Which isn’t going to make any real difference on LA’s mean streets, where speed limits often reach 45 or 50 mph. Let alone the other 6,323 miles of streets in the city.
But at least it’s a step in the right direction, reducing speeds on streets where they had recently been raised, thanks to a new state law amending the deadly 85th Percentile Law.
What’s really needed is a cut to 20 mph in business and residential areas, as has already been done in other cities around the world to reduce crashes and improve survivability.
Because a drop from 45 mph to 40 just ain’t gonna do that.
Like just about everything else, though, that will take another change in state law. Which isn’t likely to be coming anytime soon.
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In a big win for bike riders and pedestrians — or just people in general — a new report from San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department and the Municipal Transportation Agency recommends that JFK Drive through Golden Gate Park be kept carfree.
The street was shut down during the pandemic to provide a safe place for San Franciscans to walk and ride their bikes, and many residents like it that way.
Just try to name any similar street in Los Angeles that has been pedestrianized in recent years — especially during the pandemic, when there was every opportunity and reason to do it.
For some reason, this isn’t letting me embed tweets tonight, so you’ll have to click through to see this one, and the one below. But it’ll be worth it.
February 23, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Los Angeles finally lowers speed limits on some streets, and “woke” repeal of Seattle bike helmet mandate
It might be time to check snow conditions in the underworld.
And reversing, if ever so slightly, the ever-climbing speed limits forced on them by the deadly 85th Percentile Law.
The move came in response to legislation sponsored by Burbank state Assemblymember Laura Friedman, which allows cities to drop speed limits no more than five mph.
Rantz accuses a “woke” professor of using a small sample size to show the law disproportionately ticketed people of color, while suggesting that some of those ticketed were probably just homeless people on stolen bicycles, anyway.
Schmuck.
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She gets it, too.
“My vision for the next 10, 20, 30 years for Tucson is definitely to institutionalize the concept of @CompleteStreets and mobility. It's where we have to go.” – @TucsonRomero, Mayor of the City of Tucson
GCN considers whether a British company’s move to ban bike helmets for its delivery riders is science, or just plain stupid.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. An Italian bike rider was fined the equivalent of $380 after he was nearly doored by a careless cop, because bicyclists aren’t required to wear a Covid mask in the country, but pedestrians are — which he became when he got off his bike to argue the point with the cop.
Calbike comes out agains AB 371, which would effectively end bikeshare and e-scooter rentals by imposing an “unprecedented insurance requirement,” after killing a similar proposal two years ago.
Business owners in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood continue to complain about lost business due to the removal of parking spaces for a protected bike lane on 30th Street, even though a nearby parking structure remains underutilized. Which suggests the real problem isn’t the bike lane, but drivers who are unwilling to pay for parking.
Colorado is considering a bill to legalize the full Idaho Stop Law, which would allow bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and red lights like stop signs. The state currently has a confusing patchwork of local ordinances that allow riders to roll stops in one jurisdiction, while risking getting ticketed for the same thing in the next.
The driver briefly stopped a short distance away before driving off, leaving his victim bleeding in the street.
Investigators ask anyone who lives in the area to check their surveillance cameras for any video that might show the crash or the suspect.
Something sheriff’s investigators should have done themselves in the first few days, if not hours, following the crash, before any video would be deleted or recorded over.
But maybe they were, like, busy or something.
Anyone with information is urged to call San Dimas Traffic Detective Christopher Bronowicki at 909/859-2818.
The video is difficult to watch, so make sure you really want to see the crash and its aftermath before you click play, because you can’t unsee it once you do.
Seventy-four-year old John Burgan is in a coma in critical condition with internal injuries, as well as fractures all around his skull, face, ribs and right femur, after an apparent hit-and-run.
The location and condition of his undamaged bicycle suggest he may have been struck by the wing mirror of a driver’s vehicle while making his way to the left turn lane at Hosp Way.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Officer Adam Bentley at 760/931-2288 or email adam.bentley@carlsbadca.gov.
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Finally, a little good news from LA City Hall.
Streetsblog is reporting that the City Council Transportation Committee has taken the unprecedented step of — wait for it — actually lowering speed limits in the City of Angels, in hopes of maybe making a fewer of them.
Angels, that is.
The city’s hands have long been tied by the deadly 85th Percentile Law, which worked in conjunction with speeding drivers to push limits ever higher, regardless of whether the new speeds were actually safe.
It took a new state law, sponsored by Burbank Assemblymember Laura Friedman, to reform, but not repeal, the 85th Percentile Law to allow the city to begin reducing speeds on city streets.
However, the committee’s action covers just 177 miles out of LA’s more than 6,500 miles of streets.
But it’s a start.
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It looks like New Yorkers overwhelmingly support safer streets, and using automated traffic cams to do it.
New Yorkers want these changes to make streets safe. An Emerson College poll found that 68% of city residents support lowering the speed limit to 20 mph, and 72% want the city to have authority to set its own speed limits. A Siena College poll found that 85% of New York City voters, including 84% of car-owners, support red light enforcement cameras. More than three-quarters of New York City voters, including just about the same share of car owners, support automated speed safety cameras.
Not only are the speed and red light cams popular, they’re also effective.
As one example of the consequences, consider New York City’s speed safety camera program, which is currently only permitted by Albany to operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday. In effect, Albany forces cameras to be off for more than half of the hours in any given week. Speed safety cameras are wildly effective: A 55% drop in all traffic fatalities and a 72%decline in speeding followed the launch of the program. Speed safety cameras also avoid racial biases that may be present in armed police stops and avoid risks of stops turning violent or deadly. However, in 2020, nearly 40% of people killed in fatal traffic crashes died in speed safety camera zones, but when the cameras were forced to be off. Speeding doesn’t sleep, but state law forces our speed safety cameras to get plenty of shut-eye.
Let’s hope California legislators are paying attention.
Not to mention the LA City Council, which cancelled the city’s red light camera program, for reasons that mostly boiled down to angry drivers who didn’t like getting tickets for breaking the law.
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I wouldn’t count on plastic bollards to keep you safer. Even if these are better than the flimsy car-tickler plastic bendy posts.
Santa Monica has these in a few spots but goes for the truly useless ones like these in most places. Disappointingly the latter for the Ocean Ave "protected" bike lane and, shocker, half of then were gone in less than a year and it constantly has motor vehicles in it. pic.twitter.com/5xG7g9zNuS
Personally, I consider anything marked by plastic bollards to be a separated bike lane, rather than a protected bike lane.
Because those little posts don’t protect anyone.
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Burbank police will be offering bicycle registration next Wednesday afternoon.
And cookies, too.
Join us for our first ever Cookie with a Cop next Wednesday at Sliders, from 2-4pm. We will also have bicycle registration available, too! @BurbankCApic.twitter.com/yXwRNRRDZS
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Cincinnati op-ed calls bike lanes a “misappropriation of funds,” calling for the money to be spent fixing potholes rather than catering “to a small group of citizens that happen to bicycle.” Never mind that potholes are more dangerous for people on bikes than those safely ensconced in a couple tons of steel and glass.
Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a man got a lousy 30 months for the drunken hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle, then tried to blame an innocent co-worker for the crash. Never mind that it was the third time in six years he’d been accused of DUI. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.
Two of the victims were airlifted to a hospital, while at least one more was transported ambulance.
No word yet on the condition of the victims or just how the crash occurred.
That follows last month’s crash that injured another six bike riders when a 16-year old driver injured six people riding their bikes while training for a triathlon in nearby Waller County, Texas , after he tried and failed to roll coal with his pickup.
The first (Council File 21-1222) supports a Permanent Slow Streets program. It would expand existing slow streets to many more communities, and provide a framework for outreach and money for implementation.
The second (Council File 21-1223) begins the process of lowering speed limits on hundreds of miles of previously raised streets in Los Angeles. This is possible thanks to a recently passed state bill, AB-43, which Streets For All enthusiastically supported.
The third (Council File 21-1224) begins the process of installing cameras on buses (made possible by AB-917, a bill that Streets For All enthusiastically supported). These cameras will automatically send tickets to cars that are illegally parked in bus lanes. Cars illegally using the bus lane are the single biggest source of delays to buses, and this solves the problem without using police enforcement.
You’ll find call-in instructions to attend the virtual meeting, a link to submit your comments in advance, and talking points to help craft your message on the link above.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Committee of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council will discuss bike lanes on Hyperion and Riverside tomorrow night.
The @LosFelizNC Transportation Committee on Tuesday night will consider supporting:
– Hollywood Plaza – Bike lanes on Hyperion between Rowena and Griffith Park – Bike lanes on Riverside between Glendale and Los Feliz
She told investigators she fled the scene because she was “so scared” — but apparently not too scared to have her damaged car towed in for repairs to coverup the crime.
She remains free on bond while facing two counts of felony hit-and-run, and can look forward to getting her license back next April.
Meanwhile, her victim continues to deal with the effects of 17 broken ribs, a broken arm and wrist, a collapsed lung and paralyzed vocal cord, and torn finger tendons and ligaments.
Not to mention brain injuries.
But other than that, no reason why she shouldn’t keep driving at 91, right?
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 24-year old employee of Jamis Bikes was formally charged with first degree murder for beating a co-worker to death with a sledge hammer to steal her credit cards. He then went home to shower and change clothes, before coming back to call 911 to report a woman had been injured; he confessed the crime to police when they questioned him.
She gets it. A Costa Mesa op-ed calls on the city to undo the dominance of cars, and make room for the exploding popularity of ebikes. Oops. I originally misread the name, and misgendered the author of this piece. Thanks to Michelle Fay for the correction.
No surprise here, as San Mateo residents get out the torches and pitchforks over a plan to remove 214 parking spaces to install bike lanes and a bicycle boulevard, apparently preferring the convenience of free parking over the lives and safety of people on bicycles, including school kids.
The husband of a British woman killed by a man on a bicycle five years ago says the country’s ministers are afraid of the bicycling lobby, blocking his fight for tougher penalties against bike riders who kill or maim others. Funny how so many people seem to think we’re a lot better organized and more influential than we are.
Rouleur considers the inescapable link between bicycles and coffee, while recommending the best coffees for people who bike. As long as you’re in the UK, or UK adjacent, that is; no guarantee you can find them on this side of the pond.
He gets it. A Manilla, Philippines columnist says the city needs to get the weekend roadies to bike commute during the week in order to avoid a post-pandemic return to the city’s crippling traffic jams. Imagine what it could do for LA traffic if every spandexed weekend rider tried bike commuting to work just one day during the week.
Sometimes, the explanation stinks as much as the project.
And the location.
Anyone who ever drove the 605 Freeway through Baldwin Park and the City of Industry in years past noticed the stench of the duck farm long before it came into sight.
And it lingered long after, making you wonder if the odor was still wafting through the air, or burned into your olfactory nerve.
It’s been 20 years since work began to turn the poultry farm into a park. Although you have to wonder if even that is long enough to get the stink off the land.
But now the stench is wafting from the Metro boardroom, instead.
What’s depressing is how inexorably these small freeway expansion projects continue to advance. And the Metro gaslighting that now promotes polluting auto-focused freeway expansion as good for equity and for active transportation.
He goes on to note that Caltrans bizarrely certified that the project would have no negative environmental impact.
Because apparently, induced demand isn’t a thing anymore.
Equally bizarre, though, is Metro’s attempts at greenwashing the project by touting its extremely limited benefits to alternative transpiration.
Again, from Linton’s Streetsblog piece —
Caltrans and Metro tout the project as benefiting alternative transportation. The environmental documents assert that the project would “enhance bicyclist and pedestrian safety” and “help reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions” by supporting alternative modes of transportation: biking and walking.
All of the non-car features of the project are:
Adding a sidewalk where it is currently missing on the north side of Valley Boulevard – including ADA-mandated features such as wheelchair ramps.
Adding “a widened shoulder to provide a future bike lane along Eastbound Valley Boulevard up to the northbound loop on-ramp.” Installing this 1,400-feet length of bike lanes does not appear to be actually included in the project, but the margin for potential future bike lanes is nonetheless noted as helping reduce GHG emissions.
Reducing the curve radius of the northbound loop on-ramp from eastbound Valley Boulevard; this “would be reduced to slow entering traffic to enhance safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and support use of these alternative modes.” Note that the reason the turning radius is being narrowed is to accommodate a second lane on the current one-lane on-ramp (without taking out the business next door). Caltrans asserts that an upcoming curve radius would slow Southern California drivers entering the on-ramp, and that this would encourage bicycling. Really.
All the extra bike riding this project would inspire wouldn’t begin to offset the environmental and climate damage it would cause.
Then again, it’s hard to offset anything when the bike and pedestrian side of the equation is virtually nil.
Unless you think a possible, noncommittal quarter-mile bike lane that may never be built is enough to offset what would undoubtedly be a major increase in traffic and emissions.
Or that safety for people on foot and bicycles can really be enhanced by adding a second onramp lane.
Admittedly, I’m not lawyer. But it seems like it wouldn’t take a very big cannon to shoot holes in the environmental report for this project.
Or a water pistol, for that matter.
So let’s be honest.
Every member of the Planning Committee who voted in favor of this project — which is all of them — should be ashamed.
Because whatever benefits this freeway widening project may or may not offer, their efforts to bikewash it with negligible benefits to bike riders and pedestrians stinks every bit as much as the duck farm did.
And it will take years to wash that stench off them, too.
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Nice to see an effort by LA Councilmembers Mike Bonin, Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz to use newly signed state laws to improve safety on our streets.
LA City Councilmembers @MikeBoninLA, @PaulKrekorian and @PaulKoretzCD5 have put out 3 transportation motions to take advantage of new state laws. 1) Identify streets to reduce speed limit 2) Create permanent slow streets program 3) Implement bus-camera enforcement of bus lanes pic.twitter.com/PniSfhwz07
Instead, it’s about kids as young as six years old being handcuffed and arrested by police — including brutal use-of-force incidents — the overwhelming majority of whom are Black, brown or other people of color.
Here’s just one example they cite.
About 165 miles due south, in the rural hamlet of Paris, Illinois, 15-year-old Skyler Davis was riding his bike near his house when he ran afoul of a local ordinance that prohibited biking and skateboarding in the business district — a law that was rarely enforced, if ever.
But on that day, according to Skyler’s father, Aaron Davis, police officers followed his mentally disabled son in their squad car and chased his bike up over a curb and across the grass.
Officers pursued Skyler into his house and threw him to the floor, handcuffing him and slamming him against a wall, his father said. Davis arrived to see police pulling Skyler — 5 feet tall and barely 80 pounds, with a “pure look of terror” on his face — toward the squad car.
“He’s just a happy kid, riding his bike down the road,” Davis said, “And 30 to 45 seconds later, you see him basically pedaling for his life.”
Seriously, there’s no damn excuse for targeting kids like this, unless they somehow pose a direct threat.
And that’s pretty hard to imagine for a six-year old.
Or an unarmed 15-year old just out for a bike ride.
While it may seem like an obnoxious prank, it should be treated as an assault with a deadly weapon, which could have severe consequences for anyone with allergies or breathing problems.
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Who needs a bike car in the train when you’ve got one in front of it?
Good news and bad news. Bay Area bike riders are happy to learn the hard-won bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge won’t have to be closed for construction of a proposed water pipeline. But the approach leading to the bridge will be.
September 10, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Motorists behaving badly, possible parking protected bike lane on San Vicente, and dealing a blow to 85th Percentile rule
A couple more notes from our anonymous correspondent.
In this week’s edition of Motorists Behaving Badly, accounting for the first thirty minutes after midnight Tuesday morning:
A driver rear-ended a CHP officer who’d made a traffic stop on the 105, injuring the officer and totaling a patrol vehicle.
On Normandie Ave, a hit-and-runner hospitalized a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk literally in front of Woon’s (fallen bicyclist Frederick “Woon” Frazier) mama’s home.
A driver smashed the guardrail at Carmelita Ave & Zaring St (house and occupants remained safe, because a guardrail was installed, probably in hindsight.)
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Random tangent: My Favorite Lawyer™ Christien Francis Petersen (who got stabby with a reporter at a freedumb rally in HB last year, and then got arrested again for bringing a bunch of unregistered assault weapons to another freedumb rally last April) was arrested recently for hit-and-run (property damage) & DUI. Thrilled to know I’m sharing the road with him!
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In personal news, my Surly was stolen Sunday morning. Probably not by someone late for church.
Also, while nothing major was lost in the Great MacBook Air Inferno of 2021, little scraps of lost info randomly irk me, like the names of the accomplices in the Chillandra Bell (hit-and-run vs ped) case, and the specifics of the altercation in the Victor Manuel Romero case. Aurgh. Also, I cannot find Andrea Dorothy Chan Reyes on the CA Department of Corrections site. I lost my inmate number file, but you don’t actually need one to locate an inmate, and she wasn’t (isn’t?) up for parole until next month.
This could be the first, long overdue, nail in the coffin of the deadly 85th percentile rule.
We did it! Today, AB 43 passed #CALeg with strong bipartisan support in favor of giving our communities control over speed limits and road safety. After years of work on this effort, I couldn’t be more grateful to my colleagues & our advocates up and down the state. pic.twitter.com/CKjWR3AmYI
No bias here, either. A professional driver and self-professed amateur cyclist says many London bike riders have to be protected against their own stupidly, claiming there’d be far more riders killed if it wasn’t for drivers like him. Just wait until someone tells him about the stupid things some drivers do.
LAistexamines the recently passed AB 1238, the so-called Freedom to Walk Act, which would eliminate most fines for jaywalking, as well as walking on the wrong side of the street when there’s no sidewalk, noting that the current prohibition disproportionately cracks down on people of color; the bill is sitting on Newsom’s desk waiting for his signature.
San Francisco Streetsblog argues that highways wrecked American cities, leveling some of the country’s greatest neighborhoods. And too often, flattening thriving neighborhoods devoted to people of color.
This is the cost of traffic violence. Skins and A Dog’s Prayer actress Kathryn Prescott is in a New York ICU after she was struck by a cement truck while crossing the street on Wednesday, narrowly avoiding paralysis after breaking her pelvis in two places, both her legs, her foot and her left hand, according to her twin sister.
Bike and scooter riders get blamed for the City of Light’s mediocre walkability score, as a Parisian website argues “a Paris stroll has now become a hazardous balancing act for pedestrians trying to dodge screeching wheels and aggressive bicycle bells.”
Hats off to England’s William Bjergfelt, who at 42 became the second-oldest cyclist to compete in the Tour of Britain — and the first paracyclist, after he was told he would never ride a bike again when his shattered leg was reconstructed with three titanium plates following a head-on by a driver in 2015.
A Santa Clarita bike rider made a lucky, if possibly illegal, escape after allegedly getting hit by a Metrolink train, then picking his or herself up and fleeing the scene. Although I’m not sure that qualifies as fleeing if there were no injuries or significant damage to the bike or the train.
Um, no. A Utah columnist responds to the collision that left former NBA star Shawn Bradley paralyzed by talking with a bicyclist who offers safety advice. Except all of the advice is for the people on two wheels, and none for the ones in the big dangerous machines — even when it comes to dooring.
A Colorado man’s new book details his “difficult and grueling 1,400-mile ebike ride from Denver to Columbus, Ohio” to raise funds for Meniere’s disease awareness and research — which causes chronic dizziness, nausea, severe ringing in the ears and vertigo — after realizing the automated features of an ebike could hep him overcome his symptoms to get off the couch and onto the road.
A New Hampshire woman faces faces up to seven years behind bars for hit-and-run despite playing the “I thought I hit a deer” card, telling police she blacked out after seeing horns and hearing a loud bang; fortunately, the victim wasn’t seriously injured. Surprisingly, very few bike riders actually have horns, even though some drivers apparently think we all do.
Canadian advocates call for making temporary popup bike lanes permanent, arguing that they’ve increased accessibility in a number of the country’s cities. A feeling Los Angeles bike riders are unfamiliar with, since the city still hasn’t installed a single popup lane anywhere.
AB 122 would finally legalize what most bike riders — and too many drivers — already do by allowing them to treat stop signs as yields; a similar law in Delaware resulted in a 23% reduction in bike crashes at intersections with stop signs.
AB 117 would allocate $10 million from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to provide rebates for ebike buyers; combined with a proposed 30% rebate on ebikes from the federal government, it could finally make ebikes affordable for lower income buyers.
Permanent Slow Streets could become a fixture in neighborhood with limited access to parks and high air pollution risk if AB 773 passes both houses.
As currently written, AB 43, sponsored by new Assembly Transportation Committee chair Laura Friedman would only track bike and pedestrian crashes, but the Burbank assemblywoman hopes to rework it to compel cities to redesign streets to lower speeds.
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This is why people keep dying on our streets.
You couldn’t have turned on your TV yesterday without encountering wall-to-wall coverage of Tiger Woods’ high speed rollover crash on Hawthorne Blvd in tony Palos Verdes Estates.
Fortunately, he’s expected to survive, despite major injuries to both legs.
But it raises the question of why nothing has been done to improve safety on the deadly street, where a bike rider died in a hit-and-run a little further down the road a few years ago, and where residents say drivers routinely exceed the 45 mph speed limit.
It nearly took the life of one of the world’s greatest golfers.
“You are not telling me you can’t see or feel a fully grown man on a bike coming in the roundabout. I’m sorry, but that’s just can’t be true.
“I’m really angry, sad and disappointed at the same time. I’m disappointed in the driver, as a human being. One thing is sure that had I done something like that, I would’ve been able to drive away.”
San Diego bike lawyer Richard Duquette examines the ways insurance companies will try to deny a claim by arguing that you assumed the risk of injury when you got on your bicycle. Which is like saying a driver assumed the risk of a wreck by turning the ignition key.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 92-year old Vancouver man is back on a bike, after a bike shop offered him a loaner ebike for 30 days in hopes his own stolen ebike somehow turns up. He’s also had a martini every day for the last 60 years.
Tragic news from the UK, where a three-year old girl accidentally hung herself when she fell from a tree while wearing her unicorn bike helmet. Sadly, it’s not the first time I’ve seen stories like this. It’s just another reminder that children’s bike helmets are for riding bikes, and can be dangerous under other circumstances.
February 20, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA Times tells state to speed up slowing drivers down, Streets For All goes all in on ads, and 5 riders run down Down Under
I seem to be apologizing a lot this week.
Sorry for the downtime on this site yesterday morning, and thank you to everyone who notified me about the 502 error; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to access the backside of this site, either.
It turned out to be a large scale glitch that took down a number of sites across the internet. But everything’s back to normal now.
Hopefully, it will stay that way.
And let me apologize to everyone who sent me links the past few days. I’ve lost track of most of them, and I’m way too tired to track them all down now.
So allow me to just offer a general and generic thank you to everyone who contributed something for your help, which I genuinely appreciate.
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They get it.
In recent years, the LA Times editorial board has taken strong stands in favor of safer streets and alternative transportation.
The problem stems from a decades-old state law that essentially requires cities to set speed limits based on how fast people are already driving on that stretch of road, regardless of whether that speed is safe or whether the street has a history of wrecks. It was adopted more than 60 years agoto prevent cities from setting speed traps, or arbitrarily low speed limits aimed at sticking drivers with pricey tickets…
The more common and unintended consequence of the 85th percentile rule is what’s known as speed creep. Higher speed limits encourage motorists to drive faster, which in turn prompts higher speed limits. That’s what happened on Zelzah Avenue in L.A.
It’s not surprising, then, that the task force has recommended giving cities more flexibility to set lower speed limits, particularly on streets with lots of injury crashes or an abundance of pedestrians and cyclists. Research shows that speed limits do affect drivers’ behavior, and even modest reductions in speed can save lives. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a vehicle traveling 35 miles per hour has a 68% chance of survival. A person hit by vehicle traveling at 40 mph — just 5 mph faster — has only a 35% chance of survival.
They conclude this way.
None of these steps will be easy; Californians have fiercely resisted safety-promoting reforms that might slow their commutes. But at the very least, lawmakers should get rid of a system that forces cities to give in to speeders before cracking down on them.
Amen, brothers and sisters.
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Here’s something that’s been missing from Los Angeles for far too long.
LA nonprofit Streets For All has produced YouTube ads supporting safe streets candidates in the upcoming March 3rd election.
While there’s an argument to be made against independent groups getting involved in local political races, until campaign finance laws are reformed to remove outside influence and expenditures, it’s vital to get our side out there, too.
And yes, I’ll be casting my vote for Sarah Kate Levy during the early voting period next week.
He faces numerous charges, including multiple counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing grievous bodily harm; dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and adversely affected by an intoxicating substance; and failing to remain at the scene and render assistance.
The question is whether he was just too drunk and/or stoned to control his damn vehicle, or if this was a deliberate attempt to run down as many riders as he could.
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A meeting will be held in NoHo this afternoon to discuss the ill-advised widening of Magnolia Blvd, which contradicts LA’s Vision Zero and climate action plans, and all that is holy.
Pasadena News Nowallows the four candidates for the city’s mayor to make their case; all but one ignore transportation, except to complain about traffic. The fourth, Major Williams, gets points for wanting to get cars off the street — but what the hell are “motorized walkway paths?”
An 88-year old DC crossing guard is a hero, holding his ground against a speeding driver and sacrificing his own life to save two children. Thanks to Orange House for the heads-up.
This is who we share the roads with, too. A 75-year old London rabbi offered to help a woman park her Jag, and somehow confused the brake and gas pedals, crashing into two pedestrians before plowing into a pharmacy. Yes, the news is two years old; British privacy rules prevent releasing details on cases like this before they go to trial.
Bikes Need Love Too is a collection of personification essays covering family, loyalty, abandonment, fun, and friendship from six amazing young authors who reside in Watts, CA, and who are members of the East Side Riders Bike Club (ESRBC) organization under the leadership of John Jones III. For seven weeks, the authors participated in a rigorous writing workshop which was facilitated by Publishing Hope and Branding A+ Behavior better known by its acronym, the PHABB 5 program. In these eye-opening and heartwarming essays, the student authors of ESRBC take readers on a fun, powerfully motivating ride. Bikes Need Love Too is engaging, sincere, and a brilliant approach to help encourage young readers to discover their voices.
It’s less than a month from Christmas, and only days from Chanukah. Which makes this the perfect gift for anyone who loves bikes.
Sort of like putting bank robbers in charge of security.
Without the increases, the LAPD will be prohibited from using radar, LIDAR and other speed guns to enforce speed limits, as they have been for years on most LA streets.
Which explains why virtually no one in LA obeys them.
But increasing speed limits, even to improve enforcement, is the exact opposite of Vision Zero, making our streets more dangerous for everyone on them.
Instead of voting to endanger even more lives, city officials should be camped out at the state capital to demand an immediate repeal of the law.
And the ability to set speeds at safer, common sense levels.
Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.
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In more WTF news from the City of Angels, the universally despised beg buttons are back on the MyFigueroa bike lanes.
After countless complaints from bike riders when the MyFigueroa project first opened, LADOT adjusted the signals to give people walking and on bikes automatic green lights.
But evidently, it was just a show for the people attending the recent NACTO national convention in DTLA.
Now that the convention is over, anyone not in a car once again has to beg just to cross the damn street.
And good luck with that.
Watch here as 3 people waiting to cross Figueroa at Olympic miss the light because nobody pressed the button in time. One person (near corner) decides to cross against the red, while another (far corner) just gives up and walks to another intersection @LADOTofficial@seletajewelpic.twitter.com/SYh3XKsLgs
Cal Poly SLO, CSU Bakersfield, Loyola Marymount and Pomona College ranked Bronze.
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This is who we share the roads with.
LA-based comedian Bill Burr thinks Share the Road means we’re all supposed to get the fuck out of his way.
No, really.
Here’s that quote, in case you missed it.
…Oh and people who ride bikes in LA are morons, morons, they fucking dress up like they’re in a bike race and then they just drive out in the road. And they always yell ‘share the road’, it’s like well ’yeah, yeah you too, move over’ I allowed enough time to get there in a car, not follow you on your fucking bicycle Lance. I’m not saying it’s not a bad thing when they die, but it’s not shocking. *laughs*
In other words, just another indignorant, overly aggressive LA driver who thinks he does, in fact, own the road.
And that it’s somehow funny when someone gets killed.
San Francisco is moving forward with a pair of bike lanes to provide alternatives to deadly bike lanes on the Embarcadero, which aren’t due to be fixed until 2022.
The widow of a fallen Chicago cyclist has filed suit against the parents of the 15-year old hit-and-run driver who took his life, alleging they should have kept their unlicensed, underage son from getting behind the wheel. Let alone driving on the sidewalk, where the victim may have been standing.
Florida police track down a woman who had been missing since Monday in a Fort Meyers hospital; she had been admitted as a Jane Doe following a crash while bicycling. Yet another reminder to always carry some form of ID when you ride.
A British writer recommends a trip to the Scottish Borders, saying the region has been transformed with some of the best bicycling trails and infrastructure in the country.
