Raw video provided by County News shows the van, with relatively minor front end damage, coming to a stop on 1st, with what appears to be a commuter bike sprawled in the roadway.
(I’m not embedding the video, because it shows blurred views of the victim’s body lying in the center lane near the bike, which is not something his family or friends need to see.)
The victim’s death can likely be blamed on the lack of a crossing signal or crosswalk at Figueroa, which should have provided a safer alternative to busy Harbor Blvd. But clearly didn’t.
Two deaths so close together, both in terms of time and distance, suggests serious problems on the deadly corridor.
This is at least the 16th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and already the fourth that I’m aware of in Orange County, which would usually have less than half that number so early in the year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
They found the rest of the 57-year old victim’s body in the back of a man’s pickup, where it had been since the driver had crashed into his bike around 12 hours earlier.
The driver claimed he didn’t know the victim’s body was there until he got home — and then apparently just went inside and left him there to die once he did.
Graphics by tomexploresla
Which presumably would have given the man plenty of time to sober up before the cops found the body in his truck.
And how anyone could do something like that without being drunk or stoned is beyond me.
Bike Talk talks with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider about the organization’s Healthy Streets LA initiative to force Los Angeles to build out the city’s mobility plan when streets get repaved.
That’s followed by a segment with Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss discussing the Idaho Stop Law, which allows bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and — at least in Idaho’s original version — treat red lights like stop signs.
A version of which was vetoed by California Governor Newsom last year.
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Remember what we said yesterday about the new Taylor Yard Bridge opening next month?
British singer, songwriter and producer James Blunt is one of us.
Born on this day, February 22, 1974: James Blunt, musician, here riding in aid of wounded and injured military personnel in London, UK, 2013. Happy #bicyclebirthday, James!#BOTDpic.twitter.com/gWY3kPUSJc
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A road-raging British driver walked without a single day behind bars for chasing down and ramming a bike rider who damaged his wing mirror; adding insult to injury, the driver was ordered to pay the equivalent of just $1,359 in compensation, despite totaling the victim’s $9,500 bicycle.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
New York’s legislature is considering a package of bike and pedestrian safety bills that would give cities more control over speed limits, encourage them to build safer sidewalks and bike lanes, and require drivers to study more safety topics for their license test.
February 21, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Settling for sharrows in Beverly Hills, Times columnist gets that crashes don’t just happen, and parking on the bike path
My apologies for Friday’s unexcused absence.
I’m still battling the same health issues I’ve been dealing with since before Halloween. Most nights I battle through it; last week I couldn’t.
But after seeing four different doctors since this all began, we’ve reached a clear consensus is that it’s definitely a) an inner ear problem, or b) not an inner ear problem.
Maybe the next four specialists I’m supposed to see can figure it out.
Meanwhile, have happy Presidents Day! Go out and buy a mattress or something.
The bad news is, it’s just going to be signs and sharrows. In other words, it’s the least they can do.
Literally.
Hopefully, this is just the first step as the city implements its Complete Streets plan, with its promises of pursuing “parallel, longer-range efforts to expand and upgrade cycling infrastructure.”
Let’s hope so.
On the other hand, until the paint is on the ground, we’re always just one election — or uprising by angry drivers and/or overly privileged home or business owners — from a change of heart.
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Maybe she’s starting to get it.
It was only a week ago that we criticized the Los Angeles Times’ Robin Abcarian for concluding that Vision Zero was a worthy, but impossible goal, so “why go out on a limb with a big, bold promise that is so obviously doomed to fail?”
Although the AP’s change of heart on the word should have tipped her off long before now.
The terms "accident" or "crash" are generally acceptable for vehicle collisions and wrecks. But when negligence is claimed or proven, avoid "accident," which can be read as a term exonerating the person responsible. In such cases, use "crash," "collision" or other terms.
She quotes Singer saying that in virtually every case, there is a cause — often more than one — leading up to the cause of any unfortunate event.
“Never focus on the last causal factor,” Singer told me. “The thing we screw up about ‘accidents’ is looking at the last person who made a mistake. Accidents have layered causality. When you look toward the question of preventing harm, there are just so many answers, so many ways we can throw a pillow between us and our mistakes.”
Abcarian seems to take that message to heart, concluding,
Almost every day, I drive past the intersection on Venice Boulevard and Shell Avenue close to where the actor Orson Bean was struck and killed by two cars as he crossed the four-lane street one dark evening two years ago. There’s a new bright crosswalk, warning lights and signs now where before there were none.
I used to think his death was an unfortunate accident. I’m starting to think of it as inevitable.
After the founding of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the 1960s, the organization began requiring safety improvements to protect the occupants of cars, from seat belts and collapsable steering wheels to air bags.
The result was a steady decline in traffic deaths, resulting in as many as 600,000 lives saved, Singer says.
Until now.
But progress began to reverse even before the coronavirus pandemic. Speeding on pandemic-empty streets only exacerbated the threats posed by heavier, more powerful SUVs. The crisis of traffic safety has been particularly acute for people on foot. While traffic fatalities rose 5 percent in the past decade, pedestrian deaths rose by nearly half. For people living in poverty, Black people, and Indigenous people, the likelihood of traffic death, inside and outside a car, is even more acute.
The European Union and Japan have not seen a concurrent crisis. In those jurisdictions, regulators protect people both inside and outside of a vehicle; vehicle-safety ratings take pedestrian risk into account. More than a decade ago, EU and Japanese regulators required that automakers redesign bumpers, hoods, and detection systems to reduce the likelihood of death on impact. Putting the onus of survivability on the automaker spurred the development of new technology, such as airbags that inflate outside the vehicle. Pedestrian fatalities fell by more than a third in a decade in Europe and have fallen by more than half since 2000 in Japan.
We also need to change our roads, which often plow through Black and low-income communities with the goal of making it easier to drive farther and faster. Replacing intersections with roundabouts could reduce crashes by more than 50 percent. We can hem in streets with curbs. Removing lanes, adding shoulders, bike paths, and speed bumps, and creating turn lanes would all decrease speeding and crashes.
Also, we need to rethink the way we design cars. Since 2000, the hood height of passenger trucks has increased by 11 percent and their weight by 24 percent. Consumer Reports found many trucks and SUVs have blind spots in front that are 11 feet longer than those of sedans. Many vehicles make it difficult for drivers to see pedestrians and increase the chance of fatality when they crash into someone. Americans are famous for our car culture, but it comes at a cost. A gun is a deadly weapon, but a car can be, too. It’s a national tragedy that deserves a national outcry.
This is what we could have in Los Angeles, if our ex-Climate Mayor and future ambassador to India had even a fraction of the courage and commitment shown by the his predecessor, the mayor of Paris.
MORE BIG NEWS: The Brussels inner city within the ring road will become a low traffic zone in August “in favour of pedestrians, cyclists & public transport with the ambition of creating a more livable environment in the heart of the region.”
— Ted Faber @snorerot13@mstdn.social (@snorerot13) February 18, 2022
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I’m happy to say Trevor Noah is one of us.
Born on this day, February 20, 1984: Trevor Noah, comedian, shown here multi-tasking on a very cool-looking bike in New York City. Happy #bicyclebirthday, Trevor!#BOTDpic.twitter.com/5rBShVJzjB
Your periodic reminder that this is not what bikes are for.
We hear your concern for people on the ground after the horses dispersed a crowd. Anyone who fell got up and walked away. We're unaware of any injuries. A bicycle was thrown at the horse further down the line and caused the horse to trip. The horse was uninjured. pic.twitter.com/4AYiw1q3W0
The folks at GCN tackle the route of famed Paris-San Remo race.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A writer complains that a 17-year old boy riding an ebike “could have been traveling upward of 20 mph” when he was critically injured in a collision with a truck driver, using that to justify a call to put the brakes on ebikes. Then again, the teen could have been doing just 12 mph. Or 17. Or any other number he wants to pull out of his ass.
Also back for another round is a proposal in the legislature to legalize a pilot speed cam program, while another bill would require Leading Pedestrian Intervals at all stop lights statewide. Let’s make sure the law explicitly allows bicycles to use LPIs, too.
Hoboken NJ offers proof that Vision Zero really can work if cities make a commitment to it, with no traffic deaths for the past two years, and a 35% and 11% drop in collisions involving pedestrians and bike riders, respectively.
You’ve got to be kidding. A prolific thief was given a “final, final chance” after he was convicted of stealing the equivalent of $1369 worth of parts from a British bike shop, which he claimed was to buy his daughter a birthday present — despite a whopping 126 previous convictions. Must have been a damn good present, too.
This is why people keep dying on our roads. A judge could give a convicted drunk driver his license back after a ruptured Achilles heel left him unable to walk or ride a bicycle. So they want to put him back in a big, dangerous machine and give him another chance to kill someone, since he wasn’t successful the first time.
Life is cheap in the UK, part II. A 76-year old British man will spend two years behind bars for the impatient pass and head-on crash that killed a man riding a bike, who was reportedly doing everything right. But at least he’s been banned from driving for seven years, even though it should have been life.
This time in Long Beach, at the hands of a city employee.
According to the Long Beach Post, the victim was struck by a city worker, driving a city-owned pickup, when the man on the bike allegedly ran a stop sign at 17th Street and Oregon Ave around 7:40 Friday morning.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports the driver was headed south on Oregon, which would suggest the victim, who has not been identified, was traveling on 17th when he was struck in the middle of the intersection.
The crash was reportedly witnessed by another city employee, who remained at the scene with the driver. Police do not believe the driver was under the influence, speeding or driving distracted.
There’s no word on why the victim would have run the stop sign directly in front of an oncoming truck, which did not have a stop sign.
This is at least the 15th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, in what has been a very bloody start to the year.
The victim, publicly identified only as a 37-year old man, died at the scene. The driver apparently remained at the scene following the crash.
There’s no explanation for why the victim was riding on the freeway, where bicycles are prohibited, as they are on all freeways in the Los Angeles area. Let alone why he would have been riding in the traffic lanes.
This is at least the 14th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County. It also appears to be the third in the City of Los Angeles.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
The driver briefly stopped a short distance away before driving off, leaving his victim bleeding in the street.
Investigators ask anyone who lives in the area to check their surveillance cameras for any video that might show the crash or the suspect.
Something sheriff’s investigators should have done themselves in the first few days, if not hours, following the crash, before any video would be deleted or recorded over.
But maybe they were, like, busy or something.
Anyone with information is urged to call San Dimas Traffic Detective Christopher Bronowicki at 909/859-2818.
The video is difficult to watch, so make sure you really want to see the crash and its aftermath before you click play, because you can’t unsee it once you do.
Seventy-four-year old John Burgan is in a coma in critical condition with internal injuries, as well as fractures all around his skull, face, ribs and right femur, after an apparent hit-and-run.
The location and condition of his undamaged bicycle suggest he may have been struck by the wing mirror of a driver’s vehicle while making his way to the left turn lane at Hosp Way.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Officer Adam Bentley at 760/931-2288 or email adam.bentley@carlsbadca.gov.
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Finally, a little good news from LA City Hall.
Streetsblog is reporting that the City Council Transportation Committee has taken the unprecedented step of — wait for it — actually lowering speed limits in the City of Angels, in hopes of maybe making a fewer of them.
Angels, that is.
The city’s hands have long been tied by the deadly 85th Percentile Law, which worked in conjunction with speeding drivers to push limits ever higher, regardless of whether the new speeds were actually safe.
It took a new state law, sponsored by Burbank Assemblymember Laura Friedman, to reform, but not repeal, the 85th Percentile Law to allow the city to begin reducing speeds on city streets.
However, the committee’s action covers just 177 miles out of LA’s more than 6,500 miles of streets.
But it’s a start.
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It looks like New Yorkers overwhelmingly support safer streets, and using automated traffic cams to do it.
New Yorkers want these changes to make streets safe. An Emerson College poll found that 68% of city residents support lowering the speed limit to 20 mph, and 72% want the city to have authority to set its own speed limits. A Siena College poll found that 85% of New York City voters, including 84% of car-owners, support red light enforcement cameras. More than three-quarters of New York City voters, including just about the same share of car owners, support automated speed safety cameras.
Not only are the speed and red light cams popular, they’re also effective.
As one example of the consequences, consider New York City’s speed safety camera program, which is currently only permitted by Albany to operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday. In effect, Albany forces cameras to be off for more than half of the hours in any given week. Speed safety cameras are wildly effective: A 55% drop in all traffic fatalities and a 72%decline in speeding followed the launch of the program. Speed safety cameras also avoid racial biases that may be present in armed police stops and avoid risks of stops turning violent or deadly. However, in 2020, nearly 40% of people killed in fatal traffic crashes died in speed safety camera zones, but when the cameras were forced to be off. Speeding doesn’t sleep, but state law forces our speed safety cameras to get plenty of shut-eye.
Let’s hope California legislators are paying attention.
Not to mention the LA City Council, which cancelled the city’s red light camera program, for reasons that mostly boiled down to angry drivers who didn’t like getting tickets for breaking the law.
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I wouldn’t count on plastic bollards to keep you safer. Even if these are better than the flimsy car-tickler plastic bendy posts.
Santa Monica has these in a few spots but goes for the truly useless ones like these in most places. Disappointingly the latter for the Ocean Ave "protected" bike lane and, shocker, half of then were gone in less than a year and it constantly has motor vehicles in it. pic.twitter.com/5xG7g9zNuS
— lana Negrete mentioned me on rightwing fake news (@schroedinger_) February 17, 2022
Personally, I consider anything marked by plastic bollards to be a separated bike lane, rather than a protected bike lane.
Because those little posts don’t protect anyone.
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Burbank police will be offering bicycle registration next Wednesday afternoon.
And cookies, too.
Join us for our first ever Cookie with a Cop next Wednesday at Sliders, from 2-4pm. We will also have bicycle registration available, too! @BurbankCApic.twitter.com/yXwRNRRDZS
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Cincinnati op-ed calls bike lanes a “misappropriation of funds,” calling for the money to be spent fixing potholes rather than catering “to a small group of citizens that happen to bicycle.” Never mind that potholes are more dangerous for people on bikes than those safely ensconced in a couple tons of steel and glass.
Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a man got a lousy 30 months for the drunken hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle, then tried to blame an innocent co-worker for the crash. Never mind that it was the third time in six years he’d been accused of DUI. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.
February 16, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA Times editorial calls for supporting Healthy Streets LA initiative, and Oxnard man arraigned in drunken bike death
Nice to see a writer for the LA Times get behind a ballot measure safer, healthier streets.
The measure would require Los Angeles to implement the ambitious, but long-forgotten, Mobility Plan 2035, building out bus and bike lanes, as well as pedestrian improvements, when city streets are repaved.
Here’s what Cavanaugh had to say about the plan, which advocates fought for years to create and pass.
But, as is so often the case in L.A., the implementation of the Mobility Plan has not matched its ambition.
Since its adoption, the city has only made bike, bus and pedestrian upgrades to 95 miles out of 3,137 miles identified in the plan — or 3% in a little more than six years. Time and again, city leaders have ignored or torpedoed bike and bus lanes outlined in the Mobility Plan. At this rate, it will take nearly 200 years — not 20 — to fulfill the plan’s vision.
As Cavanaugh points out, it’s crazy that it takes a ballot measure to force the city to do what it already agreed to do.
But that’s the city we live and ride in these days, where fear of angering anyone leads to paralysis among city leaders. Along with more and more community meetings, where the people who scream the loudest usually carry the day.
And it’s usually the people who fear and fight any kind of change who scream the loudest.
Again, here’s Cavanaugh.
The need for community engagement can’t be an excuse for doing nothing. There’s too much at stake. Last year nearly 300 people were killed in traffic collisions in Los Angeles, a roughly 20% increase over the two prior years. Nearly half of the people killed were pedestrians. Some 52% of Angelenos said that crossing the street in their neighborhood is dangerous, according to polling conducted for the Healthy Streets LA initiative.
As part of his Green New Deal sustainability plan — another aspirational document — Garcetti called for 50% of all trips in the city by 2035 to be made by walking, biking and taking transit. But that goal will be unreachable without the political will to prioritize the infrastructure and transit improvements that make it easier, safer and more pleasant for people to get around.
It’s ridiculous that we’re in this position.
But it’s sadly become clear over the last decade that we can’t count on city leaders to do what they already know has to be done. Yet clearly lack the courage and political will to do.
He faces charges of DUI causing injury or death, and driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08 percent, along with a single count of felony vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, combined with special enhancements for a serious felony and a crime involving great violence.
He remains in jail on $50,000 bond, which will be reviewed tomorrow.
Thirty-eight-year old Carlos Arturo Acosta is expected to be charged with hit-and-run resulting in death, and driving on a suspended license.
He’s being held on $75,000 bail.
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There’s always a shortage of bike lockers, even at the Metro stations that actually have them. And high demand for them at the stations that don’t.
At tomorrow's Metro Planning and Programming committee there is a staff recommendation for Metro station bike parking – a $6M 5-year contract for electronic bike lockers https://t.co/XnuEPnUUBF
You probably didn’t have this one on your 2022 bingo card — an Orlando, Florida bike cop in hot, but polite, pursuit of a very drunk woman riding a motorized suitcase.
Walk Bike Glendale alerts us to public meetings this week to fight a plan to settle for sharrows on La Crescenta Ave tomorrow, and on Saturday to create a 9.4-mile linear park along the Verdugo Wash.
The Monterey Park City Council will discuss an induced demand-inducing plan at today’s meeting to widen Garvey Ave from four lanes to a ridiculous six lanes. Exactly the opposite of what should be done to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians, and reduce motor vehicle use while California is literally burning. Thanks to Active SGV for the heads-up.
Just a year after revising Virginia law to require drivers to change lanes to pass bike riders, and remove the limitation on riding two abreast, the state senate is going backwards by approving a measure that would require people on bicycles to ride single file when being overtaken by someone in a car. The bill’s sponsor appeared to make up an incident to support it.
A University of Toronto study confirms what you already knew. Over half of all drivers never look for bicyclists or pedestrians before making a right turn. Then again, some of them never look for us when we’re right in front of them, either.
February 15, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on New bike lane appears on North Figueroa, 16-year old critical after SaMo hit-and-run, and upper Ballona Creek bike path closure
Cedillo has gone so far as to ask the council to remove all proposed bike lanes in CD1 from the city’s mobility plan, arguing that the people in his district don’t ride bikes. And evidently forgetting that many people in the immigrant-rich district rely on bikes as their primary, if not only, form of transportation.
It’s not clear why the councilmember, whose opposition to safety projects earned him the moniker Roadkill Gill, had an apparent change of heart.
One clue comes from LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney, who notes that the new bike lanes wouldn’t inconvenience the people in cars.
L.A. City Transportation Department (LADOT) spokesperson Colin Sweeney wrote that “StreetsLA recently completed resurfacing on Figueroa after which LADOT restriped the street to bring it up to current standards. In this instance, restriping created space to add a bike lane to the existing configuration without impacting other road users (no impact on parking or number of travel lanes).” North Figueroa was repaved between Pasadena Avenue and the 110 Freeway.
Although neighborhood advocate Felicia G. has another, equally plausible explanation.
Cedillo has been in office 9 years. The community has asked for a safer @fig4all the entire time.
Because he’s up for re-election soon *surprise* a bike lane is squeezed in?
The victim was injured around 2 a.m. Sunday, when Maximiliano Ramos Santiago allegedly slammed into her bike at Chelsea Ave and Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica.
Santiago was arrested at his home yesterday, and booked on charges of felony hit-and-run and driving without a license.
Which would have given him plenty of time to sober up, assuming he had been drinking, which is highly likely given the time of the crash.
Let’s hope she makes a full and fast recovery.
And that the driver who did this is held fully accountable for leaving a young woman bleeding in the street.
It looks like the upper section of the Ballona Creek bike path will be out of commission for the next four and a half months.
Speaking of Ballona Creek Bike Path, the stretch between the end near La Cienega Station and Duquesne appears to be closed due to Higuera Bridge work until 6/30/22. Will it randomly open on weekends like it was for me a couple weeks ago? Who knows! #culvercitypic.twitter.com/8tAlHJ52cM
A letter writer takes the LA Times’ Robin Abcarian to task for questioning the value of Vision Zero when, she said, eliminating traffic deaths is doomed to fail. Although that name of that letter writer seems sort of familiar.
A letter from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider argues that Rancho Mirage can, and should, make convert Highway 111 into a real street that meets the needs of all users, rather than just the ones in cars. Exactly the same arguments apply to PCH in Malibu, as well, which should be the city’s Main Street, instead of a sewer for pass-through drivers and their cars.
Residents of a San Mateo neighborhood overwhelming oppose plans for a bike lane network, preferring preserving street parking over the safety of people on bicycles; however, people in the rest of the city support the project.
Streetsblog invites you to vote on the worst kind of bicycle infrastructure; among the choices are Orange County favorite painted bike lanes next to high speed roadways, and sharrows, which only exist to help drivers improve their aim and thin the herd.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A Pennsylvania man is still riding at 90 years old, although the area’s hills mean he does most of his riding inside. Which makes him an ideal candidate for a ped-assist ebike to get back on the road.
The driver was reportedly traveling east on Wooley at a high rate of speed when he swerved onto the shoulder and slammed into the victim.
The bike rider, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene.
The 27-year old driver remained at the scene and was booked for vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, as well as felony DUI. He was being held on $50,000 bond.
Anyone with information is urged to call Oxnard Police Officer Manuel Perez at 805/385-7750 or email manuel.perez@oxnardpd.org.
This is at least the 13th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the first that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
The hit-and-run epidemic show no sign of stopping.
The same day a Santa Ana bike rider was murdered by a driver who fled the scene, leaving his or her innocent victim to die in the street, another bicyclist was lucky to survive being run down by a hit-and-run driver on the Ventura County section of Southern California’s killer highway.
Or maybe calling PCH a serial killer highway is more accurate.
Here’s a brief press release from the victim’s family.
Santa Barbara family seeks answers and witnesses in PCH hit-and-run
On Saturday, February 12 at 11:10 a.m., Santa Barbara resident Jeff Sczechowski (seh-CHOW-ski) was struck from behind and thrown into a parked vehicle while riding his black mountain bike on the shoulder of the northbound side of the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). This was just north of the Sycamore Canyon State Park entrance across from the Thornhill Broome Beach Campground that is south of the large sand hill on the inland side of the PCH. He was wearing a white helmet and grey and yellow cycling clothing. The victim was transported by ambulance to the Ventura County Medical Center, where he is hospitalized and receiving care. He has sustained significant injuries to his back, leg, and arms. Jeff, a chemical engineering PhD, manages a research center in the UCSB Department of Physics. He is also an avid cyclist and bonsai tree artist. Jeff, his wife, and their children ask anyone who may have been involved in or witnessed the event to please contact Ventura California Highway Patrol Officer Bowen at 805-662-2640.
Shamefully, fully half of the 12 people killed riding bicycles in Southern California this year have been the victims of hit-and-run drivers.
Yes, 50 percent.
There is simply no excuse.
Not for the heartless cowards who lack the basic human decency to stick around after a crash. Or for those in elected office who lack the courage to do anything about it.
The project would have added 4.75 miles of offroad trails along a pair of channels, where they would have had zero impact on traffic and the surrounding community. And provided much needed safe routes through the beachside city, which is already one of the most dangerous places to ride a bike in Orange County.
Instead, the responses from local residents were apparently so bad that local officials decided not to do the right thing, and killed the project instead.
Never mind the current dangers faced by bike riders and pedestrians in the city. Or the desperate need to get people out of their cars, at a time when Orange County is already a year-round fire zone.
And never mind that access to a safe bikeway increases local property values.
There’s simply no rational reason to oppose a project like this, let alone cancel it.
But they did anyway.
Thanks to Eric Eberwein for the tip.
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Say goodbye to the green bollards on Del Amo Blvd in Long Beach, and hello to a new curb-protected bike lane.
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The Davis Bike Counter wasn’t just removed. It was killed by an errant driver.
No bias here, either. An Indian protected bike lane was removed after drivers were “inconvenienced” by the lane reduction to make room for it, never mind that bike riders were inconvenienced by the drivers parking in it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
San Francisco ripped out a protected bike lane due to a construction zone, temporarily replacing it with a painted bike lane, despite being on a street where three people have been killed in three years. Never mind that removing the protected lane will make the city liable for any injuries that happen as a result.
Utah’s law cutting the blood alcohol level required for DUI to .05, from the .08 allowed the other 49 states, is showing demonstrable benefits, with drunk driving deaths and crashes dropping 20% in the state since the law went into effect.
A cautionary story from Charleston, South Carolina, where police are reopening a crash investigation after a man died two months after he was hit by a driver, despite being released from the hospital the same day with an apparent misdiagnosis of just minor injuries.
Retired Irish pro Nicholas Roche has been warned not to ride in the mountains south of Dublin, while he’s filming the British version of Dancing With the Stars in the city, because thieves are known to knock riders off their bikes, then toss them in their van and drive off while the rider is still sprawled in the roadway.
The Italian movie The Pantini Affair should be coming to the US, after Capital Motion Picture Group picked up the North American rights to the 2020 film about the last five years in the life of legendary cyclist Marco Pantani.
