It also includes a lane reduction to improve safety in downtown Eagle Rock, with a single traffic lane in both directions, along with bus and bike lanes.
The next steps include working with CD12 Councilmember and mayoral candidate Kevin de León to make adjustments to the plan, such as enabling al fresco dining and keeping cut-through traffic from disrupting residential neighborhoods.
And getting de León to sign off on the plan, after he’s done significant waffling on the project since taking office.
………
Nice surprise from my friend Jonathan Weiss, who forwards photos from a recent ride to check out the new Taylor Yard Bridge.
And stumbled across an apparent corgi meetup.
Better yet, my wife instantly recognized the blue merle corgi staring off into the distance as one she knows from meetups with her corgi Instagram group.
Face it. It’s a corgi world, and we just live in it.
The Archinect News site says LA’s new bike and pedestrian-friendly 6th Street Viaduct is about to change common perspectives on public urban space. Although you’ll have to earn the bike crossing with a steep climb to get there.
Tragic story from Wales, where a factory worker was killed riding his bike home from work when he grabbed hold of a coworker’s car to talk as the other man drove alongside his bike, then was thrown from his bike after his handlebars hit the side of the car.
Belgium’s Alpecin-Fenix team blamed their failure at the one-day Gent-Wevelgem race on other teams not doing their part to chase down the lead group. Seriously, if your strategy relies on other teams to help you win, you’ve already lost.
Finally…
Build your own ebike with whatever scraps you happen to have lying around. You may never win an Olympic cycling medal, but now you can buy one.
But despite the agency’s professed commitment to Complete Streets, they’re not including bike lanes, even though the roadway will be wide enough to accommodate them at some distant, unspecified date.
Because evidently, they just can’t find a few extra bucks in that $26 million budget for a couple more cans of white paint.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is once again throwing money around prior to an election.
But this time, it goes out to everyone but us.
At stake is the governor’s proposal for a $400 per car rebate for drivers, in lieu of freezing the gas tax as a sop to people complaining about rising gas taxes.
The money would go out to everyone with a car registered in California, for up to two vehicles, no matter how wealthy the owner, or how environmentally destructive the vehicle is.
Or if it even uses gas.
Meanwhile, transit riders would get a three month fare reprieve. And a relatively paltry $500 million would go towards active transportation projects in the state.
In other words, Newsom is doing everything in his power to maintain the automotive hegemony on our streets, regardless of the environmental damage, rather than use the crisis as an opportunity to make a sea change in how people get around in our state.
And not one penny to the people who did the right thing, and made the sometimes difficult, but environmentally sound, decision to give up their cars.
Instead of rebates to car owners who don’t need them — and in many cases, should have purchased a less wasteful and destructive vehicle to begin with — Newsom should make all transit systems within the state free.
Not just for three months, but permanently.
He should also pay people a monthly stipend to walk or bike to work instead of driving — enough to actually get people out of their cars. Then use the remaining funds to build the infrastructure necessary to support it.
Instead, we’re just doubling down on the same problems that got us here in the first place.
And learning absolutely nothing from the last gas crisis, while just setting us up for the next one.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Santa Barbara letter writer and former “frequent bicyclist” complains about the “bike lobby” that has “gained outsized power in the city government,” while conflating off-street bike paths with on-street bike lanes, and complaining that few people who ride the bike paths are riding to work. And that people in cars, who are apparently far more important than bike riders, really, really need their parking spaces. Although someone should ask him why he stopped riding, and if it had anything to do with a lack of safe bikeways.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An anonymous Portland writer complains about “asshole bicyclists” who ignore No Bikes Allowed On Trails signs to ride on walking trails in environmentally sensitive areas. Aside from making it clear he or she is as much of an a-hole as the people they’re complaining about, the writer has a point. Never ride where you could cause real harm to fragile landscapes.
Police in Ohio are looking for a hit-and-run bike rider who slammed into the side of an SUV after running a stop sign, and took off on foot when the driver called the police.
A Sebastopol winemaker faces up to 12 years and eight months behind bars after pleading guilty to the drunken crash that took the life of a bike-riding man, and cost the leg of a 12-year old boy who just happened to be riding near him; or he could walk with just time served. Ulises Valdez Jr. was nearly twice the legal blood alcohol limit following the collision.
Bicycling offers a clickbait slideshow with their recommendations for the ten best women’s bike helmets for any kind of rider.Because why let someone just scroll to the one that suits them when you can get a few extra clicks? As usual, you can read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.
This is the cost of traffic violence. A speeding San Antonio, Texas mom lost control and rolled her car, killing an innocent 18-year old bike rider, while injuring herself and her baby. Anyone who drives like that with a baby in the car should have either the car or the baby taken away.
Houston police were quick to blame the victim after a bike rider was killed by a dump truck driver in a pre-dawn crash, accusing him of darting in front of the truck in what appears to be a single witness crash. Which seems somewhat unlikely, since most bike riders try to stay the hell away from massive trucks.
They get it. A Halifax, Nova Scotia newspaper says SUVs are driving us to climate calamity, adding it will never be environmentally sound to use two tons of material to move roughly 200 pounds of human.
Luxembourg — the city, not the country, although the city is in the country — announced plans for seven new bike boulevards, joining three successful bike boulevards opened last year. Although someone should tell them that bikes and cobbles like the ones in the photo aren’t the best combination.
February 11, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Metro picks cars over bikes in NoHo, Flax says bicyclists really are entitled, and bus/bike lanes proposed for SaMo Blvd
Happy International Winter Bike to Work Day!
Even if it goes completely unnoticed here in Southern California, where we don’t have to worry about chipping the ice and snow off our bikes.
Let alone ourselves at the end of a sunny winter’s ride.
The massive project, which sits right next to the connecting point for the Burbank-Chandler and Orange Line multi-use paths, will erase a popular bike path connecting to the pathways. And replace it with a convoluted series of bike lanes that will encourage bicyclists to dangerously break the law by riding against traffic.
Here’s what Linton has to say.
Currently cyclists – including me and my daughter – heading from NoHo Station toward Burbank utilize the existing bus plaza sidewalk (which is going away) to get to Metro’s bike path (which is going away) that runs along the north side of Chandler Boulevard between Fair Avenue and Vineland Avenue.
LADOT expects eastbound bicyclists to go out of their way to cross four to five lanes of traffic on Chandler, then to make an uncomfortable left turn onto Vineland (where lots of drivers are turning right) to get to the Burbank-Chandler path. Cyclists will likely choose to salmon-ride against traffic in the westbound bike lane (or on the sidewalk), because that will be more direct and faster. (Similarly ridiculous circulation is shown on Chandler west of Lankershim. LADOT somehow expects cyclists to cross to the north side of Chandler at the station, then cross Chandler again in 500 feet to go to a median bikeway on the south side of Chandler.)
To make matters worse, the bike path is due to be replaced by, you guessed it, a parking garage.
And not just any parking garage, but a concrete behemoth with spaces for 3,300 drivers and their vehicles. Which would suggest that Metro has given up on getting Angelenos out of their cars, even as the world is literally burning.
It also suggests that Metro believes bike riders have a place on the road, but only if we don’t inconvenience all those important people in cars in any way.
Here’s Linton again.
Why wasn’t this path, a big active transportation priority, part of Metro’s site requirements? It sure looks like bike circulation was a non-priority – an afterthought – something to be half-assedly shoehorned in after cars took up lots of space.
(And, frankly, this is how Metro treats stations, bikeways, and transit-oriented development. With no public notice or input, Metro yanked an approved bikeway from its Rosa Parks Station revamp, while allowing drivers to speed through the middle of the station complex. The Expo Line bike path has an awful, dangerous gap at Culver City Station where cyclists are dumped out to onto busy streets just before they reach the station. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Nobody bikes to these stations anyway” because Metro makes them inhospitable to bicycling.)…
The project really should be re-worked to include a continuous bike path from Vineland to at least Tujunga Avenue. Ideally the path would bridge over Lankershim and Vineland. That continuous path was shown in renderings circulated in 2016. If Metro and (Councilmember Paul) Krekorian are serious about passing a habitable climate along to the next generation, this feature should be put back in.
We’ll look forward to future public meetings when we’ll have the chance to offer some very negative feedback.
In the meantime, maybe it’s time to tell Krekorian, who singlehandedly canceled shovel-ready plans for a lane reduction and bike lanes on Lankershim Blvd, he needs to do better.
Except he says our primary entitlement is the right to get home alive.
And he’s got the t-shirt to prove it.
Here’s how it gets deployed. Someone sees a rider pedaling in the street and perhaps even gets delayed 15 seconds, and so cyclists are entitled. Or maybe 17 parking spaces were reapportioned to make room for a bike lane, and so cyclists are entitled. Or someone makes the quite novel observation that bike riders don’t pay registration fees or taxes on the gasoline they don’t use. Or somebody sees a rider roll through a stop sign or maybe filter past gridlocked traffic with a smile on their face. You all know the chorus: Cyclists are entitled.
Of course this is total rubbish. The people who do all this moaning about cyclists are drivers who are oblivious to all the obscene entitlements that they enjoy. We are talking about trillions of dollars and decades of subsidies. We are talking about hundreds of millions of free parking spaces. We are talking about the most lurid fantasies of the petroleum and automotive industries being transmogrified into policy. Motorists have been lavished with VIP privileges for so long that they don’t even perceive them.
In order to reclaim that misused term, Flax says we need a bill of rights, including,
Cyclists are entitled to get home alive
Cyclists are entitled to safe places to ride
Cyclists are entitled to travel to work, schools, and local businesses just like everyone else
Cyclists are entitled to legal protections
Cyclists are entitles to have lawmakers, police departments, and the judicial system acknowledge and protect people who ride bikes
Cyclists are entitled to ride on the road
Like anything Flax writes, it’s a good piece. And more than worth a few minutes of your time.
And reminiscent of this Cyclists’ Bill of Rights we mentioned earlier this week, which nearly became law in Los Angeles, before it didn’t.
A Florida lawyer with a keen sense of the obvious says the recent drawbridge accident that killed a 79-year old woman walking her bike across the span should never have happened.
Great news, as two-time Grand Tour winner Egan Bernal is back on his feet — literally — after suffering critical injuries when he slammed into a poorly parked bus while training in his native Colombia.
Today’s must read belatedly came to my attention, after a week lost in my spam folder.
Calbike took a look back at best and worst of California biking last year, from Glendora’s low-cost quick-build Complete Streets demo, to proof that traffic jams improve safety, as bike and pedestrian deaths went up even as traffic levels decreased during the pandemic.
A few other highlights —
A pair of San Diego area bikeway prove persistence pays off
The Eastside’s Roadkill Gil gets a nod for worst abuse of political power
The failed anti0bike recall of Nithya Raman
Calbike’s big win on California’s new ebike subsidy program
The LA Times investigation of biased bike stops by sheriff’s deputies
Take a few minutes to read the whole thing. It may the most entertaining and informative thing you’ll read all day.
Sometimes I don’t know what the hell to make of something.
Especially when it involves widening a freeway in a soon-to-be-failed attempt at relieving traffic congestion, as if induced demand isn’t even a thing.
Not to mention make a complete mess of things when it comes to bicycling.
The $6 billion project was put on pause after decades of community complaints, cancellation by the EPA, pausing by Caltrans and suspension by the Metro board.
Which is one hell of a losing streak, if you ask me.
Now the project is once again rearing its ugly head, this time accompanied with references to rail and NextGen bus service.
And bike lanes. Well, sort of.
Or maybe not.
We’ll let Linton take it from here.
Metro’s video states that there is a “protected bike lane” along the L.A. River, when the river facility is actually a bike path. The presentation emphasizes that there is “a lack of designated bike routes,” though cyclists know that bike routes are typically meaningless. Metro’s “Bike Routes [sic]” map labels many bike paths as protected bikeways, and maps numerous protected bikeways in lots of places where they don’t exist: East L.A., Vernon, Carson, etc. (Hint for Metro’s intern: the only protected bikeways in the study area are in the city of Long Beach.)
I hesitated writing about this for over a week, thinking my feeble diabetes and drug addled brain just couldn’t make sense of it.
Then I finally realized it didn’t make sense to me because it just doesn’t make sense.
Like Metro somehow not knowing the difference between an imaginary protected bike lane and an actual riverfront bike path, albeit one with an eight-mile gap through DTLA.
Or that they would somehow invent a network of nonexistent protected bike lanes that would make vaporware look good.
I’d suggest Metro needs to get their shit together, but it looks like they already put their #2 staffer on it.
Unless maybe you’re the bike rider waiting patiently for a little old lady to make it all the way to the other side, while an impatient driver runs up on your ass, horn blaring.
This is who we share the road with. The LAPD is looking for a trio of hit-and-run drivers who injured one pedestrian and a person riding an e-scooter, and killed another pedestrian in three separate crashes the Jefferson Park neighborhood this month.
Seriously? A Massachusetts letter writer complains that a new bike lane is dangerous and will get someone killed because drivers have to cross it to make a right turn, and have to watch out for people on bikes when leaving a parking space. You know, pretty much like virtually every other bike lane on the face of the earth, aside from Denmark and the Netherlands, of course.
Speaking of Denmark, it’s the bike-friendly country’s Year of the Bike, with the Tour de France scheduled to start in Copenhagen, and a commitment to spend $64 million on bike lanes this year — part of a whopping $458 million bicycling infrastructure plan. Then again, every year is the year of the bike for Danish residents.
A board motion submitted LA Councilmember Paul Krekorian, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, County Supervisor Shiela Kuehl and Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval proposes a number of changes to the Metro Bike system, in part to address theft of the bikes.
Currently, Metro only has 38% of the total original fleet remaining in operation. Metro Bikes have been targets of theft, and rates of fleet loss ebb and flow as new methods of theft are discovered and addressed. The Metro Bike Share team has increased efforts to recover lost and stolen bicycles but this is not sustaining the fleet and the program does not have an established fleet replenishment strategy. As a result, fewer Metro Bikes are available for use, which degrades the quality of service available to the public.
Although I’d think having nearly 40 percent of the original bikes still in operation after five years is pretty damn good.
Regardless, the five are requesting that the Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins report back in 90 days on a number of proposed changes, most of which have nothing to do with addressing bike theft.
A. An action plan to stabilize the current fleet size including actions for how to identify, prioritize, and address new mechanisms of theft as they arise.
B. An action plan to address equitable access in the current program and in any future form of the program. This plan shall include recommendations on issues such as serving people who may be unbanked, addressing the digital divide, and keeping fare cost low.
C. A plan to provide uninterrupted service as the next iteration of the program is determined and executed.
D. A plan to convene an industry forum (as was performed for Metro Micro) to bring together academics, cities with existing bike share programs, community stakeholders, and industry experts to provide recommendations on advancing Metro Bike Share beyond the current contract in one of several forms including but not limited to
Continuing Metro Bike Share as a contracted service,
Operating the program In-house with Metro employees,
A private-sector model with financial subsidy provided by Metro.
E. Performing a market survey to identify best practices and business models among existing bike-share systems in the US, and comparable global systems (e.g., Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, and Mexico City), and to develop comparative data on subsidy cost per ride, total ridership, size of fleet, vehicle technology, theft and damage loss and prevention, and alternative financing sources like sponsorship and advertising.
F. Recommendations for continuing and evolving the Metro Bike Share program to meet the goals of the agency, with countywide stakeholder engagement and consideration of cost-sharing, with the goal of expanding service area and local participation to all subregions in the County. These recommendations should include eligible local, state, and federal funding sources for capital and operations budgets, as well as legislative opportunities to expand such funding eligibility.
All of these should be positives, if they’re carried out with a clear intention to maintain the bikeshare system and improve service.
Especially finding better ways to equitably serve low income communities.
As it stands right now, there doesn’t appear to be reason for concern. The question will be what form the response takes when Wiggins reports back in February.
That’s when we’ll want to give her recommendations a close look. And make sure the program is moving forward, not back.
But we haven’t even gotten to the suckiest part yet. These days sharrows are deployed as a bad-faith alternative to actually making roads safer for bike riders. In recent years, sharrows have become increasingly popular as cities try to balance calls from safety advocates to install quality bike lanes — you know, so folks feel more encouraged to ride and get killed a little less often — and grumpy motorists who don’t want to relinquish driving lanes or parking spaces for bike infrastructure. To the politicians and engineers stuck in the middle, sharrows seem like a devilishly perfect compromise — a way to placate the pro-car populists while still being able to claim you did something.
In short, they are perfect for city officials who care enough about safety to do the very least. There’s only one problem: Sharrows are make believe safety infrastructure.
By now, you probably already know my take.
That sharrows are nothing more than an attempt by transportation agencies to thin the herd, with little arrows painted on the pavement to help drivers improve their aim.
The best you can say is they offer a placemaking guide for people on bicycles, while showing riders where they should position themselves to control the lane.
If they’re placed correctly, that is.
And if riders feel comfortable in the middle of the lane in front of too often impatient and angry drivers.
Instead, you usually see people riding next to them on the right, increasing the risk of unsafe passes. If you see them at all, since many riders seem to prefer other routes that place them in less risk of getting run over.
Which is probably smart. Because as Flax notes, a 2018 study found that sharrows are actually worse than nothing when it comes to safety.
It’s worth taking a few minutes to read the whole thing.
That was followed by this tweet from McSweeney himself, justifying the piece.
Twitter post
It’s a sure sign you missed the mark when you have to tell people something is funny.
Or when you have to say, no, really, we ride bikes, too.
Because it ain’t satire if it’s not funny.
………
When is a protected bike lane not a bike lane?
When it’s a parking lot for government cops.
Twitter post
………
Recently retired pro Tejay van Garderen had his own bikes stolen recently while moving to Denver.
So if you’re in the Denver area, keep an eye out for them. And it wouldn’t hurt to watch out wherever you are, because high-end bikes like these could turn up anywhere.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWOhWQDF4Ka/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWZGGY5F22B/
According to Jonathan Vaughters, that second bike is the one that put van Garderen in the white jersey signifying the best young rider in the 2012 Tour de France.
Twitter post
………
Love this photo that’s the very definition of fin de siècle style and cool.
Here’s what the tweet says, for those of us who are Español challenged.
Bicycles have remained remarkably the same for over 100 years, elegant in their efficiency and simplicity; the look of the cyclists has not changed much either.
………
Another reminder of the exceptional efficiency of bike lanes.
A 22-year old hit-and-run driver will now face a murder charge after a preliminary investigation showed he was speeding on his way to work, and high on weed, when he slammed into a six-year old Detroit boy just riding his bike across the street.
Smart move. Montreal is setting up an online reporting system just for pedestrian and bicycle crashes in the downtown area, where most such crashes occur. Something we could use here, where police too often don’t even want to take a report unless someone is seriously injured.
November 4, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Fed ebike tax rebate cut again, DTLA flyover would raise risk for Figueroa riders, and South Pasadena Community Ride
The up and down, back and forth tug-of war continues on the federal ebike tax rebate program.
It’s now back down to a maximum $900, or 30% of the purchase price of a ebike up $4,000, after being cut yet again in a House committee.
Never mind that the bills also provide tax benefits up to $12,500 for an electric car, providing yet more assistance to many of those who need it least, while continuing the country’s harmful over reliance on motor vehicles.
And proving yet again that our elected leaders just don’t get the crisis we’re in, both in terms of traffic safety and congestion, and the most effective solutions to the climate emergency facing our country, and the world.
Although on the plus side, the bill would increase the pre-tax commuter benefit for riding a bike to work from $20 per month to a slightly less paltry $81.
Of course, all of that is moot if the bills don’t manage to get through both the House and the Senate.
And their prospects are just as murky as the heavy fog blocking my view out the window right now.
Twitter post
………
I had thought this disastrous Metro highway project had been put out of our misery when it first raised its ugly head a few years ago.
As this thread notes, freeway projects disproportionately target poorer neighborhoods and people of color, and this one is no exception.
It’s also true that it makes no sense to keep building massive freeway projects during a climate emergency, when it’s vital that we shift people out of their cars in favor of transit, walking and biking.
Spending millions on a project that will merely result in yet more induced demand, while destroying a neighborhood and greatly increasing the risk to people on bicycles is like lighting a match to our future and community.
Never mind that, like the thread points out, the many millions to be spent on this ramp, and the millions of dollars that have already been spent on consultants, would be better spent improving transit service and making it free for everyone.
Instead of a wasteful project that will only benefit a relative handful of people in cars, while ultimately making traffic and the environment worse.
You would think Metro would have learned from their disastrous widening of the 405 through the Sepulveda pass, which wasted $1.1 billion to make traffic congestion even worse than it was before.
The riders are lucky neither driver swerved their way to avoid the near crash, which could have resulted in multiple injuries.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A man described as a male “Karen” approached a trio of Black women filming a TikTok video in Seattle, ordering them to pick up their phone “real quick” before pushing over their bicycle for no apparent reason.
Unbelievable. A Black man was racially targeted as he stopped briefly while riding a bike in his own Houston neighborhood, after a man told him he didn’t belong there and was making people nervous, then got out of his car and smashed the victim’s phone before brutally attacking him and slamming his head on the concrete. Yet his White attacker was arrested on a simple misdemeanor charge and released on a ridiculously insulting $100. More proof just how un-seriously authorities take attacks on people of color, and people on bicycles.
………
Local
The LA Times’ Patt Morrison says, contrary to the gospel of Who Killed Roger Rabbit, we’re all responsible for the death of LA’s Red and Yellow car streetcar systems. Maybe we should take those billions Metro has budgeted for traffic-inducing highway projects and rebuild the streetcar system by taking a lane from every major street to lay down the tracks.
KCBS-2 reports Orange County has seen a whopping 500% increase in ebike injuries compared to this time last year. But they fail to consider whether ebike sales and usage have increased a similar, or even greater, amount, while sounding the alarm about the bikes supposed dangers.
Tragic news from the Bay Area, where Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan was killed by a driver while walking her dog across a street at an intersection called out in the Alameda Vision Zero plan for a high rate of injuries at the hands and bumpers of motorists.
NIMBYs seem to feel a constant need to remind us that this isn’t Copenhagen, or Amsterdam, or some other bike-friendly city. Now you can add smallish Davis to that list, where 20% of all non-recreational trips are taken by bike.
This is who we share the road with. Former Las Vegas Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs III had a BAC over twice the legal limit and was driving 156 mph just two seconds before he slammed into a car driven by 23-year old Tina O. Tintor, killing her and her dog in a fiery crash; Ruggs was released by the team hours later, and faces up to 20 years behind bars.
If you build it, they will come. Once again, a once controversial bike lane has become a resounding success, as a nearly two mile, two-way bike lane in New York’s Astoria district now averages two riders every minute at peak hours, with a high of 2,300 trips in a single day.
Heartbreaking story from Athens, Georgia, where a man was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike, eight years after his mother met the same fate while walking along a roadway; neither driver has been caught.
International
Once again, an Apple Watch has come to the rescue. An English bike rider credits his with saving his life when it automatically called for help after he was struck by a driver. Which is about the only reason I would want one. And yes, I do.
UCI released the final rankings for the past racing season, dominated by Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert on the men’s side, and Annemiek van Vleuten and Elisa Longo-Borghini for the women. Meanwhile, the US is nowhere to be seen in the top five nations on either side.
Sometimes, the explanation stinks as much as the project.
And the location.
Anyone who ever drove the 605 Freeway through Baldwin Park and the City of Industry in years past noticed the stench of the duck farm long before it came into sight.
And it lingered long after, making you wonder if the odor was still wafting through the air, or burned into your olfactory nerve.
It’s been 20 years since work began to turn the poultry farm into a park. Although you have to wonder if even that is long enough to get the stink off the land.
But now the stench is wafting from the Metro boardroom, instead.
What’s depressing is how inexorably these small freeway expansion projects continue to advance. And the Metro gaslighting that now promotes polluting auto-focused freeway expansion as good for equity and for active transportation.
He goes on to note that Caltrans bizarrely certified that the project would have no negative environmental impact.
Because apparently, induced demand isn’t a thing anymore.
Equally bizarre, though, is Metro’s attempts at greenwashing the project by touting its extremely limited benefits to alternative transpiration.
Again, from Linton’s Streetsblog piece —
Caltrans and Metro tout the project as benefiting alternative transportation. The environmental documents assert that the project would “enhance bicyclist and pedestrian safety” and “help reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions” by supporting alternative modes of transportation: biking and walking.
All of the non-car features of the project are:
Adding a sidewalk where it is currently missing on the north side of Valley Boulevard – including ADA-mandated features such as wheelchair ramps.
Adding “a widened shoulder to provide a future bike lane along Eastbound Valley Boulevard up to the northbound loop on-ramp.” Installing this 1,400-feet length of bike lanes does not appear to be actually included in the project, but the margin for potential future bike lanes is nonetheless noted as helping reduce GHG emissions.
Reducing the curve radius of the northbound loop on-ramp from eastbound Valley Boulevard; this “would be reduced to slow entering traffic to enhance safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and support use of these alternative modes.” Note that the reason the turning radius is being narrowed is to accommodate a second lane on the current one-lane on-ramp (without taking out the business next door). Caltrans asserts that an upcoming curve radius would slow Southern California drivers entering the on-ramp, and that this would encourage bicycling. Really.
All the extra bike riding this project would inspire wouldn’t begin to offset the environmental and climate damage it would cause.
Then again, it’s hard to offset anything when the bike and pedestrian side of the equation is virtually nil.
Unless you think a possible, noncommittal quarter-mile bike lane that may never be built is enough to offset what would undoubtedly be a major increase in traffic and emissions.
Or that safety for people on foot and bicycles can really be enhanced by adding a second onramp lane.
Admittedly, I’m not lawyer. But it seems like it wouldn’t take a very big cannon to shoot holes in the environmental report for this project.
Or a water pistol, for that matter.
So let’s be honest.
Every member of the Planning Committee who voted in favor of this project — which is all of them — should be ashamed.
Because whatever benefits this freeway widening project may or may not offer, their efforts to bikewash it with negligible benefits to bike riders and pedestrians stinks every bit as much as the duck farm did.
And it will take years to wash that stench off them, too.
………
Nice to see an effort by LA Councilmembers Mike Bonin, Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz to use newly signed state laws to improve safety on our streets.
Twitter post
Then again, Koretz has always been in favor of safety improvements, as long as they’re in someone else’s district.
Instead, it’s about kids as young as six years old being handcuffed and arrested by police — including brutal use-of-force incidents — the overwhelming majority of whom are Black, brown or other people of color.
Here’s just one example they cite.
About 165 miles due south, in the rural hamlet of Paris, Illinois, 15-year-old Skyler Davis was riding his bike near his house when he ran afoul of a local ordinance that prohibited biking and skateboarding in the business district — a law that was rarely enforced, if ever.
But on that day, according to Skyler’s father, Aaron Davis, police officers followed his mentally disabled son in their squad car and chased his bike up over a curb and across the grass.
Officers pursued Skyler into his house and threw him to the floor, handcuffing him and slamming him against a wall, his father said. Davis arrived to see police pulling Skyler — 5 feet tall and barely 80 pounds, with a “pure look of terror” on his face — toward the squad car.
“He’s just a happy kid, riding his bike down the road,” Davis said, “And 30 to 45 seconds later, you see him basically pedaling for his life.”
Seriously, there’s no damn excuse for targeting kids like this, unless they somehow pose a direct threat.
And that’s pretty hard to imagine for a six-year old.
Or an unarmed 15-year old just out for a bike ride.
While it may seem like an obnoxious prank, it should be treated as an assault with a deadly weapon, which could have severe consequences for anyone with allergies or breathing problems.
………
Who needs a bike car in the train when you’ve got one in front of it?
Good news and bad news. Bay Area bike riders are happy to learn the hard-won bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge won’t have to be closed for construction of a proposed water pipeline. But the approach leading to the bridge will be.
August 12, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Keeping dangerous drivers driving until it’s too late, Metro neighborhood bike guides, and Brompton guests on Ted Lasso
Once again, authorities have managed to keep a dangerous driver on the road and behind the wheel until it’s too late.
Shockingly, the crash came just three years after the then 84-year old man hit another bike rider on the same damn road.
Which is exactly when he should have been forced to give up his keys.
Permanently.
Admittedly, it’s difficult to know when an older person can no longer drive safely. And I know from experience just how hard it is to take the keys from a loved one.
But it’s the state’s job to do exactly that. And before they kill someone.
Which makes the DMV, police, and any prosecutors and judges who may have been involved in the earlier case just as responsible for this doctor’s death as the man who actually killed him.
And who shouldn’t have been allowed to drive in the first place.
Say it ain’t so, Joe. The legendary Katie F’n Compton was banned for four years after testing positive for an undisclosed anabolic agent in an out-of-competition drug test last fall; the 42-year old, 15-time national ‘cross champ won’t be eligible to compete again until late 2024, after her suspension was backdated to the date of the failed test. But the doping era is over, right? I mean, that’s what they keep telling us.
Los Angeles is finally getting around to repaving the streets of DTLA that have been torn up for five years of construction on a new subway connector line.
The problem is, they’re busy restoring them to the same failing, incomplete streets they were before.
While LADOT has made great progress building bike lanes in Downtown Los Angeles — the only neighborhood in all of LA that can claim an actual bike network — they’re still stuck in 1990s thinking, falling far short of what they could, and should, be doing.
This is what the longstanding B.I.K.A.S. — aka Bicycle Infrastructure Knowledge Activism and Safety — blog has to say on the subject.
After adding great new transit stations and new transit service – why restore streets back to the way they were in 2014? Why not upgrade them – adding first/last mile bike lanes to access the new stations?
Street restoration includes several wide streets with plenty of space for bike lanes: Flower Street, Hope Street, Alameda Street, and Temple Street. In addition, the city of L.A.’s Mobility Plan designates protected bike lanes on First Street and Second Street. Short new lanes on Third Street would connect a southbound Flower bike lane to its couplet partner northbound on Figueroa.
If Metro and the city of L.A. act now, they could implement numerous new bike lanes improving downtown’s already fairly good network of bikeways. Implementing them when post-construction streets are due for resurfacing saves the city time and money.
Make that pennies on the dollar compared to what it would cost to strip off the auto-centric painted lanes to add bike lanes at a later date.
Although no one has ever accused Los Angeles of thinking long term.
The blog calls for sending “respectful” emails to city officials, including our future ambassador to India, encouraging them to “implement a first/last mile Regional Connector bikeway network.”
Personally, I’d say demand, rather than encourage. But then, I’ve always been a pushy little son of a mother — especially when my safety and that of others who take to two wheels is concerned.
You’ll find a sample email there you can modify to make you own.
Or just use your own words.
But don’t let them get away with reverting to last century infrastructure in the only LA area where we’re actually making some real progress.
The victim was reportedly in grave condition after paramedics found him unresponsive fallowing the 9:31 pm crash near Fairplex Drive and Arroyo Avenue.
No ID was provided for the victim, and no explanation given for how the crash occurred. However, the driver remained at the scene, and was not considered to be under the influence.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Pomona PD Traffic Services Bureau at 909/802-7741.
………
Now here’s a bill we should all be able to get behind.
Calbike is calling for your help to support AB 1147, from Burbank legislator Laura Friedman, which would finally move California out of its auto-centric past and present to a safer and more livable future for all of us.
Imagine a separated, limited access bikeway that gives you a frictionless ride across town or commute to work. That’s not science fiction or the fever dream of a Copenhagen urbanist. Bicycle highways and 15-minute neighborhoods, where most amenities and services are within a 15-minute bike ride, are just two of the forward-thinking concepts in AB 1147.
AB 1147 reorients transportation planning away from the car-choked past and towards a climate- and human-friendly future. It’s a visionary piece of legislation authored by Assemblymember Laura Friedman.
AB 1147 also envisions 15-minute neighborhoods, where shops and services are an easy bike ride from homes. Please sign now to help us pass this essential legislation.
And renounce once and for all their auto-centric ways.
Car Free Megacities’s dashboard shows the striking similarities and also the differences between London, Paris and New York — the metrics the cities can use to learn rapidly from each other and take actions that will save lives, make streets healthier, pleasanter places and deliver critical progress toward urgent climate goals.
Maybe if we begged them pretty please we could get them to include a certain Left Coast megalopolis that desperately needs to renounce the error of its ways.
………
Good Twitter thread from the estimable Peter Flax on the fallacies behind the usual calls for helmet laws and bike licenses, which once again raised their ugly head in NYC.
And coming soon to an anti-bike rant near you.
It’s worth clicking through on the tweets below to read the whole thing.
Twitter post
………
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Claremont Cyclist Michael Wagner, author of CLR Effect, who asks “When is a bike lane not one?”
Answer, “When it is transformed into a garbage collection lane. One of many similar instances we encountered during Saturday’s Ride Around Pomona.”
Sad to see that the blight of bike lane trash bins extends so far east of East LA.
And yes, it’s my fault we don’t hear from Michael more often, since he’s always got something worthwhile to say.
Don’t count on securing your own Metro bike locker anytime soon.
Twitter post
………
These days, we all feel like refugees on SoCal streets.
Thanks to David Drexler for the photo of a proposed Beverly Hills “refuge.”
………
Phillip Young calls our attention to a free exhibit of Italian steel at La Jolla’s The Museum Of __, which is apparently still trying to define just who and what they are.
From the Collection of Ron Miriello June 5, 2021 through July 17, 2021
The Museum Of__ is pleased to present an exhibition of vintage steel bicycles handcrafted and built throughout Italy between 1978 and 1986 from the personal collection of Ron Miriello, a San Diego-based graphic designer, artist, and Italophile. For decades, Italian steel bicycles have been synonymous with finely detailed craftsmanship and storied histories, from their hand-painted lettering and unique details etched in steel, to headtube badges and wool jerseys celebrating the pride of their cities and villages.
Though once there was a bicycle maker in most every Italian town, streamlined manufacturing has shifted the bicycle world’s ethos and desire for more advanced technologies. A globalized industry has challenged the future of these family-run operations in favor of mass-production, but their stories of dedication to the craft continue through a community of devoted collectors of these steel wonders around the globe.
In a bizarre disconnect, a study from Oakland’s Department of Transportation confirms that protected bike lanes are the safest. But they want to rip out the successful protected bike lanes on iconic Telegraph Avenue anyway.
May 26, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Able-bodied mtn biker confronts disabled ebike rider, Metrolink helps promote bikes, and redesigning LA’s worst intersections
A video from last fall has popped up again, causing fresh outrage online.
Justifiable outrage, for a change.
David Wolfberg forwards a story from Boing Boing that picks up a video we posted last September, showing an able-bodied mountain biker complaining about a disabled rider’s adaptive ebike, and demanding to see the rule allowing him to use it on the Indiana trail.
Maybe you’ll remember it.
Lord knows I do.
The story doesn’t end there, though, as reprehensible as this uncomprehending attack on a disabled man is.
Morris…has since said he has been in touch with Terry Coleman, the deputy director of Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), who told him that his bike was perfectly legal to ride on trails.
Morris said: “What I’m on is not an e-bike, it’s an adaptive piece of equipment. And adaptive equipment is allowed on all of the trails throughout all of Indiana. So if you’ve got this equipment, get out and use it, use it in the state parks, use it on these trails.”
Morris also said Coleman told him that the DNR had actually just bought 12 “off-roading wheelchairs”, to give disabled people in the state more access to trails and paths for leisure activities.
So the next time you find tempted to criticize someone else for some infraction, real or imagined, think twice.
Then don’t.
There may be some reason why they’re doing what they’re doing. And it doesn’t really matter whether you understand or agree with it.
Because it’s not your job to enforce the rules, any more than driveway vigilante drivers have the right to enforce their interpretations — or misinterpretations, more often — of bike laws on you.
Try a little empathy and understanding instead.
And maybe make this world a little better for all of us in the process.
Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay.
………
Remember this tweet the next time someone insists Los Angeles isn’t (insert more progressive city here).
And particularly now that it’s getting safer to get back on a train.
………
Great thread from 18-year old housing and transportation enthusiast Zennon Ulyate-Crow, who is doing the work LADOT should be doing to reimagine some of LA’s most problematic intersections.
Twitter post
Here’s his latest project, which turns an East Hollywood mess into something we could all live with.
Twitter post
Let’s hope LADOT is already keeping an eye on him, with the promise of a job once he gets his degree.
………
Speaking of LADOT, it seems the ostensibly progressive department ostensibly focused on Compete Streets still hasn’t gotten the message of the mayor’s Green New Deal — that we have to reimagine our streets and how we get around if we’re going to meet the city’s climate change goals, let alone survive.
Or maybe they still have old school engineers on staff who retain their focus on automotive throughput, as an obsolete plan to widen Burbank Blvd rises from the dead.
With auto-centric crap like this is still being pushed by Metro and LADOT, maybe we can’t afford to wait, and need to get Ulyate-Crow working there now.
Or better yet, running it.
………
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to instruct you in how to wear a bike helmet.
Twitter post
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. San Carlos has installed a bicycle dismount zone where people are supposed to get off their bikes and walk them across an intersection to “minimize conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists.” Even though bike riders have every right to just ride across the damn street.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Streets For All introduces Destruction for Nada, a much-needed campaign to stop all highway widening in LA County, as Metro considers an induced-demand boosting jump in highway spending at Thursday’s board meeting, along with a proposal to kill the wasteful and destructive $8 billion plan to widen the 710 Freeway. It’s long past time all of Metro’s funding was shifted to transit and Complete Streets.
The post-pandemic reopening is raising a debate over the streets of San Francisco, as advocates call for keeping closed-off streets carfree, while drivers insist they need the roads open to get around. That’s a debate that should be happening in Los Angeles, as well, as the city faces an urgent need to reimagine how people get around in order to meet climate goals, and confront the ever-increasing congestion on our streets. But isn’t.
San Francisco installs the city’s first advisory lane, where bike riders use bike lanes on either side of the street, while drivers in both directions share a single center lane.
Sad news from Northern California, where a man riding a bike in Cottonwood was killed by a hit-and-run driver who just left him on the side of the road to die. As we’ve said before, in cases like that, the driver should face a murder charge once they’re caught for making the conscious decision to let their victim die.
A Chicago man took an “epic” bike ride across Indiana just to dine at the nearest Waffle House. Although the real story is how he was able to make almost the entire trip on offroad bike paths.
Island Pressintroduces Bike Easy, which has played a significant role in the remarkable transformation of New Orleans into a bike friendly — or at least, friendlier — city.
A Canadian girl got a new BMX bike for being honest enough to return a bike a stranger had given her, after learning it had been stolen. Although the question is why did a stranger give her a stolen bike to begin with.
International politics once again reaches into the sports world, as Germany responds to the hijacking and apparent torture of an opposition journalist in Belarus by pulling out of next month’s Elite Track European Championships in the country. And yes, that’s the right move; hopefully other countries will follow their lead.
