Tag Archive for Streetsblog

Newsom keeps Forest Lawn Drive deadly, Kings County judge gets lousy misdemeanor, and Metro find $1 million under cushions for open streets

September 21, 2026 / / No comments

May you have an easy fast for all marking the Day of Atonement today. 

And Jewish or not, we all have something to atone for. 

……….

Good news and bad from Sacramento.

On the good side, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ AB 2168.

The bill, which was sponsored by Calbike, is designed to strengthens California’s Active Transportation Program by improving how bicycle and pedestrian projects are chosen and funded, to deliver more connected, accessible walking and biking networks

The bad news is that Newsom also signed SB 194, a last-minute, apparently lobbyist-written bill enabling the state to interfere on behalf of a couple of wealthy cemeteries to keep Forest Lawn Drive deadly. The new law in designed to make it much harder to implement a shovel-ready Complete Streets plan that was supposed to start earlier this year.

Newsom should have had the integrity to veto the law, which was so narrowly written that Forest Lawn Drive is the only street in the entire state it applies to.

Then there’s this response to Street For All’s original tweet. Which tells you a lot about the kind of people we’re dealing with here.

Twitter post

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Life is cheap in Kings County, where County Superior Court Judge Kendra Weber was charged with a lousy misdemeanor, without gross negligence, for killing a 63-year old man riding a bicycle last year.

Weber allegedly hit him from behind after failing to give a safe passing distance.

Yet somehow, the California Attorney General’s office doesn’t even have the decency to mention the victim’s name. But I suppose we should probably just be grateful a judge was charge at all.

Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

………

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits new protected bike lanes in Griffith Park, Hollywood and Arcadia. And writes that Metro has identified $1 million in unspent funds that can be devoted to funding open streets next year.

Metro had zeroed out any funding for open streets events that were not directly tied to this year’s World Cup and the ’28 Los Angeles Olympics, but Supervisor Lindsey Horvath insisted they find some money for next year, later joined by LA Mayor Karen Bass as she struggles for re-election.

Although that amount of funding will cover just two to three events. But that’s better than nothing. Hopefully other sponsors will step up to host more events.

Speaking of which, CicLAvia will return to the popular Heart of LA event in DTLA, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, Echo Park and the Arts District on October 11th. And the Santa Barbara website that brought it up even has the good taste to illustrate the story with a photo of a corgi.

………

WeHo Online talks with the attorney representing the family of fallen bicyclist Blake Ackerman in their lawsuit against the city.

And it’s definitely worth taking a few minutes to read the lengthy piece. Take this brief segment, as the city takes the classic defense tactic of blaming the city, and/or claiming Ackerman’s death was an act of God.

The lawsuit isn’t claiming West Hollywood should have somehow predicted the event. It argues the City knew Fountain was dangerous, said so repeatedly and still did not make the changes it had been considering for years.

“They’ve become local experts since losing their son,” Gammill said of the family. “When things feel avoidable, preventable, it’s harder to swallow.”

“If lightning strikes, that’s just a fact of life. But when it’s not so much a lightning strike and it feels more like somebody left a live electrical cord laying out, that’s just harder to swallow.”

In other words, it may not be their fault that a hit-and-run driver plowed into Ackerman’s bicycle at Fountain and Gardner. But it is their fault that they’ve known for years, if not decades, how dangerous the street is and did nothing to make it safer.

That’s the unforgivable part.

And I will go to my grave blaming myself for not fighting harder to hold the city to account, before it was too late.

………

Speaking of the need for atonement, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the 23-year old Irvine man who struck a man in a wheelchair in Long Beach, and left him there in the crosswalk to die.

Allegedly.

Ethan Chung was booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter. He was apparently arrest later the same day, following the crash at 12:35 am Friday.

………

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

No bias here. A driver gets angry with a bike rider for not using an expensive new bike lane — even though the work isn’t finished and it’s not even obvious what it is yet.

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

A Singapore teenager has been charged with a rash act causing death after the 16-year old boy crashed his bike into a 74-year pedestrian, killing the man.

………

Local 

Pasadena’s new biking and walking plan is now open for comments, with a goal of achieving zero traffic deaths. In other words, Vision Zero by any other name.

The Crescenta Valley Weekly looks at last week’s call for Los Angeles to declare a traffic violence state of emergency, which seems to have fallen on the usual deaf ears at the city council and mayor’s office. After all, you don’t want to piss off driving voters in an election year just to save a few hundred lives. 

 

State

A 20-year old Orange County man was the first in line to return his ebike at the OC DA’s recent ebike buyback event, after spending months on life support following a crash.

A Helendale man was arrested in Irvine with a stolen bike and an outstanding felony warrant from Riverside County, but faces only 6 months in county and a $1,000 fine unless the bike turns out to have a value over $950.

The San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, is building seven bikeway projects totaling 21 miles, annoying at least some drivers in the process. On the other hand, SANDAG followed LA’s lead in returning $17.1 million in unspent Active Transportation funds for four projects after they couldn’t meet state deadlines. Except Los Angeles had to give back over $100 million.

A large group of San Diego bicyclists turned out on Saturday riding everything from pedal bikes and mountain bikes to dirt bikes to honor 14-year old Owen Harris after the boy was killed by a driver while riding his ebike in Pacific Beach last weekend.

A bike rider in Ventura suffered “significant” injuries when they were struck by a driver on Telegraph Road Friday. But the local paper doesn’t want you to know about it, hiding the story behind a paywall, even though it’s likely based on a public report from the city police.

Palo Alto will be moving forward with a pair of long-delayed bicycle projects.

A paywalled story from the San Francisco Standard looks at the city’s alt-cycling movement, described as “an anti-optimized ethos” emerging “from ‘broke people riding old mountain bikes’,” exemplified by a ‘zine called Calling In Sick. Or as it’s called anywhere else, just normal people riding cheap bikes.

 

National

Life is cheap in Tucson, Arizona, where a driver faces another lousy misdemeanor for killing a bike rider in a left-cross collision.

He — or maybe she — gets it. A Salt Lake City letter writer says whether acting as a bicyclist, pedestrian or diver, their safety depends on whether the road itself is poorly planned, or others on the road are acting unsafely.

Great idea. An Oklahoma bike tour took riders through some of the state’s historic Black communities over the weekend.

In a touching story, a group of bicyclists in College Station, Texas rode Saturday to remember Kerry Snow-Alley, a 47-year old woman who refused to let her stage 4 breast cancer define her, describing her as “a beast” on her bike but adding “Off the bike, she was generous, relentlessly positive, and the kind of person who quietly showed up for the people around her;” she died from the disease September 10th.

Two residents of a Wisconsin religious mission rode through rain, chilly temperatures and steep hills yesterday on a 101-mile bike ride to “celebrate their sobriety, express their faith and raise awareness for the program that helped them turn their lives around.”

It only took 30 years, but Minnesota finally finished a 165-mile bike path, one of the longest paved bike trails in the US.

A kindhearted Indiana cop dug into his own pocket to buy a kid a new bike, after the boy got stiffed for a grass cutting job.

Tragic news from New York’s East Village, where a 15-year old girl was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while sharing a bikeshare bike with a 16-year old companion; she appeared to be riding in the handlebar basket when the 57-year old driver hit them both while they were riding in a crosswalk.

Gothamist offers a look at plans for New York’s re-imagined Park Avenue, which will finally be more of one.

A Georgia man ‘fessed up to shooting another man in an argument over the victim’s bicycle, but there’s no word on why they were fighting about it. Regardless, there is no bicycle on Earth that’s worth a human life. Just let it go, already. 

 

International

A Canadian woman became an advocate for safer streets after her husband was killed riding his bicycle; 20 years later, she’s still honoring his legacy by working to keep us all safer. The sad thing is that she still has to do, because 20 years later things still haven’t improved.

An English woman was knocked off her bicycle by a legally blind driver, suffering a broken leg, heel and several toes, as well as lacerations and a fractured elbow, because the man “forgot” to put on his glasses before getting behind the wheel.

The co-chair of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh’s air pollution working group is now advising Scottish bicyclists to wear close-fitting masks when they ride, arguing that bike riders “hugely increased” their intake of such pollutants compared to drivers and walkers by breathing more heavily. Although another study showed that drivers breathe in much more pollutants than bicyclists, because the smog gets trapped inside their cars.

The co-founder of British fashion brand Mint Velvet remembers how she “just crumbled” when she learned her son wouldn’t survive after being struck by a driver while riding his bike ten years ago.

Four out of five Dutch bicyclists say they feel less safe now sharing bikeways with fat bikes and ebikes.

Now we know what killed 36-year old German ultracyclist Max Riese, who crashed into a deer on a high-speed descent near his home in Salzburg, Austria. 

Our old friends Melissa and Chris Bruntlett, now Dutch-based authors and mobility experts, visit Estonia and observe both the progress, and lack thereof, in the country’s two largest cities.

Istanbul’s Visa Maximiles Black L’Etape Türkiye by Tour de France 2026 gave riders the rare opportunity to through two continents on a single 20 to 60 mile route. Although it probably takes longer to say the name than it would to ride the short course. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser threw herself a party for her 36th birthday by winning a second-consecutive women’s elite time trial world title on Sunday. Meanwhile, Remco Evenepoel doubled Reusser’s record, making it four in a row by taking the men’s world time trial title, also on Sunday.

 

Finally…

Now you can own the only three-wheeled e-car prototype built before ebike maker SONDORS gave up on the project. Lime is now willing to rat you out to the cops if you misbehave.

And no, there’s no hypocrisy at all in demanding that bike riders pay a tax for using roads, when owing the government $20 million in unpaid taxes and fees.

Why do you ask?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Transportation bills still alive in CA legislature, no action on America Bikes Act, and “old coots” ignore real problem

July 30, 2026 / / Comments Off on Transportation bills still alive in CA legislature, no action on America Bikes Act, and “old coots” ignore real problem

I’m having some sort of major allergic reaction on my forearms. So if you see this post, it means I didn’t scratch all the skin off ’em.

Most, maybe. But not all.

………

If Sacramento has seemed peaceful lately, it’s because the legislature has been on summer vacation, which ends on Monday.

According to California Streetsblog, included among the bills still alive in this session, 

Assembly Bill 1421 would continue a study of whether a road usage charge could eventually replace the gas tax, which would stop EV users from getting a free pass. I’m good with it as long as the charge is based on vehicle weight, so users of massive vehicles pay more for the harm they cause to the streets, and the human bodies they hit.

Assembly Bill 1546 would increase the penalties for DUI to bring them more in line with other states. Now do the same for hit-and-run, where drivers in other states can get significantly more time for leaving people to die in the streets. 

Assembly Bill 1662 would change the law so that drivers who avoid fines as a result of a court-ordered diversion program would still get points on their driving record.

Assembly Bill 1837 would make camera enforcement of drivers who block transit lanes and bus stops permanent statewide. Now do bike lanes, too. 

Assembly Bill 2015 stops navigation apps from routing traffic onto neighborhood streets designed for local access, walking, and biking.

Assembly Bill 2168 would, among other things, prioritize leveraging of more state transportation funding to the Active Transportation Program. Yes, please. 

Senate Bill 569 would make it harder for local governments to remove or weaken existing bicycle infrastructure, prohibiting the removal of a Class I, II, III, or IV bikeway, or reducing the physical protection of a bikeway, unless they replace it with infrastructure providing equal or greater levels of safety and connectivity. I’m looking at you, Encinitas. 

Senate Bill 1167 clarifies the differences between ebikes and e-motorbikes or electric motorcycles, and prohibit false marketing of vehicles that don’t meet the requirements and limitations of ebikes.

Senate Bill 1423 requires the Active Transportation Program to steer half of State Transportation Improvement Program funding to projects that make streets safer for people walking, biking, and taking transit, while also making the state’s top safe streets grant program easier for cities to access.

………

US Rep. Mike Thompson discussed the America Bikes Act in an appearance in his home district in Davis yesterday.

According to Sacramento’s ABC10,

He said the legislation would expand federal support for safer bicycling infrastructure and bicycle safety education. Local leaders and advocates said safer and better-connected bike routes could also help save lives.

The bill would remove tariffs on imported bicycle components when they are used to assemble bicycles in the United States…

Other provisions would expand local access to federal funding to improve roadway safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

What he did not explain was how he expects to get the bill through the Republican-controlled legislature, where it still hasn’t been scheduled for a hearing, let alone a vote.

The bill comes at a time when the US Secretary of Transportation is inexplicably attacking “DEI bike lanes,” and removing any reference to road diets, protected bike lanes or speed cams from government websites.

And no, no one else seems to know what a DEI bike lane is, either.

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He gets it.

Santa Barbara columnist Nick Welsh wonders why the “angry old coots” are getting so worked up over ebikes, while ignoring the real problem.

It’s the height of stupidity to tell other people how they should feel about anything. I, however, have never stopped trying. I figure, sooner or later, I’ll get it right.

Here goes. For the past couple of years, Santa Barbara has been held captive by a cabal of angry old coots who are addicted to being in the state of perpetual apoplexy. They call this disorder apoplexy nervosa for which, sadly, not even Jerry Lewis has found a cure. They have endlessly hijacked public meetings about the future of State Street, using these public forums as the megaphone through which to rail endlessly about the scourge and menace of e-bikes. (And yes, God will strike me dead with an e-bike.)…

If you need to be apoplectic about something, why not light your hair on fire about the “surge” in pedestrian deaths because Detroit insists on building bigger and higher trucks and SUVs and we — as premeditatedly stupid accomplices in our own undoing — happily and stupidly buy these trucks and SUVs.

Since 2009, we’ve seen hood heights “surge” from 30 inches to 40 to 50. This reduces drivers’ sightlines. Pedestrians go unseen. Whammo. With the lower hood heights of yore, their knees might have taken the brunt of the blow. But today, it’s their internal organs. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the United States averages 7,080 pedestrian deaths a year. Of those, the institute estimates 700 are due to the higher hood heights. By contrast, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports there are 30-to-45 e-bike deaths
a year.

Go ahead and read the whole thing. It’s more than worth your time.

We’ll wait for you.

………

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

Good grief. Bicyclists aren’t even safe on bike paths now, after a bike rider was run down by a hit-and-run driver on the CV Link multiuse path in Coachella over the weekend, leaving him with scrapes, a swollen leg and knee, and damage to his bicycle; according to News Channel 3, people driving on the pathway seems to be a common problem.

Bike hubs and indoor bicycle parking facilities were temporarily shut down in Middlesbrough, Stockton, and Hartlepool, England, as a local Member of Parliament warned that bicycling and walking should not be “treated as an afterthought.” If only. 

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

Kenyons were suitably outraged after a large group of young bicyclists took over a Nairobi roadway popping wheelies and other “high-risk bicycle stunts” in an undated video.

………

Local 

The nonprofit LA Local says the death last week of a 60-year old homeless man at 7th and Vermont is a reminder that Los Angeles, and Koreatown in particular, remain too damn dangerous for pedestrians.

Streetsblog says Spectrum News 1 offers another “windshield perspective” view of the Pico Blvd Safety Project, which would remove parking to make room for protected bike lanes, among other things.

Vanity Fair interviews Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who is pictured wearing the classic P-22 CicLAvia T-shirt. And if that alone isn’t reason to vote for her, I don’t know what is.

Thanks to KABC-7 for making it clear that a man was killed and a woman critically injured in a Burbank collision involving an e-motorcycle, rather than just calling it an ebike. Although that doesn’t make it any less tragic.

 

State

Police in Laguna Beach cracked down on motorcycles and out-of-class ebikes, issuing 136 tickets, while failing to note that the problem stems from e-motos and illegally modified ebikes.

Bicyclists and residents of Woodside — as if the bike riders somehow aren’t “residents — packed a city council meeting Tuesday night to urge local leaders to push for stronger safety measures after a speeding driver killed a bicyclist earlier this month.

A 60-year old Los Gatos man suffered head injuries after his “bike was hit by a vehicle” Sunday morning; the story doesn’t mention that the vehicle had a driver until the final five words.

A San Jose bike rider is in critical condition after they were struck by a driver yesterday afternoon. Although judging by the headline, the victim was somehow injured after the crash, not during it. But at least the story mentioned the driver this time.

A San Francisco forum this evening will discuss how to build a bike lane. If you leave now, you could just make it. 

 

National

The Cherokee Nation is now accepting applications for next year’s Remember the Removal bike tour, commemorating the infamous Trail of Tears.

The far-right Daily Wire discusses, among other things, “blowing up bike lanes,” which I assume does not refer to inflatable protective barriers. And no, I have not watched it.

Seriously? USA Today considers what’s driving the increase in ebike injuries in kids and teens, without considering even the possibility of e-motos, illegal dirt bikes and illegally modified ebikes.

Gadget Review recommends 15 smart bike gadgets that actually make bicycling better. But as they used to say in those golden early years of the internet, your mileage may vary.

A Boise, Idaho man who says he’s been riding for 50 years apparently can’t grasp the purpose of the city’s first protected intersection, criticizing the raised islands for posing a hazard for “group rides that can include 10 to 20 cyclists traveling close to 20 mph.”

For the 81st year, the Green Bay Packers started training camp with the players riding borrowed kids bikes to the first session, while children lined up outside for the honor of having one ride their bike.

 

International

Author Phil Cavell’s new book examines why bicycling appeals to so many neurodiverse people, with one cyclist claiming ADHD offers an advantage at. the starting line.

A Montreal runner and bike rider asks “Why can’t we all — motorists, cyclists, pedestrians — just get along?” Which is one of the best questions I’ve seen or heard all month. 

A 51-year old English man is riding from North Wales to the southernmost point of Spain on a 36-year old bike to encourage men to open up and talk about their mental health, five years after he narrowly avoided taking his own life.

Who says bicyclists aren’t tough? A British man plans to ride 100 miles this month to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer UK, which is more than he’s ridden in the last three years — despite riding with a broken shoulder.

No surprise here, as almost three-quarters of UK bicyclists say distracted drivers put them at risk at least once a month.

In a story that reads like it was written by AI, a Kenyon website bizarrely identifies the victim of a bicycling fatality in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, but brings it home at the end by saying the death reflects a “global global urban planning deficit that prioritizes vehicular throughput over human life,” offering a grim parallel to the challenges faces by East African urban planners.

Unbelievable. An Indian circus performer known for his “daring bicycle stunts, including riding without looking ahead, balancing on the handlebars and standing upright while the bicycle was in motion,” was killed in a burial stunt, in which he was supposed to be buried underground for 24 hours, but was left there for 36 hours because the organizers refused to dig him up until the crowd donated the equivalent of $74; needless to say, he died of suffocation.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cycling star Demi Vollering feels like she’s the only pro cyclist talking about the problem of racing during her period, and wishes more women’s riders would speak out.

Velo offers 21 hot takes from the recently concluded Tour de France.

.

Finally…

That feeling when the cops decide it would “inappropriate” to release a video that led to a bike rider getting a ticket, after it had already gone viral when they released it the first time.

And an 11-year old San Clemente girl found her new best friend hiding in the bushes while she was riding her bike to Target, rescuing a small kitty she named S’mores.

Something that would have never happened if she’d been in her mom’s car.

@alaynanovini7

My sweet Madison found a kitten in need today on her bike ride. She is so scared. We took her to the vet and she is severely under weight and dehydrated. 16 weeks old and only 1.6 lbs. we gave her fluids and a dewormer. Next week will vaccinate her. Welcome home S’mores 🫶🏼😭🩷 #kittyrescue #kitten

♬ a punk – 3 minute audios

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Watch for smoke near Simi Valley, RoS meets LA Traffic Violence State of Emergency, and good bills die young in CA legislature

May 19, 2026 / / One comment

Before we get started, thanks to Kyle for sharing a candidate questionnaire prepared by the South Bay Bicycle Coalition for city offices in Torrance. 

Out of the nine candidates they contacted, four responded. It’s going to take me some time to format the questionnaire and their responses, so I’ll try to share it as a separate post later today. 

Let me applaud them for making the effort. Others have attempted similar surveys here in Los Angeles and surrounding communities, with varying degrees of success. It’s hard to get candidates to pay attention these days, let alone take the time to answer. 

I used to question candidates for my home council district, but as more money from special interests have flooded local races, the responses dwindled to roughly none. 

Okay, exactly none. 

So a nearly 50% response rate is pretty damn good. 

………

If you’re in the Simi Valley or West San Fernando Valley areas, keep your eyes on the skies for the next few days.

The Sandy Fire has swelled to 1,300 acres, which could affect where you ride. But more important, it can affect the air you breath if you happen to find yourself downwind of the flames.

Wildfire smoke contains tiny particulates and toxins that can cause lasting harm, and affect your lung health for days, if not weeks, afterwards — let alone the possibility of damage that can last for years, if not a lifetime.

As a bicyclist, your ability to draw in strong and healthy breaths are of vital importance, providing a lifelong benefit.

It’s not something you want to take foolish chances with.

And yes, that includes smoking, too.

………

As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow night mark’s one of the most important rides of the year.

The annual Ride of Silence takes place in cities around the world to remember those lost to, or injured by, traffic violence.

It’s a time to honor those victims — and we have a lot this year — and to call for traffic safety improvements. So that someday, the last person killed on our streets really will be the last person killed on our streets.

This year, we also call on Los Angeles city leaders to declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency, after the complete and total failure to implement, let alone achieve, Vision Zero over the past decade. So if you haven’t already, sign the letter.

Then contact the mayor and your councilmember to demand action on safer streets.

Now.

And if they won’t do something, vote for someone who will.

Here are all the RoS rides I know about this year. If you know of any more, let me know and I’ll post them tomorrow.

Bakersfield
Contact: Louis Bravos   <–Send email
Distance: 8 mi
Notes: Meet at Café Smitten downtown 909 18th Street at 6:35. We will read names of riders to remember and the Ride of Silence poem with enough time to gather and start in silence at exactly 7:00 PM in brotherhood with all Ride of Silence events in our time zone.
Los Angeles
Contact: Rafael Hernandez   <–Send email
Distance: 10 mi.
Notes: Contact the organizer for more details.
Palm Springs
Contact: John Siegel   <–Send email
Distance: TBD
Notes: 2026 Ride of Silence

Wednesday, May 20, 6:30 pm, Ruth Hardy Park, Palm Springs
Pasadena
Contact: Thomas Cassidy   <–Send email
Distance: TBD
Notes: When
May 20, 2026, 6:15 PM – 8:30 PMWhere
Rose Bowl (Lot K), Parking lot, Pasadena, CA 91103, USA
Rancho Cucamonga
Contact: Cycling Connection Nancy Michalski    <–Send email
Distance: 13 mi.
Notes: Details here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2842469792752657

Redding

Contact: Doug Holt   <–Send email
Distance: 8.8 mi.
Notes: Ride starts at Shasta Bike Depot 1322 California St. Redding.
Start time 7:00 PM. Public parking on south side of Bike Depot.

An additional Ride of Silence will be held in Long Beach, according to Bike Long Beach.

Ride and Walk of Silence

Organized by Car-Lite LB, community members, advocates, families, and local leaders will gather at Trolley Park at 2nd and Redondo on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at 5:00 PM for the Ride of Silence, a worldwide memorial event honoring the lives lost and forever changed by traffic violence in Long Beach and beyond.

The gathering will provide a space for remembrance, reflection, and solidarity while calling attention to the urgent need for safer streets for everyone — including people walking, biking, using mobility devices, and driving.

Afterward, pedestrians and cyclists will walk and ride westbound on 2nd St to Bixby Park and from there head to Bluff Park for a candlelight vigil overlooking the ocean.

………

Speaking of the victims of traffic violence, Christian forwarded news over the weekend that an 87-year old man was killed by a driver while riding a mobility scooter in Irvine Thursday night.

According to the Irvine Police Department,

On May 14, 2026, at around 8:30 p.m., the Irvine Police Department (IPD) responded to a traffic collision involving a Tesla SUV and an 87-year-old man using a mobility scooter at the intersection of Irvine Boulevard and Groveland.

IPD and Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) immediately responded and attempted life-saving measures; however, the man was pronounced deceased at the scene. The driver of the Tesla was transported to a hospital for minor injuries and is cooperating with investigators.

Preliminary information indicates the driver of the Tesla was traveling westbound on Irvine Boulevard with a green signal light, while the man on a mobility scooter traveled northbound in the crosswalk at Groveland when the collision occurred. DUI is not believed to be a factor in the collision.

Let’s repeat that.

The victim was an 87-year old man who needed a mobility scooter to get around. But cops somehow had to blame him because he couldn’t clear the crosswalk fast enough for a driver who couldn’t manage to avoid someone on a mobility device directly in front of them.

I mean, it’s not like Teslas come loaded with cameras and collision avoidance systems, or anything.

………

Streetsblog offers a recap of the transportation bills that bit the dust at the state legislature at the first deadline, as well as the handful that managed to move forward.

And some very good bills died an ignominious death.

To wit,

  • AB 1557 would have limited the motor output of ebikes sold in the state to a maximum of 750 watts, aligning it with federal definitions; however, a similar bill (SB 1167) is still alive in the Senate.
  • AB 1833 would have allowed drivers voluntarily opt into insurance telematics, with privacy protections, to allow insurance rates to better align with actual behavior, so safer drivers could pay less.
  • AB 1976 would have streamlined planning, construction and protection of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure across the state.
  • The good news is, AB 1942, which would have required owners of Class 2 and Class 3 electric bicycles to register them with the DMV and display a special ebike license plate, is dead — for this session of the legislature, anyway.
  • And SB 1035 would have suspended the state gas tax and other fuel charges for one year, which would have been a disaster for highway maintenance.

Among the bills moving forward,

  • AB 1546 increases penalties for repeat DUI offenders to bring California law more in line with other states.
  • AB 1662 would allow drivers who avoid fines through a court-mandated misdemeanor diversion program to still receive points on their driving record.
  • AB 2276 would have created a statewide pilot program requiring reckless and excessive speed offenders to install active intelligent speed assistance devices in their vehicles before they could regain driving privileges.
  • SB 1423 would steer half of State Transportation Improvement Program funds to projects to improve safety for people walking, biking, and taking transit, while also making the state’s top safe streets grant program easier for cities to access.

………

Bike Long Beach invites you for Bikes and Coffee at the end of the month.

Toss in some donuts, and I’m in. Although for diabetics like me, that could be considered assisted suicide.

………

LADOT wants you to check out the proposed final design for Pico Blvd between Crenshaw and Figueroa. And if “proposed final design” doesn’t tell you what’s wrong with LA’s process, I don’t know what will.

Twitter post

………

Support the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit line tomorrow.

Twitter post

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ActiveSGV invites you to learn more about the El Monte Clean Mobility Nexus Program.

Twitter post

………

Thanks to Megan for forwarding a pair of recent videos.

In the first, a Bay Area nonprofit exec is taking on the “grueling challenge” of Everesting in downtown Los Gatos to help fund a program that helps people transition out of prison, after losing $3.4 million in federal funding. And yes, you can thank Elon Musk and his chainsaw for that.

In the second, Italian TV reports on a crash that was barely reported here, as a driver slammed into a bike and a group of pedestrians, injuring eight people — four critically. Police were unsure if it was an act of terrorism, or just another “accident.” It’s also unclear if anyone was on the bike at the time.

………

Just stunning.

Bluesky post

………

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

No bias here. An angry driver leaped out of his car to confront the UK’s Cycling Mikey, raging that “everybody hates you” for the bicyclist’s history of filming drivers illegally using their cellphones. Because the real problem isn’t distracted driving or even breaking the law, but getting caught.

………

Local 

Secret Los Angeles looks forward to this summer’s CicLAvia—Meet the Hollywoods, connecting East and West Hollywood with seven miles of carfree streets this July. Although that skips over next month’s CicLAvia connecting Leimert Park with Exposition Park.

Metrolink will offer free rides for bicyclists on Thursday’s Bike Day, not to be confused with last week’s mostly ignored Bike to Work Day.

 

State

Forget traffic safety. The Laguna Beach PoliceDepartment led a multi-agency traffic enforcement operation that resulted in 140 citations — with a focus on loud and modified exhaust systems, while also netting three illegally modified ebikes.

The Pacific Beach Planning Group heard the case for opening a one-block section of Ocean Blvd to pedestrians and bicyclists on weekends, who already make up nearly 74% of all traffic for that section.

Bike riders in Santa Maria celebrated the city’s inaugural BiciChella event.

A German writer tours Specialized’s Morgan Hill HQ, and gets to see a military-style ebike customized for Arnold Schwarzenegger, and one made for Jason Momoa, “the actor from Aquaman.” Although I must have missed the sequence where he rides his undersea bicycle, effortlessly flipping through gearing on the fl…uh, swim.

 

National

Denver is opening yet another round of ebike rebates, though the amount has gone down to a max of $675, which can be combined with state rebates of $225. Which is about $675 more than Los Angeles offers, combined with $0 from California. 

A former Southern Californian is spending her retirement just a few miles from my Colorado hometown, putting over 10,000 miles on her bike. Or as I used to consider it back in the day, a good year. 

The Canadian National Railway agreed to sell an abandoned railroad grade for a new bike trail to connect Hurley, Wisconsin to Montreal. No, the other Montreal, about three miles away in Wisconsin.

A prothetic limb specialist in Saginaw, Michigan is attempting to address the global mobility crisis by fabricating prosthetic legs from old bicycle parts. Especially since wars in Ukraine, Iran, Sudan and other hotspots are increasing the need every day, with help from motorists.

Richmond, Kentucky will get its first singletrack course, in part because an 8th grade teacher and a bunch of kids in matching blue and orange jerseys stood before the city council to demand it.

A Florida triathlete was lucky to escape with road rash and a deep forehead cut when he got right hooked by a truck driver, despite riding in a completely coned-off lane.

 

International

Road.cc takes a deep dive into the Rover Safety bicycle, which they describe as the first commercially successful modern bike, introduced in 1885.

Um, okay. An “ebike fan” writes about his favorite bike helmets for the London Telegraph, and how to choose the best one. So next week, we can probably expect a “bike helmet fan” writing about ebikes.

No surprise here, as a new report says aggressive drivers are the main thing putting Irish women off bicycling. Aside from Irish men, that is. 

You may have seen this one before, but Steven forwards “a perfect example” of our car-centric roads from Swedish artist Karl Jilg.

 

Competitive Cycling

The 2028 Tour de France will move to the end of June to avoid a conflict with the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games, rather than the usual July start.

Portugese cyclist Afonso Eulálio continues leading the Giro as the peloton reaches the first rest day, though even he recognizes his time in pink is short, if not over.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you name a local hiking and biking trail to scare the tourists away. Who says you have to go butterfly hunting on your feet with a net?

And there may be more than water in that discarded water bottle you grab at the Giro.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Hoboken goes 9 years without a traffic death while LA gives up; and Streetsblog tracks transportation bills in CA legislature

April 8, 2026 / / 2 comments

Hoboken proves once again that Vision Zero works.

But only if a city actually commits to it.

The New Jersey city, famous as the home of Frank Sinatra, has now gone nine full years without a traffic death.

Not one bicycling death. Not one pedestrian.

Not even someone driving or riding in the big, dangerous machines.

According to The Good Men Project,

Sixteen years in, about two-thirds of Hoboken’s intersections are now furnished with physical deterrents, and the city has hundreds of high-visibility crosswalks and dozens of curb extensions.

After especially extensive road upgrades in 2022, Hoboken saw 18% fewer injury crashes and a 62% reduction in serious injuries from 2022 to 2023.

The key, according to outgoing Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who oversaw the project for the past eight years,

Bhalla successfully rallied support from within and outside of government, launching Hoboken’s Vision Zero Task Force in 2019. Public engagement, Francese says, was and is core to this. Community surveys and meetings allowed leaders to hear from multiple voices, “not just the loudest,” he says, and piloting changes at one or two intersections first allowed people time to test and assess new infrastructure before commitments were made on a larger scale…

Not only did community members come to better understand the reasons for certain changes, but many also got on board once they saw the changes in action. Community members now play a role themselves, flagging when infrastructure needs fixing and asking for specific upgrades at intersections that don’t have them. Public reporting of “near-miss” data also supplements close calls caught by city cameras that are being piloted around the city.

No one said it’s easy, or cheap.

Vision Zero failed in Los Angeles because the city failed to adequately fund it. And the first time there was significant pushback, city officials ran scared, cancelling fully funded and shovel ready projects in multiple council districts, including dangerous and deadly streets like North Figueroa and Temple Street.

Now there’s a campaign urging Mayor Bass and the City Council to declare a state of emergency regarding traffic violence — although that may fall to her successor, whoever that may be, after June’s election.

You’ll find my name on the petition calling for it.

If you haven’t already, add yours. Do it right now; it only takes a few moments.

Then demand that our city leaders follow suit now, during the campaign, when they need our votes.

And let’s hold them to it this time.

Instagram post

Photo from Streetsblog LA shows former Mayor Eric Garcetti signing Vision Zero proclamation at his big, beautiful desk.

………

Streetsblog offers a detailed update on transportation-related bills in the state legislature, including bills to increase the penalty for DUI and limit the power of ebikes to the same cap as in European nations, while another bans passengers on ebikes not designed for two people.

It’s worth taking a few minutes to read the entire list — and making a few calls to your representatives to make sure they pass.

Well, most of them, anyway.

………

Now you, too, can build your own DIY bike frame. But whether you should is another question.

………

Nothing like crash-landing on the roof of a car.

Relatively on purpose, for a change.

Instagram post

………

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

No bias here. A San Diego writer says recent news that ridership on the city’s 30th Street bike lanes has risen to record levels is absurd, because she and her friends hardly ever see someone using it from their comfy seats at a local cafe, bike counters be damned. And the bike lanes aren’t accepted by the local community, and never will be. So there.

San Francisco police staged a ticket crackdown blitz on bicyclists and other micromobility users at the intersection of Powell and Market, following the release of the city’s latest High Injury Network map. Never mind that the real danger comes from motorists, it’s also illegal selective enforcement to focus on one group of road users at the exclusion of another. So unless they also ticketed drivers during that enforcement operation, all of those tickets can and should be dismissed.

………

Local 

A Los Angeles woman tallies up the cost of giving up her previous carfree lifestyle nine months ago. But you’ll have to find a way around Business Insider’s paywall, or sign up for a free trial that will automatically renew at 13 bucks a month unless you cancel it. 

Hats off to the Pasadena City Council for declaring five key “sacrosanct” budget priorities protected from budget cuts, including improving roadways and implementing pedestrian and bike safety strategies. Maybe they could have a little chat with LA’s city leaders. 

 

State

Apropos of our earlier discussion, San Francisco officials caved to angry drivers by removing a neck-down that had been shown to improve safety, making their ostensible commitment to Vision Zero “meaningless.”

Sad news from Mono County, where a 34-year old man was killed by a driver as he walked his bicycle along a highway after dark.

 

National

Dwell looks at the world of online urban planning influencers.

The bicycle industry has been protected from the latest round of Trump’s tariffs, after industry leaders came together to oppose a proposal by a kid’s bikemaker and an aluminum trade group to include bicycles in the 50% tariff on imported aluminum and steel.

Honolulu’s bikeshare system is given only a 50/50 chance of survival after a series of setbacks left it with just half the number of bikes it needs to operate sustainably. Funny how many cities refuse to adequately subsidize bikeshare, active transportation and transit, but have no problem pumping hundreds of millions into subsiding the motor vehicle network.

Seriously, it takes a special kind of asshole to steal an adaptive ebike from a Las Vegas Make-A-Wish kid with cystic fibrosis.

Speaking of which, ebike sales are surging at one Las Vegas bike shop, as gas prices top $5 a gallon. Never mind what gas costs here in LA.

A Salt Lake City bicycle collective refurbishes 5,000 bicycles a year to help Utah families, while a Rockford, Illinois “bike surgeon” fixes up old, unwanted bicycles to donate to families in need.

A Brooklyn man was caught on video jumping off his bicycle, just before it was completely run over by a wrong-way driver.

A Pennsylvania man is biking 6,000 miles across the US to visit every Ronald McDonald House to raise awareness and funds for families in need.

DC letter writers complain about the Trump administration’s efforts to rip out a popular bike lane in the city, which they say improves safety for everyone.

 

International

Your next set of bike fenders could set you back a thousand bucks.

Hundreds of Cayman Island bicyclists are expected to turn out next month to finish the ride of a father and triathlete who was killed by a driver last Easter.

Canadian MTB profiles airbrush artist Dylan Forbes, who they say is responsible for some of the “sickest” mountain bikes and helmets out there.

Ignorance is apparently bliss for a large subset of British motorists who somehow think signs reading “no motor vehicles” actually means “cars and motorcycles only”.

A new study from the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment has found that ebikes offer clear benefits for older people and those with health conditions, but could reduce overall fitness among younger users.

A man from the Netherlands has spent the last 400 days bicycling along and across some of the world’s most challenging borders, questioning why he can pass so easily when so many others can’t.

Czech carmaker Škoda has developed a bike bell designed to penetrate even active noise cancellation headphones. Although the real question is whether it can pierce hermetically sealed motor vehicles with the windows up and the sound system turned to 11. 

A couple students from a Parisian political science institute learn the hard way that just because Manilla, Philippines is considered an “emerging cycling city” that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a smooth ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

People picks up the tragic story of Masters cyclist Colin “Creepy” Wilson, whose wife Tricia Jeffers was watching live online when he swerved to avoid a fallen cyclist during a race in Trinidad and Tobago, and severed his neck on the fence circling the course; his final words as he left for the race were “Tricia I going, I going to put us on the map.” Which he did, though not in the way either expected. 

Bike Radar answers the rocky question of why Paris-Roubaix is raced on cobbled roads never meant for bicycles. Kinda answers itself, doesn’t it?

Cyclist offers photos from the just completed Tour of Flanders. Insert gag about Bart and Homer’s neighbor here.

 

Finally…

Why climb to Everest Base Camp when you can ride there on a vintage foldie? That feeling when a press release for the 13th Annual Amgen Tour of California somehow pops up in the daily news — even though the race was cancelled six years ago.

And who really needs the whole front half of your bike, anyway?

Instagram post

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

New LA bike lanes sprouting with the spring, and CA DMV fights to keep killer driver on the road and record secret

March 11, 2026 / / Comments Off on New LA bike lanes sprouting with the spring, and CA DMV fights to keep killer driver on the road and record secret

Maybe we’re making progress after all.

Suddenly, there’s news of bike lanes sprouting all across the Los Angeles area, albeit to the apparent chagrin of some.

Twitter post

 

But evidently drivers are up in arms over at least some of the changes, as opposition grows from “some residents and local officials who say the plans could worsen traffic congestion, eliminate parking, and create confusing road designs.”

And even the death of a pregnant mom isn’t enough to get protected bike lanes on Pershing Drive.

Bluesky post

………

This is why people keep dying on our streets.

Cal Matters reports that the California DMV not only kept a driver on the road, despite at least 16 previous moving violations and four crashes, they fought to keep his driving record a secret.

Even from persecutors after he was charged with vehicular manslaughter for killing a two-year old boy.

And adding insult to grievous injury, the DMV renewed his license just a year later, while the manslaughter charge was still pending.

Surely, the DMV did some sort of review before deciding it was safe to let (Kostas) Linardos stay on the road.

Right?

The DMV spent close to a year fighting to keep the answer to that a secret, refusing to release information on Linardos without a court order and then urging a judge not to issue such a decree. The agency’s lawyer argued in a filing that prosecutors wanted records “for the improper purpose of smearing the DMV for alleged and unfounded wrongdoing.”

Prosecutors said they wanted the DMV records to help show Linardos knew the risks of driving recklessly, which is something they needed to prove to make a felony vehicular manslaughter charge stick.

When the issue finally made it to court this year, the attorney representing the agency made a shocking admission: The DMV had no records of any investigation into a longtime reckless driver who killed a 23-month-old boy. The agency didn’t even appear to have held a hearing before deciding it was fine to let Linardos stay on the road.

Un-effing-believable.

Thanks to Megan for the heads-up. 

………

A new study from San Diego’s Rady Children’s Hospital shows a more than 300% increase in ebike injuries in just the last four years.

Although once again, there’s no attempt to differentiate between ped-assist ebikes and electric motorbikes.

According to the study, the hospital recorded 262 ebike-related trauma cases last year, with most of the victims 11 and 14 years old, with a noticeable spike among 13‑year‑olds.

While that likely corresponds to the increase in ebike use, the hospital also reported ebike injuries were likely to be more severe than those caused by regular bicycles.

It’s also questionable how many of those ebikes were actually street legal, or could legally be ridden by children that young, who are limited to Class 1 and 2 bikes with a maximum speed of 20 mph.

Let alone on the freeway.

https://twitter.com/Sandiegohumor/status/2030712819264737671

Thanks to Ellectrek for the link.

Meanwhile, Newport Beach is considering banning ebikes from all schools except for high school students, and 7th graders if they have written parental permission. And once again, without differentiating between ped-assist bikes and e-motos.

………

San Francisco Streetsblog’s Roger Rudick doesn’t pull his punches after Caltrans ripped out a painted Oakland bike lane, replacing them with, yes, sharrows.

And as studies have shown, sharrows are worse than nothing when it comes to preventing injuries to bicyclists, and shouldn’t be used on streets with speeds above 35 mph.

Actions speak louder than words, Lucy pulls the football away again; whatever aphorism or metaphor one wants to use, Caltrans proves once again that it’s run by bad actors who betray the public in their relentless pursuit of auto-über alles policies.

Then there’s this.

With the removal of the painted bike lanes, which were woefully inadequate on a multi-lane street such as Oak Street to start with, Caltrans now expects cyclists to share a lane with traffic. Keep in mind that this is also a major route to I-880 and is plagued with non-stop speeding traffic and red-light running. The removed bike lanes are on a major bike commuter routes that connect the Oakland ferry terminal, Lake Merritt BART, and thousands of residential units…

Nobody, really, should be surprised. Caltrans, Alameda County, and the consultants who work for them have acted in bad faith throughout this project.

Never mind that Caltran’s ostensible Complete Streets policy requires the state transportation agency to “provide comfortable, convenient, and connected complete streets facilities on all projects and in all project phases, including construction and maintenance,” according to Jeanie Ward-Waller, Director of Transportation Advocacy at Fearless.

She should know, since Ward-Waller was the whistleblower who was “reassigned” from her position as Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans after warning that a Sacramento highway project violated that same policy.

Just one more reminder, if we needed it, that the agency’s Complete Streets requirement needs to be codified into law, since they only seem to follow it when it’s convenient for them or the public demands it.

………

I had the time to rip into this piece from a rightwing Irish site, as a writer complains about the “fetishization” and “relentless promotion” of the government’s “obsession” with bicycling.

Instead, we’ll have to let Road.cc handle this one.

According to Vincent, from the “perception of the average person”, the number of cyclists in Dublin using the city’s bike lanes “is so small that it is set completely off balance with the amount of space they take up”.

“Hardly anyone uses these lanes, and yet we are forced to swallow it when an entire lane from a road is sacrificed – often with the result of creating an infuriating one-way system in the area – to make space for more bikes; the same bikes that seem never to fill the lanes they are currently provided with,” he continues, failing to grasp the point of cycling infrastructure entirely.

Never mind that those “empty” bike lanes have resulted in a 50% increase in bicycle trips.

But that inconvenient fact probably wouldn’t fit his narrative.

………

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

No bias here. Residents in Devon, England are getting out the torches and pitchforks over construction work for a new protected bikeway, which will force a three-mile detour that will add “minutes” to their commute.

No bias here, either. After a woman in Singapore was struck by a driver while riding her bicycle in a crosswalk connecting two sides of a bike path, commenters online wrongly assumed she was required to get off her bike and walk it across the street.

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

The LAPD is looking for a suspect in a bike-by shooting in Historic South Central Los Angeles, after a 36-year old man was shot by someone on a bicycle while sitting in his car at Washington Blvd and Santee Street.

The French bike rider who was caught on video shoving a five-year old girl out of his way on a snowy bike path says he didn’t do anything wrong, and the whole thing was blown out of proportion.

………

Local 

If you left your bicycle, cellphone, blowtorch or prosthetic leg on a Metro bus or train, they may be holding it for you to reclaim. Although it makes sense that someone would leave their bike behind after losing their leg on the bus, which would make it kinda hard to pedal. 

Momentum hails Santa Monica resident Caro Vilain, aka mobilityforwho on Instagram, for her “viral videos steering a fun-fueled cycling revolution.” I would have embedded some of her videos, but Insta was being uncooperative tonight. 

 

State

Streetsblog offers a first look at transportation bills advancing in the state legislature.

Streets For All is out with their annual California Mobility Report Card grading individual legislators for their support of mobility legislation, or the lack thereof.

Evidently, complaining works. The Bay Area’s Caltrain is backing off new restrictions on taking cargo bikes, panniers or child seats onto their bike cars.

Police in Redwood City used license plate readers to snare a pair of bikewear thieves, who somehow walked out of a bike store with more than four grand worth of bicycle clothing.

That’s more like it. Palo Alto is using an app to reward people for riding a bicycle, ebike, e-scooter or electric skateboard, providing them with money that can be spent at local businesses.

A 27-year old man was found safe when he was reported missing after setting out for Big Sur from Monterey on his bicycle.

Say what? Sad news from Sacramento, where a man died in the hospital after he was struck by a driver while riding a bicycle — yet the police bizarrely said they suspected the death was a suicide, without offering any explanation.

 

National

Um, okay. Ebike imports to the US either a) set a new record last year, or b) declined significantly from 2024 levels, and c) may have exceeded the total value of regular bicycles for the first time. Or not.

On the other hand, bicycling contributed $3.67 billion to the American economy last year, an increase of 3.4% over the previous year.

Clean Technica recommends escaping the “Trump pump” on a ebike.

That’s more like it, too. The governor of New Mexico has signed a bill requiring driving students to take at least three hours of training on how to operate their vehicles around vulnerable road users, including bicyclists, pedestrians and emergency service workers.

Bicyclists in Omaha, Nebraska are calling for safety changes after a bike rider was killed by the driver of a semi-truck, following the removal of one of the city’s most-used bicycling routes for a streetcar project.

Heartbreaking news from Pennsylvania, where a 15-year old girl was killed while on a brief bike ride with her twin sister, at an intersection that had received more that 100 complaints from local residents.

A North Carolina newspaper offers an in-depth report on last month’s 950-mile Remember the Removal bike ride to help members of the Cherokee Nation reconnect with their heritage, while retracing the northern route of the horrific Trail of Tears; an estimated quarter of the 16,000 tribal members died along the way when the Cherokee people were forced to walk to Oklahoma from their Southern Appalachian homelands.

Florida lawmakers unanimously approved a draconian new ebike law that requires ebike riders to slow down to 10 mph within 50 feet of pedestrians on sidewalks or shared pathways.

 

International

What took so long? A man in the Isle of Wight faces charges seven months after he pushed a woman in her 60s off a seawall, resulting in injuries to her head, legs and face.

Custom lowrider bikes crafted by a Los Cruces, New Mexico artist made an appearance at the Paris Fashion Week.

Police in Soweto, South Africa have yet to make an arrest in an apparent hit-and-run that killed a popular security guard as he rode his bike to work in January, though they have brought in a suspect vehicle for testing.

 

Competitive Cycling

California’s Luke Lamperti claimed his first win on the season, sprinting to victory in stage 1 of Paris-Nice on Sunday.

Velo says the 2026 road cycling world championships in Montréal “will be an old-school rainbow jersey brawl.”

Twenty-two-year old Belgian pro Leander Van Hautegem was the subject of a “miracle rescue” when a passing forest ranger found him lying in a ditch with a severe concussion, collapsed lung, and broken rib after he crashed on a training ride.

Indiana University is expecting a record crowd for next month’s 75th annual running of the school’s iconic Little 500, made famous in Breaking Away. Which remains the all-time best bike movie, in my not-so-humble opinion.

A DC area public radio station reports on the annual Garage Racing National Championships, which was held last month in a multilevel Virginia parking garage.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a major consumer magazine suggests that a 14 buck ebike cover will somehow protect it from thieves. Now drivers aren’t even waiting for real bicycles to crash into.

And throwing your bicycle at the cops to make an escape is not one of the many recommended uses for it. And if they your bike, just hand over your backpack full of illegal weed.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marathon crash ride early this Sunday, LA blocks the will of 2/3 of voters, and US Bicycle Leadership Conference

March 6, 2026 / / Comments Off on Marathon crash ride early this Sunday, LA blocks the will of 2/3 of voters, and US Bicycle Leadership Conference

We mentioned it the other day.

However, David wants me to remind you about Sunday’s Marathon Crash Ride, which follows the traffic-free route of the LA Marathon in the wee hours before all those runners and walkers take it over.

And he’s not the only one who thinks it’s one of the year’s best bike rides in LA every year.

Photo by Laurence Hamdy from Pexels.

………

Los Angeles has replaced the heady scent of asphalt with the pungent smell of bullshit.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton looks at the sad two-year history of Measure HLA, and the city’s so-far successful efforts to block any progress in implementing the measure.

HLA has a very simple premise. The measure, championed by Streets For All and passed with a two-thirds margin by Los Angeles voters, requires that the city implement its already approved mobility plan anytime a significant portion of a street in it gets resurfaced.

But instead of following the clear will of the voters, the city has implemented a lousy 300 feet — the length of a football field, sans end zones — since the measure was passed.

City officials have gone so far as to invent the entirely fictional descriptive “large asphalt repair” instead of resurfacing streets, leaving just a small strip of unpaved asphalt to avoid triggering the requirements of HLA, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Consider this one section from Linton’s article.

June 2024 – City departments started announcing that they had an HLA plan. LADOT and StreetsLA stated that they were working together on “a joint work plan” for the coming fiscal year starting July 2024. As of June 4, DOT and StreetsLA claimed that their HLA work plan “is currently being finalized and will be made publicly available in coming weeks.” In late June LADOT General Manager Laura Rubio-Cornejo stated that DOT had submitted its list of project-ready Mobility Plan corridors to StreetsLA.

For several months Streetsblog requested that the city share the HLA work plan. In September, StreetsLA claimed that the “StreetsLA/LADOT work plan for FY 24-25 is in the final stages of assessment, and we expect it to be finalized this month. This work plan will serve as this fiscal year’s blueprint for bicycle facilities that require resurfacing or other paving treatments in order to be implemented.”

No plan, draft or final, was ever released.

HLA gives the public the option of suing the city if they fail to implement the measure when a street is resurfaced. But there’s no legal recourse when Los Angeles officials simply refuse to resurface anything.

At this point, the only apparent option is to remember that this is an election year, with a primary in June and the general election in November, as Mayor Karen “Do Nothing” Bass is up for re-election, along with half of the city council.

Which makes this the best possible time to pressure candidates to commit to implementing Measure HLA. Or simply pull the lever for someone else in the voting booth.

I’ve spoken to a number of people in recent weeks, of all political stripes. And I’ve yet to find anyone who plans to vote for Karen Bass.

Myself included.

………

People For Bikes is bringing their Bicycle Leadership Conference to Dana Point for three days, starting on St. Patrick’s Day.

Which is appropriate, because it’ll cost you a lot of green to get in.

Here’s a (very long) press release for the event.

Bicycle Leadership Conference Convenes Industry’s Most Senior Leaders at a Defining Moment for the Bike Business

PeopleForBikes will host the 2026 Bicycle Leadership Conference (BLC) March 17–19 at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort and Spa in Dana Point, California, bringing together the most senior concentration of bicycle industry leadership in the event’s history.

The gathering comes at a pivotal moment for the bike business as leaders across the industry navigate continued trade volatility, waning consumer confidence, margin compression, evolving e-bike regulations, participation shifts, and increasing pressure to define and protect the bicycle category.

Headlining the conference are three of the most influential figures in modern bicycling:

  • John Burke, President of Trek Bicycle
  • Phoebe Liu, CEO of Giant Group
  • Mike Sinyard, Founder of Specialized Bicycle Components

Together, their presence reflects a rare alignment of executive leadership, global manufacturing scale, and multigenerational industry stewardship.

Burke will present the U.S. Congressman James L. Oberstar Awards for Outstanding Advocacy Leadership. Liu will deliver a keynote focused on ESG integration and long-term supply chain strategy. Sinyard will outline his vision for expanding youth cycling participation through Outride as a foundation for sustained industry growth.

The 2026 conference also features California State Senator Catherine S. Blakespear, who will join a session focused on the growing e-moto problem at a time when states are reconsidering electric bicycle definitions. Her participation underscores the industry’s active engagement in protecting the three-class e-bike framework and ensuring high-powered electric motorbikes are not misrepresented as e-bikes. This distinction is critical to safety, access, and protecting the e-bike category nationwide.

A Leadership Agenda for a Complex Market

The BLC program is structured around four themes: leadership and vision, market forces and public policy, innovation and technology, and data and intelligence.

Sessions will address federal trade and tariff strategy, e-bike classification and category protection, youth cycling participation, artificial intelligence, operational efficiency, cross-category profitability, and the launch of the PeopleForBikes Data Suite.

“We are not spectators in this moment,” said Jenn Dice, president and CEO of PeopleForBikes. “When trade policy is debated, this industry has a voice and must lean in. When category confusion threatens our future, this industry has a coordinated response. The leaders in this room are not just reacting to change, they are directly shaping what comes next.”

Over the past year, PeopleForBikes led senior-level engagement across federal agencies, Capitol Hill, and state legislatures while organizing industry comments, model legislation, and rapid-response communications on trade and category issues. The 2026 BLC builds on that coordination, bringing CEOs into direct alignment around shared priorities rather than isolated advocacy.

“This is where collaboration becomes leverage,” said José Maldonado, chief marketing officer and BLC director at PeopleForBikes. “Trade strategy, e-bike category protection, infrastructure investment, and participation growth are not separate conversations. They require senior alignment and collaboration. The concentration of executive leadership at this year’s BLC reflects that understanding.”

Alignment Beyond the Stage

The BLC week opens with a reception featuring remarks from Burke and recognition of Oberstar Award honorees Daniel Langenkamp and Jill and Michael White, families who became national advocates for safer streets in response to personal tragedies.

Morning group rides — including guided road rides, mountain bike rides led by Hans Rey and Richie Schley, and a townie e-bike ride, provide small-group environments for extended discussion among executives.

PeopleForBikes will also present its Bicycle Leadership Honors, recognizing industry members whose lifetime achievement, rising leadership, outstanding service, catalytic change, and philanthropic guidance are shaping the future of bicycling and the bike business.

Early registration data reflects presidents, founders, CEOs, general managers, board members, and international trade leaders representing major global brands, retailers, suppliers, and advocacy organizations.

Registration remains open, but limited spots are available.

See the full 2026 BLC agenda and register today.

………

Calbike wants you to demand a more complete state highway bill.

Demand a Better 2026 SHOPP

Every two years, California approves a massive spending plan for the state’s highways. It’s called the State Highway Operations and Protection Program (SHOPP) and at several billion dollars per cycle, it’s the single largest pot of money Caltrans controls. It funds repaving, bridge repairs, safety upgrades, and more across thousands of miles of state roads.

It also, by law, must fund safe infrastructure for people who walk, bike, and take transit. That law is the Complete Streets Bill, sponsored by CalBike, SB 960, passed in 2024. It requires that each SHOPP make measurable progress toward 10-year targets for bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks on the state highway system. It was a hard-won victory, an acknowledgment that California’s highways aren’t just for cars, and that Caltrans has a legal obligation to build streets that work for everyone.

The California Transportation Commission has the authority to approve or reject the SHOPP, and to recommend that Caltrans fix it before they do. Send them a message now and tell them to stand up for Complete Streets.

Click through for an email response form and sample message.

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It’s looks like the long hope-for extension of the Ballona Creek bike path is really becoming a reality.

Twitter post

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It also looks like the long-gestating Mid-City Greenways are finally taking shape.

Bluesky post

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ActiveSGV wants to know what you want the San Gabriel Valley to be, on behalf of the San Gabriel Valley Collaborative.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/2029600251372335140

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Metro Bike is hosting a virtual bikeshare workshop on Thursday. Although just to be clear, it’s the workshop that’s virtual, not the bikeshare.

You’ll also get a free 30 day pass for participating.

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Our old friends Walk ‘n Rollers is hosting a Westwood ride on March 21st.

Speaking of which, their Walk ‘n Roll Festival will take place in Exposition Park from 11 am to 3 pm March 14th, complete with free bike skills courses, helmets and tuneups.

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Clearly, Black Girls Do Bike. And have for a very long time.

Bluesky post

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

No bias here. British bike riders were in disbelief after a traffic safety group tells bicyclists to give parked cars a one meter — roughly three feet — passing distance to avoid getting doored, but fails to offer any advice on how motorists can avoid dooring someone.

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

A Singapore bike rider got hit with a hefty five grand fine for blocking a traffic lane for half an hour when he mistakenly thought a driver had “inched out” while he was riding in a crosswalk.

Spanish motorcycle racer Aleix Espargaró was criticized after a driver posted video of him passing cars on the left while descending on a training ride on his bicycle, pretty much riding like he would on a motorbike.

Instagram post

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Local 

Cafecita Coffee will host a group bike ride this Sunday for International Women’s Day, beginning and ending with coffee at Cafecita. Although with a route that includes Mulholland Drive, the ride promises to be scenic, but not exactly family friendly. 

If you’re not busy Tuesday night, Metro Bike wants your input on where the bikeshare system should expand.

 

State

The inaugural Bike the Coast Ventura come back to Ventura coast for the first time this June, offering rides of 17, 35 and 65 miles.

 

National

If you’re one of the 40,000 people who bought a Concord 360 Degree Rechargeable Light-Up bike helmet from Walmart, the Consumer Products Commission says to stop using it immediately because it poses a risk of death in the event of a crash or fall. Which is probably a bad thing.

An Ashland, Oregon school has offered the nation’s only standalone certified training program for bike mechanics for more than 40 years.

Rad Power Bikes is apparently rising from the dead, after South Florida-based Life EV bought what’s left of the moribund Seattle e-bikemaker in bankruptcy court.

A 57-year old Brooklyn man riding a bicycle was repeatedly stabbed by a woman who approached him at 3 am, and attacked him with a sharp object for no apparent reason.

A professor of environmental management and the principal of Urban Cycling Solutions joins the parade condemning New Jersey’s draconian and wrong-headed crackdown on ebikes.

Bicyclists in Columbia, South Carolina say the state’s capital is on its way to becoming a bicycling city.

Georgia Public Radio observes a ghost bike ceremony for a fallen bicyclist, killed by a motorist outside of Macon last year.

 

International

The father of a five-year-old girl who was knocked down by a bicyclist on a Belgium pathway on Christmas Day 2020 has won his appeal of a lawsuit filed by the guy on the bike, who claimed he was defamed by a viral video of the incident; not only was the case dismissed, but the bike rider was ordered to pay the equivalent of nearly $2,400 in costs after the judge concluded the video was a matter of freedom of expression.

The Irish Times says there’s a reason there’s only one bicycle parked outside a Dublin school, as the lack of a bike lane means it’s not safe for people walking, let alone riding a bicycle.

A writer for Cycling Weekly takes extreme riding to the limits with a snowy nine-hour ride through Norway in the middle of winter.

 

Competitive Cycling

Three-time winner Tadej Pogačar now has a dirt section of the Strade Bianche course named for him, just days before the Saturday race.

Aussie pro Michael Matthews is out of action for the foreseeable future after breaking both his wrists in a training crash.

And this is what a real cyclist looks like.

Bluesky post

 

Finally…

Yes, bicycle gymnastics really is a thing. Your bike helmet has an expiration date.

And what’s so funny about someone riding a Penny Farthing?

Or peace, love and understanding, for that matter.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Urgent Malibu PCH action alert, CA among weakest US DUI states, and more on CARB’s murder of ebike incentives

October 31, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 304 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Happy Halloween!

If you’re still looking for a costume that will truly terrify your neighbors, consider going as a bike lane.

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If you live, work, commute or bike on or anywhere near PCH in western Malibu, take urgent action now to keep a vital safety project moving forward, which is currently in jeopardy before the Malibu Planning Commission.

Consider this alert from Streets Are For Everyone that went out yesterday; you’ll find a ready-made email response form on that link.

Choose Life Over Delay — tell the Planning Commission to Approve the Plan

On Monday, November 3, the Malibu Planning Commission will hold its final hearing to decide whether to approve the Caltrans PCH Safety Project — a $55 million once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild and make PCH safer for everyone. Based on the last meeting, they are not likely to approve the plans unless people express strong support for the plans.

You can view that meeting here. The presentation, public comment, and debate start at 38:10 and continue for a couple of hours.

This plan would repave and reconstruct the western end of PCH from Cross Creek Rd to the Ventura County line while adding long-overdue safety improvements like:

  • 15 miles of new or upgraded bike lanes
  • 6,956 linear feet of new sidewalks in high pedestrian zones, including in front of Pepperdine University
  • 42 new dark-sky compliant light poles
  • The installation of 19 new guardrails
  • 22 new or upgraded curb ramps
  • Three new retaining walls
  • Two realigned intersections
  • A vehicle pull-out for law enforcement use
  • Median reconstruction at various locations
  • Associated roadway improvements along Pacific Coast Highway within the Public Right-of-Way between the Ventura County line and Serra Road

There are additional safety improvements that can and should be made after this. They will require additional funding and much more work to secure approval from agencies like the California Coastal Commission. The items above are changes that can be easily implemented with the funds immediately available.

If the Planning Commission fails to approve the project, the funding will vanish. The road will not be repaved, the safety upgrades will not happen, and Malibu will lose its only realistic chance to prevent more deaths on the western end of PCH for years or even decades.

This is not just another meeting — it’s a moral choice between action and inaction. Every year of delay means more preventable crashes, more empty chairs at dinner tables, and more families devastated by the same road we all depend on.

What We’re Asking You to Do:

Email the Malibu Planning Commission today and tell them to approve the Caltrans PCH Safety Plan. Ask them to prioritize lives over delays — to say YES to rebuilding PCH safely, responsibly, and collaboratively. We can continue to refine the details, but we cannot afford to lose the funding and start from zero.

Please also show up to the Planning Commission Meeting on Monday, 3 Nov, starting at 6:30 at Malibu City Hall. This is the link to the agenda.

You can also join and provide public comment on this virtually using this link.

This is Malibu’s last real chance to fix the western end of PCH.

Not mentioned is that failure to approve the plan means the money will be reallocated to other projects, somewhere else in the state. Which will set back desperately needed safety improvements on SoCal’s killer highway years, if not decades.

The Malibu Planning Commission doesn’t want to hear from me, since I haven’t set foot or wheel on PCH or in Malibu for years.

They want, and need, to hear from you.

Photo from Caltrans. 

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In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, CalMatters finds that California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country.

California’s DUI enforcement system is broken. The toll can be counted in bodies.

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California have shot up by more than 50% in the past decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal estimates show. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions. Thousands more are injured. Again and again, repeat DUI offenders cause the crashes…

We found that California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment. Here, drivers generally can’t be charged with a felony until their fourth DUI within 10 years, unless they injure someone. In some states, a second DUI can be a felony…

California also gives repeat drunk drivers their licenses back faster than other states. Here, you typically lose your license for three years after your third DUI, compared to eight years in New Jersey, 15 years in Nebraska and a permanent revocation in Connecticut. We found drivers with as many as six DUIs who were able to get a license in California.

Many drivers stay on the road for years even when the state does take their license — racking up tickets and even additional DUIs — with few consequences until they eventually kill.

Seriously, read it now. We’ll wait for you.

Back already?

Maybe you caught the part where they said “drunk vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent felony,” but DUI causing “great bodily injury” is. So breaking someone’s leg while driving under the influence can result in more jail time than killing someone.

Go figure.

Or that some California drivers have somehow remained on the road with up to 16 DUIs, until some innocent person pays the price. Or far too often, more than one.

And that arrests have dropped in half over the past 20 years, even as loosened cannabis laws and ready access to pharmaceuticals — legal and otherwise — mean more people than ever are likely driving under the influence of something.

This isn’t just theoretical for me.

One of my best childhood friends was killed by a drunk driver our senior year of high school. He was a state tennis champ deciding between a college scholarship and going pro when a woman somehow jumped a 50-foot median with guard rails on either side, and hit his car head-on, killing him and a passenger.

She walked away without a scratch. Or any jail time.

The same with my cousin, a rodeo queen killed when her father made a sudden turn, throwing her out of the back seat, then ran over her when he went back to get her.

So yeah, it’s personal.

And don’t even get me started on all the many victims of drunk and drugged drivers I’ve had to write about here over the last two decades.

Yes, this state just approved a law extending the ability of judges to order DUI drivers to install an interlock device. But that won’t do a damn thing to stop someone from getting behind the wheel stoned out of their mind.

Take this case in point. Or this one.

It’s long past time California got serious about drunk and drugged drivers, even if that means taking their cars away and not just their licenses. Or building a new effing prison to hold them all if we have to.

I’ll be happy to chip in to help pay for it, if it means a few more people will make it back home at the end of every day.

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More on yesterday’s story about the California Air Resources Board stabbing the bicycle community in the back by quietly stabbing the California Ebike Incentive Program in the front when no one was looking.

According to Streetsblog’s Damien Newton,

Despite demand for e-bike vouchers being so high that it crashed the website each time the state opened the lottery, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted at their last meeting to end the statewide program it oversaw, rolling the remaining $17 million of the original $30 million allocated by the legislature into its “Clean Cars 4 All” Program.

The concept of California E-Bike Incentive Project began had so much promise but was plagued with scandal and incompetence to such a level that one prospective applicant told Streetsblog last April, “If they were actively trying to sabotage the program, what would they do differently than this?”

Regardless of the intent, the effect is the same. The April application portal was the last time the program gave out certificates.

He adds that the most surprising thing is how quietly the program slunk out — or was tossed out — the back door, with no official announcement, no press release, and no mention on the program’s website.

There’s more. A lot more, in fact.

It’s all worth a read.

But what occurred to me yesterday is that this could leave CARB exposed to a lawsuit for age discrimination and violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Because by transferring the funds to a green car program, they are favoring people capable of driving over those who can no longer drive due to age and/or illness, and needed an ebike to provide greater mobility.

Could it win?

I have no idea. I’m not a lawyer, and have no expertise in ADA or age discrimination law.

But if someone needs a plaintiff, I know where they can look.

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LADOT reminds us they’re looking for feedback to finally fix dangerous Ohio Ave west of Westwood Blvd.

Twitter post

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Gravel Bike California explores the Breckenridge Mountain Loop, just a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.

Although the only Breckenridge I’ve ever ridden is just a tad further away.

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

No bias here. The local paper says adding a movable barrier to the bike lane on the Richmond-San Rafael bridge is a good idea, allowing the state to close the bike lane on weekdays to make more room for cars. Because evidently, the convenience of drivers outweighs the convenience and safety of everyone else. 

An English politician complains that a few feet of pavement for new bikeway is changing the character of the city by covering over historic cobbled paving stones. But the city just says hold on, we’re not done yet.

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

A British man was surprised to learn a bikeshare company has no legal liability for the ebike rider who crashed into his bicycle, leaving him “hours from death.”

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Local 

Streets For All says the $2 billion — yes, with a B — LAX ATMP Roadway Improvement Project will only have the opposite effect, tearing up streets just before the Olympics, while making things more dangerous for pedestrians and people on bikes.

A Culver City paper offers more information on the official opening of the new Robertson Blvd Bus/Bike Lane Project.

Somehow, we missed this year’s Phil’s Cookie Fondo, hosted by former pro cyclist and Worst Retirement Ever host Phil Gaimon, to raise fund for the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club — but you can still donate to the fundraiser.

 

State

Around 1,600 people are expected to turn out for Saturday’s Bike the Coast in San Diego County, with distances ranging from seven miles to a century.

The annual two-day, 31-mile Wounded Warrior Project’s Soldier Ride is currently underway in San Diego.

That’s more like it. A 27-year old Bakersfield man was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run crash that killed a 30-year old woman riding a bicycle in 2022, despite turning himself in a few days later after sobering up. As lax as California’s DUI laws are, the state-s hit-and-run statutes are even worse, providing an incentive for drivers to flee if they’ve had a few.

Marin County bike riders were expected to turn out last night for the annual Pumpkin Head Ride, which requires participants to wear a lit pumpkin on their helmets, if not their heads.

Sacramento’s Bike Lab works to empower local people through a variety of community services, including free bike repairs for anyone who needs it.

 

National

Knog is recalling its Blinder 900 and Blinder 1300 Front Bicycle Lights because the lithium-ion batteries could catch fire, but they promise they’ll replace it for you.

No point in waiting, I guess. Bike Magazine is the first out of the gate with a holiday gift guide. For all your Halloween giving, evidently. 

Somehow, I’ve never heard anyone say they’d start riding if only ebikes had a bigger interactive touch screen.

Of all the crashes that are unsurvivable, getting run down by a cement truck driver ranks pretty high on the list.

A Utah woman got a custom postpartum bike fit to help her get back on her bike, addressing the unique physiological changes affecting women after having a baby.

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Albuquerque, New Mexico is building a new HAWK signal at a bike trail crossing where a bike rider was killed three months ago. Except why do they always have to wait until it’s too late? And someone should tell that TV station that the victim probably had a name. Just saying. 

The leaders of a Kansas hospital chain got together to build 25 new bicycles to donate to children and families across the Kansas City area.

An Ohio city opened a new connector project, including a new bike and pedestrian bridge, stitching together multiple miles of bike trails.

Great idea. A Baltimore-area bike shop teamed with a bike builder and custom painter to build a tricked-out, one-of-a-kind bicycle, raising over nine grand for a local homeless outreach group.

A Florida op-ed writer argues that greater enforcement against bike riders and pedestrians is exactly what’s needed to improve traffic safety. Because we’re the real danger, apparently, not the people in the big, dangerous machines.

 

International

A Canadian writer got his custom built, carbon frame Frankenbike back, courtesy of a small town marketplace, a year-and-a-half after it was stolen from the teenager he passed it down to.

Somehow, Brompton goes electric doesn’t quite have the same feel as Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival, but still.

Europe’s most influential bicycle trade show is in jeopardy, after two leading German bike groups pulled out of Eurobike.

The UK now has a “boozy bike trail” through vineyards just 90-miles from London. Because if there’s one thing dank and drizzly England is known for, it’s wine. 

That’s more like it. Lime is deploying 500 dockless ebikes with child seats installed on the back to the streets of Paris.

A travel writer takes his family on a first-of-its-kind Botswana safari to track lions and elephants by bicycle.

 

Competitive Cycling

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Grand Junction, Colorado newspaper celebrates a 77-year old local man’s second-place age-group finish on the world master’s cycling stage.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your new artistic bike rack becomes a sock library. Or when you invent the first aero bike by using balsa wood and mummy tape.

And evidently, you’re not supposed to hurl Lime bikes out the back of a van.

Who knew?

Instagram post

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Thanks to Ted F for his very generous donation to support this site, and help me stay in the fight for a few more rounds.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WeHo petition supports convenience over safety, Pasadena’s invisible bicyclists, and is anyone in LA listening to voters?

August 22, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 234 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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No surprise here.

A petition to oppose the redesign of deadly Fountain Ave in West Hollywood has over 2,300 signatures, proving once again that some people will always value their own convenience more than human lives.

Although that represents less than seven percent of the city’s population. And many of those signers are likely pass-through drivers from other cities, who are used to using the neighborhood street to bypass busier Santa Monica and Sunset Blvds.

Never mind that it has taken nearly a full year to draw those relatively few signatures.

But according to the somewhat less than unbiased WeHo Times,

Petition organizers argue Fountain is too narrow for the project and accuse city leaders of failing to adequately consult with residents, including those in adjacent Los Angeles neighborhoods. They point to other cities, including Culver City, Beverly Hills and South Pasadena, that have scaled back or removed bike lanes in response to public opposition.

Concerns listed in the petition include the diversion of an estimated 900 cars per hour to nearby Santa Monica and Sunset boulevards, the inability for cars to pull over for emergency vehicles or passenger drop-offs, and increased pollution from idling traffic. The project’s estimated cost is $35–40 million.

Not mentioned, however, are any benefits of the redesign, from slowing speeding drivers and improving safety for all road users to reducing noise pollution and revitalizing the residential corridor.

Nor is there any mention of the recent death of Blake Ackerman, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike home from work on Fountain just last month. Or any of the other people who have been killed or seriously injured just walking, biking or driving on the corridor.

There’s also no mention that both the sheriff’s department and the county fire department said the redesign would not affect their ability to respond to emergencies along the corridor.

A petition in support of the street makeover has gathered 612 signatures since it was posted in October. And yes, that includes mine.

There’s no mention of that, either.

Photo of protestors opposed to Fountain safety project by Joe Linton for Streetsblog.

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No bias here.

After Pasadena’s mayor said he can’t see anyone riding bicycles on Union Street, a volunteer with the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition planted tongue firmly in cheek, and conducted his own highly scientific study.

According to Jonah Kanner’s highly entertaining piece, bicyclists may be using advanced technology, such as an alien cloaking device, to remain hidden from view.

Mayor Victor Gordo, in January, 2024, noted that he is unable to see the cyclists, saying “… we’ve gotta be careful about that, now that we’ve seen what’s happening on Union Street. We were told there would be hundreds and thousands of bicyclists going back and forth—that’s— that’s not what we’ve seen.” Also tricked by the advanced technology, Pasadena Chamber of Commerce CEO Paul Little told the Planning Commission in July, 2025, “As we see with Union Street, the installation of millions of dollars in signals, curbs and re-striping has not significantly increased bicycle usage there.”

A recent study used sophisticated measurement techniques to reveal the invisible cyclists: the author stood on the corner of Lake and Union Street for about 20 minutes holding his phone. In that time, he was able to photograph more than 30 people riding bikes, both on the Union Street bike path and on Lake Avenue. Statistical analysis suggests that over the course of a whole day, a lot of people are riding bikes on Union Street.

Let’s not forget that the city is home to Caltech and a stone’s throw from the Jet Propulsion Lab. So advanced tech is not entirely out of the question.

Although based on the reaction from drivers, I seem to have been using some form of it since I bought my bike back when Reagan was president.

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California Streetsblog editor Damien Newton says Angelenos are crying out for safe streets.

But he asks if anyone is listening, noting that eight appeals have already been filed against the city for failing to observe the requirements of Measure HLA, which mandates that the city mobility plan must be built out when streets are resurfaced or significantly re-striped.

The appeals, nearly all for missing crosswalks, come on the heels of the saga of the Stoner Park crosswalks where advocates painted crosswalks around the park, two of which were on a “Slow Street,” the city removed the crosswalks, and after bad press and intervention from the local City Councilmember re-installed the crosswalks. While it’s encouraging that in the end the crosswalks were installed, it shouldn’t be this hard.

In March of 2024, voters passed Measure HLA which required the city to implement its own mobility plan when completing repaving projects of a certain size. The popular measure received a majority of votes in all fifteen council districts while cruising to an easy victory. Since then the city dragged its feet, and nearly a year and a half after the measure was passed the city’s implementation ordinance went into effect on Monday. So did the ability of residents to appeal out-of-court if they believe the city is failing to implement the law.

It’s a good question, even though Los Angeles voters passed HLA with a two-thirds margin.

You would think that after that meany LA voters voiced a strong preference for safer and more livable streets, city leaders would be quick to respond.

But evidently, you’d be wrong.

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

Here’s a new one. Welsh residents opposed plans for a newly approved bike path because it would a) disturb a territorial dog, leading to excessive barking, and b) force the removal of a van that’s been parked in the area since 1990.

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Local 

No news is good news, right?

 

State

The US head of Upway says California’s clean energy push is leaving low-income residents behind, even though ebikes and e-scooters are among the cleanest and least expensive transportation modes.

Yorba Linda is just the latest Orange County city to crackdown on ebike riders.

San Diego bike riders will have their annual opportunity to ride around the bay and across the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge when Bike the Bay returns this Sunday.

Sad news from Kern County, where an 81-year old man was killed by a driver while riding his bike on Tehachapi’s Highline Road yesterday morning.

San Francisco’s experiment with a carfree Market Street will come to an end next week, when the city will allow Waymo, Uber and Lyft to pick up and drop off passengers, in a move strongly opposed by local advocates.

 

National

Streetsblog’s Talking Headways Podcast speaks with NACTO Executive Director Ryan Russo about how to design and deliver bike networks.

The semi-legendary Tour de Fat returns to my bike-friendly Colorado hometown this weekend for the annual celebration of bikes and beer.

A Denver TV station listens to the concerns of regular bike riders and advocates, after reporting on the dangers faced by vulnerable road users in the Mile High City. So when was the last time a Los Angeles TV station did anything like that? Bueller? Bueller?

Perhaps taking a cue from LA’s successful Streets For All PAC, Chicago’s new Bike PAC political action committee launched to elect pro-bike candidates to the city council.

A 14-year old Miami e-dirt bike rider will face charges for riding without a license after killing a 54-year old man riding a bicycle last Friday.

 

International

Momentum takes another look at some of the world’s worst bike lanes.

A Toronto petition is calling for local venues to allow bike riders to bring their helmets into concerts and sporting events, without charging bag check fees up to $20.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a garbage truck driver walked without a day behind bars for killing an 11-year old boy riding his bike to school, after admitting to using his phone several times while driving prior to the crash.

Twenty-five percent of bike theft victims in England and Wales gave up bicycling completely after their bikes were stolen.

Turns out that the “incremental gains” theory developed by British cycling coach David Brailsford can help ranchers squeeze out a few more bucks in profit.

Police in the Netherlands are looking for a possible bike-riding suspect in the brutal murder of a 17-year old girl as she rode her bike home from a night out.

Another one bites the dust, as the Polish parent company of gravel bike brands Rondo, Creme Cycles, NS Bikes and Octane One has filed for bankruptcy after two to three “really tough years.”

The LCR Honda racing team will be down one rider at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, after Spanish motorcycle racer Aleix Espargaro injured his back in a bicycle crash.

The Indian city of Chandigarh discovered the hard way that using paving stones on cycle tracks isn’t compatible with heavy rain storms.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks at the six Americans and two Canadians who will take part in the Vuelta, starting tomorrow.

Despite retiring last year while under investigation, French cyclist Franck Bonnamour was banned for four years, after the 30-year old former most most combative rider at the Tour de France showed signs of doping on his biological passport.

The co-founder of Formula Fixed wants to bring bike racing into the TikTok era, with stops including the District of Columbia, San Francisco and, yes, Los Angeles.

Mountain biker Ryan Standish makes a second attempt at setting the fastest known time from Fruita, Colorado to Moab, Utah along the Kokopelli and White Rim Trails after failing last year, traveling 310 miles with 26,000 feet of climbing through stunning desert landscapes.

 

Finally…

A new Ti bike could be yours for the low, low price of just 24 grand. Now you, too, can turn your expensive racing bike into a cargo bike.

And anyone can ride a century facing forward — so try doing it backwards.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Good news and bad news as CA legislature hits halftime, and “oopsie” shouldn’t get killer drivers off the hook

June 11, 2025 / / Comments Off on Good news and bad news as CA legislature hits halftime, and “oopsie” shouldn’t get killer drivers off the hook
Day 162 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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Streetsblog provides a halftime report from the California legislature, as bills move to one house after passing in the other.

Or die an ignominious death upon failing.

Among the winners so far are AB 954, aka The Bike Highways Bill, and AB 891, Quick-Build Project Pilot Program.

The former would set up a pilot program to connect existing bikeways into bike highways, while the latter would instruct Caltrans to use quick-build designs to improve state roads.

Among the other bills also passing in the Assembly was AB 366, allowing interlock devices for drivers convicted of DUI.

Bills passing in the state Senate included SB 71, streamlining CEQA environmental review requirements for public transportation, bike and pedestrian projects that would reduce car dependency.

Also passing the Senate was SB 445, which imposes a deadline on local agencies to review permits for Complete Streets and sustainable transportation projects.

Dying for this year were a bill that would have placed a statewide bond issue to fund sustainable transportation projects on next year’s California ballot, and one to allow victims of climate disasters or their insurers to sue oil companies to recoup their losses.

Meanwhile, the long awaited Stop As Yield, aka Idaho Stop, law that would allow California bike riders to treat stop signs as yields — and possibly roll through red lights after coming to a complete stop — will have to wait until we have a new governor in two years.

It wasn’t introduced this year because Gavin Newsom already vetoed two previous versions of the bill.

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This is why people keep dying on our streets.

Life is cheap in Los Altos, where a man walked without a day behind bars for the distracted driving death of a 38-year old woman riding a bicycle after he was sentenced to probation and community service; he had faced up to six years for felony vehicular manslaughter. Not a single year, as the story suggests.

And life is equally cheap in Michigan, where a former cop walked without a day behind bars for killing an 83-year old man riding a bicycle, after he was sentenced to 12 lousy months of probation; the victim had just finished a ride across the country, and was on his way back home to Florida.

So what’s the point of even having traffic laws, if overly lenient judges won’t even hold drivers accountable for killing someone when they break them?

Just saying “oopsie” shouldn’t be good enough.

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Local 

No news is good news, right?

 

State

A San Francisco woman has filed suit against Waymo after she was doored by the passenger of a Waymo self-driving cab, and prevented from taking evasive action by another Waymo cutting across the bike lane.

A new website tells you everything you always wanted to know about where and how to bike in and around Lake Tahoe. Okay, not literally in, unless you’ve invested in waterproof bike lube. 

 

National

CNN recommends the best bike shorts for a more comfortable ride, according to “seasoned cyclists.” Which raised the question of how were they seasoned, and whether they should be grilled, baked or air fried.

The rich get richer, as Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community Boulder, Colorado could soon get a protected bike lane on a dangerous stretch of one of the city’s main drags.

Kindhearted residents of five Iowa counties collected over 200 donated bicycles to restore and distribute to community members.

That’s more like it. A 25-year old Missouri woman was sentenced to ten years behind bars for the drunken collision that killed a 25-year old man riding a bicycle last year.

Hundreds of people turned out for a Slow Roll memorial ride to remember a 38-year old Ohio woman who was killed when an 18-year old driver crossed onto the wrong side of the road, slamming head-on into her and another woman riding their bikes together, along with a third person who escaped the crash. Maybe if we had a turnout like that when someone gets killed here, we could see some real change in LA, for a change. 

This is how Vision Zero should work. An Ohio city received a $1.4 million grant to install new sidewalks and shared-use paths where two young boys were struck by a driver while riding their bikes last year; a nine-year old boy was killed, while a 10-year old survived with serious injuries.

Streetsblog says if New York’s mayor really wants to improve traffic safety, the city should take advantage of a one-year old state law allowing it to lower speed limits to 20 mph, rather than scapegoating ebike riders, since NYC drivers injure over 9,600 pedestrians each year, leaving less than 40 due to all other causes.

Speaking of New York, the highly publicized crackdown on ebike riders is turning out to be, in the words of the bard, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as judges are simply putting the vaunted criminal summonses on hold pending dismissal.

Philadelphia advocates are racing to get a bike lane approved by City Hall, for the streets around City Hall, in advance of a summer repaving project and before the city council takes the rest of the summer off.

Apparently, Florida drivers don’t know how to avoid curbs, because they keep crashing into the barriers for a new curb-protected bike lane in Palm Springs.

 

International

Now you, too, can bike your way to better brain health and away from dementia, which is good news for all of us.

Britain’s Cyclist Magazine recommends the best Father’s Day gifts for bicycling dads. Even though the best gift is just more time to ride.

The BBC has finally realized that bicyclists with bike cams aren’t “vigilantes” or “grassing snitches,” belatedly concluding that cameras help bring dangerous drivers to justice and are often the only recourse riders have. Although California law doesn’t allow them to be used against drivers for traffic violations or misdemeanors, technology be damned. 

Dutch ebike brand VanMoof is back from the dead with two new models, after it was rescued from bankruptcy by the electric scooter division of McLaren.

A local campaign by a group of young Scouts in Romania has blossomed into a nationwide movement to build safe bike infrastructure, in a country where kids under 14 are banned from biking on public streets.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as a writer for the BBC rides Morocco’s 520-mile Route of the Caravans, offering a view of the country few tourists ever see.

A new Chinese-made ebike conversion kit promises to install the first time in just three minutes, and ten seconds thereafter, while offering one of the smallest and most portable sizes yet; a crowdfunding campaign will launch soon offering an early bird price of just $349. Although how that could be affected by Trump’s on-and-off tariffs is TBD. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Seriously? The solo Race Across America, aka RAAM, kicked off in Oceanside CA yesterday, sending competitors over 3,000 miles virtually nonstop to Annapolis, Maryland. But the only mention anywhere in the news comes from a radio station in Osage Beach, Missouri.

 

Finally…

When you’re the king’s sister-in-law, of course you wear $900 pumps to a mountain bike park. That feeling when an apparently AI-written story recommends five scenic cyclist-friendly trails, but can’t be bothered to tell you where they are.

And this is pretty much the opposite of sticking the landing.

Instagram post

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

First shot fired in Vermont Ave HLA battle, NYT argues for sprawl, and lack of interest in LA Neighborhood Council elections

April 11, 2025 / / Comments Off on First shot fired in Vermont Ave HLA battle, NYT argues for sprawl, and lack of interest in LA Neighborhood Council elections
Day 101 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

And so it begins.

After speculating yesterday that officials were virtually daring someone to file suit alleging Metro’s Vermont Avenue bus rapid transit project is violating Measure HLA, someone did.

Longtime bike advocate and Streetsblog Los Angeles editor Joe Linton filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles alleging that the city failed to implement the safety improvements included in the mobility plan, as required by the Healthy Streets LA ordinance passed overwhelmingly by voters last year.

According to a statement Linton provided to Streetsblog,

I live very close to Vermont Avenue, where my family and I walk, bike, and/or take transit nearly every day. Since 2014, I have attended meetings focused on Vermont transit improvements, where I and many other advocates have pressed for complete streets, including bike lanes that have long been part of the city’s plans for Vermont. I was, and still am, excited that L.A. City voters approved Measure HLA, which requires the city to gradually implement its plan for a more transit-friendly, more walkable, and more bikeable Vermont.

In researching my Streetsblog coverage of Measure HLA and the Vermont Transit Corridor project, I became frustrated encountering repeated instances where the city continues to ignore its own plans for a safe and truly multimodal Vermont.

Linton goes on to say he’s not looking for any personal gain, other than recouping his attorney fees.

Rather, he hopes the lawsuit will result in a settlement that will deliver long-delayed safety improvements that will “save lives, foster public health, stem climate-harming emissions, and improve the quality of life for Vermont Avenue’s pedestrians, bus riders, and bicyclists.”

Linton is represented by a pair of attorneys who should be well-known in the Los Angeles area, former state Assemblymember Mike Gatto and longtime Bicycle Advisory Committee member Jonathan Weiss.

Which suggest LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto will have her hands full trying to defend Los Angeles in this matter.

Lord knows I wouldn’t want to go up against either one of them. Let alone both.

You can read the full text of the lawsuit here.

Something tells me it won’t be the last.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

………

A writer for the New York Times Magazine makes the case for more sprawl as the answer to America’s crippling housing shortage.

No, seriously.

According to Conor Dougherty, author of Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream,

The solution is to build more. That’s not controversial — housing is one of the few remaining areas of bipartisan agreement. The rub, as always, is where and how to get it done. Over the past decade, dozens of cities and states have tried to spur construction by passing laws that aim to make neighborhoods denser: removing single-family zoning rules, reducing permitting times and exempting housing in established neighborhoods from environmental rules.

That shift is important, especially in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles that have little chance of lowering housing costs or reducing their homeless populations without building up. But cities are difficult and expensive places to build because they lack open land. Adding density to already-bustling places is crucial for keeping up with demand and preventing the housing crisis from getting worse. It will not, however, add the millions of new units America needs. The only way to do that is to move out — in other words, to sprawl.

He goes on to examine what has limited growth over the last several decades, from anti-sprawl legislation and stringent zoning requirements, to the pervasive effects of NIMBYism.

Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.

Admittedly, Dougherty makes a strong case.

But what he fails to consider is the concomitant problems of endless sprawl, as we in SoCal know so well, from crushing traffic congestion and smog to declining inner cities and the ever-rising casualties from traffic violence.

Not to mention living, not miles, but hours from the services you rely on, such as healthcare and courts, and continuing to mandate car dependency while killing walkability and bikeability.

Yes, we desperately need more housing. A lot more.

But we need to build it in places and ways that don’t exacerbate all the other problems that destroy our quality of life at the same time.

………

No surprise here.

According to LAist, elections for LA’s Neighborhood Councils are seeing their lowest voter turnout in years.

Part of the problem, aside from the difficulty of casting a ballot, is an almost total lack of local news coverage in today’s Los Angeles, resulting in a large segment of the population who have no idea what Neighborhood Council district they’re in, or that they even exist in the first place.

The other problem is that for every NC like Mid-City West or North Westwood council that’s responsive to and representative of the local community, you have too many overly dominated by one or two strong personalities, or NIMBYs who just say no to everything.

They should be a place we can go to address city problems on a micro, rather than macro, level, and trust those concerns will be heard and acted on. Especially in a city with far too few council districts, where every councilmember represents more than a quarter million people.

Mayor Bass is reportedly considering ways to reform, reinvigorate or replace the Neighborhood Council system.

But while change is needed, I’m not sure she’s earned the trust to lead this process anymore.

………

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

No bias here. A London tabloid says “fuming Brits” have initiated a petition demanding numbered license plates and liability insurance for all bike riders. Even though the last petition demanding the same thing died for lack of interest.

………

Local 

West Hollywood approved a proposal to study the feasibility of installing Class IV protected bike lanes on Beverly Blvd, although without any changes to the current lane design, which would seemingly hamstring the project.

 

State

Calbike examines the 14 ebike bills currently under consideration in the state legislature, including efforts to redefine some ebikes to clean up the blurred lines between electric bicycles and e-motorbikes, which we’ve been calling for here.

The California Coastal Commission approved plans for a bike path connecting Cayucos and Morro Bay along Highway 1 in San Luis Obispo County, filling a gap in the 1,200-mile California Coastal Trail.

Yesterday marked the first day of the four-day Sea Otter Classic, as more than a thousand bike industry brands showed off their wares at the Laguna Seca racetrack

Palo Alto is in the process of updating its 2012 bike plan, including opening up more of the city’s major roadways by installing protected bike lanes.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is understandably protesting plans to allow driverless Waymo autonomous cars on the city’s currently carfree and pedestrianized Market Street. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

 

National

Forbes offers advice on how to stay safe on your next ebiking vacation.

A Grand Junction, Colorado writer examines the push for better bike and pedestrian infrastructure, after voters elected a full slate of city council candidates opposed to a new protected bike lane.

Is nothing sacred? Someone stole a $450 bicycle from a Kroger Coca-Cola display promoting Indiana University’s iconic Little 500.

Madonna is one of us, bundling up for a cold-weather ride through New York’s Central Park.

South Carolina bicyclists protested plans for a new luxury hotel in an area they say is “just a heaven for cycling,” fearing it could harm their safety on the road.

Urbanize questions whether Atlanta is worthy of the new Atlamsterdam moniker, saying it’s not as bike-friendly as the city in the Netherlands, but getting closer. On the other hand, as a nickname, it kinda sucks.

 

International

Momentum offers ten ways bicycles deliver the freedom cars only promise. Although I would swear we’ve seen this one before.

A writer for Cycling Weekly says he’s already lost over four pounds and his head feels clearer just a month into exploring sober curiosity. I’m a week into involuntary sobriety myself, thanks to a new medication that’s incompatible with my occasional beer. 

The Surfrider Foundation is protesting plans to build a two-mile paved bike path along the Puerto Rican coast, arguing it’s being built too close to the shore and fails to adopt a nature-based approach, fearing it could both destroy and be destroyed by the waves.

An English rugby player is biking 220 miles from his home stadium in Batley to London to raise funds to upgrade the stadium’s floodlights, after he was banned for eight matches for his role in a mass brawl. But isn’t mass brawling the whole point of rugby? 

Yet another study, this time from Finland, shows that bike commuting is still the smartest and healthiest way to get to work.

Three young men captured the attention of South Africans by riding their bikes the 1,100 miles from Limpopo to Cape Town.

A new Australian study warns of the dangers of hidden bike flaws that can lead to catastrophic failure of frames or key parts, suggesting changes need to be made at an industry-wide level.

 

Competitive Cycling

Look, I like American cyclist Sepp Kuss as much as anyone outside his own circle of family and friends, but is taking part in an early Basque Country breakaway that ultimately fizzled out really something to celebrate?

On the other hand, Portuguese cyclist João Almeida’s solo breakaway win in the same race is something to celebrate.

 

Finally….

The next time you ride your bike across the border, maybe leave the half-pound of meth and fentanyl hidden in the frame at home. Your next bike could double as a sex toy.

And your next golden raincoat could be made four of waterproof copper.

Yes, there’s a golden opportunity for a sex joke there. And no, I’m not going to make it.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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