Here’s your chance to help make one deadly street a little safer.
Los Angeles is considering a proposal to extend the Fletcher Drive road diet south through Atwater Village as part of the city’s Vision Zero program.
This is the area where 19-year old Ryan Coreas was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he attempted to cross Fletcher last December on his way to get a soda.
There’s something seriously wrong when someone can’t cross a damn street on a simple little errand like that without getting killed.
And in this case, it’s the street itself.
A meeting will be held tonight to discuss the options for improving what is one of the city’s most dangerous streets, included in the city’s Vision Zero High Injury Network. Which of course means the NIMBYs and cut-through drivers will be out in force doing their best to keep the street dangerous.
If you can’t make the meeting, here’s a sample email that was forwarded to me that you can send to voice your opinion. Especially if you live or work in the Atwater Village area, or reside in Council District 13.
Dear Councilmember O’Farrell-
I am a resident of [NEIGHBORHOOD] and write to express my support for LADOT’s Fletcher Drive safety improvement project ‘Alternative 1.’
I was saddened to learn of the death of Ryan Coreas at Fletcher Dr & LaClede Ave at the beginning of the year, and appreciate your office’s leadership in improving this dangerous street. If Los Angeles is going to end traffic-related deaths as the City’s ‘Vision Zero’ policy dictates, we need to make safety the first priority and work quickly to fix dangerous roads like Fletcher Drive that encourage speeding.
Alternative 1 is the only option that would improve safety for all road users, but especially for pedestrians when they are most vulnerable at night. Alternative 1 reduces crossing distances for pedestrians and unsafe speeding by incorporating curb extensions. Alternative 1 adds center turn lanes that will make accessing businesses and residences by car safer, while simultaneously improving access for emergency vehicles. Alternative 1 has an added benefit of extending existing bike lanes on Fletcher Drive, providing a safer bike connection between Northeast Los Angeles and the L.A. River Bike Path.
I know from driving on Fletcher Drive regularly that existing traffic congestion is not of a level that makes safety improvement prohibitive. The 2 Freeway also parallels this street, providing access for drivers seeking to bypass the area. Right-sizing Fletcher Drive will discourage cut through traffic while improving mobility options for those accessing local businesses in Atwater Village, Frogtown, and Glassell Park.
I urge you to support Alternative 1 to improve the safety of Fletcher Drive.
Sincerely,
[NAME]
[ADDRESS]
Thanks to Michael MacDonald for the heads-up.
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David Drexler did the double on Sunday, taking part in Chartsworth’s Ride the COLT in the morning, before rushing over to participate in the Glendale to Atwater Village CicLAvia in the afternoon.
Where he befriended a bike-riding chicken.
No, seriously.
Here are some of his photos from the COLT ride — and posing with his newfound CicLAvia buddy. You can read his take on CicLAvia here.
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Writing for City Watch, an attorney demonstrates that he didn’t bother to do a basic Google search on road diets before going off on the mayor for inflicting them on the city’s poor, suffering drivers. As well as ranting that LA is being sued for forcing poor, innocent kids to suck in toxic fumes because he — the mayor — insists on putting bike lanes on busy streets.
Because as we all know, little kids are the only ones who ever ride bicycles, especially on busy streets. And no one would ever want to use a bike lane to actually, you know, go somewhere.
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A fundraising account has been established for track cyclist John Walsh, who was seriously injured at the SoCal State championship on Sunday. As of this writing, it has raised nearly $5,000 of the $30,000 goal.
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Local
More semi-NSFW photos from LA’s cheekiest road safety protest ride.
Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman examines the Vision Zero plans to improve safety in South LA.
CiclaValley celebrates the three miles of bike lanes coming to Sepulveda Blvd in the north SFV.
KFI’s John and Ken go off on the road reconfigurations currently underway in Playa del Rey, which seem none too popular with the drivers who used the deadly beachside streets as virtual commuter highways. If you can listen to more than a few minutes of this crap without throwing your device out a window, you’re a stronger person than I am.
Trial began on Monday for a Long Beach man who faces life in prison after getting beaten by police when they stopped him for the crime of riding without a light.
State
Wacky Coronado will talk about how bike riders can safely get from here to there; let’s hope the proposed sharrows and greenways don’t make any more residents dizzy.
A Santa Clara driver complains a bicyclist swore at him after he pulled into a bike lane when his car suffered a mechanical problem. Seriously, don’t be a jerk. On the other hand, bike riders might be more understanding of emergencies like that if so many people didn’t drive in bike lanes just because they can.
San Francisco’s bikeshare system begins its expansion throughout the Bay Area.
It takes a major piece of walking human scum to steal the wheels off a ghost bike.
The Woodland branch of a national non-profit donated ten adaptive tricycles to special needs kids.
A Eureka writer says sometimes you have to get back on your bike or stay face down in the gravel. Literally, on occasion.
National
Consumer Reports offers tips on the proper care and feeding of your bike helmet.
Steve Katz forwards news of a bizarre case in Austin TX, which began when a driver plowed into a group of cyclists Saturday morning, injuring four, after claiming he’d fallen asleep. And ended when a witness stopped to help, only to have a passenger in the driver’s car steal his Jeep.
A Missouri church took up a collection to buy a new adult tricycle for a special needs man after his was stolen.
Bicycling talks with the survivors of the Kalamazoo massacre one year later.
Chicago finally releases its Vision Zero action plan for the next three years.
A Michigan woman will spend at least three years and three months behind bars for fleeing the scene after seriously injuring a bike rider in a crash, with a blood alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit. So no, WTVB, she’s not headed to jail for merely hitting a bicyclist with her car.
Sad news from New York, where an investment banker was killed by a bus, becoming the first Citi Bike bikeshare rider to be killed since the program was introduced four years and over 43 million rides ago; he’s just the second person killed since bikeshare came to the US in 2010. Thanks to Alan Thompson and Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.
A Pennsylvania mom plays detective to get her son’s stolen bike back.
A Baltimore letter writer asks if the mayor is trying to drive Millennials out of town by ripping out a protected bike lane.
Miami gets its first protected bike lane. If you can call a lane separated with nothing more than flexible plastic posts “protected.”
A kindhearted Florida deputy gives a man a new bike after his was destroyed in a hit-and-run.
International
Architectural Digest ranks the eleven most scenic bike rides in the world, having evidently never ridden through the Rocky Mountains. Or the American prairie, for that matter.
After a British man gets knocked off his bike by a car towing an RV, he gets even by applying the van’s handbrake, and filming the driver’s wheels spinning as he tries to move forward.
Three out of four daily bike riders in Ireland are men. Which is a stat that could be cited, give or take, for virtually any first world country outside northern Europe.
A soccer coach is bicycling the full length of Italy to fulfill a promise after his team avoided relegation.
A look at the 200th anniversary of the bicycle, from the country where it was born.
Iranian women are ignoring a fatwa from the country’s supreme leader prohibiting them from riding bicycles in public, and posting videos of themselves doing it anyway.
A Kazakh tribesman has left his families flocks behind to compete as an amateur cyclist in China.
Finally…
Nobody likes bike thieves, but this is going way too far. Your next bike bell could ring inside cars.
And if you think doping is crappy, you may be right.
Or maybe not.
