Tag Archive for Nithya Raman

Arrest in knife attack on WeHo bike rider, cemeteries still fighting Forest Lawn Drive project, and maybe there’s hope for LA yet

May 8, 2026 / / No comments

Damn.

West Hollywood Sheriff’s detectives finally made an arrest in an attack on a bicyclist last August.

According to the Canyon News, a man was riding a bicycle near Westmount Drive and Rosewood Ave when someone threw a knife at him from a passing car, hitting him in the neck.

There’s no word on whether the rider was injured by the knife or how the suspect was located, nor is there any mention of possible charges.

But the suspect should be charged with attempted murder, because the knife assault could have been fatal if the attacker had better aim.

Image by Walter Bichler from Pixabay. 

………

Evidently, a group opposed to red light cameras has a lot more sway with local leaders than we do.

And oddly, they seem to be on our side.

According to the Jewish Journal, Mt. Sinai and Forest Lawn cemeteries are once again complaining about plans to improve safety on Forest Lawn Drive.

After talking with Mayor Karen Bass and CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman, they thought the project had been put on hold, only to see it revived in response to pressure from Safer Streets LA.

Which, according to their website, exists to “Stop red light camera rip-offs,” and “Stop the plan to impose speed cameras on California.”

Nowhere on their site can I find any support for bike lanes or lane reductions on Forest Lawn. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Yet, written in black and white on the walls of cyberspace.

Two years ago, in 2024, (Mount Sinai General Manager Randy) Schwab met with Councilmember Nithya Raman to explain the potential impact on the two cemeteries and the traffic congestion the plan could create. “At the time she promised not to do it, but then I think Safer Streets LA got in touch with her and convinced her that it should be brought back.”

So we apparently owe them our thanks for their hard work and dedication to improve safety for us all, even as they try to make the streets more dangerous.

In fact, the plan has long been in the works due to the inherent dangers of the street, as anyone who has tried to use the painted lanes could testify.

The Journal contacted Councilmember Raman’s office and received the following response: “Forest Lawn Drive provides Angelenos access to key destinations, like Griffith Park and the LA Zoo, and is used by people driving, biking and running. About half of all drivers on Forest Lawn are speeding above the 45 mph legal limit, and at those speeds, a pedestrian or bicyclist struck by a car has a 50% chance of being killed. That is not acceptable, and we have been working to change it.”

Her office said the Forest Lawn Drive Safety & Mobility Project is intended to address these safety concerns by reducing vehicle speeds, adding physical protection for cyclists, and improving conditions for all users of the corridor. It also said the plan includes improved turns for both cemeteries and the Junior Achievement Center. A Raman spokesperson said issues raised by cemetery representatives were taken into account during the design process, and LADOT’s proposal includes expanded turn lanes.

Let that first paragraph sink in.

On a roadway commonly used by bike riders, as well as mourners on their way to visit or say farewell to loved ones, more than half of all drivers exceed the already too high 45 mph speed limit, turning the curving street in their own personal speedway.

Yet the cemeteries continue to fight changes that would benefit their own visitors, in what can only be seen as an apparent attempt to drive up business.

So, thanks Safer Streets LA.

We owe you one, apparently.

………

Let’s consider this statement from New York’s former DOT Commissioner, as Gothamist wonders whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the city’s first real Bike Mayor.

“I think it’s taken a long time, but I think the politics have really caught up with the people,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Not so long ago, a lot of these ideas seemed like they were crazy, and today, a mayor who rides a bike for fun and for transportation is just another part of New York.”

So there may be hope for us yet.

………

The rescheduled memorial for three people killed when an elderly driver crashed through the 99 Ranch Market on Westwood Blvd in February will be held this Saturday.

Here’s a press release from Streets Are For Everyone announcing the event. And if you haven’t signed the letter demanding a Traffic Violence State of Emergency in the City of Los Angeles, there’s still time before it’s released at the event.

THREE GHOST TIRES TO BE PLACED BY THE COMMUNITY
HONORING VICTIMS OF 99 RANCH MARKET MASS TRAFFIC FATALITY EVENT,
CALLS FOR STATE OF EMERGENCY

LOS ANGELES, CA – On Saturday, May 9th, Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), People’s Vision Zero, family members of those lost, and community members will be holding a press conference and placing three Ghost Tires to honor the three lives lost and six people seriously injured in the mass traffic fatality event outside 99 Ranch Market on February 5th, 2026. They will also be addressing a second mass traffic fatality near Vista Del Mar on May 3rd, 2026, which killed two more people, including a one-year-old child, and left two others seriously injured. Speakers will call on the LA Mayor and City Council to declare a state of emergency due to traffic violence in Los Angeles.

Ghost tires will be decorated and placed at the site as a memorial to those killed. Victim family members and their legal representatives will address the press, followed by advocates and community leaders.

WHAT:   Ghost Tire Memorial and Press Conference honoring victims of the 99 Ranch Market mass traffic fatality and calling for emergency action on traffic violence in Los Angeles.

WHEN:   Saturday, May 9, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 11:20 AM

WHERE:  1360 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024

WHO:

  • Family members of those lost
  • Damian Kevitt, Founder and Executive Director of SAFE
  • Jonny Hale, People’s Vision Zero
  • Phoebe Kiekhofer, SAFE Families

………

As long as we’re doing press releases, the Orange County Transportation Authority, aka OCTA, is holding a Bike Month Ride Along next week. And yes, I could write about it instead of just reposting the press release, but I’m getting lazy and fond of sleep in my old age.

OCTA Rolls out Bike Month 2026, Ride Along May 13
Annual Bike Rally features a 4-mile ride and prize opportunities, and pledge to bike during May for a chance to win an e-bike while staying active

ORANGE – OCTA is celebrating Bike Month this May by encouraging people across Orange County to get out and ride, whether for commuting, recreation or short everyday trips. The monthlong campaign highlights the benefits of biking as a convenient, healthy and sustainable way to travel.

As part of the celebration, OCTA will host its annual Bike Rally at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 13, featuring a 4-mile group ride from the Orange Metrolink Station to OCTA headquarters in Orange.

The rally serves as a signature Bike Month event, bringing riders together for a shared experience on city streets while showcasing how easy and accessible biking can be throughout the county. Participants will be entered for a chance to win an Aventon Pace 4 Step-Through e-bike, valued at $1,799, along with other prizes. Riders will also receive free Bike Month T-shirts and light snacks while supplies last.

Those who pledge to ride a bike during May will be entered for a chance to win an Aventon Soltera 2.5 e-bike, valued at $1,199, courtesy of Bike Month sponsors Aventon E-bikes and Spectrumotion.

Beyond Bike Month, OCTA continues to invest in active transportation infrastructure and programs that make it safer and more convenient for people to walk and bike throughout Orange County. Working in partnership with local cities and the county, OCTA helps fund and deliver projects such as protected bike lanes, regional trail connections and first- and last-mile improvements that link neighborhoods to transit.

These efforts are designed to reduce reliance on cars, improve air quality and support healthier, more active communities.

OCTA is also encouraging riders to make safety a priority. An e-bike safety video is available with tips for riding responsibly, and those who watch can be entered for a chance to win a $100 gift card.

Together, these efforts are designed to inspire more people to consider biking as an easy, efficient and environmentally friendly way to get around.

For more information about Bike Month and to participate in the Bike Rally, visit www.octa.net/bikemonth.

………

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

No bias here. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offers tips to keep bike riders safe on the roadways by offering advice for…bike riders. People in the big, dangerous machines, carry on.

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

A Singapore woman was criticized as “irresponsible and brainless” for riding her bike through a busy intersection with her Shiba Inu dog running behind on a leash, despite the hot pavement. I’ve never been a fan of riding with your dog on a leash, which poses too many opportunities for something to go drastically wrong, even if it is an easy way to exercise your dog. Or may over exercise it, because a dog will run itself to death to please you. 

………

Local 

Streetsblog considers how the new extension to the D Line, aka Purple Line, could change the way Angelenos get around.

 

State

A Seal Beach cop responds to a question about ebikes on the sidewalk, reminding readers that ebikes are banned from walkways under city ordinances, and that not everything called an ebike actually is one under California law. Although I’m not sure some of the state ebike requirements he mentions have actually passed the legislature yet, let alone been signed into law. 

Elementary school kids in San Francisco participated in bike buses on this week for Bike and Roll to School Week.

 

National

You know we’re making progress when they’re celebrating Bike Month and Bike to Work Day in the dusty, windswept cowtown college town of Laramie, Wyoming. I say that with all fondness, having grown up in the home of their collegiate arch rivals, about 40 miles away.

Another longtime bike shop is closing its doors, this time in St. Paul, Minnesota; Grand Performance owner and former USA Cycling National Team member Dan Casebeer has owned the shop since setting the US hour record in 1983.

Singer Amy Grant is one of us once again, riding a bicycle for the first time in four years after suffering a severe traumatic brain injury when she hit a pothole while riding her bike in Nashville in 2022. And yes, she was wearing a helmet when she fell.

A Boston bike lawyer and blogger says overall, the city is getting safer for bicyclists, even if dooring remains deadly. While dooring is one of the most common types of bicycling collisions, it’s rarely deadly, amounting to roughly one to 3 percent of bicycling deaths each year. Although one is still one too many. 

A Massachusetts woman has won an international grant competition with her design to put a roof over a local bike co-op, which currently works out of two disconnected shipping containers.

Police in Bay Ridge, New York are looking for the man who pushed a 13-year old boy off his ebike, apparently for the crime of riding on the sidewalk; fortunately, the kid escaped with just minor lacerations. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with some people?

 

International

This is why people keep dying on the roadways. A British pub owner was fined the equivalent of $900 and had his liquor license suspended for a whole three months for knowingly serving a 16-year old kid five pints of a strong lager, before the kid was killed when he drove his four-wheeled farm vehicle off the road on the way home.

A father and son duo from the UK set three world records with their 400-day, 18,600-mile ride around the world — and avoided arrest in a forbidden China county when one of the cops recognized them from their social media posts, sending them on their way after posing for selfies.

They get it. The Irish Examiner says riding a bicycle is one of the best ways for men to maintain their health as they age, from “improving cardiovascular health and muscle strength to boosting testosterone and lowering stress.” Hint: It works for women, too. 

German bike magazine Tour tests out the best bikes for the equivalent of under a grand.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist examines the top contenders for this year’s Giro d’Italia, which kicks off today with a 91-mile stage in Bulgaria. Yes, Bulgaria.

Cycling News does much the same, offering a team-by-team look at the Giro competitors.

Submitted without comment. Much of the planned Lotto-Intermarché risked missing the Giro, including Belgian sprinter Arnaud De Lie, after they fell ill from a cow dung infection — yes, cow dung — during the rain-soaked Famenne Ardenne Classic.

Dutch cyclist Jan-Willem van Schip says he feels unwelcome in road cycling, after he was booted from a race for the second time in eight months, and the fourth time in five years, for an unusual and, by UCI standards, illegal handlebar setup and seat position.

 

Finally…

When you get arrested for bike theft, it’s usually not the best idea to issue death threats to the arresting officers. Probably not the best idea to fire three shots at your girlfriend because her mother won’t help take an ebike out of the trunk, either.

And that feeling when you’re somehow walking while riding.

………

Thanks to someone who prefers not to be named for her very generous annual donation to help support this site, and keep our spokescorgi in kibble. Donations are always welcome and appreciated, for whatever reason might move you. 

And yes, spellcheck, “spokescorgi” is a real word that I made up. 

While we’re at it, let’s all thank Steve for making this site so much more attractive and work a lot better, especially if you’re viewing it on a phone. 

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Bass belatedly releases Infrastructure Plan, LA belatedly proceeds with Forest Lawn Dr. project, and OC streets are appalling

May 6, 2026 / / 2 comments

To steal from Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of Los Angeles.

Or so it seems, anyway, as Mayor Karen Bass belatedly released her Capital Infrastructure Plan after more than three years in office. Something she should have done on Day One.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem to pass the smell test, to mix metaphors.

Not only because it reads like a plan to develop a plan, but because it has to be read in the context of an unpopular mayor running for re-election.

If you read the press release, you’ll see a handful of city council members falling all over themselves to praise Bass and the CIP; notably absent is Councilmember Nithya Raman, one of the mayor’s primary opponents.

And you have to wonder if this plan has only been released at this late date because Raman has developed her own plan.

According to the press release,

Mayor Bass’ Capital Infrastructure Program lays out a comprehensive roadmap for L.A. to reform and improve the way it maintains and builds new infrastructure, including 10 recommendations to achieve this vision by reforming City processes and the Charter. Greater transparency is also achieved by laying out a data-based foundation regarding how and where the City must address short and long-term infrastructure needs.

Included in the program are 29 Olympic and Paralympic legacy capital projects that will both prepare the City for 2028 and leave lasting investments for communities across L.A. 16 of these capital projects are currently funded in Mayor Bass’ proposed FY 26-27 budget. Working alongside the City Council, the Mayor’s Office will seek to advance the reforms in the Capital Infrastructure Program and begin the long-term funding and planning for the proposed capital projects.

For years, advocates have called for simplifying LA’s overly complicated infrastructure process by removing the silos separating LADOT, Streets Services and the Bureau of Engineering and combining them into a single department.

Instead, the mayor’s plan calls for greater cooperation between those silos, while creating an additional layer of bureaucracy by strengthening the Capital Planning Steering Committee, giving the Bureau of Engineering responsibility for creating the CIP, and establishing a new Director of Public Works.

It also calls for prioritizing projects for the ’28 Los Angeles Olympics, rather than, you know, resurfacing streets and filling potholes.

Never mind building bus and bike lanes for the people who already live here. And if there’s any mention of complying with Measure HLA, as mandated by the city’s voters, I didn’t find it.

I’m also not thrilled by this line, which places blame on the public, rather than the people we elect to actually do the hard things:

Angelenos do not have a clear understanding of what can realistically be funded and when, nor the city’s long-term priorities beyond those of a given year.

Never mind that Bass doesn’t seem to have any problem approving unfunded pay raises for cops and other city employees. But the public clearly seems to be expecting too damn much.

Although Bass and her staff at least seem to have a reasonable grasp of the problems.

The city’s current capital planning process is falling short:

  • Fragmented systems and data silos
  • No shared vision across city departments
  • Growing maintenance deferrals
  • Slow, inefficient capital planning
  • No capital project intake standards
  • Limited project scoring and prioritization
  • Highly decentralized and uncoordinated grants
  • Limited analytical capacity and predictive modeling
  • Resource planning and staffing misalignment
  • An opaque capital planning process
  • A growing need to quantify infrastructure needs

Missing from this list is the city’s endless series of public meetings before anything ever gets built, which stretches a process that could, and should, take months into years.

Many, many years, in some cases.

So this may be a good start. And it may even be an improvement over our current failed system.

But it’s about three years too late.

………

Speaking of Nithya Raman, her office announced the city is finally moving forward with the long-discussed Forest Lawn Drive Safety and Mobility Project, including what passes for protected bike lanes in the City of LA.

And yes, this should be seen in light of the mayor’s race, as well.

As should any pronouncements by anyone running for mayor for the next six months.

………

He gets it.

A writer for a Minnesota transportation advocacy site visits Orange County on a Costco packaged travel deal, and is suitably appalled by what he found.

Car dependency is a modern California birthright. It is very common to drive on avenues with 10 or more lanes and speed limits of 60 miles per hour. To be clear, that is an avenue with periodic traffic light intersections with five lanes in each direction and more turn lanes at intersections. The speed limits in Orange County were usually about 10 miles per hour higher than what would be expected in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

There were a small number of bicyclists. They typically were enthusiast athletes along Pacific Coast Highway and residents who cannot drive, like teenagers on a bike going to school. I felt sick for how dangerous the intersections were for these children. I also saw a family with a stroller crossing an unmarked intersection, and stopped my car to let them cross the street. Bike lanes are typically one line of paint and sometimes green paint at intersections. I did not see a single protected bike lane with any level of plastic bollard or curb protection. There were, however some multi-use paths in more recreational park areas. Practical cyclists — like the teenagers — typically rode on the sidewalk.

To be honest, it’s kind of pitiful and humbling, if not humiliating, the way people from other places see us.

Especially when they actually do.

………

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

No bias here. A San Diego driver, writing for what may be the city’s least bike-friendly local publication, blames bicycling deaths on “high-risk biking practices, like running stop signs and stoplights,” complaining that she’s never seen a campaign for bicyclists that on focuses putting safety first — except, of course, for the bike safety courses she mentions in her penultimate paragraph, which do exactly that. Never mind all those studies showing that the Idaho stop improves safety. Or that drivers are at fault in many, if not most, bicycling deaths.

No bias here, either. The only Member of Parliament representing the extreme right Restore Britain party complains about “central planning lunacy” resulting in a “very rarely used” used bike lane, saying “I declare bicyclists a very rare breed here.” Although with attitudes like that, it’s no wonder. 

………

Local 

Metro looks at what passes for Bike Month in Los Angeles these days, where no one really seems to give a damn anymore.

WeHo celebrates Bike Month, even if Los Angeles barely does.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers a bike-friendly report card on Los Angeles-area roundabouts, giving high marks to Santa Monica, good to Long Beach, West Hollywood and Culver City, and passing — or C — to Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Which seems too high for one of the latter two, and too low for the other. I’ll let you decide which I mean.

Pasadena will host a beginner-friendly, six-mile Bagel Ride aimed at building confidence and carbs for city this Saturday. You can tell it’s for beginners because most experienced bicyclists won’t get out of bed unless you promise them a long ride, or donuts. 

Canyon News highlights Bike Month events on the gilded streets of Beverly Hills.

The Signal Tribune provides a non-paywalled look at Long Beach Bike Month events.

Despite all the city’s safety improvements, traffic deaths in Long Beach hit the highest level in a decade, with 53 people killed as a result of traffic violence.

 

State

Calbike invited advocates, community leaders, bike coalition staff, riders, parents and local organizers to meet with state legislators and staffers last month for the organization’s Lobby Day. Contrary to common assumptions, they don’t actually call it that because most legislators won’t let us past the lobby.

Speaking of Calbike, they announced a handful of endorsements in state legislative races in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties. Although I’d really like to see them weigh in on the confounding governor’s race. 

San Diego can look forward to more ghost bikes and more pedestrian deaths, after the mayor’s new city budget eliminates the team of traffic engineers focused on improving safety.

Leaders of the century-old Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood say newly installed bike lanes are limiting access to the church, while making it more dangerous for older parishioners, and forcing them to unload caskets in the middle of the street. Never mind that it’s on a corner, with a side street that dead-ends three blocks away when people could be dropped off, living or otherwise. 

A kindhearted Fresno detective worked with police cadets to get a new bicycle for a local boy whose bike was stolen in a robbery, after seeing the brokenhearted look on the boy’s face when he learned that, even though an arrest had been made and his bike was recovered, he wouldn’t get it back because it was impounded as evidence.

As other bike industry events continue to shut down, Monterey’s Sea Otter Classic is rapidly becoming an international trade event.

Palo Alto will “experiment” with temporary, quick-build protected bike lanes. Because there are no studies showing whether protected bike lanes improve safety, apparently. Although I hear there’s a university in that town where they could look it up. 

This is who we share the road with. Police in Oakland and San Francisco cooperated with the CHP to seize 77 dirt bikes and ATVs following a nearly hour-long street takeover in San Leandro, East Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco, after trapping the riders on the Bay Bridge and cutting off any avenue for escape. Thanks to the cops for making clear the perps weren’t riding legal ped-assist ebikes. 

The UC Davis student newspaper says students and community members are right to demand better bike safety.

 

National

Bike industry advocacy group PeopleForBikes considers what it will take to get kids riding to school again. Hint: Whatever it takes to make parents believe their kids will come back in one piece.

The Hawaii legislature approves plans for speed cams, while joining the parade of jurisdictions cracking down on ebikes.

A bike rider was badly injured in a collision yesterday next to Denver’s Washington Park, exactly where I used to ride on a near-daily basis when I lived in the city back in the Mesolithic period.

This is who we share the road with. A 56-year old woman in Waco, Texas — or maybe Wacko, in this case — faces DUI and attempted assault charges for driving on the sidewalk in a deliberate attempt to run down a young kid riding a dirt bike, then trying to break into a nearby house half an hour later.

A Detroit city worker crashed into a woman riding a bicycle while going the wrong way on a one-way street, waving her on when she stopped for him before lurching forward and running over her; a bystander was placed in handcuffs for trying to record the scene on his cellphone. For anyone unclear on the subject — including Detroit cops, evidently — you have a First Amendment right to record anything that happens in public, as long as you don’t actually interfere with the police. And no, standing several feet away and recording them is not interference. 

Um, okay. A New York bike rider says he was intimidated by group rides until he developed “jalopy pace,” which is his way of describing a moderately paced ride with no one left behind. Don’t tell him those have been around for years. Just let him enjoy the moment.

The Pennsylvania teenager who killed a Swarthmore mathematics professor as he was riding in a bike lane last December, has been charged with “homicide by vehicle, driving without a license, DUI and related offenses” because he was high on cannabis and driving with just a learner’s permit. Something tells me he’s already failed his driver’s test.

Traffic deaths in Pennsylvania dropped to the lowest level since the state has been keeping records, although bicycling deaths were up nearly 50%.

Apparently, the animals are out to get us, too. A woman was injured while riding on a bike trail in Arlington, Virginia when a white-tailed deer crashed into her at full speed, knocking her off her bike and, appropriately, into a patch of deer-tongue grass.

How many times do we have to say it? If you’re riding your bike after dark while carrying meth and a pipe, put a damn light on it — something a Georgia man learned the hard way. And by the way, you don’t have to consent to a search of your body or belongings if you’re pulled over for a traffic stop. 

That’s more like it. Prosecutors will recommend that a Florida woman has her license permanently revoked after pleading guilty to the hit-and-run death of a 67-year old man who was riding in a bike lane, as part of her sentencing next month.

A former Florida cop is on trial for the 2021 murder of a bike shop owner, who was fatally shot and set on fire, apparently for the crime of dating a woman the former cop had been involved with.

 

International

Momentum highlights the year’s best routes around the world for epic bikepacking trips, only one of which is in North America.

They get it. A Quebec coroner concluded that the lack of a bike lane on one of Montreal’s busiest streets contributed to the death of a woman who crashed her bike into a parked and fell into the traffic lane as she tried to avoid a truck coming up behind her, recommending that the city install one there.

The story of Tony Parsons, the man killed by a drunk driver during a Scottish charity ride, who then worked with his twin brother to hide his body for four years before confessing to his fiancee, is now being featured on Should I Marry a Muderer on Netflix.

A writer for the New York Times explores the lasting racial, social and economic legacy of apartheid on a short, ten-mile ride from Cape Town, South Africa to the fringes of the Langa township.

 

Competitive Cycling

NBC looks at plans for bicycling events at the ’28 Los Angeles Olympics.

The “only independent organization representing the views and interests of female professional riders” complains about UCI’s lack of progress in promoting women’s cycling, suggesting staging festivals around women’s races.

The Navajo Nation will host the annual Hashkéníinii Bike Road Race May 25th, with a course winding through the striking terrain surrounding Navajo Mountain in the Four Corners Region; the race commemorates the legendary Diné leader who guided the Naatsisaan, Paiute Mesa and Oljeto communities during the Long Walk period of the 1860s.

 

Finally…

Your next bicycle could be powered by hydraulics. Or maybe it could be a LEGO.

And your next bicycle built for two could be a banana.

On orange slices, no less.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

West LA CicLAvia rolls on Sunday, LA Critical Mass rolls tonight, and Raman rocks new bike/walk/transit friendly website

April 24, 2026 / / No comments

One last reminder about Sunday’s CicLAvia, the year’s first and the first to visit Westwood Village.

Walk ‘n Rollers will be at the Santa Monica hub giving out free bike helmets while supplies last, as well as hosting a bike repair station and workshops on basic bicycle maintenance.

Public radio station and website LAist will also be at the Santa Monica hub, sharing swag and meeting listeners.

Tell ’em I sent you.

………

Speaking of LAist, they take a first-person look at the monthly Los Angeles Critical Mass, calling it the country’s largest community bicycle ride with around 4,000 participants each month.

The ride takes place on the last Friday of every month on the corner of Western and Wilshire across from The Wiltern. Routes change monthly, turning each ride into a moving tour of the city. Some rides head west toward Marina del Rey, others east toward Mariachi Plaza, passing through neighborhoods that rarely feel connected outside of car travel.

As the ride moves through different neighborhoods, it often brings energy — and customers — to local businesses along the route as riders stop for food, drinks and supplies throughout the evening.

By my calculations, that means it rolls tonight, making it a perfect kickoff for CicLAvia weekend.

………

Andrew forwards news that Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman finally has a website up, after throwing her hat in the ring at the last minute.

In addition to pledging affordable housing for all and protecting Angelenos from ICE and harassing landlords, she offers an extensive section on transportation and traffic safety, including this:

Angelenos are tired of sitting in traffic, feeling unsafe on their streets, and navigating broken sidewalks. We’ve voted for real change — Measure R (2008) and Measure M (2016) committed $120B to the expansion of rail and transit across the county, and Measure HLA (2024) mandated that street safety improvements happen when streets get repaved, not decades later. We’ve been waiting for City Hall to deliver on those promises with the urgency they deserve. Los Angeles moves too slowly, spends too inefficiently, plans too haphazardly, and acts too timidly to give people the transportation network they’ve already voted for…

Since 2015, Los Angeles has had a Vision Zero policy, a commitment that no one should die on our streets from traffic violence. Instead, traffic deaths have risen by more than 50%. It has never been treated as a genuine priority. Walking, biking, and driving are all less safe than they should be.

Residential streets are overwhelmed by cut-through traffic. Bike lanes lack physical protection. Roads are too fast and crosswalks are too few. Every time the city repaves a street without fixing any of this, we miss the cheapest chance we’ll ever get to make it safer.

And enforcement is aimed at the wrong things. LAPD spends too much time on pretextual stops and equipment violations that have nothing to do with the dangerous driving that is actually killing people.

That’s a damn good start, especially after four years of Mayor Bass ignoring bike and pedestrian safety on our streets, and dragging her foot, if not her ass, on implementing Measure HLA.

But we’ve heard promises like this before, most recently from former Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was great at formulating policy, and not so much on follow through. So what matters isn’t what a candidate says, but what actually ends up in the city budget.

And we won’t know that until after she, or someone else, is elected.

Things are looking good for Raman, though, with betting on the Kalshi prediction market showing her with a good chance of winning on the first vote.

And yes, betting is the right word, since Kalshi and similar sites are just semi-legal workarounds for online betting bans in the US.

Twitter post

………

Apparently, there’s yet another ebike bill to keep an eye on in the California legislature.

According to a release from the California Medical Association,

A bill sponsored by the California Medical Association (CMA) that aims to reduce the growing number of severe electric bicycle (e-bike) injuries advanced out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Joint-authored by Assemblymembers Lori Wilson and Marc Berman, and co-sponsored by the California Orthopaedic Association, AB 2346 establishes speed limits for e-bikes (15 mph for riders under 16 years old and 10 mph on sidewalks) and would allow local jurisdictions to set speed limits on bike paths and multi-use trails. It would also require manufacturers, sellers, and distributors of e-bikes to equip e-bikes with speedometers and lights and provide safety-related disclosures to consumers at the point of sale.

It seems relatively harmless, primarily affecting kids under 16.

The question is whether ebike makers will respond to that limit by making 15 mph the standard speed for all Class 1, 2 and 3 ebikes, since the bill doesn’t seem to make any distinction between classes, or for older riders.

Meanwhile, Agoura Hills banned all ebikes from sidewalks and parks, regardless of the rider’s age, and once again failing to distinguish between legal ped-assist ebikes and e-motos and dirt bikes.

Agoura Hills City Engineer Charmaine Yambao also noted how complicated and confusing the states ebike classes and regulations are — which The Acorn somehow managed to explain in one simple paragraph.

And the Newport Beach schools have banned ebikes for kindergarten through 8th grade, but tells high school students to carry on.

………

Bicycling man about town Joe Linton reports Los Angeles has finally gotten around to building a one-block semi-sorta protected bike lane on 2nd Street in DTLA, which was inexplicably left out when Metro’s Regional Connector was built.

Bluesky post

Bluesky post

………

Must be nice to have a mayor who actually rides a bike home from work, while using a helmet cam, no less.

And yes, I’m looking at you, New York.

Bluesky post

………

Scott Sports shares a short film of veteran endurance cyclist Hanna Otto’s successful attempt to set the fastest known time climbing Hawaiʻi’s 14,000-foot Mauna Kea.

The fastest descent was probably set by whoever the hell was on it when Mauna Kea last erupted.

………

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

Hopefully, justice delayed won’t turn into justice denied in Wisconsin, where a man who admitted to driving onto a bike path and deliberately killing a man by repeatedly hitting him with his truck was ruled incompetent to stand trial, after he refused to appear in court, and appeared to have no understanding of the court proceedings; however, the judge said he could be competent within a year with treatment. It’s not clear from the description if the victim was actually riding a bike, though.

No surprise here. Over half of Irish bicyclists say the country’s streets are getting more dangerous, while 53% experienced a dangerously close pass on their most recent ride. Actually, the only real surprise is that the figure is so low.

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

An Irish judge says a bike rider was right to reach into a driver’s car, grab his car keys and throw them away, after the driver was convicted of an “outrageous” road rage assault. Proving that sometimes doing the wrong thing is the right thing. 

That feeling when your sweat-corroded handlebar drop just dropped off. Because if that kind of neglect isn’t bad bike behavior, I don’t know what is.

Reddit post

………

Local 

The Wild newsletter from the Los Angeles Times recommends the American Discovery Trail, “a contiguous 6,800-mile coast-to-coast nonmotorized route of multiuse trails that runs from Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware.” And yes, bicycles are allowed on most, if not all, of the trail. 

Streets For All has issued a new report on how bad LA streets are going to get, now that the city has halted repaving to avoid complying with Measure HLA and the Americans with Disabilities Act — not to mention the drastic budget cuts to pay for the unfunded raises cops and city workers received. Let’s just say they’re painting the city red, and not in a good way. 

 

State

A San Diego letter writer says that city’s bike lanes are used much more than opponents claim. Although as usual, you’ll have to get past the Union-Tribune’s draconian paywall.

The La Mesa Police Department safely located a 12-year-old boy yesterday, who had gone missing while riding an ebike.

 

National

HR 7353, aka the Magnus White and Safe Streets for Everyone Act, has passed the US House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trademark, and could be included in this year’s Surface Transportation Reauthorization package; the bill — named for the 17-year old USA Cycling team member killed by a drunk driver in Boulder, Colorado — would require automatic emergency braking systems capable of detecting vulnerable road users such as bicyclists, motorcyclists, and wheelchair users in all new passenger vehicles by 2029, something that is already required by the European Union.

Midwest Living recommends riding Minnesota’s 42-mile “mostly flat and paved” Root River State Trail, which connects nine communities on the banks of the river, five of which offer free bikeshare.

A 55-year old ebike rider was hospitalized after crashing into a parked car in Cleveland, as the owner was working underneath it at 12:30 in the morning.

A Cape Cod website says residents are confused by the December appearance of a ghost bike on a local lane, with no idea who it’s for, why it’s there and who put it there.

New York Streetsblog says the media is misrepresenting a recent study about the rapid rise of e-mobility injuries at a city hospital, arguing that it makes a better case for safer streets than it does an anti-e-mobility, pro-driving agenda.

 

International

Momentum recommends the year’s best bicycle festivals around the world; unfortunately, you’ve already missed the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California.

London’s Tube strike resulted in an overnight 1500% jump in the number of bike riders on the city’s Embankment bikeway.

For some bizarre reason, a new $1.3 million English active travel path was designed with stairs on one side, and fences and turnstiles on the other, making it inaccessible for wheelchair users and many bicyclists.

Tour recommends exploring north Ireland — as opposed to Northern Ireland — by bicycle, saying you’ll find few road bicyclists and lots of greenery. And wind, and rain.

A Berlin accountant and bike blogger offers his favorite routes, cafes and bike shops in the bustling city.

Tragic news from Poland, where a 36-year old member of the country’s Parliament was killed when a driver veered onto the wrong side of the road, and hit him as he rode his bicycle; a member of the New Left Party, Lukasz Litewka was known for his animal rights advocacy and a billboard campaign to help shelter dogs find homes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Olympic road champ Kristen Faulkner set a personal best power record by building her own AI system.

London officials hope hosting of the first ever women’s team time trial in the next year’s Tour de France Femmes will encourage more women to ride bikes in the British capital. Or maybe they could just, you know, build more and safer bikeways. 

 

Finally…

Nothing like riding a tandem the length of the UK towing a couple of garbage cans. That feeling when you didn’t get a bicycle for Christmas, so you become a legendary guitarist, instead — and yes, a defense consultant.

And John Bolton now volunteers with his church to repair and refurbish free bikes for former prison inmates.

No, the other John Bolton.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

LA mayoral race starts with Mayor Bass missing in action, and taking both sides of the K Line Northern Extension debate

March 25, 2026 / / No comments

That sound you heard Monday was the official start of the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Normally, any contest with a standing incumbent in Los Angeles makes paint drying seem absolutely thrilling.

Particularly since this year’s race starts with LA Mayor Karen Bass enjoying an eight point lead over her closest opponent.

Except CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman currently has the support of just 17% of eligible voters. Which means that Bass’ seemingly insurmountable lead after four years in office is based on only has 25% support.

And over half of the electorate has a negative opinion of her, making the race anyone’s to claim at this point.

The kickoff for the campaign was Monday’s first debate, sponsored by Streets for All and Housing Action Coalition. Although Bass and reality TV star Spencer Pratt, in third place with 14%, apparently couldn’t be bothered to attend.

Or maybe she was just off on another diplomatic mission, like she was when a large section of the city burned to the ground last year.

According to LAist, the candidates who could be bothered to show up were —

  • Adam Miller, founder of a homelessness nonprofit and self-described lifelong Democrat, said the city is “broken,” physically and figuratively.
  • Nithya Raman, an L.A. city councilwoman, said the city is “challenged.”
  • Rae Huang, a Presbyterian minister, community organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said L.A. needs “new and fresh leadership.”

Apparently, the other 35 candidates qualified for the June primary were also otherwise occupied. Or maybe they just weren’t invited, since their combined support could be listed on the back of a postage stamp.

You know, those sticky things you used to put on snail mail to make it go places.

LA Public Press offers five takeaways from the debate, including a reminder that Nithya Raman has a masters in urban planning from MIT, adding to her urbanist bona fides.

You can watch the full debate below.

Please enjoy that photo of a bass by Gio Spigo from Pexels up there on the left, since Mayor Bass didn’t bother to show up for the debate.  

………

Meanwhile, Mayor Bass’ insisted that her stance on the Northern Extension of the K Line is being misrepresented, and she’s really a big ol’ supporter of extending the line.

Twitter post

Except, as Streets For All points out, her support is actually a delaying tactic, calling for extending the line while offering an amendment to approve it without selecting a final alignment, even though it has already been studied to death.

And even though that will just lead to more delays, and a loss of funding.

Apparently, she learned a lot during her time in Washington. Like how to take both sides of an issue.

Twitter post

………

Metro Bike is hosting a virtual meeting at noon today to discuss expanding the  city’s bikeshare system.

Twitter post

Meanwhile, Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website takes a look at Prague, Czech Republic’s successful bikeshare system to see what it takes to make one work — starting with broad availability.

………

CicLAvia hosted a recent discussion on the state of open streets in the Los Angeles area, as Metro wants to tie all upcoming events to this summer’s World Cup and the ’28 LA Olympics.

Twitter post

………

Active SGV is hosting a ride on April 4th to check out the new Whittier Narrows BMX pump track.

Twitter post

………

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

The video of Ben Byra and U-23 national crit champ Luke Fetzer being harassed by a road-raging BMW driver in Newport Beach has now been viewed more than eight million times.

………

Local 

The deadline for input on the Monrovia Draft Bike Master Plan is this Friday, aka the day after tomorrow. So get it in, already.

 

State

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is warning parents after a group of kids rode electric motorbikes through a Santee neighborhood performing “dangerous pranks” that they described as “doorbell ditching,” or what we called “ding-dong ditch” back in the Dark Ages. Although granted, no one was riding an overpowered virtual motorcycle or likely to get shot by a frightened homeowner back in the day.

Caltrans intends to install a crosswalk with flashing beacons on PCH near the Neptune’s Net restaurant, just across the Los Angeles County line, where the speed limit is 55 mph. Because of course drivers will screech to a stop from highway speeds for a few beacons flashing in the roadway.

A 46-year old woman died after she was bitten by a rattlesnake in Thousand Oaks’ Wildwood Regional Park, about a week before a teenaged girl was bitten when she fell off her mountain bike in the same area; a Costa Mesa man died after lingering in a coma for weeks when he was bitten while mountain biking in Irvine February 1st.

San Francisco is completely reimagining the city’s Folsom Street with a Complete Street project designed to prioritize non-motorized traffic. Which compares favorably with virtually every street in Los Angeles, where only motorized traffic gets prioritized. 

Parking mania raised its ugly head in Santa Rosa, where city officials approved replacing a dying mall’s pedestrian plaza with parking spaces. Raising the eternal question of why a dying mall needs even more parking. 

 

National

A writer for Electrek makes the case for why small, seated scooter-type bikes should be classified as ebikes, even if they don’t have pedals. Call them any damn thing you want, as far as I’m concerned, just not ebikes.

Portland, Oregon is launching a $20 million ebike rebate program offering up to $1,600 for standard ebikes and $2,350 for cargo ebikes. Which compares favorably to Los Angeles, where a nonexistent ebike voucher program provides eligible recipients absolutely nothing.

The Bureau of Land Management is considering opening 220 miles of Colorado offroad trails to ebikes, after opening hundreds of miles around Moab, Utah.

The founder of Strider Bikes recalls how the urge to get his two-year old toddler riding the trails around his Rapid City, South Dakota hometown as soon as possible led to the development of the pedal-less bike that forever changed bicycle training for the training pants crowd.

A New York councilmember wants a bike lane on a major roadway crossing Central Park, arguing that more people would ride if they could get from one end of Manhattan to the other.

A 56-year old Florida driver was arrested following a midnight crash that seriously injured a man riding a bicycle, after police discovered he’d been living under a fake name for 30 years to dodge a 1997 arrest and extradition warrant.

 

International

Road.cc recommends a dozen of the best pretend bicycling apps, for when you and your bike are both stuck inside.

The head of e-bikeshare firm Bolt says cities need more bike lanes to reduce traffic congestion and pressure on public transportation.

Momentum recommends the best places in North America to see cherry blossoms from your bike, from BC to DC. Or you can just ride your bike anywhere in Los Angeles and see just about everything, flowering or otherwise.

Um, okay. A Vancouver, British Columbia family known for tall bikes has developed a stacked, double-decker tandem that allows riders to switch positions mid-ride, without stopping, and are now working on a four-passenger version.

Must be nice. The Edinburgh, Scotland city council is fighting back against accusations of covering up figures suggesting a decline in bicycling rates, arguing that the bike network is pulling its weight, and the city needs more bikeways, not fewer.

Cycling Weekly considers the recent British study that shows bicycling saves the country’s National Health Service the equivalent of nearly $100 million, aside from any other activities, arguing that everyone benefits when more people ride.

Ghost bikes are becoming a point of contention between bicyclists and the city government of Melbourne, Australia, which says they don’t come under the city’s “plaques and memorials” policy.

 

Competitive Cycling

Italian cyclist Debora Silvestri is still hospitalized on breathing support after suffering multiple crack ribs going over the guard rail in a high speed mass crash in the women’s Milan-San Remo.

Former Olympic and world time trial champ Grace Brown says she’s glad she got out of the sport alive, arguing that UCI’s “extreme” focus on safety regulations hasn’t kept the peloton from getting more dangerous, as the high speed women’s Milan-Sanremo crash demonstrated.

If you needed any more proof that all-everything champ Tadej Pogačar is riding at the next level these days, he won Milan-San Remo with a mad descent on a cracked frame with a rubbing disc brake, following a bad crash earlier in the race.

Road.cc considers whether modern road bikes are really that much faster, more aero and comfortable compared to bikes from the ’90s.

 

Finally…

Where would Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore mountain bike? That feeling when you scale a bridge with a bicycle on your back, then leave it flapping from the giant American flag at the top.

And why did the chicken use a pelican, puffin, toucan or tiger to cross the road — but not a pegasus, unless it was on a pony?

The chicken, that is.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Fountain Ave opponents pack WeHo meeting, safer connections to Westside bus lanes, and Nithya supports bike safety

March 23, 2026 / / One comment

We’re going to take little different approach today, because we have a lot of ground to cover, and only limited time to do it. 

So let’s focus on a number of top stories and meetings, and save our usual links for tomorrow. 

Today’s photo show Blake Ackerman’s fiancee writing a message on his ghost bike on Fountain Avenue. 

………

Debate over a safety makeover of Fountain Avenue continues to raise its ugly head, seven months after Blake Ackerman lost his life on the deadly corridor.

And six months after we thought it had been approved once and for all.

Following years of unanimous votes of the city council to move the project forward, the West Hollywood City Council approved building protected bike lanes on the corridor in a split 3 – 2 vote in September of last year, following a highly contentious council meeting.

Ackerman’s needless death in a hit-and-run while riding his bike home from work occurred exactly where the protected bike lane would have gone in years before, if not for the endless debate over the project.

And that had seemed to seal the decision to move forward with the project.

Yet WeHo Online reports opponents came back to pack last Wednesday’s meeting of the city’s Transportation and Mobility Commission.

Although most of the article is devoted to a recap of September’s debate. And none of that recap even mentions Ackerman, or anyone else killed or injured on or near the deadly street.

According to the paper, the overall message from the people attending the meeting was “put the project on hold until the serious questions get answered.”

Even though it’s been on hold for years, while people continue to die and get injured.

Among those are the ongoing concerns over parking, as well as worries that property values for homeowners will drop — even though studies have repeatedly shown that property values usually increase along either side of a corridor after a Complete Streets project goes in.

And even though the meeting was packed with project opponents because most of the larger community didn’t even know about the meeting, because the project had already been approved six months earlier, and no action was to be taken at the meeting.

As I read the story, though, I also wondered if the opposition voiced at the meeting would have been so overwhelming if the friends and family of Blake Ackerman had been aware of it. Never mind the safety advocates and the larger bicycling community.

The paper pointed to an upcoming May or June meeting, the exact date still to be determined, when a contract to build the protected bike lanes is set to be approved.

It’s clear we’ll have to come back once again then to defend, and fight for, a project to save lives on the deadly corridor.

Because that seems to have been completely ignored at Wednesday’s meeting. And likely will be again if we don’t show up in force when the final contract gets approved.

………

Streets For All sent out a notice about what’s missing from the Westside Cities Council of Governments recent announcement of plans for bus lanes throughout the Westside.

Namely, safe ways to get to them.

The Westside Cities Council of Governments is moving forward with a plan to make buses faster and more reliable on some of the region’s busiest corridors! But right now, the plan is missing something fundamental: how people actually get to transit. There are still no safe, continuous north-south bike connections linking these corridors to the broader system — including the E Line and D Line.

This means a lot of people are stuck driving to transit. We can fix that – WSCCOG needs to hear from you telling them to include bicycle facilities in these plans. 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

  • 🏛️ BEST: Show up in person and make public comment
    • Wednesday, March 25 (6–8pm)
      West Hollywood Park Aquatics Center
      8750 El Tovar Pl
      West Hollywood, CA 90069
    • Saturday, March 28 (9:30–11:30am)
      Culver City Senior Center
      4095 Overland Ave
      Culver City, CA 90232
  • 📧 OTHERWISE: Send an email
    • If you can’t make it in person, send an email

SEND AN EMAIL [CUSTOMIZE THE BOTTOM!]

………

Thanks to Andrew for pointing me to this recent video from Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, after I had posted online that I won’t vote for anyone who doesn’t commit to implementing Measure HLA, as well as recommitting the city to Vision Zero.

This may not be the ironclad commitment I have been looking for, but it’s pretty damn close. And we can push her for that commitment if she wants to be mayor.

Bluesky post

………

Dr. Grace Peng, who lives and rides in the South Bay, offers recap of a recent bike trip.

You can click through for the rest of the story. But for today, we’re going to focus on wha passes for bike safety infrastructure in far too much of Los Angeles, and Southern California in general, with only a thin stripe of white paint to protect bike riders from traffic limited to 55 mph.

Never mind that we all know many, if not most, motorists exceed the posted speed limit, whether by a little or a lot.

CD11 Councilmember Traci Park recently expressed her concern for the safety of bicyclists, even if it took the death of Regan Cole-Graham and her unborn baby Ophelia to prompt her.

Now is exactly the time to push her to commit to real bike and pedestrian safety throughout her district, when she needs our support to continue representing it.

Or move to back someone else who does.

Bluesky post

………

The LA City Council’s Transportation Committee meets at 8:45 Wednesday morning, and need to hear from us to keep the pressure on to commit to safer streets for all of us.

And the aforementioned Traci Park is vice chair of the committee.

Twitter post

………

Okay, so maybe this isn’t directly bike-related.

But Mayor Bass has once again stood with NIMBYs, and against supporters of non-motor vehicle traffic, by opposing the route selected by Metro staffers for the Northern Extension of the K Line.

Not only will this route result in the highest ridership, it will finally connect major centers like The Grove, the Beverly Center, Cedars-Sinai, WeHo’s Rainbow District, Hollywood and Highland, and the Hollywood Bowl.

At the same time, it would provide vital connections with the Red (B), Purple (D) and Expo (E) Lines, making genuine crosstown travel by train possible without having to first go downtown.

So make your voice heard by Thursday, before this gets delayed yet again.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/2035369445208846817

………

This is your chance to support the Sunset For All Complete Streets project, as well as other safety improvements on the inevitably soon to be renamed Cesar Chavez.

Which right now might as well be named Jeffrey Epstein Blvd, despite everything Chavez did to support farmworkers and Latino & Latina civil rights.

And even though Chavez had been a personal hero of mine for most of my life.

https://twitter.com/heybikela/status/2034697346479792370

………

Finally, good news from Paris, where mayoral candidate Emmanuel Grégoire was elected to continue the bike and environmentally friendly reforms begun by outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, winning with 52% of the popular vote to replace her.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Advocacy & Politics / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Bike lanes could be coming to Los Feliz, CicLAvia comes off life-support, and hit-and-run driver murders Holocaust survivor

January 29, 2026 / / Comments Off on Bike lanes could be coming to Los Feliz, CicLAvia comes off life-support, and hit-and-run driver murders Holocaust survivor

Bike lanes could be coming to Los Feliz Blvd.

But only if they can figure out how to build them without a) removing a traffic lane, and b) adversely affecting Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Number 67.

Or as most of us know them, the majestic evergreen cedars lining either side of the busy boulevard, which have been designated as a Historic-Cultural Monument since 1970.

CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman, who somehow represents the area in a bizarrely gerrymandered district, got the city council to approve $400,000 for a feasibility and design study to install a cycle track between Fern Dell Drive and Vermont Ave.

A safe bikeway along the corridor would provide a huge benefit, as there is currently no safe way to get from Hollywood to the LA River or the zoo, without climbing extremely steep hills.

Or to Costco, for that matter.

………

It looks like CicLAvia may be off life support.

According to the San Fernando Valley Sun, Metro voted last year to approve funding for open streets events tied to the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, putting traditional open streets events at risk.

However, after outrage from the community, Metro agreed to fund 70% of the cost for nine additional open streets applications, while requiring host cities to provide the other 30% matching funding.

Which is exactly what the Los Angeles City Council did yesterday, voting 12-2 to approve $3.2 million for open streets.

CD3 Councilmember Bob Blumenfield and CD7’s Monica Rodriguez opposed the measure because only one of the events is planned for the San Fernando Valley.

CD9 Councilmember Curren Price, Jr. was absent.

Probably because he’s just the latest in what’s becoming a long list of allegedly corrupt councilmembers, facing trial for embezzlement, perjury, and conflict of interest benefitting his wife and her consulting company.

………

This is who we share the road with.

The LAPD is looking for the hit-and-run driver who killed an 80-year old Holocaust survivor and his dog as they were walking in the bike lane on Woodman Ave in Sherman Oaks on Tuesday night.

Police located the car, a silver Maserati Quattroporte, abandoned nearby at Mammoth Ave and Milbank Street.

There were no license plates on the murder weapon.

………

My bad.

I neglected to consider yesterday that not everyone has Instagram. Which I should have, considering I only have it to share corgi photos and witticisms.

Well, I think they’re funny, even if the dog doesn’t share my sense of humor. Or my wife, for that matter.

Fortunately, Randy corrected my mistake yesterday, posting details of the West LA Unity Ride, while noting rental bikes will we available.

https://bsky.app/profile/randycoppinger.bsky.social/post/3mditgzlzts2u

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l3c3zg3aljdbctelkytee3wo/post/3mditnnt4cc2u

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton notes Unity Rides will be taking place throughout California this Friday and Saturday, including additional rides in the LA area:

Los Angeles: Organized by Allez L.A. Bike Shop, 5227 York Blvd. Meet This Friday at 7:30 a.m., 8 a.m. roll-out.

Los Angeles: Organized by Organized by Domestique Cycling Club, Westwood VA Medical Center parking – just off Dowlen Drive, west of Sawtelle Blvd. [Strava route map]

Although it would be more effective if all the rides could meet up somewhere for a rally that would really get attention.

You’ll find information on the Westwood ride below, assuming the Instagram post stays embedded this time.

Instagram post

A ride will also take place in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Pretti grew up; Bikepacking has mapped rides ranging from the US and Europe to Australia.

Meanwhile, Salsa Cycles explained why they felt compelled to speak out, even as commenters demanded we should keep politics out of bicycling, with the company saying they’re proud to call Minnesota home.

But clearly, not everyone agrees with them.

………

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

You know your new bike lane sucks when riders are reporting broken bones and kidney damage, like this one in Brighton & Hove, England; the city is defending itself by arguing that they’re all turning in the wrong place.

A British man was convicted of assault for punching a bike rider who had stopped to relieve himself in the woods along a bike path, accusing the victim of being a “pervert,” and touching his genitals in front of him. Which is generally what one does when one stops to take a leak; a better question might be why was he looking? 

The capital of Estonia is busy moving bike riders to side streets, because apparently only drivers belong on main thoroughfares, and bike riders don’t really need to get anywhere, anyway.

………

Local 

An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times says the county has set a goal of ripping up 1,600 acres of pavement and replacing them with green space and trees, but questions if it’s too little, too late. Probably. Because we all know how “goals” tend to work out around here. 

Bike lanes on Fairfax Ave now have a new coat of Kermit, in a special shade or green specifically designed not to piss off Hollywood filmmakers. Although that’s still probably not enough to keep drivers from using them as traffic bypass lanes. 

 

State

The Laguna Beach Police Department will hold a free e-bike training course this Saturday, including certification to ride an ebike to local schools.

The attorney representing the family of 6-year old Hudson O’Loughlin is looking for deeper pockets than the woman accused of killing the boy as he rode his bike with his family in Pacific Beach; the suspect has been without a valid driver’s license for nine years, which means she probably doesn’t have insurance.

 

National

Amazon is recruiting ebike delivery riders who own their own bikes without any illegal modifications and with their own liability insurance; the company has also begun investing in their own ebike cargo vans for urban deliveries.

Seriously? A nonprofit bike park in Idaho continues to battle with county officials, who have denied it a permit to even build bathrooms, in a dispute that boils down to whether it should be classified as a ‘park’ or a ‘recreational facility.’

A 62-year old motorcycle rider faces a vehicular homicide charge for killing a 68-year old man riding a bicycle just a few miles from my Colorado hometown following a nine-month investigation; he’s accused of failing to negotiate a lefthand curve after passing another motorcycle, striking the victim on the far right shoulder, apparently head-on. Which makes it sound like the investigation should have taken about ten minutes.

Texas authorities warn parents that their kids could be riding an illegal electric motorcycle in the form of an ebike, while Gulf Shores, Alabama joined the parade of coastal cities cracking down on ebikes.

 

International

How to convert an old, unloved mountain bike to a modern gravel bike for the equivalent of less than $1,400.

A Brazilian gas company recounts the tale of a man who rode from his home in Bahia to New York in the 1920s, taking two years to travel through 11 countries, including sleeping in a tree after getting stalked by a jaguar, only to return home to find that no one really cared about his feat.

Bicyclists in Toronto appeared in Ontario’s highest provincial appeals court yesterday to defend their successful challenge of the province’s plan to rip out three of the city’s bike lanes, which ended with a ruling that bike riders had a constitutional right to have safe places to ride.

A Toronto film school graduate released his own, self-financed 15-minute romantic drama called The Bicycle Boy, which cost him just $23,000, which you can now watch for the low, low price of just $3.49. Which means he’ll break even if just 6,590 people pay to watch it. 

The British Parliament is considering a bill that would ban kits for illegal ebike conversions.

Horrible story from Ireland, where an inquest heard witnesses say they saw a 14-year old boy riding unsteadily after falling off his bicycle, only to disappear for six days before his body was found in a storm drain.

 

Finally…

That feeling when bike thefts are merely “inconveniencing,” or when it’s never too cold to ride. Who needs an ebike when you can build your very own electric jet bike?

And a reminder how it feels to ride a bicycle for the first time.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

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

Will Chalamet #biketheOscars Sunday?, LADOT ignores HLA on Hyperion Ave, and beach bike path bridge totally collapses

February 27, 2025 / / Comments Off on Will Chalamet #biketheOscars Sunday?, LADOT ignores HLA on Hyperion Ave, and beach bike path bridge totally collapses
Day 58 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

There’s one question that’s on everyone’s lips in advance of Sunday’s Oscar ceremony.

Will Timothée Chalamet bike the Oscars?

Back in the heady pre-pandemic days, there was an active campaign to get someone, anyone, to arrive at the Oscar red carpet on a bicycle.

As I recall, the only star to take us up on it was actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr.

Unless you want to confer stardom on Laemmle Theaters owner Greg Laemmle, who rode to the ceremony with his wife Tish and a small entourage as recently as last year.

But there may be hope, since Best Actor nominee Chalamet rode this bike to the London premier of the Oscar nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, famously getting a ticket for illegally parking his bikeshare bike.

So if you know Mr. Chalamet, or know anyone who knows him — or even if you’re just within the proverbial five degrees of separation — encourage him to leave the gas-guzzling limo at home.

And hop on a bike, even if it’s just for the final few blocks.

Today’s photo shows Tish and Greg Laemmle preparing to #biketheOscars last year.

………

My city councilmember took to Twitter/X yesterday to give LADOT a little pat on the head for improving safety on Hyperion Avenue, which has long been a virtual freeway for speeding drivers.

But as Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports, the work on Hyperion should have triggered Measure HLA, requiring the city to build out the already-approved mobility plan.

Mobility Plan 2035, so called because it provided what has been a largely-ignored roadmap to transportation improvements through that year, calls for bike lanes on the decidedly bike-unfriendly street, as well as handicap curb cuts and crosswalks.

Instead, Linton says the work has made the street even less safe and inviting for people on bicycles, while doing little for pedestrians other than slowing drivers.

Which, as I understand the provision of HLA, means you or anyone else are now free to sue the city to force compliance, on their dime.

So what are you waiting for, already?

This also gives provides an opportunity to remind you what a great resource Streetsblog LA is for this city, and for all of us who care about traffic safety, and how we get from here to there. 

So show them a little love, if you haven’t already. Or if you have, show ’em a little more for me. 

………

It’s enough to make you cry.

According to Westside Current, a $6 million bike bridge on the Marvin Braude bike path through Will Rogers State Beach has collapsed.

Again.

Just a year after heavy rains washed out the bridge, causing a partial collapse, last week’s atmospheric river finished the job.

Which might be more of a problem, if much of the pathway wasn’t already virtually impassable in places due to sand obscuring the pavement — despite nearly $5 million in City and County funds allocated for bike path repairs and maintenance for the current fiscal year.

Even though this site called attention to that very problem 15 years ago, eventually touring the bike path with the former LA County Bikeway Coordinator and the late, great advocate George Wolfberg.

At that time, the county was very responsive, sending out crews with miniature bulldozers — and some not so miniature — to clear it off, while committing to keeping it clear.

So much for that.

Now the internationally recognized crown jewel of LA bikeways lies in ruins, collapsed and buried. A sad metaphor, perhaps, for what has happened to so much of the city and county we call home.

But one that doesn’t need to be. And shouldn’t.

Thanks to David Drexler for the heads-up.

………

Thanks to Todd Edelman for reminding us that while the media was obsessing over Tuesday’s near-miss between a Southwest Airlines plane and a private jet at Chicago’s Midway Airport, countless people riding bicycles throughout the US had their own near misses with people in the big, dangerous machines.

And more than a few probably didn’t. Miss, that is.

But there were no breathless news reports. No endless analysis of what might have gone wrong.

Just a lot of bike riding people thanking whatever power they may favor for making it home in one piece, even as the person driving probably forgot the whole thing seconds later.

If they even noticed at all.

………

As we discussed last week, Pasadena-based nonprofit Day One is collecting bicycles that can be refurbished and donated to victims of the Eaton Fire in Altadena.

And now there are a lot more places where you can drop them off.

………

Sounds like fun.

Gravel Bike California will host a “Cargopalooza” bike picnic and family meetup in Griffith Park next weekend.

………

This is what rush hour in looks like in Copenhagen, in the middle of winter, with hardly a car in sight.

Instagram post

………

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

No bias here. Cycling Utah calls out a group pushing a bill in the state legislature by using falsehoods — aka lies — claiming that traffic calming is somehow bad for local neighborhoods.

And yes, there’s more, so click through for the full thread.

Twitter post

No bias here, either. A group of Toronto business owners filed a $10 million lawsuit over the city’s popular Bloor Street bike lanes, asking a judge to order their removal and return the street to its previous car-centric configuration. Meanwhile, Canadian advocate Lloyd Alter calls for tossing pro car, anti-bike lane Ontario Premier Doug Ford out of office “before he kills us all.”

Or here. Advocates justifiably accused The London Times of hypocrisy over the paper’s call for car-free streets where children can play, after persistently opposing Low Traffic Neighborhoods, the equivalent of our Slow Streets. Never mind the column they just published from a writer who praised violent masked bikejackers for doing the city a favor.

………

Local  

No news is good news, right? 

 

State

Costa Mesa-based ebike maker Electric Bike Company has merged with Integral Electrics, a bikemaker specializing in ebikes for women and other short statured riders.

A 36-year old man suffered a broken arm and leg when he allegedly rode his bicycle through a red light and into the path of an SUV in San Diego’s Midway District Tuesday night; fortunately, his injuries weren’t considered life-threatening.

Bad news from Modesto, where a man was killed when he was hit by a driver while riding his bike through an intersection Tuesday evening.

More bad news, this time from Fremont, where a 73-year old man died a week after he hit a curb while riding in a bike, striking his head.

 

National

Streetsblog examines what little we know in this country about drivers who kill.

Bicycling looks at five of the fastest, most interesting and unique — and dare they say, coolest — bicycles that aren’t raced on the WorldTour. But you’ll need a subscription if you want to read it. 

 

International

Momentum considers ten “amazing examples” of bicycling solutions from cities around the world. None of which are Los Angeles, of course.

A writer for Bicycling Australia calls Canada’s Quebec province a stunning “bicycling heaven.”

Beloved British bike brand Nukeproof could be back from the dead, after it was bought out of bankruptcy by Belgian Cycling Factory, the parent company of Ridley.

A groundbreaking report from the UK shows that the bicycling gender gap starts early, with twice as many boys as girls considering themselves frequent bike riders, even though there’s just a 5% difference between boys and girls in perceived bicycle safety in their neighborhoods.

Be careful on your next trip to Japan, where using a cellphone while riding can cost you the equivalent of up to $1,340 or a year behind bars, and bicycling under the influence will get you a fine up to $3,350.

 

Competitive Cycling

A new video details the remarkable comeback of teenage mountain biker Robbie Seaman, who returned to competition just one year after losing his right arm in an ATV crash; then again, he was back playing lacrosse with his high school team just four months later.

The World Economic Forum calls out the courage and resilience of Olympic cyclist Masomah Ali Zada, who escaped Afghanistan to compete on the Refugee Olympic Team at last summer’s Paris Olympics.

 

Finally….

Someone apparently thought it was a good idea to have a busy bike lane stop without warning in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

And anyone can ride a bike with no hands. But try cooking a hands-free three-course meal on one.

@andrew_the_park_rat

⚠️I’m a professional don’t try this at home! #mtb #mtblife #fyp #CapCut

♬ original sound – Andrew Atnip

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Feeling suckered by CA ebike voucher program, CD4’s Raman wins re-election, and why people keep dying on the streets

March 15, 2024 / / Comments Off on Feeling suckered by CA ebike voucher program, CD4’s Raman wins re-election, and why people keep dying on the streets
Just 291 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,017 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us! 

Photo by Max J from Pexels.

………

Let’s start with a look at California’s virtually moribund ebike incentive program, and its ongoing failure to launch.

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

Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a woman is demanding action after police determine there’s “not enough detail” to charge a hit-and-run bus driver who just drove off after knocking her off her bike.

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

London’s Telegraph complains that the city is building more floating bus stops, even though some bicyclists don’t stop for pedestrians like they’re supposed to. Seriously, don’t do that. It only takes a few seconds to observe the right-of-way, and let pedestrians pass.

………

Local 

Alhambra’s city council unanimously approved a new bike and pedestrian plan, which was delayed for two months to get more community input. Although as we’ve learned the hard way, getting a plan approved is meaningless unless it’s actually funded and implemented, regardless of apparent support.

A paraplegic Palmdale man says riding a handcycle in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon fulfills his wildest dream.

LA County will spend $250 million to widen the Old Road in Stevenson Ranch to six lanes, while adding a protected bike lane in each direction. It costs an average of $1 million a mile to build a protected bike lane, which means they could build ten miles of protected lanes on both sides of the roadway, and still return $230 million change.

Santa Monica once again learned the hard way that free parking isn’t free; it cost the city $26,000 in lost revenue to provide free parking in city lots the last three days before Christmas, which resulted in exactly no benefit to local businesses.

Speaking of SaMo, the city is encouraging bicyclists to register their bikes through Bike Index or Garage 529 before May’s National Bike Month; you can sign up for lifetime free registration with Bike Index right here, as well as report a stolen bike or check their nationwide stolen bike registry. Full disclosure, I don’t get a damn thing for hosting Bike Index on this site, aside from the satisfaction of helping thwart bike thieves.

 

State

Survivors of a fallen Bakersfield bike rider filed a claim against the county, alleging dangerous conditions on the roadway where she was killed by a driver last year, including inadequate lighting, traffic signals and signage.

San Mateo bicyclists and traffic safety advocates are demanding answers after a hit-and-run driver left a bike-riding 62-year old woman with a broken back.

 

National

A new AI-powered device promises to use “computer vision” to alert bike riders to cars and other dangers on the roadway. So they expect us to rely on the same technology that draws people with three legs, and makes up various “facts.”

He gets it. Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus says the reason more people aren’t biking is too many cars, with too many driven without regard for others.

Now this is a bike travel guide, as a Boulder CO weekly offers tips on where to stop for food and drinks on your next long-distance ride.

Denver promises to plow bike lanes, as the city prepares to get up to 20 inches of snow, though bike riders are warned they may have to share traffic lanes with motorists. And yet, we’re somehow told that no one will ride a bike during LA’s temperate winters. 

Kindhearted Indiana cops gave a new bike to a 12-year old boy whose bike was destroyed when he was hit by a bus; fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.

That’s more like it. A bill in the Vermont legislature will give bike riders priority at intersections and require a four-foot passing distance.

New York Streetsblog celebrates the new Citi Bike bikeshare dock at the former Shea Stadium, now Citi Field, allowing bikeshare users to ride to a Mets game. But then you’d have to actually watch them play, so hard pass. 

A $9.6 million federal grant will fund a nearly nine-mile bike and pedestrian path between two Mississippi towns, as part of a project to widen US 90 from four to six lanes. So call it a win-lose for the environment and induced-demand. 

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine argues there should be tax incentives to buy and ride a bicycle. There should be some on this side of the border, too.

A BBC radio host is riding the “staggering distance” of 500 km across the country — the equivalent of 310 miles — to raise funds for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day. Or as randonneurs call a distance like that, Tuesday.

Bike-riding BBC host Jeremy Vine is suing a former Man City soccer player for calling him a “bike nonce.” Which I might find offensive, too, if I knew what the hell it meant.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly tips two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar to win Saturday’s Milan-San Remo, the longest one-day race in pro cycling.

The UCI Ethics Commission fined Soudal Quick-Step team boss Patrick Lefevere for making disparaging comments about women, including suggesting that women drink too much, and that many female pros aren’t worth pro cycling’s current minimum wage.

 

Finally…

This is what it looks like when unloved bicycles are left to die alone. Just let the billionaires pay for a pod to change out of your sweaty clothes after a bike commute.

And that feeling when you promise to ride a bike to see your friends, after getting busted for driving an uninsured vehicle with an expired driver’s license.

At 103 years old.

………

Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today. 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Die-in at City Hall as LA 333 days from Vision Zero fail, San Diego prioritizes Vision Zero, and support soars for HLA

February 1, 2024 / / One comment
333 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to hear the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

Now, we’ve got a lot to catch up on, after being down for two days, so strap in for a bumpy ride. 

Die-in photo by Joe Linton for Streetsblog

………

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports on Saturday’s die-in at City Hall, where at least one speaker clearly didn’t pull his words.

SAFE founder Damian Kevitt criticized the city’s Vision Zero program, intended to eliminate traffic deaths, as “an abysmal failure.”

“We aren’t even remotely doing [Vision Zero], so let’s stop trying to fool everyone by saying that we are.” He emphasized SAFE doesn’t oppose Vision Zero, but urges the city to step up and take its program more seriously.

“We need to yell and yell loud and don’t stop yelling… for safer roads” Kevitt urged, leading the assembled crowd in chanting, “Mayor Bass, where’s your plan?”

Maybe if we all sign the petition up at the top, we could do that yelling where she might actually hear us.

The speakers included state legislators and C-30 Congressional candidates Assemblymember Laura Friedman and State Senator Anthony Portantino, as well as Councilmember Nithya Raman.

A handful of elected officials joined the rally. Assemblymember Laura Friedman recounted her long struggles to pass much-needed legislation to allow cities to cap speed limits and to install automated speed enforcement. “Let’s slow people down,” Friedman urged, “let’s take back our streets!”

State Senator Anthony Portantino urged attendees to “turn tears… and pain… and tragedy… into action” for safer streets. L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman spoke about her success in implementing bikeways, funding for bus shelters, and more. Raman urged treating the “staggering rise in deaths” as the “public heath crisis that it is.”

Take a few minutes to read the whole thing. Because far too many people are dying on our streets, and the city isn’t doing anywhere near enough to stop it.

But at least one councilmember gets it.

Twitter post

Meanwhile, Streets Are For Everyone gave Los Angeles an F grade for traffic safety in 2023.

Here’s what founder Damian Kevitt had to say.

I am starting this report with a question that anyone reading this must think about:

How many more Angelenos need to die before we, as a collective city, start treating traffic violence with the urgency it deserves?

 In January 2023, Streets Are For Everyone produced its first report, Dying on the Streets of Los Angeles, looking at traffic violence trends, the numbers behind them, and other statistics related to traffic violence in Los Angeles.

The numbers were disturbing. They showed that what was being done to address traffic violence was clearly not working and needed a significant change in action, level of funding, and dedication if our elected officials truly intended to save lives on the roads of Los Angeles. The report laid out four broad steps that needed to be taken. In short, these were:

  1. Cut the bureaucracy by declaring a state of emergency related to traffic violence. 
  2. Reestablish Vision Zero with accountability, transparency, and PURPOSE.
  3. Prioritize lives over the right to speed.
  4. Get real about the magnitude of the problem by funding road safety improvements at a level that might start to make a difference.

Guess how many of those items city leaders actually checked off? No, really, we’ll wait.

And once again, take a few minutes to read the whole thing.

Because we’re dying here. Too often literally.

………

At least San Diego gets it.

https://twitter.com/TallDarknJewish/status/1752387993149858242

………

The Los Angeles City Council punted when they had the chance to adopt the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure a year and a half ago.

But at least some of them want you to do it next month.

Twitter post

The ballot measure has also been endorsed by the Los Angeles Times, the LA County Democratic Party, and — surprisingly — the Los Angeles Unified School District, as well as a number of other organizations and Neighborhood Councils.

………

A virtual town hall this evening will discuss plans to improve safety on the east end of Hollywood Blvd.

https://twitter.com/cd4losangeles/status/1752076384523129188

………

Gravel Bike California takes on the LA Tourist Race.

………

A Bay Area TV station reports on how triathletes who competed at the worlds won the battle to get their high-end racing bikes back, which had been impounded due to a dispute with the shipping company.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link. 

………

A reminder that 94-year old actor Gene Hackman is one of us.

Twitter post

………

It’s now 42 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law, and counting.

………

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

You can smell the bullshit a mile away when bike lanes are rejected in the name of safety, as they were in one upstate New York town, although the real reason seems to be preserving parking spaces. Because we all know that human lives are less important than personal convenience.

Dublin bike riders describe the intimidation, aggression and bullying they receive from the city’s motorists.

Two young Frenchmen face up to five years behind bars for pushing at least a dozen bike riders into ditches over a period of several months.

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

They get it. A Slovakian newspaper argues that bike riders sometimes knowingly break the law, but do it for the safe of safely in the absence of safe infrastructure.

A Singapore bike rider hit a dog’s snout while riding a pedestrian walkway, then criticized the owner for not controlling the dog when it growled at him as a result.

………

Local 

LAist declares 2023 the year of the pothole, and tells you how to report them.

A Los Angeles Times letter writer agrees with a proposal to place speed limitation devices on motor vehicles, arguing that cars have gotten too big and fast, but another writer blames the victims, calling for a campaign to teach “defensive walking” to pedestrians so they won’t get killed.

Metro will offer free rides on the county transit agency’s bus, rail and bike systems this Sunday for Transit Equity Day, and the birthday of civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Speaking of Joe Linton, the Los Angeles Streetsblog editor visits the new bikeways of Beverly Hills, demonstrating that the overprivileged city is not longer the area’s biking black hole, as well as new curb-protected bike lanes in Long Beach.

Another Streetsblog writer examines the first segment of the new Rosemead Blvd Complete Streets project in El Monte. Because evidently, Linton can’t be everywhere. 

 

State

Streetsblog is now accepting applications for their California board of directors.

A pair of San Marcos kids suffered serious injuries when they were run down by a hit-and-run driver while sharing an ebike.

Bakersfield bicyclists will be able to bike a new 1.5-mile section of freeway before it opens to motor vehicles.

There’s a special place in hell for the anti-social asshole — and I choose my words carefully — who burglarized Richmond’s Rich City Rides bike shop and community advocacy group, forcing the shop to close after suffering at least $13,000 in losses.

Bad news from Lincoln, California, where cycling strength trainer, and health and wellness expert Derek Teel, owner of Dialed Health, suffered a severely broken pelvis, a broken femur and a collapsed lung, among other injuries, when he was run down by a hit-and-run driver Tuesday afternoon.

 

National

A new report suggests that capping vehicle hood heights at 3.6 feet — instead of massive trucks and SUVs with high, flat grills literally designed to kill — could save 1,350 American lives a year, as a new calculator determines exactly how likely a vehicle is to kill you.

A new study shows cargo bikes really can replace cars, as people rated cargo bikes higher than motor vehicles in nearly every category.

A group of four Democrats have introduced a bill that would require states to direct a portion of their federal highway funding towards the creation of a Complete Streets Program.

Both sides of the Congressional aisle have finally agreed on a bipartisan ebike bill — but instead of offering a rebate, this one would create federal standards for ebike batteries.

Miss Manners confronts drama on the bike trail, as a man’s riding companions give him the cold shoulder for taking too long to chat with friends in another group, delaying their group ride.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A 32-year old man with 19 previous traffic citations agreed to plead guilty to killing 32-year old BMX champ Nathan “Nate” Miller, after prosecutors agreed to a sentence of probation or just one year in prison. Congratulations to Nevada officials on keeping him on the road until he actually killed someone, then letting him loose to do it again. 

The Salt Lake City man behind the Pedaled Piano project dreams of riding his bicycle and playing piano across Europe.

The allegedly stoned driver who killed two brothers riding with their kids in the annual Spring Tour of St. George bicycle ride escaped with a pair of third-degree vehicular homicide convictions when the jury returned a split verdict; the woman claimed she was shitting on herself as she drove, and didn’t notice the men riding their bikes on the side of the road.

Like Los Angeles, Colorado is seeing bicycle and pedestrian deaths rise, even as overall traffic deaths decline.

Hats off to a trio of University of Illinois engineering students, who designed a fully custom bike, complete with adaptive handlebars, gear hub and frame, to allow an eight-year old boy with a form of dwarfism to ride a bike for the first time.

An Illinois bike advocacy group launched a statewide campaign to call attention to the state’s rising rate of bicycling deaths.

Bike crashes are surging in Michigan, where bicycling deaths are up 64% over the past three years.

Nashville star Zach Bryan is one of us, riding a tandem with his girlfriend in Amsterdam while high on ‘shrooms and blasting the late Warren Zevon’s Lawyers, Guns and Money on endless repeat. I confess to two out of the three, though how much of that applies to you is entirely a matter of your own personal habits. 

New York Magazine considers MIPS helmets, and whether you need one. Unlike MIPS, regular bike helmets are designed to prevent fractures, not traumatic brain injuries. So the short answer is yes, if you’re going to wear one at all.

 

International

GCN considers the pros and cons of puncture-proof tires.

Momentum lists the most romantic bicycling cities on the planet, all of which are in Europe. And none of which is Los Angeles.

A Cycling Weekly opinion piece makes the case for not taking your local bike shop for granted.

Marketplace talks with London bike writer Laura Laker about the complications of navigating a city by bicycle, and how map apps can make things worse.

A London writer reports feeling bereft after her decades-old bicycle was stolen.

An English church is asking for permission to modify its fence, over fears people riding on the nearby bike path could be impaled on the fence’s spikes.

Residents of a British apartment complex blame construction of a nearby bike path for a recent rat infestation, after construction work blocked garbage trucks for three months.

This is the cost of traffic violence. The 68-year old founder of a UK arts and health charity was killed when his bike was rear-ended by a 19-year old driver; he was described as a gifted pianist, talented mathematician, bridge builder and visionary leader.

Three-time world record-breaking British cyclist Kate Strong will ride a bamboo bike 160 miles to deliver the game ball for Saturday’s Forest Green Rovers FC and Colchester United FC soccer match to call for greener support for the planet.

A five-day British fundraising ride will travel from the UK through Normandy to honor the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing. Or pedal Italy while you feed your face with a new bicycling tour of Sicily, hosted by two award-winning chefs.

Seriously? A 17-year old Aussie driver says he was frightened of the 62-year old man on a bicycle who flipped him off after the kid repeatedly honked at him for riding too slowly — so scared, in fact, that he got out of his car and challenged the older man to a fight, killing him with a punch.

 

Competitive Cycling

A four-year old Florida boy appears to eke out a victory racing his bike against the local garbage collector.

Cycling Weekly refutes Rigoberto Urán’s statement that he’s too old to race bikes at 37, citing other riders who competed well into relative old age.

On the opposite end of the cycling age spectrum, 22-year old German pro Michel Hessmann won’t face criminal doping charges, but could still be subject to a cycling ban from German authorities.

 

Finally…

How to give new life to your old bike parts. We may have to worry about vipers behind the wheel, but at least we don’t have to worry about getting a deadly brown snake wrapped around your wheel.

And three ways to open a beer with your mountain bike.

You know, in case the first two don’t work.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Bad year for SoCal bike deaths, urban roads get deadlier, and Transportation Comm’s new vice chair is one of us

January 5, 2023 / / 2 comments

Last year was another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for SoCal bike riders.

But at least it was better than the year before.

Maybe.

According to our latest count, at least 82* people lost their lives while riding a bicycle in the seven county Southern California region last year, just two less than the previous year.

Although that figure is likely an undercount; I’ve heard of a half dozen or more deaths this year that I wasn’t able to officially confirm, but which undoubtedly happened.

It’s also the same number of SoCal bicycling deaths reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2019, the last year before the pandemic, when 81 SoCal riders also lost their lives.

The total for last year reflects the 26 bike riders I counted killed in Los Angeles County last year, which again is likely a dramatic undercount.

A total of 35 bike riders lost their lives in LA County in 2021, which was over twice the total of 17 that I had counted; I also counted 15 in 2020, compared to 27 reported by the NHTSA.

Which suggests that the local media is failing to report a number of bicycling deaths in the Los Angeles area, for whatever reason.

I also counted 14 bicycling deaths in the City of Los Angeles last year, which is in line with verified totals of 18 and 15 in 2021 and 2020.

Further afield, San Diego County suffered 12 deaths last year, which was a significant improvement over 17 in the previous year, though much higher than the 7 and 8 people killed riding bikes in the county in 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Meanwhile, Orange County appeared to have their worst year in recent memory, with 17 people killed* riding bikes last year, compared to just 7 in 2021, 15 in 2020, and 13 in 2019.

Although it is important to note that only the totals for 2020 and 2019 have been verified by the NHTSA; 2021 data isn’t currently available through their website.

Riverside and San Bernardino Counties also showed increases last year, with 11 bicycling deaths in Riverside County, and 10 in San Bernardino County. Ventura County suffered 4 deaths — half the previous year’s total — while Imperial County recorded none for the third year in a row.

Here’s a quick recap of bicycling deaths for each of the seven counties.

Los Angeles County

  • 2022 – 26
  • 2021 – 35
  • 2020 – 27
  • 2019 – 38

Orange County

  • 2022 – 17
  • 2021 – 7
  • 2020 – 14
  • 2019 – 13

San Diego County

  • 2022 – 12
  • 2021 – 17
  • 2020 – 7
  • 2019 – 8

Riverside County

  • 2022 – 11
  • 2021 – 9
  • 2020 – 8
  • 2019 – 5

San Bernardino County

  • 2022 – 10
  • 2021 – 7
  • 2020 – 6
  • 2019 – 7

Imperial County

  • 2022 – 0
  • 2021 – 0
  • 2020 – 0
  • 2019 – 6

Ventura County

  • 2022 – 4
  • 2021 – 8
  • 2020 – 4
  • 2019 – 4

Source: 2021-2022 BikinginLA, except 2021 LA County data from Los Angeles Times; 2019-2020 NHTSA FARS data

While compiling records of this sort is necessary to bring about desperately needed changes to our streets, it also reduces human tragedy and loss to a statistic.

So if you want to see the people behind these numbers who we’ve so needlessly lost, start here and just keep scrolling.

Photo by Ted McDonald from Pixabay.

Correction: A comment from Dawn made it clear that I had miscategorized a story about her father’s August death in Irvine. 

*After correcting the error and adding it back into the totals for OC, that made 17 people killed riding their bikes in the county last year, and 82 in Southern California, instead of 16 and 81, respectively, as I had originally written.

My apologies for the mistake. 

………

On a related subject, rural areas are becoming safer, while urban environments are growing ever deadlier.

And the photo at the bottom of this thread goes a long way towards explaining why.

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1610779366476353538

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1610843949924777984

………

Promising news about the new LA City Council Transportation Committee members we mentioned yesterday, at least two of whom have taken bike tours with the new BikeLA (formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, or LACBC).

Twitter post

Meanwhile, new CD11 Councilmember and Committee Vice Chair Traci Park is one of us, as well.

Now if she just votes that way, we should be in good shape.

Twitter post

Twitter post

………

Transportation PAC Streets For All is hosting their next virtual happy hour next Wednesday, featuring my councilmember, CD4’s Nithya Raman.

………

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

A former contestant on the UK’s version of The Apprentice criticizes plans for traffic filters on Oxford streets, saying you won’t be able to drive more than 15 minutes in any direction — and somehow manages to get the whole thing wrong.

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

A British Columbia man faces charges for stealing a truck and using it to smash through a gate, then hoping on a bicycle to make his escape after the truck was disabled in the crash. Which raises a lot of questions, like whether the fact that he wasn’t charged with stealing the bike means he just happened to have it with him in case he needed to pedal away from the crime scene.

There’s a special place in hell for the Kiwi ebike rider who faces charges for repeatedly kicking a wheelchair-bound handcyclist in the head for no apparent reason, unless he was upset that she could go faster than he could on his ebike. Which is a ridiculous reason to do something so horrific.

………

Local 

Protected bike lanes are usually intended to improve safety, but Burbank residents wanted the new quarter-mile protected bike lane on Leland Way in order to halt graffiti and drag racing.

A travel magazine recommends touring West Hollywood by ebike, but apparently can’t distinguish between WeHo and nearby Beverly Hills.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Even an automotive website questions whether the newest generation of electric SUVs are too big, too heavy and too fast. Depends on whether the goal is to get from here to there, or to send as many people as possible to the promised land.

Forbes looks at five trends this year that could impact the future of transportation. Although the modest state and local tax rebates for ebikes pale in comparison to the massive federal benefits for electric car buyers.

A writer for Adventure Journal geeks out over an 1880s ad for a Penny Farthing from Boston’s Columbia Bicycle Company. Then again, he’s not the only one geeking out, since I have a version of that ad on a t-shirt.

House Beautiful recommends the best bike storage racks for your home or apartment.

Singletracks considers the ethics of editing trails to preserve them or remove hazards.

Digital Journal addresses one of the burning questions of our time — how to take your dog with you when you ride your bike.

My friends at West Seattle Blog managed to scoop the local news media about hit-and-run and vehicular homicide charges against an alleged killer driver who fled the scene after running down a 63-year old man riding his ebike home from work.

An Arizona man has made a remarkable recovery following the crash in a Show Low, Arizona master’s race that killed one man and seriously injured several riders; 37-year old Shawn Michael Chock was quietly sentenced to 26-1/2 years behind bars for second-degree murder and felony aggravated assault.

Denver announced the return of the city’s highly popular ebike rebate program at the end of this month, although at a reduced level, with $300 vouchers for buyers or regular ebikes, and $500 for e-cargo bikes.

North Carolina’s Department of Transportation is giving away bike helmets to organizations to give away to people who need them.

St. Petersburg, Florida, is remaking a dangerous residential boulevard with barriers at four intersections, forcing motorists to turn while allowing pedestrians and bike riders to pass through, and effectively turning it into a bicycle boulevard, even if they don’t use the term.

A kindhearted Florida man spends his days refurbishing and assembling bicycles so children in need can get to school, and adults can ride to work.

 

International

Calgary bicycle advocates are calling for safer bike infrastructure, after reports of snow and ice clogging bikeways and creating a hazard for riders. Here in SoCal, our snow and ice comes in liquid form, but still creates hazards on days like this. So be careful out there. 

Bike Portland goes riding in London. Which I deeply regret I didn’t get a chance to do when my wife and I visited earlier this century.

British foldie maker Brompton will begin sourcing more parts from other countries, over fears that tensions between China and Taiwan could result in supply chain disruptions.

If you’re already wanted on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear, maybe illegally riding your bike on a pair of UK highways isn’t the best idea.

The newly crowned world darts champ credits a broken hip suffered in a bicycle crash when he was 15 year old with setting him on the path to pointed greatness.

The Guardian follows along as an Australian woman attempts to set a new record by riding 2,500 miles in 13 days.

No surprise here, as a new Aussie study shows the biggest barrier to biking is a fear of cars. Personally, I’m not afraid of cars. But the people driving them scare the shit out of me.

 

Competitive Cycling

Four time Tour de France champ Chris Froome will finally get a chance to go for five after his Israel Premier Tech team got one of two wildcard invitations to the race, with the other going to Norway’s Uno-X.

A ‘cross fan captures the chaos after Ryan Cortjens crashed at the Superprestige Diegem, and apparently forgot to get the hell out of the way.

Twitter post

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can build your very own DIY 6-passenger, throttle-controlled ebike. That feeling when no one wants to steal you bike, even if you want them to.

And who says you need two wheels to mountain bike?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries  
Wordpress Theme by ThemeZee