Let’s depart with our usual format today, because there are a couple of urgent matters we need to attend to right now.
We’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed today.
Pinky swear.
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First off, I’ve signed onto a letter demanding that Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, after the abject failure of Vision Zero in Los Angeles.
Now I’m asking you to sign on to that letter as well.
Below you’ll find the full text of that letter. If you support it, please click this link or scan the QR code in the graphic below to sign on, too.
Dear Mayor Bass and Honorable Members of the City Council:
The City of Los Angeles has not been taking traffic violence and the public health crisis that is, seriously. The facts speak for themselves:
In 2015, the city committed to Vision Zero – its plan to end traffic violence by 2025. In 2025, traffic fatalities were reported by LAPD to be 290, 56% higher than in 2015.
For the past three years there have been more traffic fatalities than homicides.
An audit directed by the Los Angeles City Council found that Vision Zero failed – and thousands of people died – because of a lack of political will and poor coordination between city departments.
Traffic violence is the leading cause of death for children ages 4-14 in LA County.
Between 31 January and 5 February 2026, there were two mass traffic fatality events, resulting in 5 people killed and 7 others seriously injured.
The City of Los Angeles was about to return 100 million dollars in road safety funding to the State of California because it didn’t have the manpower to use the money.
We, the undersigned, demand that the issue of traffic violence be treated with the urgency and importance that it deserves. We request that the City of Los Angeles formally declare a State of Emergency due to traffic violence, thus redirecting resources and prioritizing actions to address this city-wide problem. This includes but is not limited to:
Recommitting to Vision Zero in its entirety – all five pillars, not just one or two.
Take serious and meaningful actions to fully address the failures of Vision Zero found in the city’s own audit.
Properly staff the LADOT, RIGHT NOW, with the personnel needed to use the grants and funding it already has.
Immediately empower the community to make their own roads safer through a community-led traffic safety program.
Fast-track road safety programs and improvements that are already in the works.
Vision Zero cannot succeed if it is treated as a slogan rather than a mandate. Preventable deaths are not unfortunate accidents; they are the predictable outcome of design choices and policy decisions.
Our city’s leaders have the tools, data, and authority to act. Now we are asking them to decide that a commitment to protecting human life should not be negotiable.
Jonathan Hale, Founder
People’s Vision Zero
Damian Kevitt, Executive Director
Streets Are For Everyone
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Second, Streets For All is asking for your help to support critical Los Angeles City Charter reforms at today’s meeting of the Charter Commission.
TODAY: TELL THE CHARTER COMMISSION TO PASS A CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
This is it! Today the Charter Commission will be deciding whether to submit language for 1) a Capital Infrastructure Plan and 2) a Director of Public Works.
These reforms are absolutely critical. They will create transparency, accountability, and reform the City’s existing antiquated system for infrastructure delivery. This touches everything we care about, from crosswalks to trees to bike lanes to park space.
We are expecting significant push back defending the status quo. It is important that advocates make their voice heard.
3 WAYS YOU CAN HELP
Thursday, March 12, 4pm (AGENDA)
1) Show up in person and give public comment
City Hall, 200 Spring Street, Room 350, Board of Public Works Session Room
2) Call in and give public comment Please call early, they are limiting public comment to 30 minutes only
Use this Zoom link, or call 1-669-254-5252 (Meeting ID: 161 156 7882)
3) Submit written Public comment via email Add your name and zip code to the bottom, feel free to customize the suggested language.
January 26, 2026 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Mayor Bass, City Council no-shows up for traffic deaths die-in; and how can LA build a subway if it can’t fix poop spray?
People are dying to stop people from dying on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
“We’re out here today because the city of Los Angeles signed Vision Zero as a directive in August 2015 to prioritize saving lives on our roads — to achieve zero traffic fatalities by 2025,” said SAFE founder and executive director Damian Kevitt, who lost his right leg in a violent traffic incident in 2013. “Not manage or reduce [them] but eliminate traffic fatalities. We are a decade later and we are at 290 traffic fatalities. … It’s a 26% increase in traffic fatalities since the start of Vision Zero…”
“The city has tools, it’s just not using them,” Kevitt told The Times. “In 2024, voters approved measure HLA by a two-thirds margin. It requires the city must follow its own mobility plan … to make roads safer for cyclists, for pedestrians, for better transit.” He also cited state measure AB 645, which in 2023 authorized a pilot program for speed cameras in a handful of California cities including Los Angeles, as “a tool the city could be implementing — it’s speed safety systems.”
In a perfect illustration of just how unserious the city is about ending traffic deaths, CD 13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez was the only member of the city government who bothered to show up.
But hey, Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement.
No, wait. Her office did.
Apparently Mayor Bass had better things to do.
Mayor Karen Bass’ office said in a statement that Bass, who took office in December 2022, “has made street safety a priority by accelerating the implementation of hundreds of new speed humps, signage and intersection treatments which help ensure drivers are traveling slowly and with control near schools. Vision Zero started in 2015 and requires intensive coordination across departments.”
The office pointed to Bass’ October 2024 executive directive to facilitate street repairs, clean parks and infrastructure and city services enhancements ahead of the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympic Games in L.A.
So, evidently, we need a World Cup or Olympic Games to justify saving human lives.
Oh, and clean parks.
Got it.
Kevitt had one parting comment for The Times: “Don’t use the word traffic ‘accident’ when writing about this,” he said.
“In the road safety arena, it’s ‘crash’ or ‘collision,’” he said. “ ‘Accident’ implies non-responsibility. It’s just an ‘oops.’ But when you’re driving drunk or distracted, that’s a choice. If you hit and kill or severely injure someone, it’s not an ‘oops.’ We’re trying to say: This is preventable.”
There’s a lot more to the article, and it’s worth a few minutes to read the other comments from people who have lost loved ones. Or fear exactly that.
Particularly since the Times appears to be the only media source that even bothered to cover it.
Evidently, our deadly streets are no more important to the people who report on them than they are to the people we elect to fix them.
Looks like the joke’s on us.
Because nothing will ever change until city leaders care enough to do something about it.
And the media, and the people, care enough to hold them to it.
Then again, my beloved Broncos finished a broken ankle and a snow storm short of the Super Bowl, too.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Scottish city lived up — or maybe down — to its reputation as “hostile to anyone outside of a car” by scrapping plans for a bike lane through the town center because it would put the “economic vitality” of the town “at serious risk” due to the loss of six whole parking spaces. Yes, six. Never mind that studies have repeatedly shown sales go up when protected bike lanes go down.
LAistexamines Long Beach’s Vision Zero failure, as traffic deaths in the beachside city climb to their highest level in a decade. Although the public radio website may require your email address to read it.
What a long, strange trip it wasn’t. A local leader of San Francisco’s World Naked Bike Ride was arrested when he and several other people showed up naked for a tribute to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, in the mistaken assumption their bare bodies would be seen as a tribute to the band.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 94-year New Zealand man who survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Holland will attempt to set a new age-group hour record, after already exceeding the record time on his own.
February 26, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Calbike lists legislative agenda, ignores hit-and-run (again); and LA council committees belatedly consider HLA
Day 57 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
Which, as we’ve repeatedly pointed out, are what are driving most of the complaints mistakenly directed towards electric bicycles.
Which they ain’t.
Other priorities include safe routes to schools, assessing the vulnerability of California cities to climate change, and removing roadblocks to bikeways and sustainable transportation projects.
Streetsblog reports the LA Transportation and Public Works Committees will belatedly get around to considering two Measure HLA measure they put off earlier this month, ’cause they just didn’t have time to get around to them after dealing with constituents angry over another matter.
And that’s after failing to consider it in any of the previous 11 months following the measure’s overwhelming victory last March, of course.
Wednesday 2/26 – The L.A. City Council will host a joint meeting of its Transportation and Public Works Committees at 8:30 a.m. at L.A. City Hall room 401. The agenda includes two Measure HLA items postponed from earlier this month (see earlier SBLA coverage previewing HLA items and recapping the meeting when they were postponed
You’ve got to be kidding. A so-called London “journalist” says that violent armed bikejackers “are doing society a favor” by targeting people whose only crime is riding a bicycle in the early morning hours, saying bicyclists have turned Regent’s Park into a circle of hell. Maybe he’d feel a little differently if they were mugging newspaper columnists, instead.
Santa Barbara approved an amendment to the city code to provide more enforcement tools to rein in “excessive” ebike riders, even though excessive bicycling isn’t a crime, electric or otherwise. And even though it was inspired by a close call with a pocket bike, which is a mini motorbike governed by the state vehicle code, and not a bicycle subject to city regulations.
DoorDash says that San Francisco is the nation’s biggest market for bicycle deliveries, with 76% of the company’s deliveries done on bikes, ebikes and scooters, compared to 58% in New York and 57% in DC. Although my understanding is a lot of New York deliveries are made directly through the restaurant, without relying on a third-party service.
The governor of Arkansas signed a new bill allowing lift-access downhill mountain bike parks to help boost bicycle tourism, in a state where that is actually a priority. Unlike a certain populous Left Coast state I could name, although we seem to do okay attracting bike tourism, anyway.
“Vehicle ramming attacks, where a perpetrator deliberately rams a vehicle into pedestrians or buildings, have been increasing around the world in recent years,” the motion reads. “With the city hosting major international events in the next few years … the city should look at ways to safeguard residents and visitors from these types of attacks.”
So, the plan is actually to protect buildings and pedestrians from vehicular terrorists, rather than the more pedestrian form of terrorism we face from the people in the big, deadly machines on a daily basis.
But wait, there’s more.
In addition to safety at events like the 2028 Olympic Games, bollards could also enhance protection for bike lanes across the city.
At least we’re an afterthought, anyway.
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As if loose dogs aren’t a big enough danger to people on bicycles, a ten-year old kid was bitten by a coyote while riding his bike in Irvine Tuesday morning.
Not surprisingly, it pretty much shows what you might expect.
Mobility habits naturally evolve with age. These habits can be described as a bell curve that follows childhood to adulthood to the third stage of life, going from dependent mobility to independent mobility and back. Many older adults eventually stop driving due to physical or cognitive changes. In fact, AARP data indicates that while 80% of people over 65 are still driving, this number drops sharply to 35% by age 80.
The 50+ Cycling Survey shows that cycling remains an attractive option for those looking to stay active and independently mobile. For many older adults, cycling can be a key mode of transportation for independent mobility, so they don’t have to rely on others or public transportation.
The Los Angeles Times recommends riding a bicycle to Dodger Stadium and locking up at one of the stadiums numerous bike racks for tomorrow’s first game of the World Series, as part of their five ways to avoid parking and traffic headaches — as long as you’re willing to ride up some hills.
This is who we share the road with. After a homeless man was killed by an alleged drunk driver near the Santa Monica Pier last week, the Santa Monica Daily Press says it reflects the growing trend of traffic violence in the LA Area.
A Carpenteria letter writer says organizers of the “the Ride Santa Barbara bike race” — note the key word “ride,” not race — left an “insane” amount of colored stickers and spray-painted arrows on the street near his house, wondering why that’s not vandalism. Um, maybe because they had a permit, and it should eventually go away with weather and wear.
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.
Just 183 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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Happy anniversary to me. I neglected to note that last week marked the 16th anniversary of this site, which began back in 2008, when I didn’t have a clue what it would eventually become.
So here’s to another 16 years.
Unless Los Angeles suddenly and unexpectedly becomes a safe and enjoyable place to ride a bike. In which case you’ll find me corralling corgis and quaffing craft beer and reposados into my dotage.
Though advocates had been awaiting yesterday’s committee approvals as the next clarifying step for HLA, the brief meeting yielded very little new information. The Public Works Committee approved the HLA items, but put off further departmental reports and council HLA decisions until an August 7 meeting of the Transportation Committee.
Prior to the March election, the City Administrative Officer had warned that the council would need to “make funding decisions immediately” if Measure HLA were to pass. It did pass, and became law on April 9. Now, “immediately” has slipped to “have a rough draft ready to discuss in August, four months after HLA passage.”
Although reading between the lines, what really seems to be happening is that city leaders are looking for ways to water down or sidestep the measure, daring advocates to go to court to force them to comply.
Meanwhile, bike riders and pedestrians continue to be victimized by deadly LA streets, and the people in the big, dangerous machines.
And city leaders don’t appear to give a damn about it. Or us.
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The Los Angeles Times offers a brief profile of Streets For All founder Michael Schneider, as part of their series on changemakers who are disrupting LA society as we’ve known it.
Schneider, 43, heads Streets for All — the advocacy group behind the successful March ballot measure that aims to level the paved playing field somewhat in the David and Goliath story that is bike riding on the streets in car-loving Los Angeles.
The ballot measure dubbed Healthy Streets L.A. compels the city to implement its own plans to rework some of its most storied boulevards and streets to make space for bicyclists and pedestrians, who die at a rate of about one every three days.
It’s worth a quick read.
Because Schneider has arguably done more in his brief time in bike advocacy with the passage of Healthy Streets LA than many of the rest of us have accomplished in decades.
Myself included.
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Under the heading of unfortunate headline of the day, comes one about the “impact” collisions have on the behavior of bicyclists.
Researchers interviewed eight experts from different fields to get their perspectives, choosing not to discuss the subject with victims or witnesses because they didn’t feel they could question them reliably enough.
But the findings are certainly worth discussing, if unsurprising, as Cycling West summarizes.
A collision or those caregiving for collision victims could led to changing modes of transportation, taking a new route, or riding on the sidewalk instead of the street. But the results indicated that few people gave up cycling permanently though some did for a while. The main reason for giving up cycling completely seemed to be the need to recover from injuries rather than newfound fear. Near misses didn’t seem to scare bikers from continuing.
Once again, a bike rider in the UK has been seriously injured after being pushed off their bike by a car passenger, leaving the 29-year old victim with serious facial injuries including a fractured jaw, broken teeth, and lacerations, as well as a concussion. Just to be clear, however, this isn’t a prank, harmless or otherwise. It’s a criminal assault, and could justifiably be considered an act of terrorism since its purpose is to force a segment of society off the roads.
A San Francisco bicyclist escaped with non-life-threatening injuries when he was struck by a U-turning driver while riding on San Francisco’s not-so-protected Valencia Street centerline bike lanes. Then again, just because someone’s injuries aren’t life-threatening doesn’t mean they’re not incapacitating or painful.
North Carolina rapper J. Cole is one of us, riding his bike fearlessly “like a normie through the gritty streets of New York City.” Well, okay then.
International
A columnist for Cycling Weekly says if bicycle designers made the same progress the marketing departments are making, bikes would be able to fly by now. Actually, as some of us have learned the hard way, bikes can fly. It’s just the landings that are a little rough.
Life is cheap in Yorkshire, England, where a woman who killed a 58-year old man riding a bicycle walked without a day behind bars after her two-year sentence was suspended; she apparently failed to notice him on the roadway because her nose was buried in her sat-nav system. Proving once again that any form of electronic device can distract a driver, with catastrophic results for others.
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.”
Luis Varela was just crossing street at Wilshire Boulevard and Park View Street around 7 pm on Nov. 11th when he was run down by the driver of a dark-colored SUV.
As usual, there is a $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injury. That will rise to $50,000 if he dies of his injuries.
Meanwhile, a crowdfunding campaign started by Varela’s brother has raised just $1,325 of the $100,000 goal to help pay his medical expenses, and bring his mother in from out of the country to care for him.
The driver who left him there to die should be responsible for that.
And should get locked up for a lot longer than California’s lenient hit-and-run laws will allow.
But won’t be.
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There are now seven people officially qualified to run in the special election to replace former City Council President Nury Martinez, who resigned following the public leak of the racist and otherwise offensive recording she was heard on, along with two other councilmembers.
Which serves as a reminder that the lone remaining councilmember heard on the recording, CD14’s Kevin de León, still won’t do the right thing and resign.
This is the cost of traffic violence, too. After a Georgia bike rider was struck by a driver, a group of bystanders gathered around him to pray. Then just when he started to breathe again, another driver plowed into the group, sending six people to the hospital, with one in critical condition. And we can probably guess who that one is.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 75-year old London letter writer complains about “rogue” bicyclists who refuse to use bike lanes when there is a more convenient, but less legal, option available, writing “If people keep on demanding cycle lanes, then why do they not use the damn things?” Because it’s human nature to use a short cut when you find one.
The LA Times agrees with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to reduce spending to close a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit, but argues the state will need to make up for the $6 billion cut in climate change funding, including investments in public transit, bike and pedestrian projects.
Shades of Nipper. Your next throttle-controlled, dirt bike-style ebike could be distracted by listening to its master’s voice, as RCA makes a leap into electric bikes. Let’s hope its better than their electronics have been in recent decades.
Salt Lake City announced plans to join the national Vision Zero Network in the face of rising traffic deaths and injuries. Let’s hope they actually fund and implement the program, unlike a certain SoCal megalopolis we could name.
Police in Durango, Colorado have charged a pair of football players from the local college as co-defendants in an alleged drunken hit-and-run that took the life of a firefighter; the two are accused of helping a third man flee the scene, leaving his car behind with the victim still lodged in the car’s windshield, and his bike stuck underneath.
No surprise here, unfortunately, as a Dutch study has shown a high prevalence of low bone density in the pro cycling peloton. If bicycling is your primary form of exercise, you should think about adding weight training and/or high impact exercises.
It looks like we finally have a winner for all those Tour de France titles Lance unwillingly vacated.
Breaking News: George Santos has declared himself winner of the Tour de France from 1999-2005. The previous self-declared TdF winner of those editions is now threatening to run for Santos’ seat in 2024. Updates soon. pic.twitter.com/Qoyy9xd5HN
Last year was another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for SoCal bike riders.
But at least it was better than the year before.
Maybe.
According to our latest count, at least 82* people lost their lives while riding a bicycle in the seven county Southern California region last year, just two less than the previous year.
Although that figure is likely an undercount; I’ve heard of a half dozen or more deaths this year that I wasn’t able to officially confirm, but which undoubtedly happened.
The total for last year reflects the 26 bike riders I counted killed in Los Angeles County last year, which again is likely a dramatic undercount.
A total of 35 bike riders lost their lives in LA County in 2021, which was over twice the total of 17 that I had counted; I also counted 15 in 2020, compared to 27 reported by the NHTSA.
Which suggests that the local media is failing to report a number of bicycling deaths in the Los Angeles area, for whatever reason.
I also counted 14 bicycling deaths in the City of Los Angeles last year, which is in line with verified totals of 18 and 15 in 2021 and 2020.
Further afield, San Diego County suffered 12 deaths last year, which was a significant improvement over 17 in the previous year, though much higher than the 7 and 8 people killed riding bikes in the county in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
Meanwhile, Orange County appeared to have their worst year in recent memory, with 17 people killed* riding bikes last year, compared to just 7 in 2021, 15 in 2020, and 13 in 2019.
Although it is important to note that only the totals for 2020 and 2019 have been verified by the NHTSA; 2021 data isn’t currently available through their website.
Riverside and San Bernardino Counties also showed increases last year, with 11 bicycling deaths in Riverside County, and 10 in San Bernardino County. Ventura County suffered 4 deaths — half the previous year’s total — while Imperial County recorded none for the third year in a row.
Here’s a quick recap of bicycling deaths for each of the seven counties.
Los Angeles County
2022 – 26
2021 – 35
2020 – 27
2019 – 38
Orange County
2022 – 17
2021 – 7
2020 – 14
2019 – 13
San Diego County
2022 – 12
2021 – 17
2020 – 7
2019 – 8
Riverside County
2022 – 11
2021 – 9
2020 – 8
2019 – 5
San Bernardino County
2022 – 10
2021 – 7
2020 – 6
2019 – 7
Imperial County
2022 – 0
2021 – 0
2020 – 0
2019 – 6
Ventura County
2022 – 4
2021 – 8
2020 – 4
2019 – 4
Source: 2021-2022 BikinginLA, except 2021 LA County data from Los Angeles Times; 2019-2020 NHTSA FARS data
While compiling records of this sort is necessary to bring about desperately needed changes to our streets, it also reduces human tragedy and loss to a statistic.
Correction: A comment from Dawn made it clear that I had miscategorized a story about her father’s August death in Irvine.
*After correcting the error and adding it back into the totals for OC, that made 17 people killed riding their bikes in the county last year, and 82 in Southern California, instead of 16 and 81, respectively, as I had originally written.
My apologies for the mistake.
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On a related subject, rural areas are becoming safer, while urban environments are growing ever deadlier.
And the photo at the bottom of this thread goes a long way towards explaining why.
Promising news about the new LA City Council Transportation Committee members we mentioned yesterday, at least two of whom have taken bike tours with the new BikeLA (formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, or LACBC).
We’re hopeful that we share priorities with Park and Hutt to build safe bicycle infrastructure both in their districts and citywide, and we look forward to working with the whole committee to hit the ground running in 2023.
Transportation PAC Streets For All is hosting their next virtual happy hour next Wednesday, featuring my councilmember, CD4’s Nithya Raman.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A former contestant on the UK’s version of The Apprenticecriticizes plans for traffic filters on Oxford streets, saying you won’t be able to drive more than 15 minutes in any direction — and somehow manages to get the whole thing wrong.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A British Columbia man faces charges for stealing a truck and using it to smash through a gate, then hoping on a bicycle to make his escape after the truck was disabled in the crash. Which raises a lot of questions, like whether the fact that he wasn’t charged with stealing the bike means he just happened to have it with him in case he needed to pedal away from the crime scene.
An Arizona man has made a remarkable recovery following the crash in a Show Low, Arizona master’s race that killed one man and seriously injured several riders; 37-year old Shawn Michael Chock was quietly sentenced to 26-1/2 years behind bars for second-degree murder and felony aggravated assault.
Calgary bicycle advocates are calling for safer bike infrastructure, after reports of snow and ice clogging bikeways and creating a hazard for riders. Here in SoCal, our snow and ice comes in liquid form, but still creates hazards on days like this. So be careful out there.
Bike Portland goes riding in London. Which I deeply regret I didn’t get a chance to do when my wife and I visited earlier this century.
The all-important Transportation Committee — at least for our purposes — will be helmed by interim CD10 Councilmember Heather Hutt, with newly elected CD11 Councilmember Traci Park servicing as vice chair.
New members Eunisses Hernandez (CD1) and Katy Yaroslavsky (CD5) fill out the roster, along with CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman.
We’ll have to wait to see what this will mean for active transportation in the City of Angels, but there’s reason for hope with the three progressive at large members onboard.
It’s also worth noting that the all-female committee roster comes just a few short years after the council raised countless red flags when no women were elected to the board.
Here’s the full list of committee assignments, courtesy of Zahniser.
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Zahniser also reports that just two candidates have qualified for the special election to replace for Council President Nury Martinez in CD6.
Martinez resigned in the wake of the recording in which she was heard making racist and otherwise offensive comments, along with two other Latino councilmembers and a labor leader, who also resigned his post.
One of the councilmembers, CD1’s “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo left the council at the end of his term after losing to Eunisses Hernandez, while CD14’s Kevin de León still refuses to do the right thing and resign.
The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you're "allowed" to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea–and, make no mistake, it's part of a well-documented plan. https://t.co/QRrjVF615q
Streetsblogrecommends the Schabarum Trail Peak, part of the nearly 30-mile Schabarum-Skyline Trail running from San Dimas to unincorporated Whittier, offering sweeping views of the San Gabriel Valley.
State
Planetizen argues that San Diego needs to improve its bike infrastructure if it wants to have any chance of meeting its climate goals. Oddly, the city seems to take such things seriously, rather than calling their goals merely “aspirational” like their larger neighbor to the north.
Intelligent Living offers three reasons to ride your bike to work. But fails to mention how much faster it can be than driving congested streets, and how much more fun you’ll have.
Colorado’s governor is calling for a $120 million tax credit to encourage residents to buy electric cars and lawnmowers, as well as ebikes; the proposed program would offer a $500 tax rebate for ebike purchasers, rising to $1,000 for low income residents. Although the state could save a lot of money, and do more to improve air quality and fight climate change, if they designed the program to simply replace cars with ebikes, instead.
Atlanta is the latest city to consider offering rebates for ebike purchasers. Meanwhile, Los Angeles remains firmly among the vast majority of cities that haven’t even discussed an ebike rebate program, while potential California buyer continue to wait with baited breath for the state’s long-delayed ebike rebate program to finally roll out.
