Tag Archive for Los Angeles City Council

Demand a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, stop LA’s nonexistent “war on cars,” and lefties want to kill your palm trees

September 15, 2026 / / No comments

If today’s post seems a little jazzier than usual, it was written under the influence of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which is way better than any drug.

Today’s photo of LA City Hall looking like a big dick to represent all the little ones, male and female, inside. 

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More on today’s call for the City of Los Angeles to declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, as I’ve mashed an email notification and press release together.

And yes, there’s still time to get to City Hall if you can make it this morning.

DEMAND A STATE OF EMERGENCY ON TRAFFIC VIOLENCE!

More than 1,300 people and 40 coalition partners have signed SAFE’s open letter calling on the Mayor and City Council to declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and take immediate action.

Now, we’re bringing that demand to City Hall. We need you to show up, give public comment, and make your voice heard.

Tuesday, September 15, 2026
9:30 a.m. Meet at City Hall
10:00 a.m. City Council meeting begins
Press conference following public comment
200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Entrance on Main St.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment. If you can speak during public comment or at our press conference, please confirm with me and review the instructions and talking points for public comment.

We hope to see you at City Hall Tuesday.

WHAT: Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), People’s Vision Zero, and community members will present an open letter to Los Angeles City Council signed by more than 1,300 Angelenos and 43 Coalition Partners to Los Angeles City Hall, calling on Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council to immediately declare a State of Emergency on traffic violence and implement 5 broad strategies to immediately address and reduce serious injuries and fatalities due to traffic violence.

The stats speak for themselves:

  • The City of Los Angeles has had more traffic fatalities than homicides for the past 3 years.
  • In 2025, Los Angeles had 324 traffic fatalities and 16,160 people injured; that’s 3.5% higher than in 2024 (313). (Source: TIMS)
  • So far this year, traffic fatalities are already well over 200 and are currently running 8% higher than the same time last year. (Source: LAPD as of 22 Aug 2026)

In 2015, Los Angeles started Vision Zero, LA’s plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2025. That plan failed, and traffic fatalities are now 34% higher than they were in 2015 (241 compared to 324). (Source: TIMS) Since then, LA has failed to produce a comprehensive plan to reduce traffic violence.

In April 2025, an independent analysis of Vision Zero found 13 key points of failure. All of these boil down to poor coordination and prioritization within and across city departments as well as a lack of political will. None of this has been fixed.

On 11 May 2026, in an email, Ms Tina Backstrom from the LA Mayor’s office stated that Mayor Karen Bass had an Executive Directive on her desk to re-launch Vision Zero and that it would be reviewed and signed within three weeks. This was never done.

Los Angeles has spent more than a decade promising to eliminate traffic deaths. Not only did Vision Zero fail, but things have gotten worse, and now, instead of fixing what continues to fail, the city has chosen to ignore the problem.

I admit, I was unaware of that email stating that Bass would re-launch Vision Zero, which just seems to add to her failings when it comes to traffic safety.

And makes her recent stepped-up support of safety projects — other than Forest Lawn Drive, of course — seem more like the flailing actions of someone desperately running for re-election, than any real change of heart.

But maybe that’s just me.

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No bias here.

A former Los Angeles city planner writes that Los Angeles needs to stop the mythical “war on cars,” spewing a lengthy word salad to say that Los Angeles isn’t Amsterdam, which should come as no surprise to anyone.

For one thing, the people in Amsterdam live in one of the world’s happiest countries, which can hardly be said about Angelenos.

Thomas Glick implicitly criticizes CD 4 Councilmember and LA mayoral challenger Nithya Raman for saying people should drive less, while also driving herself.

Oh, the shame!

That will surely make her hang her head and slink away.

Glick also says that bicycling, and bike lanes, are good things. But, you know, bike lanes can get cluttered with palm fronds and other debris after it rains, making them virtually unusable.

Which seems like a far better argument for bike lane-sized street sweepers, than it is for whatever point Glick is trying to make.

Then there’s this.

That is the larger problem. Los Angeles transportation policy increasingly seems designed to satisfy the demands of progressive transportation organizations and advocacy groups such as Streets for All rather than starting with the more basic question: What will actually move the greatest number of Angelenos safely and efficiently?

Mayor Karen Bass, to her credit, has shown that there can be a middle ground. Bass is hardly opposed to public transportation, bike lanes or reducing automobile dependence. But she has also demonstrated a willingness to recognize that transportation policy has to work for the people who actually live here. When faced with significant community opposition to the proposed redesign of Forest Lawn Drive, which would have removed a traffic lane in each direction to create a protected bike lane, Bass ordered the project redesigned rather than simply pushing ahead. Her revised approach calls for protected bike infrastructure while maintaining the existing traffic lanes.

That is the kind of balance Los Angeles needs. The choice shouldn’t be between doing nothing and declaring war on the automobile. We can make streets safer, expand transit and provide better options for bicyclists without pretending that every traffic lane is an obstacle to be eliminated. Bass’s decision on Forest Lawn Drive suggests that even a mayor committed to expanding alternative transportation can recognize that there are limits to how much roadway Los Angeles can take away from the automobile before the cure becomes worse than the disease.

Never mind that the point of the Forest Lawn Drive project wasn’t about building bike lanes, but slowing traffic and saving lives on one of the city’s deadliest corridors.

Which you’d think a former city planner would understand, but apparently not.

And never mind that the project has undergone years of public meetings and revisions to accommodate various competing visions. Or that Bass halted the Forest Lawn project in response to a $300,000 lobbying campaign on behalf of a pair of very wealthy private cemeteries, who are apparently trying to drum up more business at their front step.

So yeah, let’s stop that mythical “war on cars,” and let the people in them keep killing themselves, and others, to the content of their lil ol’ hearts.

And yeah, stop taking away traffic lanes to build those darn bus lanes, too, even though buses move more people far more efficiently than cars can.

So sure, let’s keep Los Angeles deadly. And car and smog choked. And inefficient. And unaccommodating. And progressively less livable.

But whatever you do, don’t do anything to restrict Angelenos God-given right to drive their cars.

Or even suggest that maybe they should do it just a teeny bit less.

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No bias here, either.

In bicycle-adjacent news, the conservative New York Post writes that “A lefty public transport nonprofit that supports socialist Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman is coming for the city’s iconic palm trees.”

Maybe someone should tell them that their own New York mayor is a loud and proud Democratic socialist. And I didn’t know Streets For All was a “lefty” group, unless traffic safety and urban livability are “lefty” issues.

Besides, they’re right. The only good thing about LA’s palm trees, which are actually a form of very big grass, is they look kinda cool and give the city an iconic image.

But they take a lot of water, provide virtually no shade, and do nothing to cool our over-baked city. And they go up like a torch in any kind of fire, as we see every 4th of July and most Christmases.

Apparently, pointing that out — which many others have done before — is enough to get you labeled a “lefty.” And God forbid, a supporter of a (gasp) Nithya Raman.

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That’s tonight!

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A multi-agency Orange County police task force cracked down on traffic violations, writing 102 citations with an emphasis on motorcycle noise violation and illegal electric motorbikes.

According to New Santa Ana, the violations included:

  • 18 citations for loud exhaust violations Loudest reading: 111 dBA, well above California’s 95 dBA limit for passenger vehicles and 80 dBA limit for motorcycles.
  • 2 citations for emissions violations Referred to the State Referee, where drivers must complete compliance testing and repairs.
  • 33 speeding citations Highest recorded speed: 95 MPH in a 50 zone on SR‑1 near El Morro School.
  • 6 drivers cited for unlicensed or suspended license operation
  • 1 vehicle impounded
  • 1 arrest Charges included open container, DUI, and possession of a concealed firearm.

Which leaves 41 violations for…something.

………

Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly acting like total dicks. 

A 51-year old Eugene, Oregon man faces charges for intentionally riding his bike into a 73-year old homeless woman — twice — after she told him to “watch out” when he rode close to her and her dog, leaving her with minor injuries.

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Local 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass manages to get herself photographed center stage at the groundbreaking for the Spring/Alameda Safety and Mobility Project, making the sort of public appearance she could have, and should have, been making for the past three-and-a-half years.

Good news from Culver City, where the Ballona Creek bike path was reopened on Friday after storm damage from the recent hurricane was repaired.

 

State

Apparently, riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk with your unsecured, un-helmeted two-year old kid on your lap is no big deal in Santa Ana.

Nearly 1,000 ebikes, e-motos and electric scooters were turned in during the Orange County DA’s buyback program on Saturday. Although judging by the video clips I saw, many were of the normal, and legal, ped-assist type, which wouldn’t do anything to reduce the number of dangerous and illegal electric vehicles the program was intended to remove from the roadway. 

San Diego is considering suing bikemakers for deceptive ebike ads.

Here’s why — okay, one reason — paywalls don’t make any sense. The San Diego Union-Tribune hid a story about the identity of the 14-year old kid killed riding an ebike in Pacific Beach over the weekend behind their draconian paywall, even though the kid’s name and other details were readily available from at least a half dozen other sources.

 

National

A website lists five Android apps that are “perfect” for bicyclists, even if you do your riding indoors.

Dominos is relaunching the bicycle with a built-in pizza oven, which they seem to do every few years, but this time as an ebike, presumably for even faster and hotter deliveries. Or maybe just a reliable PR stunt. 

A travel lane is being removed from a Eugene, Oregon street to make room for bike lanes and a combination bus/parking lane, in a city where removing a traffic lane doesn’t seem to be the end of the world.

Evidently, the New York Post thinks Seattle is in California, writing that the driver spotted speeding along a Seattle bike lane was driving next to a “major California freeway.” 

Denver Broncos all-pro safety Talanoa Hufanga’s NFL dreams began with a little red bicycle, riding to high school football games with his dad when he was just five or six years old.

More than 200 Loyola of Chicago students, faculty and staff took part in the university’s annual midnight bike ride, a tradition since 1989.

A 41-year old Louisville, Kentucky man was released on his own recognizance and allowed to drive to medical appointments for his Stage IV cancer, despite being charged with the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle. It’s not that he shouldn’t be allowed to get to his medical treatments, it’s that the man he killed didn’t get any say in any of it. 

An Indiana University researcher uses bikes to develop a heat map.

A Maryland bike shop owner explains why he decided “decades ago” not to sell ebikes to minors, or to parents for their minor kids. Because apparently ebikes were a major problem in his shop decades before they became a problem anywhere else. 

Heartbreaking story from Durham, North Carolina, where a nine-year old boy was killed by a driver on Sunday while riding the bicycle he got for his birthday; his mom said “Just hug your babies. Love your babies. And people need to slow down. If you’re in a neighborhood full of kids, slow down.”

 

International

Travel + Leisure lists ten countries that are made for a two-wheeled vacay, only two of which — Slovenia and Vietnam — are even kinda surprising.

A story from British Columbia seems to miss the most important part, after a 47-year old man pled guilty to second-degree murder in the hit-and-run death of a 54-year old man riding a bicycle, after pleading down from first-degree murder — yet somehow, fails to mention why he was charged with murder in the first place.

In shocking news, the BBC reveals that reckless ebike users pose a danger to people on bicycles. Kinda like reckless people in or on anything, including feet. 

European cities show how to pay people to bike to work — and make it work.

Protests took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after a 51-year old suspected bike thief died in police custody.

A man riding 500 miles to raise funds for his seriously ill partner was beaten by his fellow Poles for wearing a yellow and blue hat, accusing him of being a Ukrainian nationalist, even though the hat was clearly labeled to represent a Polish region.

 

Competitive Cycling

Five Americans to watch at this year’s Worlds.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your donut ride across Los Angeles is just a slightly veiled ad for an energy drink. This is who we share the boardwalk with.

And the latest reason for cops to oppose a new bike lane is because it could become “a highway for illegal ebikes on drug runs.”

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Ebike rider killed in Arleta crash, and demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence at LA council tomorrow

September 14, 2026 / / No comments

Okay, where were we?

I should have known I was tempting fate by going on a rant over traffic deaths. But why the hell did fate take it out on a young kid?

And you can find the t-shirt in today’s photo, and a few other ghost bike tees, by clicking on the Swag button on the upper right. I’d really like to stop posting them if drivers would just stop killing us. 

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Speaking of ebike deaths, which I was really trying not to do, someone was killed riding an ebike in Arleta early Sunday.

According to KTLA-5, the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was stuck by the driver of a white SUV in the 13000 block of Osborne Street, as if the color of the vehicle had some sort of magical effect on the outcome.

Actually, KTLA says the victim was killed after being struck by the SUV, as if a) the victim was beaten or strangled after being stuck by the vehicle, and b) the driver of the SUV somehow had nothing to do with it.

You can do better, KTLA.

As usual, there’s no word on what kind of ebike it was, whether the victim was riding a legal ped-assist bike or an illegal e-moto or dirt bike, since neither the cops nor the press can seem to distinguish between them.

At least Hoodline managed to add that section of Osborne Street is on Los Angeles’s Vision Zero High Injury Network — suggesting that the city still cares about such things — with 20 total vehicle fatalities and 16 pedestrian or bicyclist collisions from 2010 to 2020.

And why does it take The Korea Daily to report on LA traffic deaths and injuries? The Los Angeles-based paper reports that,

According to traffic collision statistics released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Aug. 27, a total of 187 people were killed in traffic crashes in Los Angeles between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15 this year. That represents a 5% increase from 178 deaths during the same period last year.

Injury crashes also increased by about 7%, from 971 to 1,043, while bicycle-related injury crashes surged 37% to 144.

The only real surprise that bicycle-related injury crashes surged more than a third is that anyone is still tracking the number, since no one bothers to tell us anymore.

……….

A reminder that Streets Are For Everyone is urging you to show up for tomorrow’s LA City Council Meeting, where they will demand that the city declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence.

The time has come to demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence from our local leaders.

SAFE will join our coalition partners at Los Angeles City Council on September 15th to drop our open letterdemanding that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council immediately declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and address this public health crisis.

Thank you for signing on and joining this movement. Your signature helped us reach more than 1,250 signatures on this campaign, showing our local leaders that Angelenos want streets that are safe to use.

The next step is here, and we need you with us as we deliver that message directly to City Hall.

Please join SAFE on September 15th at 9:30 am in City Hall to help us deliver our open letter and make our voices heard. We are asking everyone who has signed this letter to attend the City Council meeting and give public comment.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment, making it clear to our local leaders that traffic violence is an urgent public safety crisis that deserves their attention.

Event Details

  • Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
  • Time: Meet at 9:30 a.m.
  • Council Meeting Begins at 10:00 a.m.
  • Press Conference following Public Comment
  • Location: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Entrance on Main St.)

Instructions and Talking Points for Public Comment.

After public comment concludes, advocates will leave the Council Chamber and regroup outside on the steps of City Hall for a Press Conference.

Thank you again for adding your name to this campaign and standing with us. We have built the movement. Now it is time to bring it directly to our local leaders.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email (aaron@streetsareforeveryone.org) or by calling my cell (818.697.2621)

We hope to see you at City Hall on September 15th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be there, as much as I’d like to be.

The meds I take to keep from acting out my dreams, and possibly inadvertently killing my wife in my sleep, means I will likely be unconscious at that hour. And even if I tried to shake off the effects of the drug and show up, I’d be too sick from it to even make it there.

So please, if you can, go in my stead and be my witness before the council to demand they take urgent action to stop people from killing us.

God knows, we’ve got enough ghost bikes in this damn city.

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LA mayoral challenger Nithya Raman announced her plan to make LA cooler and more livable before the ’28 Olympics.

Twitter post

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He gets it.

A writer for The Guardian, who confesses the “humiliating” fact that he can’t ride a bike because his parents were too busy arguing or falling asleep to teach him, has this to say about the Trump administration’s attack on “DEI” bike lanes.

Rhetorically, the administration’s charge of bike lanes being some form of diversity, equity, and inclusion makes no sense. If riding a bike is so easy, then how can we classify it as unique enough to be diverse? Children ride bikes. It’s far less exotic than, say, operating a motorcycle, which takes a special license in every state. Maybe if we had a dedicated lane for a penny-farthing, I’d buy this explanation. If I were tooling around on one of those, I’d never get where I was going, because scores of beautiful women would be stopping me every few feet.

Conservative disapproval for bike lanes stems from a blinkered, irrational view of culture, and more accurately, masculinity. Trumpists have teased Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg for riding bikes. But I’ve been teased for not being able to ride a bike. Shouldn’t I be lauded for my commitment to machismo? My belief in the petrol-powered conveyance deserves commendation. My parents’ inattention to my development actually made me cooler, right?

If anything, I’m the diversity in this scenario. I can’t use a bike lane. I’ve been excluded from significant parts of the road. I can’t even walk in the bike lane. I should be furious, writing pointed, profane letters to my city councilperson, begging them to release me from my shackles. Or better yet, I should demand the city taxpayers pay for me to take bike lessons, so I can be accommodated. I’m the weirdo here. The one who has to explain my predicament, to feel excluded from the general population. Except, I’m not going to complain.

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American cars are getting fatter, along with our citizenry.

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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 30-year San Diego bike rider says the sharrows on Mira Mesa may be a death trap, but the solution can’t be to make Mira Mesa more congested, suggesting bike riders should be directed to quieter streets. As I recall from nearly 40 years ago, nothing could make Mira Mesa more congested. Although the San Diego Union-Tribune evidently doesn’t want you to know about it, since it’s hidden behind its draconian paywall. 

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Local 

Good on them. LA street safety vigilante Jonathan Hale led People’s Vision Zero in painting a new crosswalk at Sycamore and Lexington, after the city refused to so anything.

Los Angeles Mayor Bass took credit for breaking ground on the long-planned Spring-Alameda Safety and Mobility Project, which far-predated her administration.

 

State

A 12-year old Laguna Nigel boy has been appearing before Orange County city councils to call for stricter ebike rules for kids his age, arguing that too many ride too fast, ignore rules and take risks.

Speaking of the San Diego U-T’s draconian paywall, an engineering study has found the Coast Highway bridge in Encinitas is in poor condition. But they apparently don’t want you to learn about it until the bridge collapses under you. 

The deaths of Kellie Standish and William Colby Tucker on PCH in Ventura earlier this year have renewed calls for improving safety on the deadly highway.

Two major safety projects are underway to bridge coastal gaps and improve bicycle and pedestrian safety between Montecito and Summerland.

Sad news from Santa Cruz County, where a driver was arrested on suspicion of DUI after killing a bike rider near Soquel.

 

National

This is the cost of traffic violence. An associate vice president of Brigham Young University, and the director of BYU’s nationally recognized David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies was killed while riding his bike last week; Vincent Stanley Benfell III was 63.

In a bizarre case, an Ohio mom was found dead on top of a train car, 130 miles from where she disappeared while riding her bicycle.

Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, New York are accelerating investments in bike lanes and safer streets, building out the networks necessary to making bicycling a practical means of transportation.

Around 30 riders in Birmingham, Alabama honored two forgotten victims of the fight for civil rights, 53 years after 13-year old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by white teens while riding on the handlebars of his brother’s bike, and 16-year old Johnny Robinson fatally shot by a cop, the same morning as the infamous bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four young girls. Do I really need to mention that both young men were Black? I didn’t think so. 

A 76-year old disabled US Air Force vet started a five-day ride across Florida’s 28th Congressional District, leading a group to support the campaign of retired Navy Commander and Democratic candidate Phil Ehr.

 

International

Momentum asks the burning question why do cities insist on using sharrows when they don’t make bicyclists any safer, and often leave us less safer? That’s easy — they can be installed for pennies on the dollar without removing parking or a traffic lane, so they don’t inconvenience anyone by risking our lives. 

A Canadian writer goes riding with the last remaining bicycle couriers in Vancouver, as digital copies replace the death-defying thrill of zooming papers across the city on two wheels.

Dozens of Toronto bike advocates took to the streets to protest Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move to rip out popular bike lanes and move them to quieter, less direct streets. Although “dozens” of protesters aren’t likely to get his, or anyone else’s, attention.

A British bike nonprofit has found that ebike bikeshares encourage people to try bicycling who might not otherwise.

 

Competitive Cycling

To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention for the past two weeks, Spain’s Enric Mas won the Vuelta for the first time, after three previous second place finishes; Mas finished two minutes and 15 seconds ahead of Primož Roglič, and another half minute over Austrian Felix Gall. 

Congratulations to American Sepp Kuss on his fifth place finish, 8:45 back and one place behind Richard Carapaz.

Bummer. Irishman Eddie Dunbar crashed out on the penultimate state of the Vuelta, breaking his collarbone one day after an emotional comeback win on Peñas Blancas.

Mexico’s Isaac del Toro overcame Frenchman Paul Seixas to win a dramatic uphill sprint to the finish of the GP de Montreal, announcing themselves heirs apparent to Tadej Pogačar for the world championships.

Slovenian Urška Žigart broke her jaw for the second time in three months, prematurely ending her season with a crash on stage 3 of the Faun Tour Femmes.

 

Finally…

No, bike lanes are not just extra pavement that can be used by drivers whenever it’s convenient — and that includes protected bike lanes along Seattle freeways.

And that feeling when you get brake checked by a delivery robot, so you throw it into the bushes.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Demand a Traffic Violence State of Emergency in Los Angeles, and a Capital Infrastructure Plan for the City Charter

March 12, 2026 / / One comment

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:

  1. Recommitting to Vision Zero in its entirety – all five pillars, not just one or two.
  2. Take serious and meaningful actions to fully address the failures of Vision Zero found in the city’s own audit.
  3. Properly staff the LADOT, RIGHT NOW,  with the personnel needed to use the grants and funding it already has.
  4. Immediately empower the community to make their own roads safer through a community-led traffic safety program.
  5. 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.

EXAMPLE PUBLIC COMMENT LANGUAGE

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. 

EMAIL THE CHARTER COMMISSION

Want to learn more about the Charter Reform process? Read about our research and suggestions here: charter.streetsforall.org

We’ll be back to our regular programming tomorrow.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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?

January 26, 2026 / / 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.

Figuratively, anyway.

The Los Angeles Times reports on Saturday’s die-in on the steps of LA City Hall, saying dozens feigned their deaths to protest the 290 traffic deaths last year in the City of Angels, and the adjective failure of Vision Zero.

“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.

………

Good question.

Circling the News asks how LA County expects to build a subway under the Sepulveda Pass if it takes three years to even repair a washed out bridge on the beach bike path.

Or fix the noxious “poop spray” fouling it, for that matter.

………

Former NFL star Marshawn Lynch is one of us, riding a Lime ebike across Seattle for Sunday’s game between the Rams and the Seahawks.

Which did not end well for the Rams.

https://twitter.com/Schultz_Report/status/2015554538099605571

Then again, my beloved Broncos finished a broken ankle and a snow storm short of the Super Bowl, too.

………

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.

An Irish writer says anyone who thinks bikes should be registered is “deeply unserious or misguided.” No, seriously. Tell us what you really think. 

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A British man is charged with careless bicycling after crashing into a woman when he tried to pass her on a pathway, but he says it was the woman who stepped into his path.

………

Local 

Bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd, Fairfax Ave and San Vicente Blvd in West Hollywood are getting a fresh coat of Kermit, with a shade of green specially formulated to enhance safety without overly annoying Hollywood filmmakers.

LAist examines 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. 

 

State

Solana Beach will use a $300,000 state grant to help fund a $1.075 million extension of San Diego County’s Coastal Rail Trail to the Encinitas border.

Megan forwards news that a UC Santa Barbara student bike committee has secured $1.4 million to build a new bike path on campus.

In a surprising example of rationality, researchers at San José State University say the state’s ebike problem may actually be an e-motorbike problem.

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.

A Manteca resident claims the honor of being the only person to ever kick Greg LeMond out of a bike race — when America’s last remaining Tour de France winner was 14.

 

National

Your next ebike could get a whopping 600 mile range on a single charge.

A homeless man in Florida was been convicted of 2nd degree murder in the death of a 14-year old boy who disappeared while on a bike ride in 2021 — even though the judge had ordered an emergency mental health evaluation days earlier after a bizarre, rambling statement on the stand by the man, who had been ruled competent to stand trial despite a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

 

International

Cycling Weekly talks with a woman who used riding her bike through the Scottish Highlands as an escape from a difficult marriage, then rode through her bereavement, and used riding to recover from an illness that cost her 60% of her lung function.

A new study shows that Britain’s “transformational” Place to Ride program has saved the country’s National Health Service the equivalent of nearly $18 million, while resulting in $136 million in ‘social value’ across the UK.

The Republic of Ireland is considering a proposal to mandate compulsory bike helmet use and hi-viz clothing for all bicyclists and e-scooter users. Even though other helmet mandates have been show to reduce head injuries mainly by reducing riding rates, while preventing children from even learning how to ride. And if hi-viz was the answer, no one would ever crash into a fire hydrant, road sign or emergency vehicle. 

Parts of the Netherlands are banning the heavy, fat-tired electric bikes they call fat bikes, and we would call electric motorbikes.

A team of British club riders are following the route taken by the Prophet Muhammad from Makkah to Madinah in Saudi Arabia over 1,400 years ago to raise funds to fight pediatric heart defects.

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.

 

Competitive Cycling

In what has to be one of the most bizarre endings ever to a WorldTour race, Aussie Jay Vine won the Tour Down Under stage rage on Sunday — but only after getting knocked down when a pair of kangaroos hopped through the peloton, crashing into several cyclists, and forcing three riders out of the race; Vine rejoined the stage after switching bikes, but one of the kangaroos had to be put down.

https://twitter.com/SBSSportau/status/2015295885203165577

 

Finally…

That feeling when a self-driving car parks in a bike lane, and the company tries to blame the driver. Or when an F1 star takes part in a gravel ride wearing only a banana hammock.

And of course a certain Pasadena kid grew up to be one of us.

Bluesky post

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Calbike lists legislative agenda, ignores hit-and-run (again); and LA council committees belatedly consider HLA

February 26, 2025 / / 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. 

………

Calbike updated their legislative agenda for the coming year, calling for better and faster bike infrastructure, while reclassifying electric motorcycles and mopeds that are illegally marketed as ebikes.

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.

Calbike also called for a halt to the recent rash of bikeway removals in the state, specifically in Culver City and San Mateo.

Although I keep hoping that someone, somewhere, will finally decide that hit-and-run drivers, who cause roughly a third of SoCal bicycling deaths, and are involved in up to half of all crashes in the City of Angels, are a problem, and actually do something about it.

Maybe someday.

………

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

………

Walk ‘n Rollers will host a Walk More Bike More Festival at Ivy Station in Culver City this Saturday, as Bike Culver City looks for bike valets.

Twitter post

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Detroit cops demonstrate their windshield bias by ticketing bicyclists for riding in the roadway, incorrectly insisting they have to stay in the bike lane — even if it’s full of snow. And asking to see their licenses, which people who ride bikes don’t need.

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.

No bias here. Bicyclists complained about the BBC’s claim of “a war on our roads,” calling out the false equivalency of framing it as a battle when only one side suffers most of the losses.

………

Local  

They get it. The Los Angeles Times also calls on Culver City not to backslide on their ambitious safe street redesign, arguing that we will “never have safe streets and quality transit if the region’s political leaders scrap or scale back projects when there is opposition to change.”

This is who we share the road with. A 33-year old social media influencer faces DUI and manslaughter charges after allegedly leaving a Malibu 4th of July party after drinking, and killing a rideshare driver in a head-on crash after jumping the center divider on PCH.

 

State

Costa Mesa will present a comprehensive bicycle safety education class, developed in consultation with Culver City nonprofit Walk ‘n Rollers.

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.

A long-delayed, one-and-a-quarter mile, $12 million bike trail connecting Morro Bay and Cayucos along the coast in San Luis Obispo County is now nearly funded and could break ground soon, providing a safer alternative to riding on PCH.

The Napa Valley Transportation Authority is looking for public input as they belatedly develop the county’s first active transportation plan.

The CHP is looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a Sacramento bike rider with major injuries earlier this month.

 

National

American bikemakers are facing yet another economic challenge thanks to Trump’s new tariffs on steel and aluminum, amid fears it will price out some customers and hurt demand.

Cycling Weekly takes an angle grinder to angle grinder-resistant bike locks to rate their resistance to, yes, angle grinders.

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. 

My bike-friendly Colorado hometown is considering building a bike park on the site of the former college football stadium, where I used to smuggle booze for the marching band inside my tuba.

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.

 

International

Cyclist looks at the game-changing tech that has transformed bicycling over the past ten years.

Yanko Design recommends the top five “essential” bike gear upgrades for every bicyclist. None of which actually is. Essential, that is. 

A 33-year old beginning driver will spend the next two years behind bars for killing a 55-year old English man when he drifted onto the wrong side of the road for no apparent reason, and crashed head-on into the victim’s bicycle.

A British pro cycling site says semiconductors are even improving singlespeed bikes, despite their simplicity.

Momentum recommends four “fantastic” bike routes that showcase the best of Paris, for your next trip to the City of Lights, which is rapidly becoming the City of Bikes.

A Punjabi official insists that no government funds were expended on a Lahore, Pakistan bike lane that is already fading after less than a year, and will be repainted under warranty.

 

Finally….

That feeling when your pro cycling diet is a “hate crime against food.” Your new handlebar tape could look like a horned owl.

And for everyone who dreamed of riding a Raleigh Chopper through the Alps back in the day, someone has finally done it for you.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

LA considers easing bollard applications to protect buildings — oh, and us, too; and bike-riding boy bitten by OC coyote

October 24, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 67 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

Photo from the World Bollard Association Twitter/X account.

………

About damn time.

The Los Angeles City Council took the first of many steps that will be needed to fulfill the promise of a carfree 2028 Olympics, advancing a proposal to fast-track applications for bollards to protect us from motor vehicles.

Or maybe not.

According to My News LA,

“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.

………

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.

Fortunately, the boy wasn’t seriously injured.

But there’s always a danger of rabies or other canine diseases with a bite like that from a wild animal, so let’s hope he’s okay.

………

A Calbike guest post from the executive director of dblTilde CORE, Inc discusses the results of the 50+ Cycling survey they conducted in partnership with the Mineta Transportation Institute.

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.

You can take this year’s survey here.

………

Sounds like you won’t want to miss this week’s Bike Talk.

Twitter post

………

And you definitely won’t want to miss North OC Bikes monthly family friendly bike ride tomorrow night.

Instagram post

………

It’s now 309 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.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Hundreds of Toronto bike riders turned out to protest proposed legislation that would give the conservative provincial government veto power over all new bike lanes, allowing their installation “only where it makes sense.”

………

Local  

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.

Streets For All calls on the National Cemetery Administration to reopen Constitution Ave through Westwood’s Los Angeles National Cemetery, which has been closed since the 9/11 attacks — apparently out of the well-founded fear of walking or bicycling terrorists attacking the thousands of dead service people buried there. You have until next Monday to get your comments in.

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.

 

State

Coronado is moving forward with their own ebike regulations, including barring kids under 12 from riding them.

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. 

 

National

A Ukrainian couple went from a happy life in Kyiv to living with their kids and running a bike shop in Boulder, Colorado after the Russians invaded.

No surprise here, either. A new study from Cambridge, Massachusetts shows bicycling use soars after the installation of a physically separated bike lane.

Police in New York are on the lookout for burglary suspects who killed a woman riding a bicycle while fleeing from cops who tried to pull them over; the three suspects fled on foot after slamming into the woman, who was described as an avid cyclist. Yet one more example of the dangers of police chases to innocent people. 

New York officials finalized plans for a $2 million ebike trade-in program to get dangerous lithium-ion ebike batteries off the streets.

Nice program from Louisiana’s Iberia Parish, where officials are calling for bicycle donations for victims of domestic violence, in a city with no public transportation options.

 

International

Momentum highlights seven “stunning” national bike trails, ranging from Europe to Asia and the Middle East, with a stop in the US for the Great American Rail-Trail.

Researchers from the University of Toronto are using machine learning to optimize the placement of bike lanes, discovering that optimizing for equity results in a more spread out map, with less concentration in the downtown area.

Scottish bicyclists are calling for improvements to a narrow, “unsafe, unacceptable” shared-use path — which is nothing more than a striped highway shoulder —  over fears strong winds could blow riders into high speed traffic.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your brand new pro bike ends up 50 feet down a cliff. And always wear a hoodie emblazoned with “Crooks” when you steal an ebike, so cops have an easier time identifying you afterward.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

City Council unanimously orders report on cleaning protected bike lanes, and killer of Gaudreau brothers had .087 BAC

September 16, 2024 / / 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. 

……..

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. 

Donations of any amount are always welcome, whatever the reason. 

And thank you both.

Photo by Richard Rosenthal; no word on whether the city will clear this type of debris. 

………

The Los Angeles City Council did what it does best, ordering LADOT and the city administrative officer to report back on what it would take to sweep protected bike lanes on a regular basis.

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.

………

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.

Despite telling cops he had five or six beers before getting behind the wheel, and had an open container in his car, 43-year old Sean M. Higgins had a blood alcohol level of .087, just above the .08 legal limit.

And even though his attorney described Higgins as an “empathetic individual” and “a loving father of two daughters” who just made a horrible decision that night, prosecutors said he had history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.

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.

………

Megan Lynch forwards a crowdfunding campaign for an Australian father who’s at risk of losing his leg after he was hit by a red light-running driver while riding an ebike.

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.

………

It’s now 270 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 39 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, Pasadena is back with its second round of ebike vouchers, offering city residents up to $1,000 to buy an ebike from local dealers.

And that deafening silence you hear is Los Angeles not even considering a similar program.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A man in Rochester NY was critically injured when he was intentionally run down by a driver while riding his bike, after he argued with the driver.

A proposal in the British House of Lords would require visible license numbers for all bike riders and take points off their driver’s licenses for any moving violations, while others compared bicyclists to a plague of mosquitos, and want to chip riders — or at least their bikes — like their cats.

A British man was pushed off his bicycle while riding to work by a “yob” who leaned out of a passing van to attack him, suffering facial injuries, bruised arms and legs, and a swollen knee.

An Aussie parliamentarian wants to make wearing hi-viz mandatory for all bicyclists and scooter riders, rather than just requiring drivers to put their damn phones down and pay attention. And there’s no similar requirement to make drivers dress up like clowns

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Local  

Streets Are Fore Everyone, aka SAFE, reports Glendale narrowly approved major traffic lane configuration and bicycle infrastructure improvements to La Crescenta Ave.

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.

WeHo Online complains that no one who actually lives on Fountain is on the bike lane steering committee.

 

State

A 1.8-mile section of the Ventura River Trail between Ventura and Ojai got a $5 million makeover, including a spiffy new frog mural.

Sad news from Visalia, where a man riding a mountain bike was killed when he was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver.

More sad news comes from Fresno, where a 41-year old man was killed in a collision while riding salmon on Highway 41.

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.

 

National

That 1970’s era drop bar bicycle in John Deere green could actually be one.

Gear Patrol considers whether the new bespoke, 3D-printed titanium bike now taking orders from No. 22 Bicycle Company is the future of bicycling.

Kindhearted Colorado cops surprised a girl with a new bicycle for her seventh birthday, after officers tried and failed to fix her old one.

 

International

Momentum offers a guide to buying your first foldie, and says cargo bikes are better than minivans for the perfect family vehicle.

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.

The owner of a bespoke London bike shop complained about brazen bike thieves targeting the shop with four “Mission Impossible-style” burglary attempts in just the last seven months.

The overwhelming majority of Londoners support the city’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods, but also believe it should be mandatory to use a bike lane if one is available.

Bicyclists in Scotland are complaining that the “birthplace of the bicycle” isn’t exactly bicycle friendly. Then again, there’s also some question whether it’s really their birthplace.

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.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker describes the “five pedaling perils” every UK bicyclist has to watch out for. Which pretty much apply to every bike rider, almost everywhere.

A quartet of British and Dutch marines rode their bikes 360 miles from England to the Netherlands to celebrate the 360th anniversary of the Royal Marines.

More proof that bike riders deal with the same problems everywhere, as bicyclists in Baku, Azerbaijan are complaining about the “incomprehensible” design of the city’s bike lanes, arguing that they weren’t professionally installed.

In a truly heartrending story, someone stole a New Zealand man bike after he rode it the length of the country to raise money for charity; now he’s dying of cancer, and just wants to find it again so he can ride it one more time before he dies.

 

Competitive Cycling

Three-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar prepared for next week’s road world championships by winning the 13th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal with a dominant solo breakaway.

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.

 

Finally…

We may have to deal with swerving LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about dive-bombing birds. Who needs spandex to ride a tandem — or any clothes at all, for that matter?

And why just ride a moving train when you can jump your bike over it?

Instagram post

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

City leaders dick around on HLA, LA Times profiles “disruptor” Michael Schneider, and the “impact” of bike collisions

July 1, 2024 / / One comment
Just 183 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

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. 

………

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports implementation of Measure HLA — Healthy Streets Los Angeles — remains on hold as the city council continues to dick around wait for a draft ordinance that isn’t due until August.

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.

………

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.

………

Under the heading of unfortunate headline of the day, comes one about the “impact” collisions have on the behavior of bicyclists.

Ouch.

The story, from Cycling West, is about the findings of a new study from the University of California.

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.

………

It’s now 193 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 37 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

An advocacy group in Hamilton, Ontario alerted the local police to a dangerous hit-and-run driver who clipped a bike rider with his trailer during an illegal pass, after repeatedly harassing bicyclists and running stop signs.

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 bicyclist in Scotland suffered a similar assault when he was attacked by a group of youths on motorbikes, who followed him on a pathway until they kicked his front tire and knocked him into the bushes before riding off laughing; fortunately, he was able to escape with cuts and bruising to his ribs and knees, and called for closed-circuit security cams on bike paths to prevent similar attacks in the future.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels who are behaving badly.

A London man faces murder charges for allegedly stabbing a driver through the window of his car after he drove over the killer’s mountain bike and dragged it along the roadway. Yet another reminder than no bicycle is worth a human life — let alone two, if you count the killer who will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. 

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Local 

Bloomberg examines the coming Complete Streets makeover of Hollywood Blvd that “aims to put the walkability in the Walk of Fame.” And bikeability, too.

The Culver City PD’s Special Enforcement Team took to their bikes on Thursday to bust an alleged stalker, an assault suspect and someone riding a stolen bicycle.

 

State

The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved new regulations for ebike riders in unincorporated areas of the county, including speed limits, helmet rules and age requirements. None of which can legally exceed state law, which has jurisdiction over traffic regulations.

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. 

 

National

Gear Junkie rates the year’s best bike shoes for roadies.

Writing for Gear Patrol, a fixie rider celebrates the joys of going brakeless.

A writer for Inverse makes the case for why electric pickup and SUV maker Rivian’s next EV should be an ebike.

That’s more like it. A San Antonio, Texas woman got eight years behind bars for killing a bike rider while driving under the influence.

Damn good question. Volunteers in Austin, Texas want to know why ghost bikes honoring fallen bicyclists have been disappearing in the city.

Cleveland launched a memorial sign program to honor bike riders and pedestrians killed by motorists through traffic violence. Memorial signs are great, but fixing the streets so they’re no longer needed is a hell of a lot better.

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.

A new report tells the bike industry to hold on for one more year, since overstock issues should be resolved by 2025.

Actor Owen Wilson is one of us, giving kids in Vancouver, British Columbia a friendly “Ka-Chow!” as he rode by on his foldie, quoting his character Lightning McQueen from Cars.

A Calgary, Alberta woman on a solo cross-continental bike tour says she discovered that trail angels are real, and a source of incredible kindness.

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. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar outsprinted archrival Jonas Vingegaard to don the yellow jersey after stage two of the Tour de France, as Kévin Vauquelin took the stage win.

French cyclist Romain Bardet briefly wore yellow for the first time, in his final tour, after winning stage one of the Tour on Saturday.

CNN offers a photo essay on the grueling world of professional cycling by Kristof Ramon, whose upcoming book The Art of Suffering: Capturing the Brutal Beauty of Road Cycling is available now for pre-order. 

Mark Cavendish’s quest to set the all-time record for stage wins at the Tour nearly ended before it began, when he blew chunks and nearly missed the cut struggling in the extreme heat.

This year’s Tour started in Florence, Italy, home to the legendary two-time Tour de France winner Gino Bartali, honored for using his bike to save hundreds of Jews during World War II.

The first crash of the Tour came before the race even started, when Soudal Quick-Step cyclist Jan Hirt was knocked off his bike by a fan’s backpack as he rode to the start line after signing the starting sheet.

An unidentified cyclist with the EF Education-EasyPost was lucky to escape a serious crash when he struck a cellphone held by a fan recording the peloton as it passed.

https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1807385967864561684?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1807385967864561684%7Ctwgr%5E38103d848eeb98ee480066e99ada90d04efe38e5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Ftour-de-france-rider-hit-fan-filming-race-mobile-phone-309153

 

Finally…

That feeling when a story about the best bike shorts is actually about shorts for riding bikes, for a change, not the other kind. When you’re riding with outstanding warrants and illegal drugs on your bike, stay off the sidewalk if it’s against the damn law.

And that feeling when they want you to put your life in the hands of tech that draws people with three legs and insists there were Black Nazi soldiers.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

LA suggests un-Healthy Streets alternative, LADOT commits climate arson, and drivers back it up on Ventura Blvd

August 28, 2023 / / 2 comments

My apologies if you received an email with just the barest outline of a post earlier.

I seem to have had a twitchy publish button finger.

………

Somehow, you knew this was going to happen.

A full year after the Los Angeles City Council rejected the proposed Healthy Streets LA ordinance, the city has finally come back with their long-awaited alternative version.

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.

Twitter post

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.

………

LADOT appears to be committed to committing climate arson.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports Los Angeles continues to widen streets throughout the city, calling out more than a dirty dozen streets that will soon have more room — and in most cases, more lanes — for motor vehicles.

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.

Streets for All founder Michael Schneider terms L.A. City road widening “the opposite of fighting climate change,” noting that “widening streets induces more driving, meaning more pollution burden locally and more greenhouse emissions further harming the climate.” Widening is expensive, and adversely impacts safety, health, climate, air, water, noise, housing, historic preservation, and more.

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.

………

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.

Twitter post

https://twitter.com/gatodejazz/status/1695998850182660507

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Santa Monica is improving safety on deadly Wilshire Blvd by making several cross streets right turn only.

https://twitter.com/santamonicacity/status/1695150351966466427

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CicLAvia’s North Hollywood CicLAmini along the Lankershim Blvd corridor is less than four weeks away.

The good news is you can just step off the B (Red) Line subway at the NoHo station and you’re there.

https://twitter.com/CicLAvia/status/1695487795165364512

………

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.

Instagram post

………

If you build it, they will come.

Twitter post

………

Remember this the next time someone questions why bike riders insist on riding in the street.

Or better yet, just send it to them.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Maybe starting the Vuelta in the Catalonia region wasn’t the best idea, as someone tried to sabotage the complicated second stage by tossing tacks and nails on the course, flattening the tires of around 15 cyclists.

An “arrogant” road-raging driver — and possible government employee — in the Philippines assaulted a man riding a bicycle, then pulled out a gun and aimed it at the victim before cooler heads apparently prevailed.

………

Local 

Beverly Hills is looking for your input on the parking-protected bike lane pilot project on Roxbury Drive, as they consider making the bike lane permanent.

Police in Long Beach are looking for a pair of robbers who fired a gun as they struggled with a man to steal his bicycle along the Los Angeles River bike path Thursday night; the thieves eventually ran off without the bike.

 

State

Video from a TikTok user shows people in San Diego standing by and watching as a man steals a woman’s bike in broad daylight, calling it an example of the Bystander Effect. Then again, the person taking the video didn’t intervene, either. 

Sad news from Sacramento, where a woman riding a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

 

National

US colleges are beginning to ban ebikes due to a fear of fire risk as well as a risk to pedestrians. After all, it makes so much more sense to force students and faculty back into their cars, which evidently don’t pose a greater risk to anyone. Right?

The Better Business Bureau offers tips tips to help you pick the right ebike for your budget.

Bike Rumor offers their picks for Best in Show at Portland’s MADE handmade bike show; Velo offers their favorites, too.

Cycling Weekly visits MADE to examine the new Moots prototype spec’ed with 750D wheels, asking if we really need another wheel diameter standard.

A Seattle website profiles Seattle Bike Blog author Tom Fucoloro, who has a new book examining the city from behind the handlebars.

My hometown paper offers highlights from the massive turnout for the country’s last remaining Tour de Fat.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Sixty-four-year old John Kezdy, the lead singer of the ’80s punk band The Effigies, died on Saturday, three days after he was critically injured crashing his bike into an Amazon van illegally parked in a Chicago bike lane. The inevitable lawsuit will be just the cost of business for the online shopping giant.

It’s apparently open season on bike riders at Indiana University, as three students who participated in the iconic Little 500 bike race were hit by drivers in three days last week; the race was made famous in Breaking Away.

There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run driver who left a 12-year old Boston-area boy bleeding alone in the streets. Or any other kid, for that matter. 

A writer for The New York Times says he improved his mental and physical health by ditching his car and walking to biking to run errands, though he suggests that anyone wanting to emulate him may not want to start with a trip to Costco. Thanks to Bike Talk’s Taylor Nichols, who suggests getting writer Andrew Leonard to appear on the show, for the heads-up.

A Long Island woman faces charges for slamming into a triathlete as he rode his bike in the middle of a race, after pulling out of a parking lot at a high rate of speed and onto the race course that had been closed to traffic.

The AP offers not necessarily safe for work video from the Philadelphia World Naked Bike Ride.

This is who we share the road with. A road-raging Philadelphia driver with a concealed carry permit pulled out a gun and began firing after his car was surrounded by dirt bike riders on an apparent rideout, shooting one man before he was wounded by return fire.

 

International

Evidently, you can kill a man on a fundraising bike ride while driving drunk, bury his body a shallow grave on a remote Scottish estate for three years, and get off with just 12 years behind bars — and could get out in as little as six. And get just five years and three months for helping your brother hide the body.

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. 

GCN shares the “most bizarre and beautiful” bikes from last week’s Paris-Brest-Paris.

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.”

Giant Taiwanese bikemaker Giant warns customers that a scam website posing as the bike brand may be ripping off consumers.

 

Competitive Cycling

Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel said enough is enough and intentionally slowed the peloton after a crash by Primož Roglič in Sunday’s stage 2 of the Vuelta; Italy’s Andrea Piccolo took the leader’s red jersey as Denmark’s Andreas Kron won the day on a stage shortened by flooding near rate finish.

Britain’s William Bjegfelt just won the Paracycling World Championships after he was told he’d never walk or bike again following a head-on collision with a driver in 2015.

L39ION of Los Angeles cyclists Kendall Ryan and Ty Magner wons the elite women’s and men’s races, respectively, at the IU Momentum Health Indy Crit in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Cycling Weekly takes a look at the alternative, off-road race scene in the UK.

More bad news, in what has been an unbelievably tragic year for pro and amateur cyclists, as 22-year old Belgian rider Tijl De Decke was killed when he crashed into the back of a car on a training ride.

 

Finally…

You may have to blow up your next bike helmet. That feeling when the man accused of stealing your bicycle finally gets arrested — 38 years later.

And they get it.

Twitter post

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Westlake hit-and-run victim in coma after 2 months, 7 candidates for CD6 special election, and bicycle Bollywood dancing

January 13, 2023 / / One comment

This is the cost of traffic violence.

A comment from J reports the victim of November hit-and-run may be moved to hospice care, following two months in a coma after a heartless coward left him bleeding in the street in LA’s Westlake neighborhood.

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.

………

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.

https://twitter.com/DavidZahniser/status/1613734893040852993

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Norwalk is hosting its first community bike ride next Saturday.

Instagram post

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Well, it wouldn’t be the first crappy bike path I’ve been on.

Twitter post

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

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Look Ma, no hands!

An Indian woman takes Bollywood dancing to the next level by doing it while she rides handsfree.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnQ1QoeK5X_/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=b8c0d1ba-e1c3-4fcd-a3ed-1e074727506c

Then she does it again.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmlXZoOqX3X/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=8f63a427-c0d3-4217-bb35-0724d019d08c

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Seriously? Residents of Alexandria, Louisiana bring out the torches and pitchforks over a proposal for a bike path along the Red River levee, which would only occupy an otherwise useless strip of land that probably wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.

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.

………

Local 

Streets For All has created a voter guide to help yo select pro-transit candidates for the ADEM party delegate election, for all you Democrats out there.

More from the report prepared by the nonprofit Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, we mentioned Wednesday, which addresses the rising rate of traffic violence in Los Angeles. Don’t forget to mark your calendar for the die-in protest scheduled on Saturday, January 21st on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall. Because the City of Angels keeps insisting on making more of them.

 

State

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.

A nice biking photo claimed runner-up in Laguna Beach’s recent photo contest  for people who live, work or exhibit their art in the city.

Public TV station KBPS has more on San Diego County’s plan to revitalize unincorporated Casa de Oro with wider sidewalks, on-street parking, roundabouts, protected bicycle lanes, and mixed-use housing.

Sad news from Fresno, where a man was killed in a collision while riding his bike late Wednesday night.

A Bay Area bike advocate and behavioral counselor is using Legos to teach kids bike safety.

Now you, too, can be the proud owner of a gently used, $4,000 Rock the Bike Fender Blender Pro Recharge Station that the former World’s Richest Man apparently doesn’t want, for the low, low opening bid of just 25 bucks. Then again, Elon may need the money. 

 

National

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. 

PinkBike reminisces about the things they miss about older bikes, like external cabling and not having to charge anything. Except the bike itself, when you paid for it. 

A new study of Google searches concludes that residents of Hawaii are the most curious about ebikes, with California second and Utah third; Mississippi residents were the least interested.

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.

A new bill signed by President Biden at the end of last year will allow the construction of a 280-mile wilderness bike trail stretching from the Idaho border to south of Salt Lake City.

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.

You know a Chicago intersection sucks when a reckless driver kills a man riding a bikeshare bike, then a year later another jerk takes out his ghost bike.

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Indianapolis is setting up a commission to review fatal traffic collisions, and offer public recommendations to fix them.

 

International

Bike Radar sings the praises of mountain bike winter onesies. Otherwise known as snow suits. 

An Argentine man’s tour of the Western Hemisphere is on hold after someone stole his bike in Mexicali, just south of the US border, when he stopped briefly to get hot water to make mate tea; to make matters worse, they also took the dog he adopted along the way in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

No irony here. Ford has stepped up to save the popular RideLondon from the chopping block, with the American carmaker funding the ten-year old event that takes place on 100 miles of carfree streets.

The Guardian takes a guided ebike tour along ancient singletrack trails in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in a section of Britain so remote they still use the Julian calendar. Just don’t stick around if you see the locals building a giant wicker man. 

Bicycle Dutch looks at the effect the pandemic had on bicycling in the Netherlands, where bicycling rates dropped 21% in 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic 2019.

The BBC recommends riding a bike to explore the hidden history of Louis XIV’s iconic bachelor pad, otherwise known as Versailles.

Who says bicycling is expensive? A new Spanish-made Ti bike with “additive 3D printing” retails for anywhere from the equivalent of ten grand to a shade under a whopping $19K.

An Aussie website previews the Women’s Santos Tour Down Under, which begins today.

 

Competitive Cycling

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.

Twitter post

 

Finally…

That feeling when you’re so drunk, you think a backflip will get you out of a DUI. Seriously, who doesn’t love a stirring march played by a bike-riding Dutch marching band in wooden shoes?

And save all your old bike parts, and maybe you, too, can build your very own F-35.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1613734929178972160

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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