Turns out CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo is just misunderstood.
At least, that’s what he says.
A concerned resident reached out to the councilmember, who earned the sobriquet Roadkill Gil for his opposition to street safety projects, to ask what he has against bike lanes.
This is the eye opening response they got.
Hi there! We are not against bike lanes. We support safe bike lanes and public safety is a top priority for us. When putting in bike lanes, we want to make sure that we are taking into consideration the safety of vehicular traffic as well as pedestrian traffic so that cyclists can cycle safely. For example, I’ve been advocating for the LA River Bike Path, a bike path that is able to connect from one end to another, safely, along the River on the Arroyo.
This from the councilmember who made cancelling the shovel-ready lane reduction on deadly North Figueroa one of his firsts acts in office, after holding a series of sham public meetings where the outcome was largely predetermined.
And after he pledged his support for it when he was asking for our votes
That was followed by Cedillo’s vote against approving the city’s Mobility Plan 2035, including a motion to have virtually every pending bike lane in his district removed from the plan.
His was one of just two votes against the plan, the other coming pseudo-environmentalist Paul Koretz. Even though many of the immigrants in his district that he claims to champions rely on bicycles as their sole source of transportation.
Never mind all the kids who need to get to and from school without getting killed.
He also teamed with CD13’s Mitch O’Farrell to kill another shovel-ready road diet on Temple Street, in the wake of the disastrous rollout of the Play del Rey lane reductions.
And we recently learned that Cedillo was responsible for blocking the previously approved bike lanes on the Spring Street Bridge. Which were replaced with six-foot painted shoulders on each side, where the bike lanes could have easily gone.
That’s a lot of unsafe bike lanes he courageously halted to protect our safety, and all those poor, suffering drivers.
But at least he supports the LA River bike path. Which, coincidently, moves bike riders off the road and doesn’t inconvenience people in the big, dangerous machines in any way.
But clearly, he’s just been misunderstood in his many efforts to keep us safe by keeping us off the streets.
I mean, he said so himself.
Or someone in his office did. It’s hard to say just who’s on the other end of an electronic conversation.
And he certainly wouldn’t lie to get our votes as he runs for re-election.
Again, that is.
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Our friend Michael Wagner, author of East LA County’s indispensable CLR Effect, dropped a line to let us know Cal Poly Pomona’s popular Town and Gown Ride will be returning March 25th, after a two-year pandemic layoff.
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GCN offers a brief lesson on five skills every bike rider should know. Riding one-handed is particularly important so you can use the other one to gesture at drivers.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
More anti-bike sabotage, as someone apparently left dozens of tacks strewn across a London foot tunnel used by bike riders.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Sacramento are looking for a bike rider who slapped three women on the ass in separate sexual assaults on two local college campuses; police believe it may be the same man in all three attacks, though two victims described a cruiser bike, while the other said it was a BMX. As we’ve said before, that’s not a prank, it’s not flirting and it’s not funny. It’s a crime.
Tragic news from New York, where a Brooklyn woman has died, five days after she was struck by a man riding an ebike while crossing the with her husband; the bike rider has been charge with possession of a controlled substance, but not for the crash itself. Yet.
Pennsylvania police are looking for the bike-riding man who broke into a number of storage units; no word on whether he actually took anything.
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Local
Just five more days to offer your input on plans for the Ventura-Cahuenga Blvd corridor; comments close Tuesday.
Beverly Press talks with CD5 city council candidate Scott Epstein, the former chair of the Mid City West neighborhood council, about his commitment to help the homeless and make streets more bike and pedestrian friendly. I’ve known Epstein for over a decade, and he’s definitely the bike-friendly voice we need after an unlucky 13 years of Paul Koretz.
This is the cost of traffic violence. The LAPD is looking for the hit-and-run driver who killed a hero father who saw the speeding car coming and pushed his wife and child out of the way before taking the impact himself.
State
Orange County Bicycle Coalition ED points bike riders to Cycling Savvy’s online course to learn how to ride safely.
Santa Maria has received a $2.5 million state grant to repave and beautify the Battles Road pedestrian and bike path corridor, while adding art along the pathway.
National
Former NBA star Shawn Bradley says he didn’t know if he was going to die as he lay sprawled on the pavement, after being rear-ended by a driver while riding his bike near his St. George, Utah home; the crash left him alive but paralyzed from the shoulders down.
Police in Daytona, Florida have arrested a suspect in the throat-slashing murders of a married couple as they rode their bicycles home last weekend; no motive for the murders was announced.
International
Cycling News offers advice on how to build your dream bike on a budget.
Former Talking Heads frontman and bicycle evangelist David Byrne lists his five favorite cities for bicycling. Needless to say, Los Angeles ain’t one of them
A Belfast, Northern Ireland bike shop owner is selling stickers to support Ukraine and raise funds for Ukrainian refugees.
A London writer says if you want to make women feel safer, start by improving safety for bike-riding women.
Wales says 20 is plenty, committing to dropping speed limits to 20 mph next year on residential streets, as well as roadways with a lot of pedestrians.
After police concluded an English man was killed when he rode bicycle into a tree, a top lawyer insists he was the victim of a too-close pass, while his boss said called him an expert cyclist, and said the idea that he simply lost control of his bike while taking a swig from his water bottle just isn’t credible.
The European Cyclists Federation says bicycling is becoming the new normal across the continent.
Pirelli bike tires will now be made in Italy once again. .
Competitive Cycling
There may be hope for American cycling, after all. Quinn Simmons captured the climber’s jersey after a long attack on stage 4 of the Tirreno-Adriatico, hours after Brandon McNulty and Matteo Jorgenson finished first and third, respectively, on Thursday’s stage of the Paris-Nice race, making it a rare hat trick for the next-gen Americans.
Speaking of American cyclists, 36-year old Alison Tetrick pens a love letter to her bike, thanking it for an amazing ride over the past decade and a half.
Belgian cyclist Remco Evenepoel likes to go fast in his car, too, losing his drivers’ license for three weeks after getting caught going nearly twice the speed limit.
Egan Bernal continues to recover from the training crash that nearly left him paralyzed.
Finally…
Your last mountain bike could have had a gearbox.
And higher gas prices are just an attempt to force drivers to give up their gas guzzlers in favor of electric cars.
Or maybe ebikes.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Maybe don’t prop up proud racist Quinn Simmons as a wonderful representative of American cycling.
RE: Roadkill Gil, I literally almost spit my coffee out. And what the hell is vehicular safety. Like he wants to make sure cars are safe?