Morning Links: LA Mobility Plan under fire in Sherman Oaks tonight, and bike theft warnings in Brentwood

September 21, 2015 / / One comment

Once again, an overly simplistic misinterpretation threatens LA’s new mobility plan.

The Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council is scheduled to discuss the plan tonight at their 6:30 pm meeting in the auditorium of the Sherman Oaks, 14750 Dickens Street.

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Maybe someone could remind them, as we keep repeating, that those estimates are a worst-case scenario, assuming no one takes advantage opportunity created by the new bus and bike ways and safer sidewalks created by the plan to leave their cars at home.

And that by providing people with viable alternatives, we could actually see a reduction in motor vehicle traffic, resulting in less, not more, congestion.

Of course, all that is clearly explained in the plan itself.

But why bother with the facts — or actually reading the damn thing — when it’s so much fun to fly off in a doomsday panic over a plan designed to ease LA’s traffic choked future?

After all, the city is already gridlocked to a large extent. And continuing on the same auto-centric course only guarantees things will continue to get worse.

If you missed it over the weekend, take a few minutes to read LA Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne’s remarkably cogent analysis of the mobility plan.

Because it’s cars that have killed the vitality of our city.

And it’s long past time we took it back.

Thanks to Glenn Bailey for the heads-up.

………

Bailey also forwards a notice about bike thefts from the Brentwood Community Council.

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If you follow BikinginLA on Twitter, you’ve no doubt noticed the daily drumbeat of stolen bikes; sometimes several a day. And those are just the ones reported to the Bike Index stolen bike database, which is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bikes taken in the LA area.

So like the notice says, keep your bike inside if at all possible. If not, lock it securely to something solid and immovable.

And make sure you register it now to ensure you have all the information you’ll need if anything does happens to it.

………

Taylor Phinney continues his amazing comeback from the potentially crippling injury he suffered in a collision with a race moto at last year’s nationals, as his BMC team won the team time trial at the world championships; Velocio-SRAM took the women’s title. Not bad for someone who was told he’d be lucky to walk, let alone ride a bike again.

That $10,000 bike stolen from a Richmond hotel near the finish line of the world’s road course actually belonged to American rider Evelyn Stevens; police recovered it undamaged in time for Sunday’s time trial.

………

Local

Richard Risemberg recaps PARKing Day in LA, which demonstrates that curbside parking spaces can be put to better use.

Santa Monica police bust a bike thief found in an alley with numerous bikes, bike parts and burglary tools. If you’ve lost a bike on the Westside recently, you might want to check with them.

 

State

A 33-year old Anaheim bike rider was critically injured in a hit-and-run collision Sunday morning; a 17-year old driver has been arrested on felony DUI and hit-and-run charges. Yes, the driver is four years below the legal drinking age, although DUI doesn’t always imply alcohol use. And as others have pointed out, the legal blood alcohol level for minors is zero.

More good news on the purloined bike front, as the man riding across the US with his rescue dog to promote animal adoptions got his stolen Yuba Mundo bike back. No word on whether police recovered his GoPro, GPS, dog toys and other gear.

 

National

A Washington father offers advice on how to engineer an elementary school bike train.

Aspen CO police bust a one-man bike theft crime wave.

A 70-year old Chicago man will bike Spain’s 500-mile Camino de Santiago to raise funds for his Catholic parish.

Proof bicyclists are tough — a Chicago cyclist rode to the hospital after realizing he’d been shot in the leg.

A bicyclist was killed riding in the traffic lane on a Minneapolis freeway, while three other cyclists have received warnings for riding on local freeways since June. It’s illegal to ride on most freeways there, just as it is here.

An Ohio mother pleads for drivers to be more careful after her adult son was killed while on a group ride last week.

The Cleveland traffic engineer behind the bike lanes — yes, more than one — with the buffer on the wrong side swears the design is the best practice to prevent right hooks, even though it runs counter to recommendations from the Federal Highway Administration and the NACTO design guide.

Lynchburg KY demonstrates that bike racks can double as public art.

A Philadelphia writer calls out dangerous cyclists on local pathways, while acknowledging that most riders are sensible and bicycling benefits the community. On the other hand, seven mph is a ridiculously low speed limit, and assumes every bicyclist knows how fast he’s going. Or slow, in this case.

The White House, Fox News and the tech community are mourning the death of Jake Brewer, a senior policy advisor to U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, and husband of Fox News personality Mary Ham. Brewer was killed on a charity ride over the weekend when he lost control on a sharp curve, crossed the centerline, and was hit by a car coming in the opposite direction. Thanks to Tim Rutt for the news.

 

International

Despite the odds, Cuban cyclists and bike mechanics are rebuilding the county’s bike culture.

After police amazingly concluded a bike riding, cross-dressing British spy died when he somehow zipped himself into a duffel bag and padlocked it from the inside as part of a sex game, a forensic investigator more logically deduces that he was murdered, and that he dressed as a woman as part of his spycraft.

Bike Radar looks at why more women don’t work at bike shops.

Britain’s Transport Committee will look into police bias against cyclists. Intentional or not, police bias against bike riders is a problem virtually everywhere, and can adversely affect ticketing and investigations of wrecks involving bicyclists.

More proof cyclists are tough. A Brit bicyclist is putting off potentially life-saving surgery to compete in next year’s Rio Olympics; only eight millimeters of his spinal cord remain unaffected by a cancer tumor.

Now that’s a fixie. The Guardian talks with cyclist who rode the full length of the UK on a Penny Farthing in just 15 days.

Riding through three European countries on bikeways along the Bodensee.

 

Finally…

Caught on video: This is what it looks like to pull a major endo after hitting a pothole. Seriously, if you don’t bother to lock up your bike, don’t blame the police when it’s gone.

And if you’re hiding a stolen car at your home after assaulting the owner to steal it, try not to get liquored up and shoot at a group of cyclists.

………

Thanks to Eric Lewis for his generous donation to support BikinginLA.

Just $10 a year from everyone who visits here today would fund this site for a full year.

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Morning Links, Stolen Bikes and Bike Crime, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Cut off in a green lane, an 11-year old voice of reason, and an insightful look at LA’s Mobility Plan

September 19, 2015 / / 9 comments

Even with a green Santa Monica bike lane, some drivers can’t be bothered to look for bikes before cutting into it.

Thanks to John Montgomery for the video.

………

It’s kind of sad that the voice of reason at Monday’s town hall meeting to discuss the Rowena road diet came from an eleven-year old boy.

Let alone the hate it inspired in some quarters.

Matty Grossman has become the perhaps unwilling star of LA bike advocacy, with an interview on KCBS-2 and a profile in the LA Times that features the following video, recorded by Sean Meredith.

It’s a little hard to hear — after all, he is just eleven — but it’s worth cranking up the volume as far as it goes to catch every word

Especially this segment excerpted from the Times’ story.

“I have lost track of the number of cars who have purposely violated my legal right to three feet of safety or shouted obscenities at me,” Matty said at Monday’s town hall. “Can you imagine the kind of monster who yells ‘F you’ to a child?”

And Matty, a sixth-grader, is over it.

“It’s whiny, entitled behavior you wouldn’t tolerate from a kid,” he told the room. “Why should I tolerate it from adults?”

Why should any of us?

Maybe it was being shamed by a kid that caused one rabidly anti-bike commenter to lash out in protest over a kid interrupting the conversation on “adult issues” like bike lanes and transportation policy.

But that’s exactly the point.

Because if some drivers will treat a little kid like that, imagine how they treat a grown-up on a bike.

According to the press reports, Matty wants to grow up to be mayor of Los Angeles. Or an astrophysicist.

He’s got my vote.

But if that doesn’t work out, I think we can get him a job with the LACBC.

………

Speaking of Rowena, and by extension, the new mobility plan, Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne offers an insightful explanation of just why it’s so desperately needed, despite rumblings from some quarters.

Sometimes we tell ourselves it has been this way for all time. Recently a reader sent me an email that included this line: “Driving by car is how it’s done here.” (The word “son” at the end of the sentence was implied.)

But that’s not really true — not if you take a broad view of Los Angeles history. Look at a photograph of, say, Broadway in downtown L.A. in the late 1920s. It is full of people walking. But it is also full of people in cars, on bikes and on streetcars.

It looks vital. And guess what? It also looks very congested. In the decades that followed, in our tireless efforts to stamp out the congestion — something we became truly expert at — we wound up stamping out the vitality too.

Seriously, take a few minutes and read it all the way through.

I’ll wait.

………

Yet another young man has been fatally shot while apparently riding a bike in South LA, this time in the Florence neighborhood just after midnight Friday.

Excuse my language, but just when are we going to stop this fucking waste of life? The right to keep on living is the most basic of all human rights.

………

There’s a new world record for a human-powered vehicle, set by a bullet-shaped bike ridden by Canadian Todd Reichart and the AeroVelo team at the annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge. It was clocked at 85.71 mph, beating the old record by 2.58 mph.

………

That didn’t take long. The world championships haven’t even started yet, and a bike thief already made off with a $10,000 Specialized S-Works belonging to the Dutch team. And no offense to The Verge, but I’ve done a lot faster than 30 mph.

Former world champ Mark Cavendish is the latest high-profile rider to pull out of the worlds, along with Aussie Rory Sutherland.

WaPo offers a quick 11-point world championship overview, while Men’s Journal proffers seven reasons why you should care. One small problem with the course, though, is its made-for-TV tour through a virtual shrine to the Confederacy.

And it’s been 21 years since the carbon frame conquered the world of racing.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes an in-depth look at LADOT’s new annual report, and offers four metrics to guide future bikeway implementation.

Bicycling isn’t a luxury in South LA, where a bike count shows people who can’t afford cars riding to or from work and school. And people there have more to fear than dangerous streets and drivers.

He doesn’t mention bikes, but 3rd District Councilmember Bob Blumenfield writes about revitalizing Reseda through the Great Streets program on Sherman Way. Let’s just remind him to include some decent bike lanes while he’s at it. And slow the damn traffic down.

Nonprofit creative arts center Art Share LA is giving you one last chance to say goodbye to the soon-to-be demolished 6th Street Bridge with an exhibit called Ode to the Bridge.

After winning joint custody, Chris Brown wants to treat his daughter Royalty royally by teaching her to ride a bike.

 

State

An off-duty CHP officer spotted a man sleeping in an Oceanside bike lane; when he stopped to investigate, he discovered the man was the victim of a hit-and-run. He was in critical condition as of Friday morning.

After riding over 9,300 miles through 31 states with his rescue dog to promote pet adoption, an animal activist had his bike, iPod, GoPro and dog toys stolen in San Diego. At least he managed to hold onto the dog.

Prospects for the Coachella Valley’s proposed 50-mile CV Link bikeway aren’t looking good, as Indian Wells and Rancho Mirage both vote to block the proposed route.

Sad news from Lompoc. A bike rider was killed when he was rear-ended by an SUV, as the driver apparently tried — and failed — to pass. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

Morgan Hill decides to expand efforts to make the downtown area “inviting to visitors on all modes of transportation.” Note to Morgan Hill: Sharrows don’t make for Complete Streets.

A San Ramon attorney will be sentenced next week for the hit-and-run death of a Chinese tourist three years ago. Sentencing is at the judge’s discretion; he could actually get probation for killing another person and running away to cover-up his crime.

Thanks to Google, we may one day hear the anti-bike brigades say LA isn’t Silicon Valley instead of comparing us to Copenhagen.

Not taxing bikes or bike riders wins out with 56% of the vote in the SF Gate’s very unscientific poll.

Streetsblog is looking for someone to run the San Francisco site and cover transportation issues in the Bay Area. I’d consider it, but it would mean becoming a Giants fan. And some lines a man just can’t cross.

 

National

This Tuesday is Worldwide Car-Free Day. Which is not the same as free car day, unfortunately.

In case you’re desperate for a physics lesson, Wired obliges with a discussion of pulling a bike with a giant rubber band.

Bicycling reports on the Breaking Away reunion at Interbike, although the Las Vegas Review-Journal does it much better.

The level of bike commuting in Portland has reached an unheard of — in the US, at least — 7.2%; it was only at 2.8% in 2004.

Fifty-two soldiers complete a two day, 167-mile ride from Fort Knox KY to Fort Campbell.

When some Michigan hikers looked at pictures they’d just taken off a cliff, they discovered legs and a bicycle in the photos; when rescuers arrived, they found a the body of a man in his 30s at the base of the cliff.

Now this is a great idea. Over 70 businesses and many homes in Ashland VA have bike gardens — bicycles with planters or arranged like sculptures. Love to see something that spread around the LA area.

Very strange case from upstate New York as a cyclist has been unresponsive since he was found lying in the road, suffering from a double skull fracture and a broken orbital socket and clavicle. Yet his bike and helmet were undamaged and there was no sign of a collision.

Caught on video: It takes major huevos to steal a Philadelphia cop’s bike. Or maybe just major stupidity, since the bike was clearly marked “POLICE.”

A Charlotte NC writer says both cyclists and motorists have control over whether they get out of control. However, bicycling is not particularly dangerous, as he suggests; people in motor vehicles aren’t immune from collisions and serous injuries, or worse.

 

International

A Saskatoon city counselor says new bike racks are a waste of money, since cyclists can “tie up” their bikes to loading zone signs. Sounds like he’s more used to hitching posts.

You’re kidding, right? Toronto proposes producing a paltry 2.5 miles of new bike lanes a year for the next 10 years. No word on whether those are centerline miles or lane miles; the latter would mean bike lanes on just 1.25 miles of roadway per year.

The 18-year old London man convicted of fatally stabbing a 15-year old boy to steal his bike will now spend the rest of his life behind bars.

A Singapore court cuts the sentence of a hit-and-run cyclist to three weeks; he’d originally been sentenced to eight weeks behind bars for fleeing after injuring a 69-year old woman while riding on the sidewalk.

Kuala Lumpur cyclists crowd-source a route map to make the city more bike friendly.

 

Finally…

Evidently, commie bikes are hard to find in the UK, even if the new head of the Labour party rides one. If you’re selling crack cocaine from the seat of your bike, try not to ride into a car while making your getaway from the cops.

And maybe it’s better to quaff that ale post ride rather than pre. Although after reading the effects booze has on a bike rider’s body, you may need a drink.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Bicycle Safety, Bike Cam Video, Car vs Bike, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Protect your bike on Metro buses, motorists behaving badly, and more kindhearted people

September 18, 2015 / / 11 comments

Keep a close eye on you bike when you use those racks on the front of a bus.

That was the gist of an email I received Thursday evening, from someone who reported having his bike stolen while commuting home from work.

Fortunately it was not my favorite cyclocross bike but rather a Specialized Rock Hopper that’s about 15 years old and that I was thinking about replacing.  I ride buses a lot and I read the story of the fellow whose bike was stolen from rack while he was sitting in the back of the bus. So I sit in the front and I watch my bike at the stops.  In retrospect I realized that I mainly watch when it is the only bike up there, for anyone who is going up to the front that shouldn’t be there.  But this guy was a very clever thief who had a beater bike on the rack in front of mine. So even though I was watching my bike at the stop it didn’t occur to me that the guy in the front was undoing the bike catch to my bike and not his bike until it was too late.  I can tell you that watching doesn’t do much good when all it takes a few seconds to take the bike off, mount it and take off riding.  By the time I grabbed my backpack and my pannier and got past the people coming in the front door, it was too late.  And what would I have done anyway, taken him down with a running tackle?  My only option was to take the beater bike which he left.

I have been paranoid in regards public transportation — I sit near my bike on the MetroLink even if that means sitting on the floor or standing and I lock my bike on Amtrak because there are only about six seats down in the bike area and they are reserved for disabled.

But I can’t lock my bike to the Metro bike rack so instead I decided that I’m going to lock my rear wheel to the frame before I put it on the rack.  So if someone decides to take it they aren’t going to be able to ride it away.

That last bit is good advice.

Many bus drivers keep an eye on the bikes in front of them, but they can’t watch them all the time. And not every driver does.

So anything you can do to disable your bike to keep a thief from being able to easily ride or roll off with it could be enough to protect your bike from being stolen.

After all, it’s a lot harder to pick up a bike and run with it than it is to simply ride away.

………

Today’s common theme: Motorists behaving badly.

San Diego police are looking for a hit-and-run driver who rear-ended an experienced cyclist Thursday morning; she nearly lost a foot in the collision.

A Chicago woman faces felony drunk driving charges after drinking all day and running into an eight-year old boy as he rode his bike; she also had an open container in the car.

Unbelievable. Five Ohio cyclists were left crossed when the driver of pickup turned into them as they rode in a group; one rider died at the scene and two were airlifted to a hospital.

A New Jersey driver faces up to 20 years in prison if he’s convicted of first degree vehicular homicide and other assorted charges in the drunken hit-and-run death of a bike rider. To make matters worse, he 1) told police he thought he hit a deer, 2) told police he wasn’t the driver of the car, 3) refused to give a urine sample without a warrant, and 4) had been driving on a suspended license since 2007.

A South Carolina driver faces charges for driving with a suspended license and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. But the cyclist he killed? No big deal.

A road-raging English driver is charged with intentionally chasing down and ramming a bicyclist, all because the cyclist touched the man’s car to steady himself at a red light. The driver claimed the victim had swerved into his car, which was disproven by security cam footage.

A Helsinki driver faces up to eight years for deliberately running down and killing a cyclist in a road rage incident.

And how distracted does a driver have to be to miss — or rather, not miss — a camel walking on the side of a road in Southern California?

Then again, it’s not just motorists; Scotland police are looking for a cyclist who whacked a schoolboy in the head with his bike lock.

………

Thankfully, we can counter that with a few stories of people at their best.

Minutes after big-hearted Kansas City police take a report of a stolen kids’ bike, they come back with a new one to replace it.

The owners of a Michigan Pizza Parlor gave a new bike to an autistic employee after his was stolen while he was at a movie to celebrate his first paycheck.

A NASA engineer in Huntsville AL fixes bikes for neighborhood kids and gives away refurbished ones, along with life lessons for the young riders.

………

For reasons known only to them, Cleveland is redefining buffered bike lanes, apparently choosing to protect cyclists from riding too close to the curb while moving them next to the far more dangerous traffic to the left.

Photo by Angie Schmitt

Photo by Angie Schmitt

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A couple quick notes from this week’s Interbike in Las Vegas.

Credit Jay Wolff of the Santa Monica Helen’s Cycles with bringing the stars of Breaking Away back together.

In light of the Interbike sockgate scandal, Bike Radar lists five of the bike industry’s most sexist marketing fails. Of course, these are just from the last few years; bike marketing has been a boy’s club for decades. And they wonder why more women don’t ride.

And what could be a more natural product extension for a multi-sport clothing maker to roll out than a new reposado tequila?

………

Local

Mad Men producer Tom Smuts will once again be riding his bike to the Emmys this Sunday, along with actors Aaron Eckhart and Jon Huertas, and producers Alex Cary and James Younger. City officials including councilmember Tom Bonin will tag along.

Streetsblog offers an update on Metro’s planned bikeshare system, which remains on track for a sponsorless mid-2016 opening.

A writer for USC’s Daily Trojan badly misunderstands and misrepresents LA’s new mobility plan; the plan is actually designed to reduce congestion by providing alternatives to driving. Evidently, she’s learned the wrong lesson from modern American politics, that facts don’t matter as long as they’re labeled opinion.

The LA Weekly’s Hillel Aron tries to ride the full length of the LA River. Even in two parts — the ride, not the story — it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Santa Monica is nearing completion of the new Colorado Esplanade connecting the terminus of the Expo Line with the Santa Monica Pier, including a two-way separated bike path.

The 29th annual Nautica Malibu Triathlon rolls, runs and splashes through the city this weekend.

 

State

The OC Register astutely observes that even adults need to know how to ride a bike.

San Diego strawberries may end up costing a little more, but residents will be rewarded with a new rail bike and ride.

A San Luis Obispo man gives a whole new meaning to the term custom bike maker.

San Francisco posts banners to encourage drivers to slow down. Might as well, since nothing else seems to work.

 

National

New census data shows that bike commuting continues to grow in the US. The findings are even more impressive since census data undercounts transportation cycling by failing to including multi-modal or non-work related trips.

Tern and Xtracycle team up for a cargo foldie; a Kickstarter to fund it is just over halfway to the $60,000 goal with 29 days to go.

El Paso is the latest city to get bikeshare before Los Angeles.

Thousands of bike riders tear through the Motor City with Slow Roll Detroit at breakneck speeds up to 10 mph.

No bias here. A Connecticut newspaper says a 10-year old girl was critically injured when she hit a car while riding her bike, then later explains that the car actually struck her.

New York’s mayor is taking credit for a 13% drop in traffic deaths in his first year in office. Even though the bike lanes, road diets and other changes to the streets that most likely led to it were done under the previous administration.

Now there’s a new excuse. Bike-friendly improvements to a New York street have been put off until the UN adjourns and the pope puts the city in his rear view mirror.

Police in New York’s Upper West Side credit a 40% decrease in injuries to a 160% increase in cyclist traffic tickets.

 

International

Yes, longer bike shorts really are more aero. And no, you’re probably not fast enough for it to make a difference.

A Swedish couple bicycling around the world was hit by a car in Brazil. The driver, who was going 12 mph over the speed limit, will face a manslaughter charge after the woman rider didn’t make it.

Vancouver police realize they had already impounded the bike that had been stolen from a Taiwanese cyclist on an around-the-world ride after a reporter called to ask about it.

An 18-year old London man was convicted of stabbing a 15-year old boy to death in an utterly senseless attack to steal his bicycle.

Nice. Employees can ride their bike directly into a new London office building and down a ramp to the basement, where they’ll find bike parking, changing rooms and lockers.

Dubai has made a big push to become bike friendly with a network of bicycle paths, cycle tracks and bike lanes across the emirate.

Aussie cyclists may finally be able to legally stand on their pedals.

Bangkok, Thailand goes car-free this Sunday, though the city still has a long way to go to make bicycling an everyday choice for people.

 

Finally…

Caught on video: Wherever you’ve ridden, it probably doesn’t compare to a 59-foot slack line over a 367-foot gorge. If you’re going to steal $120 worth of coffee from a donut shop, don’t go back there a few days later riding the same distinctive bike, and leave the heroin and drug paraphernalia at home while you’re at it.

And drivers already act like you’re wearing a cloak of invisibility on your bike. So why not do it for real?

 

Category: Morning Links, Stolen Bikes and Bike Crime / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Orange County bike rider killed in solo fall; 50th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year

September 17, 2015 / / Comments Off on Orange County bike rider killed in solo fall; 50th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year

Sad news from San Clement.

According to the Orange County Coroner’s office, 59-year old Henry Miller III collided with a pole at 243 Calle Empalme in San Clemente around 5:40 pm Wednesday. He died at the scene.

A satellite view show a quiet, winding residential street.

The Orange County Register adds a little more information. According to the paper, Miller was riding east on Calle Empalme when he somehow lost control of his bike and hit the curb, and was thrown headfirst into a lamppost.

Police were unable to find a reason why Miller lost control. There was no debris in the street and no other vehicle appeared to have been involved. The street does have a downhill slope, but levels out about 50 yards from the crash site.

It’s possible that he may have picked up too much speed going downhill, or that he lost control after a close pass by a car, without getting. Or he could have become distracted or disoriented in some way.

The paper also notes that Miller was not wearing a helmet.

There’s no way to say if wearing one would have made a difference. However, relatively slow speed falls like this are exactly what bike helmets are designed to protect against.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department at 714/647-7000.

This is the 50th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th in Orange County. That compares with 67 this time last year, and 14 in the county.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Henry Miller III and all his family.

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: A little LADOT bike lane slight-of-hand, more Rowena fallout, and how bicycling makes lives better

September 17, 2015 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: A little LADOT bike lane slight-of-hand, more Rowena fallout, and how bicycling makes lives better

Maybe they can be forgiven for missing their own goal.

But fudging the facts is another matter.

Writing on Twitter, BikeLA points out that LADOT fell far short of their self-stated goal of installing 40 miles of bike lanes last year, instead crediting themselves with just 22.2 miles.

Understandable, perhaps, since the department had been void of leadership for most of the year before Seleta Reynolds took over as GM late last year.

Except that 22.2 miles comes only after changing the way bike lanes have traditionally been measured, here in LA and throughout the country. Instead of measuring centerline miles — including both sides of the road as a single mile — they’re now measuring lane-miles, or crediting themselves with one mile for each side of the road.

Which means those 22.2 miles really account for just 11.1 miles of roadway.

As someone wrote to me in an email pointing out the change,

I noticed this via Twitter, so you may have seen as well, but did you see LADOT’s accounting of bike infrastructure for fiscal year 2014-2015?

Besides the fact that LADOT did not reach the 40 miles of bike lanes goal per year set by the bike plan, it seemed really misleading that they simply double-counted all of their upgrades by shifting from centerline miles to directional miles. Thus 11.1 miles become 22.2 miles. My understanding is that this is irregular for cities to use (for example, Long Beach uses centerline accounting). Using the new metric, the 17 mile long LA River bike path from Vernon to Long Beach just doubled to be 34 miles long.

Seemed really shady to me, and hadn’t seen anyone call it out beyond Twitter.

If the city is going to rely on a little accounting slight-of-hand, the same rule needs to apply to their goal of 40 miles of new bike lanes a year for five years.

So make that 80 miles of bike lanes they owe us each year, not 40. And 400 miles total for the five-year period

So they still fell 57.8 miles short last year.

Let’s hope they can make it up now that Reynolds is on board.

………

The Times Steve Lopez, who has written favorably about bicycling in the past, and has been known to ride a bike himself, misses the mark with Wednesday’s column about the Rowena road diet. He looks at the non-controversy from a windshield perspective, without digging into rationale behind road diets and the benefits they bring. Beyond driving impatient motorists over the edge, that is.

LAist highlights the hero of Monday’s Rowena road diet town hall meeting, a precocious 11-year old kid.

Meanwhile, Flying Pigeon points out if drivers don’t want to deal with the road diet, there’s a giant freeway free of bikes and pedestrians just a block and a half away. Although describing WAZE as methadone for road hogs is absolutely brilliant.

………

The Brits are looking for a few podiums at the worlds starting this weekend. And pro cyclists tell People for Bikes how bicycling makes their lives better.

………

Local

If drivers are doing 70 mph on Sunset Blvd, the solution isn’t installing a beacon to warn them about a red light.

The Bike Talk podcast talks Vision Zero with Deborah Murphy, Malcolm Harris, Caroline Kewer, Brian Murray and Damien Kevitt.

The LADOT Bike Blog explains how Vision Zero will reduce the cost of traffic collisions we all have to bear; according to the site, the nearly 29,000 traffic-related injuries and deaths that occurred in Los Angeles in 2013 cost the city approximately $3.681 billion, or $367.36 per resident. The piece could use a little proofing, though; near the beginning it says roughly 200 people are severely injured or killed in traffic collisions in LA each year, while later it lists 1,591 in 2013 alone. Must have been a bad year.

A pair of cyclists want to share a beer with you to celebrate their return home from a 4,300 mile bike ride from New York to Long Beach on Friday.

 

State

Lost in the flurry of legislation passed in the state legislature’s final days last week was a bill clarifying the rules for e-bike riders; it now awaits Governor Brown’s signature. And based on past experience, God only knows what the hell he might do.

San Diego’s Vision Zero plan has been endorsed by the city council’s Infrastructure Committee.

San Jose residents refuse to sacrifice 26 free, on-street parking spots to make room for bike lanes.

 

National

A new report offers lessons in making bikeshare more equitable.

The owner of sock company Save Our Soles doubles down on the great Interbike sockgate blunder, without apologizing for the inappropriately sexist footwear. The best way to destroy your own business is to put your foot in your mouth while wearing your own socks.

The rich get richer. Already the nation’s fittest state, Colorado’s governor plans to invest $100 million over the next four years to make it the best state for bicycling. Your move, Gov. Brown.

A Colorado driver claims he couldn’t see the 4-year old boy riding a bike with his father that he hit while making a left turn because of landscaping on the median. So why turn if you can’t see where the heck you’re going? And why would any city let landscaping grow high enough to block the vision of turning drivers?

Nothing says bike racks have to be boring staples sticking out of the ground; Norman OK turns theirs into public art.

No irony here. Three British men cycling across the US installing ghost bikes and calling for an end to bicycling and running collisions were rear-ended by a pickup while riding through Missouri. Fortunately, they don’t seem to have been seriously injured; two have already been released from the hospital.

Caught on video: A University of Illinois cop reacts quickly and runs out into the street to stop a kid from riding in front of a bus. Despite the breathless headline, though, he doesn’t appear to risk his life; there isn’t any traffic other than the bus, which is on the other side of the street and never comes close to him. Unless the streets are so dangerous that just exiting your vehicle risks life and limb.

An Indiana writer explains why your hands get numb when you ride, and what to do about it.

New York police wrote 77,000 tickets for blocking bike lanes in the last fiscal year, even though they’re often the problem. Then again, they don’t seem to care about people driving on cycle tracks, either.

Richmond VA cyclists get a luxuriously wide buffered bike lane across a bridge, though getting on and off can still be a problem.

A North Carolina cyclist returns from riding the 750-mile Paris-Brest-Paris, and gets hit by a car twice in the same week. On the same road, no less.

Heartbreaking news from Charlotte NC, as a 73-year old man was killed riding his bike to the laundromat just months after ending years of homelessness following his service in the Gulf War; his bike was collateral damage in a collision between two vehicles.

 

International

A Taiwanese cyclist riding around the world made it over 3,100 miles before his bike was stolen in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Now that’s a great kid. After an 8-year old Ontario, Canada girl won a new bike, she gave it to another student because she already had one, saying she loved her bike and thought someone else would want one. She also recently donated her hair for cancer patients.

London’s bikeshare system is sampling the Blaze Laserlight that casts a laser image of a bike on the road ahead of the rider. Is it too much to ask for a laser light that measures out the three foot passing distance?

Nitrogen Dioxide kills 23,500 people in the UK every year, which means better bicycling infrastructure and increased ridership could save the lives of people who never set foot on pedal.

A British town wants to get rid of “arrogant and fast” bike riders who ignore traffic regulations and pose a threat to people walking.

A Brit letter writer says advanced stop lines for cyclists at intersections would be useless because most cyclists don’t stop anyway.

After a Scottish student goes on an extended 3 am Facebook rant when her bike was stolen, dozens of kindhearted people offer to replace it for her.

A Zambian bike rider killed a pedestrian while making a sharp left turn. Seriously, ride carefully around pedestrians, they’re the only ones more vulnerable on the streets than we are.

 

Finally…

Bad enough to be injured in a bicycling collision, let alone impaled in the groin by your handlebars. Motorists may complain about scofflaw cyclists, but scofflaw motorists, that’s just the way it is.

And maybe what drivers need are protected car lanes to make them feel safer.

………

Still more thanks are in order, this time to Moore Rhys for his generous donation to support this site.

 

Category: Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Man walking bike killed by train in Placentia Monday night

September 16, 2015 / / One comment

Somehow, this one went under the radar earlier this week.

According to the Orange County Register, 51-year old Rafael Romo was walking his bike north on Richfield Road when he ducked under the railroad crossing barrier on Orangethorpe Ave around 8:15 pm Monday.

He was standing on the south tracks waiting for an eastbound train to pass on the other tracks when he was hit by a train headed west at 48 mph. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The paper notes that it’s unsure if his death was an accident or may have been suicide. However, the latter seems unlikely if he brought the bike with him, rather than leaving it behind when he stepped under the barrier.

This serves as yet another warning to never go under or around railroad crossing guards, even if it seems safe at the time.

This is the 49th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 11th in Orange County. Romo is also the 19th SoCal bike rider to be killed by a train since 2011, which is the easiest type of collision to avoid.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Rafael Romo and all his loved ones.

Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , ,
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