That’s all the information that was available until today, despite checking on a near daily basis.
The OCBC speculates that the victim may have been riding salmon due to the lack of citations against the driver, and the position of his body and bike at the southeast corner of the T-intersection following the crash.
If he had been riding on the right side of the street, it’s likely that a collision with a northbound vehicle would have thrown him to the northeast side of the intersection.
The OCBC also sites a rumor that he may have fallen into the path of the driver.
However, it’s also possible that the limited description may have been wrong; he could have come off the sidewalk or actually been riding on Orange Olive instead.
The victim still hasn’t been publicly identified. That usually, but not always, indicates that the next of kin lives outside the US.
This is at least the 20th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and just the second I’m aware of in Orange County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Thanks to Bill Sellin and A. Bauer for the heads-up.
And Pasadena and Los Angeles are prime bad examples.
For several hours, opponents voiced their objections into the auditorium’s sound system. Shedding lanes, one said, would be an “unmitigated traffic disaster.” Not only would residents who live along the road never again be able to back out of their driveways, bicycle accidents would increase (because the new lanes would attract more riders). At one point, a city councilmember decided to hold a “voice vote” on the issue. Though several dozen shouted their support for the reconfiguration, their cries were drowned out by hundreds who bellowed their opposition.
The next day, the City of Pasadena announced that a second scheduled meeting on the issue was cancelled. And so ended the road diet of Orange Grove Boulevard.
And then there’s this from the City of Angels.
John Russo, one of Keep LA Moving’s organizers, bristles at this safety argument. “It makes me laugh when people say we’re anti-safety. You’d have to be a psychopath to be anti-safety,” he said. “We’re here to remind the city how most Angelenos use the road. Overall, we don’t think it’s a bad idea to take a step back and think long and hard about how Vision Zero is being implemented in Los Angeles…”
In addition to these kinds of grassroots efforts, UCLA’s Brozen is looking for more assertive leadership from the city’s political class. And so far, she’s not seeing it. “There’s a little bit of a void in the pro-transportation change space in L.A., and it seems like this anti-change backlash is filling that void,” she said. “There’s a lack of understanding as to why these projects are needed. Without that understanding, it gets really personal and very nasty very quickly.”
Far too often, our elected leaders listen to traffic safety deniers like Russo, and forget that some of their constituents are drivers. But all of them are people, everyone of whom use the streets in some way.
And it’s long past time we prioritized the needs and safety of people before cars, to create a safe, livable and prosperous city that benefits everyone.
I hope you’ll join me as we crash the 10 am city council meeting one week from tomorrow, and ask our elected officials to have the courage to do the right thing.
Because they already know what that is. We just have to make them to do it.
If you can’t join me on the 18th — or even if you can — feel free to send a letter demanding for safer streets for you, me and everyone else. Just email your letter by Wednesday, May 16th to ted at bikinginla dot com.
I’ll print them out and include them with the packages we’re giving each councilmember and the mayor, containing copies of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing.
A couple quick tips if you plan to write a letter.
If you can, try to work in the theme of our protest by asking them to have the courage to do the right thing.
Mention what council districts you live, work or ride in.
Stress that safer streets benefit everyone, whether on bikes, on foot or in cars.
Feel free to (politely) express whatever anger or fear you may be feeling
Demand they take immediate action to protect us all
And let me know if it’s okay to share your letter. I’ll be happy to put it on here as a guest post leading up to Friday’s meeting.
It’s worth signing up if only to have a safe, free place to lock your bike when you take transit or ride to DTLA, Hollywood or El Monte.
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More fallout from the Insurance Institute study we mentioned yesterday, which blames SUV design, as well as bad road design, for the dramatic increase in pedestrian deaths.
The study suggests that the high, flat grills on most SUVs strike a person higher, with greater force and trauma than most cars would.
In other words, those massive SUVs we share the road with are just as deadly as you thought they were.
Except for getting out and riding your own bike there, of course.
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Local
13th CD Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell is hosting a community conference this Saturday, which will discuss pedestrian safety among other issues. Apparently he forgot to include a workshop on bike safety; maybe you should go and remind him. And tell him that cancelling the Temple Street road diet hurts everyone.
San Francisco’s effort to allow people to report traffic and parking violations through a 311 app turns out to be a disappointment. We tried to get a similar program going here in LA several years ago, but couldn’t get approval from the LAPD and city attorney.
More on the two German bike riders who were run down from behind on a Kansas highway; authorities are still trying to inform their next of kin. There’s something seriously wrong when people can’t visit this country without being sent back home in a box, just because they chose to ride a bicycle.
Apparently not understanding how westerns work, Nashville tells Bird scooters they’ve got 15 days to get out of town, Although some people want to save the Birds. Any fan of cowboy movies could tell you they’re supposed get out of town by sunset.
A small New Jersey town has restricted access to a number of its streets during rush hour to keep New York-bound Waze users off them. Although a better solution would be to install traffic diverters and convert the streets to bike boulevards, which would eliminate cut-through traffic while preserving local access.
Nice piece from Singletrack, as a writer uses elderly neighbor as an example to make the point that planners should talk about walking, bicycling and driving, rather than pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers, because each is a choice that should be an option for everyone, rather than who we are.
My favorite story of the day: Costa Rica’s new president rides to his inauguration in a hydrogen powered bus, escorted by people on bicycles, including the new head of the national assembly. And with another bike on the bus rack for good measure.
This is the cost of traffic violence. A Montreal mother pleads for drivers to show a little patience, be polite and take responsibility for their actions, as spokeswoman for the city’s Ride of Silence just seven months after her teenage son was killed in a collision with a U-turning driver. Needless to say, the driver wasn’t charged.
Lance says cycling shouldn’t try so hard to stop doping, because it isn’t working. Problem is, he’s probably right; while pro cycling brags about ending the doping era, it’s more likely teams have just gotten better at hiding it.
More activities for next week’s Bike Week in the LA area.
Pure Cycles and People for Bikes are hosting a pre-Bike Week Draft Meetup at the bike maker’s Burbank HQ this Friday, offering bike talk and free beer.
Then again, not everyone will be celebrating the Bike Week festivities. Some will be getting more political, observing that bicycling is a necessity, rather than a choice, in many communities.
Which probably explains many, if not all, of the deaths the LAPD blames on the victims. Because good infrastructure reduces problem behavior for people on foot as well as on bikes, just like the lack thereof it causes it.
A bicyclist had to be airlifted to a trauma center after crashing into a deer on Glendora Mountain Road on Sunday; no word on the condition of the rider. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.
Forbes recommends the best gifts for bicycling mothers. Yet oddly doesn’t recommend a better bike, which is what most bike riding mothers probably really want.
Heartbreaking, inspiring story from just outside my hometown, as a man who was described as “a hell of a cyclist” still rides despite suffering from advanced ALS — aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease — thanks to a friend and a customized adaptive cargo bike.
Apparently, all you have to do is make plans for a $1.6 million, 12-foot separated bike path to make people actually call for a road diet instead, like this Ohio couple.
A rural Pennsylvania writer calls for a national biking network. Apparently, Los Angeles looks a lot bike friendlier from a distance of around 2,700 miles.
International
Mexican bike riders call for greater security after the bodies of two tourists are found off a Chiapas highway after being missing for several days, even though authorities insist the riders just lost control and no foul play was involved.
Don’t be disrespectful while riding in Alberta, Canada or the Mounties will be on your trail. And as we all know, the Mounties always get their man. Or woman.
Downtown Montreal is tripling the number of bike racks. Because it doesn’t matter if streets are designed for bike riders if there’s no place to park once you get there.
Six secrets behind the remarkable rise in bicycling rates in Sevilla, Spain, which built out an entire bike network in less that four years; one key was allowing the public to help design the bikeways — but only after telling them that doing nothing was not an option.
Aussie cancer researchers say if exercise was a pill, it would be prescribed to every patient. It would be anyway if pharmaceutical companies could just figure out a way to make money off it.
Every night is a battle to do my work while managing my diabetes, and fighting off the combined effect of the multiple medications required to control both it and my neuropathy.
And which most nights requires copious quantities of coffee just to function sufficiently to update this site.
And even that doesn’t always help.
Last night I lost that battle, passing out in mid-sentence with my laptop still on my lap.
So please forgive me once again.
I’m working with my doctors to adjust my medications to keep this from happening. Or at least, happening so often.
As usual, I’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we’ve missed.
The increase in bicycle deaths came despite what police officials said at the meeting was an across-the-board drop in serious traffic collisions in the city so far this year — fatal collisions and crashes resulting in serious injuries were down 10 percent, Moore said. Fatal vehicle-on-pedestrian crashes were also down significantly, falling 25 percent.
There were 18 cyclists killed in Los Angeles for all of 2017, and police officials said after the fatal collisions in April, the city appeared to be on track to match that total again…
Los Angeles statistics collected as part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic deaths showed that while all deaths from traffic collisions over the last three years, cyclist deaths continued to rise. In the San Fernando Valley, there were just three cyclist deaths in 2015, while last year there were eight.
In case you’re wondering, this is why I’m going to City Hall on the 18th, to demand our elected leaders have the courage to do the right thing.
It’s time to call the city council on their inaction on Vision Zero, and their repeated capitulations to traffic safety deniers in shelving vital lane reductions and other street safety projects.
And doing little more than talking about doing something to halt hit-and-run, while bicyclists and pedestrians — and even motorists — continue to suffer the consequences of their inaction.
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Speaking of which, if you can’t join me on the 18th — or even if you can — feel free to send a letter demanding for safer streets for you, me and everyone else. Just email your letter to me by Wednesday, May 16th to ted at bikinginla dot com.
I’ll print them out and include them with the packages we’re giving each councilmember and the mayor, containing copies of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing.
A couple quick tips if you plan to write a letter.
If you can, try to work in the theme of our protest by asking them to have the courage to do the right thing.
Mention what council districts you live, work or ride in.
Stress that safer streets benefit everyone, whether on bikes, on foot or in cars.
Feel free to (politely) express whatever anger or fear you may be feeling
Demand they take immediate action to protect us all
………
A new study from the LA County Department of Health concludes that if Los Angeles actually built out the city’s Mobility Plan 2035 — which seems highly unlikely at this point — it could prevent up to 4,600 cases of cardiovascular disease each year, while saving over $160 million per year in health costs.
Which is just one more reason city leaders need to do the right thing. And one less reason to wonder what that is.
The South Pasadena Police Department will be conducting stepped-up bike and pedestrian safety operations throughout this month. You know the drill — ride to the letter of the law until you’re outside their jurisdiction. You don’t want to celebrate Bike Month with a traffic ticket.
President Trump once again criticized former Secretary of State John Kerry for breaking his leg while riding his bike, saying you don’t enter a bike race at 73, and you’d never see him (Trump) in a bike race. Except Kerry was only 71 at the time of the crash, he was just out for a bike ride with full security during a break in tense negotiations, not competing in a race, and more than a few people older than that still race. And at least Kerry can ride a bike.
There’s a special place in hell for the red light-running driver who struck an Illinois bike rider with her car, then got out to pick up her license plate before driving off and leaving him bleeding in the street.
A London man was hospitalized in critical condition after a collision with a man riding a bike near a busy tube station. A reminder to always use caution around pedestrians, because they’re the only ones more vulnerable than we are. And they don’t always use caution around us.
Paris is demanding emergency action after a disastrous change in management companies for the city’s famed Vélib’ bikeshare system has left much of it inoperable.
A 20-year old student at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia is now a double U.S. Collegiate Cycling champ, after winning the road championship to go with the mountain biking title she won last fall.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 70-year old Kiwi cyclist keeps a deathbed promise to his friend to compete in race around a New Zealand mountain and finishes second, despite saying he’s not a racer; his friend had won the same race over 60 years earlier.
Once again, a pro cyclist has been injured in a crash with a race moto, as British hill climb champ Joscelin Lowden suffered a broken clavicle after crashing with a security bike. Maybe someday, race organizers will finally figure out that motor vehicles don’t belong in the damn peloton.
We’ve met our fundraising goals to send a message to LA’s elected leaders, raising $400 in less than 48 hours to give them each a copy of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing.
I’ll be headed to city council meeting on the morning of Friday, May 18th to storm City Hall, and personally deliver them to demand safer streets.
Santa Monica came in a surprising seventh, with San Diego, which has made huge strides in recent years, just two steps lower.
Do I really need to mention that Fort Collins and San Diego only became bike friendly after I left them? Maybe I should move away from Los Angeles, so it can finally become the bike paradise it can and should — or at least somewhat less auto-focused — be once I’m gone.
Speaking of which, you’ll find the City of Angels on the second page, at what would be number 33 if they were numbered, which I suspect is a lot higher than most bike riders would rank it.
And no city ranked higher than 3.5 on the organization’s five point scale, which means there’s a lot of room for improvement, even in the best cities.
Also this Saturday, the Wolfpack Hustle Forsyth Cup takes place at the Encino Velodrome, sponsored by BikinginLA sponsor Thomas Forsyth; fans can feast on free hot dogs, tacos and water as long as they last.
May 14-18: Bike to Work Week – National bike to work week encourages people to switch up their morning commutes by riding their bikes to work.
May 16: Ride of Silence – The Ride of Silence honors those who have lost their lives or have been seriously injured while bicycling. Groups will depart at dusk, around 7 p.m., from locations in Fullerton, Irvine and Orange.
May 17: OCTA Bike Rally – The sixth annual event and ride is planned from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. starting at the Orange Metrolink Station, 194 N. Atchison St. and ending at the OCTA Headquarters, 550 S. Main St. in Orange.
May 18: Bike to Work Day – National bike to work day is recognized throughout the U.S. and gives people the opportunity to try a different way to commute.
CiclaValley escapes to Camp 9, one of the most accessible rides from the San Fernando Valley.
A letter writer chooses parking over a two-way bike lane on Pasadena’s Union Street, but can’t seem to distinguish between Santa Monica parking garages and on-street parking.
A 79-year old Laguna Beach man is planning for his next 5k, despite a collision with a truck that coast him a leg, and a head-on crash with a bike rider that left him with a broken neck and mostly paralyzed from the neck down. Seriously, slow the hell down and ride carefully around pedestrians; they’re the only ones more vulnerable on the streets than we are.
Tres shock! A Seattle study shows that dockless bikeshare is a success in the city, with an average of nearly one rider per bike per day. But ridership goes down in bad weather — just like it does anywhere else, for any kind of bike riding.
This is the cost of traffic violence. Friends and family remember a Purdue University student who died after a collision with a pickup, allegedly caused when he ran a red light.
The driver who fled the scene after running down a cyclist on Tennessee’s Natchez Trace Parkway last year — perhaps intentionally — will plead guilty in a plea deal.
A new study from Penn State University reveals that most people overestimate the time it would take to ride a bike somewhere. Which means that bicycling is a more viable option than most people think.
Too true. A Pittsburgh bike commuter says “There is no amount of bad behavior by cyclists that can remotely compare with the callous disregard for life displayed by these motorists.”
Baltimore’s repeat drunk driving Episcopal bishop asks if she can spend the rest of her sentence for killing a bike rider in a drunken 2014 hit-and-run in the comfort of her own home. The victim’s sister reasonably calls the request “unconscionable,” which pretty well sums up the whole damn thing.
May 3, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Raising funds to storm city hall, great new DIY bike PSA, and getting dropped by an ebike
Just a quick update.
As of this writing, we’ve raised $310 — just $90 short of our $400 goal — to give copies of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing to the Mayor of Los Angeles and every member of the city council.
All to give them a not so subtle hint to show a little courage and do the right thing to protect the lives of everyone who walks, bikes or drives on the streets of Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, we have to change the original date, since the council won’t be in session on Bike to Work Day.
Instead, we’re in the process of selecting a new date, the morning of either Wednesday, May 16th before the Ride of Silence, or — more likely — Friday, May 18th before Bike Night at Union Station.
If this doesn’t put a smile on your face this morning, nothing will. Just in time for Bike Month, a new DIY PSA cobbled together from movie footage artfully makes the case for riding bikes instead of driving.
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It’s one thing to get dropped. It’s another to get passed by a ebike rider like you’re not even moving.
The family of a fallen Texas cyclist has filed suit against the driver that killed him, as well as a passenger in the car, after the driver walked with time served, without spending a day in prison, despite a two-year sentence for manslaughter. Thanks to Stephen Katz for the heads-up.
May 2, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Storm City Hall for safer streets on May 18th, and killer Kalamazoo driver convicted of murder
As the great prophet Howard Beale once said, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
And I’m willing to march on City Hall by myself if that’s what it takes.
I’ve spent the last several weeks trying, and failing, to get support from LA advocacy groups for a plan for bike riders and pedestrians to storm city hall on Bike to Work Day this month to demand safer streets.
While I understand their need for campaigns and strategic planning, too many people are dying right now. And too many city councilmembers are backing away from the promises we were made.
So if this isn’t the right time for action, when is?
As I struggled with my own anger over the recent rash of bicycling fatalities and fatal hit-and-runs, I kept coming back to the questions of if not me, then who? And if not now, when?
Do we wait until someone else dies? Or twenty more people?
Do we wait until the next road diet is cancelled by councilmembers caving to angry drivers and traffic safety deniers?
And when is the right time to demand demand safer streets? As the Chinese proverb famously says, the best time would have been 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
It’s my intention to give the mayor and every member of the council a copy of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing, and see if they get the message. If we can raise just $400 in the next week to cover the costs, I’ll do it.
Besides, we only need another $375, thanks to a donation from Douglas M to get things started.
But either way, I’m going to be there on May 18th, even if that means standing alone before the city council.
Because something needs to be done now.
I hope you’ll join me. And help spread the word, so we can get as many people as possible to show up that day.
And I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to help send a message to the council that it’s time to show a little courage and do the right thing.
Update: I’ve been reminded that the LA City Council doesn’t meet on Thursdays, so doing this on Bike to Work Day won’t work.
The question is whether it’s better do storm city hall on Tuesday, May 15th after the Blessing of the Bicycles, Wednesday the 16th before the Ride of Silence, or Friday the 18th before Bike Night at Union Station.
So what works better for you? Let me know in the comments below.
Update 2: It looks like Friday, May 18th works for more people. So that’s the day we’re storming City Hall.
Boston magazine offers an in-depth examination of the events leading up to the death of a brilliant surgeon when she was right hooked by a truck driver while riding to work. And the police investigation that went out of its way to blame the victim.
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Local
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined with other mayors around the world to issue a Commitment to Green and Healthy Streets, envisioning “a future where walking, cycling, and shared transport are how the majority of citizens move around our cities.” However, as Streetsblog points out, it takes more than lip service to be a climate mayor. It will be very hard for LA to live up to that commitment as long as city councilmembers are free to cancel safety and Complete Streets projects to appease angry drivers.
NACTO presents a nationwide study of bikeshare in the US; while docked bikes outnumber dockless bikes 56% to 44%, only 4% of the actual trips are taken by dockless bikeshare. Something that’s likely to change as dockless bikeshare matures in this country.
A Spokane WA bike commuter compares bicyclists to the NRA, and says some bike riders in the city are just jerks. Bicyclists are human, some humans are jerks. Therefore, some bicyclists will inevitably be jerks. Just like some drivers and pedestrians.
Houston residents are calling for changes after two people are killed in the same spot while riding bikes in the last two years; a crowdfunding campaign raised $15,000 to send the latest victim’s body back to India.
Around 50 Brisbane, Australia bicyclists stage a die-in to call for better bike safety, tying up traffic during the morning rush hour. While the technique can be effective, we don’t win any friends by inconveniencing people just trying to get to work.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and I own a business in Los Angeles that designs and distributes commuter and urban bicycles with a mission to “get more people on bikes.” I am embarrassed to live in a city that is called the “hit and run capital of the nation,” and that doesn’t make it a priority to keep our streets safe. I am embarrassed that I can’t even ride my bike to work without being called irresponsible by my wife and my parents, and who ask me if I want my one-year-old daughter to grow up without her dad. I am embarrassed that I advertise the benefits of bike riding to my customers and urge them to try to replace car rides with bike rides, even though my friends and family refuse to ride due to safety concerns. I can’t even explain the disappointment that I feel over the safety issues that bike riders and walkers have in Los Angeles, and it is clear that something must change immediately….
Over three years ago you signed an ambitious and exciting plan called the Vision Zero Initiative and declared that you were determined to bring the number of people killed while walking and biking to zero. Since then, we’ve lost over 500 Los Angelenos to the dangerous conditions of our city’s streets. I am asking you to stand up and recommit to Vision Zero, and request that City Council do the same.
We need you to lead and support our City Councilmembers in prioritizing the safety of their constituents. Please stand up for safe streets so that we can have in your words, “a well-run city… A prosperous city… A safe city… A city of opportunity.”
Seriously, take a few minutes to read it, then pass it on to everyone you know.
And demand an answer from the mayor.
Photo: Pure Cycle’s new head badge, taken from their Twitter account.
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The LAPD is looking for the public’s help in solving the murder of 39-year old Jamal Lewis, who was fatally shot while riding is bike on West 11th Street last month.
Brea is officially opening final segment of a four-mile bike and pedestrian trail; five other segments have been in use for months. The trail will also link with 66-mile OC Loop bikeway circling Orange County, which is about 66 miles longer than its LA County counterpart.
Contra Costa County has identified the victim of a bicycle collision who was killed last week, allegedly after inexplicably swerving into the side of an SUV. After all, it couldn’t possibly have been the result of an unsafe and illegally close pass.
Fox News looks at National Bike Month, which starts today, including various bike tours across the US, along with LA’s own Bike to Work Day on the 17th. Although I want to hold out for that Elvis Pilgrimage ride traveling between Tupelo, Memphis and Nashville.
An Oregon driver has had his license permanently revoked for being an idiot, when a 76-year old Corvette driver challenged two other motorists to a street race; after they refused, he sped off and killed a man on a bike while doing 80 mph. He also got a well deserved two years in jail.
A Houston letter writer notes the risks posed by drivers and a lack of bike infrastructure in the city, then complains about people who ride their bikes on the sidewalk or filter to the front of the line at an intersection. Apparently failing to realize that the latter could be how bicyclists attempt to deal with the former.
Life is cheap in New Hampshire, where a hit-and-run bike rider walked with a lousy $100 fine for riding on the sidewalk, after he fell into a 91-year old woman who died a day later after she was found lying on the sidewalk. Seriously, there’s no more excuse for a bike rider who leaves the scene after crashing into someone than there is for a driver — especially if someone dies as a result.
A Toronto-based writer says it’s time to make protected bike lanes and sidewalks a part of every road design to protect against dangerous drivers, as well as motor vehicle attacks like the recent murderous assault in the city. As we’ve noted before, despite automotive terrorist attacks around the world, Los Angeles still hasn’t done anything to protect people on Hollywood Blvd, perhaps the city’s most vulnerable tourist site.
Philippa York, who gained fame as former pro cyclist Robert Millar, says bicycling’s macho culture prevents riders and support staff from coming out as gay. Tell that to all those drivers who assume anyone in spandex must be.
My favorite event, the annual Blessing of the Bicycles will take place at Good Samaritan Hospital near DTLA on May 15th.
And you can ride the Metro Bike bike share for just one dollar for the month of May when you sign up using the code BIKEMONTH2018; after the first one, it will cost $20 for each additional month.
As seems to happen in any public discussion of bicycles, at least one person insisted “When bikes start paying the registration fees that fund our streets, then they can start sharing our lanes.”
Which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of both who the streets are for and how local streets are paid for.
So let’s be very clear. Neither gas taxes or registration fees pay for more than a small portion of the building and maintenance of local streets; the overwhelming portion comes from local taxes, which we all pay.
Although that may change to some degree with the state’s recent gas tax increase — if it survives an attempt to have it repealed this fall.
And our streets have never been the property of fee-paying motorists; streets are for the movement of people and goods, some of whom will be on foot, some on bikes, some using transit, and some in motor vehicles. Usually alone.
Funny how so many LA drivers seem to feel they have a God-given right to the road.
And aren’t willing to concede a single inch of it to anyone else.
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The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition is back in the market for a new Executive Director.
Erik is leaving the organization after two years of working with LACBC, first as its Development Director, then as its Deputy Executive Director of Advancement, and finally as its Executive Director. A father of two, Erik will be moving with his family to Australia, where his wife accepted a position as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney…
As LACBC enters its 20th year and begins a strategic planning process to outline the next five years, staff remains committed, more than ever, to making streets safer for those biking and walking in Los Angeles County. It is an exciting time for the organization, and the team is looking for an Executive Director to lead the team, LACBC members, and bicycle advocates across the county, to create safer streets in Los Angeles County. If you have an amazing candidate in mind, please send us an email.
The next time some NIMBY tries to tell you handicapped people can’t ride bikes, tell them about Jenn Ramsey, who’s ridden the eight-day, 575-mile California Coast Classic a dozen times, even though her crippling arthritis prevents her from standing for more than 30 minutes.
An Op-Ed from San Luis Obispo, where NIMBYs have risen up to fight a proposed bikeway, insists that bike riders aren’t the enemy.
A writer for the SF Gatecalls out what he calls Car Blindness, the double standard in which people easily see the relatively minor problems caused by bikes, scooters and pedestrians, but can’t see the major problems caused by motor vehicles.
Redding officials consider closing a roadway entirely to allow for a safe crossing for a new bike and pedestrian trail. Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials won’t even remove a single traffic lane to improve safety for everyone.
There is something terribly wrong with any society where anyone feels the need to give advice on how to properly survive getting hit by a car.Never mind that most cars actually have drivers, which the article fails to mention. Thanks to Steven Messer and J. Patrick Lynch for the heads-up.
After a reader complains to a Michigan paper, saying someone needs to teach bicyclists the rules of the road, a columnist responds “Whoever does the training, I’m hoping they do a better job than they did with the car and pickup drivers.”
After Columbus OH opened a new two-way cycle track, bike collisions nearly tripled; authorities blamed a jump in ridership, combined with a break-in period for people to get used to the new lanes.
If you build it, they will come. Bicycling rates jump in Victoria, British Columbia, after the opening of a new, safer bridge with bike lanes in each direction.
A writer for the Financial Times says London cyclists are abominable, and she knows because she’s one of them — and she’ll continue to break the law until streets are made with bikes in mind.
An English letter writer says she doesn’t ride a bike in her home town, but would like to if she felt safer. Surveys consistently show that roughly two-thirds of the people in the US feel the same way — including here in Los Angeles.
This is who we share the roads with. A man in the UK learns the hard way that if you’re going to put your Tesla on autopilot, at least stay in the driver’s seat.
