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.
Photo from Streetsblog LA shows former Mayor Eric Garcetti signing Vision Zero proclamation at his big, beautiful desk.
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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.
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Now you, too, can build your own DIY bike frame. But whether you should is another question.
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Nothing like crash-landing on the roof of a car.
Relatively on purpose, for a change.
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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 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.
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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?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
