Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to hear the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
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Big news for the coming March election, as the Los Angeles Times has joined a broad range of community groups to endorse the Healthy Streets LA initiative.
Frustrated by the lack of political will and bureaucracy, street safety advocates collected enough signatures to put Healthy Streets LA, or Measure HLA, on the March ballot. The initiative would force the city to carry out the improvements in the Mobility Plan. Any time city departments repave at least one-eighth of a mile of street, they would have to add the improvements outlined in the plan, whether bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian enhancements or fixes to ease vehicle traffic.
This makes sense. When city crews have to repaint the lines when repaving a street, why not restripe the roads according to the Mobility Plan at the same time? Yet in a city as large as Los Angeles, making this a smooth process is not always easy. The multiple departments responsible for street paving, engineering and transportation safety struggle to coordinate and have missed opportunities to install Mobility Plan projects. The mandate of Measure HLA would, ideally, prompt City Hall to better organize street work programs and make Mobility Plan improvements a part of routine road maintenance.
The paper concludes their editorial this way.
Measure HLA has broad support among neighborhood councils, environmental, labor and business groups. Their members understand that Los Angeles needs to evolve into a city that is safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and, yes, even motorists. The plan recognizes that Angelenos will still drive — it includes 80 miles of streets that are prioritized for vehicle travel and projects that help drivers maintain safe, consistent speeds and reliable travel times.
The rising number of traffic deaths is a preventable tragedy. Voters have the power to make Los Angeles’ streets safer. Vote yes on Measure HLA.
I couldn’t agree more.
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The Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, has received a federal grant to study the possibility of removing some SoCal highways, and possibly converting them to boulevards.
They could start with the proposal to remove the purposeless 90 Freeway stub, and converting it to housing and a Marina Central Park.
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29 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 30 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.
San Diego police arrested 32-year old Alvaro Jovani Lopez for torching the Mission Valley memorial for fallen bicyclist and father Matt Keenan, destroying a banner and Keenan’s ghost bike; they found Lopez already behind bars for a parole violation. No reason was given for his dastardly deed.
Life is cheap in Wisconsin, where a Madison man who strung wire across a bike bridge, nearly decapitating a bike rider, walked with a gentle caress on the wrist when the judge sentenced him to a lousy four years probation.
No bias here. Underground hip-hop artist Gorilla Nems, aka Travis Doyle, took out his anger on New York’s Complete Street transformation over the past decade or so, telling a podcast host “Fuck bike lanes…this ain’t Copenhagen,” while instructing his followers to ignore walk signals and just cross the street anytime they want, after looking both ways.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 59-year old New York woman has emerged from a months-long coma after she was struck by a bikeshare rider as she was crossing the street; a 62-year old man was ticketed for riding salmon and running a red light.
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Local
The Metro board delayed a vote to award Metro Bike management to Lyft, after ride hail drivers and delivery riders teamed with bikeshare workers to protest the proposed contract. But you’ll have to subscribe the Daily News or find a way around the paper’s draconian paywall if you want to read about it.
Glendale residents complained they were left out of the decision making process for the city’s new bike plan, even though they say they’ll be directly affected by a proposed bike path.
State
Police in Huntington Beach are using bait bikes to bust bike thieves. Something the LAPD still won’t do over fears they’ll be accused of entrapment.
They get it, sort of. A Simi Valley paper says safety is a two-way street, but drivers shoulder most of the responsibility to look out for vulnerable bike riders. Although they should go to cliche jail for trotting out the tired two-way street metaphor.
Oakland got a clear message to fix their crumbling roads, when the city agreed to a $6.5 million settlement with a woman who was paralyzed when her bike hit a pothole.
Six Santa Rosa teenagers were arrested for stabbing a 41-year old man to steal his bicycle last week.
National
The 18-year old Las Vegas man accused of deliberately killing former Bell police chief Andreas Probst in a hit-and-run last year is now facing an attempted murder charge in a separate case for the gang stabbing of a Las Vegas man.
Life is cheap in Indiana, where a woman faces just a year behind bars after confessing to a hit-and-run that left a bike-riding man with multiple broken bones.
That’s more like it. Instead of fighting bike infrastructure, residents of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park neighborhood are actually calling on the mayor to finish a new bike boulevard.
An “avid” New York bicyclist tells tourists the best routes for exploring the city by bicycle.
They get it, sort of, too. New York officials unveiled a new campaign encouraging bike riders to be more courteous and look out for pedestrians, while admitting that drivers pose the real danger to people walking.
Bike advocates say New York has a new “Boulevard of Death,” marking the failure of the city’s Vision Zero program after ten years.
A former Maryland Director of Planning and Zoning was indicted for the alleged drunken hit-and-run that killed a bike-riding man.
A North Carolina paper examines how bike riders and pedestrians are coping with the added danger as more drivers take to local roads.
International
Road.cc asks bike experts if the switch to internal cables has been worth it. Meanwhile, Cycling Weekly takes up the burning topic of whether bike bells really have a useful reason to exist.
The violin belonging to a British musician was somehow reconstructed, despite being broken into over 100 pieces when he was hit by a bus while riding a bicycle; unfortunately, he wasn’t as lucky, losing a leg as a result of the crash.
A new Danish study examines how the country encouraged greater bike helmet usage without mandating them.
A new United Arab Emirates bike ride took bicyclists through all seven emirates in seven days.
Adding insult to literal injury, an American tourist was fined for illegally stepping into the path of an ebike rider — while he was in a coma as a result of the collision; the ticket was withdrawn after he hired a lawyer to fight it.
Competitive Cycling
The future of the Tour of Britain, the Women’s Tour and other British races could be in doubt because the organizer of the races entered liquidation proceedings, after losing their license to conduct the races over an unpaid fee totaling the equivalent of over $884,000.
Australian pro Luke Plapp was left with a shredded kit and some truly ugly road rash after a nasty fall on a descent in the Tour Down Under.
Aussie sprinter Sam Welsford celebrated his 28th birthday by winning his third stage at the Tour Down Under on Friday. Today’s race was conducted yesterday, because they live in the future down there.
Finally…
It’s hard to use a bike lane that’s blocked by a shitload of sugar beets. Stealing bikeshare bikes back from the thieves who stole them. A micro musette for mademoiselle et monsieur.
And we may have to deal with rubbernecking drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about nuzzling giraffes.
Respect them and they will respect you back ❤️ pic.twitter.com/sqQun8NYQY
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 16, 2024
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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