BikinginLA

Day 212 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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He gets it.

In a WeHo Times op-ed, 23-year old community organizer Nick Renteria argues that the city is one of the most dangerous in the state when it comes to traffic violence.

As evidenced by the recent hit-and-run deaths of Erica Edwards and Blake Ackerman on Sunset Blvd and Fountain Ave, respectively.

But not, he says, because there is something inherently worse about the city’s drivers, but because the streets are “designed facilitate high traffic flow at the cost of our safety.”

And what’s standing in the way of progress isn’t a lack of evidence, it’s inaction.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

As Renteria says,

Imagine a Sunset Boulevard where people stroll safely beneath the billboards. A Santa Monica Boulevard where outdoor dining isn’t drowned out by speeding cars. A Fountain Avenue where no one has to fear crossing the street or riding a bike.

Imagine a city where Erica and Blake’s deaths are the last. Where we finally say: enough.

We’ve imagined it for years. Now let’s do something about it.

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No bias here.

Border Patrol officers arrested a man riding a bicycle and questioned his citizenship because he looked “startled and nervous,” even though they were looking for someone else.

After all, why would anyone look nervous when confronted by armed, masked men who may not have worn anything identifying themselves as officers.

The Mexican national now finds himself facing deportation, and charged with a misdemeanor count of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, because he tried to run away and tried to break free from them.

I probably would have done exactly the same thing if I was confronted by a bunch of armed men in masks.

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Secret Los Angeles makes it sound like the city is rapidly becoming a carfree paradise.

According to the site, Los Angeles is actively investing in innovations to reduce traffic congestion, ranging from subway expansions to new bikeways, including a new transcontinental high-speed rail expected to ope as soon as next year.

Which really would be a secret.

And speaking of secrets, here’s what they have to say about the state of bicycling in the City of Angeles.

Biking in L.A. is on the rise, with new bike trails and bike-friendly upgrades popping up across the city. From coastal paths to urban corridors like the new Rail-to-Rail route, it’s getting easier, safer, and more fun to explore L.A. on two wheels.

Which is kinda true, depending on just where you look.

Although the impression it gives doesn’t exactly align with the reality most of us experience on the streets.

But, yeah.

Maybe someday it will.

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Police in San Diego are looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a 62-year-old man riding a bicycle lying in the street with serious injuries.

The crash occurred around 7:25 pm Monday in the Golden Hill neighborhood on the 2400 block of F Street.

The suspect was described as a man in his late 20s or early 30s, driving a gray-colored SUV with black rims and possible front end damage, with a woman in the passenger seat.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Traffic Division of the San Diego Police Depart at 858/495-7823 or call anonymously at 888/580-8477.

There’s a $1,000 reward offered by Crime Stoppers.

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A member of the San Francisco bicycling community is being hailed as a hero for sacrificing his life to protect a group of women and children at a Muni stop.

Twenty-eight-year old Colden Kimber was waiting with his girlfriend when he saw a man harassing the group and stepped between them, only to be fatally stabbed in the neck in what was described as a “completely and utterly unprovoked” attack.

Kimber was a member of the city’s Dolce Vita Cycling team and was a skilled mechanic at American Cyclery, while studying kinesiology at San Francisco State University.

The suspect, 29-year old Sean Collins, has been charged with murder; he was already facing charges for vandalism and burglary, as well as resisting an officer.

A crowdfunding campaign has raised over $44,000 of the $50,000 goal to pay for memorials in San Francisco and Kimber’s native Ithaca, New York, and transportation expenses for his family to attend Collins’ trial.

A memorial ride is tentatively planned for Sept. 7 around the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

No, wait. Yeah, it’s me.

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Gravel Bike California shouts Yreka after riding in NorCal’s Siskiyou County.

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Nope, nothing to see here.

Although the only time you’ll see this many people on bikes in Los Angeles is CicLAvia or Critical Mass.

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But seriously, how many city’s have a river you can drive in?

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Thanks to Megan for forwarding this clip showing that comedian Cheri Oteri is one of us.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No surprise here, as the Ontario, Canada government will appeal a court ruling that the planned removal of three Toronto bike lanes violates the country’s constitution, while Canada’s conservative National Post calls out the province’s “activist judiciary” for inventing a right to bike lanes.

Bedford, England has lifted its draconian ban on bike riding through the town center, but only after thousands of people were “aggressively” fined for the simple crime of riding a bicycle; new rules target “dangerous” bicycling rather than responsible riding.

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Local 

Pasadena police will conduct yet another of the region’s bicycle and pedestrian safety operations today; while the purpose is to improve safety for people walking or biking, police are required to enforce any violation that could put either group at risk, regardless of who commits it. So ride to the letter of the law until cross the city limits to make sure you’re not the one who gets written up. 

 

State

California kids under the age of 16 can no longer buy a Class 3 ebike, after Governor Newsom signed AB 965 into law.

A San Diego man has declared a Bike Rebellion, with a new podcast and YouTube series profiling people who have chosen bicycling as their primary mode of transportation.

Bakersfield will add new green bike lanes to the city’s California Ave after a repaving project, while assuring drivers it won’t result in the removal of any traffic lanes.

Eight outdoor experts share their favorite bike rides around the Silicon Valley.

There’s not a pit deep enough for a 29-year old woman accused of hitting a nine-year old Novato boy in an effort to steal his bike, until bystanders stepped in to stop her.

 

National

A Minnesota woman credited a bicycle with saving her life, after a tree crashed through her roof at the exact moment she went outside to get her son’s bike, the tree landing right where she had been moments earlier.

The mayor of La Crosse, Wisconsin took a bike ride with community members on Thursday to talk about transportation and the state of the city. Something no Los Angeles mayor has done since Richard Riordan, unless you want to count Antonio Villaraigosa riding next to me at the first CicLAvia. Or maybe it was the second one. 

Good news from Elmhurst, Illinois, where a nine-year old boy was found safe after going missing while riding his bicycle on a bike path; he was found eight miles away in the nearby town of Glen Ellen.

If you build it, they will come. Bicycling is booming in the Motor City thanks to hundreds of miles of bike paths around Detroit, with cross-border cycling becoming an option later this year.

After the state Department of Transportation put in a new separated bike lane, officials in Tonawanda, New York said they didn’t ask for it and don’t want it, and drivers expressed concern about safety on a street where drivers go ten miles below the 40 mph speed limit.

 

International

A writer for Road.cc describes what he’d do to start bicycling on a tight budget.

Of course not. An English man denies he was responsible for killing a 54-year old woman competing in a cycling time trial while he was driving a commercial van, despite allegedly looking a photos of a family barbecue on his cellphone seconds before the crash, then telling police he never saw her because he was too busy looking for his drink bottle.

Cyclist profiles decorated downhill cyclist James Egercz, the man behind Britain’s Craft Bikes.

Apparently, medieval weapons are back in vogue, after a man in the UK was busted for allegedly threatening another man with an axe to steal his bicycle.

A British writer takes a “mad holiday” in France, combing wine and cheese with “near-death experiences” riding down mountainsides on an ebike.

Evidently, France’s Loire Valley is THE bicycling destination for the coming year. Unless maybe you’d rather take a bicycling vacation at Club Med in the Southern French Alps.

Momentum looks at Trondheim, Norway’s pavement-embedded bicycle lift that pushes bike riders uphill at a steady walking pace, and recommends a handful of hills in North America where it would help encourage more people to ride.

Sad news from South Africa, where a 77-year old man was killed while riding his bike through Cape Town, when he was struck with a bottle by a robber trying to steal his cellphone.

 

Competitive Cycling

French cyclist Maeva Squiban won Stage 6 of the Tour de France Femmes in a 20-mile solo breakaway. Even if Velo wrote yesterday that it happened today, opening up a whole new can of quantum theory.

Apparently, nose strips were the hot performance-enhancing accessory at this year’s Tour de France.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you just happen to get stopped by cops while carrying a section of the US-Mexico border wall on your bike. If you’re going to steal a pro cyclist’s bike, maybe don’t take the one with a Danish flag and his name painted on it.

And apparently, we need to credit Streetsblog’s Joe Linton as the founder and editor of this site, at least according to Google AI.

I mean, who knew?

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.