Tag Archive for dockless bikeshare

Morning Links: LA boots Uber bikes & scooters, Sarah Kate Levy kickoff party, and at least DTLA getting bike lanes

November 5, 2019 / / 2 comments

In a showdown of Old West proportions, Los Angeles has given Uber until high noon to get out of town.

Okay, Friday.

That’s because the company has balked on sharing dockless scooter and bikeshare usage data as required in their contract with the city.

And that’s usage, not user, data, the latter of which is supposedly kept hidden.

However, that ultimatum does not include their ride hailing service.

So feel free to keep those Uber gas guzzlers guzzling next week.

………

Bike and transit friendly Sarah Kate Levy is hosting a party to kick off the signature gathering phase of her campaign to unseat CD4 Councilmember David Ryu in Hollywood on this Saturday.

I’ll try to drop by to get my name on one, even if that means tearing my wife away from our so far unsuccessful search to replace the Corgi.

Because how can you replace an irreplaceable dog anyway?

………

Downtown Los Angeles is moving forward with bike lanes, even as the rest of the city stagnates.

Maybe if we could clone CD14 Councilmember José Huizar, the rest of us might finally see some, too.

Or at least him to teach the other councilmembers how it’s done.

………

Sometimes its the people on bikes behaving badly.

A prelim is under way for San Diego man accused of being the bike-riding serial killer who attacked a number of homeless people with knives and railroad spikes, and set two men on fire; he allegedly killed five people and injured ten more. Seriously, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for someone capable of that.

A New York man was caught on video riding his bike onto a sidewalk, pulling out a gun and opening fire on a group of people in broad daylight; his intended victims can be glad he seems to be a bad shot.

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Local

A writer for Los Angeles Magazine questions whether eliminating parking minimums will be good for DTLA, and says it’s unlikely residents would see lower rents as a result.

Bike Mag profiles LA-based street artist turned mountain biker Caché.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg is one of us, going for a Santa Monica bike ride with the former Governator; she’s been traveling the US by train and in Schwarzenegger’s Tesla.

This is who we share the roads with. An entire Long Beach family was tragically wiped out by a 20-year old drunk driver who failed to navigate a turn on Halloween, and ended up on the sidewalk they were trick or treating on.

 

State

An Encinitas bike rider politely points out that yes, there are more than 400 bike riders in the city.

A new controversy erupted when the husband of the mayor of Encinitas was rejected for board membership on the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, allegedly because he supports protected bike lanes, rather than vehicular cycling.

A San Diego woman suffered a compound leg fracture when she was hit by a driver while riding her bike in the city’s Mira Mesa neighborhood.

Apparently, it takes awhile for news to move south, as the San Diego Union-Tribune is just now catching up with the story that e-scooters aren’t as green as you might think; they’re only three months behind their own sister publication and the rest of the country.

A Bakersfield bike rider is in critical condition after yet another hit-and-run by yet another heartless California driver.

San Francisco bike riders fan out to document 259 drivers violating bike lanes in an eight hour period — one third of them on a single nine-block stretch of Valencia Street.

 

National

HuffPost says Democrats have a baffling blind spot when it comes to cars, wondering why the 2020 candidates won’t mention motor vehicles’ contribution to greenhouse gasses.

Now you, too, can be a real superhero when you ride your very own Captain Marvel Schwinn fixie.

A Washington letter writer calls for banning skateboards everywhere but skate parks. And probably wants to ban those, too.

Colorado leaders are discovering that when it comes to ebikes, resistance is futile.

Police in Missoula MT are carrying bike lights in their patrol cars so they can give bike riders without them a free set — and a ticket. We tried to get LAPD to do that for years, but with a warning instead of a ticket. But couldn’t find a deep enough pocket to pay for them. 

Wichita, Kansas considers adding a bike valet program for a new minor league ballpark currently under constriction. Which the Dodgers should have done years ago. And the Kings. And the Galaxy. And the LAFC. And the Lakers. And the Clippers. And the Rams. And the San Diego Chargers of Los Angeles…

Dallas considers reducing a dangerous six-lane virtual highway down to a four-lane boulevard as part of the city’s Complete Streets program. Hopefully they’ll get a little less backlash than Los Angeles officials did on the Venice Blvd road diet.

A Cleveland letter writer says there are good reasons why bicyclists might ride in a narrow roadway, rather than a nearby path.

A Boston paper says whoa, whoa, let’s not go too fast on installing bike lanes, despite arguments that they could be good for local businesses; right now, the city has a whopping 68 miles of bike lanes on its 880 miles of streets.

The New York Daily News applauds a new law requiring the city to update its street master plan every five years — and include an actual connected bike lane network.

 

International

Actor Henry Golding is one of us, at least on the big screen.

A London family is happy to get their bicycle built for three back after someone took it several weeks ago; a couple of local residents turned down a reward for finding it.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 85-year old English great-grandfather now holds seven age-group world records, after adding two more to his portfolio.

A Guardian podcast considers why more and more pedestrians are getting killed on our streets, and whether Silicon Valley really has the answers.

A BBC TV series makes the case that bicycles are the most popular form of transportation on the planet. And the most efficient, too.

A new Irish bike light automatically adjust brightness to road conditions, senses nearby traffic to switch to flasher mode when cars are nearby, and records that data to crowdsource a map of cycling conditions.

If you build it, they will come. Paris saw a 54% jump in bicycling rates in just one year after investing in new bikeways and bikeshare.

When you’re a high-ranking Delhi official, and can’t drive because of the city’s even and odd traffic days, just ride your bicycle.

Authorities in Kuala Lumpur threatened to use a law intended to assure parents supervise their children to prosecute those whose kids are ride basikal lajak, bicycles illegally modified with no brakes and chopped handlebars that allow riders to take the “superman” position. Note to Malay Mail — removing the frame might make a bike just a tad difficult to ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling says it may not be traditional road racing, but something new and interesting could rise from the ashes of the Amgen Tour of California.

 

Finally…

If you really want to sell your “well-established premium bike shop,” it might help to mention where it is. First there is a bike lane, then there is not bike lane, then there is.

And no, the middle of a sidewalk isn’t the right place to park your scooter. A bike lane isn’t, either.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: LACBC needs your help, legal dockless scooters coming to LA, and protected bike lanes for LA County

March 18, 2019 / / One comment

And, we’re back.

For now, anyway.

It’s going to be a long and difficult haul to regain full use of my knee and the leg it’s attached to following my recent knee replacement.

While the pain is greatly improved, it’s going to be around for awhile. Along with a mind-muddling mix of diabetes, neuropathy and pain meds. And the ever-changing array of medieval torture devices and exercises my surgeon and therapists have in store.

So if I have to miss a few days here and there, please accept my apologies in advance.

But I’ll do my best to be here for you every morning.

And keep you up to date on all the latest bike news and advocacy.

………

Let’s start with some difficult news from Eli Akira Kaufman, the new executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.

Two months ago, I joined LACBC as Executive Director because I believe that everybody has the right to travel our streets safely. One thing that was clear to me from my years as a member of the Coalition and rolling with friends and family on the LA River Ride was how tight knit the community is – especially the LACBC staff.

Through all the twists and turns, this team has worked tirelessly to grow LACBC into an organization of which we can all be proud. As a small but powerful team, they have done an incredible job working to make the entire County of Los Angeles a safer region for people on bikes, on foot, and in automobiles. When I was hired, the organization was already in the process of evaluating our overall financial health. Last month, it became clear that LACBC could no longer support the status quo with our current budget. As a result, we have had to make difficult decisions, including having to move one staffer to a part-time role as two other team members departed to pursue other opportunities.

These changes are as heartbreaking as they are challenging, because Dana, Lyndsey, and Cesar are family to us. Their contributions can not be overstated and their daily passion, creativity and thoughtfulness will be deeply missed. With this in mind, I wanted to make sure that each of them had the opportunity to speak to our larger LACBC family, as we’ve all benefited from the impact they have made – and will continue to make – in our community.

Sources tell me the problems stem, at least in part, from the long leadership vacuum caused by former LACBC ED Erik Jansen when he stepped down after just seven months on the job. Not to mention a troubling degree of disengagement while he was still on the job.

Which means it’s been nearly two years since the coalition has seen effective leadership. And that’s taken a serious toll on their finances.

If you’re wondering what you can do to help, the answer is simple.

Open your wallet.

If you’re an LACBC member, renew your membership. If not, join today. Or make a contribution.

A big one, if you can.

All to help LA County’s leading bike advocacy group get back to fighting for your rights and safety on the streets, and in the civic offices of the county’s many communities.

I’m on a tight budget myself these days, as I await an avalanche of medical bills. But I’ll be renewing my LACBC membership early to help out.

It’s the least I can do.

Unfortunately, it’s also the most I can do right now.

………

Los Angeles is about to be flooded with scooters and dockless bikes, as the city’s one-year pilot program is ready for kickoff.

DTLA is getting new scooter and bikeshare parking zones similar to the ones in Santa Monica; unfortunately, they’re on the sidewalk instead of the street.

https://twitter.com/NeelSodha/status/1107015977701531648

However, the city’s new data sharing requirement means that LA officials will now be tracking every trip you take on them, everywhere you go. Politico calls it the next data privacy fight.

So depending on where you’re going and why, you might want to choose another form of transportation if your privacy matters to you.

Meanwhile, City Lab says maybe the solution to dockless bikeshare and e-scooters is to bring back the docks.

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Big news from LA County, where county supervisors approved a motion by 1st District Supervisor Hilda Solis to consider adding protective barriers to new and existing bike lanes in unincorporated areas.

Which doesn’t, despite breathless proclamations from some quarters, mean the county will suddenly start sprouting protected bike lanes.

But assuming it goes beyond just studying, it could be a big step in the right direction.

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Is it just me, or does new e-scooter provider Wheels not have a clue who their target market is?

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

Unbelievable. An Oakland man is living proof that you can chase a woman down with your car, knock her off her bike, steal her cellphone, and threaten her with a gun. And not spend a single day behind bars.

A Cleveland woman with an extensive criminal record will spend the next five years behind bars after intentionally running down a man as he was riding his bicycle; she accused him of robbing her, though police said they knew each other.

A DC motorist is under arrest after throwing a beer at a bike rider from a moving car — then flashing a knife at the victim when he came back for a cellphone, which he had inconveniently dropped while flinging his brew.

Caught on video: A Virginia driver tries to intentionally run down a bicyclist, even following him onto the wrong side of the road as the rider attempted to get out of his way.

And no surprise here, as a new study shows many drivers see bike riders as less than fully human, and that dehumanization makes them likely to act aggressively towards people on two wheels as a result.

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Always inspect your bike before a ride.

https://twitter.com/RYO_scultura400/status/1105385911930372096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1105385911930372096&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsoranews24.com%2F2019%2F03%2F16%2Fdiligent-kitties-conduct-thorough-bicycle-examinations-keep-the-world-safe-for-cyclists%2F

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Local

Bike people aren’t always the good guys. The LAPD is looking for a man who rode his bike up to a Reseda home, and snatched a teacup Yorkie off the porch before riding off.

Bad news for long-time Sherman Oaks bike shop The Bike Connection, which suffered an attic fire Friday night; no word on how much damage the fire caused the 40-year old shop.

Pasadena has reconfigured the popular Rose Bowl loop, forcing the hundreds of bicyclists who turn out for an informal, twice weekly ride to slow at a key intersection; riders say it just increases the risk for everyone.

Forty-four palm trees could stand in the way of a Long Beach complete streets project, including new sidewalks and bike lanes.

State

Seriously, what could possibly go wrong? An Orange County state legislator has introduced a bill that would add two speed-limit free lanes to the I-5 and State Route 99, allowing drivers to go as fast as they damn well please.

Bird gives Thousand Oaks exactly that, telling the city to forget about those plans to bring scooters to its streets.

Kindhearted Fresno cops pitched in to buy a boy a new bike when they were unable find the one he got for his birthday after it was stolen.

After a San Francisco woman was killed riding her bike, over 100 people turned out to form a people-protected bike lane to call for more permanent, non-human protection. The city responded right away by extending the street’s protected bike lane, though only by two blocks. And needless to say, the driver who caused the crash by dooring her, forcing her into the path of a truck, won’t face charges.

San Francisco safety advocates say the city’s Vision Zero program is doomed to fail without improved metrics, better transit, and rock-solid commitments. The same could be said for its bigger state mate to the south. And has been.

Sacramento plans a crackdown on illegally parked dockless Jump ebikes and e-scooters; the city is the first where Jump bikes are more popular than parent company Uber.

The annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show opened in Sacramento, both Pink Bike and Cycling Tips hit the highlights.

The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir is one of us. Or used to be, anyway.

National

A bipartisan bill would restore the commuter bike benefits that were removed under the Trump tax plan, and extend it to bikeshare and ebike users.

Your next bike could be lighter and stiffer than aluminum and cheaper than carbon fiber. And made from the same stuff they make matches out of.

An Arizona paper takes a deep dive into the Uber self-driver car crash that killed Elaine Herzberg as she rode her bike across a Tempe street, in an effort to determine who’s really at fault. Unfortunately, they conclude that no one will be held accountable for her death.

After riding from her home to the state capital earlier this year, a New Mexico lawmaker wants to make it the nation’s most popular state for bikepacking.

Maybe they don’t want us there. A new tourism video for South Dakota’s Black Hills shows hikers, hunters, fishermen, equestrians, cars, trucks and canoes. Bicycles, not so much. Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.

They get it. An Amarillo TX radio station says bikeshare and e-scooters are great, but where are the bike lanes to support them?

They get it, too. After a bicyclist was killed, the Houston Chronicle questions why the city continues to build unsafe streets.

A Pennsylvania Home Depot gave a new bike to one of their employees after his was stolen; the local police department also pitched in $800 to help the 21-year old autistic man get a new Trek.

Actor Justin Theroux is one of us, as the paparazzi caught him riding his bike in New York’s East Village.

Rent a Baltimore apartment, and get a new bike instead of a parking space.

International

An Ottawa letter writer says yes, we need to get more people on bicycles, but calls a new bicycle intersection as useless as Captain Hook’s other glove.

A Prince Edward Island man showed his 19-year old daughter some tough love, calling the police after she failed to return a bicycle she’d taken from his home without permission, in hopes it would force her to get help for her drug addiction.

No bias here. After an English bike rider gave police bike cam video of a dangerous pass, they responded with a ticket. For him.

A British lord, who previously claimed — without evidence — that bike lanes cause pollution is now calling for licensing and insuring bicyclists.

That’s more like it. An Irish hit-and-run driver got five years behind bars for seriously injuring a bike rider while driving without a license.

An Irish official had to apologize for comparing bicyclists to Nazis, saying he’s one himself. A cyclist, that is, not a Nazi.

Why pay to ride indoors, when you can turn a profit by using your stationary bike as an artisanal, organic cocoa grinder, like this one in the Ivory Coast.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, as a South African man used his bicycle to save a young boy from a pair of rampaging Rottweilers.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list: Shredding Indonesia’s smallest and most secluded bike park.

A Singaporean writer bemoans the death of dockless bikeshare in the island city-state, following the collapse of Chinese bikeshare providers.

Competitive Cycling

USA Cycling is establishing a fund to honor 23-year old pro cyclist and Olympic medalist Kelly Catlin, who took her own life earlier this month; family members have donated her brain for study to determine if a recent concussion could have caused her rapid descent into depression.

Family and friends remember Tate Meintjes, calling his death a huge loss, after the 19-year old cyclist was killed preparing for the Redlands Classic.

Paralyzed German track cyclist Kristina Vogel now has her own doll as part of Mattel’s Shero program.

Road.cc offers highlights of pissed-off cyclists in the pro peloton.

Finally…

If you’re going to fake a bike wreck and claim a driver hit you, try to make sure there aren’t any witnesses.

This is why you don’t casually stroll across a bike race.

And apparently, turkeys have learned how to cork.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for that last link.

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Thanks to Margaret W and John L for their generous donations to support this site. Or maybe for my new knee.

Or both.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Lime pulls plug on bikeshare, history of bikes, and Harry and Megan’s unborn kid gets a Trek

February 22, 2019 / / 10 comments

This is going to be the last Morning Links for awhile. 

I’ll be having surgery next week to hack out a chunk of my knee, and replace it with a piece of lifeless metal.

Otherwise known as a full knee replacement.

I’m going to need some time to calm my nerves and get ready for the procedure. And once it’s over, I expect to be too drugged out to get any significant work done.

However, I’m planning to put up a guest post or two, and hope to get to a couple of other brief items. And I’ll do my best to keep up with any breaking news while I’m out.

So check back every now and then so you don’t miss anything.

If all goes as expected, I should be back on Monday the 4th with a fresh Morning Links, and knee that actually works for a change.

Wish me luck, and I’ll see you soon.

And stay safe out there.

………

The former Lime Bike continues to pull the plug on dockless bikeshare in favor of cheaper and more popular e-scooters, withdrawing with little notice from San Mateo, San Francisco and Burlingame, as well as Seattle, Rockville IL and Starkville, Mississippi. Thanks to David Drexler for the heads-up.

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An intrepid, trench coated BBC reporter traces the early history of the bicycle firsthand in a video from 1963.

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Prince Harry and Megan’s new baby hasn’t even been born yet, and the kid’s already got as many bikes as I do.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on, as some Brit asshole — and I use the term advisedly — pushes a woman off her bike from a moving car.

Let’s hope police find this jerk, and give him a shove into a jail cell.

………

Local

If you’re on a waitlist for a bike locker at a Metro station, you may have to keep waiting. The transit agency has proposed scrapping the program because of break-ins and bike thefts, and replacing it with smartphone controlled docking racks.

Safe Routes to School Los Angeles scored a $33.5 million state grant to improve safety around eight local schools.

A South Pasadena website looks back on the doomed California Cycleway, and the birth of the motorcycle when early SoCal bike riders added engines to their bicycle.

Speaking of South Pas, Gabe the Sasquatch dropped in on the city council meeting to promote May’s 626 Golden Streets Mission-to-Mission open streets event.

Environmentalists are fighting plans to move a line of palm trees to make room for a Long Beach Complete Streets project. Even though palm trees aren’t native plants and are big consumers of scarce SoCal water.

A woman on a bicycle may or may not have been hurt when a Long Beach driver jumped the curb and backed into a building; Patch describes her as a pedestrian, while a tweet from the police says she was a bike rider.

Long Beach is expanding its scooter program from the current 1,800 citywide to as many as 6,000 within six months.

State

A San Diego bike rider was seriously injured in a fall, apparently caused by a passing driver. Another reminder that a car doesn’t have to hit you to cause serious damage.

Santa Cruz bike rental shops say Jump’s dockless ebikes have unfairly cut into their business.

Facebook employees keep dumping their free company bikes on Silicon Valley streets. And police keep hassling the kids who pick ’em up and ride ’em.

A San Francisco supervisor joined with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in calling for more bike racks throughout the city.

One of the six cops who fatally shot an unarmed Vallejo rapper who was sleeping in his car in a Taco Bell parking lot last year was involved in the fatal shooting of another unarmed black man earlier in the year, firing his gun into the back of the man’s head during a struggle after stopping him on his bicycle.

National

The Conversation examines the problem of auto-centric urban design that’s literally killing bike riders and pedestrians.

The Bike League says states may forfeit as much as $1 billion in federal funding for sidewalks, bike trails and other safety projects if they don’t use all the money by the end of the year.

The Oregon driver who killed a woman riding a bike while high on 12 different prescription drugs — including her dog’s anxiety meds — was sentenced to a well–deserved 12 years behind bars. That’s one year for each medication; let’s hope she gets the drug treatment she seems to desperately need.

A professional reporter, who is apparently better versed in the 1st Amendment than some police officers, confronted an Arizona marshal who threatened to arrest her for following on her bicycle and filming him. Did I mention that she’s just 12-years old?

Idaho decides that ebikes are bicycles, and should be treated like any other bike.

New Belgium Brewing — based in my hometown and makers of my favorite beer — has teamed with Brooklyn Bicycle Co. to make their eponymous 2019 cruiser bikes.

A judge issued a search warrant for the Austin, Texas bus driver who killed a bike rider on the UT campus last month; police say she appeared to be stoned on prescription medications, oblivious to her surroundings and driving distracted at the time of the crash, while failing to brake and ignoring passengers’ cries to stop. Thanks to Stephen Katz for the link.

A Minnesota bicycle columnist calls plans for a coast-to-coast bike path “fanciful but resilient,” saying Adventure Cycling is taking the long view in efforts to complete it. Wake me up when the LA Times — or any other local paper — gets around to hosting a column on bicycling.

Life really is cheap in Ohio, where a driver walked with just a $250 fine, and an order to donate another $250 to a local national park, after killing a bike rider while driving with a fogged-up windshield.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A woman reminisces about a beloved Boston librarian after she was killed by the driver of a cement truck while riding her bicycle.

The jerk who wrote a non-apology to a 10-year old upstate New York boy after sideswiping his bike may avoid a return to court, despite violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the judges order.

Bike Snob addresses New York’s war on bikes, as the NYPD continues its bizarre crackdown on bicyclists in response to the deaths of innocent bike riders at the hands and bumpers of lawbreaking drivers.

International

Seriously? A Vancouver veterans center says plans for a protected bike lane will put them out of business, evidently operating under the mistaken impression that veterans — even wounded vets — don’t ride bicycles.

Royal-in-law Pippa Middleton’s bike-raging celebrity fitness coach caused the equivalent of $4,800 in damage to a driver’s Mercedes following an altercation and some sort of contact between the car and his bike. He then reached into the car and grabbed the keys, throwing them into a nearby garden before attempting to rip off the door and damaging the upholstery.

A pair of road-raging moped delivery drivers got just under two years behind bars for knocking a British man off his bicycle and viciously beating him with a motorcycle helmet, breaking his arm and jaw — all because he was going faster than they were.

UK police investigating a bike theft from a train station busted a bike thief after discovering whopping 101 stolen bicycles crammed into his home.

A Scottish road safety researcher says lowering speed limits to 20 mph could actually make the streets more deadly by lulling bicyclists and pedestrians into a false sense of security. Which is another way of saying many, if not most, motorists would simply ignore the lower limits and drive as fast as they damn well please. Sort of like they do now.

Paris plans to optimize its beleaguered Vélib’ bikeshare system using artificial intelligence.

Apparently, life in Singapore is too hectic for roadway courtesy.

Competitive Cycling

The 2021 Tour de France will depart from Copenhagen.

American cyclist Peter Stetina says he’s fired up for the coming racing season after nearly retiring last year following struggles with a broken collarbone and the Epstein-Barr virus, as well as almost getting squeezed off the pro tour.

Columbian pro Egan Bernal isn’t feeling any pressure in leading Team Sky in this year’s Giro, saying the team will keep paying him whether he wins or loses.

The Redlands Classic stage race is looking for volunteers to serve as race marshals for this year’s edition.

Finally…

Maybe it’s time to start wearing a striped riding kit to keep the flies away. The best ABS system for your bike is probably a good brake finger.

And who needs wheels for a fast descent when you can ride a wooden ski bike?

Unless maybe you prefer to do your ski bike riding uphill.

………

Thanks to Matthew R and Sameer K for their generous and unexpected donations to support this site — or maybe it was intended to help pay for my new knee.

Either way, it couldn’t be more appreciated.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: An epic symphonic CicLAvia, the Militant Angeleno, and free JUMP Bikes through next week

September 28, 2018 / / One comment

This is not just another CicLAvia.

Sunday’s Celebrate LA! open streets event combines bikes and music to mark the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with an eight-mile route stretching from Downtown’s Disney Hall to the Hollywood Bowl.

Although the last part will rely on shuttle buses to transfer people to the Bowl from the western CicLAvia terminus at Franklin and Vine.

In addition to the usual CicLAvia activities, this one will feature performances from symphony members and musical guests throughout the day and all along the route.

It will also feature the first ever public appearance of the Militant Angeleno, author of the popular Militant’s Epic CicLAvia Tour, offering a guide to noteworthy sites along the route.

And this one really is epic, with sites ranging from the new tallest building in LA, to a pair of Brown Derbys.

The Militant, who guards his non-camo clad identity as carefully as legendary LA hero Zorro, will host an informal free tour along the route — cohosted by yours truly.

Though how he intends to hide it in public remains to be seen.

As for my contribution, I’ll be there to answer questions and comment on bike safety issues as they come up.

But like everyone else, I’m really just tagging along to see the Militant Angeleno, and experience CicLAvia in a whole new way.

RSVP to MilitantAngeleno@gmail.com if you want to join us.

I’ll look forward to seeing you there.

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Santa Monica’s new JUMP dockless ebike bikeshare is free for the next week.

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Long Beach Mobility & Healthy Living Programs Officer Michelle Mowery sends word that the San Gabriel River Bike Path will be closed one more time next month.

The LADWP needs one more day of bike path closure to complete their work on the power plant.  We expect the path to be closed on October 4th between 2nd Street and 7th Street (California State Highway 22) from 8 AM to 5 PM.

Hopefully this will be the last time it’s necessary.

………

Local

A Los Angeles man was sentenced to three years probation and a $550 fine for scooting under the influence; he fled the scene after crashing into a pedestrian with a BAC over three times the legal limit.

Streetsblog says the missing sharrows have returned to 4th Street. The residential street is a popular route for bike riders headed to and from Downtown. Fourth Street was supposed to become a bike boulevard, but former Councilmember Tom LaBonge backed down in the face of local opposition to installing a red light.

 

State

Palo Alto will honor a former councilwoman who set the city on a bike friendly path.

 

National

A new report from the National Transportation Safety Board says better car design could prevent pedestrian deaths. And bike riders, too.

Now that’s my kind of state. The most Googled search term in Colorado is “Tour de France.” Which beats the hell out of Ohio’s “Ken Doll Man Bun.”

Seriously? A New Hampshire newspaper says converting a traffic lane on a bridge to a bike and pedestrian lane is a bad idea — even though it would only slow peak rush hour traffic five to ten mph below the posted speed limit.

A Nashville trauma surgeon urges scooter riders to wear a helmet, while a Massachusetts doctor says it’s irresponsible to offer bikeshare without also providing bike helmets. And that ebikes endanger everyone on the local bike path.

The New York Yankees are the only major league team that won’t allow bike helmets into the stadium, forcing riders to either go without one or rent a locker across from the stadium for $20 a game.

Shades of Los Angeles. DC bicyclists and councilmembers complain about the mayor’s Vision Zero plan, saying there’s no sense of urgency and the city isn’t doing enough to save lives; the head of the Department of Transportation says updating the Vision Zero website is just “too labor intensive.”

An Alabama YouTuber explains how to get a Walmart bike that doesn’t suck much.

The Tampa Bay newspaper insists the area isn’t really the nation’s most dangerous place for bicyclists, regardless of what the Wall Street Journal says.

Apparently it’s open season on bike riders and pedestrians in the nation’s second most dangerous city for bicyclists, with seven people hit by drivers in Jacksonville in just the last two days.

 

International

Canada’s Banff National Park considers lowering the speed limit to the equivalent of 18 mph to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians.

Seven of the eight candidates for mayor of Winnipeg voiced their support for bike lanes and boosting active transportation.

No bias here. A Montreal pedestrian looks at bicyclists from a decidedly sidewalk perspective, saying she’s sick and tired of dealing with scofflaw cyclists on the sidewalk. Never mind that people don’t ride their bikes on the sidewalk if they feel safe on the street.

An advocacy group on Canada’s Prince Edward Island says licensing bicyclists isn’t the way to improve safety.

There’s a special place in hell anyone who’d punch an 80-year old British man after being told bikes aren’t allowed on a pedestrian path.

This is why you always need to carry ID when you ride. Authorities in the UK are trying to identify a 70-year old man who died of a heart attack while riding his bike last week.

NPR examines the proposal to ban phones on bikes in the Netherlands.

A Polish city is opening a six and a half mile, four lane bike highway, allowing bike riders to travel at speed up to 30 mph. Can we have that here? Pretty please?

Korean police are preparing to crack down on bicycling under the influence; under a new law, anyone riding a bike with a BAC of just .05 will be subject to a $27 fine. Which could be as little as two drinks for someone under 150 pounds.

A J-pop star faces charges for a drunken hit-and-run that injured a bicyclist and a pedestrian; the former singer with Japanese girl group Morning Musume turned herself in to Tokyo police 15 minutes after the crash.

 

Competitive Cycling

Eighteen-year old rising Belgian star Remco Evenepoel overcame an early crash to win the junior road cycling world championship; he won the junior time trial title earlier in the week. Although just days after he asked not to be called the next Eddy Merckx, that’s exactly what the Telegraph did in that last link.

A pair of quad-tandem teams from Great Britain and Canada are racing from Portland to San Francisco to raise money for mental health programs.

A bike race took 45 competitors over 6,000 miles from Lyon, France to Guangzhou, China on solar-powered ebikes.

Former Vuelta and Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich faces yet another assault allegation for attacking a man at the Hamburg airport, as he was preparing to fly to the US for rehab. Which clearly can’t come soon enough.

 

Finally…

Who needs a bike bell when you can put a 100 decibel siren on your handlebars. And walking on water may be a miracle, but biking on it isn’t anymore.

 

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Morning Links: Koretz proposes ban on e-scooters in Los Angeles, and keeping drivers on the road until it’s too late

August 1, 2018 / / 6 comments

In a move that probably shouldn’t have surprised anyone, LA’s self-proclaimed environmentalist councilmember has called for a temporary ban on dockless e-scooters.

Yes, Paul Koretz, the councilmember who singlehandedly blocked desperately needed bike lanes on Westwood Blvd — as well as on other major corridors throughout the Westside — has taken action to force people of their e-scooters and back into their cars, rather than allowing a viable first mile/last mile solution to take root.

This is the same councilman who has called for a Climate Emergency Mobilization Department. Yet can’t seem to see the logical disconnect in fighting alternative forms of transportation while paying lip service to climate change.

Then again, he doesn’t seem to see any problem with blocking increased density, either.

Evidently, he’s all for emergency action to address climate change, as long as it’s in someone else’s district.

Never mind that, as someone else pointed out, blocking bike lanes is just climate change denial in action.

Then there’s this disconnect, from the report by KFI radio.

“When we had a hearing in our Transportation Committee, at the time I had seen about three of them and I thought it wasn’t a big deal,” Koretz said. “I’ve probably seen a thousand since just on Beverly Boulevard where I live, and 100 percent have no helmet usage. … I’ve seen probably 20 go by with double on the scooter, which is very dangerous. On the commercial streets, everyone is illegally on the sidewalk.”

Which was followed by,

As for the public’s reaction, Koretz said he believed most residents want the scooters off the streets. He said his office has receive hundreds of complaints about them in recent weeks.

Yes, that is the scientific way to gauge public opinion, especially since people who support the scooters aren’t likely to call to say so without some compelling reason.

Like a stupid proposal to ban them, for instance.

And how is it that “hundreds of complaints” somehow outweighs thousands of users — by his own observation?

As for Koretz’ “better safe than sorry” concerns, there’s this from the Hollywood Reporter’s overview of the response, legal and otherwise, to e-scooters in the LA area.

Scooters have shown to pose safety hazards while operational and parked. According to injury attorney Catherine Lerer of L.A.’s McGee Lerer & Associates, who has written extensively about electric scooters, the top two seen in her office are people hurt when a scooter malfunctions — when a brake line is cut by disgruntled L.A. residents, for instance, or the scooter’s main post collapses — and pedestrians tripping over the scooters. “I’ve gotten calls from elderly people exiting businesses…people leave them right outside the front door,” Lerer notes.

Doesn’t exactly sound like a disaster in the making. Especially when one of the leading causes of injuries is sabotage by scooter-hating NIMBY terrorists.

The proposal was seconded by San Fernando Valley Councilmember Mitch Englander, who has also proposed a ban on dockless bikeshare until the city can work out a permitting process.

This follows the misguided bans on e-scooters in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills; the latter banning even riding bikeshare bikes or e-scooters through the city, which most likely violates state law.

Of course, this kind of hysteria about a new form of transportation is nothing new.

And something tells me Koretz would have been one of the first to call for a ban on bicycles had he lived in the 1890s. Although he probably would have been fine with the Model T chasing everyone else off the roads.

Of course, Los Angeles could take a more rational approach, like working with Lime and Bird to address any issues while they work the bugs out, as Culver City and Long Beach are doing.

But that would make too much sense.

Especially for an environmentalist who seems determined to keep Angelenos in their smog and greenhouse gas-belching cars.

https://twitter.com/LAMetroBlueLine/status/1024492126694866944

………

As long as we’re talking about e-scooters and dockless bikeshare, let’s look at a few more stories on the subject.

Curbed offers everything you need to know about renting e-scooters and dockless bikeshare in Los Angeles. While you still can, that is.

When a Portland-area website went fishing for complaints about e-scooters, what they got were complaints about cars.

And a St. Louis website gives Lime scooters a test ride, and comes back with 13 things they learned. Including that they’re fun as, well, you get the idea.

………

This is who we share the roads with.

Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a driver gets just 45 days behind bars for killing a van driver while speeding, tailgating and driving recklessly — despite receiving 40 tickets over the last 20 years.

And a Tuskegee University football player will never play the game again, after his leg was severed when a friend’s car he was helping to jump was hit by a driver with a “criminal history dating to 1989 (that) ‘shows a pattern of driving offenses and felony arrests.'”

Just two more examples of authorities keeping dangerous drivers on the road until it’s too late.

………

More on the American couple killed in a terrorist attack in Tajikistan on Sunday, who had quit their jobs to bike around the world.

The couple from Washington, DC had written about their trip on a blog that sadly will never be finished.

And authorities blamed the attack on members of the blacklisted Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.

………

Local

As we noted last week, fresh green bike lanes are finally going down on Santa Monica Blvd in the former Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills, which had fought the lanes for nearly a decade before surprisingly embracing them last year.

Today Santa Clarita sheriff’s deputies will step up enforcement of traffic violations that put bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them. So ride to the letter of the law until you leave their jurisdiction.

 

State

A Cambrian man accidentally became the first bike rider to travel Highway 1 in Big Sur after it reopened last month.

San Francisco approves plans for a curb-protected bike lane the promises to be the safest in the city.

Sad news from Del Norte County, where the CHP is looking for a hit-and-run driver who killed a woman as she rode her bike; the victim wasn’t carrying ID and still hasn’t been identified. One more reminder to always carry some form of identification when you ride; I never leave home without my RoadID, which doubles as a medic alert bracelet.

 

National

A writer for Forbes says cities must take advantage of the opportunities presented by bikeshare.

Bloomberg says Uber and Lyft may not be the solution to traffic congestion, but they’re probably not the cause, either.

Bicycling profiles BMX star Nigel Sylvester, saying the “rebellious superstar is breaking all the rules,” and doesn’t need your permission, thank you.

A writer for Fox News blames “big-spending liberals” for pushing Seattle bike lane and streetcar projects that have been plagued with cost overruns.

A Washington writer gets a detailed education in why many bicyclists prefer to ride on the highway, when there’s a perfectly good bike path nearby. Which should be required reading for planners before they’re allowed to design any offroad path.

Evidently, Los Angeles isn’t the only city where councilmembers have the power to block bike lanes. A Chicago bike rider was killed when he was doored on a street that was supposed to have a protected bike lane, which was halted by the local alderman.

After Ofo pulled out of White Plains NY, they donated over 100 bike for use by low income families.

An Albany NY TV station raises concerns about the structural integrity of an old railroad bridge that now used by over “200,000 bike riders, joggers and dog walkers” every year.

Charlotte NC is planning its first two-way, protected cycle track.

 

International

Curbed looks at 14 gorgeous carfree cities around the world. Anyone one of which I’m just about ready to move to. Although bike riding on the Venice canals might be a bit of a challenge.

No surprise here, as a study shows the noxious fumes in London’s air disappeared during the annual carfree Ride London event.

A British lawyer who calls himself Mr. Loophole suggests revising the country’s traffic laws, including requiring all bike riders to pass a proficiency test, and have their bicycles inspected annually for safety violations (aka an MoT, or Ministry of Transport exam).

Talk about lessons not learned. Bike Biz reprints a speech in the British parliament that calls for a revival of bicycling in the national interest — which was given sixty years ago. And clearly not acted on.

Egyptians are being encouraged to leave their cars behind in an effort to spread bicycle culture throughout the country.

Shimano has apparently overcome the losses from the factory fire in Japan earlier this year, with sales up 6.8%.

 

Competitive Cycling

Forbes calls bicycle racing the best sport to combine spectating and active participation.

A French newspaper calls for a budget cap for pro cycling teams following Team Sky’s dominating performance in the Tour de France; the president of cycling’s governing body calls for limiting teams to a maximum of six riders instead.

After successful surgery to repair a fractured vertebrae suffered during the Tour, Vincenzo Nibali hopes to return in time for the Vuelta a España later this month.

VeloNews talks with a sports psychologist about whether the abuse Team Sky riders suffered from fans during the Tour had any effect. Apparently not, since they led most of the way and placed two riders on the podium; cutting back on salbutamol probably had a bigger effect on Chris Froome.

Speaking of VeloNews, the magazine also talks with the head of the Dimension Data team about his efforts to build an African team; while several African riders have competed on the WorldTour with the team, no black African has yet won a stage at the highest levels.

And completing our VeloNews trilogy, the magazine offers a beautiful photo essay of the Tour de France from the Pyrenees to Paris.

A 60-year old Australian woman won the masters mountain bike world championships just one day after suffering a major crash.

 

Finally…

Evidently, the more bikes change, the more they look the same. Doing the Tour de France without a bicycle.

And sometimes, doing the right thing gets rewarded.

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Morning Links: Dockless bikeshare rules around the world, and Edinburgh bans cars while Prague bans bikes

April 4, 2018 / / 2 comments

Today’s common theme is dockless bikeshare around the world.

Chicago develops what they consider best practices for dealing with dockless bikes, including the right to move them and make the providers pay for it. Although to the best of my knowledge, Los Angeles hasn’t approved any official policies for dealing with dockless bikeshare yet, despite what the story says.

Meanwhile, German cities are wary of the potential posed for sidewalk clutter posed by dockless bikes, and fighting back against badly parked bicycles. Now maybe they know how we feel about all those badly parked cars blocking bike lanes.

Speaking of dockless transportation, the Corgi investigates her first LimeBike scooter in West Hollywood. And no, she wasn’t supposed to be in the picture.

………

Another common theme is banning means of transportation from urban centers.

Edinburgh, Scotland joins other cities around the world in planning to restrict driving in the city center to make more room for people traveling by bikes or on foot.

On the other hand, in a truly bizarre decision, Prague bans bicycles from the historic city center to protect pedestrians. But evidently, drivers are free to keep running people over.

………

Local

LA Planning is hosting a series of workshops around town to teach the basics of urban planning. And in what may come as a shock to many LA residents, there’s more to planning than just saying no to everything.

 

State

San Diego urges residents to ditch their cars and walk, bike or take transit with the city’s first #TransitTuesday.

A Victorville bicyclist is injured when he’s unable to stop in time, and t-bones a passing car. And somehow, the first, and so far only, comment blames new bike lanes.

Sunnyvale become the latest California city to adopt Vision Zero, even if the San Jose paper can’t seem to get the name straight.

 

National

Yamaha introduces its first self-branded bikes for the American market.

Curbed questions whether human beings should be guinea pigs for testing self-driving cars in cities.

A Chicago bike advocate is working to bring bike libraries to underserved parts of the city.

The local paper in Bowling Green KY wholeheartedly approves of plans to designate nearby rural roads as part of the US Bicycle Route system. Especially since it only involves posting a few signs.

Boston-area bike riders are understandably outraged at a decision absolving a truck driver of blame in the death of a bicyclist because the victim was hidden by the truck’s blindspot. As we noted yesterday, if the driver can’t see a human being almost directly in front of him, the damn truck shouldn’t be allowed on the road. Period.

New York plans to finally drop its ridiculous ebike ban, paving the way for ped-assist bikes, but throttles back plans for throttled bikes.

The widow of a fallen South Carolina cyclist advises drivers to pass bike riders like you love them. Which is exactly how we should pass pedestrians.

A Georgia deputy offers a single line of advice to help keep bike riders safe on the road, and gets it exactly wrong. Bike riders are supposed to stay as far right as practicable, not as far as possible. And are often safest when riding in the middle of the lane, rather than hugging the gutter and encouraging drivers to squeeze past.

A Florida man buys a single speed bike and goes carfree for a year. And liked it.

 

International

Heartbreaking story from the UK, where bicyclists hold a ride to help raise funds to send an 18-year old student’s body back to Egypt, after she was beaten to death on a bus by six other women.

A former Brit bike thief recommends securing your ride with double D-locks.

A new study from the UK shows that bike helmets help prevent facial injuries. Something I learned the hard way when mine helped keep my face intact as I did a faceplant during the incredible beachfront bee incident.

An Irish man bounces back from a massive heart attack and triple bypass surgery to ride 1,000 miles in an upcoming charity ride.

It only took the Cyprus legislature seven years to pass a law that basically says bike riders have to obey traffic laws. And isn’t likely to change anything.

South Africa will now certify businesses as bike friendly.

Sixty-eight percent of Kiwi bicyclists say New Zealand drivers aren’t prepared the share the road.

An Aussie CEO talks bikes, and how riding helps him come up with creative solutions.

 

Finally…

The best bikes for before you’re ready for pedals. Racing your balls off to fight testicular cancer — assuming you have some, of course.

And a University of Nebraska student complains about taking a whole 15 minutes to drive across town, saying it wouldn’t take that long to go five miles in any reputable city.

No, seriously.

Thanks to Todd Munson for that last link.

 

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Morning Links: Pasadena’s Orange Grove complete street on hold, and chill out on dockless bikeshare already

March 29, 2018 / / 5 comments

So much for that.

Pasadena has responded to the vocal concerns of drivers and local residents by putting an indefinite hold on plans for a road diet on dangerous Orange Grove Blvd.

Even though that means ignoring the concerns of everyone who wants to live on a quieter, calmer street. Or doesn’t want to get run down by those same drivers.

Which marks yet another victory, albeit hopefully a temporary one, for the people behind the driver activist group Keep LA Moving, which organized the resistance to the bike lane.

As well as opposition to the recently shelved Temple Street road diet, and the failed road diets in Playa del Rey.

So far, only the Mar Vista Great Streets Project on Venice Blvd has survived their traffic safety denier onslaught.

Let’s hope Pasadena can do a better job of communicating the benefits of such projects than LADOT has up to this point. And that the Orange Grove project will come back more successfully at a later date.

Because right now, the people in the black hats and two-ton vehicles are winning.

And needless to say, Keep LA Moving’s allies at KFI radio cheering the decisions.

……..

A writer for San Diego’s City Beat suggests maybe it’s time to just chill out about dockless bikeshare.

As Matthew T. Hall, San Diego Union-Tribune editorial director, lamented on Twitter about the kits, “What kind of world are we leaving our children?”

Well, for one, apparently one where folks Spin’s age, edging toward 60 and above, think the appearance of bicycles in certain communities amounts to some apocalyptic hellscape of two-wheeling insurgents intent on demolishing mankind as we know it…

Never mind that not everyone can afford to buy a bike, nor the notion that perhaps a significant portion of the bikes that appear in Little Italy—or Mission Hills or Point Loma for that matter—might have actually brought someone to your popular neighborhood. Seems like short-sighted economics to drive that kind of business away…

Is it a perfect system? Hell no, but what is? But for this curmudgeon who this week turned 59, the bikes have offered—at a reasonable price—an opportunity to regain some semblance of a connection with my city and, by some miracle, my youth.

………

Horrifying video of a head-on collision as a driver turned directly into a bike rider waiting at a red light.

Needless to say, the driver claims she never saw him. Which should be seen as a confession rather than an excuse.

Note: This video shows exactly what it looks like to get hit head-on from the rider’s perspective. So consider that before deciding if you really want to hit play.

………

Bloomberg reports that Uber disconnected the collision avoidance system that comes standard in the Volvo SUV that stuck and killed Elaine Herzberg while she was crossing the street in Tempe Arizona, relying on their own failed self-driving technology instead.

Meanwhile, Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss says instead of counting on self-driving cars to save us, we should build cities to marginalize motor vehicles.

………

Local

Metro wants your input on how to spend their budget for next year. Hint: Shift all the highway funds to build bikeways and sidewalks, instead.

Normally, this would be your warning that upcoming lane closures for a Culver City construction site would mean the closure of the eastbound bike lanes on Venice Blvd. But I’m told they’ve already been closed for weeks.

Bicycling takes a little floatation therapy in Santa Monica.

 

State

Here’s your chance to design a new image for a proposed bicycle-themed California license plate. I’ve already submitted my design, showing an angry driver yelling “Get on the sidewalk!” Thanks to Phil Gaimon for the link. 

The New York Times looks at California’s SB-827, which would encourage denser housing to reduce reliance on motor vehicles to cut greenhouse gasses.

An Agoura Hills writer says the weather is nice, so it’s time to ride a bike.

Advocacy group Bike Bakersfield has developed their own stolen bike bulletin board.

These are the people we share the roads with. A San Francisco driver was arrested for plowing into a group of pedestrians, killing one and injuring four, before fleeing the scene. To make matters worse, the crash appear to have been intentional, coming after he shouted homophobic slurs and threatened the victims with an ax.

Former pro Peter Stetina will host a gran fondo during this year’s Interbike in Reno-Lake Tahoe.

 

National

Business Insider reviews bike helmets, and concludes the best option for most people is a $25 skid lid from Schwinn.

Peer-to-peer bikeshare firm Spinlister has announced they will be closing at the end of next month.

Bike Portland talks with a safe-driving advocate for a BMW magazine, who wants to put the focus for Vision Zero on the people behind the wheel.

For the next three weeks, you can explore Yellowstone National Park by bike, with no cars allowed.

Streetsblog makes the case for why a new bike trail-adjacent Chicago apartment building should only have 36 parking spaces for 124 units.

No bias here. No, Time Out, bicyclists in New York can’t legally run red lights. But they can start riding when pedestrians are legally allowed to go, which is a different matter entirely.

A New York cyclist makes the case for why bicyclists should support congestion pricing.

An American Idol contestant is teaming with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and a Nashville bike/walk advocacy group to discourage texting while driving, two years after he was run down by a distracted driver while riding his bike.

Philadelphia bike riders will honor a pastry chef killed in a bike crash last year with a pastry-filled bike scavenger hunt.

 

International

CNET says increasing regulation could, but probably won’t, stop the global spread of dockless bikeshare.

Cycling Weekly offers advice on how to get more aero. Which probably won’t help on your cruiser bike.

A Canadian mountie won’t face charges after investigators conclude there isn’t enough evidence to prove he ran over a fleeing bike theft suspect, even though he probably did.

It takes a major schmuck to sue a 10-year old girl for not following the vehicle code to the letter after he crashed into the rear tire of her bicycle while running. Fortunately, the judge dismissed the case.

A new study shows one in four drivers in Australia’s Queensland state pass bicyclists too closely. Which should sound familiar to most bike riders just about anywhere else.

 

 

Finally…

If you’re going to punch the driver who just crashed into your friend’s bike, at least wait until the cops leave.

And yes, you can go mountain biking in Los Angeles.

………

Thanks to Zachary R for his generous donation to the unofficial BikinginLA Dead Computer Replacement Fund.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Englander proposes temporary dockless bikeshare ban, and BOLO Alert in El Monte hit-and-run

February 26, 2018 / / 2 comments

Not everyone is welcoming dockless bikeshare to Los Angeles.

CD12 Councilmember Mictch Englander has introduced a motion that would ban any dockless bikeshare programs in the city, with the exception of pilot projects sponsored by various councilmembers.

The motion calls on the city to develop guidelines for any future dockless programs, as well as penalties for providers who fail to live up to those standards.

This would allow existing programs from LimeBike and Ofo to continue in the port cities and Griffith Park, respectively, but could prohibit the LimeBikes at Cal State Northridge from being taken off campus.

While the motion seems a little heavy-handed, the experiences in other cities make it clear that unregulated dockless programs invite problems, along with the inevitable bikelash from people who find the bikes on their lawns or blocking the sidewalk.

Let alone in their trees or swimming pools.

Hopefully Englander and the council can find a way to develop effective regulations without stifling the growth of what could be a very effective way to reduce motor vehicle traffic.

Thanks to TJ Knight for the heads-up.

………

Police in El Monte are asking the public to be on the alert to help find a hit-and-run driver who critically injured a bike rider.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the tip.

………

There will be a pair of public meetings next month to discuss a proposal to convert Pasadena’s Orange Grove Blvd into a complete street.

………

A man riding a bicycle was injured in a collision near the Calgrove onramp to the 5 Freeway in Santa Clarita; no word on his condition.

Nina Moskol, chairperson of the Santa Clarita Bicycle Coalition, had this to say afterwards.

The location of this crash is a known bike corridor. The County has proposed bikeways plans to improve this area. The Santa Clarita Valley Bicycle Coalition has been discussing this area at every opportunity with LA County, Cal Trans, and City transportation officials.

To date, we have had no word as to what proposed improvements for safety will be implemented, when, or where exactly. What we do know is that this freeway/County road interchange is complex and under heavy use because of ongoing construction on the I-5 to complete pavement restoration (and possible HOV lanes). We encourage everyone to ride safely and carefully.

………

Local

Curbed says the new Glendale-Hyperion Bridge will feature protected bike lanes on both sides, which would be a change from the painted bike lanes called for in the original plans, but it would still have just one sidewalk on the north side.

Somehow we missed this one, as Metro’s BEST program hosted a tweed ride in Culver City yesterday.

Clear your schedule next Sunday for Los Angeles Walk’s annual fundraiser and free block party

 

State

The LA Times reports on Montclair’s ridiculous law banning pedestrians from crossing the street while using any electronic device, including headphones or earbuds.

Officials opened the first section of the planned 50-mile CV Link bikeway around the Coachella Valley. Or it would be 50 miles, if Rancho Mirage was willing to let it besmirch their fair city.

Protected bike lanes could be coming to Oakland’s Lake Merritt.

Marin’s anti-bike lane crank columnist ridicules comments of a mode shift on a Bay Area bridge, saying 235 bike crossings a day pale in comparison to 71,000 motor vehicles. He’s got a point, although the question is whether there are any safe connections on either side of the bridge that encourage people to ride across.

 

National

Good piece from Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss, who says we need to get more kids on bikes.

Some Portland bike shops are beginning to shun brands owned by Vista Outdoor, which has been linked to a maker of ammunition and AR-15-type weapons.

A Wisconsin nonprofit intends to refurbish 1,000 bicycles to donate to local kids next month.

Heartwarming story from Milwaukee, where motorcycle maker Harley Davidson helped design a custom adaptive tricycle for a four-year old boy born without legs and forearms. And no, the story doesn’t explain how he’s going to pedal it.

Two Indiana men face up to 30 months in prison for building an illegal singletrack trail through an Indiana nature preserve.

A Philadelphia councilwoman proposes requiring city council approval for any bike lane that could affect the flow of traffic. Never mind that people on bikes are traffic, too.

 

International

A Caribbean-based physiotherapist explains how to avoid minor injuries when you start riding.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a road raging driver who threw oven cleaner on a bike rider — with her two kids in the car, no less — and leaving the victim with severe chemical burns, walked with a 12-month suspended sentence.

A British soldier has gotten six years for fatally slamming his car into a man riding his bike, after he was shown on video downing five beers and three shots in a pub.

Road.cc looks at presumed liability, which is the norm in most of Europe, and whether it would make streets safer for cyclists in the UK. If we ever want to end car culture and the automotive hegemony on our streets, we’ll have to adopt some form of presumed liability, which assumes the operator of the larger vehicle is at fault in any crash, because they have a greater responsibility to avoid a collision due to their greater ability to cause harm.

A Scottish newspaper makes the case for a 20 mph speed limit, saying initial opposition has died down nearly a year after it was implemented.

CNBC has discovered Copenhagen, where officials say traffic would come to a standstill if 15% to 20% of bicyclists switched to motor vehicles. Which suggest that getting 15% to 20% of Angelenos on bikes might get traffic moving again.

Chinese dockless bikeshare company Gobee has pulled out of Paris without warning, after quitting other European cities due to extensive vandalism.

Evidently, bike riders are second-class citizens in Kolkata, where they’re required to get off and walk their bikes across major streets.

A Canberra, Australia newspaper says there’s no reason for the country’s Capital Territory to reconsider its mandatory helmet law, which it calls a proven lifesaver. Even though multiple studies have questioned whether the health benefits of bicycling outweigh the benefits of bike helmet laws, which have depressed bicycling rates in Australia.

Japan is considering plans to build a suspended bikeway under a bridge connecting Shikoku and Awajishima islands. Or you can ride a 44-mile route connecting six islands in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea right now.

 

Competitive Cycling

ESPN considers how Cal Berkeley law school dean Molly Shaffer Van Houweling broke the 12-year old hour record in 2014.

Yes, the cycling season is underway already, as Spain’s Alejandro Valverde takes the Abu Dhabi Tour, and Dylan Groenewegen wins on the frozen cobbles of Belgium’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.

 

Finally…

The best way to get over a bad breakup? Ride across the US. When the real Tour de France leads leads to fictional romance.

And now you, too, can own your very own dockless bikeshare bike to leave anywhere you want.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Not everyone loves CSUN LimeBikes, Melissa Balmer talks bikes, and bike riders swarm convenience store

January 31, 2018 / / 4 comments

Apparently, the new LimeBikes at Cal State Northridge aren’t popular with everyone.

Steve S forwarded this flyer he received from someone on the campus, where the dockless bikeshare was officially introduced last week.

He notes that LimeBikes have already been abandoned in the middle of busy Lassen and Nordhoff Streets.

………

This week’s ShiftUp Podcast talks about The Surprising Promise of Bicycling in America with Long Beach’s Melissa Balmer, founder of PedalLove.org.

………

Local

A large group of bike riders swarmed a Pico Union convenience store on Sunday, stealing up to $3,000 worth of merchandise.

CiclaValley offers advice on choosing the right bike cam, saying having one — or more — on your bike is as necessary as carrying an extra tube.

Pasadena approves a wish list to submit to Metro in the wake of the cancellation of the 710 Freeway extension, including free bus passes for high school and college students, and a number of bicycling projects.

State

A new feature film focuses on the life of San Diego, and former Glasgow, resident and BMX star John Buultjens.

An architect, planner and former Davis resident says San Luis Obispo’s plans for a two-way cycle track gets it all wrong. Meanwhile, a frequent bikeway opponent uses LA as an example of what not to do, installing bikeways only to rip them out later in the face of public opposition.

A San Francisco paper looks at why male bike riders outnumber women two to one on the city’s streets, suggesting more protected bike lanes could be the solution.

Bicyclingoffers a moving photo essay on the efforts of the bicycling community to rebuild after last year’s Sonoma County fires.

 

National

A Dallas writer says its too soon to clamp down on the chaotic dockless bikeshare in the city, saying the problems reveal the lack of bicycling infrastructure and the flaws in human nature.

An Orlando FL magazine takes an in-depth look at the question of whether bikes and cars can ever share the road in harmony.

After walking across the US with his then 10-year old son to raise awareness of diabetes, a Florida man is biking back from Santa Monica to Savannah GA to continue the discussion.

International

A bike and pedestrian safety advocate in Luxembourg says safety campaigns are deflecting the blame, and it’s not the victim’s fault if they get hit by a car crossing the street.

New bike wheel lights designed by a Siberian physician promise to light your entire wheel, starting and stopping automatically as you ride, with no wires or batteries.

Despite the horror stories of abandoned bikes, dockless bikeshare has helped double bicycling rates in China.

Competitive Cycling

When you retire from Olympic track cycling, you have time to get married and open a cake baking company.

What the well-dressed WorldTour cycling teams will be wearing this year.

When Chris Froome posts a 168 mile ride to Strava, averaging over 28 mph despite a 3,500 foot elevation gain, other Strava users call BS.

Finally…

Pedal up in spandex with a backpack full of sex toys, and leave in handcuffs. Now you can own your very own Dutch-style bike maker.

And when the ‘roo jumps, duck.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Bike helmet debate, CSUN LimeBike opens today, and why people keep dying on our streets

January 25, 2018 / / 5 comments

Doctors and medical groups have long led the push for bike helmets.

So it’s surprising when a leading medical journal questions their usefulness.

But that’s exactly what a pair of letters in the prestigious British medical journal BMJ — formerly the British Medical Journal — do.

The first one suggests that the safety in numbers benefit provided by more people using bikeshare outweighs the benefits of bike helmets.

And the other concludes this way —

The key issue in considering the use of helmets is of course the risk. In recent years, more detailed assessment of risk in personal travel in England has been published [4]. This shows that risk varies considerably more by age than by mode of travel. The range of risks experienced in bicycling are in the same range as faced in walking or driving, except possibly for the most elderly bicyclists.

In conclusion, there is no objective reason to consider even the promotion of helmets for bicycling, in the absence of similar measures for all other road users.

………

We mentioned last week that LimeBike had established a dockless bikeshare beachhead on the CSUN campus in Northridge.

Now they’re having their official unveiling this afternoon.

LimeBike Bike Demo and Inaugural Unlocking (1/25) at 1 p.m. PST at CSUN Campus Bookstore

  • When: Thursday (1/25) from 1:00 p.m.-2:00 pm. PST
  • Where: University Bookstore,18111 Nordhoff St, Northridge, CA 91330
  • What: An opportunity to learn more about how LimeBike works and hear from the CSUN Director of Energy & Sustainability, LimeBike’s LA Operations Manager, and other CSUN officials on how CSUN is leading the way to revolutionize sustainable transportation.

To celebrate the launch, the company is offering 10 free rides through the end of January by using the code LIMEWITHCSUN.

You can download the app to find and rent the bikes through their website.

………

This is why people keep dying on our streets.

The Los Angeles DA’s office decided not to file charges against the alleged hit-and-run driver suspected of killing a popular homeless woman living in Boyle Heights, saying it would be too difficult to get a conviction.

Even though a security camera showed the driver appearing to carefully drive around her body as he left the scene.

And even though a witness claims to have told the driver he’d backed over the victim as she was sweeping the street around her trailer, contradicting the driver’s claims that he didn’t know he’d hit anyone.

So once again, an innocent woman is dead. And no one will ever be held accountable.

Which is how Vision Zero becomes meaningless.

………

The LA Times’ Steve Lopez wrote about a father who became an activist against illegal immigration after his son was killed in a crash with an unlicensed man from Honduras.

While story focused on immigration, J. Patrick Lynch thinks Lopez missed the point.

The real takeaway of this article should have been how easy it is for people to get behind a machine that can easily kill . Whether it be an illegal immigrant, a driver with a suspended license for traffic violations, or someone who’s had their license revoked for multiple DUIs or has even killed someone already, if you want to drive, there’s really little stopping you.

Which is something else that has to change if we’re ever going to reduce traffic fatalities.

Let alone end them.

………

Local

Work has started on the Main & Spring Forward Complete Streets project in DTLA, including converting the buffered bike lanes on Main and Spring Streets to protected bike lanes. Thanks to 14th District Councilmember José Huizar for having the courage to move forward with the project, despite LA’s recent anti-bike lane hysteria.

A Caltech researcher creates art by pushing 800 bicycles until they fall over to better understand how we keep them upright.

 

State

The San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, broke ground the two-mile Rose Creek Bikeway, part of the planned 44-mile Coastal Rail Trail between Oceanside and downtown San Diego.

The San Diego Reader says mountain bikers don’t want illegal trails, either.

Ventura County has received $3.8 million to fund three bike projects in Ventura, Fillmore and Thousand Oaks, including $1.8 million for a three-mile bike lane on Potrero Road.

LimeBike and Ofo are complaining about San Francisco’s opaque licensing requirements after they were denied permits to operate dockless bikeshare systems in the city.

Too scary. A San Francisco man was busted for bashing another man with a hammer and stealing his bicycle; the victim suffered non-life threatening injuries.

The family of a Napa Valley man is suing Caltrans after he was killed when he caught a wheel in a railroad track crossing a highway.

 

National

Nice piece on the current demonization of distracted pedestrians, which is just more of the usual victim blaming while ignoring the real danger on our roads.

The Guardian looks at Seattle’s efforts to install bike racks to keep homeless people from sleeping on the street.

One of the NFL’s top prospects is sort of one of us — as in a unicycle-riding tight end from South Dakota State.

Streetsblog accuses the ACLU of having a dangerous windshield bias for their opposition to traffic safety cameras in Iowa.

Nice story. An Arkansas girl born without a hand can ride a bike for the first time after her elementary school classmates designed and built a handlebar attachment using a 3D printer.

A Wisconsin writer says winter cycling is dumb, but in a good way.

America’s only remaining Tour de France winner is suing a father and son in a Minnesota court for cybersquatting on at least 66 web addresses that infringe on the LeMond trademark; the father’s defense is that someone must have stolen his ID and registered the sites in his name. Sure, let’s go with that.

Minneapolis MN will get a temporary fat tire bikeshare service for next month’s Super Bowl. Hopefully it will work well enough they’ll make it permanent.

A Minnesota man was busted for possession of meth and driving with a revoked license while appealing his five-year sentence for killing a bicyclist; he’s also facing charges for hiring an underage prostitute.

Forbes profiles former Livestrong CEO, bicyclist and three-time cancer survivor Doug Ulman, CEO of Columbus OH-based Pelotonia.

Boston bike riders are demanding a change in the city’s auto-centric culture after authorities refuse to prosecute a truck driver who fatally right hooked a physician as she rode to work.

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is cheap in NY, where the widow of a 9/11 victim walked away with five-year’s probation for killing a bike rider while she was high on dope.

A DC writer suggests that there’s hidden racism in many complaints about dockless bikeshare in the city, which is popular with black youths.

After a hit-and-run driver put a bicyclist in the hospital, Florida Reddit users figured out the make, model and year of the car before the police could.

 

International

A Chicago writer bikes the backroads of Cuba.

They get it. A Canadian website points out why bike lanes are good for everyone, even drivers and business owners. Which should be required reading for anyone who questions the value of bikeways.

A Victoria, British Columbia chef is taking advantage of new bike lanes by opening a restaurant with a bike-through window. Which is a perfect example of how businesses can take advantage of the opportunity presented by bike-friendly streets, rather than fighting them tooth-and-nail.

A writer for Singletrack looks at the real reasons women bike less than men in the wake of a BBC report.

A British bike rider was lucky to escape with minor injuries after he was hit by a student driver, who carried him nearly 200 feet on the hood of his car.

Bicycling suggests a cycling vacation in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where you can ride where the pros train. If you can keep up.

Australia’s most notorious driver finally had his license revoked after 11 suspensions in 12 years, not that a little thing like that ever stopped him from driving; he also killed a ten-year old girl who was riding her bike in 2003, while driving at over three times the legal alcohol limit.

Merchants in an Australian town are fighting plans to remove parking on one side of a street to make room for bike lanes, over fears that it will kill their business. Proving once again that anti-bike lane bias is the same all over the world.

 

Competitive Cycling

Like father like sons. Twenty-three-year old Lithuanian cyclist Raimondas Rumsas Jr was banned for four years for doping, 15 years after his dad received a one-year ban for using EPO at the 2003 Giro d’Italia; sadly, his brother died last year under suspicious circumstances that may have been linked to doping, as well.

Former pro — and yes, doper — Alexandre Vinokourov pranked the members of his Astana pro team by disguising himself as an old man, then dropping them on a steep climb.

Speaking of doping, the Netflix documentary that blew the top off Russia’s state-sponsored doping program could win an Oscar, thanks to the nomination of Icarus for Best Documentary Feature.

Last year’s winner of the Amgen Tour of California has been ordered to stop touching fans to protect his health.

When you’re three-time world champ Peter Sagan, you get an audience with the pope. And when you’re the pope, you get a monogrammed bike in the papal colors from Peter Sagan.

 

Finally…

Stick a candle in your next energy gel. There’s nothing more French than eating foie gras on toast while watching a video while driving; thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

And polite bike riders always share their water. Especially with a cute little koala.

 

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,
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