Before we start, congratulations are in order for frequent BikinginLA contributor and behind-the-scenes proof reader Mike Wilkinson, who was recently elected to the Orange County Bicycle Coalition Board of Directors.
Couldn’t happen to a more passionate or deserving person.
Even if he does ride a tandem.
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Los Angeles’ first two-way protected bike lane is coming to Spring Street in DTLA, with a companion lane to follow soon just one block east on Main Street.
Actually, they’re already here.
https://twitter.com/NeelSodha/status/1122324668134744064
https://twitter.com/LAcycleHelper/status/1122655540373364736
Here’s how both the Spring Street and coming Main Street bike lanes are supposed to work — if LA drivers can resist the urge to park in them, which is a big if.
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Bike riders across the US took part in Friday’s Red Cup Project by placing red plastic drinking cups on existing bike lanes to make their own DIY protected lanes.
And sending a message that paint is not enough. Such as the Pittsburgh advocates who called for more parking protected bike lanes.
Although not surprisingly, many didn’t last long before drivers ran them over, either failing to see the bright red cones, or simply not caring.
Like in Denver, where tomato-capped cups were soon turned into marinara. And where the project got its start, in honor of fallen DC bike advocate Dave Salovesh, who was riding in a painted lane when he was killed.
Meanwhile, hundreds of DC bicyclists converged on city hall to hold a die-in to demand streets that don’t kill people in the wake of Salovesh’s death. Although one local TV station seemed more concerned with scofflaw bicyclists than keeping law abiding ones alive.
And yes, the Red Cup Project even touched down in auto-centric Los Angeles.
Venice Boulevard is the connection to the Expo Line/path and one of the only bike routes across LA. Would you want your loved ones biking here? We have to #DemandMore. #RedCupProject pic.twitter.com/umXiqMKIGs
— Rabi Abonour (@rabonour) April 26, 2019
And on the other side of the Orange Curtain, as well.
Put out the cups in Costa Mesa!
This is right outside the back entrance to the n’hood elementary school that scores of kids and parents use every day. Nearest crosswalk is ~500’ in either direction and speed limit is posted at 30. #DangerousByDesign#RedCupProject#SlowTheCars pic.twitter.com/zkmjBeEPmu— Costa Mesa Jaywalker (@JaywalkerCM) April 26, 2019
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Traditional bicycles seldom catch on fire.
Ebikes, not so much.
An Australian woman’s home was gutted by fire when the battery on her ebike unexpectedly burst into flames.
A Singapore woman and her son were injured when the ped-assist ebike they were riding burst into flames after they were struck by a van driver.
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Local
British singer Pixie Lott is one of us, following up on her recent Coachella appearance with a Dutch bike ride on the beachfront bike path in Venice. Maybe she ran into Simon Cowell while he was riding in Santa Monica.
Pasadena’s first-ever human sculpture took the shape of a bicycle at the Rose Bowl on Friday, in anticipation of the Pasadena finish of the Amgen tour of California next month.
The city managers of Alhambra, Pasadena and South Pasadena accuse Metro, which should know better, of ignoring people-powered transportation in favor of more cars after pulling the plug on the 710 Freeway extension through those cities.
A group of bicyclists set out from the Santa Monica Pier on Friday, hoping to raise a thousand dollars per mile for their 2,499-mile ride on Route 66 to Chicago, which would bring in $2.499 million for the fight against pediatric cancer.
The Coastal Commission gives Long Beach the okay to move palm trees along Marina Drive to make room for sidewalks and bike lanes, but only if it doesn’t bug the birds.
State
A Garden Grove man was sentenced to 26 years to life behind bars for the unprovoked attack that left a passing bike rider dead; 19-year old Bryan Ortega was knocked off his bike and repeatedly stabbed by 23-year old Troy David Son, even though there was no history between the two men, who did not appear to know each other.
Pro mountain biker Jeff Lenosky had $30,000 worth of bikes, cameras and other gear stolen when someone broke into his team van at a Santa Ana Holiday Inn.
A Ventura bike rider calls the city’s crumbling streets an embarrassment, complaining that the state’s gas tax money doesn’t seem to be fixing them.
Thanks to the help of a fellow church member and musician, a Bakersfield man is continuing to ride a bike despite losing his eyesight.
The news from Sunnyvale just keeps getting worse. In the story we’ve been following since last week, police now say the speeding driver who intentionally steered his car into eight pedestrians and bike riders at a Sunnyvale intersection did it because he thought they were Muslim; the FBI is now investigating it as a hate crime.
The Trader Joes of bike shops is making its second foray onto American shores with a new store in Emeryville, after pulling out of the US market thirteen years earlier.
National
A bipartisan bill pending in Congress would extend and expand the successful Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) to build bikeways and sidewalks to reduce traffic congestion and support safe routes to schools. Unfortunately, bipartisanship is out of fashion in DC, so its immediate prospects could be questionable.
Bicycling examines the mechanical failures that led Lyft to lift its ebikes from city streets across the US.
This is what happens when you try to drive your pickup camper over a Portland bike and pedestrian bridge.
A writer from Cheyenne, Wyoming heads south to my hometown to ride the bike path along the Cache la Poudre River, which I used to ride on a near daily basis back in the day. Cheyenne is where I used to go to buy booze before I turned 21, or whenever I wanted to get beat up by a cowboy for looking at his girl the wrong way. Good times.
Omaha NE has completed a 38-mile interconnected bicycle network just in time for next month’s Bike Week. But those damn bike riders are just never satisfied, saying it’s not enough. Unbridled sarcasm aside, at least they have an actual network, unlike LA’s disjointed and inadequate patchwork of bikeways that don’t connect to anything or go anywhere.
An Iowa letter writer calls for bicyclists to pay their fair share, and get a motorcycle license because they move too damn fast. Because evidently, it’s not enough for bike riders to subsidize drivers with their tax money.
This is what can happen if you do bikeshare right. Houston’s booming bikeshare system is reshaping the car-centric city, with the biggest jump in ridership coming from people who swapped car rides for bike rides.
Apparently, it takes a village to find a stolen Michigan girl’s bicycle.
Massachusetts legislators advanced a bill creating a three-foot passing law and 25 mph speed limits, but rejected a clause that would have expanded the use of interlock devices to fight repeat drunk driving. There’s no excuse for driving drunk, ever. Some people will tell you anyone could get caught after having a few drinks, but the easy solution is just don’t drink if you have to drive.
A group of 26 bicyclists are riding from Newtown, Connecticut to Baltimore, then back up to Pittsburgh to remember the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre and call for an end to gun violence.
The New York bike rider who allegedly blew through a red light and seriously injured a pedestrian was a homeless man, who told police his gears and brakes weren’t working right. The victim’s boss issued a statement calling for license plates for people on bicycles, saying lawbreaking bike riders put peoples lives in peril. Never mind that the last time a person was killed by a bike rider in Gotham was 2014, while 64 people have been killed by cars this year alone.
Rapper J Cole is one of us, too, riding the streets of New York to get a haircut.
A Jackson MS man faces a murder charge after fatally shooting a 14-year old boy who may have been attempting to steal his bike.
After a group of Florida mothers got suspicious of a man who kept riding his bike past an elementary school when kids were getting out, they discovered he was a registered sex offender.
International
Kicking your car to the curb in favor of an active commute could help cut the risk of death for overweight people.
Environmental activists swarmed central London and held a die-in at the Tate Modern museum to protest insect die-offs linked to climate change.
Britain can’t seem to figure Brexit out, but they are turning a 1790s Scottish cashmere mill into a world-class mountain biking research and development lab.
Despite earlier reports of a decline in bicycling, the UK enjoyed a record year for bike commuting last year, as new bike superhighways and improved networks helped bike lane usage boom across the country.
The BBC belatedly discovers that bicycling is not just for MAMILs. Although it’s hard to call women bicyclists rare when they make up nearly a third of Irish riders.
A Chinese bike factory town is dealing with the fallout after the bust of the bikeshare boom.
Competitive Cycling
Sadly, Dutch Continental cyclist Robbert de Greef has died, three weeks after suffering a heart attack while competing in a race.
Santa Clarita Magazine looks forward to next month’s Amgen Tour of California visiting the valley, calling it America’s greatest cycling race.
Finally…
In Los Angeles, we have car chases; in Indiana, hot bike chases. If you’re just riding around the perimeter of Great Britain, is it really a world record?
And apparently, your love of bicycling is nothing more than a basic, garden variety Satanic possession.
Which totally explains that whole N+1 thing.
Not a popular position, but if it became legal to torch or otherwise destroy cars parked in the bike lane, such behavior would quickly cease, or become vanishingly rare.