Just 295 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
As of this writing, we’re up to 1,010 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
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A new study shows even a total worldwide switch to EVs would perpetuate what the authors call “car harm,” such as death, injury, disease and other miseries, because the current system “prioritizes speed over safety.”
The report concludes:
- In 2019, 43% of people killed by motor vehicles were walking, using a wheelchair or riding a bike.
- Motor vehicles kill more than 700 children a day. Traffic deaths occur at the highest rates in Africa and Southeast Asia, and, in the US and Brazil, crashes disproportionately kill Black and Indigenous people.
- SUVs, which make up nearly half of car sales globally, are eight times more likely than traditional cars to kill children.
- Traffic-related air pollution is linked to circulatory and heart disease, lung cancer, asthma and, according to a cited study, “acute lower respiratory infections in children.”
- Other car harms include drunk driving, drive-by shootings, carbon monoxide poisoning and, in the US, traffic stops that “are a setting for police violence against Black, Latine/x, and Indigenous people,” they write.
- Access to oil has played a role in a quarter to half of wars between countries since 1973.
- The electric car, a juggernaut of the energy transition, “fails to address a majority of the harms,” they write, including crashes, sedentary travel, inequality and cities designed more for cars than people.
Greg and Tish Laemmle, owners of the Laemmle Theater chain and descendant of early Hollywood royalty, led a group biking to the Oscars yesterday.
5 years ago, greg &tish @laemmle of the theater chain had @TheAcademy #oscars tix and invited their bikey pals to ride with them to the award show. well, we did it again this year! here's a short clip of our ride (and to my post-ride lunch)! https://t.co/WDH2hofciu @bikinginla
— joni (@ayogist) March 11, 2024
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GCN tests whether an experienced amateur can descend at the same hair-raising speeds as a pro cyclist.
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It’s now 82 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A writer for Streetsblog complains that an NYPD precinct is responding to complaints about ebike riders by targeting riders of traditional human-powered bikes, because they’re easier to catch.
A Scottish mountain biker was lucky to escape without serious injuries after someone booby trapped a trail with buried spike strips they had welded together to cause maximum damage.
A British woman learns the hard way what happens when you hug the edge of the road, as several drivers pass her bike way too close — including a large truck.
No bias here, either. The UK traffic lawyer who calls himself Mr. Loophole for getting scofflaw drivers off the hook continues his campaign to force bike riders to carry ID and have numbered license plates on their bicycles. Apparently forgetting that it’s the dangerous drivers he represents who are the real problem.
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Local
A letter from a former LA resident argues that the passage of Measure HLA is proof that NIMBYs aren’t the majority, no matter how loudly they scream.
Arnold is apparently in the clear, after the woman suing the former governator for crashing into her bike with his massive SUV dropped her lawsuit.
A 40-year old man was airlifted from the Haines Canyon Mountainway in the Sunland/Tujunga area after injuring his back in a mountain bike fall Sunday morning.
Culver City is asking the state for a $4 million grant to replace existing bike lanes with protected lanes on a 1.75-mile stretch of Overland Avenue between Washington and Sawtelle Boulevards.
State
An op-ed from the leaders of Hispanic rights organization LULAC and the California Alliance for Jobs calls for an “all of the above” approach to transportation infrastructure to keep people working. But what they really mean is keep spending billions on highways — even though bike and pedestrian projects create more jobs.
San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood received a $3.3 million state grant for enhanced bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
A Simi Valley letter writer calls out the “dismal condition” of the city’s major streets and bike lanes, thanks to a “multitude of ruts, cracks, potholes.”
San Francisco bike shop owner fear the city’s new ban on dangerous lithium-ion ebike batteries, along with a requirement for any store that sells them to install sprinklers, could put them out of business. Meanwhile, a British member of Parliament calls the batteries “unexploded bombs.”
National
A travel website recommends 20 American cities to visit without a car.
Jalopnik says bike lanes are good for business, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. So there.
Electrek says riding an ebike instead of driving can really impact your wallet — in a good way.
Bicycling drama Hard Miles is set for a nationwide April 19 premier date; the fact-based film tells the story bicycling team made up of inmates from a Colorado correctional school as they ride from Denver to the Grand Canyon.
Give your kid an early start on the biking bug with a new book large-format picture book for kids ages 3 to 6 that follows a mom and her son on a bicycling adventure.
This is who we share the road with. Life is cheap in Vermont, as the driver who killed motorcycle-riding actor Treat Williams walked without a day behind barsl, despite pleading guilty to negligent driving.
A writer for Forbes offers advice on how to stay safe riding a bicycle in New York traffic. Or any other traffic, for that matter.
The mayor of Baltimore’s security team parked in a bike lane for over an hour while he attended a candidate forum, despite the city’s recent crackdown on bike lane violators.
International
An Irish man just returned home for bicycling across Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan as part of a multi-stage ride around the world, while attempting to meet as many people as possible along the way.
A conservative Irish counselor claims she was never told that a Limerick road project included segregated bike lanes — even though she posted on Facebook four years ago how delighted she was with them.
Velo looks at the best bike tech from small brands only Belgians have access to.
A bicycling organization hosting a series of of bicycling“camps in spectacular destinations throughout Türkiye, formerly known as Turkey in the English-speaking world.
Rappler rides a 120 kilometer — 75 mile — bike route through central Manila to rate the roadway quality, and concludes not so much.
David Seymour, leading of New Zealand’s rightwing Act Party, wasn’t injured when he went over his ebike handlebars to avoid a driver, then suffered verbal abuse from a bystander who complained about what he was doing to the Māori, even though he is one.
Competitive Cycling
Twenty-four-year old American Matteo Jorgenson won the Paris-Nice stage race on Sunday, capping the biggest victory of his young career, as Cycling News offers a blow-by-blow recount of the final stage; Bobby Julich in 2005, and ex-Tour de France champ Floyd Landis in 2006, are the only other Americans to win the iconic Race to the Sun.
Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard claimed a dominating victory in the seven-day Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, as the Visma-Lease a Bike cycling team took both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico in the same year for the first time.
Ghana’s national cycling team blamed substandard equipment for their poor showing in the ongoing Africa Games, competing on their own aluminum-frame bikes and using the same gear they train on.
This year’s 38th annual Redlands Bicycle Classic will take place on April 10th through this 14th.
Finally…
If you’re carrying illegal narcotics on your bike, put a damn light on it and don’t ride on the sidewalk. Your next ebike could have four wheels and look more like a dorky little car. Or maybe be made of recycled plastic.
And an NFL cheerleader turns gravel racer, while a track cyclist turns astronaut.
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Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month today.
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
Unfortunately, as bad as those numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story.
