Metro picks cars over bikes in NoHo, Flax says bicyclists really are entitled, and bus/bike lanes proposed for SaMo Blvd

February 11, 2022 / / Comments Off on Metro picks cars over bikes in NoHo, Flax says bicyclists really are entitled, and bus/bike lanes proposed for SaMo Blvd

Happy International Winter Bike to Work Day!

Even if it goes completely unnoticed here in Southern California, where we don’t have to worry about chipping the ice and snow off our bikes. 

Let alone ourselves at the end of a sunny winter’s ride. 

Photo by photorama from Pixabay.

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Maybe it’s time to sound the alarm.

Last week, we mentioned that Metro’s renderings for a planned transit-oriented development at the North Hollywood station didn’t show the existing bikeways currently serving the area.

Apparently, there’s a reason for that.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton writes that a new presentation of the project — which would replace a huge surface parking lot with over 1,500 new housing units, as well as retail and office space — does show plans for bike lanes.

Just not as good as what’s there right now.

The massive project, which sits right next to the connecting point for the Burbank-Chandler and Orange Line multi-use paths, will erase a popular bike path connecting to the pathways. And replace it with a convoluted series of bike lanes that will encourage bicyclists to dangerously break the law by riding against traffic.

Here’s what Linton has to say.

Currently cyclists – including me and my daughter – heading from NoHo Station toward Burbank utilize the existing bus plaza sidewalk (which is going away) to get to Metro’s bike path (which is going away) that runs along the north side of Chandler Boulevard between Fair Avenue and Vineland Avenue.

LADOT expects eastbound bicyclists to go out of their way to cross four to five lanes of traffic on Chandler, then to make an uncomfortable left turn onto Vineland (where lots of drivers are turning right) to get to the Burbank-Chandler path. Cyclists will likely choose to salmon-ride against traffic in the westbound bike lane (or on the sidewalk), because that will be more direct and faster. (Similarly ridiculous circulation is shown on Chandler west of Lankershim. LADOT somehow expects cyclists to cross to the north side of Chandler at the station, then cross Chandler again in 500 feet to go to a median bikeway on the south side of Chandler.)

To make matters worse, the bike path is due to be replaced by, you guessed it, a parking garage.

And not just any parking garage, but a concrete behemoth with spaces for 3,300 drivers and their vehicles. Which would suggest that Metro has given up on getting Angelenos out of their cars, even as the world is literally burning.

It also suggests that Metro believes bike riders have a place on the road, but only if we don’t inconvenience all those important people in cars in any way.

Here’s Linton again.

Why wasn’t this path, a big active transportation priority, part of Metro’s site requirements? It sure looks like bike circulation was a non-priority – an afterthought – something to be half-assedly shoehorned in after cars took up lots of space.

(And, frankly, this is how Metro treats stations, bikeways, and transit-oriented development. With no public notice or input, Metro yanked an approved bikeway from its Rosa Parks Station revamp, while allowing drivers to speed through the middle of the station complex. The Expo Line bike path has an awful, dangerous gap at Culver City Station where cyclists are dumped out to onto busy streets just before they reach the station. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Nobody bikes to these stations anyway” because Metro makes them inhospitable to bicycling.)…

The project really should be re-worked to include a continuous bike path from Vineland to at least Tujunga Avenue. Ideally the path would bridge over Lankershim and Vineland. That continuous path was shown in renderings circulated in 2016. If Metro and (Councilmember Paul) Krekorian are serious about passing a habitable climate along to the next generation, this feature should be put back in.

We’ll look forward to future public meetings when we’ll have the chance to offer some very negative feedback.

In the meantime, maybe it’s time to tell Krekorian, who singlehandedly canceled shovel-ready plans for a lane reduction and bike lanes on Lankershim Blvd, he needs to do better.

A lot better.

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Surprisingly, longtime bike scribe Peter Flax agrees with all those people who say cyclists are entitled.

Except he says our primary entitlement is the right to get home alive.

And he’s got the t-shirt to prove it.

Here’s how it gets deployed. Someone sees a rider pedaling in the street and perhaps even gets delayed 15 seconds, and so cyclists are entitled. Or maybe 17 parking spaces were reapportioned to make room for a bike lane, and so cyclists are entitled. Or someone makes the quite novel observation that bike riders don’t pay registration fees or taxes on the gasoline they don’t use. Or somebody sees a rider roll through a stop sign or maybe filter past gridlocked traffic with a smile on their face. You all know the chorus: Cyclists are entitled.

Of course this is total rubbish. The people who do all this moaning about cyclists are drivers who are oblivious to all the obscene entitlements that they enjoy. We are talking about trillions of dollars and decades of subsidies. We are talking about hundreds of millions of free parking spaces. We are talking about the most lurid fantasies of the petroleum and automotive industries being transmogrified into policy. Motorists have been lavished with VIP privileges for so long that they don’t even perceive them.

In order to reclaim that misused term, Flax says we need a bill of rights, including,

  • Cyclists are entitled to get home alive
  • Cyclists are entitled to safe places to ride
  • Cyclists are entitled to travel to work, schools, and local businesses just like everyone else
  • Cyclists are entitled to legal protections
  • Cyclists are entitles to have lawmakers, police departments, and the judicial system acknowledge and protect people who ride bikes
  • Cyclists are entitled to ride on the road

Like anything Flax writes, it’s a good piece. And more than worth a few minutes of your time.

And reminiscent of this Cyclists’ Bill of Rights we mentioned earlier this week, which nearly became law in Los Angeles, before it didn’t.

Oh, and about that t-shirt.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1491896038478675994

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This would be a huge improvement for the deadly, heavily congested corridor, where fallen bicyclist Frank Guzman was killed in 2018.

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Say goodbye to the Higuera Street Bridge over Ballona Creek, with a bigger, better replacement coming by the end of the year — complete with buffered bike lanes and a new ramp leading to the bike path.

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Former American pro Ted King says he’s a fan of fixing his own bike, despite the increasing complexity of modern bicycles.

https://twitter.com/iamtedking/status/1491587873128292353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1491587873128292353%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-10-february-2022-290211

Although as usual, it’s Phil Gaimon for the win.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Brits are getting out the torches and pitchforks over a new bike lane, which narrowed the road so much in some places that drivers aren’t able to pass slower traffic. Which is kind of the point, yes.

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Local

KCRW examines whether banning outdoor bike sales and repair will help stop LA’s bike theft epidemic, where 96% of bike thefts go unsolved. And those are only the ones that get reported to the police.

A Claremont student relates his tale of riding 240 miles from Torrance to Morro Bay on a whim while on winter break.

 

State

Fresno finally announced plans to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians trying to access a local park, after a bike rider was killed riding next to it last month.

A San Francisco judge says yes, the city did have the right to close the Great Highway to motor vehicles during the pandemic, quashing an effort to force them to reopen it right away.

 

National

A series of events and bike rides will take place across the US this summer to mark the 125th anniversary of the legendary Buffalo Soldiers great bicycle experiment, which culminated in a 1,900-mile expedition that proved the value of bikes as a military tool, before they were rudely shoved aside by motor vehicles.

Forbes offers their take on the best bike locks to help make sure your bike is still there when you come back for it.

The death of a Houston man who was killed when he was right hooked by a pickup driver may be the first case prosecuted under a new Texas law that requires drivers to stop and yield for someone in a crosswalk. Which was kind of the whole rationale for crosswalks to begin with.

A Florida lawyer with a keen sense of the obvious says the recent drawbridge accident that killed a 79-year old woman walking her bike across the span should never have happened.

 

International

Start saving your spare change. A bike tourism company is offering a 36-day, 2,300 mile tour from Paris to Tallinn, Estonia, which follows the route Napoleon took across Europe in the 1800s, for the low, low price of $17,208. Or you can do just eight days for a touch over four grand.

Bloomberg CityLab looks at the rise of bike buses from San Francisco to Barcelona, allowing kids to rule the roads on their way to and from school.

A British professional triathlete was crushed to find her $13,500 tri bike had been crushed on an EasyJet flight.

Happy birthday to legendary Italian framebuilder Ernesto Colnago, who turns 90 this week.

 

Competitive Cycling

Great news, as two-time Grand Tour winner Egan Bernal is back on his feet — literally — after suffering critical injuries when he slammed into a poorly parked bus while training in his native Colombia.

 

Finally…

Bike theft at the Beijing Olympics. Nothing like a company naming their new ebike for the sole purpose of getting free publicity on social media.

And that feeling when traffic engineers respond to complaints about a badly designed bikeway.

By adding a sign.

https://twitter.com/Andy_likes2bike/status/1438284665219997697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1438284665219997697%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsf.streetsblog.org%2F2022%2F02%2F10%2Feditorial-bicycle-safety-and-the-time-of-leeching%2F

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Candidate list for June primary, Times’ Abcarian says Vision Zero “impossible,” and PCH claims another victim

February 10, 2022 / / Comments Off on Candidate list for June primary, Times’ Abcarian says Vision Zero “impossible,” and PCH claims another victim

Pick your ponies and place your bets.

The Los Angeles City Clerk has posted the latest list of candidates filing for the city’s June primary election.

Like most California elections, not everyone is a serious candidate. But there are some genuine choices hidden among the clowns and wannabes.

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No, Vision Zero is not “impossible.”

LA Times columnist Robin Abcarian writes that eliminating traffic deaths is a worthy, but impossible, goal.

The goal is worthy, but why go out on a limb with a big, bold promise that is so obviously doomed to fail?

In Australia, at least, they call the effort “Toward Zero,” which seems more realistic…

As long as there is traffic, there will be traffic tragedy, especially in a car-centric city like ours, where you cannot drive an inch without seeing distracted drivers holding phones. How many times have you been stuck behind a car at a red light that doesn’t move when the light turns green because the driver in front is poking at a screen? At least while they aren’t moving, they aren’t killing anyone.

The obvious problem with that attitude is the question of just how many deaths are acceptable as the cost of just getting from here to there.

Graphic by tomexploresla

And if that number is anything other than zero, which of your loved ones are you willing to sacrifice to the motor vehicle gods?

Which makes it clear that one is the only acceptable answer.

Abcarian’s right that we may not get there today. But it’s up to all of us to do everything we can to make sure we get there tomorrow.

To her credit, she does identify one of the biggest problems with Vision Zero, with each of the city’s 15 councilmembers free to implement their own vision of how to end traffic deaths, or the lack thereof.

As well as the lack of alignment between the city and county, with Los Angeles aiming for 2025 — just three years from now — while the county aims to end traffic deaths a decade later.

Never mind the other 87 cities that call LA County home.

But the solution to that is to coordinate, not forget it. Then give the city and county transportation agencies the power to override individual councilmembers and supervisors to do what needs to be done to save lives.

Which also serves to shield our elected officials from blame by angry drivers, which is what some of them really care about, anyway.

And while we’re at it, someone please tell Ms. Abcarian the difference between a crash and an accident.

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Southern California’s serial killer highway has claimed yet another victim.

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Pass the word, teens can grab a quick Benjamin from Walk ‘n Rollers for customizing a bicycle.

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Remember, you always need a truck or SUV to go to the hardware store.

https://twitter.com/Matticusssss/status/1491592225007935490

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Sometimes it’s not who we share the road with, but what.

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1491487543455465472

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Here’s that great East Side Riders video we weren’t able to embed yesterday.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Someone in newly bike friendly San Diego clearly doesn’t get it, ruling that no action is necessary for a traffic signal clearly designed to thin the herd by encouraging drivers to turn left through a bike lane while bike riders still have the green. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.

There’s a special place in hell for the couple who flipped off a bike-riding Florida boy as they passed him in their car, then whipped a U-turn and threatened him with a gun when he responded in kind, before proceeding to pistol whip and slap him repeatedly; they were arrested after the boy managed to record video of the couple, along with their car and license plate.

A 67-year old Scottish man was left shaken after a construction worker pelted him with cement when he stopped his bike to ask if they had a permit to block an Edinburgh bike lane with a cement mixer.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A thirsty armed robber helped himself to cash and a canned drink from a Houston convenience store before making his getaway on a baby blue bike.

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Local

Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman takes a hard look at mayoral candidate and current Councilmember Joe Buscaino’s motion to crack down on bike chop shops, which could also catch legitimate bike repair in its wide net. Including if you decide to fix your own bicycle outside on a sunny day, if it’s too broadly written.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton checks out the new bike lanes on Yosemite Drive in Eagle Rock.

This is who we share the road with. A Manhattan Beach man claims a driver ran him over in a grocery store parking lot, then backed up and ran over him again, in a dispute over face masks that began inside.

Camilla Cabella is one of us, taking a bikeshare ride through the streets of LA with a “mysterious” friend. Oh, and she likes ice cream, too.

Rihanna showed her generosity Sunday, stopping by the West Los Angeles VA Campus with practical, needed gifts for homeless vets, including bike locks.

 

State

The annual Tour de Palm Springs returns to the Coachella Valle this weekend, with safety measures and law enforcement in place to hopefully keep participants safe, which hasn’t always been the case.

A 55-year old Navy vet is suing Caltrans, Bakersfield and Kern County after he was injured riding his bike into an open manhole on a Bakersfield sidewalk, which was left unmarked by orange cones or other warning devices.

The US Forest Service settled a lawsuit by agreeing to allow ebikes on non-motorized trails in the Tahoe National Forest.

 

National

Yes, please. A quartet of Democratic congressmen urged the president to request full funding for the new Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program in the next budget, which would provide $200 million a year for five years for biking and walking projects.

US ebike sales are on their way to one million units a year in the US, and one billion worldwide.

A new lawsuit accuses Peloton of bullying competitors and entering into sham agreements to secure its market position.

In a case of real life imitating art, actor Bob Odenkirk revealed his near-fatal heart attack came as he was riding an exercise bike on the set of Better Call Saul, which may or may not have been the same make that killed Mr. Big in HBO’s Sex and the City reboot, and nearly killed Mike “Wags” Wagner on Billions.

Talk about Viking biking. Try riding an ice bike across Wisconsin’s frozen Lake Winnebago in 13° weather.

Frightening story from New York, where a man called the NYPD to report a parked truck illegally blocking a bus stop, and immediately started getting death threats from the truck’s owner — even though his call should have been confidential.

 

International

Treehugger recommends their picks for the best bike cargo bags.

Towing your kids in a bike trailer may not be good for their lungs, as a new British study shows the lower position exposes them to more pollution that someone on a bike seat.

No bias here. And no surprise, either, as a new study from the UK shows that drivers and bike riders are treated differently by the press following a crash.

British bicyclists rode to protest a “discriminatory” daytime ban from the Bedford town center, which resulted in 3,200 fines for the equivalent of $107 — including one issued to a man on the second week of his around-the-world bike tour.

Now bike thieves aren’t even waiting until the bikes are assembled. Thieves hijacked 10,000 Shimano ebike parts by gassing the driver at a German service station.

Pakistan’s Associated Press captures a photo of an old man selling bundles of traditional handmade brooms from his bicycle.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai is one of us, riding with a group to check out a new beachfront bike path. And yes, I included that one just so I could use his full title.

 

Competitive Cycling

Black cycling legend Major Taylor’s 119-year old wood-rimmed Peugeot bike is returning for an exhibit at the Indiana State Museum in his Indianapolis home town.

Tadej Pogačar is back on his bike after testing positive for Covid.

We Love Cycling looks at inter-generational cycling dynasties.

In a scene straight out of Breaking Away, a local Colombian kid falls in and holds his own alongside Rigoberto Urán and Tom Dumoulin on a training ride. Except they don’t put a tire pump through his spokes.

 

Finally…

When you’re carrying meth on your bike with several outstanding felony warrants, maybe try not to make your escape through a snow-covered field.

And enough said.

https://twitter.com/schmangee/status/1491506749794361345

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Repeat hit-and-run driver gets 31 years for killing Riverside bike rider, and LA city council votes to ban outdoor bike repair

February 9, 2022 / / 3 comments

That’s more like it.

A California judge got a one-man hit-and-run crime wave off the road by sentencing a 35-year old man with a long criminal record to a whopping 31 years behind bars.

Steven Allen Watson Jr. was convicted for the Riverside hit-and-run that killed bike rider Brian Sabel, as well as another hit-and-run 21 months later that left a 56-year old woman walking with a cane.

He served time for car theft in between — just one of his 17 other felony convictions, along with three misdemeanors.

Watson will have to serve at least 85% of that sentence before he’s eligible for parole, which means he’ll be at least 61 years old when he’s released.

Hopefully, he won’t be allowed to drive once he is.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

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The Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 4 to draft an ordinance banning bike repair or sales on city streets.

The ordinance is intended to halt the bike chop shops that have proliferated in plain view around the city, contributing to the rash of bike thefts.

However, it would also criminalize legitimate bike repair services for homeless residents, and prevent them from earning a modest income by repairing and selling abandoned bicycles.

Hopefully the city attorney’s office will find a way to split the baby that halts criminal activity without preventing other legal activities.

But I wouldn’t count on it.

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That 2.7 earthquake in Silver Lake yesterday was probably just the shock of drivers finding out LA’s Riverside Drive is getting a road diet (scroll down).

A half-mile stretch of one of the two northbound lanes between Glendale and Los Feliz Blvds will be removed to calm traffic and make room for protected bike lanes on either side.

You can only imagine the shockwaves that would have resulted if they had tried to remove parking spaces, too.

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NBC’s LX site talks with the founders of the East Side Riders Bike Club the about using bicycles to cross gang lines and stop the cycle of hunger and violence.

As a child, East Side Riders Bike Club co-founder John Jones III was told there were lines he couldn’t cross in the neighborhood of Watts, Los Angeles. Today, he and his organization — co-founded by his father — regularly cross those gang lines by bicycle to deliver meals to anyone struggling with homelessness or food insecurity.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed this one.

But take a few minutes to click the link and watch the video. And see how bicycles can do so much more than just get you from here to there.

It may just be the best six minutes of your day.

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They get it.

https://twitter.com/MetBranchTrail/status/1491140136259981312

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Take a guess how much Monterey’s leading bike advocacy organization operates on.

And no, I don’t know the answer, either. But after years of working on a low budget myself, I can take a guess.

https://twitter.com/BikeMonterey/status/1491278239918362624

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A Canadian truck driver was fired after he was caught pushing a bike rider out of his way with the grill of his semi, as a group of riders apparently tried to stop him from joining the country’s protests over vax mandates.

https://twitter.com/AnthonyFloyd/status/1490400873154957312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1490400873154957312%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdllife.com%2F2022%2Fvideo-driver-nudges-bicyclist-out-of-way-for-blocking-intersection%2F

No bias here. The Irish Times reviews a Czech-built Toyota SUV from the perspective that “cities are no longer that welcoming to the motor car” so you need a “rough and tumble off-roader to survive the cyclists’ scorn and snide remarks.” And the higher view puts drivers at eye-level to bike riders and pedestrians, “so you can look your abusers in the eye.” No, really.

No bias here, either. A BBC host was under fire for discussing the recent bike and pedestrian friendly changes to the country’s Highway Code by asking her guests a series of highly slanted questions about why they hated people on bicycles.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in Manchester, England stopped 30 bike riders for blowing through red lights in just 90 minutes, joining a growing list of British cities cracking down on red light jumpers.

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Local

You can now visit the previously fenced-off Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve, complete with bike racks, on your next ride on the Ballona Creek bike path. For those of you outside LA — and some inside — it’s pronounced bi-yoh-na.

Pasadena Now talks with State Senator Anthony J. Portantino about his new bill to improve bike and pedestrian safety by requiring local communities to develop a High Injury Network map, and commit to fixing it within 15 years.

 

State

Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin has been appointed to lead the California State Transportation Agency, aka CalSTA, after less than two and a half years on the job; he’s credited with shifting the state transportation agency’s focus from widening highways to building Complete Streets. Which means Governor Newsom needs to appoint someone who will continue that shift.

San Marco is opening a new two-way protected bike lane in ten days.

Streets For All is teaming with the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition on a new Twitter-based crash tracker, which will tweet news of San Diego bike and pedestrian crashes in real time. You can follow the one-year old Los Angeles version here. 

San Diego will settle a lawsuit filed by an injured bike rider for $1.3 million, to compensate for the severe facial injuries he suffered when he crashed his bike due to a broken sidewalk in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood. Just the latest in a series of multimillion dollar settlements due to the city’s damaged sidewalks.

This is who we share the road with, too. Weeks after Elon Musk questionably claimed that no Tesla using the Full Self-Driving Beta had been in a crash in two years, a San Jose YouTuber filmed his car crashing into a protected bike lane bollard, just moments after it ran a red light. Oops.

Streetsblog says Berkeley ripped out a section of a new protected bike lane in front of a hospital, alleging the medical center lied about not being able to get oxygen deliveries.

 

National

Prism says efforts to make American cities more welcoming for people on bicycles are being hindered by over policing of Black and brown bike riders, as well as poor infrastructure in lower income areas.

This is the cost of traffic violence. American Olympian Colby Stevenson took silver in the Men’s Freeski Big Air, after spending five years fighting his way back from a near-fatal car crash caused when he fell asleep behind the wheel.

Consumer Reports offers advice on how to pick a kids bike helmet.

The New York Times Wirecutter asks whether it’s a bad idea to buy a Peloton right now, as the company dumps 2,800 employees in response to crashing stock prices. But at least their severance packages include free fitness classes.

Sioux City, Iowa bike riders are counting on the city expanding its bicycle network, which is currently limited to a single bike lane.

A new petition calls for an anti-dooring ordinance, after a North Carolina man was killed when a driver threw their car door open in front of his bike. And as we mentioned last week, the local press immediately blamed the victim.

A heartbreaking story gets even worse, as the Florida woman who fell to her death when a drawbridge opened while she was walking her bike across has been identified as 79-year old woman. The obvious question is why isn’t there someone or something in place to watch for people so that doesn’t happen? Thanks to Mike Burk and Edward Rubinstein for the heads-up.

There’s a special place in hell for the driver who fled the scene after running down a Florida boy, even if he wasn’t hurt.

 

International

This is who we share the road with. After an English man drove a company van into the back of another car, his boss checked the in-cab video, and watched him swigging champagne strait from the bottle and rolling a cigarette while driving with no hands.

A British MP suffered a broken arm falling off his bike while riding to Parliament.

An Indian writer says better bicycling policies, combined with designing cities to better support the working class, could help the country pedal to a more sustainable future.

A photographer catches a Pakistani street vendor walking a bicycle loaded down with wooden stools.

You’ve got to be kidding. A New Zealand driver is appealing his sentence for injuring a bike-riding lawyer and totaling his $7,000 bicycle, because he wasn’t told the lawyer had a previous drunk driving conviction. Which has nothing to do with why he was riding his bike, or why the driver slammed into him.

 

Competitive Cycling

Seven-time Grand Tour winner Chris Froome now has his own bikewear line, including a $95 t-shirt and $220 hoodie. Um, I’ll pass, thanks.

Dutch pro Tom Dumoulin was filmed drafting a truck with a few of his teammates on a training ride, and internet commenters were not kind.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you drive F1 for a living, and would still rather ride a bike in the rain than spend 20 minutes stuck traffic. Who doesn’t need $1,100 titanium mudguards on their bike?

And see all the WorldTour team kit colors in 46 seconds.

https://twitter.com/procycletrumps/status/1491019894208753664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1491019894208753664%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-8-february-2022-290155

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

New book says accidents aren’t accidents, WeHo considers protected bike lanes, and keeping deadly drivers on the road

February 8, 2022 / / One comment

She gets it.

The New York Times’ Peter Coy talks with journalist Jessie Singer about her new book, which concludes that there are no accidents, just events that could have been prevented.

And that too often, it’s the marginalized members of society who pay the price.

On the other hand, Coy clearly doesn’t get it.

Coy: …Anyway, is it possible to go too far in preventing accidents? It wouldn’t make sense to limit cars to going 30 miles per hour.

Singer: It is our moral and ethical imperative to do everything in our power to protect human life. When people talk about the nanny state, what they’re doing is making excuses for deeply preventable, deeply racialized and class-divided causes of death.

If we look at places that do everything in their power to protect human life, from Sweden’s Vision Zero traffic safety policies to Portugal’s harm-reduction overdose prevention policies, we see that countless lives could be saved just by putting people first.

Never mind that cities across the world have successfully reduced the frequency and severity of collisions by cutting speed limits below 30 mph.

Let alone the worldwide 20 Is Plenty movement to reduce the risk of collisions as well as the risk of death or serious injury by slowing drivers to 20 mph in populated areas.

So yeah, it does make sense to lower speed limits to 30 mph, or less. Because the convenience of drivers should never outweigh the lives and safety of those around them.

Graphic by tomexploresla.

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There may be hope for WeHo bike riders yet.

Streets For All reports that a pair of studies could result in protected bike lanes on Fountain and Santa Monica Blvd, respectively.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1490794943794716674

Either one would be a game changer.

Together, they would provide the first safe bicycling route through the city, from La Brea in the east to Beverly Hills in the west.

Let’s just hope they both get the go ahead.

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Today’s common theme is the lenient courts and government officials who inexplicably keep dangerous drivers on the road until they kill someone.

Like the heartbreaking news from New York, where a 99-year old Holocaust survivor was killed by a reckless driver with a long record of speeding and red light violations.

Or the Florida hit-and-run driver who killed a 70-year old man riding a bicycle, and was somehow still on the road despite five previous DUIs; he was caught after two days, which presumably gave him plenty of time to sober up before he was busted.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A candidate for San Diego city council says the city’s new bike lanes are death traps that go unused for weeks at a time.

A Florida city puts the entire obligation for safety on bike riders by requiring lights and bells on their bikes. But there’s not a bike bell made that will do a damn thing to stop aggressive, speeding and/or distracted drivers.

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Local

Work is proceeding on an $8.1 million, 2.8-mile extension of Pasadena’s Greenway Trail. Correction: Make that Whittier, not Pasadena. Thanks to Joe Linton for keeping me honest.

 

State

A new bill from bike-riding La Cañada Flintridge State Senator Anthony Portantino would require cities and counties to identify a High Injury Network of their most dangerous roads and intersections, and create a plan to correct them within 15 years. But do we really want to let them keep killing people for another 15 years? Cut the timeline to five years, and I’m all in.

Streetsblog offers more details on SB 922, which would permanently exempt bike lanes and other environmentally friendly transportation projects from lengthy environmental reviews. Which are too often abused to halt or delay bike, pedestrian and transit projects that would benefit the environment.

San Diego belatedly begins work on building a separated bikeway along Pershing Drive through Balboa Park, after a bike commuter and a scooter rider were killed on the existing bike lanes last year. Meanwhile, the family of noted architect Laura Shinn, who was killed by an allegedly stoned driver while riding her bike to work, have filed suit against the city. Considering the years-long delay in improving the bike lane, they might as well just back up the Brinks truck. Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.

Bad news from Livermore, where a woman was killed when her bike was hit head-on by a driver after they both crossed the yellow line while rounding a curve from opposite directions.

A Pittsburgh CA man was sentenced to 28 years to life behind bars for fatally shooting man as he was stealing the victim’s bike; the shooter bizarrely claimed self-defense, claiming he felt threatened by the victim’s attempt to get his bike back. Thanks again to Phillip Young.

 

National

In a question that answers itself, Streetsblog asks if America needs a Mobility Bill of Rights, after a group of Washington nonprofits author one for their state. Los Angeles bike advocates created a Cyclists’ Bill of Rights over a dozen years ago, which was sort-of approved by the city council, until it wasn’t, and then promptly forgotten, which was probably the city’s intent all along.

Popular Science says don’t buy an ebike, just build one using the bike in your garage.

Cycling Utah talks with our own Peter Flax, who offers a “look at racial justice issues through the lens of his deep and nuanced understanding of the various facets of bike culture.”

The Boston Globe questions whether the city will keep up the pandemic momentum that spurred bike lane creation throughout the area. Unlike Los Angeles, which squandered the opportunity presented by light pandemic traffic by failing to build a single new bike lane that wasn’t already in the works.

A Brooklyn councilmember tries, and fails, to successfully navigate a street without leaving the bike lane, missing out on the $100 challenge due to an array of drivers blocking it.

DC intends to install another ten miles of protected bike lanes this year, adding to its existing 24-mile network, with another 20 miles coming by 2024.

 

International

Worst dad of the year award goes to British father stole his daughter’s bicycle from the trunk of her car to teach her a lesson.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a careless driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a man riding his bicycle; she was sentenced to 280 hours of community service and lost her license for a lousy 14 months.

A study from Belgian ebike brand Cowboy confirms previous studies showing ebikes offer the same fitness benefits as regular bicycles.

Amsterdam wants to give you over $2,200 for ideas on how to improve bicycle safety in the city.

 

Competitive Cycling

At last, some good news about two-time Grand Tour winner Egan Bernal, who was released from the hospital two weeks after a training crash left him critically injured; however, he still faces a very long recovery.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could come wrapped in rice and potatoes. How about an ebike can actually fly?

And ebike riders of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

No, literally.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Man killed riding bike in Lancaster hit-and-run; heartless killer got out to look at victim before driving off and leaving him to die

February 8, 2022 / / Comments Off on Man killed riding bike in Lancaster hit-and-run; heartless killer got out to look at victim before driving off and leaving him to die

Once again, someone on a bicycle has been left to die in the street by a heartless coward.

According to the Antelope Valley Times, the victim, described only as a man in his 30s, was riding east on Avenue H east of Division Street in Lancaster when he was rear-ended by a pickup driver at around 9:02 pm Saturday.

He died at the scene.

The driver actually got out of his truck to examine his victim lying bleeding in the roadway, before simply getting back in his truck and driving away without attempting to aid the victim or call for help.

A witness attempted to follow the suspect, before losing him around Avenue E and 20th Street West.

The driver is described as a Hispanic man wearing a reflective vest and construction boots, while the suspect vehicle is described as a 1994-2000, dark colored GMC Sierra or Chevrolet Silverado, possibly red or green, with front end collision damage.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station traffic investigators at 661/948-8466.

This is at least the tenth bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.

Shamefully, drivers have fled the scene in four of those ten deaths.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and all his loved ones. 

Thanks to Joe Linton for the heads-up. 

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

Volunteers needed for LA Mobility Plan initiative, and a call to fix dangerous 2 Freeway/Glendale Blvd stub

February 7, 2022 / / 5 comments

Streets For All wants to make Los Angeles put its money where its mouth is.

Or maybe put its stripes where its pavement goes.

As we’ve repeatedly discussed, the LA city council unanimously passed the groundbreaking 2010 bike plan, which included three separate but interconnected bike networks to take riders across their own neighborhood or across the city.

That was subsumed into the equally groundbreaking 2035 Mobility Plan, along with LA’s Vision Zero plan, which promised to reshape how we get around the City of Angels. And which passed with just two negative votes — from bike-hating Gil Cedillo and self-proclaimed environmentalist Paul Koretz, who apparently never met a car he didn’t like.

Then all three plans were immediately placed on the shelf, and promptly forgotten.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1490514757580775428

As a result, Streets For All is introducing a ballot measure that would require the city to implement the mobility plan whenever a street gets resurfaced, as some other cities have done.

Which, as we’ve all seen, isn’t often enough.

But here’s what the organization has to say about the initiative.

Announcing Healthy Streets LA – a ballot measure to change things once and for all.

We’re excited to share our ballot measure with you – and we need your help to get it on the ballot!

Despite passing a 2035 Mobility Plan containing over 1,500 miles of pedestrian safety improvements, bus lanes, and bike lanes, the City of Los Angeles has implemented less than 3% of their plan in seven years. One tragic result of this failure has been exploding traffic violence in Los Angeles, with an increasing number of people getting hurt and killed each year. We don’t have to live this way.

Healthy Streets LA is a ballot measure requiring the City to implement its own plan each time it repaves a street. Since a street has to be re-striped anyway after repaving, this will reduce the cost and dramatically speed up the implementation of the Mobility Plan on the hundreds of miles of streets the city repaves each year.

To qualify for the ballot, we need to turn in 65,000 qualified signatures by May 27th. If we can get it on the ballot, our polling shows it would easily pass. We are excited to partner with LACBC, Climate Resolve, Streets Are For Everyone, Sunrise Movement LA, the West Valley Peoples Alliance, The Transit Coalition, and The River Project on this effort.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

  1. Sign up to volunteer and gather signatures in your area.
  2. Sign up to be an area director and manage volunteers in your area.
  3. Pledge to sign the petition – and get others to as well.

This is the most ambitious thing we’ve ever worked on, and together with your help and the help of our coalition, we can pull it off, and change our city forever.

Hopefully this will get enough signatures to get on the ballot. I’ll be signing it the first chance I get.

Then we’ll see if our fellow Angelenos really support making the changes needed to address traffic congestion, street safety, smog and climate change.

Or like our elected officials, they’d rather just sit in their cars all day, and let someone else deal with it.

………

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton calls on Caltrans to fix the 2 Freeway stub, where a bike rider was the victim of a hit-and-run on Glendale Blvd last month.

Linton writes that the freeway was part of the infamous Beverly Hills Freeway, which was cancelled in the 1960s when residents of the “wealthier and whiter neighborhoods” it was supposed to go through rose up against it.

Unlike the less wealthy and white neighborhoods that were obliterated to build some of LA’s other freeways.

Today unfinished freeway merges with heavily travelled, high-speed Glendale Blvd, with its heavily travelled, high-speed slip lanes dangerously dumping freeway traffic onto the boulevard.

Naturally, Caltrans, Metro and the City of LA recognized the problem, and immediately set out to do what they do best.

Nothing.

For many years, Metro, Caltrans and LADOT worked to plan a State Route 2 Terminus Improvement Project. Streetsblog covered the meetings – with a telling 2009 headline that read LADOT Values Capacity over Community on Route 2/Glendale Blvd., Drags Metro along for the Ride. The process resulted in a 2009 Metro board approval of a so-called hybrid alternative that largely ignored the surrounding community’s push for less traffic and more green space.

Metro published fact sheets and broke the project up into phases, declaring that “this approach ensures delivery of the improvements as quickly as possible.” To make the wretched place not quite so hostile, these agencies had planned to add landscaping, ornamental street lights, and sidewalks – and to leave the deadly slip lane in place…

Then, like several other freeway stub-end reimaginings that even barely shift space away from driving, the Metro Highway Program and Caltrans quietly shelved the already-inadequate plans (after completing modest Phase 1A improvements). The project has been scrubbed from Metro’s website (find it at the Wayback Machine).

The city of L.A. approved protected bike lanes for this part of Glendale Boulevard in the city’s Mobility Plan. But, like the rest of the non-car features in that plan, the bikeway was never pursued.

Which takes us back to Streets For All’s ballot initiative we mention above, to force the city to build out the mobility plan.

And the need for Caltrans to live up to its newfound commitment to safer, more complete streets and roadways — if they really mean it this time.

If the victim of this crash had been more seriously injured, he would have been able to sue Caltrans and Los Angeles for failing to fix a situation they clearly knew was dangerous over a dozen years ago, but decided to just leave that way.

Fortunately for him, he escaped serious injury.

But because of that, there’s little chance of finding an attorney willing take the case, and force them to make the changes that are so desperately needed to improve safety for everyone.

………

Sometimes it takes people on bicycles to stand up to people in trucks.

Bike riders in Vancouver were able to block and delay, if not halt, a large truckers convoy protesting Canada’s vaccination requirements, one of several roiling the country.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the links.

………

Speaking of Lynch, she calls on bike-friendly Davis to conduct drills for cargo bike owners to simulate bringing in relief supplies following a natural disaster.

Which wouldn’t be a bad idea down here, or wherever you are.

And toss in all those fat-tired ebikes while we’re at it.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1490236618946404353

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. The British press goes berserk over a “feckless” bike rider “making mockery of the Highway Code” by taking a selfie while riding in the middle of the traffic lane, making it “impossible to pass.” Even though the cabbie filming him on dashcam didn’t seem to have any trouble passing him after just a few moments.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

Pleasanton mountain bikers demand more access after more than a dozen riders were cited by park police, despite the fact the ticketed riders weren’t on a designated trail. Seriously, don’t complain if you’re not willing to play by the rules and protect the land.

Tulsa police fatally shot a man who allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband; he was accused fleeing on a bicycle after robbing a man outside a check cashing business.

Police in Kent, England are looking for a bike rider who allegedly attacked a young woman and threatened her following a collision. Look, adrenalin is born to be running high after something like that, but violence is never the answer. So just don’t.

………

Local

Metro calls on everyone to mark Black History Month by supporting Black-owned businesses while using bikeshare and transit.

The NASCAR Foundation teamed with All Kids Bike to provide 50 Los Angeles area schools with fleets of 24 balance bikes, along with pedal-conversion kits, helmets, a teacher’s instruction bike and an eight-lesson curriculum to teach kids how to ride a bicycle.

Pasadena will consider the city’s new pedestrian plan, which will move to the city council soon following the end of public comment. Anything that improves safety for pedestrians should be good for people on bicycles, too.

A crowdfunding campaign for the Hermosa Beach bike rider rescued by his Apple Watch has raised nearly $22,000, despite confusion over whether he fell or was attacked from behind.

 

State

A new bill in the state legislature would permanently exempt from environmental review any projects designed to improve safety for walking or biking, improve bus speeds or modernize light rail stations; a current law that does just that will expire next year. Environmental regulations have long been abused by NIMBYs using tortured legal arguments to halt projects that would benefit the environment by encouraging alternative transportation.

This is who we share the road with. A 33-year old man was sentenced to 15 to life for the drunken hit-and-run that killed one man and seriously injured another in a 2018 Santa Ana crash; Jesus Segura Herrera was over three times the legal alcohol limit when he slammed into another car after drinking at a company party.

The Executive Director of San Diego County Bicycle Coalition will discuss the state of bicycling in San Diego County in a Zoom conference at high noon tomorrow.

If you build it, they will come. New San Diego bike counters show the city’s bike lanes are seeing an average of 2,000 riders a day, even in the middle of winter.

A Santa Barbara letter writer praises a new multi-use path along Las Positas and Modoc Roads, calling it “beautiful and well done,” while noting some bike riders may prefer to stay in the traffic lanes.

A Cal Berkeley student relates the lessons she learned riding down the California coast with a male companion. Including that nearly every man they met directed their questions to the guy, not her.

 

National

My bike-friendly Colorado hometown is celebrating National Winter Bike to Work Day this Friday, complete with a free breakfast for anyone on a bicycle. Yet somehow, we can’t manage to mark the day here in Los Angeles, where the weather is perfect for it.

That’s more like it. Denver is more than doubling the cost of parking tickets for drivers who block a bike lane, sidewalk or crosswalk, raising the fee from a paltry $25 to $65. Maybe if we did that here in Los Angeles, we might actually stop people from parking in bike lanes. Of course, that would require the city to actually ticket them, which they seem reluctant to do.

Sad news from Brooklyn, where a woman was killed by a school bus driver in an apparent right hook; she’d been commuting by ebike to protect her family from Covid and lighten her environmental footprint.

Thirty years after a 61-year old New York man founded a bike messenger service, he’s traded his bicycle for a keyboard to pursue his passion for music, living off donations as a street busker.

Philadelphia decides to keep one of the city’s most dangerous streets that way by scrapping plans for a road diet, even though it was judged to be the safest option and had widespread support; they claimed they didn’t do enough outreach to underrepresented communities. Evidently, Los Angeles isn’t the only city where leaders have to scrounge for any excuse to not do the right thing.

Tragic news from Georgia, where the founder of the local chapter of the Bikes Up, Guns Down group to use bicycles, dirt bikes and ATVs to reduce gun violence was himself the victim of a fatal shooting.

Horrible news from West Palm Beach, Florida, where a woman was killed when she fell through a draw bridge as she was walking her bicycle across; she was just ten feet from safety when she fell through a gap in the roadway, falling up to six stories to her death.

 

International

London’s mayor warns of disastrous consequences for bicyclists if the city’s transportation department is forced to slash the equivalent of $678 million in spending, due to declining revenue resulting from people working from home or avoiding transit systems.

London firefighters issue a warning after a rash of apartment fires sparked by ebike batteries.

An English ebike rider was killed in a collision with a pedestrian, dispelling the myth that only pedestrians are at risk in such crashes. Unlike with motor vehicles, where pedestrians and people on bicycles face nearly 100% of the risk.

An English bike rider says he’s reported 300 dangerous drivers to the police, and taken five to court himself based on based on bike cam video, and claims he’ll keep going until drivers treat people on bicycles better. Yet another reminder that the law has to be changed in this country to allow drivers to be ticketed or charged with misdemeanors based on video or photo evidence, which is currently barred in most cases.

A volunteer with a UK mountain rescue team was called on to save an unconscious mountain biker, only to discover the victim was his own 42-year old son.

British bike cab company Pedal Me bizarrely cites safety concerns for prohibiting their riders from wearing bike helmets.

A Dublin paper considers whether the city can ever be made safe for bike riders, as former pro Nicolas Roche says even he feels like he’s risking his life there.

That’s more like it, too. The government of Australia’s New South Wales state has announced plans to more than double its current spending of $950 million for active transportation.

More awful news, as an alleged drunk driver in India’s Uttar Pradesh state was beaten to death after losing control on a speed bump and crashing into someone on a bicycle.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cyclist David Dekker was lucky to escape serious injury when he rode off the side of the road and into a ravine during last week’s Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.

Longtime Spanish pro Alejandro Valverde announced plans to call it a career at the end of the upcoming racing season after two decades as a pro cyclist.

The former captain of Afghanistan’s first women’s cycling team is now living in Roanoke, Virginia, where she’ll compete with the Blue Ridge Twenty24 in hopes of making it to Paris for the 2024 Olympics.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you give accident-prone TV star a set of training wheels for his ebike. Bicycling as a tool to reduce inbreeding.

And folding bike, folding wheels.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Bike-riding victim ID’d in Azusa motorcycle cop crash, Angeles NF crashes, and murder charges in 2020 Venice shooting

February 4, 2022 / / Comments Off on Bike-riding victim ID’d in Azusa motorcycle cop crash, Angeles NF crashes, and murder charges in 2020 Venice shooting

We finally know what happened.

Yesterday, we complained about a lack of transparency from the Azusa Police Department, which still hadn’t explained why happened when a motorcycle cop killed a bike rider in a collision in the unincorporated Charter Oak area on Monday.

Now the victim has finally been identified as 67-year old Xueqi Li.

Li was reportedly crossing Cienega Ave at Asherton Ave when he was struck by the off-duty officer, who was traveling east on Cienega on his way home.

The officer remains hospitalized in stable condition.

However, there’s no explanation for why the crash happened. Or why Li’s age had been estimated as anything from his 40s or 50s, or why he was originally identified as a pedestrian.

The collision remains under investigation by the CHP. Anyone with information is urged to call the Southern Division Investigative Services Unit at 323/644-9550.

Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.

Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels.

………

This is the downside of riding in the Angeles National Forest above Los Angeles.

………

Something tells me they could use this in the rest of the country right about now.

………

Mitt Romney was one of us, riding a bike during his Mormon mission in France in 1968.

https://twitter.com/FrenchHist/status/1489300642476662787

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A British county councilor complains that a decision to invest the equivalent of $13.5 million in new bikeways is “not money well spent,” arguing that it doesn’t make sense to spend 10% of the transportation budget on bicycling when only 1% commute by bike. Which is exactly why more people don’t.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

Police at Louisiana State University are looking for a theft suspect who was last seen riding away on a bicycle.

………

Local

Two men face murder charges in the fatal shooting of a young mother outside bike rental shop on the Venice Boardwalk in December 2020.

 

State

The new federal infrastructure bill will require California to spend 15% of Highway Safety Improvement Program funds on protecting vulnerable road users, under a provision for states where bicycling and pedestrian deaths make up over 15% of overall traffic deaths.

Despite a business owner insisting she never sees anyone using San Diego’s new 30th Street bike lanes, a recently installed bike counter shows an average of 282 people using them on a daily basis.

The death of a recumbent rider outside a Fresno park last month was due in part to a 2008 decision making it difficult to access unless you’re in a car.

Berkeley ripped out a block of brand new barrier protected bike lanes after discovering that truck drivers couldn’t access a medical center campus. Which they probably should have figured out before they built it.

A Gold Country writer sets out for her first bike ride in a couple years, and surprises herself with how much she enjoys it.

 

National

Travel site Lonely Planet recommends the best bike trails for your next trip to Bozeman, Montana.

That’s more like it. A pedaling Minneapolis pastor is on a one-man mission to get bicycle traffic reports on the local public radio station, rather than just the usual auto-centric traffic updates.

The state’s decision to take back a San Antonio, Texas roadway to halt a planned road diet is called a big blow to safe bicycling in the city.

A New Jersey man faces charges of vehicular homicide, speeding, reckless driving, careless driving and improper passing for killing a 62-year old woman riding next to another person; he was doing 75 mph in a 50 mph zone, and trying to pass on a blind hill when he swerved back into the victim to avoid a driver coming from the opposite direction.

DC is pledging to build another ten miles of protected bike lanes this year, with a goal of doubling the current 24 miles of protected lanes within the next few years.

She gets it. The head of Georgia’s Department of Transportation blames bad driver behavior for a jump in traffic fatalities, saying nine out of ten times a driver is at fault.

 

International

Canada’s Global News offers advice on how to keep riding your bike through the winter. Some of which even applies down here in sunny California.

A London ebike rider captures the moment he was barely able to avoid a bikejacker, who sprinted towards him from the side of the road; another person had his bicycle stolen at knifepoint in Birmingham.

The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Luxembourg all pay people to commute by bike, so why doesn’t the US?

 

Competitive Cycling

Pez Cycling News recalls pro cyclists who were never the same after suffering serious crashes.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you almost run over Oprah on your moped. Or when a mortician refuses to ride a bike in a bike lane.

And here’s the perfect note to end the week on.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

$5,000 reward for felony hit-and-run, repaving Rose Bowl Loop, and still no details in bike rider killed by Azusa cop

February 3, 2022 / / One comment

The LAPD wants your help to bring a heartless coward to justice.

Last month, we reposted a plea from a man who was run down by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike on Glendale Blvd, near the offramp from the 2 Freeway, on January 16th.

He was lucky to escape without serious injuries, somehow scrambling to safety as the driver crushed his bicycle.

We couldn’t embed video of the crash at the time, instead including stills from a dashcam video from a driver who captured the whole thing.

But the LAPD’s Central Traffic Division solved that problem, tweeting a hit-and-run alert yesterday that not only included a link to video of the crash, but also the dashcam driver chasing the hit-and-run suspect as he fled the scene.

As usual, be sure you really want to see the crash before you click on the first video, because many people may find it disturbing.

The LAPD report indicates there’s a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the driver, which is the standing amount for any hit-nd-run involving property damage in the City of Los Angeles.

However, the driver is being sought on a charge of felony hit-and-run, even though the victim wasn’t seriously injured.

Usually, any hit-and-run just involving property damage would be considered a misdemeanor under California law, but it can be charged as a felony if the amount of damage exceeds a certain level.

And no, I haven’t been able to find out just what that level is. But apparently, the damages in this case exceed it.

Meanwhile, Wesley Burt forwards a Nextdoor exchange from a couple of women who can’t seem to conceive of someone driving around with a dashcam, without some nefarious purpose.

Naturally, they blame the victim for being up to no good.

And Streets For All founder Michael Schneider points out this rash didn’t have to happen in the first place, if the city had taken its own mobility plan seriously.

Let alone Vision Zero.

Here’s how KCBS2/KCAL9 described the crash.

The suspect vehicle is described as a 2012 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra, with likely right front-end damage and a missing right front hubcap.

Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Detective Juan Campos at 213/833-3713, or email 31480@lapd.online. You can remain anonymous by calling LA Regional Crime Stoppers at 800/222-TIPS (8477), or going online at LA Crime Stoppers.

Thanks to Jeff Vaughn and Thomas Riebs for the heads-up.

………

The popular Rose Bowl Loop is getting a new coat of asphalt.

https://twitter.com/reutimann/status/1489055340188422144

………

Nothing fishy here.

Three days later, there has still been no information released about the crash that killed a bike rider when he was struck by an Azusa motorcycle cop.

Nothing.

We don’t even know anything about the victim, except that he’s a man.

This lack of openness by the Azusa Police Department makes you wonder just what they’re trying to hide.

And creates doubts about their credibility when and if they finally get around to telling us what the hell happened.

………

This is who we share the road with.

Because aggro fools like this have to leave the freeway sometime.

https://twitter.com/fka2much336/status/1488225351532748811

………

Your periodic reminder that bike lanes aren’t just for able bodied people wrapped in spandex.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. After a A Buffalo, New York paper says safer bike infrastructure is helping attract the younger residents the area needs, a columnist says go ahead and build all the bike paths you want, as long as they don’t inconvenience drivers.

An infuriating story from a North Carolina newspaper says a bike rider was critically injured when he rode into an open car door. No, he was doored by a barely mentioned careless driver who threw open the damn car door without checking to see if anyone was there.

No bias here, either. After a British bike rider posts video of a Range Rover driver buzzing a little girl riding her bike as evidence of why people on bicycles should take the lane, the Daily Mail calls him a cycling zealot and drivers complain she wasn’t wearing a helmet. As if a little bit of plastic would protect her from a three and a half ton vehicle.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

There’s not a pit deep enough for the armed robber who held up a pair of elderly women at gunpoint as they were having lunch in Palo Alto, before fleeing on a cruiser bike. Thanks to Robert Leone for the tip.

………

Local

There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run driver who left a 13-year old Long Beach boy bleeding in the street after slamming into his bicycle.

The LA Times offers a positive spin on America’s deadly streets, saying there may be a national crisis, but we can fix them.

BikinginLA sponsor Cohen Law Partners writes that if you’re in a collision in California, there’s a one in six chance that the driver who hit you won’t have liability insurance.

The rich get richer, as bike friendly Long Beach intends to complete 15 bikeway projects totaling 33 miles within the next three years, as part of an effort to finish 300 miles of bike lanes by 2040, as well as a promise to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.

 

State

A pair of Santa Barbara brothers have been honored for their short documentary exploring gender, equality and two-wheeled empowerment among Kenyon schoolgirls; Jacob Seigel Brielle and Isaac Seigel-Boettner won the same award for their first film in 2010.

They get it. Berkeley’s Berkeleyside website says the city’s bike plan needs to treat people on bicycles better, noting that bike boulevards should have the same safe and convenient street crossings that drivers get.

San Francisco bike riders swarmed the city’s Bike Kitchen hoping for deep discounts as the co-op tried to solve the problem of having too many bicycles, which kept coming in even as the shop was closed because of the pandemic.

San Francisco Streetsblog calls on Caltrans to build “incomplete streets” by banning cars from off-road bicycle highways, physically separated lanes, bridges, and pedestrian paths and plazas.

 

National

Fast Company calls for building bridges for people instead of cars.

The Atlantic suggests scaling traffic fines along with income, so wealthy people pay more for breaking traffic laws than people who can less afford the fines.

A writer for Electrek calls the new $1,200 Aventon Soltera the most beautiful low-cost ebike he’s tested, while Cycling Tips says the $7,000 Urban Arrow e-cargo bike is a pickup on two wheels.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Maui driver is being held on half a million dollars bail for the alleged drunken hit-and-run that killed a 73-year old man riding a bicycle, just a week after he plead guilty to DUI in another case. Which is exactly when his keys should have been taken away, and car impounded.

Sad news from Portland, where Bud Clark, the bike-riding mayor who set the city on its bike-friendly course, passed away Tuesday at 90 years old.

Interbike could unexpectedly rise from the ashes, as its parent company explores reviving the Las Vegas bicycle trade show.

A New York program is helping essential workers buy ebikes to get to work, offering microloans between $500 to $1,500 with no minimum credit score required.

New York Streetsblog wonders what happened to two promised rule changes that would allow bike riders to roll through red lights after stopping in some limited circumstances.

 

International

The petition backed by US bike mechanics calling for an end to built-to-fail bicycles is gaining traction in Vancouver, as well.

The NFL is paying a Canadian university to look into whether substances found in cannabis can prevent and treat concussions. It can definitely prevent concussions if people get too stoned to get off the couch.

London’s Evening Standard looks at their picks for the best bike locks.

An aide to London’s mayor argues that the risks to people walking or riding bikes should be considered before any road safety programs get the axe, saying bike riders get injured in the city every day.

An Irish paper warns that Dublin bike riders and drivers are on a collision course as commuters start heading back to work next week, after record numbers of people took to their bikes during the pandemic.

A Vietnamese website recommends a bike tour to see Hanoi from a different perspective.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Grand Tour winner Egan Bernal faces a second operation on his spine, as he remains in intensive care after nearly losing his life crashing into a poorly parked bus while training in Colombia.

The news about Dutch cyclist Amy Pieters isn’t good, as she remains in stable condition in a deep coma more than a month after she was critically injured in a training crash just before Christmas.

Clean Technica urges the Tour Down Under to ditch its sponsorship by Santos, saying a fossil fuel company shouldn’t sponsor a bike race. Although these days, pro cycling can use every penny they can get.

Pro cycling’s Riders Union warns about dangerous conditions at the Saudi Tour, including hidden hazards in a gravel section and rule-breaking roadside barriers near the finish.

Ex-Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is taking another swing at founding a cycling team, after the collapse of the Floyd’s of Leadville founder’s previous effort in 2019; the team will ride new Canadian brand Squad Bicycles.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you bust your teenage friend out of the joint by hauling him off in a kid’s trailer behind your bike. Your bike glove could tell you where to go.

And who doesn’t need a bike light with a built-in Bluetooth speaker so you can annoy everyone around you with your taste in music?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

California traffic deaths jump 17% last year, Metro proposes erasing NoHo bike lane, and register your bike already

February 2, 2022 / / One comment

No, you’re not just being paranoid.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released their latest count of US traffic deaths for the first nine months of last year, showing an estimated 31,720 people died in motor vehicle crashes through the end of September.

That’s a 12% increase over the previous year, and the most traffic deaths in 15 years.

Not to mention the biggest one-year jump since they’ve been keeping score.

Things are even worse here in California, which saw a 17.2% increase in traffic deaths for the first nine months of 2021.

Unfortunately, they don’t break out figures for bicycling and pedestrian deaths, so we’ll have to wait to learn just how bad it’s been for those of us who aren’t wrapped in a couple tons of steel and glass, and protected by seat belts and air bags instead of a little plastic hat.

But if you thought it was getting worse out there, you’re right.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

………

Unbelievable.

The world may be burning, but Metro is busy erasing bike lanes.

………

Yet another reminder to register your bike.

Now.

………

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Life is cheap in South Africa, where a prominent triathlete was killed and another injured by an alleged drunken hit-and-run driver, who was released on bail due to “lack of evidence;” the driver couldn’t get away because his Porsche was too damaged to drive. Which sounds like pretty solid evidence to me, but what the hell do I know?

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

Police in London’s Hackney district busted 18 people on bicycles for jumping red lights in just 90 minutes, fining them the equivalent of around $68.

………

Local

Los Angeles is hosting tire recycling events in Baldwin Park at the end of this month, East LA next month and the Antelope Valley in April. And yes, they’ll take bike tires and tubes.

Once again, an Apple Watch has called for help to rescue an injured bike rider, this time when a man somehow came off his ebike while riding in Hermosa Beach.

 

State

A man known as the scraper bike king of East Oakland is working with kids to carry on the tradition of colorful, highly customized bikes, hoping it will help keep them out of trouble like it did him.

 

National

A new study from the Urban Institute shows that pressuring city officials to build bikeways works.

This is who we’ll soon have to share the road with. Even an automotive site calls for banning the new 840 horsepower Dodge Demon from public roads, calling it a nominally street-legal dragster.

Dockless e-scooter provider Superpedestrian is rolling out a new safety system designed to detect and correct unsafe rider behavior in real time, preventing things like riding on the sidewalk or riding salmon.

Triathlete credits a bike safety campaign featuring triathletes for the White House’s shift to prioritizing bicycle safety.

220 Triathlon considers whether you’d be better off with a women’s bike.

Reno bike riders get a new nearly half-mile multi-use path near the airport. Although it looks like whoever striped it needs to cut back on the weed.

A Denver bike advocate laments the death of what would have been a perfect bike lane, thanks to a whole 17 complaints during the public comment period.

An Ohio letter writer complains about the angry drivers who feel the need to ruin a good bike ride because they don’t understand the law. Or just having a bad day.

The Boston Globe marks Black History Month by remembering Kittie Knox, who integrated the League of American Wheelmen — now the League of American Bicyclists, aka Bike League — in 1893, a year before the organization banned Black members to keep her out.

A writer for Jalopnik totals up what it cost, in dollars and swearing, to rebuild a titanium Litespeed bike abandoned for two years on a Brooklyn street.

A New York photographer documents Gotham bike messengers of the 1990s.

 

International

More proof bike riders face the same problems everywhere, as bicyclists in Antigua and Barbuda renewed calls for greater consideration on the roads after a 16-year old boy was while killed riding his bike.

Something tells me there will be no shortage of volunteers to become the UK’s first bike lane inspector.

America’s Got Talent star Simon Cowell is still one of us, despite suffering a broken arm and suspected concussion when he pulled an endo hitting a wet patch while riding his ebike in London; he fractured his back in 2020 crashing an electric motorcycle.

That’s more like it. A drunk hit-and-run driver got seven years behind bars for killing a British man riding a bicycle; he was captured when police spotted him from a helicopter trying to sleep it off in a field.

A Scottish transport and health professor explains the changes to Britain’s Highway Code, while stressing that it’s probably not enough to change anyone’s behavior. Meanwhile, a British bike rider says forget the Highway Code, he just wants to get home in one piece.

A Santa Fe man offers advice on what to consider before exploring Germany by bicycle. Pro tip: Stop the page from loading before the paywall pops up.

As if careless drivers weren’t enough to worry about, a Spanish bike rider was seriously injured when he was shot by a hunter, who apparently mistook him for some sort of game animal riding a bicycle.

A European travel site explores Dubai’s 52-mile Al Qudra cycle track, which connects to other bikeways to form a 124-mile route.

Fifty people had to be evacuated from a Singapore housing block when a ped-assist ebike battery caught fire; authorities advised not using third-party batteries or charging them overnight to avoid fires.

 

Competitive Cycling

Egan Bernal remains in serious but stable condition, as his doctors shift to a focus on pain management to deal with his multiple injuries; Bernal suffered a fractured femur, kneecap, vertebrae and ribs, as well as a punctured lung and chest trauma when he slammed into a poorly parked bus while training in Colombia.

 

Finally…

When you’re trying to escape the cops with an outstanding warrant, try not to ride head-on into a patrol car. Why ride on dry, dusty mountain bike trails when you could have your very own dust Zamboni — which is exactly what it sounds like?

And shades of the Super Bowl Shuffle.

https://twitter.com/AstanaQazTeam/status/1488479125589442561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1488479125589442561%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyclingweekly.com%2Fnews%2Fastana-release-new-rap-video-starring-vincenzo-nibali-and-alexander-vinokourov

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to fight muscle car makers on Los Angeles streets, and bike rider holds up Canadian truckers protest

February 1, 2022 / / Comments Off on How to fight muscle car makers on Los Angeles streets, and bike rider holds up Canadian truckers protest

Let’s start with an email I received yesterday.

Joel Falter offers an entirely reasonable suggestion on how to fight back against overly aggressive muscle cars on our streets.

I have been thinking about today’s post regarding the tragic accident in Las Vegas. I suspect reaching out to folks at Fiat-Chrysler and suggesting they stop building muscle cars capable of stupid-fast speeds will get as far as telling them, Ford, and GM to stop building larger pick-up trucks that wreak great harm on pedestrians and people on bikes.

Maybe we should try and get the City of Los Angeles to stop permitting the filming of these commercials on LA streets, bridges, and tunnels. After all, they are leaders in the City’s commitment to vision-zero.

Yeah-Right.

It’s not a bad idea.

As Joel points out, we’re not likely to get carmakers to change a successful marketing strategy appeals to a certain motor-addled segment of society.

But we might be able to do something about it right here at home, if we can convince councilmembers that human lives and fighting climate change matter more than making money from ad makers.

Okay, you can stop laughing now.

We’ve fought this battle before, when Hollywood filmmakers threw a temper tantrum over Downtown’s new green bike lanes, convincing the mayor and councilmembers to rip them out rather than just covering them up during filming or removing them in post production.

But you never know. They might actually listen to us this time.

Especially if they think they can score some points for standing up to Detroit.

Photo by mike noga from Pexels.

………

Apparently, it only takes one person on a bicycle to hold up a right wing Canadian truckers anti-vax protest.

Somehow, I can’t look at that without being reminded of the man holding up a convoy of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

But here’s what the bike rider in question had to say about it.

And note that he uses his unexpected notoriety to encourage donations to local bike nonprofits.

Oh hey, that’s me!! Do you mind sending me this?

Edit: thanks for the kind words and gold y’all. It was pretty terrifying to plant in front of the convoy but I felt a lot better with the passerbys giving me the thumbs up and support.

The best part of this photo is that it caught the “Karen” coming up to me to say that I was disrupting traffic.

Edit 2: holy fuck, things got wild. I appreciate all the “hero we need but don’t deserve” comments. But we kind of do deserve and need more people to stand up against the loud minority. To all those offering me drinks, meals, coffee, what I really need is a titanium bike lol. I encourage you to donate to Kickstand Community Bikes or Our Community Bikes who will benefit far more and put more people on bikes.

Thanks to our anonymous correspondent for the heads-up.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Maybe when someone describes themselves as anti-cyclist, it’s not worth asking their opinion on British Highway Code changes intended to improve safety for people on two wheels, as well as everyone else.

………

Local

Metro is looking for volunteers to serve on the I-710 South Corridor Community Leadership Committee, to consider propose changes to the freeway corridor after the EPA rejected earlier plans to widen the highway. This is your chance to keep them from flushing another billion dollars down the toilet on harmful climate change and induced demand inducing highway projects, which could be better spent on transit and alternative transportation projects.

 

State

San Jose officials finally get around to identifying a 60-year old man who was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike nearly a month ago.

A new bike and pedestrian bridge over Menlo Park’s Bayfront Expressway officially opened Saturday, allowing riders to access a new park and the headquarters of self-referentially named Meta.

Sad news from Marin County, where a 58-year old man was killed by a driver while riding his bike near Fairfax Saturday morning.

 

National

A new Seattle study shows red light cameras cut collisions by 23%. Unfortunately, they were all removed in Los Angeles to appease drivers who would rather risk a crash than get a ticket in the mail for breaking the law.

A Denver writer describes how he found a community through bicycle advocacy, which is an experience many of us can attest to.

A pair of Colorado bike shops are collecting bicycles to give to victims of the recent pre-New Years fire, including one in my hometown.

The scientists at the USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory remember the historic 1896 ride of the Buffalo Soldiers Bicycle Brigade to Yellowstone.

A pair of Dallas gelato and donut shops say the loss of parking in front of their store for a curb-protected bike lane is destroying their businesses. Although it’s hard to blame the bike lane for the gelato shop’s problems, since it hasn’t reopened since closing down for the pandemic. 

The Mayo Clinic is now officially a bicycle friendly business. So feel free to ride your bike to the ER the next time a driver runs you down.

San Francisco Streetsblog editor Roger Rudick turns up in an unexpected place, urging Pittsburgh officials to build a collapsed bridge back better.

 

International

Ebike prices continue to come down. Case in point, the petit Propella Mini, which sells for a buck less than a grand; Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter gives it a thumbs-up for getting around the city.

Toronto now has a newly minted bicycle mayor. Which is a reminder that Los Angeles doesn’t.

A London writer tries riding an ebike around town for a week, and says now he doesn’t know how he can live without it.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker questions whether the conservative London Times has declared war on bicyclists by calling for licensing and insuring bike riders, just ten years after making waves with a groundbreaking campaign for bicycle safety.

 

Competitive Cycling

Welcome to our world. Italy’s Matteo Trentin argues that training on public roadways is getting too dangerous, saying the streets are more of a jungle than a proper training environment. It’s not so safe for the rest of us, either.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can join a virtual blockchain-based bike club. That feeling when your 2,500-mile bike ride to Istanbul includes a brief stint in a Romanian prison.

And if you’re going to push a shopping cart into Walmart and ride a new bike out without bothering to pay for it, maybe leave your drug stuff at home.

………

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone celebrating today!

恭喜发财

新年好

행복한 새해되세요”

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới

สวัสดีปีใหม่!

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,
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