Bike Talk

Bike Talk

We are a bike advocacy and culture podcast based in Los Angeles, Ca.

Episodes

August 21, 2025 58 mins
Vancouver bike activist Lucy Maloney won a seat on the anti- bike city council she fought for years. She gave Taylor a tour of the city and talks about her journey https://vancouver.ca/your-government/lucy-maloney.aspx (2:24). Speed cameras will go up this year in Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Long Beach, and the City and County of San Francisco, courtesy of California’s AB 645. California bike lawyer (and Bike Talk s...
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Listener feedback: Rebecca Reilly wants Nick to pronounce "Ontario" correctly, and Rick Bosacker says we should talk more about biking's mental and physical health benefits (0:50). Paris' bike revolution from the POV of Bike Talk intern Charlie Leightheiser - bike lanes, bike share, and bikelash (4:27). It's never too early to start planning for the week without driving, 9/29 - 10/5 https://weekwithoutdriving.org/ (10:30). Penny...
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August 7, 2025 57 mins
Bike Lawyer Andrew Lewis on defending Cycle Toronto and saving Toronto's most popular bike lanes from the populist, tricky, anti-bike lane administration of Ontario Premier Doug Ford (0:29). Cities like Los Angeles lose hundreds of millions in lawsuits due to traffic injuries and fatalities on their streets. They could save lives and money by using their streets budgets to build protected bike networks, our bike lawyer James Pocra...
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Taylor’s ride through the burned-down Pacific Palisades neighborhood, and architect Neale Payton's insight into rebuilding the area as a Transit Oriented Development in the April 2025 Bike Talk episode https://biketalk.org/2025/04/2513-state-of-the-union-rebuilding-a-bike-oriented-la-and-bike-storage/ (0:28). Two vigils, four car victims, one day for NYC: Transportation Alternatives Communications Director Alexa Sledge shares audi...
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A West Hollywood memorial and ghost bike placing for cyclist Blake Ackerman, killed by hit-and-run. Streets Are For Everyone Director of LA County Advocacy, Brett Slaughenhaupt https://www.gofundme.com/f/remembering-blake-ackerman (3:00). Hit and runs from a Legal POV: James Pocrass (6:01). A simple four point plan to stop hit and runs. BikinginLA.com blogger Ted Rogers https://bikinginla.com/2025/07/16/lets-end-hit-and-runs-on...
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Taylor made it to Michigan, and having ridden to LAX in 56 minutes, he's never going back...to driving (1:13). Taylor talked to Tal Babcock, employee of a cafe in a former railroad depot where his grandfather was the Station Master, on the Michigan North Central bike route (2:41). A NY judge rules NYC Mayor Adams can remove protections on the Bedford Ave bike lane, undoing years of advocacy, because it's not a "major" modificatio...
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Taylor's riding his bike to LAX, then biking to car-free Mackinac island, MI (0:56). Bike activist and Cascade Bike Club volunteer Merlin Rainwater was brushed by a bus after being let out in a dangerous place by a Seattle bike lane. After a hit and run on a cyclist in the same spot, Merlin and others formed a people protected bike lane. Seattle DOT put in real barriers for protection THE SAME DAY https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/...
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Magnus White’s not-accidental car killing and the language of car "accidents," with No More Ghost Rides and Trash Panda Cycling’s LA bike calendar organizer Raphael Hernandez. (2:31) Fight Back: Talking Back To Bikelash with CalBike’s Kevin Claxton. www.calbike.org/talking-back-to-bikelash/ (13:20) RAGBRAI: The Great Iowa Fall Ride with “Shift” documentarians/Des Moines Register journalists Courtney Crowder and Kelsey Kremer, and...
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At the virtual Bicycle Film Festival, Taylor sees a woman set a new record of riding a bike at 183 mph (0:22). Nick visits Los Angeles, runs into a Hollywood ride out, and meets bike dancer Denis (4:42). Taylor will use any pretext for a bike errand, reveals his wife Marga (7:05). Money for protected bike lanes in Denver was about to be spent on removing them, until the Mayor's Bike Advisory Council caught on. With Loren Han...
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Taylor bikes to a No Kings protest, and meets a friend of the show (3:30). Our lawyer, James Pocrass, on what to do if the authorities take your bike at a protest-and how to avoid it (6:04). Original cohost and bike mechanic Jim Cadenhead on the plusses and minuses of tubeless tires (12:30). Sammy's Law was meant to allow New York City to reduce car speeds to 20mph. NYC Mayor Adams cynically used the law to justify limiting t...
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LA Bike Advocate and Altadena Town Councilmember Dorothy Wong on rebuilding her home and her town after the LA fires destroyed both (2:17). The "Born To Be Wild" bikepackers of Northampton High School reflect on their annual 4-day tour of Western Massachusetts (13:29). New York City is dragging cyclists to criminal court for minor and sometimes made up traffic infractions under a new anti-bike policy. Kevin Duggan, StreetsblogNYC...
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Listener email: the difference between bike packing and bike touring, and what handlebar bags and panniers to get (1:11). New York City has begun a policy of criminalizing minor traffic violations for cyclists. We talk to Carl Mahaney of Streetopia Upper West side and Open Plans, and Josh Wood of the New York City Bicycle Messenger Association (7:08). The legality of criminalizing cyclists, with James Pocrass (28:09). In othe...
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Janice Walrafen loves Bike Talk on WGDR in Vermont - a listener email (1:09). Summer bikepacking! Nick's Berkshires tour and Taylor's cross country plans (3:05). Are Waymo robotaxis safer than humans? And when AVs hit cyclists or pedestrians, who's liable? Our lawyer, Jim Pocrass, advises (6:49). The Consumer Protection Safety Commission regulates bikes and bike parts, and was working to standardize e-bike battery standards - ...
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Nick's daughter Penny learned to ride on two wheels using the towel technique (1:50). Bike To Work Week with Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers in West Hollywood, Ca (7:33). Bike To Work Week in Northampton, Ma with Mayor Gina Louise Sciarra, Representative Lindsay Sabadosa, and All Bodies on Bikes organizer Jacob Sheppard-Saidel (11:44). The debate over Autonomous Vehicles' safety record versus cyclists and pedestrians continues, with ...
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford tried to remove Toronto's bike lanes, but Toronto bike advocacy organization Cycle Toronto and allies won a court injunction pausing the removal. Executive Director Michael Longfield discusses what it means (2:42). The City of Oakland denied liability for a cyclist's serious injuries due to bad pavement, arguing that the liability waiver the cyclist had signed with AIDS Lifecycle applied to the City. Las...
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News: It's Bike Month! Also- an Ontario, Canada court may save Toronto bike lanes, Waymo says its AVs are 25x safer than human drivers for cyclists and pedestrians on the road, Trump's tariffs will devastate the bike industry, and Americans are losing interest in buying cars (1:47). The QUIMBY movement = Quality In My Back Yard, and it means high quality codes/laws/permitting/planning high quality buildings, streets, bike lanes an...
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May 1, 2025 58 mins
Our Lawyer, Jim Pocrass, assesses the lawsuit brought by Streetsblog Los Angeles editor Joe Linton. LA Metro has argued that because it's not the city, it doesn't have to make bike infrastructure when repaving city streets, as called for in ballot measure HLA. The agency claims it would have to destroy homes and buildings to both preserve parking and make space for bikes (3:40). The standoff between New York and the Federal gove...
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Amy, gravel rider (1:05). News: Street safety advocates call for protected bike lanes on California’s deadly Pacific Coast Highway. https://mailchi.mp/streetsforall/pch-master-plan-042025?e=efb877b7f5 The City of Sacramento will be the first in the Nation to use cameras on buses that detect cars parked in bike lanes. https://fox40.com/news/local-news/sacramento/automated-bike-lane-enforcement-launches-in-sacramento-first-in-the...
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April 17, 2025 57 mins
News: Healthy Streets LA, the ballot measure which requires Los Angeles to implement bike infrastructure every time city streets are repaved, is being ignored by the county's transportation agency, LA Metro. Taylor talks with the founder of Streets For All, Michael Schneider, who led the HLA campaign, and the Editor of Streetsblog LA, Joe Linton, who's now suing the city (1:33). It’s been 100 years since the Los Angeles city cou...
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April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's "Put the Phone Away or Pay" campaign emphasizes education and enforcement but not engineering. Our Lawyer, Jim Pocrass, shares his practice of suing distracted drivers as a deterrent (0:26). A driver was found guilty of Reckless Vehicular Homicide in the killing of 17 year old rising US cycling star Magnus White. She was ...
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