Streetsblog’s Joe Linton examines Metro’s bike ban on 1st Street in Little Tokyo and the mostly ignored 2,700-foot detour, saying it may not be legal, and is just another example of Metro’s repeated failure to fix known problems.
Once again, an alleged drunk driver fled the scene of a crash with the victim embedded in his windshield. The Sacramento driver faces numerous charges, while his skateboarding victim is recovering from shattered bones in both legs, as well as injuries to her arm and neck.
Boston’s bike hating columnist gloats over the recent decline in bike commuting rates, insisting it’s time “for public officials and policy makers to turn their backs on the militant, self-righteous bike lobby and its fantasy of a world in which drivers defer to cyclists as the rightful kings of the road.” Um, right.
This is why you don’t try to stop bike thieves by yourself. A New York man was slashed with a knife when he tried to stop two thieves who were trying to make off with an ebike behind the restaurant he works at.
That’s more like it. Toronto distracted drivers will now face a $1,000 fine and three points off their license. California charges a measly $20 for the first offense — and zero points. Recently retired former governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill which would have toughened fines for California’s almost universally distracted driving laws.
Let’s hope they find her, and take both of them away. Permanently.
And yes, the video is just as disturbing as it says.
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Local
After advocates managed to beat back an anti-road diet motion from traffic safety deniers Keep LA Moving, the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition approved a more neutral motion calling for community input on road diets. But as Streetsblog’s Joe Linton points out, no one demands community engagement for most driver-friendly changes.
Downtown News says the Los Angeles River Bike Path Gap Closure Project has the potential to be a key component in a regional bike network, but with a gasp-inducing $365 million price tag and an overly long timeline.
Outsidelooks at the rise of e-mountain bikes, saying the quality keeps getting better, despite the vitriol they elicit. Especially if you’ve got ten grand or more to spend on one.
The streets of Hollywood could look at lot different in the next 20 years.
If we can all manage to survive that long.
The city has released the new Hollywood Model Development Report conducted by consultants Fehr + Peers to plan for development in the Hollywood area by 2040, including streets and mobility.
They operated on the assumption that nothing can be done to mitigate Hollywood traffic congestion, so the focus was providing alternatives to driving.
Like riding bikes.
In fact, the study calls for a number of lane reductions to make room for bike lanes, protected and otherwise — including protected bike lanes on Hollywood Blvd and Melrose Ave.
Along with bicycle friendly streets as part of the Neighborhood Enhanced Network proposed in the 2010 bike plan.
The bad news is, the plan is based on LA’s Mobility Plan 2035, which is already gathering dust on the shelf.
And predicated on the support of Hollywood councilmembers who haven’t been elected yet.
Then again, that could be a good thing, since the ones we have now appertains to be too risk averse to make the major changes necessary to provide alternatives to driving and improve safety on our streets.
Let alone confront the angry drivers who seem to be setting the city’s transportation policy these days.
Thanks to Brandi D’Amore for the heads-up.
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Great Twitter thread from LA Bike Dad looking at the long-lasting effects of racial discrimination in Los Angeles. And how it lines up perfectly with LA’s most dangerous streets.
THREAD:
1. Attached is the City of LA High Injury Network: 65% of pedestrian deaths occur on just 6% of the city's streets:
3. Here they are overlaid on one another: the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths are taking place in formerly redlined neighborhoods. pic.twitter.com/4merNp8DII
Marin Facebook users seem thrilled to see a group of bicyclists stopped and ticketed by sheriff’s deputies.
If you have a strong stomach, it’s worth the click just to read the comments. Like this, for instance.
Funny how people often want to ban bicycles from narrow roads because they think it’s too dangerous for bikes. But it never occurs to them to ban the cars that make them that way, instead.
Never mind people, like the woman below, who think bicycling is too dangerous because of all the dangerous drivers on the roads. And somehow continue to believe the myth that if they innocently hit a lawbreaking bicyclist, they’ll be held responsible.
Most of the time, no one is. And in the rare case when police blame someone, it’s usually the victim.
Candidates are lining up to fill the seat of CD12 Councilmember Mitch Englander, who is walking away from the district he was elected to serve. We’ll have to wait see which of the candidates support safer streets, if any.
US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is one of us, after surgery to repair an undisclosed broken bone suffered in an undisclosed bicycling fall and/or crash. Evidently, it’s on a need to know basis. And apparently we don’t.
Bike advocates in the UK accused the country’s Highway Code of victim blaming for tweeting that bike riders should wear helmets and “appropriate clothing for cycling,” rather than calling for safer streets and better driver education.
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January 4, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Bike commuting down in US, PA man faces jail for riding a bike, and $500,000 bike shop thefts
Although the story also notes that ridership is up in some cities, particularly where they’ve invested in safe bike networks.
Around the country, city transportation officials wish there were more bicyclists like Dandino as they seek to cut traffic congestion, promote health and identify alternatives to cars. After rising for several years, the percentage of commuters turning to bikes declined for the third year straight, U.S. Census Bureau figures show.
Nationally, the percentage of people who say they use a bike to get to work fell by 3.2 percent from 2016 to 2017, to an average of 836,569 commuters, according to the bureau’s latest American Community Survey, which regularly asks a group of Americans about their habits. That’s down from a high of 904,463 in 2014, when it peaked after four straight years of increases.
Census Bureau figures are notoriously unreliable, however, since they only count people biking to work, and not commuting or riding for other purposes.
And if someone uses a bicycle as part of a multimodal commute, it’s usually not categorized as a bike commute.
Meanwhile, the news was mixed in Long Beach.
Long Beach, California, saw a 23.1 percent increase in the number of bike commuters from 2016 to 2017, though it was down 19 percent from 2011 to 2017, the league’s report says. Over the past decade, Long Beach added bike lanes throughout the city and dedicated routes separated from traffic, including some that recently opened. Its bike-sharing program continues to grow, having 11,000 members.
“I think we are getting a lot of commuters coming into the downtown,” Public Works Director Craig Beck said. “A separated bike lane that goes four blocks doesn’t really do anything. It’s about point-to-point safety.”
And as usual, the view from Los Angeles was far less rosy.
In a push to make the city more bike-friendly, Los Angeles started installing miles of protected bike lanes and embracing “road diets,” or slowing streets to make them safer for bikers and pedestrians. In a city where the car is king, a backlash from motorists drastically cut back those efforts.
Something LA city leaders still haven’t addressed. Or even seem to care about.
The story goes on to quote the author of a certain humble LA bike blog.
“The City Council and the mayor’s office are only listening to angry drivers who don’t want their commute to be slowed down by anyone,” said Ted Rogers, a veteran bike rider who writes the BikingInLA blog.
“I hear from countless people who say they quit” biking, he said. “They just don’t feel safe on the streets anymore.”
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Just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger.
Authorities had accused David Smith of repeatedly riding in the traffic lane on narrow country roads, causing major traffic backups and — allegedly — posing a danger to motorists by not allowing them to pass.
His defense had been that his bicycle is his only form of transportation, and that he was only riding where he was supposed to by taking the center of the lane.
Evidently, though, the local authorities weren’t fans of vehicular cycling. Smith was sentenced in 2017 to up to two years in jail, but released on probation after having already served a total of 20 months because he refused to accept a mental health evaluation that could have led to his release.
One condition of his probation was that he not ride a bicycle until his probationary period ended in 2020.
A condition he allegedly broke by riding this past October.
Still, there’s something very wrong when what a simple traffic violation — if that — can lead to serious jail time.
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Either something is a little fishy, or a Colorado bike shop owner may be the world’s unluckiest pedal peddler.
Because he’s now lost half a million dollars worth of bicycles in two separate break-ins less than three years apart.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton says Westside traffic safety deniers cynically rushed to blame the Venice Blvd Great Streets project for the death of a pedestrian on Centinela Ave over the holidays, even though the crash occurred four full blocks away. And even though the tragedy makes a better argument for implementing similar safety improvements on Centinela.
Arraignment was postponed for the allegedly stoned driver who killed Costa Mesa fire captain Mike Kreza as he rode his bike in Mission Viejo last November. That’s nothing unusual; preliminary hearings and arraignments are often postponed several times before anything actually gets done.
Clever piece from a Dallas man who rode 1,617 miles to work over the past two years; he started riding after leaving his car at the office Christmas party, then riding his bike back to get it the next day after he sobered up.
Life is cheap in the UK, where an unlicensed, road raging driver got just five months behind bars for using his van as a weapon to ram a rider off his bicycle. It’s questionable whether he would have gotten the same light sentence if he’d used a gun instead of a motor vehicle.
Two Chinese boys were lucky to survive with minor injuries when they were run over by a large truck and dragged 30 feet in a crash caught on security cam. As usual, be sure you really want to see it before clicking the link; even though the boys weren’t seriously injured, the image is horrifying.
Evidently, those step-through bikes are stronger than they look. After a Chinese salmon cyclist was hit head-on by a driver, the car suffered major damage to its bumper, while the bike and rider were relatively unscathed.
January 2, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Recapping the biking year that was, New Year’s bike resolutions, and one last ’tis the season
Please accept my best wishes for a very healthy, happy and prosperous new year for you and your loved ones.
We have a lot of ground to catch up on after taking the holidays off, so grab your coffee and strap yourself in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Phil Gaimon continues to ruin a good retirement, this time going for KOMs on a pair of the South Bay’s favorite rides.
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Local
Get ready for the next round in Pasadena’s battle over unsafe streets, as the city holds a meeting next Tuesday to discuss a lane reduction and Complete Streets proposal for Cordova Street. If previous meetings are any indication, the city’s traffic safety deniers are likely to turn out in force to halt any hint of progress.
Great story. After a Massachusetts man is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, he dedicates whatever time he has left to putting underprivileged kids on bikes.
Tragic news from the city, however, as a New York ebike rider was killed when he was doored by a cab driver, knocking him into the path of a car headed in the opposite direction. Doorings are among the most common types of bicycle crashes, but are seldom fatal.
Writing in the Washington Post, a self-described occasional bike rider says he knows bicyclists don’t have all the answers on bike safety, because he was hit by one while he was walking in a park. And he wants bike riders to be required to have insurance and a license — or at least turn signals on their bikes, which wouldn’t have helped him in the slightest since he was hit from behind.
Toronto’s mayor says the city’s Vision Zero program just isn’t working, despite investing $100 million in making changes over the past five years; advocates says it’s because the city hasn’t made the right changes. Los Angeles tried the opposite approach; don’t fund Vision Zero and don’t make any major changes, and just hope deaths go down.
It’s a Toronto trifecta, as well, as a driver writes that society is over governed, so people on bicycles should be, too. And drivers should be required to learn all those silly little traffic laws that they’re already required to know.
If you want to be invisible, ride a bike. A drone-flying couple disrupted thousands of flights at London’s Gatwick Airport before Christmas, making their getaway in plain sight on bicycles. And while wearing hi-viz.
In a desperate attempt to go viral, a Singaporean teen turns himself into a human crash test dummy, jumping off at the last second as he deliberately crashes a dockless bikeshare bike into a wall. If he really wanted to go viral, he should have stayed on the bike.
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Despite the claims of opponents, who seemed to be operating from their own set of alternative facts, the newly configured road has resulted in far fewer serious crashes, while carrying just as much traffic, just as quickly, as it did prior to the new design.
In fact, peak travel times are only 30 seconds slower than before.
But while bicycle counts dropped 16 percent, the number of people walking on the street jumped by a full third over the year before. And Mar Vista business is booming.
So much for the specious claim that no one goes there anymore.
This is what one reader, who forwarded the video to me, had to say.
I’m sure you saw this, but Bonin just sent out a pretty encouraging video on Mar Vista Great Streets.
The 1-year LADOT report is apparently favorable on safety, bike/ped/scooter volumes, and (even) car travel times. (Not sure if the report is out yet.) Seleta Reynolds is recommending that the street configuration (i.e., bike lanes, I think) be made permanent, with Bonin recommending that as well.
They had some big numbers about business activity & business openings being *way* up year-on-year. (My take is this probably has more to do with the macroeconomy than the bike lanes, but it at least proves that bike lanes haven’t “killed” Mar Vista)…
Bonin also announced a bunch of traffic changes to reduce cut-through traffic on the side streets around Venice/Centinela, including some protected left turns and longer right-turn pockets on the arterials, as well as more stop signs on Victoria & Charnock.
I was hoping it’d be an announcement about more protected bike lanes, but after the last couple years, anything that’s not moving backward feels (alas) like a victory.
Unfortunately, the report hasn’t been released, and no word yet on when it will come out. Correction: The report was released the same day as the video; you can read it here. Thanks to Eric B for the heads-up.
And I’m sure whenever it does, opponents will once again deny virtually everything in it, just as they’ve done for the last year since the project was installed. Note: The traffic safety deniers are already hard at work in the comments to the YouTube video.
But maybe, just maybe, we can finally get city officials to start making decisions based on actual facts and real world experience, instead of just listening to whoever screams the loudest.
It goes on to say defensive walking is not the antidote for the city’s high rate of pedestrian deaths.
Or bike deaths, for that matter.
Because, while we all need to take practical steps to protect ourselves, the real problem is cars, and the distracted and overly aggressive people in them.
And dressing up like a glow-in-the-dark clown isn’t the answer.
It should also be pointed out that every corner has crosswalk in every direction, painted or not, unless crossing is specifically prohibited with posted signage.
And jaywalking isn’t against the law unless there’s a signalized intersection on both ends of the block.
Too bad the LAPD doesn’t seem to think any of that is worth mentioning.
The LA Timesexamines the practicality of Elon’s Folly, the underground tunnel system he promises will whisk cars at high speeds underneath Los Angeles. Although I’m in favor of anything that would get more cars off the streets, even if that means sending them down into the bowels of the earth.
The former sex change capital of the world — and the halfway point by rail between Los Angeles and Chicago — will host the first Southwest Chief Bicycle and Comedy Festival next May, combining a “love of the outdoors, bicycle fetishism and the obligatory live entertainment-and-partying.”
Honda is testing a smart intersection system in an Ohio city that warns drivers if a pedestrian or bicyclist — or a red light running driver — is about to cross their path. But only if they have the connected car system installed.
Bikes are being stolen from an English train station because the bike racks are merely bolted to the ground, allowing thieves to simply remove the bolts and walk off with the still-locked bicycle. Which is why you should never use a rack unless it’s embedded in the concrete.
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New York added nearly 21 miles of protected bike lanes in 2018, for a total of 45 in the past two years. Meanwhile, Los Angeles only added the semi-protected MyFigueroa.
Thanks to James E and Darryl K for their generous donations to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive to keep this site coming to your favorite screen every morning!
Any amount will help, and is truly and deeply appreciated, no matter how large or small.
Or if you own a business, consider buying an ad on BikinginLA to show your support for this site, while you spread your message to thousands of bike riders in Southern California and around the world.
Not to mention you can write off the full cost as an advertising expense on next year’s taxes.
The field has gotten more crowded in the past weeks, as Jump has dumped both ebikes and e-scooters onto the streets, while Lyft and Razor — yes, that Razor — have jumped into the LA scooter wars.
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Cycling Savvy has released a new video just for California bike riders spelling out our legal right to take the lane under most circumstances.
As instructor Gary Cziko explains,
“The exceptions to the far-to-the-right requirement of CVC 21202 provide clear recognition by the vehicle code that bicycling far to the right often exposes bicyclists to unnecessaryrisk, and makes it legal to avoid this risk by controlling the lane.”
https://cyclingsavvy.org/cvc21202/
Thanks to Cziko and our old friend Karen Karabell for the heads-up.
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The LACBC is hosting their last Operation Firefly event to provide free bike lights in Pasadena tonight.
An op-ed in the LA Times says Los Angeles doesn’t have to be a city of parking lots, in part thanks to bicycles, bike lanes and the growth of micromobility. UCLA parking meister Donald Shoup has said DTLA has more parking per acre than anywhere else on Earth. So why are we wasting valuable curb space to provide car storage at the city’s expense when it could be put to better use?
The CHP highlights changes in traffic laws on January 1st, including one that removes any doubt that bike riders are subject to hit-and-run laws on Class 1 bikeways. In addition, bike riders under 18 will now get fix-it tickets if they’re caught riding without a helmet, while adults will no longer need one to ride an e-scooter. But you still can if you want.
Uber executives were warned in advance that its self-driving cars were too dangerous not long before one hit and killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. That jackpot sound you hear is her lawyers calculating just how much that bit of information will cost Uber in the inevitable settlement.
A rose by any other name. London will rebrand their cycle superhighways to “detoxify” the image that they’re nothing more than motorways for Lycra louts.
VeloNewstalks with the incredible Katie Compton about her 15th consecutive national cyclocross title. Next year they should just hand her the trophy, and let everyone else fight it out for second place.
Or you could just buy five to ten pretty damn good bikes, instead.
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The death of an Australian tourist on an LA roadway has led to safety improvements Down Under.
Something like that would probably require a law change here. But it might finally get California drivers to put down their damn phones and pay attention to the road ahead of them.
And possibly avoid thousands of needless deaths and injuries every year.
Then maybe Rapley’s death won’t have been in vain.
On a related note, I worked with Councilmember Mike Bonin’s office and LADOT to push for a parking-protected bike lane on the uphill side of Temescal Canyon where Rapley was killed.
However, the plan LADOT developed for a road diet on Temescal with a protected bike lane on the uphill side and a separated bike lane on the downhill side met local opposition from Palisades homeowners in its only public presentation.
And was quietly shelved following the tumult over the Playa del Rey road diets in Bonin’s district.
Let’s hope sanity returns someday, and the plan can be revived before anyone else gets killed.
No word on whether the victim was injured, or how badly.
But fair warning, before you push play, be sure this is something you really want to see. The video is graphic and disturbing, and you can’t unsee it.
Surry Hills: Dashcam on a bus has caught the moment a driver hit a cyclist before running a red light and clipping a pedestrian and van. The driver tested positive to methylamphetamine. @jessicaridleytv#7Newspic.twitter.com/zcBIpOJGDq
This is the cost of traffic violence. Two nine-year old girls are battling for their lives after suffering “massive” head trauma in a street racing crash; one driver was arrested, while the other fled the scene.
An Orlando FL plastic surgeon says bike riders have to be taught traffic laws, and the laws have to be enforced to improve safety. In other words, he’s blaming the people on bikes for getting hit by cars, and not the people who hit them.
Troubling piece from a gay couple who biked along the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland as Brexit throws the border into question, and find gay people hidden deeply in the closet and a revival of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants waiting just under the surface.
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