You can celebrate by getting out on your bike today and riding somewhere, anywhere. Because the best argument for more and better bicycling is seeing more people on them.
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No surprise here.
A new six-year, 28-city study shows that protected bike lanes resulted in 1.8 times greater bicycle commuter usage compared to standard bike lanes, 1.6 times greater than shared lanes — aka sharrows — and 4.3 times more than streets without any bicycle infrastructure.
Yes, that’s 430%.
Protected bike lanes also showed 52.5% greater bike commuting mileage than standard bike lanes, and a whopping 281.2% more than shared-lanes.
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The California Ebike Incentive Program offered an update on last week’s surprisingly successful round of voucher applications, and somehow managed to avoid patting themselves on the back for finally getting it right.
Although that legal disclaimer on the last line is a winner.
The Los Angeles Times says Gavin Newsom and the California legislature are preparing the biggest CEQA overhaul in a generation, as a result of national criticism that the state can’t build sufficient housing and public infrastructure anymore.
National
Over 22,000 people have signed a petition calling on the US Department of Transportation to prioritize funding for bicycling infrastructure in major US cities.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An 83-year old Sitka, Alaska man continues to ride, after switching to an ebike in his late 70s when he started having trouble keeping up with his younger friends.
A pair of New Jersey women will spend the next six years behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter for killing a 22-year old NYU graduate who was riding a bicycle on a state highway last year, while they were doing 90 mph in a 50 mph zone and illegally passing other vehicles on the shoulder.
Mexico News Daily says Isaac del Torro may have finished second in the Giro after losing to Simon Yates on the penultimate stage, but he won in the hearts of his countrymen.
October 3, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on A $7 million SD safety fail, U-T sharrows fail, and taking a pass on what passes for record CA traffic safety investment
Just 88 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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L’Shana Tova to everyone celebrating the new year today!
And apropos of nothing, I’m happy to report I wrote today’s entire post wearing a T-shirt with a bear riding a bicycle, as bears are wont to do.
Just saying.
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Call it a $7 million fail — one that ultimately cost the life of a San Diego bike rider.
That’s the amount the city paid out to the family of Marc Woolf, who died 17 months after he was struck by a pair of drivers and paralyzed from the next down, dying of sepsis 17 months later.
Woolf was on his way home from his job at the San Diego zoo in May, 2021 when a driver coming out of a blind driveway backed into him, knocking him onto the other side of the street, where he was hit again by second driver.
But instead of blaming the drivers, Woolf’s legal team accused the city of creating and maintaining poor road conditions.
The case highlights the potential dangers of “sharrows,” marked bike routes that require cars and bicycles to share portions of roadway instead of giving cyclists areas reserved only for them.
I’m no fan of sharrows, which studies have shown to be worse than nothing when it comes to protecting the safety of bike riders.
But that’s a discussion for another day.
The paper was clearly mistaken, at best, in blaming any and all sharrows for this particular crash, rather than the poorly designed and implemented sharrows on this one particular street.
I’ve heard that some San Diego bicyclists have called on the paper for a retraction.
And they may have a point this time.
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California is making a record investment in traffic safety and enforcement as traffic deaths continue to rise, according to the Governor’s office.
The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) is awarding a record $149 million in federal funding for 497 grants that expand safe biking and walking options and provide critical education and enforcement programs that will make roads safer throughout the state. This is the third consecutive year of historic funding, exceeding last year’s amount by $21 million.
Yet that record spending to “expand safe biking and walking options” includes just $13 million for bicycle and pedestrian safety programs, up a modest 12% from the previous grant cycle.
Even though bicyclists and pedestrians account for most, if not all, of the recent increase in traffic deaths.
Meanwhile, a whopping $51 million will go to law enforcement agencies to conduct what’s described as “equitable enforcement targeting the most dangerous driving behaviors such as speeding, distracted and impaired driving, as well as support education programs focused on bicycle and pedestrian safety.”
In other words, more daylong — or usually, just a few hours — enforcement actions targeting violations that could put bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them.
Which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been proven to do a damn bit of good reducing deaths or serious injuries among either group.
So if that’s what passes for a record investment, I’ll pass.
Never mind that the city’s barely competent and very conservative City Attorney’s Office continues to drag its feet on crafting guidance for city departments regarding the measure, nearly seven months after it went into effect after passing overwhelmingly.
And remember, lane-miles means they count each side of the road separately, so we’re only talking a measly 11.25 miles of actual street.
Then there’s this.
While there is some year-to-year variation, and some lag time between project planning getting underway and on the ground upgrades, the first full fiscal year does not look like a promising start for Mayor Karen Bass. Bass has prioritized critical housing issues and not paid much attention to safer multimodal streets – at least not yet. FY2024 did see Mayor Karen Bass appoint Laura Rubio-Cornejo to head the city Transportation Department (LADOT). Rubio-Cornejo replaced interim GM Connie Llanos last September.
No shit.
If anyone has heard Bass even mention safer and/or multimodal streets, let me know. Because I sure as hell haven’t heard it.
Then again, the city’s freeze on resurfacing projects to avoid implementing HLA hasn’t helped.
The CHP has received a $1.55 million federal grant for year-long initiative focusing on “educating the public and enforcing traffic safety laws for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.” Maybe they could spend some of the money on educating their patrol officers a little better on bike law and how to investigate collisions involving bicyclists.
Momentum offers ten “amazing coastal cities” in the US for bicycling; Santa Barbara is #9 on the list, while Huntington Beach is #2 — even though three people lost their lives riding in the city in just the last 12 months.
An editorial from a local Boston paper says bicycling isn’t safe in the city. Then again, the same could be said in virtually any city in the US. Los Angeles included.
I’ve been out for over a month after surgery to replace two tendon and fix a number of tears in my right shoulder. I’m now looking at a long recovery, with six months of rehab before I’m back to normal, let alone get back on a bike.
Or whatever passes for normal at my age.
I’ll do my best to keep this site going on a regular basis, but may face some issues going forward depending on how well rehab goes.
Before we move on, though, let’s take a moment to consider that the new tendons holding my shoulder together came from caring people who donated their bodies after death.
We tend to think of organ donation as involving hearts and lungs, livers and kidneys. But corneas, skin, bones and yes, tendons, also stem from that same kindness.
And I couldn’t be more grateful for them.
So if you haven’t signed your organ donor card, what the hell are you waiting for?
Now let’s catch up on some of the bigger stories we missed over the past 34 days, before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
The brothers were run down on a rural road in Oldmans Township on Thursday, August 30th, the night before they were supposed to be groomsmen in their sister’s wedding.
Needless to say, the wedding is off for now.
They were run down from behind after the driver, identified as 43-year old Sean Higgins, passed one car on the left, then attempted to pass an SUV on the right when it moved left to go around the Gaudreaus.
Higgins failed a field sobriety test, telling police he had five or six beers before the crash, and that his drinking probably contributed to “his impatience and reckless driving.”
He was arrested at the scene, and charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.
SB 960 requires Caltrans to follow their own Complete Streets policies
SB 961 is a severely watered-down version of the bill which would have forced automakers to prevent drivers from speeding more than ten miles over the speed limit; the law now just requires an audible warning
SB 1297 extends the states speed cam pilot program to PCH in Malibu
SB 1261 limits the placement of sharrows to streets with speed limits of 30 mph or less
SB 689 eliminates the need for a separate Coastal Commission study in order to convert a traffic lane to a bike or transit lane
SB 1271 requires that only ebikes with UL or EU certification can be sold in the state
In 2021 the City began a high-level study which envisioned the Wash as a nine mile green space from its confluence with the LA River up to Crescenta Valley Park. It includes bike and pedestrian trails with access to business and entertainment venues, and connects several important city centers, services and a multitude of neighborhoods that make up a large core of Glendale.
Walk Bike Glendale urges you to attend or call into the meeting, or email the individual council members in advance.
Once again, the Los Angeles County Sheriff department demonstrated how little their deputies know about bike law, when former LA-based pro Phil Gaimon — star of the Worst Retirement Ever videos on YouTube — had to educate one on why the ticket he was about to get was against the law.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
After a 14-year old boy was seriously injured by a garbage truck driver while riding to school in La Mesa, California, the city’s NBC station demonstrated how to get the story wrong, with a headline suggesting the boy collided with the truck, rather than the other way around. Nope, no bias there.
Police in Dublin, Ireland are investigating an apparent road rage attack by a driver who pushed a bicyclist up against a barrier and repeatedly hit him with his fists as bystanders tried to stop the attack.
Caltrans is still conducting its Pacific Coast Highway Master Plan Feasibility Study to determine just what safety improvements people want — or rather, are willing to tolerate. So if you bike, walk or drive along PCH in Malibu, you owe it to yourself and everyone else to take part.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton examines the first six months since Measure HLA passed with overwhelming support, mandating the city to build out the eight-year old mobility plan whenever a street gets resurfaced. So far the news isn’t good, with work on Reseda Blvd moving forward while everything else stalled out — including the city’s workaround on Vermont Ave in South LA to avoid triggering HLA.
A man riding his bike on Highway 1 suffered several injuries — and got a couple traffic tickets — after falling over 100 feet when he ignored “road closed” signs and a warning that he would probably die by attempting to ride across a rock slide that shut down the highway. And he nearly did.
Apple TV+ premiered Ghost Bike, a short film about a mother who meets a stranger in a Greek diner, who may hold the key to solving her son’s untimely death — apparently on a bicycle.
A writer for BuzzFeed offers 22 very tongue-in-cheek reasons why wearing a helmet is “literally one of the absolute worst decisions a person can make.”
A new German report says distracted bicycling is on the rise, blaming it for a significant, but undetermined, increase in crash risk. Never mind that many of the 10 to 17% of bicyclists who use their smartphones while riding are probably just using navigation or bike apps.
July 3, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on California media ignoring problems with state’s moribund ebike voucher program, and bike bills whittled down in legislature
Just 181 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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Happy Independence Day!
There’s no better way to celebrate the 4th than with a good bike ride, whether you’re riding during the day or to the fireworks at night.
Just remember many people may have been drinking before they get behind the wheel, and many others driving distracted. Or both. And they may not be looking for someone on a bicycle.
So ride defensively this weekend. I don’t want to have to write about you or anyone else.
As for me, if past is prologue, my 4th will be spent all night huddled in a closet comforting a corgi terrified by the near constant bombardment of illegal fireworks outside our Hollywood neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry reports a bill to ban sharrows from high speed roadways is still alive in the state legislature, along with the Caltrans Complete Streets bill, but both have been whittled down to reflect the status quo.
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This has got to be one of the most evocative cycling photos I’ve seen.
No bias here, either. London bicyclists want to know why the Royal Parks Service won’t allow early morning time trials in the city’s Richmond Park over concerns about speeding cyclists, but is going ahead with a much larger duathlon race consisting of running and bicycling.
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Local
The Los Angeles Timeslooks at California’s deadliest freeways, topped by I-15 in San Bernardino County and I-10 in Riverside County, with 48 deaths and 31 deaths in 2022, respectively. Another reminder that any transportation system that accepts death as a frequent and predictable consequence is an abject failure.
New York’s congestion pricing may not be dead after all, as political leaders attempt to persuade the state’s governor to accept a revised plan with a lower fee for motorists driving into Manhattan.
Greg LeMond remains the only American to officially wear the yellow jersey, after Tour de France stage and general classification wins by Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, David Zabriskie and George Hincapie were officially erased, as if both the wins and the people who won them had never existed.
July 2, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on New LA-area bike lanes including Hollywood Blvd, and bill banning sharrows on higher-speed roads loses support
Just 182 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
The new separated bike lanes on the east end of Hollywood are partially in place on the eastbound side, and already rideable.
Bike lanes have been installed on the newly resurfaced Foothill Blvd in Lake View Terrace, demonstrating what’s possible with Measure HLA, which mandates building out the city’s mobility plan whenever streets are resurfaced — if city leaders would stop actively blocking it.
Redondo Beach extended and upgraded the bike lanes on a resurfaced section of Torrance Blvd, adding green paint in the conflict zones. Because as we all know, a dab of colored paint stops distracted, aggressive and/or intoxicated drivers every time.
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This is how the sausage is unmade.
Despite our best efforts, SB 1216 (@SenBlakespear), our bill to prohibit class 3 bike lanes and sharrows on high-speed roads, has been substantially weakened due to committee amendments.
We won’t give up this fight but unfortunately, we must pull our support for this bill. pic.twitter.com/sMlj4DVDOp
Riding a bicycle in the right lane of a multilane highway is legal.
Using a handheld cellphone to record them isn’t.
Hi @SealBeachPolice perhaps you need to remind folks like @chefgruel that it’s legal for riders to take the lane on PCH…and that filming on a phone while driving violates two state laws including CVC 23123. pic.twitter.com/FUjGn3vB5g
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. The New York Times reports on a “bizarre culture war” against bike lanes in Queens, where nearly every home in the neighborhood sports a “No Bike Lanes” lawn sign, as residents prefer the convenience of parking directly in front of their homes to the safety of kids riding their bikes. Although as others have pointed out, nearly every news story about a similar conflict somehow identifies bike lane supporters as “cyclists,” while opponents are always “residents. Because evidently, people who use bike lanes never, ever live there.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels who are behaving badly.
Here’s your chance to tell Caltrans to improve safety on the deadly 22 miles of PCH that runs through Malibu, as the agency calls for comments on the PCH Master Plan Feasibility Study; a virtual workshop will take place from 1 to 4 pm on Thursday, July 18th. Unfortunately though, the link to register for the workshop is broken.
Five years after a 12-year old girl was nearly killed by 17-year old driver while riding her bike in a Sacramento crosswalk at an intersection on the city’s High Injury Network, her parents complain the city hasn’t done anything to fix it. Before you click on the link, though, be forewarned this one is really hard to read.
Vermont now has a four-foot passing law, with a $200 fine for breaking it. But as we’ve seen, a passing law is only as good as the local cops commitment to enforcing it.
Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, an 83-year old British man walked without a single day behind bars for killing a 54-year old man riding a bicycle; he was still driving despite suffering from degenerate eyesight and failing a roadside vision test.
About damn time. Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay became the first black African cyclist to win a stage in the Tour de France, capturing stage three in a mad sprint to the finish; meanwhile, former Giro champ Richard Carapaz slid into the yellow jersey, while matching the time of Tadej Pogačar.
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.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’ve inched up to 1,147 signatures, so don’t stop now! I plan to forward the petition to the mayor’s office next week, so urge anyone who hasn’t already to sign it now!
Vampire Diaries actress Nina Dobrev posted before and after photos showing her on an electric off-road motorcycle, and in a hospital bed wearing neck and knee braces, saying it’s going to be a long road to recovery.
By conflating all two-wheeled electric bikes as ebikes, they add to the misperception that ebikes are dangerous, as Malcomb Watson points out below.
Here you go, roundup this one! Media goes with "e-Bike" description, yet this e-monstrosity is clearly an e-Moto, but by doing so media adds to the whole "e-Bikes are dangerous" narrative. https://t.co/7CJJvh3o4d
Part of the problem comes from the ebike classifications that began in California, and have been adopted by states across the US.
But there’s a big difference between a ped-assist ebike with a top speed of 20 mph, and a throttle-controlled moped that can do 30 mph.
Let alone a motor scooter or electric motorcycle.
Yet to most of the media — and much of the public — they’re all ebikes. So if you wonder what the ebike panic is all about, that’s a good place to start.
Chart by Orange County Bicycle Coalition
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A bike bill moving on to the state Assembly would ban sharrows from streets with speeds over 30 mph.
Now we just have to ban them from all the other streets, too.
✅ Passed the Senate Floor SB 1216, our bill by @SenBlakespear prohibits the use of sharrows and class 3 bike lanes on streets above 30mph pic.twitter.com/5UMF05W9R5
A writer for the Harvard student paper says the contentious new bike lanes currently being built on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts represent a bitter division in the city’s politics, leaving may residents at a loss for how it can be bridged.
This is who we share the road with, part two. After finishing a 40 month sentence for killing a 15-year old bike rider in a 2021 hit-and-run, a British man led the cops on a chase at speeds up to 100 mph, despite a three year driving ban that began the day he got out.
The small town nestled below LAX announced plans for a cycle track on a portion of El Segundo Blvd, as well as Class II and Class III bike lane on El Segundo, Nash Street and Douglas Street, and Class III bike lanes on Continental Blvd.
For anyone unfamiliar on the terminology, a cycle track is a fully separated or protected bike lane, while Class II bike lanes are the usual painted door zone bike lanes we all know and love.
Class III bike lanes, on the other hand, aren’t really bike lanes at all.
They’re sharrows.
Those funny arrow-shaped chevrons that are supposed to indicate that bicyclists are allowed to share the lane, just like we can on most streets without them, and which have been shown to be worse than nothing.
And nothing is already pretty bad.
The city is placing them on streets with 35 mph speed limits, which drivers typically exceed by 10 or 15 mph. Which means anyone riding on those streets is likely to have someone running up their ass in a motor vehicle at 50 mph.
And making it clear that the arrow symbols are just there to help drivers improve their aim in an attempt to thin the bicycle herd.
Testimony showed she used Strava to track down where Wilson was staying, and shot her repeatedly.
Armstrong then fled the country after she was interviewed by Austin police. She was found living in Costa Rica under an assumed name following an international manhunt, and reportedly having plastic surgery to change her appearance.
She now faces up to 99 years behind bars under Texas law.
Join Circulate, @CalBike, and other San Diego bike advocates to learn more about the 2024 Bicycle Summit. Webinar attendees will receive a special early bird discount for the California Bicycle Summit. Register here: https://t.co/0qdfTJaQ93pic.twitter.com/yJ4LVmfKwi
Gravel Bike California takes an urban adventure across LA’s Eastside, featuring #ArroyoFest, Elysian Park and Eldred Street, the steepest road in the city.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Denver-area newspaper insists that the city’s transportation department has been “captured by the bicyclist lobby and is busily screwing up streets across the city with ridiculous and ugly plastic bollards, roundabouts, and striping all in the name of ‘bicycle safety.'” God forbid anyone should use “ugly” street treatments in an effort to save lives, or that people who ride bicycles should have the right to successfully petition city officials, just like anyone else.
A Wisconsin legislative committee approved a pair of bills that make it against the law to “intentionally” expose someone’s genitals or bring a child to any event where adults will expose themselves, in response to allegations that a ten-year old girl participated in the Minneapolis World Naked Bike Ride. Because apparently we need to shield kids from seeing dicks on bikes, rather than being run down by dicks in cars.
Road.cc tests ten ultra low-price bike accessories from Chinese online marketplace Temu, and surprisingly finds more hits than misses. I tried ordering a couple pairs of non-biking shoes from the site, one of which was about three sizes too big, and the other appeared made to fit a duck’s foot.
Pro cyclist and former ski jumper Primož Roglič auctioned off some of his memorabilia on live TV, raising the equivalent of over $217,000 to fund scholarship for young athletes in need of financial support. And demonstrated his ski jumping technique in a move proving no one puts Primož in the corner. Once again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.
Meanwhile, I’m told Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, is working with the widow of fallen Hollywood producer Bob George to arrange a ghost bike ceremony, after he was fatally doored in a Fountain Blvd bike lane, and will invite everyone to show up to demand safer infrastructure when details are in place.
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The South Bay Cities are punting on safer streets and installing a 243-mile network of sharrows, which have been shown to actually increase the risk for people on bicycles.
In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that sharrows are worse than nothing in terms of bicycle safety, while their arrow motif appears to exist solely to help drivers improve their aim in an effort to thin the herd.
Better yet, the proposal would be implemented without removing any proposed bike lanes from the city’s General Plan, and could include upgrading existing facilities.
Like the bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd, which currently provide convenient space for double-parking while waiting for a curbside space to open up in Boys Town.
Because as we all know, the convenience of drivers matters more than human lives in the City of Angels.
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For those keeping score at home, The Washington Post offers all the facts you need to know regarding the trial of Kaitlin Armstrong for the murder of gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson on Austin, Texas last year.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Bay Area bicyclists have filed suit against US Bank, after it allegedly installed a gate blocking a longstanding bike path easement used as a shortcut to access Mt. Diablo, forcing bike riders — including a high school and middle school mountain biking team — to ride a busy, steep and narrow highway instead.
Bicycling suggests the best forms of cross training to help reach your bicycling goals. Although I originally read that last word as “goats,” which would have made for a much more intriguing article. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
Cincinnati Bengals safety Nick Scott is one of us, riding his ebike to work at the city’s stadium. Even if he thought the terrain in Los Angeles wasn’t conducive to riding in his four years with the Rams.
The Orlando, Florida man accused of murdering a couple riding their bicycles home from last year’s Bike Week festivities — the motorized kind — is back for another mental competency hearing, after he was diagnosed schizophrenia and hospitalized earlier this year.
Carson’s Velo Sports Center will host next years US Elite & Para-cycling Track National Championships, as well as the 2024 Pan American Track Championships.
October 18, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Disappointing new LA bike lane totals, Angelenos suffer from car blindness, and Long Beach needs bike count volunteers
It just keeps getting worse.
I’m told someone was killed riding a bike yesterday on Fountain Ave in East Hollywood.
Today’s photo, in contrast with too much of the day’s news, is a very happy corgi enjoying a pedicab ride over the new 6th Street Bridge during Sunday’s CicLAvia.
And finds the current results underwhelming, with far too many disappointments including truncated mileage, downgraded facilities, long delayed timelines and false claims, just to name a few.
Or as we call that here in Los Angeles, Wednesday.
As noted in past posts (FY21-22, FY20-21, FY19-20), not all bikeway miles are equal. Quality protected bike lanes and bike paths serve riders aged 8 to 80, while sharrows serve almost nobody. New bikeway mileage expands the network; upgrades to existing bikeways do not. Among upgrades, some are significant (protecting unprotected lanes) and others are nearly meaningless (adding a buffer stripe to an existing lane).
In recent years, around a quarter of the city’s output consists of these less than newsworthy facilities. Among the city’s FY23 totals are about 6 miles of new sharrows and 5 miles of buffer stripes added to existing bike lanes.
The city’s FY22-23 total of 45.2 miles breaks down into 27.7 miles of newbikeways and 17.5 miles of upgrades to existing bikeways. This represents a slight improvement over last year, which saw 26.6 new bikeway miles and 12.5 upgraded miles.
That’s a far cry from the city’s commitment to build 50 miles of bike lanes a year when the current bike plan was approved. Which was quickly cut in half when the city switched to measuring by lane miles, which counts bike lanes on each side of the road separately.
Then reduced further, when they decided sharrows count, too.
Adding disappointment, on disappointment, on disappointment.
We are car blind in Los Angeles; as a City, we seem to have accepted cars as essential for society to function, and we overlook their downsides and harms they cause on our society.
Have you heard? There are sea turtles in the San Gabriel River! BikeLA is hosting a Cruise + Connect ride on Oct. 28 to visit the turtles. Sign up here: https://t.co/AVjcmMfpICpic.twitter.com/lERDjoN5OS
Check out this sea turtle in the San Gabriel River, spotted yesterday while scouting our upcoming Sea Turtle Ride! Join us on Oct. 28 to ride the river trail and watch the sea turtles. Get more information and sign up here: https://t.co/AVjcmMfpICpic.twitter.com/cnphDz59aD
SAFE offers a reminder that bike riders aren’t the only vulnerable victims of traffic violence.
Asia & Ryan were killed by a speeding driver. We recently placed a Ghost Tire memorial in honor of Asia and Ryan, surrounded by their family and friends.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A San Mateo bike rider was arrested for brandishing a weapon after a woman tried to pass a large group of bicyclists in the downtown area; he raised his shirt to show the weapon in his waistband when a group of riders surrounded her car and started beating on it.
Accused killer Kaitlin Armstrong’s recent failed escape attempt was apparently premeditated, as a Texas site notes that she exercised vigorously for months and wore civilian clothes in advance of a doctor’s appointment; Armstrong is accused of fatally shooting gravel cycling star Moriah “Mo” Wilson over an imagined love triangle.
New York officials blamed the increase in bicycling deaths on ebikes, with 62.2% of bicyclists killed in the city this year riding one, compared to 57.9% two years ago and 47.4% last year — but failed to provide any stats putting it in context, such as the proportion of ebike riders, or who was at fault in the crashes; meanwhile, 94% of this year’s deaths occurred on streets without protected bike lanes, calling into question the mayor’s failure to fulfill his campaign promise to build more.
A New Jersey man faces a manslaughter charge for allegedly pushing a 70-year old man off his bike, for no apparent reason; the victim died after hitting his head on the pavement and initially refusing treatment. A tragic reminder to always get checked out after hitting your head, because life-threatening injuries may not show up until hours later.
A British man will spend the next four years behind bars for killing another man with a single punch, after an argument over the sale of a bike, as he claimed the victim’s friend still owed him money for it. Yet another reminder than no bicycle is worth a human life.
My most humble apologies for neglecting to thank Megan L for her generous donation to support this site when my eyes were out of commission last month. As always, donations are welcome and very appreciated anytime, for any reason, even if I’m too blind to properly show my gratitude.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
