We’re now 13 days into LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Okay, I’m back.
It’s been a challenging few days, as my wife and I are still coughing from all the smoke we sucked in evacuating from the Sunset Fire.
But we’re safe, and in our home, unlike so many others affected by last week’s firestorms.
All of which feeds into the complicated mix of emotions I’ve confronted for the past few days.
Starting with the gratitude I feel for still having somewhere to come home to, and the firefighters who made a heroic stand to save our entire neighborhood.
However, that’s often overshadowed by the overwhelming sadness that so much of the city I love now stands in ruins, iconic neighborhoods and favored riding routes forever changed. Combined with that is survivors guilt, because we’re safe, while so many others have lost everything.
Never mind that the worst we went through was having to spend a night in an overpriced Hollywood hotel.
I feel much as I did after 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. Except this time it’s right here, affecting the people and places I know and love.
And I find myself worrying about the people who have supported this site for so long.
I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are safe as I write this. But if you’ve been affected by the wildfires, let me know. Tell me if you have a crowdfunding page, or if there’s anything we can do to help.
We probably can’t find you a new home or car, but someone here might have an extra room or a spare bicycle if you need one.
Today’s photo shows the glow from the Sunset Fire just moment after ignition; within a few minutes, that same street would be completely gridlocked.
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While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about last week’s panicked mass evacuation through the gridlocked streets of Hollywood.
The narrow streets of our neighborhood were jammed with people trying to get out, cars, trucks and SUVs crammed bumper to bumper, and instantly converted to one-way streets with no room left to go upstream to spawn.
If a wind-driven fire had flashed through the neighborhood, like it did in Pacific Palisades and Altadena just one day earlier, there would have been no escape.
And unlike the 2018 Paradise Fire, there wasn’t a single road diet or bike lane anyone could blame it on.
Just too many people in too many cars, with streets filled far beyond capacity.
Yet someone on a bicycle could have easily made their escape in just minutes, gliding to safety past endless lines of motor vehicles. Then again, you could have walked your bike out faster than anyone managed to drive.
And if everyone had been riding bicycles, there would have been no backup at all.
But if you try it nest time, just wear a mask. Because that smoke is murder.
Then again, using a bike seems to work the other way, too.
He rode a bike through the gridlock to get to his dogs. https://t.co/6SIW9X3ZLT
— Let's Get Neighborhood Approval to Save the Planet (@ChrisByBike) January 11, 2025
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Caltrans offers an update on the latest road closures due to the fires.
https://twitter.com/CaltransDist7/status/1878623771093066025
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Our old friend Richard Masoner, aka Cyclelicious, forwards news of a bicycle-adjacent opportunity to buy a meal for a firefighter from Los Angeles farm-to-table restaurant Le Great Outdoor.
You can also donate to Chef Andre’s World Central Kitchen to help feed people affected by the wildfires in Southern California. Why he hasn’t already won the Nobel Peace Prize, I will never understand.
Meanwhile, The Bike Shop Santa Monica is offering half-priced ebikes to evacuees.
And Masoner forwards the news below that Helen’s Cycles is loaning ebikes to people affected by the fires so they can go check on their homes.
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Lost in all the fire news was word that Vanroy Evan Smith was found competent to stand trial last month, two years after he allegedly murdered a Providence Mission Hospital ER physician.
Dr. Michael Mammone was riding in the bike lane on northbound PCH in Dana Point when Smith is accused of intentionally running him down with his car in a random attack, then getting out and repeatedly stabbing the beloved doctor.
Smith, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, allegedly told police he had intended to kill someone that day.
And he succeeded.
Smith was ordered held without bail on one count of murder, along with sentencing enhancements for the alleged use a deadly weapon and lying in wait for his victim.
The hearing was held to determine his competency after two years of treatment and evaluation by mental health experts.
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While we were gone, NACTO — aka the National Association of City Transportation Officials — released their updated Bicycle Design Guide, newly revised for the first time in a decade.
Here’s how they describe the new document.
Developed for cities, by cities, the Urban Bikeway Design Guide is a blueprint for changing decades-old practices on city streets. Endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation and recognized in federal law, the Urban Bikeway Design Guide is used by hundreds of municipalities, state DOTs, and regional agencies across the U.S. and Canada to design streets that are safe and accessible for people biking. Because of the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, treatments such as protected bike lanes are now commonplace across the U.S. and Canada…
The new edition includes detailed policy, planning, and project development guidance to ensure connected bikeable streets become standard practice. It also shows how to center equity and access in every step of planning and implementing a bike network–addressing inequities caused by the transportation system and building collaborative partnerships with historically marginalized groups of residents.
With more detailed technical guidance than previous editions, the Guide points the way for cities to plan and implement bike networks that account for the many different types of people who may be using the street. The third edition also reflects the increasing use of new types of vehicles using bike infrastructure and features best practices to integrate more types of bikeway users–including those riding e-bikes, scooters, and cargo bikes–into the design process. More detailed intersection design practices focus on improving safety for everyone–walking, biking, scooting, and driving.
It will be available in hardcover and ebook editions starting tomorrow.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A 72-year old Florida man will have to attend anger management classes for attacking an 82-year old man riding a bicycle, after the two men argued when the younger man told the bike rider to “get a horn” as he tried to pass him and his dogs.
Good for them. The UK’s Bicycle Association filed a formal complaint against the BBC for a commentator’s alleged hatchet job attacking the “safety and social issues” surrounding ebikes, while conflating “illegal e-motorbikes” with road-legal ebikes.
The Swiss Roads Office is considering taxing bicyclists to help fund a 15-year program to build bike lanes, even though bicycles are enshrined in the country’s constitution.
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Local
Letter writers in the Los Angeles Times respond to a rare positive look at ebikes by complaining about rude, sidewalk riding, helmet-less and smartphone distracted bicyclists who don’t use all the new bike lanes. But at least one enlightened writer points out that bikes can’t block traffic when they are traffic.
Velo says the Los Angeles bicycling community is rallying around beloved members who lost homes in the wildfires, including links to their crowdfunding pages. I’m personally heartbroken to hear the news about my friend and former Altadena councilmember Dorothy “Dot” Wong.
While the owner of Altadena’s Steve’s Bike Shop was using a garden house to help save the homes of his friends and neighbors, his own bike shop burned to the ground.
A photographer for the Pasadena Star-News shares his horrific images of his Altadena hometown on fire, saying all the streets and avenues rode on his bike and skateboard growing up are unrecognizable now.
State
Calbike reports that new studies show there are no downsides to the Bicycle Safety Stop, aka Stop As Yield, aka Idaho Stop Law. Which makes it even harder to understand why Gavin Newsom has vetoed the bill twice.
Calbike also argues that California’s transportation budget must prioritize green transportation, after two years of Newsom’s steep budget cuts to the state’s Active Transportation Program.
Electrek says “the heyday of fast and questionably (or clearly) illegal” ebike brand SUPER73 seems to be coming to an end thanks to California’s new ebike restrictions.
A series of bike lanes and sidewalks will be closed in Carlsbad and Encinitas for about eight weeks starting later this month to build ADA-compliant ramps.
A 51-year-old San Diego man appears to have been the victim of bad road design, after he suffered multiple fractures when he was struck by a pickup driver while riding in the bike lane on the the 5100 block of Fairmount Ave; he was rear-ended when he evidently veered across the northbound transition ramp from Montezuma Road to reach the disjointed bike lane on the other side.
Life is cheap in Riverside County, where a judge overruled the DA’s objection, and sentenced Riverside County sheriff’s deputy Christian J. Lopez to a misdemeanor diversion program for killing 33-year old bike rider Christopher Thomas while driving a marked patrol car back in 2023; we still don’t know why Lopez was charged, or why charges weren’t filed until last month.
National
An upcoming video game allows you to experience a world build around bicycles. Just like every world should be.
Bicycling rates the 20 best-ever bike documentaries, movies and TV series. You can read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. And if you somehow haven’t seen The Triplets of Belleville, stop reading this and go watch it, already.
Justin Timberlake is one of us, responding to a viral video urging him to join a couple hundred kids and their parents for the weekly Portland Bike Bus when he was in town for a performance — and he did.
A Seattle bike rider is suing the city, claiming that a new parking-protected bike lane obscured sight lines and caused a collision that left him with a life-threatening traumatic brain injury. I’m seeing anecdotal reports of bike riders injured by bollards or curbs separating bike lanes, but every study I’ve seen indicates that protected bike lanes improve safety; if that ever changes, I’ll let you know.
A Reno, Nevada website says the political climate has changed, and it’s time for the city’s bike advocates to resume their efforts now that there’s more public support.
What could possibly go wrong? Montana legislators introduced legislation requiring all bicyclists to ride against traffic, unless accompanied by a flagged motor vehicle escort, in an apparent attempt to thin the herd by increasing the risk bicyclists face.
An Iowa law professor takes issue with prioritizing street design to reduce traffic deaths under Vision Zero, calling for increased traffic enforcement instead of — or at least, in addition to — traffic calming measures. Even though more than a century of an emphasis on traffic enforcement hasn’t managed to reduce deaths on the streets and highways.
International
Introducing folding tires for folding bikes, and baby onesie bodysuits for your future Tour de France champ.
Cyclist ranks last year’s best bike books. Evidently they haven’t managed to find a copy of Peter Flax’s excellent over there in the UK.
A British bike rider calls a security guard “an absolute hero” for successfully fighting off a bike thief using an angle grinder to steal his bike, even as the guard got badly cut up in the process.
A multiple UK national cycling champ says it just feels wrong that riding a bicycle is more dangerous than stepping off a cliff with wings strapped to your back.
Brompton can’t launch their new ebike line because the controllers they need are busy being used for Ukrainian military drones.
The Cycling Embassy of Denmark is inviting urban planners, decision-makers and bike activists to Copenhagen for May’s Bikeable City Masterclass to learn how to incorporate Danish cycling solutions into their own cities.
One of India’s most successful stars was one of us, though she may not have remembered it for awhile, after she suffered shirt-term memory loss falling from her bicycle while filming a classic Bollywood film.
An Australian university lecturer says a pair of Dutch and Chinese studies show ebikes pose a higher risk of death than other bicycles, when controlling the data for usage rates and mileage. Which probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially when throttle-controlled virtual electric motorcycles are lumped in with comparatively slower ped-assist ebikes.
Competitive Cycling
Recently retired Dutch pro Michael Mørkøv says the idea that cycling’s top performers are doping is inconceivable. Although it’s sadly quite conceivable for those of us who lived through doping’s golden era.
Speaking of dopers, Lance might want to come out of retirement, now that the new Enhanced Games will offer a doping-friendly alternative to the Olympics where it’s not only accepted, but encouraged.
Former Slovakian superstar Peter Sagan is exchanging his cycling shoes for dancing slippers to compete in the country’s equivalent of Dancing With the Stars.
Finally…
Where the hell do bike model names come from, anyway? Now you, too, can turn your favorite bicycle into a front-loading bucket bike.
And nothing like riding the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest every 2.85 days for a hundred straight days.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
