by bike lanes and seeing them empty.
If we had a beautiful six-lane paved highway that only went for one mile and then became a dirt road with potholes, how many cars would take that road? That is the equivalent of what we ask people to do when they bike around Los Angeles. If we had a network of protected bike lanes, you would see a ton of people using them. One piece of evidence is CicLAvia. Those events bring out tens of thousands of people to ride their bikes on closed streets.
What happened to Uplift Melrose was egregious even by L.A. standards. Koretz basically became a puppet for mostly white, wealthy homeowners who couldn’t see themselves riding a bike or a bus.
But if anything ever happens to me when I’m riding a bicycle, I want you to politicize the hell out of it.
Take what’s left of my body to the city council and dump it on the dais, if you have to.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. Or literally, for that matter.
And if it happens on a street marked for safety improvements in city’s mobility plan, I hope those lawyers up there on the right will join together to sue the hell out of the city for failing to keep their commitment to safer streets.
Or maybe just sue over LA’s failed and forgotten Vision Zero plan to force the cowards we foolishly elected to lead us to the changes we so desperately need on our streets.
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LADOT has finally release the results of the city’s biennial walk and bike count, which for years has been done on a volunteer basis by the LACBC and later, LA Walks.
Which is something they should have been doing all along.
And yes, they are just now releasing data collected that was collected two years ago, for reasons known only to them.
It also shows how easy it is to boost bicycling with a little decent infrastructure, with a 73% jump in ridership as a result of the protected and separated bike lanes on the MyFigueroa project.
MyFig also resulted the city’s most heavily-trafficked pedestrian corridor, even above the tourist-clogged sidewalks of Hollywood Blvd.
And it points to how Los Angeles can increase the far too low rate of women riding bikes on city streets.
While the report found that women make up 40 percent of pedestrians on weekdays and 44 percent on weekends, women made up just 14 percent of cyclists. However, the report also indicated a 120 percent increase in female riders on streets improved with dedicated bike paths.
In other words, all they have to do is what the city already committed to in the 2010 bike plan, and the mobility plan that subsumed it.
Not to mention LA’s nearly forgotten Vision Zero and the mayor’s Green New Deal.
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What the hell.
I’m not sure where this video is from; I can’t make out the the police patches or or the name on the patrol cars.
But something looks seriously wrong about a bunch of while cops taking a young black man into custody for the crime of…wait for it…
And while some cities require bikes to be registered, I don’t know any place where police have the authority to seize private property over a handful of minor infractions.
Which would be illegal as hell if they tried to seize someone’s car for an expired license or failing to signal a turn.
Let alone not having their headlights on in broad daylight.
Unfortunately, there’s a term for crap like this — Biking While Black.
And regardless of their motivation, it makes the cops look racist AF.
Thanks to Jon, Megan Lynch and Stacey Kline for the heads-up.
And if anyone knows where this happened, let me know so I’ll never make the mistake of going there.
Update: Thanks to Al Williams for identifying this as Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Which I will make a point of never visiting.
@bikinginla Phone-in your comment before or while the item is being introduced: (310) 288-2288 (say you want to comment on item #2) Zoom-in using passcode 90210: https://t.co/phVIDKQvpb Email your comment to cityclerk@beverlyhills.org pic.twitter.com/r7CX4Fo7OZ
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Texas bike rider bike rider was hospitalized with a brain bleed and facial fractures when he was run down by a drunk driver — while riding on an ostensibly carfree bike path.
Singaporean actor Tay Ping Hui says he’s got nothing against bicyclists, despite complaining when a small group of riders merged onto the roadway ahead of him. Because apparently, it’s asking too much to slow down or change lanes to drive safely around them.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
No bias here, either. A Singapore motorcyclist calls for banning bicycles from the roads after watching one — count ’em, one — scofflaw bicyclist weaving through traffic. Meanwhile, the website somehow feels the need to point out that 34 bike riders were ticketed for breaking the law over the weekend. Makes you wonder how many motorcyclists got tickets the same weekend. Let alone drivers. But sure, blame everyone on bicycles.
Calbike wants your support for the proposed Safety Stop Bill, which would allow bike riders to treat stop signs as yields. Which is exactly what many riders safely do right now. And far too many drivers do unsafely.
Meanwhile, AB 43 unanimously passed the Assembly Transportation Committee with no opposition; the bill would retain the deadly 85th Percentile Law, but allow cities to consider factors other than drivers’ right feet in setting speed limits, such as the location as well as pedestrian and bicycle safety.
California is joining a nationwide movement to prioritize safety over speed. The question is whether the shift is real, or if the legislature will simply pass a few feel good bills before forgetting all about it and moving on to other matters, as too often happens.
A San Francisco woman celebrates seven years of living carfree after switching to an ebike when her car was totaled by an uninsured driver; she claims she’s saved over $50,000 over that period.
My hometown university has now joined the Vision Zero club. Which isn’t too surprising, considering it’s surrounded by one of the nation’s most bike-friendly communities. Even though it didn’t get that way until long after I left, of course.
Apparently writing with all seriousness, a New Hampshire medical worker and self-described cyclist says he worked with a state legislator on a bill that would require bicyclists to ride salmon, but the bill died when he couldn’t get time off work to attend the hearing. Because evidently, riding a bike in New Hampshire just isn’t dangerous enough already.
A pair of Vancouver business owners are taking their case to the British Columbia Supreme Court to fight the re-installation of a protected bike lane through a park, arguing the decision to swap a traffic lane for a bikeway wasn’t “reasonable, rational or logical.” Seriously. It’s in a park.
Life is cheap in the UK, where a 26-year old driver got a lousy 35 months in jail for intentionally running down a 13-year old boy riding his bike after getting into an argument with the kid in a park, and following him for 20 minutes before using his car as a weapon to attack him.
Scottish cyclist Josh Quigley is on his second day of a world record attempt for the greatest distance ridden on a bicycle in a single week, attempting to ride 320 miles a day in an 80-mile loop through the Scottish countryside; he’s aiming for Aussie pro Jack Thompson’s record of 2,177 miles, despite suffering multiple broken bones in a crash three months ago.
This is who we share the road with. A Kiwi driver is filmed blissfully driving on the right side of the road — which is the wrong side Down Under adjacent — until confronted head-on by a large truck. If your first thought was that it was probably just an American tourist confused about what side to drive on, join the club.
He’s accused of blowing through a red light at twice the posted speed limit, and slamming into a car driven by 49-year old Pasadena resident Juanita Lucinda Johnson, killing her and injuring three other people.
Houston, who has a lengthy criminal record dating back to his teens, had been wanted since an arrest warrant was issued last month.
He also faces charges for assaulting and threatening two people earlier this month.
It’s just too bad that’s what it seems to take to get prosecutors to take traffic crimes seriously.
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LADOT wants your opinion on proposed changes to Lincoln Blvd south of Santa Monica.
Men’s Journal offers their picks for the best bike helmets to keep your head in one piece, however you ride. Although you can protect your head just as well for a fraction of the cost of some of their choices.
A former Portland bike shop owner is urging his erstwhile peers to band together to support an industry climate change declaration. Seriously, bicycles could — and should — be one of the most important tools in fighting climate change, yet the industry has done virtually nothing to encourage it.
Minneapolis introduces new artistically designed bike racks. Although I suspect most bike riders are more concerned with keeping their bike safe than how whimsical the rack is.
New York is poised to make a big move by shifting responsibility for crash investigations from the NYPD to the city’s department of transportation, although the police would still be responsible for any criminal investigation that results. However, that raises questions over the need to hire and train hundreds of crash investigators for a department that has never investigated anything more serious than a parking violation.
Speaking of Streetsblog, they note that booming bike use means there’s now an average of just 1.9 cars for every bike on New York’s Second Avenue, yet drivers get roughly 12 times the space.
Before we get started, I hope you’ll join me in thanking our title sponsor Pocrass & De Los Reyes for renewing their sponsorship for the coming year. Keeping up with this site is a more than full-time job, and it’s the support of our sponsors, and people like you, who make it possible.
Photo by Valeria Boltneva from Pexels.
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Maybe we’re lucky they pulled the plug yesterday.
At almost the last minute, Streets For All sent out a notification that the city council’s Transportation Committee would consider LADOT’s new Strategic Plan for the next four years at yesterday’s virtual meeting.
In his introductory statement, Mayor Garcetti calls the plan “an honest, assertive strategy that reflects my priorities for LADOT as your mayor.” While there are laudable goals in the plan, it is anything but “assertive,” except perhaps assertively reiterating that there will be little change to L.A. streets’ status quo. Overall the plan does feel very Garcetti: proclaim lots of great high-minded much-needed goals (Vision Zero, more bikes, more CicLAvias), set some far-off benchmarks, then deliver very little, and avoid courting even minimal confrontation – especially with drivers.
It’s sad just how accurate that is. Garcetti’s tenure has been marked by bold, visionary plans that never seem to manifest on the streets.
Or anywhere else.
Apparently, LADOT has figured out his management style, and now takes care to underpromise, knowing they’ll probably live down to it.
Again, this is how Linton saw it yesterday.
The most dismal portion of the document is in the Health and Safety section, which includes active transportation – walking and bicycling. LADOT states that its goal is to “increase the share of people walking and biking to support healthy communities.” This is the action with which LADOT plans to accomplish this:
“Complete one major active transportation project (such as a protected bike lane on a major street) per year to support the build out of a comprehensive network of active transportation corridors in the city.”
Really. One major project each year. That’s by a department with a $500+million budget, in a city with four million people, more than 6,000 miles of streets, and an approved plan for hundreds of miles of new bikeways by 2035. One major project per year, which might be a protected bike lane… who knows for what distance.
That was exactly my take on it, too.
Garcetti recruited one of the county’s most respected transportation planners in Seleta Reynolds, and brought her in, supposedly, to transform our streets and reduce the city’s ever-growing reliance on motor vehicles.
You can see how well that worked out.
Unless you happen to live Downtown, where a PeopleForBikes-funded initiative spurred some change, chances are you haven’t seen a single infrastructure improvement where you actually live and ride.
Evidently, they plan to keep it that way. And keep LA deadly in the process.
More worthwhile goals paired with minimum implementation show up in this section on Vision Zero:
“Continue to deliver high impact safety treatments on the High Injury Network (HIN), including an annual multimillion dollar signal program and significant roadway improvements to priority corridors”
The disappointing key word here is, arguably, “continue.” The city never actually got around to funding and implementing those “high impact safety treatments” and “significant roadway improvements,” largely due to resistance from city council and backlash from drivers. The plan appears to signal that the city’s weak steps toward Vision Zero will continue to be weak.
The one bit of good news comes in regards to CicLAvia, with a dramatic increase in open streets events.
Although as Linton points out, we’ve heard all that before.
The new plan calls for more CicLAvia events:
“Increase the frequency of open streets events to monthly by 2022 and to weekly by 2023.”
Linton’s piece spells out a pattern of repeated downsizing of the agency’s goals, followed by a repeated failure to live up to them.
If that sounds depressing, it is.
Along with a waste of Reynold’s talents.
But that’s what the Transportation Committee was being asked to agree to yesterday, before the meeting was cancelled just before the 3 pm start time.
Maybe we’ll get a little more notice before it comes up before the committee again, so we can call in and demand better.
And in the meantime, we can all contact our councilmembers — especially the ones on the Transportation Committee — and tell them to reject this shameful effort to avoid making any meaningful commitment to change.
Other cities around the world have shown it can be done, and done quickly.
It’s long past time we expected that, too.
Correction — Call it a false alarm. According to a comment from Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, LADOT’s pitiful strategic plan has already been carved it stone, and the council was just going to talk about it after the fact.
How sad is that?
fwiw – the Strategic Plan is already published/adopted – it’s just an executive thing from LADOT – doesn’t need to be approved by City Council. The T-Committee meeting yesterday was set to discuss it – but not to adopt it.
The nonprofit service is also teaching kids how to fix their own bikes, since there isn’t a single brick-and-motor bike shop on the 29,500 square mile Hopi and Navajo reservation.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Seattle’s bike-hating radio jerk, uh, jock is back at it again, calling bike advocates delusional for fighting a bike helmet law that is disproportionately enforced against people of color, with Black bike riders ticketed at four times the rate of white riders.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An Idaho man could serve up to five years behind bars after being convicted of riding his bike over an hour to stalk a woman in another town who had a protection order against him. Although he could serve just a year if he successfully completes a diversionary program.
I haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet. But at first glance, the section on bike planning and implementation could use some major improvement.
While it’s good news that the city is finally getting around to working on the Neighborhood Enhanced Network — one of three comprehensive bike networks in the city’s mobility plan — completing just one major active transportation project per year sets an extremely low and unambitious bar for the city.
Click to enlarge
At that rate, it could be decades before we’ll finally have a safe route across the city. Or through your own neighborhood, even.
And that vague term doesn’t even guarantee that the “major active transportation project” will include bikes at all.
To be fair, Los Angeles Department of Transportation continues to be dramatically understaffed and underfunded, a situation that’s not likely to improve anytime soon, given the city’s precarious financial state.
Meanwhile, biking and walking continues to take a backseat to funneling ever larger amounts of motor vehicles through our already overstrained streets.
And don’t even get me started on the largely forgotten Vision Zero program, which has been pushed so far back on the list of priorities it risks falling off entirely.
While the commitment to major active transportation projects vaguely resembles the long-promised Backbone Network of bikeways on major streets, there’s no mention of the Green Network promised in the 2010 Bike Plan, which was subsumed into the mobility plan.
The idea was to have one network leading into another, giving riders the ability to travel in their own neighborhood, through the local community, and across the city.
Instead we’re left with vague promises, as LADOT continues to set the bar so low they have to be careful not to trip over it on the way out every night.
Although that would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.
A better option would be to offer some sort of tax benefit to encourage bike shops to do what some are already doing — register their bikes when they take them into inventory, then transfer the registration to the buyer if the customer wants.
Thanks to Joe Linton for the tip.
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Okay, so you may not get much of a workout. But who wants to be the first to ride it today?
The Burbank Channel Bikeway opens tomorrow at Noon!
In October of last year, the project broke ground on a three-quarter mile off-street bike and pedestrian path located directly adjacent to the Burbank Western Channel.
According to a statement issued by ICCC, the group’s members “cycle through a city where the neighborhoods have changed just like the terrain, we push and pedal towards the mountain top…we have our eyes set on the promise land and every muscle we burn, we are assured and filled with hope [that] the day of equality and justice are not just a dream. We pray for the courage to continue to stand up for justice, reconciliation and truth.”
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This is the cost of traffic violence.
The father of 26-year-old Rolando Pinto-Mendez, who was killed when a pursuit suspect slammed into his car, is in the hospital. He suffered a heart attack after hearing his son had died. A GoFUndMe has been created for the family. https://t.co/E7fmCCupY6
Bad news from San Diego County, where man riding in an El Cajon bike lane suffered a severe head injury when he was struck by a motorist turning into a driveway; no word yet on whether his injuries are life-threatening. Although someone should tell the San Diego Union-Tribune that it was the driver, rather than the car, who was responsible for the crash; it took them until the last paragraph to even mention that the car had one.
America’s first Bike City, joining cities like Paris and Copenhagen in receiving the designation from international cycling’s governing body, is…Fayetteville, Arkansas?
That’s more like it. An Aussie truck driver got four years behind bars for killing a bike rider after he was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and leaving the scene of a collision; the judge rejected the driver’s claim that that he didn’t know he’d hit anyone, finding it “totally lacking in credibility.”
February 4, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LADOT sets priorities for state legislation, driver tries to run down Pasadena bike riders, and fallen DC cop was one of us
Thanks to all for the kind words after yesterday’s non-post.
My pain is back down to a more normal — and more tolerable — level, so let’s get on with it.
1 – Reforming state law, allowing LA to lower speed limits (it’s crazy, but today LA doesn’t have control over its own speed limits, and even has to raise speed limits on already dangerous roads!)
2 – Automating speeding tickets using speed safety cameras. Speed is the #1 factor in determining if someone lives or dies when hit by a car, and speed cameras are a proven solution to reduce excessive speeding. Armed officers must be removed from traffic law enforcement, and this is a great way to do it. LADOT has a thoughtful proposal that takes into account privacy and makes sure the burden doesn’t fall disproportionately on communities that can least afford it.
3 – Increase legal protections for the most vulnerable road users(pedestrians and cyclists). This would increase civil fines and penalties in the event of crashes caused by carelessness or driver distraction (ex. texting).
4 – Get rid of handicap placard abuse by reforming the benefits they provide and increasing enforcement, so we can preserve handicap spots for those that truly need it.
And if you want to call on the council to add a fifth priority to address hit-and-run, I won’t complain.
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A report has been circulating on Nextdoor about a driver intentionally trying to run down and brake check a pair of Pasadena bike riders.
I’ve obscured the license plate number since I have no way of verifying the report.
But keep your eyes open if you ride in the area.
And let’s hope the victims reported it to the police, because this is a crime — end could have easily been much worse.
Thanks to Steve Messer for the heads-up.
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Zachary Rynew calls out the sexism that’s been baked into the popular Belgian Waffle Ride in years past.
And which, like podium girls, doesn’t belong in cycling, period.
I felt like something had to be said on my @GravelBikeCal FB page after the sexist messaging around BWR earlier this week. What would you expect from the comments…. pic.twitter.com/qjrAeDmoLs
Caltrans Bay Area (District 4) manages nearly 1,400 miles of State Highway corridors throughout the Bay Area. The goal of this Study is to understand where Bike Highways may be installed alongside State Highway corridors.https://t.co/24ry91nC1p
Know about Kittie Knox? She changed biking forever by challenging white elitism in bicycling during the late 1800s. #BlackCyclingHistory "Take some time each week to focus on how you are keeping cycling as an elitist group instead of a big tent.” –https://t.co/CpgqvaeJhZpic.twitter.com/F9Uj9RkiSK
The Portland driver who deliberately ran down numerous bike riders and pedestrians in a wild 15-block rampage, killing one and injuring at least ten others, has been hit with a well-deserved 31-count indictment, including a second degree murder charge.
New York’s Suffolk County is confronting complaints about teen bicyclists swarming the streets by banning trick riding, weaving or zig-zagging “unless necessary,” as well as requiring a horn or bell, at least one hand on the handlebars, and no more than one person per bicycle, along with a raft of other requirements.
DC’s Vision Zero program actually has some teeth, requiring that any construction work on streets “pre-identified as a candidate for a protected bike lane, bus-only lane or private-vehicle-free corridor” has to include it in the final project.
