Just 73 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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I am now officially a non-driver.
Yesterday morning, I went to the DMV to trade my driver’s license for a non-driving ID.
Between my medical issues and the meds I’m on, I simply don’t belong behind the wheel. And I probably never will.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I’ve held onto my license despite not driving for the past several years, just in case I needed it at some point.
But it’s just not worth the risk I could pose to others.
I only wish more people would realize that.
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In a surprisingly reasonable op-ed, West Hollywood city council candidate Larry Block, who has opposed bike projects in the past — especially in front of his Santa Monica Blvd store — offers a compromise on his opposition to removing parking for a lane reduction and protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave in the largely residential Mid-City area.
Or as he puts it, a little argy-bargy, a term that should be familiar to fans of cycling announcer Phil Liggett.
Bike lane supporters need to recognize the daily needs of disabled residents, emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, and basic services. Bike supporters must understand that residents need access to their driveways, and services like city garbage trucks and emergency vehicles need space to do their jobs. We can’t take away that access in favor of a ‘build it, they will come’ mentality’. Residents also need to accept that many people can’t afford a car, and keeping WeHo vibrant means making room for bikes and other ways to get around. Their safety matters, too, and it’s our responsibility to do what we can.
While there’s a lot we could take issue with there — like how ebikes ca serve as mobility devices for handicapped people, and the myth of bike lanes slowing emergency vehicles — Block goes on to call for developing a master plan to improve safety and livability in WeHo’s Mid-City area.
We should focus on creating a Mid-City Master Plan while working on the Fountain Ave. Streetscape and Bike Lane project. Instead of just arguing about bike lanes, we need to shift the conversation to mid-city livability and make Fountain Ave. improvements part of the bigger plan.
There’s a livability and safety problem on Fountain Ave., and we need to look at the big picture. Let’s discuss a Mid-City Master Plan that incorporates the needs of all residents. But for now, after several accidents on Fountain Ave. in recent weeks, our top priority should be making Fountain safe today.
If this is the approach a bike lane opponent — or possibly former opponent — is willing to take, there may be hope for WeHo yet.
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As a followup to Tuesday’s piece about an apparent violation of Measure HLA along Western Avenue and 1st Street in San Pedro, Ken Shima forwards a screenshot from CD15 Councilmember Tim McOsker saying the current striping is just a temporary measure, and bike lanes really are coming.
But from Caltrans, not Los Angeles.
As Joe Linton clarified in a comment to Tuesday’s post, HLA applies to “any paving project or other modification,” other than limited work like “restriping of the road without making other improvements, routine pothole repair, utility cuts, or emergency repairs.”
Which would mean it should apply here.
However, as a state agency, I’m not sure if Caltrans is required to abide by HLA, unlike Metro or the City of LA. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on, to make sure those promised bike lanes really do go in.
Regardless of who is responsible for them.
Meanwhile, Linton visits the new bike/walk path along San Pedro’s Front Street from the Vincent Thomas Bridge to just west of Pacific Ave.
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San Francisco has selected the vendor for the city’s speed cam pilot program, with 33 cams expected to be fully operational by early 2025.
Compare that with Los Angeles, which hasn’t.
Here’s what a press release from Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, had to say on the subject.
“While Los Angeles continues to ignore the problem, San Francisco takes speeding seriously. I commend San Francisco for taking this significant step towards making its citizens safer. Through their selection process, the city has done the hard work and set the stage for other cities to follow,” said Damian Kevitt, Executive Director of Streets Are For Everyone. “Los Angeles and the other pilot cities have no excuse for bureaucratic feet-dragging that is risking people’s lives.”
At the start of 2024, the Chief of Police and Mayor of Los Angeles announced that there were a staggering 336 traffic fatalities, the highest in almost 50 years and more traffic fatalities in 2023 than homicides. Across the state, 35% of fatalities are speeding-related, with over 1,500 speeding-related fatalities in 2021. Traffic violence in Los Angeles continues to get worse, and there is insufficient effort being put into implementing sensible solutions to save lives.
Yep.
That pretty much sums it up.
It took years of fighting in the state legislature to finally pound out a compromise allowing Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale to try a speed cam pilot program, along with three NorCal cities, including San Francisco. That was later amended to allow speed cams on PCH in Malibu, as well.
But all of that appears to be wasted on the City of Angels, which seems to be moving with all due non-haste at its usual glacial pace.
Mayor Bass has often said that she was elected to solve the city’s homelessness crisis.
Too bad that’s the only crisis she seems to think she was elected to address.
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It’s now 303 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. The anti-bike OB-Rag writes that San Diego officials are “quietly picking our pockets” with things like a $155,000 bike counter, which amounts to a rounding error on the city’s $104.6 million streets budget. Let alone the SANDAG’s $1.3 billion — yes, with a B — highway budget.
No bias here, either. A 76-year old Baltimore man died weeks after a driver pulled out of a sidewalk and cut him off while riding on the sidewalk, but the local press somehow blames the victim for crashing into the car. And waits until the penultimate sentence to mention the car even had a driver.
He gets it. An Ottawa, Ontario columnist says Premier Doug Ford’s plan to give the provincial legislature final say over bike lanes is all about politics, not safety or traffic flow, while the mayor of Waterloo says Ford is stepping directly into municipal jurisdiction.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 22-year old Novato man faces a felony hit-and-run charge for fleeing the scene after after crashing his bicycle into an eight-year old boy; fortunately, the kid was hospitalized with minor to moderate injuries. Which raises the question of why a felony charge was filed, which under state law on only applies in cases resulting in serious injuries.
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Local
Pepperdine remembered the four sorority sisters killed by an alleged speeding driver on PCH a year ago, as they were walking from their car to a party; their accused killer was reportedly doing 104 mph in a 45 mph zone. But hey, about those speed cams.
State
Congrats to the Costa Mesa Police Department for busting a thief who made off with a family’s e-cargo bike; the department has already returned it to the owner.
National
CNN considers the best bike lights, settling on a pair from Cygolite.
Annapurna’s scenic bicycling adventure game Ghost Bike is getting a makeover, and will re-emerge next year as Wheel World, with a lighter design to make it more fun to play. Because ghost bikes may be a lot of things, but fun ain’t one of them.
Parents, classmates and the Littleton, Colorado community came together to call for safer streets, a year after a seventh-grade boy was killed riding his bike to middle school. Yet another reminder that the time to fight for safer streets if before it’s too late, not after.
A Tulsa, Oklahoma TV station responds to the state’s appalling NHTSA ranking as the nation’s 6th deadliest state for bike riders by examining safety concerns for bicyclists. Meanwhile, in 6th ranked California <crickets>.
A writer for Business Insider takes a 330-mile bikepacking trip from Pittsburgh to Maryland, and says she’d absolutely do it again, despite the challenges.
Prosecutors have added a murder charge to the long list of charges against the alleged drunken and speeding hit-and-run driver who killed a beloved young doctor out for a bike ride; he was allegedly driving over twice the speed limit with a BAC double the legal limit.
Roanoke, Virginia shows how it should be done, installing multiple temporary bike lanes to encourage people to ride their bikes to the city’s largest outdoor fest. Now they just need to make them permanent.
International
Momentum rates the six best foldies currently on the market.
A writer for Bike Radar takes a six-day, 400-mile bike tour along South Korea’s “stunning” Four Rivers route from Seoul to Busan.
A cop in New South Wales, Australia faces charges for dangerous driving for a crash that killed a 16-year old boy riding a bicycle.
Competitive Cycling
One of the brightest American cycling prospects, 21-year old Boulder, Colorado resident Jared Scott, walked away from his burgeoning European pro career to become a professional DJ.
A Welsh Continental cycling team learns the hard way the dangers of relying on a bikemaker’s promise that their frames will meet UCI standards.
Finally…
How to not pull an endo on your mountain bike. Making a Pashley the star of Swan Lake.
And seriously, who doesn’t need a sidecar for your ebike? Or a corgi car, in my case.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
