Curbed says the first week of new NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani was very good for bicyclists.
You know, just in case you need a reminder what a bike-friendly mayor could actually do, since it’s been so long since we’ve had one here in Los Angeles.
Then again, it’s been a few years since New York had one, too.
When Eric Adams took office, he too made a show of being a bike lover, riding a Citi Bike to meetings on his second day in office and promising to build 300 miles of protected bike lanes by the end of his term. But then he and top aide Ingrid Lewis-Martin spent four years ripping up protected bike lanes and sabotaging planned road diets — perhaps most infamously the McGuinness Boulevard bike lane, with Lewis-Martin charged for allegedly accepting a bribe (and a film cameo) to stop it. In the end, Adams fell 210 miles short of his promise.
Mamdani spent his first week in office undoing much of what Adams had wrought. On his third day, he and new DOT commissioner Mike Flynn announced they would be installing the original McGuinness road diet, reversing Adams’s reversal. The administration also announced it is working to finish Astoria’s 31st Street bike lane, a project that a judge halted in part because Adams hadn’t gotten the required certification from the FDNY and other agencies. “We are beginning the mandatory consultations and will issue the notices needed to restart the project, while also filing a notice of appeal of the court’s decision,” Flynn said in a statement. Over the weekend, Mamdani also said he would direct the DOT to “daylight” city streets, a commonsense safety measure that would keep intersections clear of visual obstructions like parked cars (a promise the Adams administration made but then backtracked on).
At least you can’t say that LA Mayor Bass has fallen short on her promises to the city’s bicycling community.
But only because she hasn’t made any.
You have to go back to the last years of former mayor and current gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa’s administration, after his famous road to Damascus moment, to recall anything like Mamdani’s first week in office.
And if it sounds like I’m envious of New Yorkers this week, it’s only because I am. Even if the NYPD doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo yet.
This is what we could have here. But only if we’re willing to fight for it.
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New plans call for a 50,000-foot park next to the Battleship USS Iowa Museum at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, including a new bikeshare station.
Which assumes that Metro will finally get management of the Metro Bike program worked out, something is far from guaranteed at this point.
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More proof that ebike voucher programs work, as over 2,700 people bought new ebikes in just six months using vouchers worth up to $1,500 from Ava Community Energy in partnership with the Alameda County Transportation Commission.
Meanwhile, California’s ebike voucher funds are still being spent to keep more cars on the road.
And LADWP’s ebike voucher program doesn’t exist.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Police in Denton, Texas arrested a hammer-wielding man who ran out of the woods and began chasing a bike rider, claiming the bicycle was his and demanding the rider give it to him, and continued to threaten the bicyclist even after police intervened.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Gilroy man was busted by the CHP for riding his bike in the slow lane of the freeway while under the influence of…something.
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Local
You have a little more than three weeks left to get your comments in on plans to extend the LA River bike path through DTLA and points south to provide a continuous route from Long Beach through the San Fernando Valley. Which was supposed to be completed before the ’28 Olympics, but won’t be.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton continues his seemingly ubiquitous looks at new LA-area bike and/or walkways, this time visiting the first and last mile construction around Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station.
The South Bay’s Easy Reader takes a look back at the past year in Hermosa Beach, including how a violent assault made the city “part of a multilayered national conversation on the impact of reckless e-bike riding in neighborhoods.”
State
Residents of Laguna Beach are urged to attend a public meeting on Monday to discuss plans for a new bicycle pump track in the city.
No bias here. Voice of OC says Encinitas residents continue to blame former mayor and current state senator Catherine Blakespear for the city’s perceived problems, including controversy over the Coastal Rail Trail, which she was for, before she was against it, before she was for it again, even though it’s now widely used and popular among residents.
National
Escape Collective mostly drops their paywall for a tutorial on how to photograph bicycles and bike riding. But you might want to make a quick pdf for reference, because once you hit the paywall at the bottom, it’s gone.
Security video captures the moment a 73-year old New Jersey man was killed when he was riding salmon on an ebike, and crashed into the side of a police car as the driver was turning right onto the street the man was riding on. Yet another reminder to never ride against traffic, because drivers won’t be looking for you coming from the wrong direction, even though drivers should have looked both ways before turning. Even cops.
This is the cost of traffic violence. A 75-year old North Carolina man was killed when he was rear-ended by a semi-truck driver while riding his bike, after spending a full third of his life accompanying music students at Wake Forest.
International
A writer for The Guardian describes how he went from being afraid to change a tire after taking up bicycling during the pandemic, to building his own bikes by learning bike mechanics from YouTube videos.
Canadian Cycling Magazine makes the case for why bicycling will make you a better driver, which has been born out by a number of studies.
Another writer for The Guardian questions whether people in the Netherlands have forgotten how to ride their bikes in the snow, as the city “descends into chaos” during an increasingly rare cold snap, with climate change reducing snow days in Utrecht to an average of just three a year.
A man in Zimbabwe uses his Buffalo Bike provided through international charity World Bicycle Relief to chase away lions and other wild beasts from crops and farm animals surrounding his village, saying lions have no idea what kind of animal he is when he rides up trumpeting on his vuvuzela. Then again, most SoCal drivers might not either, even without the plastic horn.
Chinese authorities shut down two manufacturers and seized $2.4 million worth of counterfeit Specialized frames, handlebars and Roval wheels, as well as fake Pinarello, Cannondale, Cervélo and Trek products.
Taiwan-based Giant is recalling their Giant Animator and Liv Adore children’s bicycles due to faulty brakes.
A New Zealand paper celebrates Christchurch’s ranking as the most bike-friendly city in the Asia-Oceania region, though they’re only 38th internationally in the global Copenhagenize Index.
Competitive Cycling
Yet another pro cyclist is unexpectedly calling it a career, as 28-year old Belgian pro Eli Iserbyt announcing that doctors advised him to quit due to decreased blood flow in his femoral artery.
A new bike tour promises to give you VIP access to this year’s Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, while enabling you to ride the routes before the pros do.
Twenty-seven year old former Pan-American road champion Skylar Schneider is rejoining her sister on the LA-based L39ION of Los Angeles cycling team, saying she has some unfinished business on her mind as she returns to domestic racing.
Finally…
Okay, so maybe throttle-controlled ebikes do come in handy sometimes, like riding your bike across a frozen river. Maybe your bike wouldn’t handle so badly if it all faced the right way.
And that feeling when bike riders get blamed for wanting to lower drunk driving limits.
Which they should do.
But still.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
