My apologies.
I ran out of time to write a new Morning Links for today, after spending my time last night writing about yet another tragic bicycling death instead.
And frankly, after writing about the needless loss of a loving 18-year old kid with a bright future, I just don’t have the heart for it.
We’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, to catch up on anything we missed the past couple days.
My apologies.
After caring for my wife, taking care of the dog, running errands, meeting with a radio producer, making dinner and doing dishes, along with tending to my own duties and injuries, I’ve got nothing left to give tonight.
So please excuse today’s absence. We’ll be back as usual tomorrow to catch up on everything we missed today.
My apologies.
I had every intention of posting a new Morning Links today after yesterday’s unexcused absence.
But after spending my night writing about two fallen bicyclists, in Oceanside and Cathedral City, there’s no time left for anything else — especially since I have to be up in a few hours to care for my wife’s broken shoulder. Not to mention my own banged up ribs and shoulder.
We’ll be back bright and early Monday to catch up on what we missed. And next week should go a little smoother.
Well, that was fun.
Just hours after posting on here that I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the coming months, I found out when I found myself in the back of an ambulance hauling ass down Sunset Blvd.
As best as we’ve managed to put things together, I apparently suffered a sudden, extreme drop in blood pressure when I get up to use the bathroom, which dropped me down with it.
When my wife couldn’t rouse me, she called 911, and I spent the better part of yesterday morning in the emergency room.
They sent me home late in the day when a series of X-rays and CAT scans came up negative, concluding that nothing was broken, and my brain had managed to survive a sudden conversation with the floor.
Although I do have excruciating pain in my right ribs, and may have done further damage to my already torn rotator cuff.
Good times.
As for the sudden drop in blood pressure, the ER doc said it’s just one of those things.
Because of that pain, and the difficulty I’ve had just writing this, I won’t be posting a Morning Links update today. And I’m not even going to bother editing this, so if there’s some major screwup here, so be it.
As for next week, it depends on how I bounce back over the weekend, so stay tuned.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to bed and whimper myself to sleep.
My apologies.
I’m caught up in tax hell, trying to get my taxes done on time. We’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed today.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re slowly gaining signatures, up to 1,027 now, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
Photo is an 1897 military bicycle with a machine gun mounted on the handlebars.
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My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence.
My Monday went to hell before I even got out of bed, and didn’t get any better until late that night, by which time I was too tired to form a thought, let alone a sentence.
That was followed yesterday by a shot in my right eye to control bleeding in the retina, yet another of the boundless joys of diabetes.
Good times.
But if you’re reading this, I guess that means I literally saw my way through my work tonight. So there’s that, anyway.
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A Marin columnist says a proposal to remove the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge on weekdays doesn’t go far enough, and he wants to give the lane back to drivers full time, even on days when they don’t need it. Because autos uber alles, evidently.
Providence, Rhode Island is considering the same thing, as city officials debate a plan to close the bike lane on a local bridge to make more room for motor vehicles. After all, it makes far more sense to remove alternatives to driving than to try to get more people out of their cars. Right?
Police in Yorkshire, England are looking for the person who ran away after pushing a woman off her bicycle in a “wholly unprovoked attack.”
New bike symbols on a London street appear to encourage people to ride in the door zone and into parked cars in an apparent attempt to thin the herd, while the city insists they were “carefully developed in line with guidance.”
Residents of a UK city are “furious” over “confusing” bicycle symbols painted on a street with no bike lanes, apparently unable to comprehend that bike riders are encourage to ride there.
British motorists slam a photo of a Dutch father carrying his five kids on his cargo bike, claiming he’s endangering them and that not one is wearing a helmet, while one driver bizarrely claims almost everyone in the Netherlands wears a helmet, in a country where almost no one does.
Police in Salinas posted a number to call to report kids riding their bikes recklessly and without regard for their own and drivers’ safety. Because evidently, teen and tween kids on a bikes are the real risk on the streets, not the people in the big, dangerous machines.
Police in the Sultanate of Oman have arrested over 20 young people and seized more than 200 unlicensed motorcycles and bicycles for traffic violations, in a crackdown on reckless riding during Ramadan. Because, once again, the real danger is kids on bikes of all kinds, motor and otherwise.
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Streetsblog talks with former Bicycling editor and South Bay-based bike writer Peter Flax about his new book, Live to Ride: Finding Joy and Meaning on a Bicycle. Which is a lot of italics for one lousy sentence.
West Hollywood gave Bird the bird, and will now allow only Lime e-scooters to besmirch their streets.
Caltrans is finally putting its money where its Complete Streets policy is, pledging to invest a cool billion dollars into bike lanes across the state over the next four years.
Streetsblog offers a non-comprehensive list of sustainable transportation bills to watch in this year’s state legislative session. Which is better than the legislature’s usual non-comprehendible bills.
About damn time. The hit-and-run death of fallen Oceanside bicyclist and mother Tracey Gross is raising concerns about the safety of bike riders on State Route 76, where at least eight people were injured riding bikes over the most recent five year period. Those concerns should have been raised when the first person was struck, not the latest.
The small farming community of Lamont, located southeast of Bakersfield, just got its first protected bike lane.
Bad news from Davis, where a UC freshman is in a coma after she was struck by a driver while riding her bike on campus. Parents should have a right to expect their kids will be safe when they send them off to college.
Streetsblog accuses New York officials of putting safety last, after four Brooklyn neighborhoods named Vision Zero “Bike Priority Areas” in 2017 still don’t have any protected bike lanes. To which Los Angeles says “hold my beer.”
A Manhattan community board rejected a planned ebike charging hub intended to replace an abandoned newsstand, after concluding it looked too modern.
The mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey signed a bill requiring ebike delivery riders to be licensed by the city, saying he was doing it in the “spirit of collaboration” despite shortcomings in the law. Even though no one bothered to collaborate with the low-wage workers.
WaPo is the latest newspaper to pick up the story of the Atlanta bike rider who tows a large magnet behind his bike to clear the streets of flat-inducing nails, screws and other metallic detritus. More proof that not all heroes wear capes. Or tights, for that matter.
Momentum offers an introductory guide to Velomobiles, and writes that “getting serious about active transportation in Europe it starts with street parking.”
A writer for Cycling Weekly debunks common myths about fat bicyclists, who turn out to be pretty much like anyone else who rides a bike, but bigger.
British Columbia authorities are investigating after a bike rider was injured by a mountie driving an unmarked car.
Hundreds of bicyclists rode for cleaner air in Birmingham, England.
A British newspaper says ebikes are the future of urban transport in the UK.
Another Cycling Weekly writer says he went to the Netherlands, and saw for himself how much better bicycling could be in the UK. And pretty much anywhere else, for that matter.
They get it, too. The Irish government is considering new financial incentives to encourage bicycling, after the country’s Cycle to Work program failed to entice enough people to bike to work and leave their cars at home.
Pope Francis sold the Pinarello Dogma given to him by Egan Bernal for the equivalent of more than $15,000, which was half the predicted price for the holy roadie.
An Austrian study reports that an average of 600 children are injured by bicycle handlebars each year, with half involving tears and bruises to the liver, pancreas or spleen.
A drunk driver in India plowed his SUV into a car, three motorcyclists and a bicyclist, leaving the bicycle literally folded in half, and one person in critical condition. And you can probably guess which person that was.
A heartbreaking photo shows a Palestinian boy sitting next to his bicycle in front of a building destroyed by an Israeli bombardment in Rafah.
A new Chinese study shows that ebikes serve as a crucial alternative to cars, as well as complementing transit services, and that banning ebikes “would not be conducive to curbing car growth.”
Cyclist answers the burning question of what the hell is a soigneur?
Bicycling reports that former Tour de France champ Egan Bernal took a remarkable third place at this year’s Volta a Catalunya, behind Tadej Pogačar and Mikel Landa, just two years after a near fatal crash in his native Colombia. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.
Your next gravel bike could cost more than a cheap new car — unless you’d rather have a track bike that costs more than a decent one. Your next full-suspension mountain bike could be made of plywood.
And this is who we share the road with. Or the river, in this case.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
The good news is, we enjoyed a great CicLAvia on Sunday.
The bad news is, yet another of the many joys of diabetes is that I just don’t bounce back afterwards anymore. Or maybe I’m just getting old.
One way or another, I’m way too wiped out to work.
So enjoy a few pictures from our Sunday CicLAvia experience, highlighting lowriders both wheeled and otherwise, Melrose murals, pedicab rides, and Queen’s Best Stumpy Dog Rescue.
So in our case, maybe it was more of a CorgLAvia.
We’ll be back tomorrow to catch up with everything we missed, after I get a little sleep.
Okay, a lot of sleep.
I’m down for the count with a killer migraine. We’ll be back tomorrow, if my head doesn’t explode.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
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Big news for the coming March election, as the Los Angeles Times has joined a broad range of community groups to endorse the Healthy Streets LA initiative.
Frustrated by the lack of political will and bureaucracy, street safety advocates collected enough signatures to put Healthy Streets LA, or Measure HLA, on the March ballot. The initiative would force the city to carry out the improvements in the Mobility Plan. Any time city departments repave at least one-eighth of a mile of street, they would have to add the improvements outlined in the plan, whether bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian enhancements or fixes to ease vehicle traffic.
This makes sense. When city crews have to repaint the lines when repaving a street, why not restripe the roads according to the Mobility Plan at the same time? Yet in a city as large as Los Angeles, making this a smooth process is not always easy. The multiple departments responsible for street paving, engineering and transportation safety struggle to coordinate and have missed opportunities to install Mobility Plan projects. The mandate of Measure HLA would, ideally, prompt City Hall to better organize street work programs and make Mobility Plan improvements a part of routine road maintenance.
The paper concludes their editorial this way.
Measure HLA has broad support among neighborhood councils, environmental, labor and business groups. Their members understand that Los Angeles needs to evolve into a city that is safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and, yes, even motorists. The plan recognizes that Angelenos will still drive — it includes 80 miles of streets that are prioritized for vehicle travel and projects that help drivers maintain safe, consistent speeds and reliable travel times.
The rising number of traffic deaths is a preventable tragedy. Voters have the power to make Los Angeles’ streets safer. Vote yes on Measure HLA.
I couldn’t agree more.
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The Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, has received a federal grant to study the possibility of removing some SoCal highways, and possibly converting them to boulevards.
They could start with the proposal to remove the purposeless 90 Freeway stub, and converting it to housing and a Marina Central Park.
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San Diego police arrested 32-year old Alvaro Jovani Lopez for torching the Mission Valley memorial for fallen bicyclist and father Matt Keenan, destroying a banner and Keenan’s ghost bike; they found Lopez already behind bars for a parole violation. No reason was given for his dastardly deed.
Life is cheap in Wisconsin, where a Madison man who strung wire across a bike bridge, nearly decapitating a bike rider, walked with a gentle caress on the wrist when the judge sentenced him to a lousy four years probation.
No bias here. Underground hip-hop artist Gorilla Nems, aka Travis Doyle, took out his anger on New York’s Complete Street transformation over the past decade or so, telling a podcast host “Fuck bike lanes…this ain’t Copenhagen,” while instructing his followers to ignore walk signals and just cross the street anytime they want, after looking both ways.
A 59-year old New York woman has emerged from a months-long coma after she was struck by a bikeshare rider as she was crossing the street; a 62-year old man was ticketed for riding salmon and running a red light.
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The Metro board delayed a vote to award Metro Bike management to Lyft, after ride hail drivers and delivery riders teamed with bikeshare workers to protest the proposed contract. But you’ll have to subscribe the Daily News or find a way around the paper’s draconian paywall if you want to read about it.
Glendale residents complained they were left out of the decision making process for the city’s new bike plan, even though they say they’ll be directly affected by a proposed bike path.
Police in Huntington Beach are using bait bikes to bust bike thieves. Something the LAPD still won’t do over fears they’ll be accused of entrapment.
They get it, sort of. A Simi Valley paper says safety is a two-way street, but drivers shoulder most of the responsibility to look out for vulnerable bike riders. Although they should go to cliche jail for trotting out the tired two-way street metaphor.
Oakland got a clear message to fix their crumbling roads, when the city agreed to a $6.5 million settlement with a woman who was paralyzed when her bike hit a pothole.
Six Santa Rosa teenagers were arrested for stabbing a 41-year old man to steal his bicycle last week.
The 18-year old Las Vegas man accused of deliberately killing former Bell police chief Andreas Probst in a hit-and-run last year is now facing an attempted murder charge in a separate case for the gang stabbing of a Las Vegas man.
Life is cheap in Indiana, where a woman faces just a year behind bars after confessing to a hit-and-run that left a bike-riding man with multiple broken bones.
That’s more like it. Instead of fighting bike infrastructure, residents of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park neighborhood are actually calling on the mayor to finish a new bike boulevard.
An “avid” New York bicyclist tells tourists the best routes for exploring the city by bicycle.
They get it, sort of, too. New York officials unveiled a new campaign encouraging bike riders to be more courteous and look out for pedestrians, while admitting that drivers pose the real danger to people walking.
Bike advocates say New York has a new “Boulevard of Death,” marking the failure of the city’s Vision Zero program after ten years.
A former Maryland Director of Planning and Zoning was indicted for the alleged drunken hit-and-run that killed a bike-riding man.
A North Carolina paper examines how bike riders and pedestrians are coping with the added danger as more drivers take to local roads.
Road.cc asks bike experts if the switch to internal cables has been worth it. Meanwhile, Cycling Weekly takes up the burning topic of whether bike bells really have a useful reason to exist.
The violin belonging to a British musician was somehow reconstructed, despite being broken into over 100 pieces when he was hit by a bus while riding a bicycle; unfortunately, he wasn’t as lucky, losing a leg as a result of the crash.
A new Danish study examines how the country encouraged greater bike helmet usage without mandating them.
A new United Arab Emirates bike ride took bicyclists through all seven emirates in seven days.
Adding insult to literal injury, an American tourist was fined for illegally stepping into the path of an ebike rider — while he was in a coma as a result of the collision; the ticket was withdrawn after he hired a lawyer to fight it.
The future of the Tour of Britain, the Women’s Tour and other British races could be in doubt because the organizer of the races entered liquidation proceedings, after losing their license to conduct the races over an unpaid fee totaling the equivalent of over $884,000.
Australian pro Luke Plapp was left with a shredded kit and some truly ugly road rash after a nasty fall on a descent in the Tour Down Under.
Aussie sprinter Sam Welsford celebrated his 28th birthday by winning his third stage at the Tour Down Under on Friday. Today’s race was conducted yesterday, because they live in the future down there.
It’s hard to use a bike lane that’s blocked by a shitload of sugar beets. Stealing bikeshare bikes back from the thieves who stole them. A micro musette for mademoiselle et monsieur.
And we may have to deal with rubbernecking drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about nuzzling giraffes.
Respect them and they will respect you back ❤️ pic.twitter.com/sqQun8NYQY
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 16, 2024
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
My apologies.
I was hoping to have a new post today.
But I haven’t responded well after getting another shot in my eye to control diabetic bleeding in the retina yesterday. And after trying to write, it’s just too much strain on my eye.
So I’m going to get some sleep, and hopefully I’ll be doing better by the time you read this.
It’s another reminder that diabetes sucks, and you really don’t want this shit. So watch out for the warning signs, and get yourself tested if you’re at risk.
Because this really isn’t fun.
We’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on whatever we’ve missed the past couple days.
