Tag Archive for traffic calming

Washington Post meets windshield bias, break-in at Hollywood and Vine Bike Hub, and Metro wants their MOVE money back

November 21, 2024 / / No comments
Just 39 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But sure, raise your hand if you’ve heard a single LA city leader so much as mention it. 

………

Washington Post, meet windshield bias.

Marc Fisher, a columnist and associate editor for the paper, penned an essay purporting to tell “the truth about bike lanes,” which largely doesn’t.

Rather, he suggests that traffic calming and bike lanes are more about intentionally gumming up traffic to discourage people from driving, and encourage gentrification to change the ethnic and economic demographics of the city.

In other words, he tells us he doesn’t understand traffic safety and urban planning without telling us.

The District’s planners are intent on putting many of the city’s most important streets on what’s called a “road diet,” which sounds healthy and nutritious but is actually a recipe for traffic constipation and commuter headaches — and maybe a stealth mechanism for encouraging a wholesale shift in race and class in certain neighborhoods…

Across town, on South Dakota Avenue NE, the fight is ongoing, and, as The Post’s Rachel Weiner reported, this squabble reveals an essential truth about bike lanes as weapons of civic planning: They are often installed not to satisfy the barely measurable trickle of residents who pedal to work but mainly to make car traffic worse enough that people will be discouraged from driving.

He goes on to site the reasons given by city officials for DC’s traffic calming efforts, before rejecting them.

“Just as the big, wide lanes we have now induce speeding and reckless driving” Kapur tells me, so too would bike lanes induce slower driving — and maybe more bike riding.

Not so fast he says, citing federal statistics showing the percentage of residents who bike to work has dropped every year since reaching a peak of 5% in 2017, down to 3% — in 2022.

Never mind that the proportion of DC residents who work from home jumped from just over 7% in 2017 to more than 33% just five years later. So of course the percentage of bike commuters dropped, along with every other form of transportation, as more workers stayed home.

Then he makes a quick pivot to the racial makeup of bike riders, citing a Virginia Tech study showing 88% of bike riders are white.

But as he says, not so fast.

The study he cites dates back to 2008, and involves both the urban and suburban jurisdictions of the greater Washington, DC area, including Alexandria, Arlington County, and Fairfax County in Virginia; and Montgomery County and Prince George’s County in Maryland.

In other words, the largely Black and relatively small population of DC is conflated with the largely white, affluent and much larger populations of the suburbs. So even if a higher proportion of Black DC residents biked to work than in other areas, their numbers would be swamped by all the white suburban residents.

Never mind that the numbers he cites are more than a decade and a half out of date.

But taking the time to uncover more recent data might not support his premise that the whole reason to install bike lanes is to gum up drivers commutes and change the racial makeup of the city.

Nope.

No bias there.

………

If you keep your bike — or anything else — at the Hollywood and Vine Bike Hub, you might want to check on it tout suite.

………

It’s now 337 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

No bias here, either. A Marin newspaper says the trial part-time removal of the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge makes it clear that the bridge should see a car-only future, in which bike commuters should be happy to be carted across in a shuttle van, climate crisis be damned.

………

Local  

The Complete Streets makeover of Fountain Avenue was the clear winner in the recent West Hollywood election, even if it wasn’t on the ballot. And even if opponents don’t think so.

Metro wants its money back for the MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes ripped out by the city’s recent conservative council majority, sending Culver City a bill for the full $435,000 grant.

 

State

A kindhearted California couple who lost their son to suicide drove across the county to give his bicycle to a young boy who lost his father the same way.

Irvine unveiled the city’s first physically separated, Class IV bikeway, a 1.25-mile route near the city’s Great Park.

Circulate San Diego offers an annual recap of the city’s bicycle and pedestrian OTS safety program.

 

National

Electrek shares ten things you really should know before buying an ebike.

Streetsblog explains everything you need to know about D-list reality TV star and new Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Duffy, amid fears he’ll take an axe to anything that doesn’t burn fossil fuels.

Seattle bicyclists can now use an app to report anything from bike lane obstructions and street sweeping needs to missing bike lane signs and road markings.

A novice New York bike rider shares the insights she gained after being talked into a 79-mile fundraising ride to fight breast cancer.

New York’s Central Park Conservancy calls for a major makeover of the park, with a rendering showing separate running and walking paths, along with a bike lane next to a shared traffic lane, presumably for faster riders.

Finishing our New York trifecta, the NYPD has released a photo of the pickup driver who killed a bike-riding woman as he fled from police, who were responding to a burglary call; a witness says the victim rang her bike bell to warn him, saving his life before sacrificing hers.

A woman in Jackson, Mississippi was shot and killed in a dispute over a stolen bicycle; two people now face charges. As we’ve said before, no bike is worth a human life. Just give it up and live to ride another day.

 

International

Clean Technica recommends improving your safety with “unique” bar-end rear vier mirrors, unless you’d rather have one you can attach to your glasses.

A British startup is installing app-controlled smart bike parking docks, which appear to be standard U-racks with a heavy-ass chain attached.

Amsterdam continues to raise the bar for everyone and everywhere else, crafting a new state-of-the-art main bicycling route along the Amstel River.

Italian bikemaker Colnago goes retro with a Columbus steel framed road bike to celebrate their 70th anniversary.

The government of Hong Kong has postponed a requirement for bike helmets until next year, saying they need more time to work out the details.

China Digital Times offers a brief first-person account of the massive Zhengzhou to Kaifeng nighttime dumpling ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Columbian cyclist Nairo Quintana took advantage of the opportunity after receiving the country’s Order of Democracy Simon Bolivar to warn that the country’s athletes face massive budget cuts.

Cycling Up To Date examines how Denmark produces such talented cyclists, from Bjarne Riis to Jonas Vingegaard. Although that’s a question that might be better directed towards Slovenia these days.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can carry your spare wheels in a bigass square backpack. If God is on your side, wouldn’t you actually finish the world championships?

And country star Dierks Bentley is one of us.

 

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Weekend Links: The Battle of Playa del Rey goes on, and felony hit-and-run on a Sacramento bike path — or not

June 24, 2017 / / 3 comments

The LA Times catches up with the road reconfigurations in Playa del Rey with the most detailed and even-handed story we’ve seen so far.

The paper reports that people angered by the changes are threatening to sue, even though the changes were made at the request of local residents who fear for their safety on the streets. And that the improvements on Vista del Mar were done at the urging of City Attorney Mike Feuer following the city’s $9.5 million payout for the death of a 16-year old girl in 2015.

Evidently, the residents of Manhattan Beach don’t care if the people of LA have to pay out even more the next time someone gets killed. Or even if someone gets killed.

Never mind that Manhattan Beach has narrowed a number of streets to improve safety and livability in the beachside city. As a matter of fact, it’s funny how Vista del Mar somehow loses two lanes once it enters Manhattan Beach and the name changes to Highland Ave.

But evidently LA beach communities can’t do the same thing.

Then again, this sort of irrational anger at traffic calming projects is nothing new in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, a Playa del Rey resident offers the best response yet to the hordes of angry Manhattan Beach commuters upset over the changes to area’s streets.

And if you read this early enough, there will be a bike ride in support of the changes departing from the Playground Lagoon in Playa del Rey at 10 am today.

………

Sometimes, life — and the law — is just too bizarre for words.

As we mentioned earlier in the week, a Sacramento man was seriously injured when someone on a bicycle plowed into him as he ran on a riverfront path, suffering multiple facial and skull fractures, broken teeth and a broken hand.

The man who crashed into him hurriedly got back on his bike and fled the scene. But not before dropping his cell phone, which is now in the custody of the county DA’s office.

But this is where it gets weird.

If they open the phone, they should be able to find the person it belongs to in order to press charges. But they can’t open it without a warrant. And they can’t get a warrant unless a felony occurred.

And they’re not sure if it’s a felony to flee the scene after a crash on a bike trail, because they’re not sure if California’s hit-and-run statutes apply if the crash didn’t happen on a street or highway. Let alone if the vehicle involved was a bicycle.

And they can’t use the phone to charge the owner with a misdemeanor, because that would be an illegal search.

So they can’t do anything until they figure it all out.

Which seems kind of strange, since my understanding is that bike riders can be charged with hit-and-run if they flee the scene after hitting someone on a street. And drivers can be charged with hit-and-run if they leave after crashing into someone or something in a parking lot, which isn’t a street or highway.

So why can’t a bike rider be charged with fleeing the scene on a bike trail?

Of course, they could allege that the crash was intentional, which would make it felony assault, and bypass the whole issue.

But what’s the fun in that?

………

Great story, as women in India’s Assam province are changing their lives by breaking the taboo against bicycling.

A village cycle bank founded by a non-government organization allows the women to borrow a bicycle on a rotating basis, giving them freedom of movement they’ve never enjoyed before, and providing an opportunity to rise out of poverty.

………

The US national road championships will roll through the streets of Knoxville TN today and tomorrow.

ESPN talks with cycling scion Taylor Phinney on the cusp of his first Tour de France, as part of the nine-man Cannondale-Drapac team.

Chris Froome says I beg your pardon, I was never offered triamcinolone.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An Atascadero man is expected to win this year’s edition of the 2,769 Tour Divide, despite being diagnosed with diabetes last year.

Bike Radar looks at LA ex-pro cyclist Phil Gaimon’s Worst Retirement Ever as he travels the US looking for Strava KOMs.

………

Local

LA officials have filed plans to reconfigure traffic lanes on Temple Street in Historic Filipinotown, removing one lane in each direct, and adding 2.3 miles bike lanes and a center turn lane. Presumably, those are lane miles, so it would actually affect 1.15 miles of street.

The LAPD is investigating the apparent gang shooting of a man on a bike across from The Plant in Panorama City.

West Hollywood creates a new promotional video apparently intended to bore people into using alternative transportation. Very disappointing, coming from the people who brought you Alice in WeHoLand.

A worldwide non-profit group founded by two Pasadena brothers donated 17 bicycles to foster kids associated with a Cal State Northridge program.

Whittier will host its first Open Streets event the middle of next month.

 

State

A new Calbike survey shows even people who drive a lot want alternatives to driving; 78% support complete streets, and two-thirds believe cities should do more to encourage bicycling. Or maybe that should read “…especially people who drive a lot…”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will be conducting a bike and pedestrian safety operation on Sunday, so watch how you ride in the county. For one day, anyway.

Some schmuck stole the bike a Santa Cruz writer used to travel the length of the left coast as documented in his book A Bicycle Journey to the Bottom of the Americas.

San Francisco bike rental companies feel threatened by the expansion of the Bay Area’s Ford GoBike bikeshare, which allows users unlimited rides in a 24-hour period for just $15.

A San Francisco public radio station talks with members of the DIY San Francisco Municipal Transformation Agency as they commit illegal acts of bike lane infrastructure.

 

National

A new study shows over riding to hard for too long could be bad for your bowels.

Another new study reports a slight increase in traffic collisions in states with legal marijuana.

A Seattle writer offers three reasons why bikeshare will work in the city, even though the city’s own bikeshare system failed.

Washington may be refusing to fund a 72-mile rail-to-trail conversion, but people are riding it anyway.

Most 10-year olds are happy to ride their bikes to a friend’s house. A Kansas boy just rode his 561 miles across the state.

An Austin TX city employee has developed a bike lane that lights up as a bicyclist approaches an intersection, making the rider more visible and alerting drivers that a bike is coming.

A New York man has been arrested for the apparently random attack on a bike rider that left him in a coma.

No bias here. After a Brooklyn bike rider knocks on the window of a police car to left them know they were drifting into his lane, they respond by giving him a ticket for disorderly conduct.

No bias here, either. Despite the recent deaths of two people riding their bikes, the NYPD doesn’t care enough to send anyone to a community meeting to discuss traffic safety.

Once again, a car has been used as a weapon, as a Pennsylvania man intentionally drove his car into a man on a bike after the two had argued, then drove off dragging the bike under his car.

Great idea. A Maryland county crowdsources feedback on the county’s bikeways, allowing them to plan improvements and flag problems they might not otherwise know about.

Sharrows are coming to South Florida for the first time, despite studies showing they may actually do more harm than good.

 

International

A Columbian village is sponsoring a bike race to promote its natural beauty as the country transitions to peace after decades of guerrilla war.

It’s taken a Canadian man eight years to get back on his bike after recovering from the injuries he received when a hit-and-run driver plowed into a group of five cyclists. Which is four times longer than the driver’s sentence.

A Vancouver college student says bike lanes are great, but shouldn’t come at the expense of nature.

In a study that should surprise absolutely no one, Montreal researchers concluded that people who ride their bikes to work suffer less stress on their commute and are more productive during the day.

Caught on video: Following a too-close pass, a London bicyclist responds by pressing the emergency shutoff button at the rear of the bus.

Even two black belts aren’t not enough to protect a competitor for the UK’s strongest man from an assault by teenage motorists while riding his bicycle.

A British soldier is riding and kayaking across the country to honor six fallen comrades — despite losing both legs and an arm in an Afghan bomb blast.

Teenage bike riders are terrifying drivers in a British town, who fear what could happen if they hit one. Which could be legitimate, although something tells me it might be worse for the kid.

An Australian boxer was banned from driving because of poor eyesight, but did it anyway, fleeing the scene after killing a 77-year old man as he rode his bike. It’s simply not enough to take away a driver’s license; as long as they have access to a car, too many will drive anyway.

South Koreans can now ride their bikes on a 1,677-mile network of trails without ever setting a wheel on roadway, which was built to appease a public angered by a massive river restoration project.

Two Korean men are riding across the US to call attention to the comfort women forced to work in brothels by the Japanese in WWII.

 

Finally…

Don’t ride past police carrying drugs on a stolen bike you weren’t on just a few minutes. When celebs screw up, they go into rehab; when a triathlete gets caught trying to sabotage a competitor’s bike, she checked into an eating disorder clinic.

And if you’re going ride a bikeshare bike naked, using the free seat cover is the least you can do.

Please.

 

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

Morning Links: KNBC jumps the gun with complaint over NELA safety project that hasn’t been built yet

August 29, 2016 / / 2 comments

You’ve got to be kidding.

KNBC-4 ran a story on Friday about the horrible, terrible, unbearable delays caused by a traffic calming project on Fletcher Road in Glassell Park.

Never mind that it hasn’t even been built yet.

Citing unnamed residents opposed to the project, they then proceed to talk to just one, who is up in arms — not over the project itself — but simply over the start of construction, claiming to have “road diet refugee post traumatic stress disorder”* after having fled from Rowena Avenue following that successful road diet.

Only to find that her drive to her kid’s school is now inhibited by the very start of a project designed to improve safety so maybe her kids won’t have to be driven to school.

This is how a local resident in the area, who prefers not to be named, explained the non-controversy to me.

The Fletcher Streetcape project (a plan first initiated in 2006, by then-Councilmember Garcetti) includes bike lanes, new crosswalks, new curb ramps, benches, 70 trees and a landscaped median in the one mile corridor. A woman who claims to have moved to Glassell Park/Mt. Washington, away from Silver Lake because of the road diet there, was angry when she noticed construction had begun on this project last week.

She posted a rant titled ‘road rage’ on social media site Next-Door about how she had only seen one cyclist in her ten years of driving there, how all cyclists on that street are just headed to the LA River, how she was a cyclist in NYC for 20 years but that she would never ride in LA… she even went so far as to say that the notorious Avenues gang is active in this area, and she worries the DOT didn’t take this into account.

Basically, she was able to incite lots of hate which prompted over 100 replies, some of which agreed with her and some which pointed out for all her complaints about supposed “congestion,” the goal is safety.

The irony is that she moved out of Silver Lake because of the road diet, but now drives back there daily to take her kid to school. And of course, she ignores the fact that the street she was using as a speedway is home to two schools.

KNBC is undoubtedly patting themselves on the back for getting this “controversy” out there, when they should be hanging their heads in shame for taking such a negative view of such a badly needed project to improve safety for everyone, not just people on bicycles.

Maybe next time they could wait until it’s finished before pushing any more complaints out onto the public.

*Not a recognized psychiatric disorder

………

If you were assaulted by an SUV driver while riding at the intersection of Lucille and Griffith Park Blvd, contact weshigh, who may have a photo of the vehicle; he says the same driver nearly ran over him and his wife as they walked in a crosswalk.

………

There’s a new leader in the Vuelta, as the Tour of Spain is now being led by a Spaniard. Riders competing in the race call it insanely hard, as the projected leaders fear showing their hand too soon.

Many riders may be more concerned about securing a contract for next year than winning the next stage.

And Frank Schleck won the equivalent of $2.23 million from his former team after he was dumped 11 months into a one year doping ban.

………

Local

The LACBC is hiring a full-time Development Director and an Organizing Director.

LA Bike Dad looks at the moments of serendipity that only come from riding a bicycle.

A Manhattan Beach author is riding cross-country to gather stories for a book exploring the emotional and psychological impact cancer has on a variety of people.

Cycling in the South Bay’s Seth Davidson recommends daytime riding lights in his own inimitable style.

West Hollywood’s WeHo Pedals bikeshare has its official grand opening tomorrow.

Orange 20 welcomes the return of the New Urbanism Film Festival this October.

 

State

Over 3,500 San Diego cyclists take part in the annual Bike the Bay over the Coronado Bridge.

A San Marcos street in a former industrial area has been reborn as a 1/3 mile complete street with broad sidewalks, bike lanes, angled parking and new landscaping fronting the area’s new apartment buildings.

Santa Clara bike riders could lose a popular bike and pedestrian bridge originally built by Intel as a temporary bridge over a gully two decades ago.

Sad news from Sacramento, as a 92-year old bike rider was killed when he allegedly veered out of the bike lane; friends remember him as a fun loving, giving man who didn’t let his age get in the way of what he loved doing.

 

National

Access Magazine looks at how improving safety and providing better access for bike riders could encourage more people to ride.

The leading candidate to operate Seattle’s struggling bikeshare system proposes converting to an all-electric bike fleet to encourage riding in the hilly city.

Indiana cyclists have to contend with angry and impatient motorists. Then again, New Zealand is no bargain, either.

Brooklyn’s bicycling culture is not enough to protect cyclists on the streets of New York’s most bike-friendly borough.

There’s a special place in hell for the thief who stole a truck filled with $37,000 worth of bikes and parts from the Wounded Warrior Project in Pittsburgh.

Ann Holton, the wife of Virginia Senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, is one of us; she formed a bike club for neighborhood women called Mother Bikers. Then again, Kaine is one of us, too.

 

International

A new study shows moderate walking or biking can cut the risk of cardiac death by 50% for people over 65.

A Brit cyclist rides 65 miles a day to combat the effects of PTSD.

A Scottish writer says Great Britain’s domination of Olympic cycling is great, but won’t improve safety on the country’s roads.

An Edinburgh man circled the world in 12 months on a singlespeed bike; surprisingly, he found Iran the most welcoming country on his trip.

Be grateful you only have to take off your shoes to go through airport security. An Indian paracyclist says he was humiliated when he was forced to take off his prosthetic leg.

Caught on video: An Aussie cop knocks a 13-year old boy off his bike after the boy swore at the officers when they told him to get off the road.

Just days after a Japanese driver killed a pedestrian while playing Pokémon GO, a cyclist was killed as a driver was distracted by charging his cellphone after running the battery down playing the game.

 

Finally…

Most bicycles hardly ever burst into flames. Not only is bicycling the new golf, it’s the new real estate agent, as well.

And why bother with selfies and helmet cams when you can film your next offroad descent by drone?

 

Category: Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
 
Wordpress Theme by ThemeZee