November 5, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on It’s Election Day, so Bike the Vote, already; Block calls for Fountain Ave bike lane trial; and Metro bus lane parking enforcement
Just 56 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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If you haven’t already, get out and vote today; Streetsblog offers a list of election resources to help out.
And regardless of what some random guy on the internet told you, if your ballot isn’t at least postmarked by today, it won’t count. At least here in California; in other states, your mileage may vary.
Then get out on your bike, or take a walk, or bury yourself in your work until the polls close to distract yourself and preserve your sanity today.
Which sounds reasonable, but will inevitably fail.
It takes time for drivers to adjust to any road change, let alone a major redesign involving the removal of parking spaces and a traffic lane on each side.
A pilot program of at least six months to a year could offer proof that the change will not result in the traffic and residential chaos opponents fear.
But anything less would just invite drivers to make temporary adjustments until the pilot project gets removed. Or just ignore it and embrace the chaos to force the hand of city planners.
The New York Times examines the great feud over San Francisco’s Great Highway, as residents vote today on whether to permanently close the coastal roadway, and turn it into a linear bike and pedestrian park.
A New Zealand website says yes, you can travel without harming the environment, including on your bicycle. Just don’t leave your old tubes, CO2 cartridges or spent gel packs on the side of the road.
And not many people are aware that the ancient forebears of the modern bicycle lived in what is now Los Angeles during the Ice Age, as memorialized by these sculptures at the La Brea Tar Pits.
What.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
According to Caltrans rep Ryan Snyder, California’s new law mandating Complete Streets on Caltrans projects requires bike lanes on the full stretch of highway through the ‘Bu.
“SB 960 mandates that we create bike lanes for the entire length of PCH in Malibu.” He said. “In what is often referredto as the 8 to 80 principle, we must adhere to the concept that bike lanes should be safe for any users between the ages of 8 and 80. We propose that we build buffered/colored and/or protected bike lanes on Las Flores on the mountain side as well as between Las Flores Road and the Malibu Pier area and between the Pier area and the western city limits.”
Respondents preferred a landscaped median to other alternatives, while lane reductions and traffic circles are also under consideration to make space and slow traffic.
Photo shows Los Angeles demonstration demanding protected bike lanes.
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Evidently, getting cut from the football team following rape accusations wasn’t enough for a former University of Washington football player.
He had to follow it up with a road rage attack on a bicyclist.
In a case we’ve been following since March, the victim was riding his bike home after just learning about the death of his college roommate, when Tylin “Tybo” Rogers and his teammate, Diesel Gordon, began following him in their car, honking and yelling at him for the crime of simply being in front of them on the roadway.
The victim responded, as I probably would have, by flipping them off.
Rogers, who was already facing charges for the rape accusations, and Gordon then tried to hit him with their car, before getting out and chasing the victim down a stairwell.
That portion of the attack was captured on security cam video, which was released by investigators on Friday.
Gordon can be heard calling the victim a homophobic slur, then spits on him several times before Rogers shoves the victim to the ground. Rogers then hits him in the face with enough force to send his glasses flying, which he then stomps on.
Both players have pled guilty to misdemeanor assault — which is a gift under the circumstances.
They each face a maximum of just under a year in county jail, and a lousy $5,000 fine.
However, Pasadena’s Union Street two-way protected bike lane comes in at a very respectable #6, which the magazine praises as a “cyclist-friendly corridor (that) connects key destinations and aligns with Pasadena’s commitment to sustainable transportation.”
The new 17th Street complex in Santa Monica was ranked 16th.
Maybe someday, a Los Angeles bike lane will once again make the exclusive list. But today is not that day, my friends
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Seriously? Residents of Queens are fighting a planned 16-mile bike path along the waterfront over fears it will turn the suburban area “into another bustling urban district” and attract scooter-riding bandits, amid the usual cries of “where are we going to put our cars?” I could make a suggestion.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A British tabloid is appalled by the “shocking” moment a man on a Lime bike crashed into a small boy as he ran across a bike lane to get to a floating bike stop — before acknowledging the bicyclist did try to stop before hitting the kid, who darted out in front of of him.
Sad news from San Jose, where a man has died 11 years after he was struck by a motorist while riding a bicycle in the city, and placed into long-term care; the victim was not publicly identified, and there’s no word on whether the driver ever faced charges.
Bike Radar asks mountain bike brands why so many are getting into the gravel bike business. Short answer, because that’s where the money is. Longer answer, it’s the fastest growing category in the bicycle industry.
The Guardian’s Peter Walker says yes, speeding ebike riders are a menace, but the solution isn’t to kick bicycles into the roadway, as Birmingham, England considers banning all bicycles from the city’s pedestrianized streets — especially when the real problem is illegally souped-up ebikes belonging to food couriers.
A Czech driver faces up to five years behind bars for allegedly fleeing the scene after running down a 42-year old man riding a bicycle, before returning to collect evidence of the crash, including the victim’s mangled bike wheel.
September 25, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on San Diego TV station almost gets why no one’s using bike lane, and man turns himself in for San Marcos hit-and-run
Just 96 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
What they found were white car-tickler plastic posts that were already broken and bent, commercial trucks parked in the bike lanes, and shopping carts and other debris blocking them.
Then they wondered why they only saw five people using them in the two midday, mid-week hours they happened to be watching.
Of course, they also heard the usual complaints from drivers who couldn’t figure out the new streetscape, or where they could possibly park if they can’t store their cars on the street directly in front of their destination.
Never mind that the bike lanes were built in anticipation of new apartment buildings currently under construction, which will add hundreds of housing units and the people who will live in them, and who will have to get around somehow.
Preferably not by driving.
Hence the bike lanes.
But it’s true that few people will bother to use them if they’re not safe, or safely rideable. Which is pretty much what the station saw.
Now maybe they can come back at rush hour or on the weekend, after they’re cleaned up and the trucks are gone.
Then they could do a far better story about why flimsy plastic bollards don’t protect anyone.
Not to mention that the nearly one-week delay in turning himself in gave him plenty of time to sober up after hitting the boy’s ebike.
If he’d been under the influence at the time of the crash, of course.
The driver, Alan Edmundo Reyes, is being held on $80,000 bond on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and reckless driving resulting in injury.
He’s likely looking at a maximum of 30 months behind bars for the two counts, though that will probably be bargained down to a slap on the wrist if he accepts a plea.
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Unlike the foot-dragging we’ve seen from the City of Los Angeles, LA County passed a new Measure HLA-type law to speed up building the county bike plan as streets get resurfaced.
We’re putting LA County on a path to move faster & smarter when it comes to building the bike infrastructure our communities deserve.
Focusing on communities disproportionately impacted by traffic violence, we’re supporting Vision Zero’s goal of no roadway fatalities by 2035.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Conservative member of the British Parliament proposes re-introducing legislation to let bicyclists know they’re not above the law, and let the “small minority” of dangerous bike riders know there are responsibilities they can be prosecuted for. At least he recognizes that it’s just a few people who need to be held accountable.
We’re still waiting for Gavin Newsom to sign SB 961, which would require all passenger vehicles to give an audible warning if the drivers go more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Or not.
A Colorado woman wonders about a strange “very short” mile-long bike lane. Even if that’s a lot longer than a lot of the bike lanes here in Los Angeles, and just as disconnected.
The New York Timestalks with the city’s Blue Angels who found a way to game the bikeshare system to score thousands of dollars a month.
International
It turns out that Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman, Pink, Sheryl Crow, Reggie Miller, Rush drummer Neil Peart, Zac Efron, J-Lo and Arnold are all one of us, too.
The co-founder of All Bodies on Bikes and co-host of the All Bodies on Bikes podcast shares her non-racing bike heroes, including a Paralympian physical therapist and the founder of Black Girl Joy Ride.
Just 105 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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No bias here.
WeHo Online’s Steve Martin — no, not the comedian — continues his campaign against the planned safety improvements on Fountain Ave through West Hollywood, insisting there is a “silent majority” rising up in opposition to the plan, despite an informal online survey showing it was supported by two-thirds of respondents.
Then again, he complains that people from outside the city were allowed to respond to it, as if only people who live on Fountain Ave ever use the street.
He also takes issue with a perceive lack of outreach, even though those of us who were paying attention were aware of the plan to remove traffic lanes and street parking to widen sidewalks and add protected bike lanes at least two years ago. As were all those people who took the time to respond to that online survey he disparages.
But they don’t count, evidently.
Then there’s his complaint that Bike LA, formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, will assist with outreach to prepare residents for the changes, calling them “hardly an unbiased party.” And adding that the group will work in conjunction with Streets For All, and “will be able to skewer whatever conversations take place.”
As if merely explaining a project that has already been approved by the city council requires any actual “skewering.”
The city council was scheduled to vote last night to accept a $5 million grant from the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB — and yes, he even gets that name wrong in his sputtering anger — to help pay for the life-saving changes on Fountain.
Let’s hope they had the sense to say yes. And that the approval will finally put an end to this nonsense.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
Graphic for a virtual workshop to discuss plans for Fountain Ave from October, 2022.
Which would no doubt cause apoplexy to the afore-mentioned “silent majority” in West Hollywood. Not to mention in here Los Angeles, where the ability to go “zoom zoom” to your heart’s content is taken as a God-given right, consequences be damned.
Except for all those people who voted for Measure HLA by a similar — wait for it — two-thirds margin, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, that online survey wasn’t so wrong after all.
The steady drumbeat of sad news from Northern California continues, where a 53-year old Ukiah man was killed when he hit something on the trail he was riding and was thrown from his ebike, striking his head; police say he was wearing a helmet, but didn’t have it secured properly.
National
Good question. Velo says that good bike parking is inexpensive, easy to implement and encourages more bicycling, so why is it so hard to find?
June 27, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 3.9-mile Reseda protected bike lanes saved by 2009 outcry, and LA doesn’t suck as much in new bike rankings
Just 187 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
But it was just 15 years ago that we nearly lost them forever.
That’s when the news broke — courtesy of this site — that LADOT’s bike planning engineers had been told not to bother working on the bike lanes, because the West Department of Transportation was going to install Peak Hour Lanes on the boulevard instead, which would have turned the street into a virtually un-bikeable car sewer.
Similar lanes had gone in throughout the San Fernando Valley in the 1990s and 2000s, back in the bad old days when the highest priority of traffic engineers was maximizing vehicular throughput and level of service.
Fortunately, there was a huge reaction to the story, with countless people calling LADOT, councilmembers and other city officials to complain — resulting in the agency canceling plans for the peak hour lane less than 24 hours later.
And claiming, implausibly, that it was never actually their plan to install the peak hour lanes.
Yeah, right.
Linton called for an apology from the agency for deliberately misleading him, then-Streetsblog LA Editor Damien Newton, former Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey and myself. But also said he’d be willing to accept an apology in the form of actually building the bike lanes.
Which is what finally happened.
So thanks to everyone else who raised hell over it. If you were one of them, pat yourself on the back.
And thank you for your service.
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The rest of the world is catching up with the new City Rankings released by People For Bikes that we mentioned on Monday.
Streetsblog says a whopping 183 US cities scored 50 or higher, an indication that the local bike culture has firmly taken root. Once again, Los Angeles was not among them.
Heartbreaking news from Michigan, where an 83-year old Florida man was killed while riding his bicycle, just after reaching a lifetime goal of riding 200,000 miles; he was leaving his son’s house to visit his daughter when a driver ran him down.
Once again, life is cheap in the UK, where a teenaged driver who killed a bike rider, just weeks after passing his driving test, walked without a single day behind bars after he was sentenced to community service and a lousy £240 fine — the equivalent of just $303.
This year’s Tour de France hasn’t even started yet, and it’s clear last year’s Vuelta winner, American Sepp Kuss, won’t make the podium in Paris next month, after withdrawing due to Covid.
Or if CicLAvia seems a little too formal for your last, the Los Angeles edition of the World Naked Bike Ride rolls tomorrow. Tip: Bring lots of sunscreen. And a few disinfectant wipes if you’re using a bikeshare bike.
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Evidently, some people just don’t like separated bike lanes.
Or what Los Angeles insists on calling “protected,” even though the usual flimsy plastic car-ticklers wouldn’t stop a Yugo, if you could even get one running.
She explains how she was never a fan of bike lanes. Until moving to California, that is, when she got to experience her first wide buffered bike lane.
But some people insist on ruining those “good enough” buffered lanes by adding little white plastic bendy posts and other assorted permeable and semi-permeable barriers.
In her opinion, anyway.
Imagine my horror at seeing a movement to convert these bike lanes to “separated” bikeways by adding barriers such as flex posts, bollards, curbs, and a host of other innovations.
I get the desire to feel protected from cars, but at what cost? First of all, “feel protected” is all you get. Posts and curbs will not stop a moving car. They will, however, cause a bicyclist to crash. This is a known hazard which causes actual casualties, including serious injuries. Yet, these crashes don’t show up in national crash data, because it counts bicycle crashes only if they involve a moving motor vehicle.
She also takes issue with the stat up there on the right from the Federal Highway Administration.
The research behind the FHWA’s claim didn’t include junctions, only mid-block segments.
The only relevant crash type is a mid-block overtaking crash, around 5% of total crashes for all roads, including ones with no bike lane. The majority of overtaking crashes are actually sideswipes in narrow lanes (the motorist misjudges the space). We have a robust dataset from Mighk Wilson’s crash analysis in Orlando. In it, overtaking crashes on streets with bike lanes were 1.5% of crashes. The majority of bike lanes in the area are narrow and non-buffered. Paul Schimek’s study in Boston came to a similar conclusion.
I get what Caffrey is saying. And it’s worth reading to get a different perspective from what we usually share here.
My personal take is that separated bike lanes aren’t for confident bike riders like her who are comfortable riding nearly anywhere. They’re for the people who would like to ride, or ride more, but are afraid to mix it up with the people in the big dangerous machines.
Although calling them protected does a disservice to everyone by overpromising on safety.
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Any kind of separation or buffer might have helped those Texas bicyclists who were run down by a drunk driver in a crash caught on bike cam earlier this week.
Which could explain why your bags always seem to get lost or crushed beyond all recognition.
Thirty-one-year old Benjamin Hylander has been booked on two counts of intoxication assault with a vehicle causing serious bodily injury, accident involving injury, and driving while intoxicated with a BAC greater than 0.15.
Meanwhile, the victim shown getting run over by Hylander’s SUV after the initial impact, retired physician Tom Geppert, credits his bicycle with saving his life. And allowing him to walk away — if that’s the word for it — with “just” a concussion, injured left hamstring, a fractured rib and a severe laceration.
The other victim, Deborah Eads, suffered a severe laceration as well.
We can only be grateful it wasn’t much worse.
Maybe someday, carmakers will be required to use already-existing technology to ensure intoxicated people can’t get behind the wheel.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’ve jumped up to 1,173 signatures, so don’t stop now! I’ll forward the petition to the mayor’s office in the next few days. So urge everyone you know to sign it now!
I’m finally starting to feel a little better, almost two months after falling and injuring my ribs and back, and re-injuring my shoulder. My ribs are almost back to normal, and my back is getting there. On the other hand, I think my torn rotator cuff is just screwed at this point.
Also, a very kind person reached out to me last week and offered to come over and help around our apartment — the second time that’s happened since my wife and I have both been injured, after another BikinginLA reader generously offered to come do our shopping for us.
I won’t embarrass them by sharing their names, but I truly appreciate their offers of help. And the kindness and generosity of the readers of this site, which I see every year during our fund drive, and throughout the year.
So my sincere thanks to both of these people, and everyone who has given from their heart to help keep this all going.
Not only did they move quickly to remove the protected bus and bike lanes, combining them into a single shared lane, but they made the move without conducting the required environmental review.
If you can make it, show up to show your support for the Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City, aka FFMCC, who filed the suit. And let me know what happens.
Here’s a press release from the group explaining the case.
Friends and Families for Move Culver City Invites Members of the Public to Attend the Hearing on June 5th for its Lawsuit Against City’s Planned Removal of Protected Bike Lanes and Pedestrian Protections from MOVE Culver City Project
Culver City, CA – Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City (FFMCC), a local advocacy group, invites members of the public to attend the hearing for its lawsuit to stop Culver City’s removal of critical infrastructure without proper California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review on June 5th at 1:30pm in Department 15 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. The group first raised concerns and filed a lawsuit challenging the Culver City Council’s plans to remove key transportation upgrades in October 2023. The Culver City Council disregarded its own data, hundreds of public comments, letters and warnings from the community, elected officials, businesses, lawyers and environmental and mobility advocates when it first voted to begin the process of removing elements of its MOVE Culver City project in April 2023. Local advocates assert that the City Council’s approval of a CEQA exemption to these modifications is a violation of the law, as it would remove a protected bike lane and pedestrian features to accommodate an additional lane of vehicular traffic without disclosing, analyzing, or mitigating the impacts of those changes in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
Despite the warning, in January 2024, the Culver City Council voted to approve funding for a construction contract related to the removal of safety upgrades in the Move Culver City Corridor.
Following the vote, FFMCC filed a lawsuit in October 2023. A copy of the opening brief can be viewed here.
“We’re confident in the strength of our case and expect the judge to rule in our favor,” says Yotala Oszkay Febres-Cordero, Chair of Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City, the plaintiff in the case. “The city clearly violated CEQA by voting to exempt the project from environmental review, ignoring the indisputable fact that replacing a protected bike lane with an additional lane for cars, and removing pedestrian safety features, poses significant threats to public health and safety. This is precisely why CEQA was enacted, to provide notice to and protect communities when a planned project generates these environmental threats.” FFMCC is represented by attorneys Ellis Raskin, Jillian Ames, and Jenny Dao of Hanson Bridgett LLP.
In moving forward with this trial, FFMCC hopes to show the City that proper CEQA review pursuant to state law must be adhered to before any environmentally hostile modifications are made to the MOVE Culver City corridor.
About Friends and Families for Move Culver City
Friends and Families for Move Culver City was formed in response to the Culver City Council’s 3-2 vote to declare modifications to the MOVE Culver City project exempt from CEQA and to proceed with the removal of protected bike lanes, pedestrian protections and safety measures, and the addition of vehicle lanes along Washington Blvd and Culver Blvd in Culver City. Following the council vote on 9/11/2023, a GoFundMe was organized which raised more than $15,000 in less than two weeks, with nearly 200 donations from community members opposing the City’s plans.
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Bike Talk talks with the author of The Art of Cycling in this week’s episode, dropping on Thursday.
Yesterday was my last day at Tern, and today, I am launching Cargo Bike Life to build a community and resources for those who want to be part of something bigger.https://t.co/iBl3tfAZjlpic.twitter.com/ruRolIqwFy
— Arleigh Greenwald (@bikeshopgirlcom) June 2, 2024
The annual AIDS/LifeCycle Ride is underway, with people from around the world riding 540 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles this week; the fundraising ride will end in LA this weekend.
Paramedics in Anchorage, Alaska gave a young girl a new bicycle after a “distressing” incident that left her impaled by the brake lever on her bicycle, threatening her femoral artery.
Thanks to Cassandra Fulgham for her donation to help support this site — and possibly help defray that ambulance ride and ER visit. As you probably know by now, donations of an amount, no matter how large or small, are always welcome and appreciated, whatever the reason.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’ve inched up to 1,151 signatures, so don’t stop now! I’ll forward the petition to the mayor’s office next week, after getting tied up with health issues this week. So urge everyone you know to sign it now!
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Beverly Hills is backsliding on their new found commitment to bike safety and Complete Streets.
The gilded city will rip out its only protected bike lane, on South Roxbury Drive next to Roxbury Park, because some drivers found the new parking configuration confusing and thought it reduced visibility when backing out of parking spaces.
Even though the city doesn’t seem to have done any actual studies to see whether it improved safety during the three years it was in place with no documented safety issues.
The planter-protected bike lane will be replaced with sharrows — even though protected bike lanes have been proven to improve safety for all road users, while sharrows have been shown to make things worse.
And never mind that the arrow in the sharrows symbol is just there to help drivers improve their aim.
However, that could put the city in conflict with state law unless cars are also banned from the street, since since state law requires bicycles to be permitted anywhere motor vehicles are allowed, with the exception of limited access highways in urban areas.
On the other hand, the suggestion to voluntarily avoid the area is probably a good idea until the ground stops literally shifting beneath your wheels.
Dear Bike Community,
The City of Rancho Palos Verdes would like to inform the Bike Community that the City will be considering prohibiting bicycles and motorcycles on Palos Verdes Drive South (PVDS) and an agenda item is planned to go before the RPV City Council on June 18, 2024.
City staff and consultants are seeing rapid and substantial rates of movement (6 to 9 inches per week, depending on location) in and around the vicinity of the landslide area along Palos Verdes Drive South.
Despite the warning signs in place, we are seeing injuries.
Out of an abundance of caution, we are asking the City Council to consider prohibiting bicycles and motorcycles on PVDS.
We are requesting the Bike Community to voluntarily consider alternate routes.
Please let us know if you have comments and questions regarding the above bicycle and motorcycle prohibition proposal.
The man poses as a prospective buyer for expensive ebikes advertised on on Facebook Marketplace and other online platforms, and shows up with cash in hand for a test ride.
But only after leaving with the bike do the victims discover the envelope full of money he left behind as a deposit is just counterfeit prop money for intended for film shoots, and marked “For motion picture purposes only” in small fine print.
In this case, the Huntington Beach victim was scammed out of $4,200.
There’s no word on how many other people have been conned, or the value to the bikes he’s stolen. However, after reporting the crime, the victim heard from several other people claiming they had also been victimized in similar scams, including in Redondo Beach and Escondido.
So watch out if you’re selling an ebike — or any other high-end bike — through an online marketplace.
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This protected bike lane on 7th Street in DTLA was agreed to as part of the approval process for the Wilshire Grand Center.
During the Memorial Day weekend, the CHP conducted a Maximum Enforcement Period (MEP) to ensure the safety of all Californians. The results of the MEP are below. The primary mission of the CHP is to provide the highest level of Safety, Service, and Security. pic.twitter.com/bFuX8sEzpf
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. El Paso police blame the victim, saying a 76-year old man died ten days after striking a car on his bike when the 22-year old driver pulled out in front of him while exiting a parking lot; needless to say, there’s no mention of a charges or even a ticket for carelessly killing an elderly man.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Streetsblog reports protected bike lanes — or what passes for them in Los Angeles — are finally coming to Hollywood Blvd this summer. However, they won’t offer any protection for tourists strolling along the crowded boulevard, other than a few flimsy plastic bollards and whatever cars may be parked alongside it.
The Los Angeles Times highlights six “must-see stops” along the beachfront Marvin Braude Bike Trail. Never mind that the bike path would extend to Malibu by now, instead of stopping at Will Rogers State Beach, except for a misguided campaign to halt the extension over the optics of spending millions to build it.
As we noted yesterday, the California legislature has rejected Governor Newsom’s call to gut the state’s Active Transportation Program; Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry explains just how awful the cuts would be. Not to mention the draconian cuts also shows the lack of actual climate bona fides for our ostensibly “climate champion” governor.
A woman in San Mateo County was convicted of second-degree murder and other charges for the drunken crash that killed a 60-year old bicyclist in 2022; 33-year old Samantha Mei Hartwell qualified for the murder count thanks to her previous DUI convictions.
An op-ed in a Boulder, Colorado paper suggests that instead of conducting a road diet to improve safety, bike riders should just ride on quieter neighborhood streets. Never mind that the purpose of a road diet is to tame a dangerous roadway, and the bike lanes are usually a tool to do that. And no one would suggest that drivers should be forced to take a slower, circuitous route filled with stop signs just to get where they’re going.
May 13, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on The late Sam Rubin was one of us, state officials just tinker with PCH safety, and drivers want all of WeHo streets
Just 234 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Caring for my wife and her broken shoulder 24/7, along with suddenly becoming the sole caretaker for the corgi — never mind dealing with my own ever-growing health problems — leaves me with a very small window to work each day.
And writing about a pair of fallen bicyclists Thursday night, as important as that was, took up all the time I had available to work.
I’d like to say it won’t happen again, but it probably will until we get all this crap sorted out.
Rubin took pride in organizing the station’s team for the annual MS 150 Bay to Bay Bike Tour, which raises funds to find a cure for multiple sclerosis.
The Go Safely PCH initiative calls for increased traffic enforcement, enhanced infrastructure and a public awareness campaign, with California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin saying “it signifies a collective effort to ensure the safety of all travelers along this iconic corridor.”
Although that “enhanced infrastructure” is little more than paint, with the state applying $4.2 million worth of lane separators, crosswalk striping, more visible road striping, speed limit markings, more speed limit and curve warning signs, pavement upgrades, bike lanes and pedestrian access, reaching from the McClure Tunnel in Santa Monica to the Ventura County line.
And as we all know, a little bit of paint and road signs urging people to drive safely is all it takes to bring bad driver behavior and traffic violence screeching to a halt.
Right?
While there may be some modest benefit to the program, it represents a continuation of the state’s policy of just tinkering at the edges, investing as little money and effort as possible to do something to improve safety without inconveniencing all those people cruising down the highway in their hermetically sealed vehicles.
When what’s actually needed is a wholesale re-imagination of the deadly corridor, which is currently engineered to encourage speeding, to turn it into Malibu’s commercial Main Street and beachfront byway, instead of a highway designed to maximize throughput and funnel as many cars through as quickly as possible.
Adding a little more paint, posting more speed limit signs and urging drivers to “Go Safely” is the least they can do.
According the WeHo Online Community News, the city is moving forward with “highly controversial plans to install protected bicycle lanes on Fountain Avenue, Willoughby Avenue, Gardner Avenue and eventually Santa Monica Boulevard, at the cost of increased vehicle congestion and a loss of street parking.”
As if city officials had somehow just rubber stamped the coalition’s “wish list,” without determining whether the changes were actually needed or wanted.
Anyone who has tried to ride in or through the city is undoubtedly aware that cars and the people in them currently dominate the lion’s share of the city streets, with a few relatively minor and mostly unsafe exceptions.
Adding protected bike lanes and other safety improvements simply rebalances the equation to provide safe spaces for people outside of car, while improving safety for everyone on the street. Yet still largely maintaining the current automotive hegemony.
But evidently, they just want all the streets themselves, and the hell with anyone else.
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A new report concludes that 8% of deaths among homeless people in Los Angeles was due to traffic violence.
The only real surprise is that the number is so low.
NEW: 8% of unhoused deaths in 2022 were from "transportation-related injuries," according to a new LA Public Health report on homeless deaths. Traffic deaths among unhoused people occurred approximately every other day in 2021 and 2022. @LATACOpic.twitter.com/gsAu1RMKyM
Burbank is building a protected bikeway along Front Street – just south of the 5 Freeway – connecting to downtown Burbank Metrolink Station. See construction notice below https://t.co/seAvEKiOOn
Connecticut is considering a lottery for their next round of ebike vouchers, anticipating that demand for the vouchers will far outstrip supply. Which makes a hell of a lot more sense than California’s plan to start and stop the voucher program every two months to allow them to better mismanage it.
No bias here. British actor Nigel Havers claimed that “no cars go through a red light,” while “every cyclist does.”A bizarre assertion that’s demonstrably false on both counts, apparently based on the extensive knowledge of traffic safety he gained starring in Chariots of Fire.
Speaking of disgruntled British actors, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg posted a video that may or may not have been an attempt at humor, showing himself passing bike riders as he drives, while telling bicyclists to “fuck off,” “get out of the way,” “just because you can ride two-abreast, doesn’t mean you fucking have to”, and to “get out of the middle of the fucking road, dopey”. And to think I used to like that potty mouthed son of a mother.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Quebec mother blames bike lanes and scofflaw bicyclists after her four-year old daughter was “assaulted” by a woman riding a bicycle, who apparently ignored the stop signs on a school bus, and slammed head on into the little girl as she crossed the bike lanes to get to her bus.
Then again, Londoners may have some reason for concern after all, after a dog walker in the city’s Regent Park suffered multiple skull fractures to her eye socket, jawbone and cheekbone, as well as musculoskeletal injuries, when she was struck by a speeding bicyclist who strayed onto the wrong side of the road to pass a car, at the same spot where another bike rider had killed an 81-year old woman.
The Daily Mail bizarrely asserts that all drivers observe the 20 mph speed limit, while bicyclists routinely ignore it; one bike rider was clocked doing 32 mph. Maybe British drivers are different, but the idea that all, or even most, drivers in the US routinely observe any speed limit would be laughable.
Meanwhile, a British columnist insists that when he rides a bike, he does everything right, just like he does when he’s driving. But all those other bad, bad bike riders should have to wear numbered plates, and face a new law criminalizing scofflaw bicyclists, who he claims are “even more touchy as a group than almost any other I can think of.”
Santa Monica’s Sundays Cycles bike shop was vandalized because of the Israeli flag the owner hung in the window following the October 7th Hamas attack, as someone wrote “Free Palestine” across the window. Although I’d hesitate to call a little easy-to-remove graffiti “vandalism,” whether or not you disagree with the sentiment.
Calbike condemns the governor’s draconian cuts to the state’s Active Transportation Program, arguing that, despite the state’s massive $40+ billion budget deficit, there is no deficit in the transportation budget. And never mind that Gov. Newsom could maintain programs aimed at reducing climate change, while actually furthering the state’s climate goals, by cutting highway funding, instead.
Bakersfield bicyclists are forming an all-volunteer Kern River Bike Patrol, to “promote safety, offer an informed trail presence, trailside information, bike safety advice, flat tire assistance and simple bike repair, as well as first aid skills and other assistance” along the popular bike path on the river’s banks.
After nine stages, Tadej Pogačar continues to lead the Giro, with a two minute 40 second margin, with Daniel Martinez second and Geraint Thomas a surprising third, after Olav Koolj of the Netherlands took the stage win.
In February testimony to the L.A. City Council (minute 3:00:40), City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo stated that “[Measure HLA] will be effective five weeks – roughly five weeks – after the election, should the voters approve the item.”
“What that means is that,” Szabo continued, “this body [City Council] will be asked to make funding decisions immediately.”
The city could have made contingency plans in case it passed, especially since the city council had promised to come up with an even better alternative HLA last year, but never followed through.
And now they have to scramble to come up with something in just the next few weeks.
Even though neither ones even gone into effect yet.
In defense of the free-spenders, guys like me have been blubbering in newspapers and on talk radio for eons about the consequences of budget deficits, yet the sun continues to rise each morning. Somehow, we stumble through each fiscal year with the usual headlines about layoffs and cutbacks to programs that help paper-over the shortfalls. We’re already reading about school closures, hiring freezes and the inevitable layoffs resulting from HLA and previous spending binges, including Mayor Karen Bass’s homelessness initiatives and LAPD hiring plans. Those who lose their jobs or have their program cut will pay the price. But as long as it’s not our job in jeopardy, as long as somebody else’s taxes get raised… shampoo, rinse, repeat. We’ve seen this movie before. Fiscal “Groundhog Day.”
So for anyone unclear on the subject, literally no one has lost their job because of HLA. Nor has a single school closed as a result of the ballot measure.
Or is likely to.
If anything, HLA could mean additional hiring to implement the city’s mobility plan as streets are resurfaced. And even if the city somehow faced budget problems as a result of the measure, it could compensate by just slowing down the street resurfacing program.
Never mind that most of the $3.1 billion that City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo spuriously projected as the cost for the measure was actually for sidewalk repairs the city is already obligated for as the result of a previous court settlement.
Or that school funding has absolutely nothing to do with the city budget.
But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good political screed?
The story reports that 32 bicyclists have been injured along the one-mile bike lane since 2020, raising questions about its safety. Although the only way to judge whether it has increased risk is to compare it to the number and severity of any injuries before it was installed.
Tragically, Currie’s four children are now orphaned, after their mother died of cancer in 2019.
Thanks to Phillip Young and Malcomb Watson for the heads-up.
Tragic news from Honolulu, where two people riding bicycles were collateral damage when a 20-year old speeding driver lost control of his vehicle, hit a utility pole, and landed in the crosswalk they were riding in.
A 24-year old Colorado woman was arrested in Arkansas, two months after she fled the Rocky Mountain state to avoid charges for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle; she’s accused of knocking the 43-year old victim off his bike and over an embankment, and taking his bike to hide evidence of the crime.
Life is cheap in England, where dashcam video captured a careless driver crash into two women bicyclists, resulting in life-changing injuries to both victims, yet the 20-year driver got just ten lousy months behind bars, and was banned from driving for two years. If you ever wonder why people keep dying on the streets, slap-on-the-wrist sentences like this are a good place to start.
Evidently, some people just don’t like separated bike lanes.
