Just 174 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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My apologies, again.
On top of everything else I’ve been dealing with lately, I’ve had a major flare-up in my diabetic neuropathy, which knocked me on my ass Monday night. Or maybe it was just everything I took trying to control it.
Also, let me know if you’re interested in filling in for me when I’m out of commission next month, whether you’d like to pen a single post, or take over this site a day or two.
Anything goes, as long as it’s related to bicycles or traffic safety.
Just email me at the address on the About page if you’re interested in volunteering.
And thanks to tomexploresla for today’s graphics.
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Graphic by tomexploresla
The news from Garden Grove is getting worse.
On Monday, we discussed the allegedly drunken hit-and-run that took out an entire family in Garden Grove Sunday evening, as the parents were towing their children in child seats and bike trailers.
The crash left the father and two kids critically injured, while hospitalizing the mom and her eight-month old baby.
Now the mother is reporting that, while the father and one child are showing some signs of improvement, their five-year old son, Jacob Ramirez, suffered significant brain damage in the crash, and may not survive his injuries.
A witness followed the driver as he attempted to flee, and police arrested the driver, identified as 29-year-old Santa Ana resident Ceferino Ramos.
A crowdfunding campaign for the family has raised nearly $33,000 of the $100,000 goal.
Although there are also reports that someone created a fake crowdfunding page in the family’s name, demonstrating once again that there are no limits to just how low some people will go to scam others.
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Caltrans is hosting a series of public meetings, starting tomorrow, to discuss the feasibility of improving safety on deadly PCH through Malibu.
Although the only thing that will really improve safety would be converting the highway into a slow-speed Main Street designed to serve the local community and all road users, rather than pass-through commuters.
Malibu: PCH Master Plan
The public is invited to provide feedback to help Caltrans shape a feasibility study for safety on PCH (State Route 1) on July 11 & 18 & Aug. 28. Register here: https://t.co/Ns8IZ7f4SZ. More details below. pic.twitter.com/anzVsCxRfU— Caltrans District 7 (@CaltransDist7) July 8, 2024
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San Diego announced the official opening of the re-imagined Pershing Drive, transforming the previous car sewer into a tamed street with a fully separated, two-way bikeway stretching from North Park to Downtown.
The street was an auto-centric hellhole when I lived down there four decades ago. And something tells me it didn’t get any better since. So this should be a huge improvement.
Pershing bikeway grand opening is July 27 https://t.co/Z1OTBhf6Va pic.twitter.com/r4S60L5EMd
— The San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut) July 8, 2024
Meanwhile, the two-year old closure of popular two-lane shortcut Bachman Place will extend for yet another year, before eventually reopening with “bikeway enhancements” connecting the Mission Valley and Hillcrest neighborhoods.
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Streets For All is urging you to attend one of a series of public meetings, including today in Pico Rivera and tomorrow in El Monte, to tell Caltrans to stop flushing our hard-earned tax money down the toilet, and cancel induced demand-inducing plans to widen the 605 Freeway.
It’s long past time to drive a stake through this proposal that somehow keeps rising from the dead, and spend the money on transit, bike and pedestrian projects, instead.
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Megan Lynch forwards video of a woman harassing a New York food delivery rider for the crime of wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh around his neck, calling him a terrorist and blocking his bike with her car.
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It’s now 202 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 37 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
Meanwhile, Santa Monica is accepting applications for approximately 90 vouchers worth up to $2,000 toward the purchase of ebikes or bicycles, along with safety equipment including helmets, locks and lights for income-qualified residents.
And Salt Lake City has launched their own program, providing up to $1,300 off the purchase of a new ebike, depending on the model and the buyer’s income level.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
That’s more like it. Pennsylvania prosecutors have thrown the book at a road-raging 57-year old Mechanicsburg PA man who deliberately rammed a bike rider and tried to run them off the road, charging him with attempted aggravated assault by vehicle, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats and other offenses.
Anti-bike agitators are spreading “factually incorrect and negative” rumors suggesting trees will be chopped down to make room for what will eventually be the UK’s biggest bike lane.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 55-year old man in Oxford, England is on trial for “wantonly or furiously” bicycling for killing an 81-year old woman, who died in the hospital days after they collided on a pathway.
Bike riders in Bournemouth, England are coming under criticism for riding recklessly and weaving around pedestrians on a beachfront pathway.
More bad behavior in Wales, where young bicyclists are accused of causing serious damage to a nature preserve by building their own cycle track and mountain bike jumps.
There’s even bad behavior from the Tour de France, where Belgian cyclist Victor Campenaerts was observed peeing into an empty water bottle, and throwing the piss-filled bottle into a field.
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Local
Streetsblog reports city officials are beginning planning work on closing Wilshire Blvd between Alvarado and Carondelet Streets to reconnect the two sides of severed MacArthur Park. While they’re at it, why don’t they just close the whole damn thing from the Pacific to DTLA?
The author of Bike Seattle received an epiphany on a visit to Long Beach, when he realized Seattle could use bikeshare docks to daylight intersection, like Long Beach’s “wonderful” legacy bikeshare system.
State
A Santa Barbara writer says something has to be done about young ebike riders throughout the city, complaining that juvenile riders don’t have the training to operated motorized bicycles. Although as we’ve discussed lately, it’s not clear if he’s talking about teens riding ped-assist bicycles, or throttle-controlled electric motorbikes.
Caltrans will install seven miles of new bike lanes on Palo Alto’s El Camino Real. Now someone tell them to do PCH next.
San Francisco residents got out the torches and pitchforks at a community meeting to discuss a proposed bike network in the North Beach neighborhood, fearing it could be another Valencia Street.
A San Francisco website suggests what while doorings are down in the city, a recent death highlights a neighborhood divide, as safety improvements have skipped some areas populated by people of color.
National
Forbes vets the best electric foldies.
Bicycling suggests that bikemakers should offer more lightweight bikes for heavyweight riders who outweigh pro cyclists. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
A Denver TV station is raising funds for a makeover of a young boy’s room for when he gets out of the hospital after crushing his voice box when he crashed his bicycle.
Michigan’s carfree Mackinac Island will finally get its first speed limit — for bicycles and ebikes.
Police in Troy, New York have some ‘splaining to do, after a man they were chasing drowned in the Hudson River while attempting to flee on his bicycle.
A New Jersey woman faces charges for the drunken crash that killed a 44-year old man when she slammed into his bike while driving on the shoulder of the roadway to pass another car on the right, with her three-year old in the back of the car.
The family of a 65-year old Louisiana man want answers after he was killed in a collision with an off-duty sheriff’s deputy while riding his bicycle at 1:30 am, in a strange neighborhood 20 miles from home — and want to know why he was supposedly riding in the roadway when there was a freshly paved, fully separated bike path right next to it.
International
An automotive website examines which carmakers have also made bicycles, like a mid-2000s “Hummer” foldie, for instance.
Cycling Weekly considers whether tossing the booze will make you a better bicyclist.
Velo reports on their favorite bicycles from the recent Eurobike trade show, including a seriously weird gravel bike.
Toronto bicyclists are getting a new protected bike lane on one of the city’s deadliest corridors.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole eight bicycles worth the equivalent of over $33,000 from a Salisbury, England gravel fest.
This is who we share the road with. A British man will spend 17 years behind bars for killing a baby and her aunt when he slammed into their car, minutes after posting a photo showing himself driving 141 mph with a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit; he’ll also face a well-deserved 21-year driving ban once he’s released.
An English website says Bremen, Germany ranks as one of the world’s best cities for bicycling, thanks to visionary leaders who invented the bike lane in the 1970s. Except to quote Gershwin, it ain’t necessarily so.
Berlin is testing a new cycle track built beneath an overhead subway to accommodate future growth. But aren’t subways supposed to be underground?
Competitive Cycling
Russia’s Aleksandr Vaslov is out of the Tour de France after breaking his ankle when he veered off the road near the end on Sunday’s stage — shattering his bike in the process — yet somehow finished the stage anyway, despite being clearly disoriented.
Good news from Provo, Utah, where surgeons successfully reattached the right arm of California-based cyclist Ryan Jastrab, after he virtually severed it near the shoulder by catching a metal barricade as he was rounding one of the final turns on the last lap of the Salt Lake Criterium.
Bicycling reports the popular Life Time Crusher in the Tushar gravel race has been cancelled for this year due to wildfires in Utah. This time, you can read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.
Finally…
You can carry just about anything on a bicycle — even 34 pounds of purloined barbecued brisket. Why settle for a cellphone mount when you can mount a ham radio on it, instead?
And that feeling when the mountain lion that attacked you while you were riding was actually just someone’s angry kitty.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
