Tag Archive for Roundabouts

How LA’s inaction led to a child’s death, LADOT “improves” safety by restoring parking, and CicLAvia rolls again

Day 230 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Of course he gets it.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Streets For All founder Michael Schneider says fourth-grader Nadir Gavarrete did not have to die in a Koreatown intersection earlier this month.

Nadir Gavarrete was riding an e-scooter along with his 19-year old brother when they were run down by a drunk driver, who was accused of blowing through a stop sign to make a left turn.

A stop sign, and an intersection, that shouldn’t have still been there.

Koreatown is one of the densest parts of Los Angeles — at 44,000 people per square mile, it’s more crowded than most New York City boroughs. Nearly every major street in Koreatown is on the city’s “high injury network” list — the 6% of streets that cause 70% of the traffic injuries and deaths. In other words, L.A. knows how dangerous Koreatown’s streets can be.

As a result, 14 years ago, in 2011, L.A. applied for a federal grant to improve safety along several city streets, specifically choosing to focus on the intersection of New Hampshire and 4th for one of its projects. The city won the grant money and kicked off community meetings to discuss installing a roundabout at the intersection, as well as adding enhanced crosswalks and other safety improvements to the immediate area.

Needless to say, a decade-and-a-half later, nothing has happened, this being Los Angeles and all.

Except for yet another needless death, added to a long and ever-growing list of failure.

What will it take for Los Angeles to have a sense of urgency in actually making our streets safer? We currently spend more on legal settlements to those hurt and killed on our streets than we do on Vision Zero, the city’s half-baked effort to reduce traffic deaths. Since Los Angeles declared itself a Vision Zero City in 2015, with the ultimate aim of having no one killed in car crashes on city streets by 2025, deaths and injuries have only gotten worse. In the last few years we’ve had at least three children hit and killed while walking to school. And yet the city’s leaders — facing a budget crisis, much of it of their own making — perpetually underfund LADOT and street safety in general.

Good question.

It’s worth taking a few minutes to read the whole thing.

Because the more things change in this city of fallen angels, the more they stay the same.

And that’s not a good thing.

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Good news and bad news, as LADOT announced plans to remove peak-hour lanes on a number of low-traffic streets throughout the city in an effort to improve safety.

The lanes currently prohibit parking during morning and/or evening rush hours, too often turning them into high speed traffic lanes.

However, the bad news is, instead of converting the lanes to full-time bus or bike lanes, the city is restoring parking throughout the day. Which doesn’t actually improve safety for anyone, just trading one problem for another.

LADOT dangles the possibility of converting the lanes to some other, better use at some undisclosed future time. Although given the city’s financial problems — due in large part to those legal settlements referenced above — that day could be years, or even decades, off.

If ever.

LADOT Begins First Phase of Peak-Hour Lane Removal

LADOT has begun implementing the first phase of a citywide initiative to improve safety and access to street parking by removing peak-hour travel lanes and restoring full-time parking. This initiative, directed by the Los Angeles City Council, aims to enhance safety, improve access, and support the City’s long-term mobility goals.

Phase 1 of this initiative focuses on low-traffic corridors, restoring street parking on corridors where traffic volume is below determined thresholds. Future phases will examine higher-volume streets and may propose alternative uses for peak-hour lanes, such as dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, or expanded pedestrian zones. LADOT will conduct outreach and collaborate with community stakeholders as future phases move forward, ensuring that proposed changes align with neighborhood needs.

In addition to providing greater parking availability to support surrounding businesses, these changes are expected to have minimal impact on congestion while improving street safety, with reduced speeding, fewer collisions, and improved visibility for people walking and biking.

The specific corridors selected for Phase 1 of peak-hour lane removal are:

  • Alpine St, from N. Spring to Yale
  • Alvarado St, Northbound, from James M. Wood to 7th
  • Beverly Blvd, from Rampart to Witmer
  • Broadway, Northbound, from 2nd to 1st
  • College St, from New Depot to Alameda
  • Crenshaw Blvd, from Florence to 59th St
  • La Tijera Blvd, Northbound, from Thornburn to Knowlton
  • Melrose Ave, from Vermont to Virgil
  • Nordhoff St, Westbound, from Corbin to Canoga
  • Pico Blvd, Westbound, from Overland to Sepulveda
  • Ventura Blvd, Eastbound, from Farralone to Tampa
  • Victory Blvd, from Lankershim to Clybourn
  • Washington Blvd, from Vermont to Flower
  • Washington Blvd, Eastbound, from Redondo to La Brea and from Wellington to Crenshaw

Thanks to Dr. Grace Peng for the heads-up.

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A writer for Circling the News was the first to post a report from yesterday’s Culver City meets Venice CicLAvia.

And the first thing they noticed was the bad shape of the road around Venice and Abbot Kinney, saying it was easy to notice if you’re trying to dodge pavement problems.

The second thing seemed to be members of White People 4 Black Lives, several accident attorneys and the Venice High School Cheerleaders handing out free water along the route, the latter as they tried to raise funds.

And yes, it seems a good time was had by all.

Although I had to miss it because of my wife’s health problems, since she still hasn’t bounced back enough to go herself, or to be left at home alone.

Meanwhile, the Militant Angeleno’s guide to highlights along the route was posted too late to link to before the CicLAvia, but you can still check it out to see what you missed.

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

No bias here. A 55-year old Miami man claims he was arrested just for touching a police cruiser, as he tried to ride around the patrol car stopped in a bike lane; police claim he intentionally hit the car hard enough to dent it “four to five times.”

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

A 12-year old Singapore girl was hospitalized after she was knocked cold by a 51-year old man on fixie while riding her bicycle; the older man was being investigated for a “rash act causing hurt.”

A Brisbane, Australia writer offers a carrot and stick solution to the problem of scofflaw bicyclists, saying the answer is more bike paths, while forcing bike riders to wear registration numbers.

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Local 

Two women were arrested for shooting another woman in the arm on Sepulveda Blvd in Culver City earlier this month, in an attempt to steal the victim’s ebike; a search of their apartment also turned up two assault rifles with high-capacity magazines, ammunition and a kilo of suspected cocaine.

 

State

Mark your calendar for September 4th, when the Orange County Transportation Authority will hold a webinar to discuss the OCTA Bikeways Connectivity Study to expand options for bikeways across Orange County.

A mom writing for the Times of San Diego explains how to select the right bicycle for your kids.

California Streetsblog reports on Bike Bakersfield and Calbike teaming up to “flip the script” on a “ludicrous” grand jury report decrying efforts to implement bicycle safety measures.

A local website reports bicycling and pedestrian deaths in Watsonville far outpace the average in Santa Cruz County, and considers four ways to make the city streets safer.

 

National

ABC News says the deadly 85th Percentile Rule that allows drivers to set speed limits with a heavy right foot could finally be on the way out.

Great idea. The White Line — the bicycle safety group founded by the parents of fallen Team USA cyclist Magnus White — put a group of Colorado lawmakers on a bus, and drove them around for a series of mobile town halls to show them the impact crashes have on vulnerable road users.

I want to be like her when I grow up. A Missoula, Montana woman calls a local octogenarian, peacemaker and bicycle evangelist her hero and mentor, the 87-year old woman is known throughout the community for riding around town in a bright vest, with her dog in her basket.

Chicago Streetsblog says yes, the city has a long way to go to become bike friendly, but People For Bikes’ use of it as a poster child for bicycling problems is just a joke.

New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare will now require users to prove they’re over 16 to use the service.

Florida — yes, Florida — is now the first state in the nation to offer ebike education as part of the regular curriculum, at least in some schools.

A 54-year old Miami man riding a bicycle on the city’s deadly Rickenbacker Causeway was killed when he was struck by two kids riding an electric dirt bike.

 

International

Momentum ranks the ten best European city’s for bicycling and the best time to visit, including four French cities, led by Paris.

An op-ed from a Calgary, Alberta bike advocate urges local drivers not to fear road diets, arguing that they can ease the city’s traffic woes.

An expat website explains how to get around the Netherlands by bike like a local.

Here’s another one for your bicycle bucket list, as Travel + Leisure recommends a 560-mile bike trail through France’s Loire Valley, exploring a unique blend of ancient Gaelic history, Renaissance châteaus, and ancient vineyards.

A 65-year old Tallahassee, Florida high school teacher and tennis coach stopped in Madrid, Spain, a little less than a quarter of the way on his attempt to become the oldest person a bike around the world.

 

Competitive Cycling

Remco Evenepoel will now be on the same team as Primož Roglič, as Roglič says he hopes they can do great things together, after the Belgian star signed with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe cycling team.

 

Finally…

Your next car could be a bike.

No, seriously, that’s all we’ve got this time. 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

LA adopts mini-superblock pilot; Baldwin Park roundabout popup tomorrow; and Shoup, Butler honored as top urbanists

Happy Bastille Day!

Celebrate by riding a French bike today. Or at least riding to a French bistro. 

Photo by Alex Azabache from Pexels.

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Somehow, we missed this one earlier in the week.

According to Smart Cities Dive, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a pilot program for “park blocks,” which will reroute traffic around a single block to create carfree spaces for pedestrians.

The program is based on Barcelona, Spain’s superblocks, which channel cars around 1,300-foot spaces for living, shopping and dining.

The first such project will be installed in disgraced Councilmember Kevin de León’s 14th Council District, after he proposed creation of the program last year.

According to the website,

Park blocks can be tailored to communities’ needs, with features such as bike lanes and wider sidewalks, de León said. They can also provide “substantial shade, outdoor recreation, greening and storm water capture in communities desperate for parks,” according to a report by the Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee…

Equity will be a focus of the program in Council District 14, which has a large Latino population and high proportion of low-income households, de León said. “The park blocks program emphasizes a participatory approach,” he said. “It allows residents to have a say in the design and implementation of the program in their neighborhoods.”

Let’s hope it spreads across the city.

And that isn’t allowed to die of benign neglect like too many other urbanist programs the city has adopted.

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Baldwin Park will host a roundabout popup demonstration from 9 am to 1 pm tomorrow at the intersection of Maine Ave and Olive Street, complete with coffee and pastries for everyone in attendance.

According to a press release from the city,

The “Reimagine Olive/Maine” demonstration roundabout this week will be the newest addition to the street network in the city of Baldwin Park. The City’s Public Works Department started one week of construction on the temporary, street safety project on July 5 at the intersection of Maine Avenue and Olive Street.

The Baldwin Park City Council will hold a demonstration event at that intersection on Saturday, July 15 starting at 9 a.m. to present the street improvements to the community and the media. The demonstration will include remarks by Mayor Emmanuel J. Estrada and Councilmember Alejandra Avila, as well as numerous vehicles passing through the modern roundabout…

Roundabouts are known for their ability to enhance traffic flow compared to traffic signals. Their circular design eliminates the need for traffic signals, allowing vehicles to efficiently merge into circulating traffic and continuously flow without the interruption caused by signal phasing. This results in reduced travel times, improved fuel efficiency, decreased traffic congestion and reduced dangerous behaviors by drivers, such as running red lights or stop signs.

Roundabouts have been shown to reduce injury crashes by 75 percent and fatality crashes by 90 percent at intersections where stop signs or signals were previously used for traffic control, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Roundabouts also reduce the severity of crashes that do occur because they are designed to reduce the speed of vehicles. Roundabouts are especially effective during peak traffic hours when congestion is a concern.

Roundabouts also generate health benefits through the reduced pollution and traffic noise resulting from slower speeds and eliminating the wait for a traffic light to change. Without traffic lights, residents will save on the around-the-clock cost of powering traffic signals and the periodic cost of maintaining them. Residents also don’t have to worry about traffic signals at this intersection failing during a disaster, ensuring smooth traffic flow around a landscaped roundabout even during an emergency…

To learn more about the roundabout demonstration project, read the City’s staff report. Residents who would like to provide input on the project may do so using this online survey.

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Congratulations to UCLA parking meister and distinguished research professor Donald Shoup, and bike equity advocate and UCLA urban planning doctoral student Tamika Butler, who were both named to Planetizen’s latest list of the top 100 most influential urbanists from the past and present.

The pair were honored at #6 and #57, respectively.

New York’s legendary anti-Robert Moses activist Jane Jacobs tops the list, followed by architect and urban designer Jan Gehl, landscape architect, journalist, social critic and public administrator Frederick Law Olmsted, architect, an urban planner and co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism Andrés Duany, and modern architecture and planning pioneer Le Corbusier.

Which puts them in pretty damn good company.

Especially considering Shoup checks in one notch above current Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is rapidly transforming the sprawling French capital into a 15-minute city, while Butler comes in above legendary figures like Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., Thomas Jefferson and Henry Cisneros.

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

A security guard for a South Carolina family campground faces charges for using brass knuckles to assault a bike rider, repeatedly striking the victim in the face in an effort to steal their bicycle.

No bias here. A British letter writer says bicyclists should be forced to pay for their own bike paths, since “anyone with eyes to see” can tell they prefer to ride on the sidewalk. If people would rather ride on the sidewalk than in the street, it’s a pretty good indication that the streets are too damn dangerous.

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

Police in Orlando, Florida are on the lookout for a bike-riding rustler who guided a horse out of its trailer, then rode off on his bike towing the horse behind him.

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Local 

Around 40 at-risk kids received new bicycles last Saturday, thanks to the Golden State Foods Foundation and Brotherhood Crusade’s Build a Bike Program; the kids were allowed to take home the bikes they built themselves in the parking lot of the Black-owned Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper.

Long Beach will establish an Electric Bike Lending Library by the end of this year, which will allow residents to check out a bike for up to three months.

 

State

Bike rider and artist Kathleen King-Page is looking for sites around the world for her colorful “bike scribbles” sculptures, which feature stylized bicyclists intended to capture the “joy and grace of motion” of riding a bike; she currently has the metal sculptures installed in five US states, including her native California.

That’s more like it. A hit-and-run driver got seven years behind bars for killing a 21-year old bike-riding Corona man; 25-year old Neomi Renee Velado was convicted on felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and hit-and-run causing injury or death. Her conviction followed four previous at-fault collisions, three of which occurred when she was distracted by her phone.

A San Mateo County grand jury put local cities under a microscope, concluding that they’ve made improvements on bicycle safety over the past two decades, but there’s more work to do.

Streetblog says another life was lost to traffic violence in San Francisco when a hit-and-run driver killed a pedestrian while the city’s police were busy trying to round up skateboarders taking part in an annual hill bomb.

San Francisco officials backed off plans to remove parking spaces for a bus-only lane on Geary Street, caving to business owner’s fears that the loss of a whole 70 parking spaces would somehow put them out of business. Because apparently, people who use transit never buy anything. 

 

National

That feeling when getting injured by a distracted pedestrian in a bike lane is the kind of meet-cute that can get you laid — on Sex and the City sequel And Just Like That…, anyway.

Forget the whole men are from Mars, and women from Venus thing. A new survey uncovers the real proof the sexes are different, as men want a Tesla ebike, while women want one made by Tiffany. But would it still come in a little blue box?

He gets it. A writer for Velo says Complete Streets aren’t complete if all they do is check a box to “satisfy those irritating environmentalists.”

A 20-year old New Mexico man faces murder charges after allegedly shooting a 62-year old minister and grandfather multiple times as he rode his mountain bike on a trail, shocking residents of the local community.

The family of fallen Colorado masters champ Gwen Inglis wants the right to maintain her ghost bike, after the city of Englewood ordered it removed because someone complained that it was dilapidated and disturbing to walk past. Which is kinda the point; ghost bikes are supposed to make you uncomfortable, and remind everyone to drive safely.

A member-supported Denver website takes a deep dive into why Denver’s Vision Zero program is failing, as traffic deaths reached their highest level of this century last year, just seven years before the the program’s 2030 deadline.

A 74-year old Long Island woman lost control after swerving to avoid people in a crosswalk, then hit the gas instead of the brakes, running into a 70-year old man on a bike before ending up in a nature preserve pond. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, and what the hell states are going to do about it. 

Connecticut’s $12 million ebike voucher program has received overwhelming demand, though not on the scale of Taylor Swift tickets, according to the program commissioner. That doesn’t bode well for California’s program, which will have $4.5 million less available for vouchers to serve a population nearly 11 times larger. 

 

International

Momentum provides a guide to buying your first foldie.

Bike Radar offers advice on how to treat road rash, which most longtime bike riders experience sooner or later. I once had road rash from my ankle to my chin after skidding across an eight-lane intersection when I lost control hitting a puddle while making a right turn at speed with a steep lean. Ouch. Or as the French say, aïe! 

The rich get richer, as London opens another ten low-traffic bikeways across the city.

A British city will resurface a dangerous bike lane after the uneven surface caused a man to fall off his bike, leaving him unconscious with a host of injuries. Sort of like the dangerously cracked surface of the newly expanded Venice Blvd protected bike lanes, which could easily cause an equally dangerous fall, if it hasn’t already.

You’ve got to be kidding. An Irish driver walked without a single day behind bars for running down a man who was on a leisurely Sunday bike ride, without even braking; she admitted to police that she just wasn’t looking when she smashed into the victim, who suffered spinal injuries and a broken ankle, can no longer walk or stand without pain, and is too afraid to ride a bike anymore. But at least she was really, really sorry. Right?

Belgian ebike maker Cowboy has ridden to the rescue of rival VanMoof ebike owners by releasing a free app to keep their bikes from being bricked if the company goes belly up. But if well-funded companies like VanMoof and Rad Power can’t make it, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the ebike industry.

Your next German-made bike helmet could inflate in just 20 seconds.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Belgium, where 25-year old Australian cyclist Connor Lambert was killed when he was struck by a truck driver while training on Wednesday; he was in Europe to mentor a junior cycling team called X-Speed.

Spanish cyclist Ion Izagirre rode to victory through the vineyards of Beaujolais with a 19-mile solo breakaway on Thursday’s 12th stage of the Tour de France, while 2022 winner Jonas Vingegaard stayed in yellow with a 17-second lead over two-time champ Tadej Pogacar; Colorado’s Sepp Kuss is the top American at 6:45 back.

Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen withdrew from the Tour de France after injuries he suffered in a crash on the 4th stage made it impossible for him to continue on to Paris.

Mark Cavendish isn’t talking about a possible return next year to try to break the legendary Eddy Merckx record for Tour de France stage wins, after surgery to fix a complicated collarbone fracture that forced him to withdraw from the Tour.

Velo talks with four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome about the snub from his Israel Premier Tech team that left him off the Tour roster, while the team’s owner says Froome “has absolutely not been value for money.” Schmuck.

 

Finally…

Merging beach cruisers and surfwear seems like such a natural fit, you have to wonder what took so long. Your next bike could have modular tubes, allowing you to reconfigure the shape of the frame.

And your next ebike might not even have a drivetrain.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Nothing to see hear — visit LA Streetsblog for my latest post

My apologies for not having anything new up here this morning. I spent last night writing a new post for L.A. Streetsblog about a simple way to correct a needless problem on Santa Monica’s Bay Street near the beach. You can see it here.