A Hollywood producer is dead, apparently because Los Angeles refused to remove parking to build a damn bike lane.
For three days, we’ve been searching for confirmation of a bicycling fatality in East Hollywood, since word first surfaced late Tuesday. Friday it came, not from the traditional media, but from the Hollywood trade publications.
Jones told The Hollywood Reporter that George, who reportedly rode his bike everywhere, was doored by the driver of a parked car as he rode in a bike lane. then immediately struck by the driver of an oncoming car.
The reports I received indicated the fatal crash occurred Tuesday at Fountain Ave and North Edgemont Street, next to the Church of Scientology complex on Sunset Blvd. That appears to be in East Hollywood, but it could be considered Silver Lake.
If the city had removed the parking from either side, they could have installed protected bike lanes in both directions, instead of a single door zone bike lane.
That decision apparently cost Bob George his life.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Peoria, Illinois native began his career as production accountant on big-budget films, including Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears, The Lone Ranger and three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, before moving up to producing.
He was a production consultant on Divergent (2014) before producing his first feature, Scott Free’s Newness (2017). Starring Nicholas Hoult and Laia Costa and written by Jones, it premiered at Sundance and was acquired by Netflix.
He reunited with Doremus on the Ewan McGregor and Léa Seydoux-starringZoe(2018), which bowed at Tribeca and was picked up by Amazon, andEndings, Beginnings (2019), a Toronto title that starred Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan and Sebastian Stan and was acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
George was currently working with Jones on Aurora, another Doremus film, as well as serving as a production consultant on the upcoming Brad Furman action thriller Tin Soldier, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert De Niro.
He is survived by his wife, artist Yasmine Nasser Diaz, as well as his sister.
This is at least the 45th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, the 11th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, and the sixth in the City of Los Angeles, although there are probably more we haven’t learned about.
It took about two weeks after the crash for Las Vegas police to determine that the killing of retired Bell, California police chief Andreas Probst in an August hit-and-run was intentional.
The reason became evident this weekend when horrifying video of the collision surfaced and quickly went viral.
In the video, which was AirDropped to students at a local high school at the end of last month, the teenage driver and his passenger(s) can be seen cursing at passing cars, before spotting Probst riding his mountain bike in a bike lane.
The 17-year-old driver and his passenger were cruising down a street in Las Vegas on August 14, coming up behind Andreas Probst as he rode his cycle in the bike lane. Filming with his cell phone, the passenger was chuckling with the driver as they plotted to run over Probst. You can hear them say, “Ready?” and “Yeah, hit his ass.”
The vehicle is seen in the footage coming up behind a red-clad man riding a bicycle alongside the road. The motorist pulls into the bike lane behind him, honks his horn, and purposefully strikes the cyclist’s back tire, sending him flying with the encouragement of his buddies.
The passenger records Andreas lying helplessly on the side of the road behind the vehicle. “Damn that n* got knocked out!” the passenger says as the driver can be heard stepping on the gas.
The Review-Journal’s coverage of the incident was also heavily criticized by readers who posted screenshots of a news obituary that ran in the Review-Journal on Aug. 18 — more than a week before the video surfaced — with a headline describing the incident as a “bike crash” and not an intentional killing.
In fact, a source had contacted the Review-Journal about the existence of the video more than two weeks ago, and a reporter had instructed the caller on how to forward the video to Metropolitan Police Department detectives investigating the case. Nine hours later, police announced that the incident had been deemed a homicide.
The Review-Journal also reports the passenger has not been charged, which seems inexplicable unless they were captured on the video screaming in horror at the deliberate carnage.
Hint: they weren’t.
At the very least, such a heinous crime would seem to call for a felony conspiracy charge, since both the driver and the passenger appear to have been planning the fatal assault.
Never mind that his own decision to ride on the sidewalk, rather than risk riding in the street, makes the case for building the bike lanes.
Let’s be clear: While WeHo talks a big game about “uplifting” marginalized people and “amplifying” their voices, the city’s pedestrians — those blue-collar, minimum-wage earning people the city claims to care so much about — are silently struggling just to get from Point A to Point B every day, as they’ve done for decades.
But fixing sidewalks isn’t glamorous, and that’s why WeHo hasn’t given a fuck thus far.
Even now, the impetus for reconstructing Fountain Avenue wasn’t to benefit pedestrians or disabled people. They were an afterthought.
Installing bike lanes, the cause celebre of every young politician and hip urban planner, was the point of this project.
Never mind that many of the “blue-collar, minimum-wage earning people the city claims to care so much about” are forced to ride their bikes to work along busy, dangerous corridors choked with traffic.
And not many use the sidewalks, because they can’t afford to live there.
No bias here. A Singapore website accuses an ebike rider and a motorist of road rage for engaging in a heated dispute in the middle of the roadway. Never mind that the bike rider was minding his own business until the impatient driver started honking at him for no apparent reason.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Tragic news from New York, where police are looking for a hit-and-run bike rider who killed a 69-year old woman as she was crossing a “chaotic” intersection. Since the bicyclist was on a bikeshare bike, police should be able to access user and GPS data to determine who was using a bike at that time and location. Which raises the question of why they apparently haven’t yet.
An ebike-riding man is recovering from injuries and faces sexual assault charges, after a Virginia woman flagged down a passing car when the man groped her on a bike path, then smiled as he rode away; she was able to catch up with him and apparently kicked his ass, knocking him off his bike and placing him in a chokehold until police arrived.
Streetsblog says Metro has installed new plastic bollards to protect the First Street bike lanes, which could be the first step in meeting their commitment to on bike/walk connections the promised for Metro’s new subway stations. However, it’s worth noting that the new bollards are spaced too far apart to keep motorists from driving or parking in the bike lanes, and won’t actually protect anyone from anything.
Huntington Beach will consider new ebike regulations at tomorrow’s city council meeting; the proposed ordinance would create different classes of electric bikes — which the state has already done — while providing for criminal or civil citations, and adding a section for unsafe riding. However, all of that may be moot and illegal, since regulating ebikes falls under the authority of the state, along will all other traffic regulations.
A La Jolla father calls for action on traffic safety measures after his 14-year old son suffered broken bones in his hand and foot when he was struck by a driver in a left cross crash, as he rode his ebike in a marked bike lane; the driver was waved through the intersection by another motorist, and failed to see the kid on his bike.
An 80-year old New York man was murdered by a black-clad man on a bicycle who circled the area apparently waiting for the victim to return home from a party, then rode up and shot him two times point blank in front of the victim’s horrified wife, in a killing caught on video; using a bike allowed the killer to approach his victim quickly and silently, without drawing undue attention.
More proof bike riders are tough, as a man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana walked himself to the hospital, despite three stab wounds in his back, after three people stabbed him and stole his bike and wallet, then left him bleeding on the sidewalk.
After courts awarded her the equivalent of over $620,000 for the death of her husband, a British woman decried the “inhuman” response of city leaders, who blamed him 100% for his own death after he was killed by a garbage truck driver as he rode his bike.
A Belgian bicyclist shown on video kneeing a five-year old girl in a viral video from Christmas Day 2020 has now won a defamation suit against the girl’s father, after a court fined the bike rider the equivalent of a dollar, concluding he didn’t intend to hurt her.
Helmet use has tripled among Japanese bike riders in the wake of a new law requiring them, although the lack of punishment for violating the law means it’s still only up to 13.5%.
Guyana’s junior cycling team was left standing at the airport, instead of flying to the Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships, because someone apparently forgot to check the airline’s strict no baggage policy, which includes racing bikes.
Especially since that video seems awfully familiar.
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A special thanks to Steve Fujinaka for a very unexpected and generous donation to help keep all the best bike news coming your way that lifted my spirits over the weekend.
Then again, it’s always a red flag when someone feels the need to self-identify as a bicyclist before making their case.
True to form, Brandon Garcia writes that he’s more than happy to take back roads to get where he’s going, and thinks that the planned bike lanes on Fountain Ave and Santa Monica Blvd will be too disruptive to the city.
Never mind, he says, that the existing bike lanes on Santa Monica are usually blocked by buses or double-parked drivers. Although that would seem to be a reason to enforce the laws against blocking bike lanes, than oppose building them.
What the city wants to do with Fountain and Santa Monica will disrupt the lives of too many people who depend on those roads to get across town. Who depend on those parking spaces for their guests or their customers, or whose leases don’t include a parking spot.
Up to 37,000 cars travel down Fountain every day. At most, there are 145 bicycles that use it daily.
The city expects the removal of two lanes on Fountain to reduce traffic by 900 vehicles every hour. 600 of those will be diverted onto Santa Monica or Sunset. The drivers of 250 cars per hour will simply decide not to make the trip, the city oddly believes.
Never mind that, as others have noted before, you can’t judge the need for a bridge by how many people swim across the river. The fact that most bike riders don’t feel safe on Fountain is a far better argument for making it safer, rather than keeping it dangerous.
Meanwhile, numerous studies have shown that making driving more difficult results in a reduction in the number of cars on the road — not an odd belief, but simple traffic science.
And that reduction is absolutely necessary in the face of our current climate emergency, when the world is literally burning from over-reliance on fossil fuels.
The simple fact is, people on bicycles have places to go, just like people in cars, and need safe routes through the city to get there.
He may not need them, or want them.
But that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.
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Back when I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana about a hundred or so years ago, I had a friend who dealt with the city’s abusive and road raging drivers by riding with a .22 strapped to his bike.
By his account, it made most motorists give him a wide berth. And if anyone actually threatened him, just a tap or two on the holster was enough to defuse the situation.
Maybe.
Although I doubt many drivers actually saw it as they zoomed by. Never mind the fact that they came pre-armed with a multi-ton weapon of their own, should they choose to use it.
Driving home from vacay just now and see this dude riding in the shoulder of I-90 outside of Coeur d'Alene w an “Armed Cyclist” jersey, safe passing flags, dozens of taillights. Absolutely epic. pic.twitter.com/d2PAcWruqa
Frederick Dreier describes an incident when a driver began harassing, then threatening him as he rode in New York.
His response was to first kick out a headlight, then hurl his U-lock, shattering the car’s rear windshield, before disappearing down a one-way street.
OK, back to my anecdote involving the hurled lock. Look, I wish I had the calm and mature demeanor to simply bite my upper lip and walk away from situations like the one I had a decade ago. I’ve been to therapy and I’m working on becoming an enlightened and self-actuated member of society. But I’m not there yet. I can still transform into a raging lunatic at times—specifically when some jerk driver messes with me on my bike. Had I been carrying a gun during my moment of rage years ago, I probably would have emptied the clip into the windshield, which means I’d likely be writing pithy takes from a cell in Rikers right now. And that ugly encounter is hardly the only one I’ve had with drivers. Over the years I’ve been sideswiped, t-boned, intimidated, and buzzed too many times to count. If I rode with a gun, I might be responsible for multiple crimes.
That’s precisely why I don’t own a gun.
I have a temper, which I manage to control most of the time. And I’m a firm believer in nonviolence.
But if I had a gun, there’s just too much chance I might use it.
And one weapon is one too many in most situations, even if most people just call it a car.
It is infuriating and painful to see people speak on behalf of disabled people when they are really only trying to protect their non-disabled car parks. Have you ever wondered where these people go when it’s time to fight for a building code that requires accessible universal design features like lifts, ramps and doorways of a decent width? Or why these same faces and names appear again to oppose the social housing initiatives in their neighbourhoods that would house disabled people? Or why they’re not advocating for more mobility parking at all?!
She goes on to write that many disabled people use bicycles, and consider their ebikes, scooters and trikes to be their mobility devices.
And need safe places to ride them.
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Joni Yung loves the new bus and bike lanes on La Brea, even if they’re too often blocked with parked cars.
Monterey County Weeklyconsiders how fast is too fast on a bike path, with one local city setting a 12 mph speed limit that the writer considers far too low. My take is ride as fast as you want if you’re the only one on it, but slow down around slower bike riders and pedestrians. At least, that’s what I always did.
An Andover, Maryland study finds there wasn’t a single reported bicycle crash in a city square during the study period, despite a total lack of bike infrastructure — but also found most bike riders avoid it like the plague.
NPR reports on the bankruptcy of Dutch ebike maker VanMoof, noting that it’s left owners of the bikes stranded with no way to repair the company’s nonstandard designs. And that owners of the bikes in the Netherlands have resorted to stealing other people’s VanMoof’s just to strip them for parts.
According to the paper, the Fountain Ave proposal is planned for two phases.
The first phase of the study, known as Phase 1 PS&E (Planning, Specifications, and Estimates), focuses on the design of protected bike lanes, with specific plans to reduce travel lanes from four to two and remove approximately 150 on-street parking spaces on the north side of Fountain Avenue. This phase includes an 11-month timeline, with an expected conclusion in July 2024. The construction phase is anticipated to begin in early 2025, taking another 4-6 months. The preliminary construction cost for Phase 1 is estimated to be between $5 million and $10 million…
As the study progresses to Phase 2, the focus shifts to the permanent installation of protected bike lanes and the redesign of sidewalks along Fountain Avenue. The timeline for Phase 2 spans 16 months, starting in January 2024, with potential construction beginning in Q1 or Q2 of 2026. The construction of Phase 2 is estimated to be between $30 million and $35 million.
Meanwhile, the council directed the city to study the feasibility of upgrading the existing painted bike lanes on the western portion of Santa Monica Blvd to protected bike lanes.
City staff were also told to conduct a block-by-block analysis of the feasibility of installing painted bike lanes on the narrower eastern segment of the boulevard, which would likely involve narrowing traffic lanes and the removal of parking spaces.
On Sunday, August 20; between 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., CicLAvia – Koreatown meets Hollywood, presented by Metro, and in partnership with LADOT, welcomes everyone of all ages and abilities to its 47th car-free open streets event connecting Hollywood and Koreatown along Vine St, Melrose Ave, Western Ave, and Wilshire Blvd, for participants to jog, ride, bike, skate, run, walk, skateboard, spectate, play, to enjoy the 5-mile route. Always free, CicLAvia participants just show up anywhere along the route at any time to enjoy the open streets and to take the time to explore two of L.A.’s iconic communities. Participants are encouraged to take Metro.
There are many local gems, activities, and businesses to check out near and along the route – discover them through CicLAvia’s new Interactive Digital Map. Hubs have family-friendly activities, restrooms, free water refilling stations, free basic bike repair, bike parking, and first aid. In addition, free pedicab rides, sponsored by AARP, are available at each information booth. Activities along the route can be found here.
A press conference kicking off the event will be held starting at 8:30 am on Sunday, August 20th, at 1750 Vine Street, at the Hollywood Hub next to Capitol Records.
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Adventure Cycling announced the launch of their Short Routes Program, featuring shorter bike touring routes designed to break down barriers accessibility and make bike travel more approachable, regardless of experience level or how much time someone has available.
The program launches with routes starting from Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Austin and Seattle.
Anyone can submit a route in the US that a beginner can bike in two to five days, with approximately 20-50 miles of riding each day.
According to the group, there are three short routes currently available in the Los Angeles area:
Carpinteria to Refugio
Created by tour leader, Johnny Lam, this route has camping available at both ends, in Carpinteria — where riders can easily get to by Amtrak or car with many amenities including a great coffee shop and various restaurants — and Refugio, where the hiker biker site is given the best plot of land looking over a beach and the Pacific Ocean.
LA to Catalina Island
Created by local transportation planner Danielle Parnes, this is a fun bikepacking trip full of beautiful beaches, mountains, and wildlife. It’s relatively easy to get to from L.A. via a ferry departing near Long Beach but feels like a faraway destination. Campsites on this route are only accessible by hiking or biking, making for calm, quiet evenings, and the dirt roads have few cars.
Santa Monicas Overnight
Also created by Danielle Parnes, the Santa Monicas Overnight route leaves from West LA and goes up fire roads into the Santa Monica Mountains, camping in Topanga State Park, and then down to the beach, with a mix of city, desert mountains, and ocean views and swims. This route starts and ends at Expo line light rail stations in West LA, for easy access from downtown or other parts of the city.
Announcing Marina Central Park, our vision with @SWAgroup to reimagine the space taken up by CA-90:
🏡 4,000 units of affordable housing 🏞️ Large, beautiful new park 🚌 BRT connecting Lincoln to Sepulveda 🚲 Class 1 bike path 🌤️ Cleaner and quieter airhttps://t.co/iIToDKqvzDpic.twitter.com/3IF3YOeL6z
Lol @LADOTofficial . If you’re going to use social media to brag about a stripe of paint, at least move the trash cans out of the way for it. Sh*t, maybe go talk to the residents about it. You know, so that your “bike lane” is at least sort of usable. Sorry, am I asking too much? pic.twitter.com/kg4IlgQDMz
A Scottish man is called the “unluckiest cyclist in Scotland” when he was run down by a driver for the third time in two years, but at least this driver stopped, unlike the first two. Although considering he survived all three, I’d call him pretty damn lucky.
Former Syracuse basketball player Terrence Roberts suffered three broken ribs and a collapsed lung after crashing with another bicyclist on a June training ride, just three days after the 6’10” former forward completed in his first crit with LA’s Major Motion Cycling team.
November 23, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on WeHo approves Fountain protected bike lanes, debate over cyclist semantics, and running over bikes in bike-friendly Davis
Just two more days to one of the biggest, most momentous days of the year!
We’ll be off tomorrow, so have a great Thanksgiving, whether you spend it with loved ones or alone on your bike. And find something to be thankful for.
Besides, you know, this site.
Then come back on Friday to witness me beg, plead, cajole and grovel for your support.
And stay safe out there. I want to see you back here again when the weekend is over.
Mayor Lauren Meister summed up her reason for voting yes, even though city staffers haven’t explained where the cars displaced from parking on the apartment-dense street are supposed to go.
“My goal is to make Fountain just safer, period — for pedestrians, making the sidewalks wider and and making it so that cars aren’t speeding through and going over the curves and actually going into people’s yards,” Meister said.
The proposal, which became a key issue in the city’s recent election campaign, would require the removal of a traffic lane in each direction, as well as reconstructing sidewalks along the street, which are not ADA compliant.
The street currently features some of the area’s most uncomfortable sharrows, which are seldom used by anyone but the most confident bicyclists in the face of frequently speeding traffic.
It’s something I try not to use, as you may have noticed, preferring bike riders, bicyclists or people on bicycles.
But only because so many people read into to it far more than the word actually conveys, which is merely someone who rides a bicycle.
To some, it means bike racers; to others, it’s anyone who wears spandex. And to others still, it refers to people on fixies, or some other bike world niche.
Then there are people don’t like the word because they feel it labels them in some way, when riding a bike is just something they do, rather than something they are.
I can see all of that, and none of it.
The simple fact is we are all cyclists when we ride a bike, and not once we get off. Just as someone is a driver when they’re behind the wheel, and a pedestrian when they get out; no one calls them drivers when they’re home or in the office.
So go ahead and use the word if you’re comfortable with it, or don’t if you aren’t.
Thanks to Tim Rutt for the link.
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Streets For All is hosting a fundraising holiday party next month.
Streets For All has had a great year and to celebrate we wanted to invite you to a holiday party fundraiser on December 9! All funds raised will help us do even more in 2023!
A Davis motorist drove through a line of picketing teaching assistants striking for higher pay and better conditions on UC campuses, driving off with a bicycle still stuck under their car.
Mercedes is adding a subscription fee to their electric vehicles that will increase horsepower and torque. It's happening. Late-stage capitalism is going to have people paying a monthly fee to improve the performance of a car they already bought. pic.twitter.com/7rHIkolC9R
About damn time. The Hollywood Reporter says it’s time to reopen the case in the 12-year old murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, which was bizarrely pinned on a destitute, bike-riding Black man who allegedly killed himself as police attempted to take him into custody in a Hollywood flophouse; Beverly Hills police accused Harold Smith of shooting Chasen as she drove home from a premier.
The San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, wants to give you a ped-assist ebike in exchange for a commitment to ride a minimum of 100 miles a month. Or as I used to call that back when I could still do it, Tuesday.
DC is facing a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act, as two handicapped women allege that new protected bike lanes make it harder for them to find parking and safely exit their vehicles. Thanks to Victor Bale for the tip.
The first woman to hold the post, and only the second Black Angeleno, Bass defeated billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso, despite being outspent 11 to 1 as he dropped well over $100 million on his own campaign.
The question for us is whether the new mayor’s professed focus on homelessness, crime and housing authority will preclude desperately needed efforts to transform our streets to improve safety and get Angelenos out of their cars.
Let’s hope Streets For All and BikeLA, formerly the LACBC, are already in contact with her office to set up a meeting.
Because after years of neglect under outgoing Mayor Eric Garcetti, and successful efforts by various councilmembers to block progress in their districts, we don’t have any time to waste.
Park has professed support for multimodal transportation, yet drew much of her supporters from Westside NIMBYs who’ve fought bus and bike improvements.
The premature arrest indicated the belief of investigators that Gutierrez had intentionally steered into the recruits, accelerating at he plowed through them, as we had surmised yesterday.
The only problem is a lack of evidence confirming intent. Outgoing Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva stressed that the release is provisional, pending collection of more evidence confirming his actions were intentional.
Why they jumped the gun and arrested Gutierrez on a presumption of guilt, rather than basing the arrest on actual evidence, is an open question at this time.
As is why they have apparently reclaimed the investigation from the CHP, after relinquishing it just one day earlier.
But with Villanueva leaving in a couple of weeks, its likely to become incoming sheriff-elect Robert Luna’s problem.
The lanes would provide a safer east-west alternative to dangerous Santa Monica Blvd, after the existing painted bike lanes on Santa Monica end east of La Cienega.
Which means opponents are likely to come out in force in an effort to block it.
WeHo City Council will take up the question of adding bike lanes to Fountain Ave. Monday, 21st! Speak out: send a written comment by 2pm on Monday, or state your view during the meeting via Zoom or in person! Check https://t.co/oic8JWeDlIpic.twitter.com/CsLhVHSqAy
Meanwhile, WeHo Mayor Lauren Meister is on track for re-election, while former Councilmember John Heilman enjoys a 246 vote lead over Chelsea Wright for the second and third spots; the top three finishers will be seated on the city council.
Portland bike advocates are suing the city under a 1971 state law that requires improving infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians any time a street is constructed, reconstructed or relocated. Unfortunately, California doesn’t have a similar law, although Los Angeles could if the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposition passes in 2024.
And the rebates, which are expected to be between $750 and $1,250 for a standard e-bike, and $1,500 or more for a cargo or adaptive bike, will be limited to Californians earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
City of Montebello staff is delivering a presentation on their bike master plan and bike racks at their council meeting on Wednesday at 6pm. Please share with South East LA folks. Montebello currently has no bike racks at their library+city hall+city parks and only 2 bike lanes
Although it’s unclear whether it applies to organizations outside of Long Beach.
Is your organization considering a project encouraging more people to bike or walk instead of drive? You may qualify for funding through the #POLB Community Grants Program. We're hosting a virtual workshop at 4 p.m. Wed., Nov. 2, to learn more & register: https://t.co/nV5C9flEX4pic.twitter.com/p0mcAAgdhF
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Mission Viejo city council candidates discuss ebike safety, with several going out of their way to demonstrate they aren’t familiar with California’s ebike regulations. Or bike law in general, for that matter.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
We Love Cyclinglists 14 bicycling faux pas to avoid, including littering, wearing threadbare shorts, and spitting into the wind. Although the item about wearing your glasses outside over your helmet straps so they fly off in a crash is BS; unless you’re wearing cheap breakable lenses, you want them to stay on to protect your eyes.
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Local
LACBC is hosting their annual LA Bike Fest fundraiser at The Bike Shed Moto Co. in the Arts District this Saturday afternoon. General admission starts at $100, or get in free by raising $250 in donations.
The state has awarded the Coachella Valley Association of Governments over $36 million in active transportation funds to extend the CV Link bike and pedestrian path through the cities of La Quinta, Indio and Coachella; the completed pathway will run nearly 50 miles through the Coachella Valley.
BestLife recommends the top ten US cities to visit on a bicycle, leading off with surprising choices in Spartanburg, South Carolina and Gulf Shores, Alabama. Although their #10 choice Seattle should move up soon, now that former LA Bureau of Streets Services head Greg Spotts is heading the city’s department of transportation.
A cat rescued in the mountains between Bosnia and Montenegro has traveled through 18 countries, accompanying a Scottish man bicycling around the world.
After a second model from Hong Kong ebike maker Fiido started having problems with broken frames, the company responded with a new five-year extended warranty and a $10,000 guarantee against breakage under normal use. Although that last phrase can be bent a long damn way to avoid paying claims, if they want.
It’s a sad commentary when we have to turn to Wikipedia just to get the results of the Paracycling Worlds. Thanks to the aforementioned Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
That's a wrap on the 2022 @UCI_paracycling Track World Championships.
The big news this weekend is Sunday’s return of the Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia.
The nation’s most popular open streets festival returns to Hollywood and West Hollywood with a 6.6 mile route that will run along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, before dropping down on Highland and connecting with Santa Monica Blvd.
Thank you @Annenberg_FDN for supporting our open streets events, like Sunday's CicLAvia–Meet the Hollywoods!! We are so excited to safely and freely explore 6.6 miles of art and community together 🤩 pic.twitter.com/Y3xcnjkQOU
The 142 acre, $28.25 million Puente Hills Regional Park will include an intermediate bike skills course in the first phase of construction.
Thanks to Mike Burk for the heads-up.
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Bette Davis once responded to a question about the best way for a young woman to get to Hollywood, with the advice “Take Fountain.”
Sort of like the LA version of how to get to Carnegie Hall.
West Hollywood must have been paying attention, though, because the city’s Transportation Commission just voted to support building protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave, which is currently home to some of the most uncomfortable sharrows in the LA area.
Assuming they get built, the new protected bikes could provide the first safe and efficient bike route into and out of Hollywood, while finally taming the streets’ deadly speeding drivers.
Hermosa Beach police cracked down on ebike riders using ped-assist bikes to exceed the city’s ridiculous 8 mph speed limit on The Strand, where ped-assist bikes are banned. I haven’t even been able to ride that slow on my acoustic roadie, which goes faster that 8 mph even in the lowest gears. And how are people on bikes without speedometers supposed to know how fast they’re going, anyway?
An off-duty Chicago cop faces a pair of felony charges for attacking a 14-year old boy he accused of stealing his son’s bike; he picked out the one kid of Puerto Rican descent to blame, rather than all the white kids he was standing with.
Gothamist asks if someone as politically connected as Jersey City’s hit-and-run driving councilwoman can really be held accountable for her crime. It’s not looking good at the moment, as she refuses to relinquish her seat.
A 75-year old Florida driver was arrested for the hit-and-run that left a bike rider with critical injuries; she was driving with a suspended or revoked license.
And that too often, it’s the marginalized members of society who pay the price.
On the other hand, Coy clearly doesn’t get it.
Coy: …Anyway, is it possible to go too far in preventing accidents? It wouldn’t make sense to limit cars to going 30 miles per hour.
Singer: It is our moral and ethical imperative to do everything in our power to protect human life. When people talk about the nanny state, what they’re doing is making excuses for deeply preventable, deeply racialized and class-divided causes of death.
If we look at places that do everything in their power to protect human life, from Sweden’s Vision Zero traffic safety policies to Portugal’s harm-reduction overdose prevention policies, we see that countless lives could be saved just by putting people first.
Never mind that cities across the world have successfully reduced the frequency and severity of collisions by cutting speed limits below 30 mph.
Let alone the worldwide 20 Is Plenty movement to reduce the risk of collisions as well as the risk of death or serious injury by slowing drivers to 20 mph in populated areas.
So yeah, it does make sense to lower speed limits to 30 mph, or less. Because the convenience of drivers should never outweigh the lives and safety of those around them.
Graphic by tomexploresla.
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There may be hope for WeHo bike riders yet.
Streets For All reports that a pair of studies could result in protected bike lanes on Fountain and Santa Monica Blvd, respectively.
West Hollywood City Council to vote on approving a contract to study and do outreach for protected bike lanes on Fountain 👏 https://t.co/aU0N5ujS0p
A Florida city puts the entire obligation for safety on bike riders by requiring lights and bells on their bikes. But there’s not a bike bell made that will do a damn thing to stop aggressive, speeding and/or distracted drivers.
A new bill from bike-riding La Cañada Flintridge State Senator Anthony Portantino would require cities and counties to identify a High Injury Network of their most dangerous roads and intersections, and create a plan to correct them within 15 years. But do we really want to let them keep killing people for another 15 years? Cut the timeline to five years, and I’m all in.
Streetsblogoffers more details on SB 922, which would permanently exempt bike lanes and other environmentally friendly transportation projects from lengthy environmental reviews. Which are too often abused to halt or delay bike, pedestrian and transit projects that would benefit the environment.
A Pittsburgh CA man was sentenced to 28 years to life behind bars for fatally shooting man as he was stealing the victim’s bike; the shooter bizarrely claimed self-defense, claiming he felt threatened by the victim’s attempt to get his bike back. Thanks again to Phillip Young.
Cycling Utahtalks with our own Peter Flax, who offers a “look at racial justice issues through the lens of his deep and nuanced understanding of the various facets of bike culture.”
February 26, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on WeHo proposes protected bike lanes on Santa Monica and Fountain, and witness looks for West LA bike crash victim
This could be a literal life saver.
West Hollywood is considering a motion to study how protected bike lanes can be installed on Santa Monica Blvd and Fountain Avenue at next Monday’s meeting.
As Streets For All notes, WeHo already has bike lanes on Santa Monica from Doheny to La Cienega. Even if you have to dodge drivers double parked in the bike lane, or pulling in or out of parking spaces.
On the other hand, bicyclists had to settle for sharrows on Fountain, which isn’t exactly the most comfortable place to ride, thanks to impatient, aggressive and often speeding drivers.
Well-designed protected bike lanes could make a big difference on both, providing safe and bikeable routes through the city, as well as better comfort and livability for everyone along the streets.
Streets For All explains how you can support the motion.
HOW YOU CAN HELP IN TWO STEPS
FIRST…
Send an email right now (by 4p on Monday at the latest) to West Hollywood City Council. We’ve pre-filled the text to make it super easy, but the more personal you can make it, the better.
Register to speak at the West Hollywood City Council Meeting this Monday, Mar 1 at 530PM by emailing the clerk saying that you wish to speak and then calling in at 530pm on Monday:
A Nextdoor user is looking for the bike rider who got hit by a driver at Olympic and Bentley in West LA on Wednesday.
Nextdoor isn’t the easiest platform to respond to someone if you don’t live in the same neighborhood.
But if you know the person they’re looking for, I can pass his or her contact information on the the person who sent this to me, and hopefully they can pass it on to them.
Little known fact, courtesy of Zachary Rynew — Los Angeles is both one of the lowest and one of the highest cities in the US, thanks to Mt. Lukens, the city’s highest point.
Which is where Gravel Bike California grinds this week.
There are none so blind as drivers who refuse to see the light.
i was w/b on washington in #culvercity. #bikelane transitions to #sharrows after crossing national. i took the lane on an empty street, then sensed a car coming up from behind then swerving around me. he pulled over and yelled "you need lights!" i DO have that plus reflectors 😡 pic.twitter.com/hORuOinJK6
Yahoo picks up a paywalled story from AFP Relax that says riding a bike in Los Angeles isn’t always easy — and sometimes dangerous — but there’s hope. A faint hope, at this point. But still.
There’s something seriously wrong when a 73-year old Florida woman is thrown more than half the length of a football field by a drunk driver, suffering life-threatening injuries just because she had the misfortune of sharing a street with the jerk.
Cycling Newshighlights ’84 Olympic legend Nelson Vails, describing him as “the Harlem kid who became America’s first Black Olympic medalist.” Every February, news outlets across the US remember Major Taylor for Black History Month as America’s first Black cycling champ, forgetting there’s a straight line connecting him with Vails, and LA-based former national champs Rahsaan Bahati and Justin Williams.
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