BikinginLA

Happy Bike to Work Day.

Or as I call it, trick or treating for bike riders.

And don’t forget the Bike from Work Handlebar Happy Hours in Echo Park, Santa Monica and throughout the area.

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Richard Risemberg doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the North Figueroa fiasco.

Writing for Flying Pigeon, he accuses CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo of bait and switch in supporting bike lanes when he was running for office, and seemingly opposing them now that he’s in office.

North Figueroa has been shown to be overdesigned for the level of traffic that it sees, resulting in scofflaw drivers speeding down the wide lanes, killing and maiming residents and visitors alike and creating a bleak and harrowing ambience that diminishes the curb appeal of local businesses. The road diet and its accompanying bike lanes would restrain the speed demons, and the bike lanes themselves would allow neighbors the option to get about without cars, which so many of them do not own anyway. This would improve job access and bring more customers to local stores…

Yet Cedillo, who in the video above enthusiastically speaks of the city’s need to install “real bike lanes” such as he studied in Denmark, now is sitting on the project, and in fact giving the appearance of orchestrating the new community meetings he’s set up to make the opposition looks bigger than it is. Of course the video was taken when he was fishing for the votes of the cycling community prior to the last election….

And he cites the Councilmember’s actions as a perfect example of how to subvert the democratic process in a piece for Orange 20.

Yes, in the name of the spurious concept of “balance” employed by Faux News, the number of people speaking for the road diet was held down to match the number speaking against—a principle that, if applied to elections, would result in a tie every time.

In other words, democracy be damned.

They’re both good reads.

And if it doesn’t piss you off than an elected official is blatantly ignoring both the will of the people and the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, for reasons known only to him, maybe it should.

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Sweet Ride USA releases their fourth episode, which features a public ride to a Highland Park donut shop.

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Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers up three things he likes about Bike Week and two he doesn’t, while Damien Newton says we need to get more young people involved in planning.

Are e-bikes the missing link in LA transportation plans?

LA cyclist Kurt Broadhag will ride this year’s RAAM to support the non-profit Innovation: Africa.

LACBC local chapter SCV Bicycle Coalition works for safer cycling in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The second annual Jewel City Fun & Fitness Ride rolls through Glendale this weekend, while El Monte hosts a Bike Fest the following weekend.

It may take awhile, by Cal Poly Pomona is committed to becoming friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians; too bad it took the death of bike riding student Ivan Aguilar to make it happen

PCH will get a pedestrian-friendly makeover in Hermosa Beach, which could include bike lanes. Key word being “could.”

 

State

San Diego is looking for funding for a long-planned separated bike path through Mission Valley, while biking group the Awarewolfs — not wolves, for some reason — hosts a monthly full moon ride through the city.

Congratulations to Rancho Cucamonga and Chula Vista on making the Bike League’s new Bicycle Friendly Communities list.

The LA Times says San Francisco’s failure to prosecute a truck driver caught on video right hooking the bike rider he killed is a reminder we still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, SF Streetsblog says the legal system failed Amelie. No shit.

Bike to School Day flops in Calistoga, as only 28 students in two schools participate.

 

National

Speeding Seattle cyclist kills a leashed dog being walked in a crosswalk. Seriously people, if you can’t stop for pedestrians and dogs in a legally marked crossing, you’re the problem.

A hit-and-run driver who left a bike rider to die near my hometown gets off with less than a slap on the wrist; the local paper says the system failed her victim, too. Again, no shit.

New York’s new mayor looks to Sweden for inspiration for the city’s Vision Zero plan. Here in LA, no one in city government seems to have even heard of Vision Zero. Or Sweden, for that matter.

Under the heading of they really should know better, the EPA is closing its bike room, which means a number of employees may stop riding to work. And that can’t be good for the environment.

Now that sounds like fun. A New Orleans bike group is hosting a second line bike ride, with cyclists following a jazz band on a flatbed truck.

 

International

Five tips for a successful Calgary tweed ride.

Toronto considers building separated bike lanes through the downtown core.

Looks like stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill is up to his old tricks. Or maybe new ones.

A Sydney columnist looks at the culture war on the roads Down Under, and calls for more to be done to make cycling safer without pushing riders off the roads.

Aussie brothers use fake charity as an excuse to bike door to door and beg for booze. Works for me.

 

Finally…

If you’re a convicted felon and known gang member illegally carrying two concealed weapons, don’t ride salmon, already. Fellow salmon cyclist Alec Baldwin says cross his heart, he wasn’t asking for special treatment, while Japanese animators have their own unique take on his arrest.

And Joe Linton catches me getting blessed at the Blessing of the Bicycles on Tuesday, albeit from an unflattering angle. Then again, I don’t think my boney ass has a flattering angle these days.