If you hurry, you may still have time to make this morning’s meeting of the Westwood Village Business Improvement District, which will vote on the much needed bike lanes on Westwood Blvd.
The proposed lanes have faced intense opposition from Westwood area business and homeowners, even though the latest proposal doesn’t remove a single traffic lane or parking spot, suggesting the real opposition is to having bikes on the boulevard, period.
The meeting begins at 8:30 this morning, at the Skylight Gardens Restaurant, 1139 Glendon Ave.
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KCBS-2 reports a cyclist is in very critical condition after being hit by a car in South LA Wednesday evening, following earlier reports that the unidentified rider had been killed
Sounds like prayers or good thoughts, whichever you are comfortable with, are in order.
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Are you excited yet?
Streetsblog offers detailed tips on how to get the most out of Sunday’s first San Fernando Valley CicLAvia.
Walk Bike Burbank is offering free safety checks on Saturday to help you get ready, while Flying Pigeon is hosting a feeder ride from Northeast LA.
We Like LA explains what a CicLAvia is for the uninitiated.
And the Militant Angeleno once again provides his incomparable guide to CicLAvia, proving he knows the Valley as well as he does the rest of LA. Although he’s got some serious competition from upstart CiclaValley this time around.
My advice is print out both guides and carry them with you.
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In a case way too reminiscent of the death of LA cyclist and former Napster executive Milt Olin, a Florida sheriff’s deputy is cleared of charges he killed a 15-year old bike rider while using his car’s onboard computer.
Then again, he only faced a $1,000 fine.
Evidently, life is cheap down there.
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Local
LADOT, LA Great Streets and Bureau of Street Services officials visit the Temple City cycletracks on Rosemead Blvd. Let’s hope they were taking notes.
Very cool Strava graph shows riders convening for, then riding, last Sunday’s Marathon Crash non-Race; Milestone Rides writes about riding the Crash for the first time.
Actress AnnaLynne McCord, who was blessed with an abundance of capital letters, dons a purple robe to ride her orange Townie on Venice Beach.
Glendale is about a year away from creating a bikeable recreational riverfront across the LA River from Griffith Park.
The Easy Reader names Hermosa Cyclery as the South Bay’s best bike shop.
State
Two bike riders are injured in Orange County collisions, though neither appears to be seriously hurt.
An SUV driver takes out a fire hydrant in San Diego, so naturally, a bike rider gets the blame.
A Central Coast TV station explains why green lanes are. Green, that is.
Two recent CSU Monterey graduates are riding cross country to raise funds for a homeless shelter.
Palo Alto opts for a more conservative and bird-friendly design for their new bike and pedestrian bridge.
A Napa Valley letter writer says it’s impossible to comply with the state’s three-foot passing law without risking a head-on collision with another vehicle, not realizing that the law actually allows drivers to wait until it’s safe to pass.
National
Nice to know the head of AASHTO, the organization representing state DOTs, says highway design has absolutely nothing to do with cyclist and pedestrian deaths. Odd that he could talk with his head buried so deeply in the sand, among other places.
More great research from the University of Duh, as a new study shows we ride our bikes because we like it better than driving.
Portland riders are about to get a new car-free bridge. And yes, we should be jealous.
A Maine driver gets 10 years for the drunken wreck that killed a bike riding father and injured his wife and 17-month old son while they were riding on the sidewalk.
The US pro national championships will return to Chattanooga for the third straight year. Let’s hope they train race moto officials a little better this time around.
After a DC cyclist has his bike stolen at gun point, he gets it back when the thief brings it into the same shop where he’d just gotten an estimate to have it fixed.
A Baton Rouge judge sentences a DUI driver to 25 years in jail for killing one cyclist and maiming another, then suspends all but 7.5 years; the driver had a blood alcohol level of .307 — nearly four times the legal limit — at the time of the crash.
Alabama considers giving cyclists a five-foot passing margin, rather than just three.
International
Two Cambridge UK councilors call for bike riders to be registered and insured, and have to pass a national proficiency test; an Aussie writer provides 18 reasons why that’s a bad idea, all of which apply here, as well.
France offers to pay people to bike to work. And almost no one bites.
Secretary of State John Kerry gets free service on his Serotta when it breaks down while taking a well-guarded ride during the Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Finally…
Lance Armstrong is reportedly trying to get his lifetime ban reduced; let’s hope he has better luck than Pete Rose has. An NFL medical consultant says more kids get hurt riding bikes than playing football, but fails to note that a hell of a lot more kids ride bikes, too.
And new LA resident and former Bicycling Editor-in-Chief Peter Flax writes movingly about how a good ride can help you cope with life’s most heartbreaking challenges.
My place of employment has driven down the single car trips to below 50% in recent years. But unlike just paying people to ride their bikes they have a multi pronged approach. One it costs $350 to park year round at the lowest level ($900 highest). The students are almost exclusively housed on campus, including graduate students and a fair number of faculty. I get $20 a month to ride in and a free CalTrain and VTA (bus/lightrail) pass. There is also the possibility of a discount on Zipcars and free rides home if weather is bad or other emergencies crop up.