After recent events, I think we could all use a little good news to start the day.
After an Indiana woman’s bicycle, which was her only form of transportation, was stolen, a pair of kindhearted Indiana bike cops gave her an extra bicycle one of them had at home.
A Maine bike co-op allows new immigrants and low-income residents to earn a bicycle by learning how to refurbish and repair it.
Thanks to a Virginia nonprofit founded by a US Army vet, 21 special needs kids now have new adaptive bicycles to ride.
And hats off to a couple Georgia cops who spotted a 71-year old man riding his bike on a busy highway without any lights or reflectors to get something to eat. So they put his bike in a patrol car, drove him to the restaurant, then went to Walmart to buy safety gear for his bike.
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On the local front, the good news is Metro Bike has made its first appearance in North Hollywood.
The bikes have landed in #NoHo.@BikeMetro @bikinginla @officialnoho pic.twitter.com/YnXx3kHoO4
— Zachary Rynew (@Ciclavalley) August 5, 2019
The bad news is, we could have had a safe place to ride them if CD2 Councilmember Paul Krekorian hadn’t blocked plans for a lane reduction and parking-protected bike lanes on Lankershim Blvd.
Krekorian killed the fully funded and shovel ready plan two years ago, bizarrely claiming that the project needed more public outreach.
As if five years of meetings, workshops and pop-up bike lanes isn’t enough.
And someone should tell him we’re still waiting on the additional public outreach and those alternative Lankershim options he promised us.
Or maybe Krekorian is just waiting until he’s termed out of office and it becomes someone else’s problem.
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Nothing like a Redondo Beach official finding a little humor in running your ass over for no apparent reason.
Except maybe people commuting, exercising, recreating or having fun just annoys the crap out of her.
https://twitter.com/carsonblume/status/1158477368077377536
That would be this Recreation & Parks Commission, in case you were wondering.
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This is who we share the roads with.
CAUGHT ON CAMERA: A fist fight between two men right in the middle of PCH stops traffic https://t.co/q8FCNa2CSW
— KCAL News (@kcalnews) August 6, 2019
Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up.
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The Green Bay Packers take their traditional bike ride to training camp, borrowing bicycles from little kids, who carry their helmets for them.
Unfortunately for one kid’s bike, the Houston Texans joined them.
#Texans JJ Watt May have broken the bike seat and had to improvise. #Packers pic.twitter.com/v1bw3pa7MW
— Olivia Reiner (@ReinerOlivia) August 5, 2019
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.
Someone is shoving people off their bicycles on Portland OR bike paths.
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Local
The LA Bicycle Advisory Committee will meet in Hollywood tonight; unfortunately, the posted agenda here is from December — 2018.
LA City Planning announces that LOS, which measures how many cars can move through a given point, is out, and VMT, or Vehicle Miles Traveled, is in; the latter counts people on bikes and buses, too.
Adam Conover, host of TruTV’s Adam Ruins Everything talks about living carfree in the City of Angels, and how it’s cars that actually ruin everything.
A Frogtown artist bought a small slice of the LA River to give himself a bigger voice in plans to restore it.
The last candidate forum for next week’s special election in LA’s 12th Council District will be held in Chatsworth Wednesday night. You owe it to yourself to be there if you live in CD12. Unless you’ve already decided to vote for Bike the Vote LA and LA Times-approved Loraine Lundquist, in which case you have my permission to stay home tomorrow night.
Los Angeles County puts forth a sustainability plan for a carbon-free county by 2050. Which could be about 30 years too late. Then again, the way things are going on the international front, the long-sought solution to global warming may turn out to be a nuclear winter.
State
Camarillo is starting work on a road widening project to add bike lanes on Pleasant Valley Road.
San Diego bike riders turn out to support plans for protected bike lanes on 30th Street; however, some in the area evidently prefer parking spaces to more customers and saving lives.
A San Jose driver complains that she right hooked a bike rider and was actually held responsible for it. And columnist Mr. Roadshow says that’s because she was. Thanks to Robert Leone for the link.
A San Francisco newspaper watches a bike lane for 30 minutes just before rush hour, and observes drivers blocking it an average of once per minute.
No bias here. A bike-riding Sausalito marketing flack says all the people in his neighborhood “resent the awful attitudes, rude demeanor and reckless actions” of roving packs of scofflaw cyclists who terrorize the city at speeds of up to 50 mph.
A popular Sacramento riverfront bike path will be shut down for a month to realign the path and repair a damaged embankment. Someone might want to point that out to officials in Los Angeles, where repairs to the LA River bike path are usually measured in years.
National
Bicycling recommends a more comfortable bike seat for women, who have to sit on often-painful parts men don’t.
A Washington columnist says yes, it’s legal to ride a bike on a freeway in the state, which doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
For the second week in a row, a triathlete has been killed during a competition, this time a 68-year old man who crashed his bike in an Illinois race.
Sad news from Minnesota, where an off-duty cop was killed when he was rear-ended by a driver while riding his bicycle.
There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run driver who killed a nine-year old Gary, Indiana boy as he was riding his bike, then burned the car to hide the evidence.
Police and the press in upstate New York freak out over a group of around 60 kids on bicycles riding in the roadway. And by all reports, taking the lane just like they should.
A New York op-ed says the way to stop the recent rash of bicycling deaths is to do what it takes to cut the number of cars on the streets.
Bike Snob says New York Mayor and presidential candidate Bill di Blasio’s “audacious” plan to prevent bicycling deaths just isn’t enough.
The University of Virginia offers suggestions on how to stay safe while you’re riding your bike. And for a change, most of them make sense.
The bike rider killed in a collision with a pickup truck driver during a Mississippi charity ride was a respected structural engineer for the U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution presents six of the city’s best bike trails for your next journey to the Peach State.
Surprisingly, it’s pretty easy riding in the Big Easy these days, as the city ranks fifth in the US in bike commuting per capita, with 3% of people riding to work. Needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t the list.
International
Forbes‘ Carlton Reid offers advice on the easy way to teach your kid to ride a bike.
Here’s another one to add to your bike bucket list — a 400-mile network of dramatic British Columbia rail-to-trail conversions, including 18 former railroad trestles in just one 12-mile stretch.
It takes a massive asshole — and I use the term advisedly — to sell an apparently purloined UK ghost bike online. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
A British author says narrow bike lane traffic islands turn bike riders into human traffic calming islands.
Competitive Cycling
In a heartbreaking reminder that cycling is a dangerous sport, 22-year old Belgian pro Bjorg Lambrecht, a member of the Lotto-Soudal team, was killed yesterday while competing in the Tour of Poland.
Lambrecht reportedly fell into a concrete culvert 60 miles from the finish of Monday’s stage, and died during surgery after being resuscitated at the scene.
Race organizers cancelled the traditional post-race podiums and festive atmosphere when the news about Lambrecht broke; today’s stage remains in question.
Thanks to John McBrearty for the tip.
Finally…
Bikeshare today, furniture tomorrow. And don’t park in a bike lane, bro — especially if you’re armed and drinking.
