June 6, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 41-year old man riding bike killed by Colton hit-and-run driver; 13th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year
Once again, someone on a bicycle has been murdered by a hit-and-run driver.
Beverly Hills came tantalizingly close to installing the LA-area’s first advisory lanes, which narrow a roadway to a single two-way center lane and two bike lanes, requiring drivers to move into the bike lanes to get around an oncoming car.
Instead, they settled for sharrows that just sort of hint at a bike lane on both sides of Clifton Way between San Vicente and Robertson, requiring drivers to move to the center to get around bike riders.
Or more likely, impatiently following people on bicycles until they finally find a break in oncoming traffic, before angrily swerving around them.
Because, as we’ve noted before, sharrows only serve to thin the herd, with the arrows there to help drivers improve their aim.
The San Diego Bicycle Coalition is hosting its third bike summit this Thursday and Friday.
This is how SANDAG Associate Active Transportation Planner Josh Clark described it in an email.
In its third incarnation, the Regional Bike Summit has been a wonderful summary of practice and ideas that’s worth your attendance. The full lineup of speakers, panels and fun at the San Diego Regional Bike Summit is hosted by the Bike Coalition. This year’s theme: Pedaling Past the Pandemic will highlight the recent “Boom” that has occurred during the pandemic and how we can maintain it. Highlights of the Summit include speakers and sessions on Mobility Justice, E-bikes, Housing and Active Transportation, MIcro-Mobility and Mobility Hubs, Connecting Communities and much more. We will also hear from our regional elected leaders on the state of mobility and bicycling improvements being made in our communities. Registration includes the opening reception, lunch on Friday and rides on Saturday.
Lime is also offering two free half hour rides Tuesday on any of their scooters or bikes to get you to and from the polls, use promo code LIMETOPOLLSCALI.
Sixty-one-year old Gregory Bachman was killed by the driver of a massive Chevy Silverado pickup while crossing a rural intersection. Local authorities said he somehow crashed into the truck, but didn’t explain how or why.
The gravel intersection doesn’t appear to be controlled by any signs or signals, leaving it up to each person to negotiate a safe crossing. It’s likely the driver wasn’t expecting to find anyone on a bicycle on a gravel country road like that.
UC Davis police defend themselves over accusations that the cop on the scene after a bike rider was struck by the driver of a garbage truck did nothing to aid the victim before paramedics arrived. I’m also told a witness accused the cop of driving over the victim’s foot.
Researchers at MIT have developed a self-driving bicycle, which they say could make docked bikeshare systems three and a half times more efficient, and dockless bikeshares eight times more efficient; the bike automatically turns into a tricycle to improve stability in riderless mode, then converts back when it’s being ridden.
Heartbreaking news from Indianapolis, where one of the last things a bike-riding hit-and-run victim did before she died was to give police the license number of the car that hit her, which led to the arrest of the 27-year old driver.
Around a hundred Boston bike riders turned out to honor late 19th Century Black bicyclist Kittie Knox, who defied racial and gender barriers and joined the League of American Wheelmen — forerunner to the League of American Bicyclists — just one year before they banned Black members in 1894; sadly, she was just 26 when she died just six years later.
A Melbourne, Australia writer laments the city’s decision to stop building bike lanes, after getting complaints from out-of-town, pass-through drivers. Which should sound familiar to anyone who has been biking in LA for awhile.
June 3, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Plea deal in death of 15-year old Javier Gonzalez, grieving families fight for safer streets, and housing for people not cars
Happy World Bicycle Day!
Now get out there and ride one.
And contact your elected leaders to demand safer streets when you get back.
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It looks like there will be justice for Javier Gonzalez, after all.
If you consider over six years justice for fleeing the scene after killing a teenage boy.
Sentencing is scheduled for June 13th. Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of six years and eight months, significantly above the standard penalty of four years for a fatal hit-and-run in California.
And yet, it seems like it’s still not enough.
Caldera has a lengthy criminal record, with prior convictions for car theft, possessing a forged driver’s license, vandalism, and being felon in possession of a firearm; he was out on probation at the time of Gonzalez’ death.
Today’s must read is a hard-hitting, inspiring and heartbreaking piece from the New Yorker, about families of fallen pedestrians and bike riders who banded together to fight for safer streets — leading to the country’s first Vision Zero in New York, and traffic safety wins at city hall and the state capital.
By century’s end, cars had grown progressively larger, better insulated from the feedback of the surrounding environment, and safer for the people inside them. Those on the outside were less lucky. The U.S. automotive lobby resisted regulations enacted in Europe that made cars and trucks less lethal, and, by 2018, the number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths per kilometre in the United States was more than four times higher than in the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Among the most vulnerable are older adults, who in 2020 made up twenty per cent of killed pedestrians, and people who live in low-income neighborhoods where there has been little investment in safe road design.
Between 2010 and 2019, as the number of U.S. drivers or passengers who died in collisions held fairly steady, deaths of those on bikes rose thirty-six per cent, and deaths of those on foot nearly doubled.
It’s a long piece. But more that worth the time you’ll invest in reading it.
Farhad Manjoo calls for the passage of AB 2097, which would prohibit minimum parking requirements near public transit, or at least SB 1067, which gives developers more leeway to get around parking minimums.
For early risers, the LACBC will host a Twitter Space to discuss women, children and bicycling starting at 6:00 this morning.
Yes, 6 am.
So chances are, you may have already missed it.
Twitter post
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bike just keeps on going.
No bias here. Call it friendly fire, as a self-professed non-leg-shaving cyclist says everyone hates bike riders, so we should ride cringingly at the edge of the road to keep from annoying drivers more than they already are. Even in the English countryside where he says hedges block drivers’ views, making it far safer to take the lane, regardless of who you piss off.
Horrible news from the UK, where a woman riding a bicycle was left with a life-changing injury when a man sicced one of his large dogs on her, forcing it to bite her upper leg and clamp down for several minutes until she managed to break free, after accusing her of nearly running into his kid on a bike path. Let’s hope he goes away for a long time. And those dogs — and his kid — get a new home with someone who isn’t so cruel.
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Local
A writer for City Watchpushes back on the recently approved plans for a bus rapid transit line on Colorado Blvd through Eagle Rock, calling the reallocation of traffic lanes undemocratic because it doesn’t give all the road space to people in cars. Even though it seems far more democratic to reserve space for pedestrians, bike riders and yes, transit users, too.
Très scandaleux! A San Diego TV station claims to have caught the 30th Street bike counter double counting some bike riders, not counting others, and even counting an armored truck illegally parked in the lane, which some local business owners claim proves the new bike lane is underused.
Berkeley residents are fighting for a carfree future on Telegraph Ave north of the UC Berkeley campus; as usual, business owners along the street are fighting back, unable to imagine any customers walking or biking to get there. If customers won’t walk or bike a few blocks to do business with you, there’s something seriously wrong with the way you do business.
Housing inspectors in Minneapolis are saying goodbye to their SUVs and using Rad Power ebikes to conduct their inspections instead; the city purchased five of the ebikes for a total of $12,000, and have already put 1,200 miles on them. Which is a hell of a lot less than they would have paid for five motor vehicles.
One casualty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was New York’s ultrafast bicycle delivery startup Buyk, which was forced to declare bankruptcy and layoff all of its American employees when US sanctions cut off access to its Russian co-founders and parent company, as well as financing from Russian banks.
Life is cheap in Florida, where a Vero Beach driver walked with a lousy $148 fine for swerving into a bike lane and killing a 63-year old man riding a bike, despite his long record of traffic violations and refusal to take a blood test.
A new study from a Sydney, Australia hospital shows injuries to delivery bicyclists are dramatically underreported, with delivery riders 13 times more likely than other bicyclists to be injured between the hours of 8 pm and midnight.
June 2, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Longtime Chez Panisse wine director killed while riding bike, and Fresno driver deliberately runs down four bike riders
Jonathan Waters was struck by a minivan driver Friday night, as he was riding home from the restaurant where he’d worked for 32 years. He died in an Oakland hospital the next day.
An authority on local wines, Waters was credited with raising the reputation of several small California wineries.
As of yesterday, PCH will be narrowed to one lane in each direction for construction work to replace the 96-year old Trancas Creek Bridge; the new bridge will have bike lanes, pedestrian lanes and 10-foot shoulders, as well as a six-food median. Unfortunately, it will also have capacious 12-foot traffic lanes to encourage speeding.
Bike thefts continue to fall in England and Wales, dropping for the fifth straight year despite a jump in ridership; an insurance company credits less commuting due to the pandemic for the most recent drop.
A New Zealand woman faces a charge of careless driving causing death for dooring a 19-year old man riding a bicycle, who was knocked in front of another driver and killed. Proof that it’s possible to charge a driver for dooring, even where it’s not explicitly prohibited.
June 1, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 8 years for Sebastopol killer drunk driver, permanent Slow Streets in K-town and Hollywood, and WeHo bike ride tonight
Although he’s likely to get out in a fraction of that time. But still.
Twenty-eight-year old Ulises Valdez Jr. was nearly twice the legal alcohol limit at the time of the crash.
The victims didn’t know each other and weren’t riding together. They just had the misfortune of sharing the road with someone too drunk to drive his massive pickup.
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from longtime bike advocate Jon Riddle, who writes looking for volunteers for a Culver City Pride Ride at the end of this month.
I’m writing to share a volunteer opportunity that BikinginLA’s readers might be willing to support. I am working with Jim Shanman and Walk ‘n Rollers, assisting Culver City Pride in producing its Pride Ride & Rally on June 26th (see Culver City Pride for more information on the event). Last year we had well over 100 turn out for Pride Ride and this year we are expecting at least 300 cyclists of all ages and skill levels. The ride is modest—about 6 miles long, through flat, quiet Culver City neighborhoods. That said, we can really use a few more experienced riders to help keep cyclists safe and rolling along. Training ride leaders, ride marshals and experienced cyclists would be perfect.
We welcome anyone willing to lend a hand to sign up at the event’s volunteer page here.
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You never know what you’ll see when you ride a bike.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A petition is calling for the BBC to fire radio host Jeremy Vine for posting video showing a grocery truck driver pass within a few inches of a bike-riding cop in hi-viz, insisting the driver did nothing wrong because he didn’t leave his lane — even though the cop could have been killed.
A self-described bike expert lists the seven cycling skills you need to master. Most of which you actually don’t, though they could come in handy, depending on how you ride.
Once again, an innocent bike rider has become the victim of an elderly driver, as an eight-year old Minnesota girl riding bikes with her family was injured when an 87-year old woman failed to stop, despite the flashing lights on the crosswalk they were riding in; at last report, she was hospitalized in stable condition.
May 31, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on OC columnist cites mythical war on cars, the cost of traffic violence, and NYT declares it’s the Summer of Cycling
Welcome back from the long Memorial Day weekend. Now settle in, because we have a lot of ground to cover.
Photo by Erik Mclean from Pexels — time to gear up for the war on cars!
Susan Shelley says throw in the towel on climate change, stop building transit oriented development and duplexes and keep allowing parking minimums, because it really doesn’t matter what we do here in California, since the state only accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Which is kind of a lot for just one state.
And it might, you know, kind of inconvenience someone.
Besides, she insists, transit isn’t practical because that one time she plotted a route to some distant site 43 miles off it was easier just to drive.
Never mind that most people only need to travel a few miles. Or blocks, even.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Wheat Ridge, Colorado are blaming a bike rider for a head-on crash between two drivers, claiming one driver swerved to avoid someone on a bike, who left the scene. Even though they haven’t said the bike rider did anything wrong, or explained how they might have caused the crash.
There’s a special place in hell for the schmuck who slammed his bicycle into a bike-riding 13-year old kid in Long Island, then used it to beat the boy with.
LA-based Urb-E, maker of the sit-down scooter popular with hip-hop artists a couple years back, has switched gears to join the fight on air pollution and congested streets by refocusing on high-capacity e-cargo bikes. Thanks once more to the prolific Megan Lynch.
