BikinginLA

Day 258 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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I got a little dose of inspiration yesterday.

My wife, the corgi and I attended the first part of SAFE’s 10th anniversary celebration yesterday evening, before we had to leave for a family commitment.

The nonprofit group known as Streets Are For Everyone was born from Damian Kevitt’s first Finish the Ride, after more than 600 people turned out to ride with him to finish what started out as a pleasant bike ride with his wife, before it was interrupted by a heartless hit-and-run driver.

I covered that horrific 2013 crash from the very beginning as best I could, based on the cryptic reports available at the time.

But in time, it became clear that Kevitt had been struck by the driver of a van while riding on Zoo Drive, and dragged hundreds of feet onto the northbound 5 Freeway by the fleeing driver.

He freed himself from under the van by sheer force of will. And likely survived only because the trailing drivers saw what was happening and stopped to protect him, and because some of those cars has people with medical training, who began treating him at the scene before paramedics arrived.

The odds that he would survive his multiple life-threatening injuries were somewhere between slim and none. But his mother refused to give up and fought for him at every turn. And Damian’s sheer will to live was evident when he told her and his wife that he would one day finish that ride, whatever it took.

In those ten years, Damian has gone from a victim to founder of a successful organization that has spawned other traffic safety groups and shepherded a number of important bills through the state legislature, as well as memorializing victims and calling attention to our most dangerous streets.

He has become someone I truly admire and consider a good friend. And along with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider and Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, he’s one of the first people I reach out to with any bike or pedestrian safety problem that demands a solution.

We are lucky to have people and groups like that fighting for us every day.

Listening to the inspiring stories from other victims of traffic violence, along with SAFE staffers and volunteers, it coalesced in my own mind just why I do what I do, and what keeps me fighting when our mean streets and uncaring officials continue to drag me down and break my heart.

For the first time in a long time, or maybe ever, I can now sum it up in two simple sentences.

I want everyone who wants to ride a bicycle to be able to ride one, regardless of who they are or where they live.

And I want everyone who leaves home today on a bicycle to get home safely.

That’s it.

I’ll keep fighting for that as long as I have any fight in me. Sometimes I think that day was yesterday. And sometimes I think I’m just getting started.

One other note before we move on.

One of the speakers yesterday described how he was struck by a driver and badly injured just five months after moving to Los Angeles. And yesterday’s CicLAvia was the first time he had ridden a bike in this city since.

It was a reminder just how important CicLAvia and other open streets events like Beach Streets in Long Beach, and Active Streets in the San Gabriel Valley, are to all of us.

Because without them, many people in the this car-choked megalopolis wouldn’t ride bikes again.

Or at all.

Top photo: Damian Kevitt speaking at SAFE 10th Anniversary event.

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Speaking of Joe Linton, his HLA lawsuit over the city’s failure to include bike lanes in the Vermont Ave bus lane project was in court on Friday, as Metro fought to be included in the case.

And it’s important to note that Linton’s lawsuit is a personal matter, unrelated to his work for Streetsblog.

In a very narrow ruling, the judge concluded that Metro could join the suit, but could only focus on the Vermont case, and not any other possible cases.

As Linton describes it on his personal website B.I.K.A.S, which stands for Bicycle Infrastructure Knowledge Activism and Safety,

In the discussion in court, the judge engaged Metro’s lawyers regarding how expansive this case would be. Metro’s earlier filing noted that my lawsuit “attacked” Metro’s authority to build “the Vermont Project and other Metro projects.” The judge asked Metro’s lawyer if it was ok to strike references to other projects, and just focus on Vermont. Metro’s lawyer agreed. Towards the end of the discussion, the judge summarized that this trial would focus on one project on Vermont, and that another day could focus on another project on, for example, Western or Alameda

That’s it for now.

Going forward, Metro will undoubtedly argue that HLA is a city ordinance that does not apply to them as a county agency, while Linton’s attorneys will argue that Metro is working for the city on a city project, on a city street included in the city mobility plan.

It will be interesting to see how this develops from here.

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Conservative media was up in arms over a former member of the USA Cycling National team, after the transgender BMX rider appeared to celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Although I’m not sure if they were more appalled because of the Instagram posts or the gender identity of the person behind them.

I haven’t commented about the shooting here because it falls outside of the scope of this site.

But as someone who lived through the killings of both Kennedys and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the attempted assassinations of Presidents Ford and Reagan, and the near-fatal shooting of Alabama Governor George Wallace, I can attest that no good ever comes from political violence.

And you can’t kill an idea, good or bad, with a bullet.

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Aussie bikewear brand MAAP has opened their first North American store right here in Los Angeles.

Known for high-performance gear and a culture-first approach, the company’s MAAP LaB Los Angeles landed on iconic Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice, their eighth location outside of Australia.

According to StupidDope, it’s designed to be a creative hub for bicyclists and creatives.

At its heart lies a social coffee bar, an anchor point meant to bring riders together before and after their rides. It’s more than a retail space; it’s a venue where cyclists and Venice locals alike can gather, share stories, and connect over a shared passion for performance and design. This approach reflects MAAP’s “Life Around Bikes” philosophy — a reminder that cycling culture is about more than the ride itself.

They’re not the first to try that approach.

And Abbot Kinney is littered with the gravesites of other high-end bike brands who thought they had a “can’t miss” concept in the ideal location.

But let’s hope it succeeds this time.

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Don’t forget the two important meetings today

First the Encino Neighborhood Council’s Traffic and Transportation Committee considers the threatened Amestoy Ave pedestrian bridge over the 101 Freeway in a virtual meeting starting at 4:45 pm.

Then starting at 6 pm, the West Hollywood City Council takes up the Fountain Ave safe streets makeover. WeHo residents can watch on Spectrum Cable channel 10 and YouTube; I’m hoping the latter works for those of us in LA, too. And comments can submitted online prior to the meeting.

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Local 

Well, no shit. LAist says Los Angeles is lagging behind on installing the speed cams approved over a year ago by the state legislature. If “lagging behind” means not installing any yet, that is. 

A Long Beach man was hospitalized with non-life-threatening upper and lower body injuries, after allegedly swerving his bicycle in front of a driver while on PCH in Long Beach. Although we often find that drivers swear a bike rider swerved in front of them or came out of nowhere, when in actuality they just weren’t paying attention. 

 

State

Costa Mesa will offer free ebike safety lessons for school kids on September 27th.

Carlsbad is looking for input on whether to ban ebike use for kids under 12. I’m down with that, but maybe make 14, instead.

A kindhearted Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy arranged the donation of a new bike to a nine-year old kid after his was stolen.

The CEO of The San Francisco Standard news site describes what it’s like to get sideswiped by a pickup driver while nearing the end of a 100-mile training ride. But be careful if you don’t want to see it, because security cam video at the top offers a disturbing view of the crash.

A Streetsblog op-ed from a San Francisco environmentalist and transportation rider says the city can’t afford to build safe streets so slowly, as peer cities like Austin, Texas show it can be done swiftly and cheaply. Maybe Los Angeles could take notes, too. 

 

National

Bike riders in Santa Fe, New Mexico are calling for safety changes and greater accountability after a man was killed riding his bike in June, and the driver who killed him walked with a deferred sentence.

The mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming is about to become a former bike shop owner, after he announced the store will be closing after 35 years — leaving just one other bike shop in the state’s largest city.

A 21-year old autistic man from Billings, Montana got his stolen adaptive tricycle back after community outrage encouraged someone to drop it off at city hall.

Bike riders in Houston bared all for the World Naked Bike Ride, while accusing the city of backsliding on safety; some people did the same in Los Angeles, too.

A five-day bike ride is traveling 700 miles across Wisconsin to support military families and first responders, while focusing on children of fallen service members and disabled veterans.

The US Department of Transportation pulled a $675,000 grant to finish an Illinois bike trail, although grants for similar projects in red states Wyoming and Idaho appear to be moving forward.

Bicycling collisions reached an eight-year high in Michigan last year, with a 42% jump over 2021.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 78-year old New Hampshire man is circumnavigating the state on his bike; he expects to finish in nine days, riding 70 miles a day. Must be a small state.

A DC food delivery worker traded her moped for an ebike in an attempt to appear less obtrusive to ICE agents.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A North Carolina police officer was killed in a traffic collision while ride a bike with his wife, less than a year after joining the force.

That’s more like it. A 30-year old Florida man with a long history of reckless driving and hit-and-runs was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for the high-speed hit-and-run crash that killed a 15-year old boy riding a bicycle; the car’s onboard computer shows he hit the kid at 75 mph without braking.

 

International

Road.cc takes a look at the very first Brompton foldie, on the company’s 50th anniversary.

London bicycle crashes spiked 44% last week as more than 2 million people took their bikes as a result of a strike by subway workers — although that jump amounted to just eight more crashes than usual.

After a British man restored a 1936 French bicycle, he’s riding it back to the home of the original owner to surprise them, while raising money to fight pancreatic cancer.

There’s a special place in hell for any driver who would leave someone in their 80s to die alone in the street, like this bike-riding 80-something Irishman killed by a hit-and-run driver.

A new survey shows 83% of Netherlanders support requiring bike helmets for young ebike riders, though it doesn’t say how young.

Officials in Seoul, South Korea are cracking down on brakeless fixies after the recent death of a teenage bike rider, well over a decade after the brakeless fixie panic in the US.

 

Competitive Cycling

As expected, Jonas Vingegaard won the Vuelta on Sunday, his first Vuelta win after two Tour de France titles; Portugal’s Joao Almeida was second, with Britain’s Tom Pidcock third; Pidcock called his first podium the biggest performance of his career.

However, the final Vuelta stage never completed, as organizers abandoned the stage with nearly 40 miles to go when up to 100,000 pro-Palestinian protesters flooded the streets — and that was after the stage was already shortened by 3.1 miles before the race in anticipation of the protests.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez praised the protesters, calling it a just cause.

The Pro-Palestinian protests extended to Canada’s Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, where 200 protesters gathered to protest the Israel-Premier Tech team, but didn’t interfere with the race itself.

Americans took three of the first four spots in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, with Brandon McNulty edging teammate Tadej Pogačar as they crossed the finish line together; Quinn Simmons was third and Neilson Powless fourth.

South African Alan Hatherly won the men’s world mountain bike championship on Sunday, despite a switch to road cycling for most of the year, and Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds won the women’s championship, in a return to the sport after she fell into severe depression and an eating disorder following her gold in the Rio Olympics.

 

Finally…

If you can’t find a sexy tandem, just learn to build your own. Who needs a little metallic trill when you could have your very own digital bike bell with eight distinct sounds?

And nope, nothing will ever get people to ride bikes.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.