Just 76 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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Western was supposed to get bike lanes, until it wasn’t, apparently.
Which could be a Measure HLA violation.
Or not.
Ken Shima forwards news that Western Avenue and 1st Street in San Pedro recently got a makeover, adding a central turn lane — while removing space for a long-promised bike lane.
LA’s Mobility Plan 2035, which subsumed the city’s 2010 bike plan, includes bike lanes on Western. That means they have been planned for at least 14 years; according to Ken, they were finally scheduled to be installed in 2027.
But the new center turn lane recently installed by the city removed curbside parking, moving the right traffic lane right up to the gutter.
And in the process, removed any possible space for the promised bike lane.
Which means that unless the city is planning a road diet, they are no longer planning on the promised bike lanes.
Yet Measure HLA, which passed with an overwhelming majority earlier this year, requires the implementation of any street safety measures contained in the mobility plan anytime an eighth-mile or more of street gets resurfaced.
And that looks like more than an eighth-mile to me.
But maybe they’re trying to get around HLA by restriping the street without resurfacing.
Ken tells me he’s reached out to Councilmember Tim McOsker’s office, which represents the district, for clarification.
It will be interesting to see how they respond.
If they do.
All photos by Ken Shima
Western Ave prior to restriping
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Over the weekend, I wrote about the unexplained death of a bike rider in Del Mar Saturday morning.
All we knew at the time was that he fall after somehow losing control of his bike on the 1900 block of Jimmy Durante Blvd.
I speculated about various possible causes, but without more information, all I could do was guess.
However, there’s no word on why he may have lost control. It’s possible he could have struck a pothole or some sort of obstacle while riding at speed, lost a tire, or been the victim of a too-close pass — which would make it hit-and-run.
There’s also no word on whether he had a cycling computer or Strava account that could shed some light on what happened. So unless investigators find a witness or video of the crash, we may never know the cause.
Now longtime San Diego bike advocate Serge Issakov visits the scene to fill in the blanks.
Issakov reports the site is at the bottom of a descent with a typical 4% grade, where road cyclists typically reach speeds of 26 to 30 mph, while a KOM could be somewhere in the 40 mph range.
The typical car-ticker plastic bollards show clear signs of being run over more than once, and would likely have been virtually invisible under the typical Del Mar marine layer — let alone if there was any coastal fog or haze in the morning hour.
But even without hitting the post, the cracks visible in the pavement could have easily destabilized the victim, which could have been enough to send him into the curb or the grate in the gutter, and onto the sidewalk.
And at those speeds, it might not have mattered whether he was wearing a helmet.
All I can say, after watching Issakov’s video, is I hope the victim’s family has a good lawyer.
If not, I can sure as hell recommend one.
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Talk about misreading the data.
The former Streets Officer for London TravelWatch says ebike crashes are pushing up bicycling death rates in the Netherlands, while the bicycling death rate is declining in the UK.
So why, he asks, is Britain still trying to emulate the Dutch?
Even though the Netherlands has a far greater rate of bicycling, a higher ebike adoption rate, and a much lower per capita rate of bike deaths.
And even though the major reason deaths are declining in the UK has been the adoption of Dutch traffic designs.
But other than that, he seems to have nailed it.
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It’s now an even 300 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 40 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
She gets it. Dame Sarah Storey, Britain’s most successful paracyclist and the Active Travel Commissioner for Manchester, England, says don’t believe what business owners will tell you, because businesses closing after a new bike lane goes in is a “coincidence, not an unexpected consequence.”
British bicyclists were properly horrified by a recent column in the conservative Telegraph newspaper that called for driving dangerous bike riders off the road, as Tory MPs ignored bike safety in calling for a crackdown. I wanted to link to the original Telegraph piece yesterday, but it disappeared behind the paper’s paywall before I could.
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Local
Is anyone really surprised that Los Angeles has already exceeded its $87 million budget for liability claims by a whopping $10 million, just three months into the fiscal year?
Bike Culver City held a vigil last night to mark the city’s latest pedestrian death, after a man was killed on particularly dangerous stretch of National Blvd near Turning Point School last month.
State
Smart Cities Dive examines the nine bike-friendly bills signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, along with the two he didn’t.
Tragic news from Orange County, where a man was fatally shot while riding his bicycle in unincorporated Anaheim Sunday night.
This year’s MS 150 Bay to Bay Bike Tour down the coast of Orange and San Diego counties will be dedicated to the late KTLA-5 entertainment anchor and longtime bicyclist Sam Rubin.
Santa Barbara plans a crackdown on wheelie-popping teens and scofflaw ebike riders.
A 73-year old Humboldt Bay woman celebrates the jolting joys of riding an ebike, after a lifetime of riding more traditional bikes.
National
Red Bull offers a potentially life-changing beginner’s guide to bicycling.
A new study by Harvard researchers suggest you never forget how to ride a bike because it’s stored deep in your cerebellum.
The Bureau of Land Management wants to know whether you want to see ebikes on the world-class trails of Moab, Utah.
Kansas will invest over $31 million to enhance walkable and bikeable routes throughout the state.
No surprise here, as New York’s predominantly Latino and Black West Harlem still doesn’t have a single bike lane, ten years after the city adopted Vision Zero.
International
A new European study shows people who don’t wear bike helmets usually skip it for comfort and convenience, but free helmets, education and nagging might help.
The ancestral home of Pembroke Welsh corgis was forced to cut back the availability of their e-bikeshare system because too many of the ebikes needed repair work, raising fears of vandalism.
Over 8,000 bicyclists turned up with wool jerseys and vintage bicycles for this year’s Tuscan L’Eroica in Siena, Italy.
A German truck driver will spend the next four years in an Italian jail after he was sentenced for the hit-and-run death of former Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin; Rebellin, a three-time winner of Fleche Wallonne, as well as winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Amstel Gold Race, was run down while he was on a training ride.
A new Australian study released in advance of tomorrow’s National Ride to Work Day shows a whopping 40% of commuters currently bike to work, a number that could rise to 72% if they could work closer to home.
Competitive Cycling
Champion triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt says he’s putting his dreams of competing in the Tour de France on hold, because he’d take too big a financial hit jumping from his role as the world’s top triathlete to the WorldTour.
There’s something very fishy about this podium prize for Japan’s Tour de Kyushu.
Finally…
Now you, too, can bike an extended century in your bloomers. Your next cycling shoe could be a sock.
And pissing off bicyclists since, well, now.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
