Mark your calendar for September 17th at 1:30 p.m. when City of Beverly Hills will cut the ribbon on the new Santa Monica Boulevard — the only Beverly Hills street featuring HIGH VISIBILITY BIKE LANES! Finally they are striped and the city will call this reconstruction project complete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Category Archives: News
Beverly Hills Puts the Brake on Shared-Mobility Devices
Beverly Hills City Council adopted a total ban on shared-mobility devices effective immediately. The sweeping action came at a special meeting called 24 hours prior. The ad-hoc regulation targeted device companies like Bird and Lime but would ban all ‘dockless’ devices (including motorized bicycles). The action prohibits any device from being placed in any public right-of-way or on public property, operated in any public-right-of-way or on public property, or offered for use anywhere in the City. Penalties include impound and fines. Read the press release. Continue reading
Beverly Hills Complete Streets Needs You
City of Beverly Hills is undertaking a complete streets planning process this summer and we need your input! The process kicked-off with a preliminary workshop and now we’re looking forward to several more scheduled events. Continue reading
Collision Injuries in Beverly Hills Sill Reach for Record Highs in 2017
Nearly 5,000 road users have been injured on Beverly Hills streets in the eleven years that our police has been disclosing monthly traffic data. That’s about ten crash injuries every week – enough for the state’s Office of Traffic Safety to rank our city among the most dangerous small California cities for those who walk, bike and drive. And it is especially dangerous for seniors. This dubious distinction reflects the both city’s lack of multimodal planning and the declining enforcement of traffic laws. Continue reading
Mark Your Calendar: Complete Streets Workshop #1
Better Bike invites you to attend the Beverly Hills complete streets visioning workshop tonight, Monday, March 12th at 6:30pm. This event kicks-off a planning process for which our alternative mobility community has long waited: the preparation of an actual complete streets plan 40 years after the city adopted our first, and only, Bicycle Master Plan. Continue reading
Beverly Hills City Council UNANIMOUSLY OKs SM Blvd Bike Lanes
In an incredible turnabout tonight, all five Beverly Hills councilmembers agreed to include bicycle lanes on our segment of Santa Monica Boulevard. The unanimous vote demolished the specious claims put forth by NIMBY opponents. And it recognized the solid arguments brought forth by forty speakers and scores more comments from proponents of safe multimodal mobility. In sum, bicycle lanes not only make riders feel safe, they actually make us more safe. Continue reading
Santa Monica Boulevard Bicycle Lanes Come Back to Council
Back in 2014 Beverly Hills City Council disappointed riders, active transportation boosters and safe-street advocates when it could not summon just three votes to incorporate bicycle lanes on tomorrow’s Santa Monica Boulevard. Despite hundreds of written comments and scores of speakers, all calling for lanes to increase rider safety on the city’s busiest transit corridor, councilmembers John Mirisch and Lili Bosse then could only hope in vain for a third vote to stripe a bicycle lane. Lanes seemed to be off the table for Santa Monica Boulevard. But hold on! Continue reading
Is a Mandatory Bike Helmet Law the Answer?
State Senator Carol Liu recently introduced a bill that would require every bike rider regardless of age to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. Though a well-intentioned safety measure, SB 192 and its helmet mandate has spurred a backlash among some riders and several established statewide bike advocacy organizations. Why the opposition? Why not mandate helmets for adults? Continue reading
Beverly Hills OKs Bike-share Feasibility Study
Beverly Hills City Council recently gave its preliminary OK to city bike-share and authorized a feasibility study to explore the merit of a 50-bike system. We’re following Santa Monica’s lead here: it has tapped vendor CycleHop to implement a ‘smart bike’ system (as we previously reported). Should we piggyback on that contract, would this be a significant step forward for mobility in Beverly Hills? Or would it be only a tourist amenity for the ‘golden’ triangle? Continue reading
TPC Commissioner Alan Gruschow Passes
We are very sorry to hear about yesterday’s untimely passing of Beverly Hills Traffic and Parking Commission member Alan Grushcow. In our experience working with transportation officials at City Hall, Commissioner Gruschcow distinguished himself as a near lone voice for bike safety in the city. And he was always a voice of reason on the commission dais.
Bike Share for Beverly Hills?
In study session this week, City Council deferred to February a discussion about our city’s possible participation in a regional Westside bikeshare program. (Ours would piggyback on the coming Santa Monica system.) It’s very early for a substantive discussion about our participation, but that the question even comes up might herald a new approach to multimodal mobility for Beverly Hills. With new(ish) bike lanes on Burton and Crescent and Mayor Bosse strongly behind a bike-friendly city, are we turning the page on our auto-centric past?
Santa Monica Boulevard Meetup This Monday
City of Beverly Hills will reconstruct Santa Monica Boulevard in the coming years. Do you believe the boulevard should be made safe for travel by bicycle? Do you agree that this regional backbone route should reflect ‘complete streets’ principles when rebuilt? Join Better Bike, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and local riders in organizing around a proposal to put bike lanes on Santa Monica. Mark your calendar: Monday, December 22nd from 7-9pm at the Beverly Hills Public Library south meeting room. Read on for more details!
CalBike 2015 Agenda
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California Bicycle Coalition, the organization working on your behalf for sensible bike-friendly mobility policy, has announced its 2015 legislative agenda. At the top: tweaks to the vehicular code to clarify the law as relates to bike operation. Plus education in lieu of ticket fines for two-wheeled scofflaws. Consider supporting Calbike today!
Reminder: Police Reports Often Slight the Rider
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In a reminder of our own experience that police crash reports can be biased against a rider (even if following the law), Chicago Bicycle Advocate tells how CCTV video provides a necessary correction to the drivers story as parroted in the official report: “A man on a bicycle struck her vehicle and hit her windshield.” Lesson: Never trust a PD report to reflect your own account of a crash; always verify it.
Gatto Introduces Hit/Run Amber Alert Bill – Again
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Following on Gov. Brown’s veto of the same bill last year, Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) has introduced AB-8 to “authorize a law enforcement agency to issue a Yellow Alert if a person has been killed or has suffered serious bodily injury due to a hit-and-run incident.” We’d like to see the Governor get serious about street safety, and signing this bill would be a start. (See Calbike’s Sacramento wrap-up for more on safety bills vetoed by Brown.)