Besides a steady conduit for speeding drivers, that is.
The seven winning proposals include four temporary pop-up projects, and three permanent installations, offering a mix of pedestrian and bicycling improvements, as well as attempts at transformative community space building.
The projects, which total $4.6 million, range from an Open Streets event in South El Monte, to support for Vision Zero community outreach and media development in Los Angeles, as well as developing a Vision Zero action plan for the county.
Los Angeles Magazine recommends biking as one option for Expo Line commuters to get to the Culver City station, now that the parking garage is being replaced with a mixed-use development. Although I’m told those bike lockers they mention have a wait list.
This is what those subway-style bike maps look like in a city with an actual bike network, like San Francisco.
National
A self-described green car website crunches the numbers, and concluded that driving a Nissan Leaf is cleaner than riding a bicycle — if the rider only eats beef. And only if the power for the car comes from non-coal fired plants. In other words, not really.
Gizmodo reviews a belt-drive bike that replaces the derailleur with a continuously variable transmission, which they claim offers an infinite spectrum of gears.
An Op-Ed from Kentucky’s capital calls on the state to adopt a safe-passing law for bicycles; two bills under consideration would require drivers to change lanes to pass bikes, or give at least three feet passing distance if that’s not possible. It would also allow drivers to briefly cross a yellow line to pass bike riders if there’s no traffic, something Jerry Brown vetoed as part of an earlier version of California’s three-foot passing law.
“Persnickety” residents of a Toronto neighborhood complain about bikeshare besmirching their park; a writer for the Toronto Star calls their petty objections “a rejection of what it means to live in a shared city.”
Caught on video: This is what it looks like to hit a bike rider at 25 mph, from the driver’s perspective; fortunately, the victim wasn’t injured. Warning, use discretion in deciding whether to click the link, because this one is really hard to watch. I wish I hadn’t.
As you’re no doubt aware, the Super Bowl takes place this Sunday. Time your ride for after kickoff if you want to enjoy rare peaceful, empty streets. But try to get home before the game’s over, when you can reasonably assume any driver you see will be drunk.
And if you plan on watching the game, leave your car at home if you’re going to be drinking.
A bike rider in the South Bay gets passed by the road raging driver of a large pickup, who then steps out of his truck to berate him and tell him to get off the fucking road.
LAPD officers have told me that a driver can be charged with assault the moment he gets out of his vehicle, since merely exiting the vehicle can be seen as a threat.
Considering how some members of the council don’t seem to give a damn about us, you should take advantage of a chance to ride and talk with one who does.
Speaking of which, one of those bike-unfriendly councilmembers has raised nearly 10 times the funds of Josef Bray-Ali, his Bike the Vote-endorsed challenger in CD1, who qualified for matching funds by raising $49,000 in mostly small contributions.
Clearly, Bray-Ali’s route to victory will depend on volunteer efforts and word-of-mouth, rather than trying to outspend his opponent.
Which means we have to do everything we can to get a more bike and safety-friendly voice on the council, in a district that desperately needs it.
Streetsblog says Los Angeles has striped new bike lanes on Heliotrope Drive in what used to be known as the Bicycle District, replacing sharrows that should have been bike lanes to begin with.
The LACBC looks at three things they learned during the recent Ask An Officer panel discussion with BikinginLA sponsor Jim Pocrass, including that there aren’t enough cops on the street, and the ones who are too often don’t have enough resources or receive adequate training. Which is something we’ve been pushing for since this site was founded.
A DC rider creates a simplified, easy-to-read bike map based on transit maps. If someone did that here in LA, all they’d get is a bunch of disconnected lines looking like someone spilled a box of matches. And almost as useful.
Caught on video: Doesn’t look like much; just a guy riding his bike on the sidewalk. Except it’s a London cop’s official police bike, which he just stole from a rack after cutting the lock.
February 2, 2017 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Bike the Vote rejects Measure S, self-driving cars can’t see you, and bike-following robots
Like it or not, housing issues affect more than just where you live and how much you pay.
That’s why Bike the Vote LA has come out against Measure S, which would impose a two-year moratorium on most major new housing construction, saying it would only increase sprawl, social inequity and traffic.
The group says it would “have far-reaching negative repercussions for our collective vision of a diverse, livable, affordable, walkable, bikeable city.”
Bad news for all those, like myself, who have been hoping that self-driving cars would mean safer streets for bike riders by taking the wheel away from today’s careless, aggressive, wasted and/or distracted drivers.
A Menlo Park police chase leads to the arrest of a trio of bike thieves; police found numerous bicycles in one woman’s residence, along with other stolen items, but only three of the bikes had been reported stolen. Another reminder to register your bike, and report it the police if it gets stolen; too often they recover bikes that they can’t return to the owners because they have no idea who they belong to. And they can’t press charges if they can’t prove a bike is stolen.
A San Francisco Chronicle reader concludes that if it serves 100 riders a day, a $25 million bike lane on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge works out to $171 per ride over the four-year trial period. Except that bridges last a lot longer than four years, it could end up serving a lot more than 100 riders a day, and most bike commuters ride both ways, doubling the number of trips. But other than that…
Outside Magazine celebrates its 40th anniversary with their list of the 40 most iconic places on the planet, including mountain bike mecca Slickrock in Moab, Utah, the Tour de France’s Alpe d’Huez, and the Festina car which lead to discovery of pro cycling’s doping problems. Although the latter is more a thing than a place.
The National Bike Registry has merged with the Project 529 bicycle registration service, creating a 400,000 combined database; anyone already registered with NBR will automatically be upgraded to a free lifetime membership with Project 529. Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the link.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 78-year old New Mexico bicyclist has travelled around 90,000 miles since he took up bicycling in 2004, despite losing a year of riding due to aortic surgery. I mean about the riding at his age, not the aorta problems. Just to be clear.
Bighearted Oklahoma police buy a new bike for an 11-year old boy whose bike was destroyed when he was unexpectedly hit by a car. As opposed to all those people who leave home expecting to crash.
International
The UK’s Cyclist magazine calls on Londoners to avoid the inevitable traffic nightmare caused by next week’s tube strike by joining the city’s 170,000 bike commuters.
A British bicyclist navigates what he calls the nonsensical cycling scene in Cambridge, saying even if everyone behaved perfectly, there’s just not enough space for cars, pedestrians and bicyclists in the medieval city.
Oslo, Norway is fighting pollution and traffic congestion by giving residents a $1,200 credit towards the purchase of an ebike. If California ever gets serious about fighting climate change and doing something about our crowded streets, a program like that could be cost-effective if it actually succeeds in getting people out of their cars.
As we noted last week, the City of Los Angeles has finally released its Vision Zero Action Plan, explaining in detail how it plans to reduce traffic deaths by 20% this year, and eliminate them entirely by 2025 — just eight years away.
Comments to the plan continue to roll in.
Today, Vision Zero Alliance member Bobby Peppey is sharing a letter he wrote in response to the plan.
Note: While Peppey is a member of the VZA, he want to make it clear that these are his opinions, and do not necessarily reflect those of the alliance.
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There is a serious problem with LADOT’s Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) that wasn’t mentioned in LACBC’s excellent letter.
The lack of mention of lowering speed limits from the deadly 35/45mph to safer speed limits of 25/15 mph on Los Angeles HIN or other City streets in the VZAP.
Safer, slower top speed limits have been instituted by New York City, Seattle, Boston and in other North American cities.
Yes there is the California Speed Trap law and its 85 percentile rule that supposedly forces City’s to raise limits as Joe Linton mentions in his article last spring. There are exceptions in the law to this rule that are manifest on all of the HIN streets that can easily be implemented to lower the speed limits on these streets.
On page 15 is the only mention of lowering speed limits in the plan, “A speed-limit reduction may be more appropriate on streets where children walk to school.” In my experience children walk on all sorts of streets and not only to get to school.
There is some amorphous language on page 36 as follows, “Vision Zero for Los Angeles will pursue local, state, and federal legislation that strengthens traffic safety policy…”, but the VZAP doesn’t go on to then state what policy changes will be pursued by the City.
More ominous in VZAP are the BENCHMARKS on page 37. The second row concerns finishing speed surveys conducted by LADOT but does not state what the results of these surveys will be.
In Joe Linton’s June 9th article in StreetsblogLA concerning the City Council Transportation Committee meeting of June 8th, he states that “LADOT General Manager Reynolds stressed that speed surveys and resultant speed limit increases are needed.”
Earlier at the same meeting Ms. Reynolds stated “IF WE COULD GET EVERYBODY IN THE CITY TO SLOW DOWN TO A SAFE SPEED, WE COULD SAVE HUNDREDS OF LIVES EVERY YEAR.” This quote is verbatim from the printed minutes of the meeting.
We live in a City (second largest in the US) that is now facing down the full brunt of the power of an arch-conservative unified federal government on the issue of immigrants rights, one of the most significant human rights battles of this century for our Country.
That the City of Los Angeles is not willing to deal with the same vigor towards Caltrans, and the State of California’s terribly inequitable Speed Trap Law; when our City is suffering from an epidemic of Kills and Serious Injury (KSI) of persons who walk, ride a bike or use transit on its sidewalks, crosswalks and streets is stunning.
Considering that she dragged him the length of two football fields, they’re probably right. Anything less than a murder charge would be an abject failure of justice.
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This is why people continue to die on our streets. An Orange County man was arrested for DUI on Sunday after crashing into a utility box in Placentia and attempting to run away.
Police quickly discovered that the driver, 52-year-old Derek Stacy Haskayne, was already on probation for a previous felony DUI conviction.
In fact, he’s had eight DUI convictions since 2011.
Read that again. Eight DUI convictions — not just arrests — in the last six years. And yet he somehow still manages to remain behind the wheel, placing every other human being on the roads at risk.
We can talk all we want about Vision Zero. But as long as people like this are allowed own, buy, rent or borrow a motor vehicle of any kind, innocent people will continue to die.
Thanks to John Damman for the heads-up.
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The route was announced for this year’s edition of the Amgen Tour of California, as well as the separate but unequal four-stage Breakaway from Heart Disease women’s race. The last three stages will be set in SoCal, including a Mt. Baldy finish in stage 5, a Big Bear time trial, and a Pasadena finish for the final stage, while the women won’t get any closer than Sacramento.
Deadspin says if motor doping exists, the 60 Minutes report didn’t prove it. Of course it exists; the only question is whether it’s actually being used in the pro peloton.
Kindhearted UK cops pitch in to buy a boy a new bike after his was stolen, not once, but twice as he travelled to see his sister at a children’s hospital.
Life is cheap in the UK, where a hit-and-run driver is fined the equivalent of just $471, after claiming he had no idea he hit a bike rider because his music was too loud. Or maybe he just turned it up so he couldn’t hear the screams of his victims.
Riding a bike in Johannesburg can be a matter of life and death — not from distracted drivers, but because of armed bikejackers.
Today is the last day for local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry to get deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.
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So much of the oft-cited figure that one percent of Angelenos commute by bicycle.
Instead, it clearly depends on where you are.
Bike wonk Dennis Hindman took a deep dive into the latest ACS data released by the Census Bureau last December to examine bike commuting by LA-area zip code.
What he discovered was that the rate of bike commuters ranged from a whopping 10% for DTLA and 9% for the USC area, to a lowly .8% for Wilmington. Meanwhile, bike-friendly Santa Monica checks in at 3.8%, while Culver City comes in at a surprising 2.2%.
He also notes that the heaviest rates of bike commuting follow the route of the Expo Line, which had a wait list for bike lockers a week after the new extension to Santa Monica opened.
And which once again demonstrates the need for safe bike lane connections to the Expo Line, especially on Westwood Blvd leading to the UCLA campus.
Meanwhile, incumbent Cedillo evidently decided it was more prudent to simply not respond to the survey, rather than lie about his support for bike lanes like he did last time around.
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The LACBC released their response to LA’s new Vision Zero Action Plan, saying while it’s a positive development, it “lacks a clear vision for making the streets safer for people who ride bicycles.”
The coalition also has concerns about the city’s commitment to unbiased policing and equity when it comes to enforcing traffic laws.
Apparently unhappy with being cut off by someone who actually belonged there while riding illegally in a San Francisco bike lane, a motorcyclist attempts to intimidate a bicyclist. And discovers he should work on his own riding skills first.
No, this is not recommended bike behavior. A homeless man on a bicycle attacked a car with a machete at a Pasadena intersection. Seriously, there’s been times I’ve wanted to, but still. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Boyonabike, who got a hearty “eff you, asshole” from the driver who gave him a dangerous punishment pass, telling him he belonged on the side of the road.
Canada considers a National Cycling Strategy that would fund a nationwide expansion of bicycling infrastructure and support the bike industry, although not everyone seems happy about it.
Caught on video: A Brit teen driver on a five hour reckless driving rampage slams into a man on a bicycle, flipping him over the car. Fortunately, the victim recovered from his injuries, while the driver got a well-deserved five years behind bars and an eight and a half year ban on driving. Warning, the video is very difficult to watch.
Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.
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You have just two days left to comment on Metro’s plans to make the entrance to LA’s Union Station more walkable and bikeable.
Former Spanish pro and U-23 world road champ Iván Gutiérrez says he tried to hurt himself eleven times as a result of depression. Pro teams focus a lot of attention on physical condition of their riders; maybe more needs to be paid to their mental and emotional health.
A Marin County equestrian says conflicts on trails are caused by a small percentage of aggressive cyclists, and never happened before mountain bikes were invented. Funny, I’ve been run off trails by horseback riders while hiking more than once, before and after mountain bikes came into widespread use.
If you have a Pro-Tec City Life bike helmet, send it back; they’re being recalled after failing routine tests by Consumer Reports.
Fast Coexist looks at a simple fix that could keep bike riders’ tires from getting caught in streetcar tracks.
A writer for Strong Towns says she’s not a cyclist, she’s just someone who rides a bike. While I understand the sentiment, I have to respectfully disagree; saying cyclists are only people who wear spandex and ride for sport, as opposed to others who ride casually or for transportation, just creates an us vs. them mentality, instead of standing up for the rights of everyone who rides a bicycle.
A suspect turned himself in for the hit-and-run death of a young Texas bike racer, whose mother found his body the next day when he didn’t return home from a ride; the driver turned himself in on Friday, following the collision last Monday. Which gave him plenty of time to sober up and come up with a good excuse. Thanks to Steve Katz for the heads-up.
Bike advocates and friends of a fallen Chicago bike rider express their outrage over the ten day sentence given a killer drunk driver. Streetsblog says the politically connected driver was twice charged with DUI in high school, but had the charges dismissed. This is why people continue to die on our streets; too often there are no consequences for dangerous behavior, even when someone gets hurt — or worse. Especially if they can afford a good lawyer.
The New York Times says innovations in the cycling world, including mobile bike shops and online ordering, are threatening local bike shops. Thanks to George Wolfberg for the link.
International
If you’re going to get into bicycling, the first thing you’ll need is a bicycle. Just about everything else the story mentions is optional to a greater or lesser degree; yes, you should have a spare tube and patch kit, but countless riders somehow manage to get along without a bike computer, as useful as they may be.
Seriously, how oblivious do you have to be to not even know you hit someone with your car? A British driver claims his had his music turned up so loud he didn’t even know he’d hit a bike rider until he got home and saw the damage to his car. But how is it that he didn’t even feel the impact?
A Scottish lawyer says the country has to make bicycling safer, as too many people are afraid to get out on their bikes, resulting in a public health crisis.
Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.
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It was a surprise announcement.
And both heartening, and a little disappointing.
Word broke Thursday morning that LA’s Vision Zero Alliance had finally released its long-awaited Action Plan, explaining how the plan to reduce traffic fatalities by 20% by the end of this year, and eliminate them entirely by 2025.
While the report hits all the appropriate notes, it’s a little short on specifics.
For instance, it talks about the need to reduce speeds to drive down LA’s worst in the nation traffic death rate, but doesn’t actually commit to reducing speed limits to 20 or 25 mph, as other major cities have done. And it discusses working to change laws at the state level, without stating whether they will fight to remove the deadly 85th percentile law that drives up speeds and destroys livability — not to mention survivability — on city streets.
However, there are a few specific actions we can follow to verify that the plan is on track:
Vision Zero means designing a street network that is safe for all modes. The City will:
Install live-saving improvements on the priority corridors and intersections along the High-Injury Network, such as optimizing four-hundred traffic signals and redesigning at least twelve miles of City streets every year to accommodate safe transportation for all.
Update 100 percent of the expired speed surveys on the priority corridors by the end of 2017.
Update all City street-design standards used by the Bureau of Public Works, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of City Planning to be consistent with the National Association of City
Unanswered is whether the city will address the chronic understaffing problems at LADOT so they actually have the capability to work on Vision Zero, without throwing the hard-fought Mobility Plan out the window.
Some of those bicycling deaths could be prevented simply by building out the low-stress network of Bicycle Friendly Streets called for in the plan, giving riders a safer and more comfortable alternative to riding busier streets.
Also unanswered is how they will solve the problem of recalcitrant councilmembers who attempt to block desperately needed safety improvements in their districts, as Gil Cedillo and Paul Koretz have already done.
Not to mention LA’s rampant NIMBYism, which rises up to oppose virtually any changes on our streets, especially if there’s the slightest suspicion it might slow traffic down.
The Austrian man who was busted for trying to ride naked into a hotel in eight degree weather says he was trying to impress a girl. Although getting fired from his job as a pastry chef at the hotel probably isn’t the way to do it. And someone should explain to him about shrinkage.
A Pennsylvania bike rider was apparently under the influence when he was killed by a 17-year old driver; the victim had a water bottle filled with booze, and a dope pipe in his pocket.
University of Florida students are unnerved by a man riding his bike around campus wearing a swastika. Sometimes bike riders are the bad guys. And sometimes they’re just assholes. But even assholes have a constitutional right to be one.
But not as cheap as Illinois, where a drunk driver cops a plea for killing a man who was riding his bike home from work, in exchange for a whopping ten days behind bars. Ten effing days. Thanks to J. Patrick Lynch for the heads-up.
And a three-time Brit traffic serial killer gets his suspended license back three years early because it’s an inconvenience to his family. It was probably pretty inconvenient for the families of his victims, too.
And then we wonder why nothing ever seems to stop the carnage on our streets.
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Nice to hear from Michael Wagner of CLR Effect, who offers news from LA County’s too often neglected Eastside.
Even if the news isn’t exactly what we want to hear.
Santa Monica Planning is hosting a ride with SaMo’s mayor this Sunday. LA mayor Eric Garcetti agreed to ride with bicyclists when he was running for office four years ago, but to the best of my knowledge, no one has bothered to ask him to do it. Which should be a big hint to the LACBC, the BAC, LADOT…
US Cycling membership now includes legal benefits, including a free consultation, reduced legal fees, and priority consideration for pro bono legal representation. Although virtually any bike lawyer will offer a free consultation.
An editorial in USC’s Daily Trojan calls California’s ban on headphones for bike riders a new, overbearing law. Except the law only prohibits wearing headphones in or on both ears, rather than one. And it’s not new. Wearing headphones in both ears has been illegal for years, just as it is for drivers; all that changed with the new law was to eliminate loopholes to include any form of headphones or earpieces.
Seventy-one percent of people responding to an online poll in one Canadian town think winter bicycling should be banned; one bighearted driver thinks running over a cyclist could provide extra traction on icy streets.
In a truly bizarre case, Dutch police have filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice against a UN lawyer from Jamaica who claimed she had been brutalized by cops who arrested her when she got off her bike and walked it across a busy street.
Who needs a mountain when you’ve got a parking garage? Adelaide, Australia cyclists compete in their own indoor hill climb. Thanks to Adam Ginsberg for the news.
Thanks to Todd Rowell for his generous donation to support this site. Donations are always welcome to help us bring you the best, freshest and most accurate bike news in this post-truth era of alternate facts and fake news.
Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.
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Colorado’s USA Pro Challenge is dead and buried. Now the four-stage Colorado Classic pro race, which will include a two-stage women’s race, will rise from the ashes to take its place. Although they still seem to think women are too fragile to compete on an equal basis with the men.
Former British world road champ Nicole Cook says the problem with pro cycling is the sport in run “by men, for men” and doping is being fought by “the wrong people, in the wrong way, with the wrong tools.”
Next City talks to Motivate CEO Jay Walder, head of the nation’s largest bikeshare company, who says Donald Trump should look to America’s transit revolution for guidance on how to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure through public-private partnerships.
Note to Boston Globe: A “suspicious device” made from a beer bottle half filled with gasoline with a rag sticking out of it, like the one found on a bike trail, is called a Molotov cocktail.
New York-based BMX pro Nigel Sylvester makes Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30, to go along with his 200,000 Instagram followers and seven million YouTube views.
James May, host of Amazon’s The Grand Tour, is one of us, but says most bike riders are a bit hopeless, awkwardly peddling badly adjusted bikes with no idea how to use their gears.
Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.
In what could be the final step in a long, drawn-out battle to keep cars off Mt. Hollywood Drive in Griffith Park, the LA City Council’s Arts, Parks and River Committee approved plans for a shuttle system to take people up to the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign; the proposal goes before the full council today for final approval.
BikinginLA sponsor Josh Cohen wrote an open letter to the council in support of the plan.
Dear Lovers of Griffith Park:
I have been a CD 4 resident and homeowner, employee and employer in one capacity or another since the late 1960’s. I have a wife and a five year-old girl. We all use Griffith Park at least once a week. I live in Franklin Hills. My parents are elderly and they live in Beachwood Canyon, right under the Hollywood Sign. They too use Griffith Park.
Many other users of Griffith Park and I have watched as the City has struggled with traffic problems and the issue of motor vehicle traffic on Mt. Hollywood Drive.
Griffith Park is and must remain a place for people, not cars. Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bestowed the Park to the people of Los Angeles as, “[…] a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people […] to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city.”
The absence of motor vehicles in the Park is a prerequisite to Colonel Griffith’s mandate. Car-free, natural and unspoiled venues in Los Angeles are rare and precious. The absence of motor vehicles makes the Park a safe haven from the hectic, break-neck pace of life in metropolitan Los Angeles. Families like mine can escape to its confines and breathe unspoiled air. Children can run free without fear of getting hit by motor vehicles.
These truths impart an inherent value that supersedes the need for vehicular access to touristic vistas. Tourists’ desires for photo opportunities cannot outweigh Angelenos’ need for an escape from the mechanized dangers of city life. Los Angeles and its amenities must first be a place for its own residents.
Many Angelenos struggle in their daily lives because they cannot afford cars. Commuting and navigating the City unfairly burden them with logistical difficulties. Merely crossing the street threatens them with becoming another of Los Angeles’ 20,000 annual hit-and-run victims. They often lack recourse because the choices that shaped our great City’s landscape failed to account for anything but cars. Pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities are implicitly considered the cost of doing business.
For these reasons and more, Griffith Park must remain car-free to the fullest extent practicable. The Griffith Observatory Circulation and Parking Enhancement Plan keeps it so. It provides unprecedented transit access to the Park for those unable to afford a car, or for those who decide that one less car in the park is a good thing. Car-free policy lifestyle benefits the environment and Angelenos, and fulfills Colonel Griffith’s vision and mandate. And frankly, the tourists enjoy car-free Griffith Park more too.
The thousands who have signed petitions and attended meetings are pleased and grateful to know that Mt. Hollywood Dr. will remain motor vehicle free.
Thank you for protecting the Park’s wild interior and for improving the lives of Angelenos.
Not content with smashing windows at a Davis mosque and draping bacon over door handles, a woman was caught on security cameras slashing tires on bikes that were parked outside it.
It’s a win for Montana bike riders, as a bill that would have banned bicycles from most two-lane roadways has been withdrawn, and will be redrafted with bicyclists’ input; the lawmaker responsible for the bill says the new version won’t contain restrictions on walking or bicycling.
Caught on video: An Aussie cyclist swerves to avoid getting hit after he’s cut off by a U-turning driver, then gets a milkshake thrown at him by way of thanks; fortunately, the driver had really bad aim.
Now that’s love. A Chinese man rode over 1,200 miles in 15 days just to see his girlfriend on her 21st birthday. Although whether he loves her or bicycling — or both — remains to be explained.
News has just come in that Los Angeles has been selected as one of ten cities to participate in the Big Jump Project.
The new initiative from PeopleForBikes is aimed at doubling or tripling bike ridership in specific neighborhoods by improving bike infrastructure.
As part of the Big Jump Project, Los Angeles will focus on improving bike infrastructure in downtown LA and University Park, the city’s business core. As a participant in the program, Los Angeles will annually receive the equivalent of $200,000 in technical support from PeopleForBikes, as well as an additional $50,000 in matching funds or financial commitments from local organizations….
Over the course of the next three years, the Big Jump Project cities will be laboratories for innovation, ultimately illustrating the ways in which U.S. cities and towns can tap into bicycles to radically improve the health and vitality of their communities.
The project is part of PeopleForBikes’ new PlacesForBikes program, a three-part plan including an easy-to-understand, data-driven system for rating bike-friendly cities; how-to resources for communities and businesses; and an annual conference for city and business leaders.
Los Angeles was selected along with New York City, Baltimore MD, Portland OR, Memphis TN, Providence RI, New Orleans LA, Austin TX, Tucson AZ and my hometown of Fort Collins, CO.
While it’s great that Los Angeles has been selected as one of the initial cities, it’s unfortunate that it is limited to the Downtown area, which has already seen a jump in ridership, and the area north of USC, which could definitely use the help.
It would have been nice to see infrastructure-starved areas like South LA, Highland Park and Hollywood included in the program, as well as other often ignored regions of the city.
However, as always, the problem in Los Angeles is political will, and the courage of local councilmembers to stand up to the inevitable NIMBY anti-bike backlash.
Or more precisely, the lack thereof.
Hopefully, when people see what can be done to make our streets safer and more inviting for everyone, they’ll demand improvements in their own neighborhoods, as well. And elect representatives who will respond to that demand.
The other concern is whether LA will finally provide adequate staffing and funding for LADOT to meet the requirements of our streets, so this doesn’t result in ignoring the urgent needs of other areas while attention is focused on just two neighborhoods.
As former NYDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan stresses in her book Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, cities must be able to respond quickly to needs and opportunities on the streets, rather than taking years to design — and redesign in response to local opposition and lack of leadership backbone — before even thinking about implementation.
Something Los Angeles sadly lacks, and seems unlikely to change.
Maybe this will be the kick in the ass the city so desperately needs.
