The Brief

San Gabriel Valley residents can now apply for a $2,000 voucher to purchase an e-cargo bike — that’s an electric bike that can carry everything from kids to lots of groceries and other essentials.

“The focus is really on households that may have young children or that may be looking to reduce the number of vehicle trips they have to take for everyday needs,  whether that be doing errands around town, going to the store, doing school pickup and drop off, et cetera,” said Wes Reutimann, deputy director of nonprofit Active San Gabriel Valley, or ActiveSGV, which is leading the project.

All San Gabriel Valley residents are eligible. To apply, you have to fill out a survey and agree to participate in two additional surveys about your experience. But you better move quickly. Only 300 vouchers are available, and they’ll be distributed as applications are received and approved. Here’s the application form and more on the program.

E-cargo bikes that are part of the Go SGV bike share program.

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Courtesy Wes Reutimann

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Reutimann said they’ve already received some 150 applications, but don’t worry, there will be other opportunities to buy or try out an e-cargo bike.

Reutimann said ActiveSGV will be expanding its e-cargo bike sharing program in the next couple of months, and there will be two additional rounds of vouchers — the next will be for income-qualified residents and the round after that will be targeted to communities near the 10 Freeway.

Why it matters

Pollution from the tailpipes of passenger cars accounts for about 28% of California’s planet-heating emissions and about 8% of pollutants that contribute to smog, according to the California Air Resources Board.

But most of the time, we’re actually not traveling all that far on a daily basis. In El Monte, for example, more than 53% of car trips are under 5 miles, and in West Covina, more than 56% of trips are that short, according to the nonpartisan clean energy think tank Rocky Mountain Institute, or RMI.

RMI estimates that over 10 years, using e-bikes instead of cars for short trips in the 10 states with the most transportation-related emissions could avoid the equivalent amount of pollution that eight coal-fired power plants spew in one year.

Edward Duong with Active SGV using an e-cargo bike to transport water.

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Courtesy Wes Reutimann

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So, using an e-bike instead of a car for short trips can actually make a significant dent in pollution.

But these bikes are expensive, especially e-cargo bikes, which can cost around $3,000 up to more than $6,000.

Reutimann said the current e-cargo bike share program has been extremely popular, and that’s what spurred the effort on the vouchers.

“A lot of people who graduate from that sharing program really love the bikes,” he said. “However, one of the barriers many households are experiencing is just the cost of purchasing one.”

Reutimann himself uses an e-cargo bike to take his kids to school every day in Pasadena. And the benefit goes beyond using his car less.

“It's great for my mental and physical health,” Reutimann said. “Especially as a parent with less and less time, it’s not always easy to fit in an hour at the gym or to get an exercise..the commute to school and back, I'm getting at least 35 minutes of exercise on one round trip.”

Wes Reutimann rides an e-cargo bike with his family.

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Courtesy Wes Reutimann

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But he said  ”the infrastructure hasn't caught up with the interest yet,” so finding safe routes on quieter streets is an essential piece to committing to an e-bike life. Reutimann also said the bike bus movement — when parents “carpool” with their kids on bikes and e-bikes all together in a group in the morning to get to school — is growing and can enhance safety on busy roads.

Concerns about funding

The voucher program is part of a larger three-year project led by a coalition of local nonprofits that will, among other things, invest in:

• expanding e-bike access
• building green schoolyards
• installing free rain gardens (San Gabriel Valley residents can also apply for that now)
• planting trees
• installing rooftop solar

The $20-million effort is funded by the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and launched this January. However, Reutimann said they had to pause the project when the Trump administration froze federal funding.

For now, Reutimann said, the funds are accessible and the project is moving forward, but the future is still uncertain.

“The future of [Inflation Reduction Act] incentives, as well as already obligated grant funds, grant funds really lies in Congress's hands at the moment,” Reutimann said. “It’s something we're following. We can't control the outcome of what happens in Washington, but we are committed to implementing this in a timely manner.”

More on e-bikes in SoCal

Clearing The Air In Wilmington, One E-Bike At A Time

An E-Bike Ride In South LA And How You Can Rent One For Free

A Free E-Bike Lending Program Launched In The San Fernando Valley. Here’s How It Works

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is blaming Boeing and his own agency for botching a test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

A 311-page report details the issues that led to the failure of Starliner's first crewed test flight, which in June 2024 launched NASA astronauts Butch Willmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

The duo's launch was initially a success — but as their Starliner spacecraft approached the station, multiple thrusters failed, hampering the crew's ability to steer toward the station and dock.

After months of deliberation, NASA and Boeing made the decision to send Starliner back to Earth without Wilmore and Williams on board. Instead, the astronauts remained on the space station and returned home 9 months later — in SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

In a news conference Thursday, Isaacman said the report classified the failure as a Type A Mishap — the highest classification for a mission failure. The Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents, along with the Apollo 1 fire, were also classified as a Type A Mishap. While those accidents resulted in the deaths of crewmembers, the Starliner mission was "ultimately successful in preserving crew safety," according to the report.

The report identifies the thrusters as a key technical issue leading to the failure, although an investigation is still ongoing and a root cause has not yet been found.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected," said Isaacman. "But the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."

He said those organizational and leadership problems were seen at both Boeing and NASA, Isaacman's own agency.

The report identified an erosion of trust between the two organizations and leadership that was "overly risk-tolerant."

Isaacman said that the more than 30 launch attempts for this mission led to "cumulative schedule pressure and decision fatigue." When discussing whether to return Wilmore and WIlliams in Starliner, Isaacman said the "disagreements over crew return options deteriorated into unprofessional conduct while the crew remained on orbit."

Isaacman said there would be "leadership accountability," but didn't offer any details.

"These are very complex programs, and complex programs like this fail in complex ways," said Don Platt, department head of aerospace engineering, physics and space science at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. "Those organizational issues are oftentimes, maybe even more important than the technical problems that they're facing."

Such a public scolding of NASA and one of its contractors by its own leader is uncommon, says Platt, who worked on the construction of the space station.

"I think it's really setting the stage for sort of the new way that NASA plans to do business here in his administration," says Platt.

He says that could mean greater transparency and oversight over NASA's contractors

Despite NASA's plans to decommission the space station by the end of the decade, Isaacman says he is still committed to flying Starliner. That would leave NASA with two options, Boeing and SpaceX, to fly astronauts to the station — something SpaceX already does with regularity.

The report offered 61 formal recommendations ahead of the next crewed Starliner mission.

"We're grateful to NASA for its thorough investigation and the opportunity to contribute to it," Boeing said in an emailed statement. "We're working closely with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA's vision for two commercial crew providers."

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The Long Beach Unified Board of Trustees on Wednesday authorized the school district to end the employment of close to 600 employees, a move the LBUSD says is necessary to stabilize its ballooning deficit.

Board members approved two separate resolutions, the first of which does not renew the contracts of 515 certificated employees, who are on temporary contracts that must be re-upped annually. Though it is common for the district to choose not to renew some temporary contracts, the non-renewal of hundreds of TK-12 teachers, early childhood education teachers and social workers represents a massive change for the next school year from the current workforce of 10,000 total employees. While schools across the district will feel the cuts, Poly and Jordan high schools may be especially hard hit; 14 and 12 teachers at each site are listed on the district’s document of non-renewals.

The second resolution authorized the district to formally lay off 54 classified district positions: non-teaching staff members ranging from office support staff to instructional and recreation aides to library media assistants to parent liaisons.

The board votes come after months of warnings from the district that costs and spending have outpaced the district’s funding, saddling LBUSD with a $70 million deficit. The district is now attempting to shrink that deficit through a fiscal stabilization plan that “has prioritized preserving core instructional, wellness, and student support services,” the district wrote in an agenda item related to the cuts.

Prior to the vote, Superintendent Jill Baker framed the proposed cuts with the historical context of significant enrollment declines, the expiration of funds following the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic that had allowed the district to develop a healthy reserve, uncertain federal and state dollars and low attendance numbers, for which the district is penalized — “a really grave situation, fiscally,” she said, one that many districts across California are grappling with.

Baker walked board members through the significant efforts the district has made to manage costs, saving more than $47 million, including through significant central office reductions. Despite these efforts, it’s still not enough, Baker said.

“The release of temporary certificated contracts is one way of reducing the number of employees without impacting permanent certificated employees,” the district wrote in the agenda item.

For those 515 certificated employees who will be notified that their contracts will end, it’s a way that “the district can get away with letting teachers go without calling it a layoff,” said Peder Larsen, vice president of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, which represents certificated employees in LBUSD.

Some of them could be rehired, especially if their positions are in high demand, like science, math and special education teachers, Larsen said. Yet, it throws hundreds into a tailspin of uncertainty and fear, unsure if their jobs have definitively ended and how long they will have health coverage, he added.

While he said the district has not officially announced that no permanent certificated employees will be cut (they have until March 15 to do so), he said he is “reading the tea leaves” and predicting those permanent positions will be safe this year.

In his comment to the board during public testimony, Larsen advocated for examining the money spent annually on consultants and contracts and urged the board and district to re-examine their priorities and “choose to protect the people who serve students every single day.”

On both votes, School Board Member Maria Isabel López was the lone vote against the resolutions, voicing her opinion that some of these positions could have been saved if fiscal priorities had been different and major contracts had not been approved.

Other board members acknowledged that the votes will change lives. “There’s not one of us in this room that takes this lightly,” said Board President Diana Craighead before voting in favor of the cuts. Board Member Doug Otto said he was voting to adopt the resolutions “sadly, reluctantly and necessarily.”