May 9, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Beverly Hills marks bike month, bike/ped bridge plans safe for now, and prosecution rests in Tour de Palm Springs murder case
Chances are, if you’ve been here awhile, you’ll recall how I used to call Beverly Hills the Biking Black Hole for its complete lack of biking infrastructure.
Not to mention what was, at best, an antagonistic attitude towards bikes on the city’s behalf.
But clearly, things have changed.
They may still have work to do — hello, BHPD! — but Beverly Hills has made a number of improvements on the streets.
It looks like funding for the bridge is secure for now, and officials are moving forward with a required feasibility study, a relative handful of anti-bike NIMBYs notwithstanding .
So I’m told the best course of action, for now, is to hold off on contacting the state senators we listed yesterday.
Or if you still want to reach out, thank them for securing funding for the project.
Maybe George is still busy guiding things and stirring the post from the afterlife.
Huerta is facing a murder charge for the alleged stoned driving death of Mark Kristofferson during the 2018 Tour de Palm Springs, while driving at speeds up to 100 mph.
Without a driver’s license.
He also faces charges for severely injuring Huntington Beach resident Alyson Lee Akers in the same crash, who has been left with lasting injuries.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
The Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle and Pedestrian Path on the new Long Beach International Gateway Bridge will officially open on Saturday, May 20th. Maybe we can just unofficial shorten that unwieldy title to “the Bixby.”
An Indian man has been sentenced to a year behind bars for killing a 64-year old Singapore man riding a bicycle, after failing to give way at an intersection, and somehow convincing his passenger to take the blame.
No bias here. Retired Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson wants pro cyclists to adopt the anti-racist gesture of taking a knee to “save women’s sports” from trans athletes. In other words, she wants to use a gesture intended to support oppressed minorities to further oppress another oppressed minority. Which is just wrong, regardless of whether or not you approve of trans women competing in women’s sports.
May 8, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Guns versus cars, NIMBYs want to ban beach bike bridge in park named for late bike advocate, and SaMo anti-bike bias
Thank you everyone for the kind comments. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me.
I’d like to say I’m better now, but my blood sugar is still more reminiscent of a ballistic missile than a placid stream. And my mental state is still swirling around the drain, in part due to my health issues, and in part due too many stories like the ones below.
The former should get a boost when I see my doctor this week, and impress on her the need for more urgent and aggressive action; the latter should improve once the former does.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t count on the health of our streets getting better anytime soon. Or our society, for that matter.
Now let’s catch up on a little news.
I’ve lost track of who sent me what over the last week, so let me just apologize in advance and thank everyone who sent me something.
The next day, a speeding driver plowed into a crowd of migrants standing outside a homeless shelter in Brownsville, Texas, killing eight people and injuring at least eleven others, in a crash witnesses allege was intentional.
If there is a difference between these two events, it appears to be one without distinction.
The body count is remarkably similar; the only difference is the choice of weapon, and the only question is one of intent. Which something tells me matters not one wit to the victims or their loved ones.
We will continue to fail as a nation, and a society, until we take comprehensive action to rein in guns and cars, and the out-of-control people in possession of both.
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George Wolfberg, right, talks with LA County’s Kristofor Norberg.
I received an email from a friend who lives in the Pacific Palisades area while I was out of commission last week.
She writes that a new park in Potrero Canyon has been named after our mutual friend George Wolfberg, a lifelong civic advocate and volunteer who fought for better beach bike paths, bike lanes and other safety facilities to help Angelenos bike more and drive less, both for cleaner air and to combat climate change, and just for the sheer joy of riding a bike.
George worked on what will now be known as George Wolfberg Park at Potrero Canyon for over 30 years, part of his larger vision of an interconnected Los Angeles.
What he envisioned was a park that would be open to all of the public, an oasis for recreation and beauty, in a fully sustainable environment of coastal native plants, while a restored riparian water capture system would protect the canyon.
And taking nearly eight decades of civic pride and advocacy with him.
But more than just a park, George envisioned a bikeway that would safely allow average people to ride from downtown Pacific Palisades, through the park and across a bridge to the beach, as well as connecting to the bike path to take riders south to the Metro Expo (E) Line in Santa Monica, or even further to Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes.
The final step seemed to be when Senator Ben Allen and others earmarked $11 million for the bridge and bikeway,
But as we’ve seen too often in the past, someone always seems to step in at the last minute to throw a wrench in the whole thing.
In this case, it’s a group of wealthy NIMBY homeowners who bizarrely don’t want bikes of any kind to besmirch a park honoring a lifelong bike advocate.
Here’s how she described it.
HOWEVER, there is a group of homeowners in the Palisades with homes on or near the rim of the park who have been very vocal about not wanting any bicycles or any type or e-bikes to be allowed in the park (which goes against what the community came to agreement upon years ago). They are making a lot of noise and asking to return the funds and cancel the bridge.
Even though the Coastal Development Permit for the Potrero Canyon Park requires access to the beach;
The Recreation and Park Board of Commissioners’ approval for the George Wolfberg Park at Potrero Canyon envisions a bridge access across PCH to the beach parking lot;
A bridge would provide safe passage across PCH rather than the danger of people trying to cross through the traffic on foot;
The bridge is also something that Caltrans supports (and it does not support adding a crosswalk or light at that location).
Yes, they want to cancel an already funded, and potentially life-saving, bike project.
Where have we heard that before?
But here’s the problem.
Because it was assumed that this was moving forward and funds were set aside, elected officials are only hearing from people opposed to the project, and not from anyone advocating FOR the bridge.
To complicate matters, supporters of the project only learned about the opposition last Wednesday, while the vote is set for this Wednesday, May 10.
Which means if you want a bike path and connectivity to the beach via a safe bridge over PCH, you need to speak up now.
No, now.
Email your support to the following California state senators today —
Because banishing bikes from a park named for one of their biggest advocates would be this city’s ultimate bike fail.
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Speaking of NIMBYs, a group of motorists are once again raising their anti-bike heads to demand the removal of a SoCal bikeway, this time Santa Monica’s new 17th Street bikeway project.
And once again, they are arguing that a Complete Streets project designed to improve safety for everyone somehow makes them less safe for people in motor vehicles.
Which is just a socially acceptable way of saying they don’t want to be inconvenienced, and are willing to risk sacrificing human lives for their God-given right to go zoom! zoom! to their hearts content.
Calbike is asking you to email the California State Senate and the Senate Budget Committee to demand that California policymakers to “divest from regressive road-building” and invest $10 billion in Complete Streets and California’s transportation future. Works for me.
This is who we share the road with, too. A Corona man was found guilty of killing three teenagers, and critically injuring three others, when he ran their car off the road and into a tree, for the crime of playing Ding Dong Ditch and speeding off after mooning him.
Hundreds of people rode their bikes in the annual Davis Loopalooza, as residents tried to reclaim their city in the wake of a serial stabber who killed two people, including one who was killed as he rode his bike through a local park.
A Spokane, Washington woman is — allegedly — a two-time hit-and-run loser, charged with killing two people after getting drunk and falling asleep behind the wheel, a decade after she was convicted of fleeing the scene after killing a bike rider. Which is precisely why drivers should lose their license for life after a single hit-and-run, because they’ve shown themselves to be unwilling to obey even the most basic requirement for driving. Let alone human decency.
The definition of chutzpah. An Arizona driver, apparently dissatisfied with the gentle caress on the wrist he received for the hit-and-run crash that killed a bike rider, appealed his conviction and sentence of less than six months behind bars and five years probation; thankfully, the appeals court politely told him to pipe down and do his time.
A Pittsburgh columnist argues the city should commit to zero traffic deaths by 2035. Although as we’ve learned the hard way, it’s one thing to commit to no traffic deaths, but it’s another to get elected leaders to actually invest the money and make the hard choices to make it happen.
This is why people keep dying on our streets. The Washington Postlooks at DC’s failure to rein in dangerous drivers, as one motorist manages to run up $186,000 in unpaid traffic fines. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the streets until its too late.
And fortunately, this helped mitigate the trauma caused when Britain’s new figurehead not only failed to include a regiment of royal corgis in the coronation parade, but didn’t even his loyal four-foot soldiers a shoutout.
https://t.co/eVnISQLK8h does it for me without sound even! OR failing for me an oldy so maybe not seen too recently? [The AI pics are insensitive this is real woman and dog! (if marketing )]https://t.co/qwuTTzOt7d
The victim died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics, and has not been publicly identified.
An anonymous caller alerted the police to the location of the driver’s car, a black late model Nissan SUV, less than a block away in an underground parking garage in the 14100 block of Cerise Avenue.
A street view shows a large apartment complex at that location, suggesting the 21-year old driver, who also has not been publicly identified, may have been arrested at his home, or visiting another person.
April 28, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Deliberate vehicular assault in Point Loma hit-and-run, CA ebike rebates, and comment on Redondo Beach Blvd plan
Tristan Gonzalez, a former San Diego police helicopter pilot and a high school mountain bike league board member — and, I’m told, a really nice guy — was riding on Catalina Blvd near Bernice Drive when he was run down by the driver around 4:50 pm.
He posted about the crash from his hospital bed, describing the suspect as a white male around 35-45 years old, wearing a lighter colored baseball cap, and driving a smaller white pickup truck with an extended cab and non-tinted windows.
He said he first encountered the driver of a white Toyota Tacoma a block earlier near Catalina Boulevard and Narragansett Avenue. He said he sensed the driver was getting dangerously close to him. At one point, he said the driver hit the handlebars of Gonzalez’s bike.
Gonzalez said he approached the truck and looked into the window. He said the driver stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge him.
As they both continued down Catalina toward Bernice, he sensed he was about to be hit.
“All of a sudden, I hear honking. I hear a car speed up, and sure enough, the same white truck came up alongside me,” said Gonzalez. “I just had time to look over and to see it was the same truck and to see the driver steer and turn the truck and speed right into me. I went flying and landed in the street with several injuries.”
To make matters worse, I’m told a witness pulled over to help, but accidentally left her car in drive, only stopping when Gonzolez’ helmet was wedged between the front tire, fender and bumper as a wheel chock.
He was hospitalized with a broken hip, clavicle and punctured lung. The good news is, he was scheduled to be released on Wednesday.
Police are reportedly taking the incident seriously, investigating the crash as an assault with a deadly weapon. Although it should be considered attempted murder.
A still photo taken from a doorbell video shows the white extended cab pickup.
An anti-bike member of the British Parliament called for removing a bike lane where 59 people have been injured in the past year as a result of a pale line painted the same color as a curb, creating an optical illusion; he has also used racist terms in the past in criticizing bike lanes. Or they could just paint one or the other a different color, and solve the whole problem.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The LA Times gets it, saying walking to school shouldn’t be deadly, in the wake of the crash that killed a mom and critically injured her daughter as they crossed the street to get to the girl’s school. Then again, biking to school shouldn’t mean risking life and limb, either.
Metro says this year’s Bike Week is scheduled for May 15-19 and Bike Day, formerly known as Bike To Work Day, will be Thursday, May 18. Let’s just hope it doesn’t fizzle out for lack of interest like it did last year.
The family of fallen Encinitas bicyclist Jennings Worley have begun settlement talks in a lawsuit against Shea Homes, three years after Worley, a leading scientist working on a cure cystic fibrosis, was killed when moving truck driver right hooked him turning into one of the builder’s developments. Which raises the question of how many CF patients will needlessly suffer because he isn’t there to develop a treatment for the devastating disease.
A Spokane, Washington website says 750 bike riders have been struck by drivers in the city since 2014, along with 1,500 pedestrians, and examines what can be done to stop the carnage.
Road.ccexplains what all-road bikes are, describing them as “drop-bar bikes that are fast and capable on any kind of road surface from smooth asphalt all the way to light gravel tracks.” In other words, what we used to call a “bicycle.”
April 28, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: Bicyclist killed north of Lancaster Wednesday night
Someone was killed riding a bike somewhere near Gorman Wednesday night.
Or maybe not.
According to My News LA, the CHP responded after the victim was struck around 11:06 pm Wednesday, finding the victim’s body lying on side of the roadway.
Struck by what is unclear, though, since there’s no mention of a driver. Or even a motor vehicle.
We also don’t know if the driver stuck around or fled the scene, nor is there any description of the victim.
The site places the crash on the northbound Antelope Valley Freeway (CA 14) and West Avenue C. However, the Antelope Valley Freeway goes nowhere near Gorman, which is around 40 miles west on the 5 Freeway.
There also does not appear to be a West Avenue C anywhere near Gorman, though there is a W Ave C 14 in Lancaster. But it doesn’t appear to intersect with the Antelope Valley Freeway.
Hopefully someone will clarify things soon.
This is, presumably, at least the 15th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
April 27, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Huerta on trial for Tour de Palm Springs death, examining the racial gap in traffic deaths, and too little too late for LA mom
We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, so settle in and let’s get to it.
Huerta was allegedly stoned and driving at up to 100 mph when he lost control of his car and plowed into the Lake Stevens, Washington man and 48-year-old Huntington Beach resident Alyson Lee Akers as they were riding their bikes.
Kristofferson died at the scene, while Akers miraculously survived the impact despite suffering significant head trauma, resulting in lasting injuries.
Huerta was arrested after he was detained by witnesses as he tried to escape into the desert.
He faces charges of second-degree murder, driving under the influence of drugs resulting in great bodily injury, reckless driving and driving on a suspended license.
NBC Palm Springs had this to say about Huerta’s driving history prior to the crash.
According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Huerta was a repeat traffic offender, racking up seven citations over a two- year span for speeding, failing to obey traffic signals and signs, making unsafe lane changes and driving while distracted due to use of a cellular telephone.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended his driving privileges in 2017 because he had accumulated so many points on his record that he was deemed a “negligent operator” of a vehicle and unsafe to be on the road, the brief said.
Huerta had been suspected of driving under the influence of marijuana during a Desert Hot Springs police investigation in January 2017 stemming from his plowing through a stop sign on Palm Drive. However, no charges were filed due to a lack of conclusive results in blood screenings that were done after his arrest, according to court papers.
Despite that, he still retained possession of his car, so he able to get behind the wheel despite his horrendous driving record and lack of a valid license.
Across the US — and right here in Los Angeles — your risk of dying in a traffic collision increases exponentially if you live in a community populated primarily by people of color, as well as lower income neighborhoods.
Which are too often the same thing.
The design of our cities is partly to blame for these troubling disparities. Pedestrian and cyclist injuries tend to be concentratedin poorer neighborhoods that have a larger share of Black and Hispanic residents. These neighborhoods share a history of under-investment in basic traffic safety measures such as streetlights, crosswalks and sidewalks, and an over-investment in automobile infrastructure meant to speed through people who do not live there. Recent research from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that formerly redlined neighborhoods — often the targets of mid-century “slum clearance” projects that destroyed residences and businesses to allow for new arterial roads and highways — had a strong statistical association with increased pedestrian deaths. The neighborhoods graded D for lending risk by the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation had more than double the pedestrian fatality rate than neighborhoods graded A.
He writes that on a per mile basis, Black people are more than twice as likely to be struck and killed by a vehicle as white pedestrians, while fatality rates for Black bicyclists are a whopping 4.5 times higher than white cyclists.
For Hispanic walkers and bikers, the death rates were 1.5 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than they are for white Americans using the same modes of transportation.
Then he brings it home for those of us living here in LA.
In Los Angeles, for instance, a 2020 analysis by U.C.L.A. researchers found that although Black residents made up 8.6 percent of the city’s population, they represented more than 18 percent of all pedestrians killed and around 15 percent of all cyclists. From 2016 to 2020, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had more pedestrian deaths than any other metro area in the United States and a pedestrian death rate higher than the metropolitan areas around New York, Philadelphia or Washington…
Last year, 312 people died in traffic accidents in Los Angeles, the majority of them pedestrians and cyclists. “If 300 people died of something in the city, whether it was something violent or whether it was something else like Covid, the resources were put behind it to try to prevent those things, to respond to those things,” said Eunisses Hernandez, a member of the Los Angeles City Council. “We have not seen that same urgency with people dying in traffic accidents as pedestrians and as cyclists.”
Shameful doesn’t begin to describe it.
The solution, he says, is investing in safer road design with proven interventions like “narrowing streets, reducing the amount of space devoted to cars, enforcing speed limits and adding trees to provide visual cues for drivers to slow down.”
And he adds,
City planners must recognize that we all should be able to walk or ride a bicycle through our own neighborhood without fearing for our life.
It’s well worth a few minutes of your day to read the whole thing.
Go ahead, we’ll wait.
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Call it yet another example to too little, too late.
Which raises the obvious question of what the hell took them so long — particularly since the city has ostensibly had a Safe Routes to Schools program for the past several years?
And why the hell do we always have to wait until someone is needlessly killed before making even the smallest safety improvements?
At least they’re doing something now. Too late for an innocent mother and her equally innocent child.
Americans are in a toxic relationship with their automobiles. They’re bad for us—polluting, noisy, and increasingly dangerous to pedestrians—yet we remain fully committed to them. They’re also bad at their primary function: transport.
The program will be limited to California residents 18 or older, with a gross annual household income less than 300% of the federal poverty level.
The station reports that the standard tax credit will be $1,000, with an additional $750 for cargo or adaptive ebikes.
You can also receive another $250 if you live in a a disadvantaged or low-income community, or have a gross income 225% of the federal poverty level, or less.
Streets For All reminds you to take the survey about changes to Eagle Rock Blvd between Colorado and York boulevards, and select Option 2, which they say is “safest for cyclists, widens sidewalks, adds more sidewalk trees and preserves the most parking (ie. less likely to experience community pushback).”
San Diego continues to make massive payouts to settle personal injury lawsuits, with the latest example a $2.95 million settlement for a man who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was thrown off his bike after hitting sunken pavement in the city’s Bay Ho neighborhood, and now suffers permanent disabilities. Thanks to Phillip Young for the link.
This is who we share the road with. A Temescal Valley man is on trial for murder in the hit-and-run death of three teenagers, and critically injuring three others, when he allegedly ran them off the road in a fit of rage after one of the teens rang his doorbell and mooned him before speeding off in their car; he also claims he seldom drinks, but somehow chugged two six-packs of beer in two and a half hours before the crash, yet was miraculously driving under control, “even using his turn signals” as he pursued their car. Sure, that’s credible.
The Kelly Clarkson Showfeatures Sacramento’s Mercy Pedalers, a religious nonprofit that uses bikes to distribute water, food and other vital resources to the city’s homeless residents.
A bill in the Oregon legislature targeting civil disorder has bike advocates worried that it could ensnare people protesting while riding a bike or corking an intersection on charges of engaging in paramilitary activity.
The family of a Pittsburgh man tased to death by cops for the crime of test riding a bicycle he thought was abandoned has reached a super secret settlement with the city; five officers were fired over the incident, while three others were disciplined.
The chair of New York’s city council transportation committee insists local community boards should have veto power over street safety projects. Which would turn New York’s successful traffic safety work into the same failed system we suffer with in Los Angeles, where councilmembers overrule any and every project in their districts.
Two new bike lanes across the Mississippi River from New Orleans are causing confusing among apparently easily confused drivers and local officials, with contradictory complaints that one lacks protective barriers, and the other one doesn’t.
And when you’re riding your bike with an outstanding arrest warrant, stop for the damn stop sign, already — and don’t fight with the cops after leading them on a bicycle chase.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Today’s Morning Links have been cancelled in favor of an unbridled rant regarding the sheer recalcitrant idiocy demonstrated by the Culver City Council Tuesday night.
Or make that early Wednesday morning, since treachery usually occurs in the early morning hours, long after most people with any common sense have gone to bed.
Which leaves out three-fifths of Culver City’s elected leadership.
We’ll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled programming.
Yet they still voted 3 to 2 to remove the protected bike lanes in favor of a shared bus and bike lane, in order to add another traffic lane so more drivers can go zoom, zoom to their hearts content.
thank you to everyone who showed up and spoke out, and to the advocates who did everything they could. You are heard and appreciated by your community. No matter the temporary setbacks, we know the future is on our side, and we will get there together.
In reality, it’s likely to result in more congestion, as the added lane will just encourage more drivers to clog the city’s downtown area, with the added noise, smog and safety risks they’ll bring with them.
It will also mean reduced bike traffic, as fewer riders will be willing to use the newly shared bus and bike lanes, with the risk of an inattentive or impatient bus driver running up their ass.
Then again, that appears to be purely intentional.
And it means slower bus traffic, as buses will now have to follow behind people on bicycles, making it a less attractive transportation option and resulting reduced ridership.
Because the city is giving a big FU to anyone not safely ensconced in a couple tons of dangerous, polluting glass and steel.
And you can add another lose to that, since the move to rip out the project will inevitably result in a CEQA violation unless the city manages to conduct an environmental impact study that somehow miraculously shows little or no environmental damage from the project’s removal.
Sure, that will happen.
In reality, the city will likely try to rip out the bike lanes without conducting the required study, resulting in a CEQA lawsuit, followed by a likely court judgement requiring them to put them back.
Making the entire effort a performative exercise designed to placate the angry conservative voters who elected the new reactionary councilmembers.
While everyone else who lives, works or moves through the city just gets shafted.
Pitiful.
Needless to say, the condemnation following the vote was fast and furious.
With their vote, they showed they valued a motorist’s ability to speed through a neighborhood more than anyone else’s right to safely enjoy a neighborhood. 2/3
Also thinking a lot today about Culver City families who finally felt safe walking and biking to school — and woke up to the news that their elected officials don't think their lives are worth saving https://t.co/5q2hUULFWR
the vibe from our 3 conservatives all night: if you can’t afford Culver City’s average rent of $3200 a month, buddy we don’t really care about you https://t.co/DHt2r5hg3j
— Bubba for Culver City Council! (@vote4bubba) April 25, 2023
I CANNOT BELIEVE CULVER CITY IS DESTROYING ITS BIKE LANES. this is genuinely madness. i can't tell you how much safer we felt walking our toddler on those sidewalks because the bike&bus lane is MUCH NICER to walk next to than cars https://t.co/pxVk8OapFF
The man, identified as 73-year old Marietta resident Josef Pinter, slammed into the back of the stopped SUV. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the local police, it wasn’t clear if the driver’s brake lights were on or if she had turned on her flashers, and Pinter may not have seen her stopped in front of him.
There’s also no word on whether she even had her lights on in the growing evening darkness, or if Pinter had a light on his bike that could have illuminated the vehicle.
April 25, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Stop as yield passes Assembly committee, MOVE Culver City debate goes late, and bike-riding teens shot in Florence drive-by
The state Assembly’s Transportation Committee has once again passed a version of the Idaho Stop Law.
San Diego Assemblymember Tasha Boerner tweets that AB 73 would allow bike riders 18 and over to treat stop signs as yields, but only when it’s safe to do so.
She also notes that “9 other states already allow policies like these because the data shows it’s safer for cyclists & other drivers.”
The city council meeting discussing a proposal to rip out the successful MOVE Culver City mobility project is still ongoing as I write this; delaying discussion of controversial issues like this is a time-tested method of waiting out the opposition in hopes they’ll leave before the proposal comes up.
However, as the following tweet suggests, opposition to the project is firmly entrenched, wrong though it may be.
Councilmember Dan O’Brein says comments tonight were overwhelmingly for keeping/expanding move. But still wants to remove the protected bike lane for more cars. He cites the survey of just Culver City residents “because that’s who votes”
Meanwhile, the list of elected officials coming out in favor of the project continues to grow.
Electeds who have publicly urged council to not add cars to Move:
– Asm. Isaac Bryan – Sen. Ben Allen – Asm. Laura Friedman – Sup. Lindsey Horvath – Sup. Holly Mitchell – LA Councilmember Katy Young Yaroslavsky – SaMo Councilmember Jesse Zwick – WeHo Councilmember John Erickson
Move Culver City has been a transformative project for street safety in LA county. Across the border in CD5, we’re working hard to bring similar safety interventions to Venice Blvd. I hope we can work with Culver City to create a truly connected network between our cities.
— Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky (@CD5LosAngeles) April 24, 2023
Finally, it’s hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like a good turnout for the protest ride in favor of retaining the project.
Seriously, why the hell isn’t this bigger news when a pair of teenagers get shot riding a bike in LA’s Florence neighborhood?
Accordingto the Daily Breeze, a 16-year-old boy and 18-year-old girl apparently sharing a bicycle when they were critically injured in a drive-by shooting.
So is the problem that we just take shootings for granted now? Or just shootings “down there”?
Or do bike riders — or communities of color — just not matter anymore?
Or maybe all of the above.
………
Tragic news from Newport Beach, where bike shop owner Don Feuer was struck by a driver while riding a scooter.
The page has raised just over $8,600 of the $50,000 goal in five days, though word of his injuries is just getting out.
Given the extent of his injuries, however, even the full $50,000 is likely to be just a drop in the bucket for his future medical expenses.
Thanks to Psmith for the heads-up.
………
Guerrilla DIY infrastructure group Crosswalk Collective demonstrates LA’s firm commitment to whatever is the opposite of Vision Zero, in which the death of a pedestrian results in a memorial sign and the removal of the group’s DIY crosswalks.
And shamefully, no other action in the seven years since.
Gabriela Futsi was killed crossing here in 2016.
After 7 years, LADOT took action: They installed a memorial sign. We painted two crosswalks on April 10 and within days, they removed them.
No bias here, either. A Minnesota letter writer says it’s time to stop giving carte blanche to bike path developers, accusing proponents of being divided between absolutists and “rational people.” As if developers of any bike path, anywhere, have ever been given carte blanche.
An Indiana man was sentenced to up to forty years behind bars — or as little as three — for the hit-and-run crash that killed a man riding a bicycle four years ago; he also got a whole eight-day sentence for driving without a license — suspended, of course.
That’s more like it. An Israeli driver will spend the next ten years behind bars for the drunken Yom Kippur death of a 12-year old boy riding his bike in Jerusalem two years ago, as well as being banned from driving for 20 years.
