July 1, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Person killed by cement truck driver in Ontario crash; a bicycle likely belonging to the victim seen underneath the truck
And there’s a strong likelihood that the victim was riding a bicycle.
According to KTLA-5, the victim was apparently in the crosswalk on Archibald Ave at the onramp to the eastbound 60 Freeway in Ontario when he or she was struck by the driver of a cement truck turning onto the ramp around 8:35 am Friday.
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, died at the scene.
The driver told CHP investigators he believed the person was in the crosswalk at the time of the crash; an aerial view showed a tarp a few feet from the crosswalk.
When the driver pulled over a short distance later, there was a bicycle visibly lodged under the truck.
While it hasn’t been publicly confirmed that the victim was riding a bike, it seems pretty farfetched to conclude that the driver coincidentally ran over a bicycle and a pedestrian in separate incidents at nearly the same time.
If this is confirmed, it will be at least the 23rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in San Bernardino County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and all their loved ones.
June 30, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 74-year old road bicyclist killed in apparent solo fall near Ojai; first Ventura County bicycling death this year
This is now how we wanted to start the holiday weekend.
According to the Ventura County Star, an older man was killed in an apparent solo fall while riding a road bike near Ojai Friday morning.
The victim, identified as 74-year old Ojai resident Michael A. Chambliss, was riding east on Rancho Drive west of Del Norte Road, just west of the Ojai city limits, shortly before 10:45 am when he somehow lost control of his Bianchi Infinito, and fell to the street.
He was taken to an Ojai hospital after paramedics attempted to revive him, where he died sometime later.
June 30, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Pasadena ebike rebates start tomorrow, Americans know wider highways won’t fix traffic, and LADOT wants your input
Today marks the start of a four-day holiday weekend for many people, myself included.
Which means the drinking and driving is likely to start early today, and continue through Tuesday.
While riding a bike remains the best way to get to the fireworks and other festivities, you’ll want to watch out for distracted and drunk drivers, because chances are, they won’t be looking for you.
So ride defensively, stay safe, and come back here bright and early on Wednesday to catch up on anything we may have missed over the weekend. I’ll be around if there’s any breaking news in the meantime, so make sure you’ve signed up for email alerts near the end of that long, long blue column on the right if you haven’t already.
And have a great 4th of July!
As for the photo up above, it’s a sad day when even clowns aren’t safe on the streets, judging by the residue by the curb near my apartment.
Even if government officials and transportation agencies — like Metro — don’t seem to get it.
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Good question.
The Highland Ave survey considers the section from Franklin to Santa Monica, so it doesn’t go up to the Hollywood Bowl, or down to the subway on Wilshire.
The survey for Culver Blvd covers the street from Berryman Ave to Centinela west of the 405.
Gravel Bike California’s latest epic takes you riding on Mendenhall Ridge in the Angeles National Forest, by way of Metrolink.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
A New Orleans advocacy group is teaming with the local bikeshare to give away bike helmets to promote bike safety in the city with the country’s highest per capita bicycling death rate. Except that’s just more victim blaming in the guise of safety, because it doesn’t do a damn thing to get the people in the big dangerous machines to sober up or pay attention to the road and people ahead of them.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
BikeLA, nee Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, is looking for auction items for their upcoming LA Bike Fest, in case you or your company has anything of value you can donate. Maybe I can give them an autographed copy of this blog.
A new movie tells the story of a 12-year old bike thief who is none too happy when her estranged dad re-enters the picture. Although it might be pushing it to expect the bike community to have sympathy for a bicycle rustling waif.
Heartbreaking story from Detroit, where a man was found not guilty after his three dogs attacked and killed a nine-year old girl as she rode her bike, then began eating her leg; the law requires a person to know their dogs were dangerous before they can be held responsible. Maybe he didn’t know they were dangerous, but he may have starved them.
An artist in Lansing, Michigan has designed a series of artistic leaf-shaped bike racks. Which aren’t likely to be used, because a) they don’t look like bike racks, and b) they appear to be just bolted to the sidewalks, meaning they could be unbolted, too.
The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay calls Belgium’s Wout Van Aert the Bo Jackson of the Tour de France, but the paper insists on hiding the story behind its draconian paywall. Am I the only one who is less likely to subscribe to any publication after being confronted by their paywall?
June 29, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Encinitas declares bicycling emergency, support for Pacific Beach Slow Street, and car death cult piece misses mark
However, the planned state of emergency action items reported by San Diego’s NBC-7 seem a little lacking.
The local emergency allows the city quicker access to resources necessary for education and enforcement, if needed. Some actions that the city council hopes to accomplish include the rental of 10 messages boards that will be placed in high-visibility areas reminding both riders and drivers to share the road, 300 yard signs urging safety, additional work with schools to educate students on-campus and a bike safety video made in unison with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department that can be played at assemblies and meetings.
The declaration places the most of the onus for safety on the potential victims riding on two wheels, rather than the people in the big, dangerous machines.
Because yard signs and message boards aren’t likely to slow drivers down, and won’t do a damn thing for the distracted drivers who don’t even see them.
Thanks to Phillip Young and Marcello Calicchio for the heads-up.
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These days, every street project that might possibly inconvenience someone is contentious.
Usually, needlessly so.
That’s certainly the case with the Slow Street project on Diamond Street in San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood, where all of four — yes, four — people rose up at a recent Town Council meeting to complain about it.
Did I mention that it was just four people who complained?
Fortunately, the local representative for the City Council Mobility Board, who was also the researcher who evaluated the project, wrote to the San Diego Union-Tribune to support the project.
…The benefits are staggering. The project led to an increase in walking and biking mode share, and children and older adults using the street. Driving mode share decreased by nearly 60 percent with a smaller impact on traffic on adjacent streets.
People reported a greater sense of community and well-being. Most were using the street for transportation and half planned to visit a business during their trip. Most importantly, there was overwhelming support for making the project permanent.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but “overwhelming support” is probably more than four.
A lot more.
She goes on to say that making Diamond a permanent slow street shouldn’t even be up for debate, since it gets San Diego that much closer to meeting its Climate Action Plan and Vision Zero goals.
Let’s hope the city council is listening.
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Progressive magazine The American Prospect missed the mark.
But he goes off track at the end in blaming neoliberalism of the 1980s and ’90s for the American failure, which he argues resulted in less government oversight, drawing a straight line leading to today’s massively oversized vehicles, overly wide roads and high traffic death rates.
There’s no arguing that traffic deaths are too high, and getting higher, and that poor road design and the ever-increasing size of motor vehicles are at least partly to blame, along with a dramatic increase in distracted driving.
But fondly remembering the good old days when traffic death rates were even worse doesn’t help.
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I have somehow miraculously recovered the ability to embed tweets.
And yes, I’m including the links above in case the tweets below somehow disappear.
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I’m not sure if we shared this short film from Nimesh in Los Angeles when it came out last December.
So we’ll correct that possible oversight today.
In it, he argues that LA’s flat terrain and year-round Mediterranean climate should make it the bicycle capital of the world. But it isn’t, because Los Angeles makes biking in paradise a nightmare.
Thanks to Steven Hallett for the heads-up.
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Robert Leone forwards news that the Marines will apparently be blowing things up on Camp Pendleton again.
Which means that the popular bike path through the base will be closed from July 31st to August 4th.
So if you’re planning to ride south from Orange County, or north from San Diego County, you’ll have to use the shoulder of the freeway from the Las Pulgas Gate north to the tunnel under I-5.
Like he says, Google Translate is your friend. But I don’t make friends easily, so I’ll let him give you the shorthand.
I got a newsletter from the German Cycling Federation ADFC, and in this issue it shows a proposal to do a street makeover for a major arterial into the center of town. Next step is through the city council.
The numbers for users from 2011 to 2022 are amazing. The north end of the project runs into a nasty intersection that has been undergoing total renovation for the last 4 years. The existing situation shows 9,300 users on bikes daily. There are a couple of pictures of the existing bike lane. Unreal usage, but it is a main route direct into the city center.
It would be great if it gets through the city council.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
This is who we share the world with. Even the bike-riding mayor of Emeryville has to deal with wannabe killer drivers. Unfortunately, though, this doesn’t cross the legal threshold for a threat, since it lacks a statement of intent — “I would” vs “I will.”
Twitter post
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus says we’re having the wrong conversation about ebikes, as people predictably point fingers at kids on bikes while calling for mandatory licensing after the death of a teenage bike rider.
The family of a 14-year-old boy pinned to the ground by an off-duty Chicago cop who mistakenly accused him of stealing a bike is suing the city and the police officer; Michael A. Vitellaro was acquitted of official misconduct and aggravated battery in the incident earlier this month.
And needless to say, Southern California has a long, long way to go.
The national bike advocacy group rates cities according to the quality of each city’s bike network, assigning a Bicycle Network Analysis score, or BNA, on a scale of 0 to 100.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that no US city scored lower than a 2.
Provincetown, Massachusetts and Crested Butte, Colorado ranked #1 and #2 overall, respectively, with BNA scores of 88 and 87.
Although I’m sure many LA residents think riding here is #2. And sadly, PeopleForBikes seems to agree.
Which puts us in a class with such bicycling nirvanas as Santa Ana, Las Vegas, Laguna Niguel, Raleigh NC, and Krugerville, Texas.
Which probably wasn’t named after Freddy, even if it should be.
Bike-friendly Sacramento suburb Davis ranked #1 among medium-sized cities with a BNA score of 77, while Minneapolis, Minnesota ranked atop the large city listings with a score of 68.
Outside+ is on sale for $1.99 a month for the next year, including the Outside digital network and the new Velo site. No guarantee what happens to your rate after that, however.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
New stories from Urbanize and Streetsblog examine Monday’s opening of the Venice Blvd Safety and Mobility Project, which upgrades 2.5 miles of existing bike lanes and adds 2.1 miles of dedicated busways, while leaving a few notable gaps. Correction: Originally I had written that the project added four miles of protected bike lanes, and 2.5 miles of bus lanes, which was a misstatement. Thanks to Joe Linton for the correction.
Bicycling examines plans to build an advisory lane in Kalamazoo, Michigan, referring to it as an edge lane, which creates a single traffic lane in the center of the street while allowing drivers to move into the bike lanes on either side to pass another vehicle. Read it on AOL if the magazine blocks you.
New York has cleared the final federal hurdle preventing congestion pricing; the city is now expected to begin charging drivers to enter midtown Manhattan sometime next year. Which should clear the way for Los Angeles to institute its much discussed congestion pricing plan, as well.
A new Australian report lists 50 distinct contributory factors leading to bike riders being struck by drivers, along with another 50 leading to near misses; the leading factors are drivers pulling out in front of bicyclists, driver non-compliance with road rules, and drivers failing to give way. Note the key word with all of those is “drivers,” not bicyclists.
My apologies to anyone who got a premature version of today’s post, after I inadvertently hit the Publish button before it was ready.
Which makes me the poster child for premature publication.
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I’ve struggled with feelings of failure for several years now, the result of the the city’s failure to follow through on its promises to improve the safety and livability of our streets.
I started this site 15 years ago today, in part because I realized I can’t change the world. But I could help make Los Angeles a safer place to ride a bike.
And that, in turn, could change the world.
But as I’ve gotten older, and watched the backsliding and lack of commitment from our elected and appointed leaders, I’ve had to accept that the livable Los Angeles I’ve long envisioned is not likely to happen in my lifetime.
So I’ve continued to get more depressed fighting for bikeways, safe streets and livable communities, while working to build a community I may never see.
Something else that has happened over this decade and a half, however. I’ve watched as other people have picked up the torch, first a relative handful inspired by myself and others to fight to improve their own communities, then the others they have inspired, building exponentially on one another.
I now realize that whatever success I have in this life will be measured, not by the changes I’ve achieved, but the spark I’ve helped spread to so many others.
Like Moses, I see the promised land of what this city can and should be, but know we’re not likely to get there in whatever time I have left in this life.
Yet I’m confident that the change will one day come, and generations to come will enjoy a city that is livable and welcoming for all, whoever you are and however you travel, because of those who may just now be joining the fight.
So I promise to keep it up.
And if anything I say or do inspires you to join in or keep up that fight, then my work here will not be in vain.
Now let’s get off this damn soapbox, and onto the news.
According to Nhan Tran, head of Safety and Mobility for WHO,
“We must urgently move from an old model of drab, dirty and dangerous streets built for cars, to safe, green and vibrant spaces designed and built for people. Mobility underpins so many other aspects of public health and development. By making walking and cycling safe, we can reduce air pollution and fight climate change,” Tran said at the Vision Zero Conference on Road Safety here in the Swedish capital.
“By prioritizing the safety of vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists, we can reduce poverty and tackle inequalities, including access to jobs, schools as well as gender equality,” said Tran.
Meanwhile, People Powered Media offers a Twitter thread covering the event — and some of the challenges still confronting bike riders on the boulevard, while calling for safer streets for a very personal reason.
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Finally, social media confirms that Angelenos really did strip to save the planet on Saturday.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A group of middle-aged bike riders are accused of peeing all over a pretty Cornwall, England beer garden after complaining about the food, then riding away without paying their tab. And forcing pedestrians and a person in a wheelchair out of their way as they rode off.
A bike-riding London man got fed up with a group blocking a roadway to protest oil use, pushing them out of the way while shouting at them to “fucking move” and “go and protest properly” so people in cars could use the street.
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Local
Santa Monica police will conduct another bike and pedestrian safety enforcement operation this Friday, with an emphasis on “primary collision factors involving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists.” The standard protocol applies — ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit line so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.
Business Insider picks up the story about bike riders in helmets and hi-vis being seen by drivers as less human, adding to the debate over mandating helmets when helmet laws have been shown to drive down ridership, while unfairly targeting the poor and people of color. Thanks to Marcello Calicchio for the heads-up.
Cheyenne, Wyoming will host its annual Bike to Work or WhereverDay tomorrow, described by some as “the best holiday ever, all on two wheels.” Something that would have been unthinkable in the former cowboy town when I grew up less than an hour south of it.
In a nice change, Evanston, Illinois is planning to build a protected bike lane on a busy street that carries 12,000 cars a day, along with “an unknown number of cyclists.” Recognizing, as others have said, that you can’t measure how many people will use a bridge by counting the people who currently swim across the river.
“Shocking” video captures a drunk UK driver high on coke speeding along the wrong side of the road, moments before slamming into a bike rider; the driver got seven well-deserved years for killing the victim. Even if it looks like he’s on the right side of the road to those of us on this side of the Atlantic.
