Search results for bikes have rights

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

September 19, 2015 / / 9 comments

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

Thanks to John Montgomery for the video.

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

Let alone the hate it inspired in some quarters.

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

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

Especially this segment excerpted from the Times’ story.

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

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

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

Why should any of us?

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

But that’s exactly the point.

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

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

He’s got my vote.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll wait.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Local

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

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

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

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

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

 

State

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

National

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

International

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

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

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

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

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

 

Finally…

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

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

 

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

Morning Links: New study says bike injuries increasing, but without context; comedian rants riding through LA

September 2, 2015 / / 2 comments

Another study attempts to paint bicycling as a dangerous activity, especially for riders over 45.

The study from UC San Francisco shows that bicycling injuries have nearly doubled over a 15-year period ending in 2013, which they acknowledge coincides with the boom in bicycling.

Looking at it another way, the rate of injuries per 100,000 people has increased 28%, with the biggest increase coming among riders over 45, which jumped to 42% of reported injuries.

On the other hand, the number of people riding bikes has increased dramatically, rising as much as 32% in LA in a recent three year period, and 174% in Minneapolis in just five years, according to stats from People for Bikes.

And much of that increase has come from people over 45, as bicycling has become the new golf, as the press loves to tell us.

So it’s only natural to expect that both the rate and number of bicycling injuries would go up. It’s just as likely that the injury rate among cyclists, rather than the general population, may have gone down or stayed the same.

More troubling is the news that the most serious types of injuries have increased. According to the study, the rate of hospitalization due to bicycling injuries more than doubled, while the proportion of head injuries increased 60% over that period, and torso injuries jumped 21%.

That would imply that more bike riders are getting hit by cars, perhaps due to more people riding in an urban environment, as the author of the study suggests.

Which means the solution is not urging greater caution among older riders, or frightening them off their bikes, but improving safety for all cyclists in our cities.

But until someone takes the extra step of placing bike injuries in context with solid ridership stats, studies like this are interesting, but ultimately, meaningless.

Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the heads-up.

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This one’s worth checking out, as a bike riding comedian Mario Joyner captures his rants on GoPro while riding the streets of LA.

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Aussie rider Michael Rogers will get the Olympic bronze medal he didn’t win in Athens in 2004, after gold medalist Tyler Hamilton was stripped of his medal for doping three years ago.

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Local

Who says LA wasn’t a bike city? As this photo shows, they were the perfect way to get to a 1940s cowboy matinee. Looks like bike corrals are nothing new, either.

Bike SGV wants your support to help turn the massive Puente Hills landfill into LA County’s first bike park.

Examined Spoke questions why Milt Olin’s death has never been reported to California’s official SWITRS database. Why, indeed?

Vancouver’s Modacity will present Observations from an Emerging Bicycle Culture in Santa Monica and Echo Park next month.

 

State

The mayors of seven California cities, including LA and Lon Beach, call on the state to act now to fix our crumbling roads and bridges, including the need for comprehensive bike networks. Let’s not forget bad roads pose a greater risk to the safety of bicyclists than they do to motorists.

To no one’s surprise, Coronado’s NIMBYs have succeeded in killing a proposed bike path along the beach. The way residents reacted, you would have thought someone had suggested rerouting the 5 Freeway through their bucolic burgh.

Maybe bike collisions wouldn’t be rising so fast in Hanford if police would stop blaming the victims and focus on the people in the big, dangerous machines.

The LA Times provides more details on the San Francisco U-lock attack, in which a salmon cyclist breaking the rules of Critical Mass whacked a car with his lock after the driver bumped his bike.

A writer for the Sacramento Bee says a beautiful network of bike lanes will mean nothing if people are afraid to park their bikes out of fear of bike thieves. She’s right; LA’s efforts to encourage more people to ride instead of driving will be doomed if their bikes are gone when it’s time to ride back home.

 

National

Bicycling’s Joe Lindsey says our bike-riding president has done a lot to aid bicycling, but your voice is needed to ensure further progress. Meanwhile, the Feds tell risk averse traffic engineers to get off their ass and stop using them as an excuse.

Sarah Goodyear explains why we call crashes “accidents” and why we need to stop, while bike lawyer Bob Mionske explains what to do if you’re in one.

People for Bikes says protected bike lanes are seven times more likely to encourage people to ride.

Now that’s more like it. A Portland man apologizes for an ill-advised tweet, and says he doesn’t really believe anyone should run over people on bikes.

The cast of Breaking Away will reunite at Interbike in Las Vegas this month, including Dennis Christopher, Jackie Earle Haley, Paul Dooley and Dennis Quaid. If they can get Robyn Douglass to show up, I’m in.

In Houston, cycling concierges will deliver virtually anything you want directly to your door.

This is so wrong in so many ways. A Boston writer, who has evidently never met a bike rider, says bikes don’t belong on urban roads. Note to Jeff Jacoby: Like most bicyclists, I have a drivers license. And we pay the same taxes you do.

A New York bike website talks with the man riding a bikeshare bike from NYC to LA.

Washington DC will teach all second grade students how to ride a bike, which used to be standard practice for schools around the country. Growing up in Colorado, every kid received bike education in elementary school, ensuring that they all grew up knowing the rules of the road.

A South Carolina website gets it, saying motorists must respect the right of bicyclists to use the road on equal terms, but bike riders should assume most drivers don’t know that.

Alabama’s Tuskegee University has partnered with a local bank to give students a free bikeshare program.

A Birmingham AL grand jury will be convened to investigate the death of a prominent African American businessman killed when the driver of a pickup plowed into three riders with the Black People Run Bike and Swim group; the other two were airlifted to a local hospital. Traffic crimes don’t normally go to a grand jury; so the question is whether the DA is just covering his ass, or if there’s something they’re not telling us.

 

International

A British soccer player is banned from driving and gets a year of community service for DUI after plowing into three cyclists who stopped on the sidewalk to fix a broken chain. Yes, they were on the sidewalk when he hit them.

Famed Italian automotive designer Pininfarina has teamed with DeRosa to produce a lightweight, low-drag carbon racing bike.

Denmark will send its first astronaut into space today. To test bike parts, of course.

Syrian refugees are exploiting a legal loophole by bicycling across the border between Russia and Norway, which bans crossings by foot or car.

A South African website offers a photo essay on bicycling in Eritrea.

New Zealand is considering requiring a 1.5 meter passing distance for bicycles, the equivalent of nearly five feet.

 

Finally…

Now that’s a different looking bike, although it doesn’t look like something an Imperial storm trooper would ride. Your next water bottle could be a bike light; then again, your next foldie could be, too.

And you know you suck as a driver when even a car enthusiast website says you should lose your license for doing a massive burnout after an argument with a cyclist.

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Bike Cam Video, Injuries and Fatalities, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: San Diego police blame bike mob; unconfirmed report of bicycling fatality on PCH in Malibu

August 27, 2015 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: San Diego police blame bike mob; unconfirmed report of bicycling fatality on PCH in Malibu

No bias here.

Not from the press. And certainly not from the San Diego Police Department.

According to San Diego’s ABC 10 News, a female driver called 911 to report a “mob” of nine or ten bicyclists had chased her down and smashed her car window.

It must have seemed frightening to the people huddled at home watching the broadcast.

But the real story is hidden in the details.

The bike riders were using the sharrows in the city’s Normal Heights neighborhood when the driver came up behind them and began harassing them by honking nonstop, which is a violation of California law. Even though they were exactly where they were supposed to be.

She then broke the law again by passing too close, striking one of the bikes; fortunately, the rider was able to jump off just in time to avoid serious injury.

The riders then chased down the hit-and-run driver as she dragged the bike for several blocks, banging on her window in an attempt to get her attention and keep her from fleeing the scene.

Pedestrians and other motorists are often called heroes when they stop a fleeing driver under similar circumstances.

Instead, these riders were portrayed as a crazed mob, and threatened with prosecution on vandalism charges for punching and kicking the car.

So it’s okay for the driver to mangle a bike after running down the rider. But not for riders to break a window, apparently inadvertently, in an effort to make her stop.

Got it.

Police refused to even ticket, let alone arrest, the woman, despite obvious violations for

  1. harassing the cyclists
  2. breaking state law governing the use of a horn
  3. violating the three-foot passing law
  4. destruction of property
  5. failing to stop and exchange information following a collision

And yet somehow, she’s portrayed as the victim, with the people on bikes her attackers.

It’s sadly reminiscent of a case that marked the first stirrings of the bicycle rights movement here in Los Angeles.

Andres Tena was riding with a group of friends in the spring of 2009 when they were confronted by an impatient Hummer driver, who attempted to flee the scene after striking Tena’s bike and injuring him enough to require hospitalization. The other riders chased the driver down and blocked his way; in response, they were threatened with an unseen gun before the driver ran over their bikes in an effort to escape.

When police arrived, they somehow concluded that Tena had crashed into the side of the Hummer — which would have required backing into it at a high rate of speed, since he was thrown forward by the impact and suffered significant damage to the rear of his bike.

And that the driver was justified in attempting to flee, because he was frightened by all those scary bike riders, despite being safely ensconced within his multi-ton urban assault vehicle.

The cop on the scene took it a step further, saying if the cyclists had surrounded him like that, he would have done the same thing the Hummer driver did.

In fact, the only criminal prosecution that was even contemplated was a misdemeanor charge against a cyclist for “throwing his bike at the Hummer.”

Funny how some things never change.

It took years of sometimes difficult negotiations, but now LA’s bicycling community has a much better relationship with the LAPD than we did back in the dark days of just six short years ago.

But clearly, San Diego police haven’t gotten the memo.

And as this case clearly shows, they have a long way to go before cyclists can feel like they have the same support from law enforcement that drivers have come to expect, and are considered equal road users rather than two-wheeled pirates.

None of us are safe on the streets if we can’t count on the police to be there when we need them. And to do it fairly, without an obvious — and repugnant — windshield bias.

According to a tweet from BikeSD, they’re working with the San Diego Bicycle Coalition to arrange legal representation for the bike riders.

They may need it.

And sadly, the angry hit-and-run driver who started it all won’t.

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The publisher of the Malibu Times mentioned Tuesday that a bike rider had been killed on PCH near Busch Drive, but didn’t have any details.

However, the report cannot be confirmed at this time.

There have been no other reports in the press, and repeated web searches have turned up empty. And there has been no response yet to a request for information from the CHP.

Meanwhile, he goes on to criticize cyclists for riding with inadequate lighting on their bikes. While he has a point, it is irresponsible to bring it up in response to the unconfirmed report of the bicycling fatality without knowing if a lack of lights had anything to do with it.

Or if it even happened.

It’s no better than if someone went off on a rant against speeding, texting drivers after hearing about a traffic collision without knowing if those were contributing factors in the wreck.

Yes, we should all ensure that we are visible to those we share the road with, especially after dark or in the late dusk or early morning hours when it can be most difficult to see.

But it’s wrong to imply, intentionally or not, that it may have had anything to do with a wreck that can’t even be confirmed.

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I don’t even know what to think about this.

TMZ reports the DA’s office is unlikely to file charges against Caitlyn Jenner for a fatal collision on PCH last February, since they wouldn’t even file charges against the sheriff’s deputy who killed Milt Olin while using his onboard computer.

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Just like anyone else, Alejandro Valverde used Google to plan his route to victory in stage four of the Vuelta.

And after the Feds drop fraud charges against the other disgraced former Tour de France champ, Floyd Landis — remember him? — still has to repay nearly half a million dollars to the 1,700 people who donated to his defense fund when he was still pretending he hadn’t doped.

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Local

A Texas study says LA has the second worst traffic in the US, costing commuters 80 hours a year lost to traffic delays. To which bike commuters respond, “So?”.

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton talks Vision Zero with LADOT General Manager Seleta Reynolds in the latest #DamienTalks podcast.

For those who read español, a nice profile of Carlos Morales and the Eastside Bike Club; Morales saved his own life by losing 250 pounds riding a bike, and now works to spread the gospel of bikes and health to others. For those who don’t, Google Translate offers a passable translation.

 

State

Congratulations to the newly announced Bicycle Friendly Businesses in Southern California, including Santa Monica ad agency Ruben Postaer and Assoc, Giant Santa Monica bike shop, and the San Diego Association of Governments.

San Diego police bust a bike-riding bank robber. Or maybe they just assume everyone on a bike is a criminal.

Apparently, not everyone in Coronado opposes a bike path along the beach. Nice to see a rational, non-NIMBY response for a change.

The El Cerrito Planning Commission approves an Active Transportation Plan, including bike boulevards, traffic calming on narrow streets and a bike route providing access to the Bay Trail surrounding the San Francisco Bay.

 

National

Bicycling offers tips on how to avoid helmet hair, as well as advice on meditating to get more out of bicycling. Meditation will also improve your health. And life. Trust me.

A Utah man is ordered to pay a whopping $8,000 restitution for intentionally running down a man on a bike over a property dispute. Twice.

Turns out that despite vocal opposition, 57% of Boulder CO residents support the right-sizing of a city street to make room for protected bike lanes; bike traffic is up 38% in just the first three weeks, while average vehicle speeds have dropped from 39 mph to 37 mph — in a 30 mph zone.

Colorado transportation officials plan to improve bicycle safety on a major street by turning it into a high speed virtual freeway and forcing bikes off it. Memo to Colorado DOT: The auto-centric ‘70s are over.

In a bizarre assault, a Boise man who was driving erratically shouted at a bike rider at an intersection, then made a U-turn, drove up on the sidewalk and punched the rider in the face before driving over his bicycle.

A Wisconsin driver faces charges for running over a bike and a child’s bicycle attachment following a dispute after passing a father and his two kids too closely; the driver claims the father threw his $2,000 bike in front of the truck’s wheels. Sure, that’s credible.

No bias here, either. Two people were killed and eleven injured in seven separate Chicago shootings, yet the headline only mentions the one involving a bike.

It’s bicycle back to school time. Indiana’s Purdue university opens its own bikeshare system, while the University of Florida is offering to rent students a bike, helmet and lock.

Pittsburgh’s transit system will open its third bike garage, which will hold up to 80 bikes on pneumatic, spring-loaded double-decker racks.

Over 800 Philadelphia bike riders are planning to participate in a PopeRide when the city’s downtown streets will be shut down for the papal visit.

A Staten Island website questions whether bikes, recreational or otherwise, should ply the island’s narrow colonial-era streets. Never mind that bikes are better suited for narrow streets than cars and SUVs, or that they could provide an alternative to heavy traffic.

The mayor of an Alabama town lost his bid for a fifth term two weeks after he was bopped in the head with a baseball bat for schtupping the wife of a bike riding attorney.

 

International

A Quebec cop is charged with killing a bike rider last September; he faces charges of reckless driving and criminal negligence, even though witnesses say he backed into the victim’s bike on purpose.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old British man still rides every day on the 1939 Triumph bicycle he got for his 14th birthday.

People get killed or injured by being passed too close, and some post video of those dangerous passes online. Evidently, a group of British filmmakers who posted a YouTube style parody online think that’s funny.

Caught on video: A Brit bike thief makes off with a bicycle in less than a minute after casually joking with the staff at a gym, where the owner had gone in to take a shower.

A writer from the UK says she belongs on the road as much as any man, and despite the harassment she faces, the freedom of bicycling more than makes up for it. All cyclists are subject to harassment, but the added sexual component woman face is one of the factors that helps keep bicycling a predominately male form of transportation.

The Smithsonian recommends touring Kaohsiung City, Taiwan by bike, calling it one of Asia’s best cycling cities, with a world-class bikeshare program.

 

Finally…

Painting eyes over a bike rack helps prevent thefts, although the thieves just seem to go somewhere else. If you’re going to “borrow” a bike to get to work, make sure it’s not a cop’s patrol bike first.

And a Baltimore writer finishes dead last on what the Smithsonian calls the world’s “most difficult feat in uphill cycling.” But he finished.

Then again, they probably never heard of LA’s own Feel My Legs, I’m a Racer.

 

Category: Hit-and-Run, Law Enforcement, Morning Links, Road Rage / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: The Mobility Plan bikelash has begun, and I go off on an unintended rant

August 20, 2015 / / 4 comments

The bikelash has officially begun.

In an OpEd for the LA Times, the owner of a Santa Monica luxury gift business says the city’s plan for road diets on some streets is a terrible idea.

Bruce Feldman suggests that what works in Stockholm, where the “Swedes are smart and good looking,” won’t work in LA. Where evidently, the residents aren’t.

Instead, he suggests banning all parking along major thoroughfares to make more room for cars, and yes, bikes, while providing parking lots on every block in business areas — apparently, tearing down some of those businesses to make room for idle cars.

He also trots out the failed proposal made by former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, before he fell off his bike and saw the light, to transform Olympic and Pico Blvds into parallel one-way streets. An idea so bad it was one of the few things that could unite virtually everyone who lived, worked, shopped or owned a business anywhere near those streets in opposition.

And says that people move to LA to live in tidy sundrenched bungalows far from work and shopping. Which certainly explains why DTLA — and even Downtown Santa Monica — are thriving.

Meanwhile, LA Times’ readers say the death of a pedestrian on Rowena Ave is just an anomaly, and doesn’t justify changes to the roadway to improve safety if it means a slower drive. This is what we’re up against; people are so used to traffic violence that it’s accepted as the cost of driving.

All of this stems from the city’s remarkable failure to control the narrative surrounding the passage of the Mobility Plan.

Virtually every single news story and talk radio program both before and after the plan was passed focused on bike lanes, and the possibility of removing some traffic lanes to make room for them.

Even my own 15-minute interview with a local news station, in which I discussed the nuances of the Mobility Plan and the importance of Vision Zero, was edited down to “Bike lanes are great!”

Which is not what the plan is about.

It’s about improving safety for everyone, with a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities within the city by 2035. Not just for cyclists and pedestrians, but for all those who travel by any means.

It’s about improving traffic flow by creating a true multi-modal transportation network, where people can get from here to there conveniently — and yes, safely — by bus, train, car, bike or feet. Wherever here and there may be. And reducing congestion by allowing those who prefer not to drive to travel by other means, making more room on the streets for those who do.

It’s about increasing the livability of our city by creating more walkable, bikeable neighborhoods where people choose to live and work, and where businesses thrive, while reducing the blight caused by inducing drivers to blow through neighborhoods at excess speeds without stopping. Or even noticing what’s on the other side of the curb right next them.

It’s not about bike lanes. Or forcing anyone out of their cars.

In other words, what we have here, as the movie says, is a failure to communicate.

One that starts at the top, with a mayor who was missing in action when the plan was being debated in the city council. And missed his opportunity, not only to support the plan in the face of opposition from some councilmembers, but to properly position it in the minds of the public after it was passed.

Maybe we can discuss that with him on Monday.

And extending down through LADOT, whose spokesperson could only defend it meekly as “aspirational,” suggesting that much of it would never be built in the face of community opposition, rather than explaining why it needs to be.

In fact, the best explanation of the Mobility Plan came from the LACBC’s Tamika Butler, as KPCC’s Larry Mantle kept trying to switch the conversation back to bike lanes.

The new Mobility Plan is a sweeping roadmap to a far better City of Angels to come.

But one that is doomed to failure if the city leaves it to people like us to explain.

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Better Bike offers their own response to Feldman’s OpEd, asking why would you double down on yesterday’s failed planning paradigm.

And the LACBC sends word the Highland Park Neighborhood Council will consider a motion to support the Mobility Plan as is at tonight’s meeting, opposing efforts by a handful of councilmembers to gut the plan.

Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council

Regular Meeting and Agenda

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Highland Park Senior Center 6152 N. Figueroa St.

7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Item #16 (15 mins): Motion to file a community impact statement (CF #15-0719) in support of “Mobility 2035” as proposed, and opposing all amendments to the plan as proposed by Councilmember Cedillo, Councilmember Koretz, and Councilmember Price. – H. Slater.

**The item will be discussed in the second half of the meeting.**

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Sad news today, as Deb Hubsmith, founder of Safe Routes to Schools, passed away from acute myeloid leukemia.

………

Two days into the USA Pro Challenge, the BMC team has taken control behind stage 2 winner Brent Bookwalter and Rohan Dennis.*

It took an act of Congress to allow the second stage of the Pro Challenge to finish on Forrest Service land. A Denver TV station looks at the nine — or maybe eleven — types of cycling fans you’ll see at the Pro Challenge.

And this year’s race includes the first Israeli team to race in the US.

*Yes, stage 3 is already in the books, but the news stories seem to be running a day behind this year.

………

Local

A lawyer in the San Fernando Valley discusses the need for children to wear bike helmets. But neglects to mention they’re required for anyone under 18.

The Santa Monica police department is cracking down on violations that affect bike and pedestrian safety today and Saturday. Enforcement is targeted at any traffic violations, regardless of mode of travel, so stick to the letter of the law if you ride through the city.

South Pas rejects bike safety in favor of parking.

Richard Risemberg discovers the rumors of a Redondo Beach cycletrack really are true, and finds it much to his liking.

There’s a fundraiser tonight for Great Streets projects in South LA, Boyle Heights and Pacoima.

More free bike safety classes this weekend in West Covina, East Los Angeles, Cudahy, South Los Angeles and DTLA, courtesy of Metro and the LACBC.

Santa Monica is offering free bike repair, as well as fixing other items, this Saturday.

 

State

Pedal Love offers a podcast explaining Vision Zero with Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the Vision Zero Network for North America.

San Diego’s City Beat questions the city’s partnership with Miami-based DecoBike to provide bikeshare service.

BikeSD is planning to Bike to the Border on September 19th.

San Raphael opens a new multi-use pathway connecting downtown with a coming SMART Transit Center. Meanwhile, we can’t even get a bike lane connecting Westwood with the coming Expo Line.

A San Jose letter writer really doesn’t get it, complaining about a new road diet, despite years of reporting collisions on the street. As noted above, road diets aren’t done to install bike lanes; they’re done to slow speeding traffic and improve safety. And bike lanes are just one of the tools used to do that.

A Cottonwood bike rider suffered major injuries in a hit-and-run collision with a motorcyclist. Even in a small NorCal town, motorists don’t seem to feel a need to stick around after a wreck.

 

National

The CDC suggests treating traffic violence like a public health issue, with the cure consisting of slowing drivers and building better bike infrastructure. Sort of like LA’s new Mobility Plan.

A writer for Care2 offers up eight ways to make our cities bike-friendly. Never mind that by making cities more inviting for bike riders, they can also reduce congestion and improve safety for everyone.

A cyclist on a cross-country tour has his bike and gummy bears stolen in Portland.

Life is cheap in Alaska, where a teenage driver gets a whopping one year and 10 days for the hit-and-run death of a cyclist while driving drunk and on drugs.

Three months later, still no arrest in the apparently random shooting of a bicyclist near my Colorado hometown.

A “normal, decent guy” goes for a bike ride in Minnesota. And is surprised to learn bikes aren’t allowed to take the lane on a busy interstate highway.

The Kentucky State Fair is encouraging visitors to ride there instead of driving, but evidently can’t be bothered to provide secure bike parking.

An upstate New York letter writer says killing a cyclist should have consequences. Amend that to killing a human being, regardless of mode of travel, and I’m onboard.

Now that former mayor Michael Bloomberg is gone, New York cyclists are questioning Gotham’s commitment to improving bike safety.

A former Rockette discusses bicycling sans spandex in NYC, and that you don’t have to be a certain type of person to ride a bike.

 

International

Bicycling discusses how bikes are changing lives around the world — and in some cases, saving them.

An Ontario — no, the one further north — cyclist says we’re all just people, so drive like it around bicyclists.

A Quebec cop faces charges in the death of a salmon cyclist last year; the officer was trying to intercept him when he collided with the rider.

London’s black cab drivers are trying to scuttle the city’s plans for an East-West Cycle Superhighway, even though construction has already begun.

Sometimes you just can’t win. A Brit bike rider was clubbed over the head by a road raging driver when he slowed for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Too often drivers blame us when we break the law, then get pissed off when we don’t.

Welsh cyclists petition to save a key bikeway from closure due to budget cuts.

Italian stunt cyclist Vittorio Brumotti was brutally attacked by three men while riding.

An Aussie woman still traumatized by her previous experiences says it’s time to toughen up and join her family on two wheels.

 

Finally…

No matter what kind of gesture a taxi driver makes your way, don’t get off your bike and jump on the hood of his cab. Then again, don’t make a double-handed rude gesture after nearly knocking a cyclist off his bike if you want to keep your bus driving job.

And don’t Silly String a cyclist.

Period.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: Newport hit-and-run driver turns himself in, and more fallout from the new LA Mobility Plan

August 13, 2015 / / One comment

More on the 14-year old girl who was critically injured when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding in Newport Beach Tuesday night.

Thirty-six-year old Anthony Michael George turned himself in to police at around 2 pm Wednesday, which would have given him plenty of time to sober up.

Assuming he had been drinking, of course, which only seems like a given.

That was after his badly damaged car was discovered by a sharp-eyed Newport resident out for a run.

His victim, who was riding a beach cruiser with a group of other riders, was on vacation with her family from San Carlos; she’s now fighting for her life after she was hit head-on with enough force to shatter the car’s windshield.

She was not wearing a helmet, despite state law requiring them for anyone under the age of 18. Whether it could have made a difference, given the description of the collision, is questionable.

Thanks to Erik Griswold for the link about the car discovery.

………

The Daily News says the newly passed Mobility Plan offers promise, but questions whether the city is dictating new habits or anticipating them. Neither, actually. It’s aimed at improving safety while giving people the option of how they want to travel, rather than how they currently feel they have to.

LA Times readers offer surprisingly rational responses to yesterday’s story about the shift in LA transportation priorities.

KNBC-4 misses the point, saying community groups oppose taking travel lanes — not auto lanes, thank you — from streets like Westwood Blvd, even though current plan for Westwood don’t involve removing a single lane or parking spot. Which makes you wonder what the real reason for their opposition is, along with that of Councilmember Paul Koretz, who appears to be in the pocket of wealthy homeowners.

Larry Mantle discussed the passage of the Mobility Plan on KPCC’s Air Talk; the LACBC’s Tamika Butler made some good points by stressing it’s not just about bike lanes, although the remarks by motorhead Jay Beeber — and many of the comments — are infuriating.

Speaking of which, I’m told you should only read the comments on KFI’s Facebook page, home to the bike hating John and Ken, if you want to lose all hope for humanity.

And Bicycling wants to arm you with responses to the typical anti-bike comments you’ll find to any online story about bicycling.

Meanwhile, this is what the story looks like from an overseas perspective.

………

Brenda Miller of the Alliance for a Healthy Orange County writes to say they’re looking for vendors with experience in hosting bike rodeos.

Orange County will be holding bike rodeos the month of September, 2015, and is seeking bids from vendors experienced with such bicycle education events. Funding for the rodeos is provided by the non-profit, Alliance for a Healthy Orange County, as part of a community health grant received from the CDC. Contact info, details/specs, and a list of Q&A’s submitted by potential vendors is downloadable via Dropbox HERE.

………

Matt Brammeier, the cyclist injured in that horrific Tour of Utah crash, as been released from the hospital.

………

Local

Councilmember Mike Bonin’s office is preparing a pop-up Great Streets installation on Venice Blvd in Mar Vista early next year, including improved — and possibly protected — bike lanes.

Richard Risemberg says even if we get bike lanes, once the paint dries, we’re on our own.

Bike thefts continue in DTLA, as six people have their rides taken, four after the locks were cut; one man was arrested trying to take one.

There will be a pop-up community open house for the Cesar Chavez Great Street, which doesn’t appear to include anything to improve bike safety, this Saturday. Maybe you can point out the error of their ways.

 

State

San Francisco police back off their heavy-handed crackdown on scofflaw bike riders in the face of angry bicyclists, after 200 riders were ticketed for rolling stops, running lights and not stopping for pedestrians in just a two-day period. A petition protesting the crackdown drew over 19,000 signatures.

The Yolo County driver who intentionally ran down three cyclists in succession behind the wheel of a stolen car now faces attempted murder charges and a sanity hearing. That’s Yolo, not YOLO.

 

National

Bicycling talks to the people behind everyone’s favorite bike comic.

VeloNews asks what the rise of e-bikes means for the world of bicycling. Less pedaling, for one.

Bloomberg notes that crowdfunding is the latest way to get bikeways built, but questions just what the purpose of taxes is, then.

Not a bad idea. A new light attaches to your brake cable, giving you an automatic brake light for just $10.

If a judge agrees, an Anchorage teen could get less than three years in juvie for the DUI hit-and-run death of a bike rider. The collision came just eight days after she completed — and evidently failed — a drug abuse program; she was on Ecstasy, coke and marijuana at the time of the crash.

A car is a man’s — or woman’s — castle in Kansas; just reaching inside could entitle the driver to use deadly force. Good thing that personal space doesn’t extend to the air around it.

Caught on video: This is what a dangerously close pass by a Texas driver looks like.

A fifth Minneapolis bike rider has been attacked by a rock-throwing SUV driver; the latest victim suffered a broken clavicle.

The Cleveland Clinic offers advice on how to avoid neck pain caused by cycling. Or maybe you suffer from hay fever while riding, instead.

An Ohio driver gets a lousy three months in jail for sideswiping a cyclist with his trailer after following behind a group of riders for several hundred feet, honking and yelling at them out his window.

The athletic director at Middle Tennessee State University considers himself lucky after breaking two neck vertebrae and a wrist when he went off the road while riding his bike.

Bicycling casualties are raising red flags in Boston, where 13 people have been killed riding bikes in the city in the last five years. Nearly that many died in Los Angeles last year alone, with 11 bicycling deaths within the city limits in 2014.

A Florida man faces a manslaughter charge after killing another man with a single punch in a dispute over a stolen bike. Seriously, recovering your bike isn’t worth taking a life. Or spending the next several years behind bars.

 

International

Hundreds of cyclists formed a funeral procession for a popular British bike advocate who was killed in a road rage assault while driving his car.

Add this to the list of things you wouldn’t see while driving, as Town Mouse spots a very hidden young deer on her ride to town. And note that her definition of a busy road is spotting half a dozen vehicles in four miles.

The next time you’re in Amsterdam, look bikes with a yellow rack for a free ride on the back from an unofficial bike ambassador.

Australia’s Senate is told that mandatory helmet laws do more harm than good.

New Chinese augmented reality glasses currently raising funds on Indiegogo promise to give you a heads-up display while you ride. Because it just takes too much effort to look down at a Garmin.

Over 40,000 Thai cyclists have registered for a ride this Sunday to honor the country’s Queen on her 83rd birthday.

 

Finally…

Seriously, when a driver tells you to get off the road, just flip ‘em off if you have to respond, instead of causing $300 damage to the jerk’s car. If you’re riding a stolen bike armed with burglary tools and a stun gun, don’t ride on the damn sidewalk.

And caught on video: A Chinese bicyclist just barely avoids serious injury when he hops off his bike milliseconds before it’s hit by a driver making a dangerous U-turn in a busy intersection. Naturally, police conclude it wasn’t really the driver’s fault.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Bicycle Safety, Bikes & the Law, Hit-and-Run, Injuries and Fatalities, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: Glendora cyclists buzzed by CHP officer; LA Times maps the most dangerous intersection

July 13, 2015 / / 6 comments

I received the following email from cyclist Ken Adams Sunday night, relating a dangerous encounter with a CHP officer who buzzed their bikes, then came back to argue his apparent misunderstanding of California bike law.

Re: Encounter with Maniac CHP Officer While Cycling on Glendora Mountain Road / Glendora Ridge Road

I’m trying to spread the word of my experience yesterday as far and wide as possible, because it was quite unbelievable and extremely dangerous.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the roads I mentioned, but they are very popular cycling routes, especially for Saturday morning rides.  I was riding with a friend, starting from his house in Glendora.  There was another training ride with about 9 people starting from a coffee shop in Glendora that I was aware of because of an event invite on Facebook.

We started our ride just after 8 am.  We started the climb on GMR at about 8:15. At approximately 8:30, about 2-3 miles North of Sierra Madre, a CHP SUV passed us dangerously close – probably about 2 feet away. Neither of us gave the incident much thought, as it happens frequently, although it is unexpected from law enforcement.  A few miles later, the same CHP vehicle was stopped and the officer had exited the vehicle.  He was standing on the shoulder and commented something to the effect “watch out, there are cars coming up”.  We turned and looked, but saw nothing.  We assumed he was referring to some type of event that was occurring, so we were extra vigilant.  We never saw any unusual vehicle traffic – in fact, traffic was unusually light for a weekend.

We continued riding, past East Fork road, where GMR becomes GRR.  Approximately 13 miles from the previous incident, the same CHP SUV passed us again, this time much more closely.  He was no more than 1 – 1.5 feet from us.  At that point, the road was straight, there were clear sight lines for at least ½ mile, no oncoming traffic and we were riding single file on the white line.  There are also no lane demarcation lines painted on the road, as the road is less than 2 lanes wide at that point.

We both raised our arms as he passed in a “what the heck” gesture.  The officer continued down the road, but we could see that in the distance he was turning around.  My friend started recording as he returned.  I raised my arm again in a “what the heck” gesture and the officer slowed and started lowering his window.  We stopped our bikes and an animated conversation ensued.  I have included a link to that video on my FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/ken.adams.9484/videos/1116460408367279/

Subsequent to this incident, we continued our ride.  We encountered additional riders and described our experience with the CHP SUV.  Incredibly, they told us they had experienced the same thing.  When I returned home, I went to the FB event page I mentioned earlier and posted about my experience, asking if anyone else on that ride had experienced an issue with a CHP SUV.  I got a number of responses from cyclists who had either witnessed or experienced brushes from this same CHP officer.

It is my opinion that this officer had some type of agenda yesterday.  He either has some type of antipathy towards cyclists, was trying to prove a point, or was trying to provoke a confrontation that he hoped would escalate to the use of force.  Even in a best case scenario, as you can ascertain from viewing the video, he is woefully misinformed about cycling laws and vehicle interactions with cyclists.  Most troubling to me was his cavalier attitude about endangering my life and the life of my friend.  He seemed completely unconcerned, not to mention excessively arrogant.

I filed a complaint on the CHP website yesterday, but I hardly trust the CHP to police themselves with this matter.  In case you’d like to read the content of that complaint, here is what I wrote:

I was riding my bicycle on Glendora Mountain Road and Glendora Ridge Road on the morning of 7/11/2015. At approximately 8:30 am, on Glendora Mountain Road, about 2 miles north of Sierra Madre, a CHP SUV with license plate number 1365395 passed me and the cyclist with whom I was riding with significantly less than 3 feet (I’d estimate about 2 feet). We continued riding and at approximately 9:55 am, on Glendora Ridge Road, approximately 13 miles from the previous incident, the same CHP SUV passed us again, barely missing us, by approximately 1 foot. The officer continued on for some time, then turned around and returned. We flagged him down and had a conversation with him. We have a video of this interaction, which I would be happy to share with you. I would like to point out that Glendora Ridge Road is a very desolate spot with minimal vehicular traffic. The road is less than 2 lanes wide and has no lane demarcation lines painted on the road. At the point we were passed by the CHP vehicle, there was no oncoming traffic, the road was straight with clear sight lines for at least 1/4 – 1/2 mile and we were riding single file on the white line. During our conversation, the officer claimed that he must drive on the right half of the road and that he “cannot violate a law to follow a law” when asked about California’s 3-foot cycling law. He seemed completely unconcerned when I pointed out that he had just needlessly endangered my life. In the course of the rest of my ride and subsequently via social media, I learned that this same officer passed numerous other cyclists dangerously close during this same time period on the same stretch of road.

This officer endangered my life twice, the life of the person I was cycling with twice, at least 4 other cyclists that I’ve been in contact with and who knows how many others. I suspect this type of aggressive and unsafe driving behavior is not what you expect from your officers. This incident has significantly affected my trust in the professionalism of the CHP as an organization. Cycling on California’s roads is sufficiently dangerous without our law enforcement officers adding to the danger. I sincerely hope that this officer receives some additional training on correct and safe vehicular interaction with cyclists, because it is clear that he currently is lacking in this area.

I would very much like to get the dash cam video from his tour yesterday, as I’m sure it clearly shows his two assaults on us, as well as the numerous other assaults on other cyclists.

This officer is a menace to cyclists and needs to be dealt with, swiftly and harshly IMO.  It is bad enough when Joe Citizen behaves this way.  It is completely unacceptable when law enforcement does.

………

The LA Times crunches the numbers, and identifies LA County’s most dangerous intersections.

According to the story, just 1% of intersections account for 25% of pedestrian collisions; chances are, those same intersections are just as dangerous for people on bicycles. And bike lanes could be part of the solution, along with other traffic calming efforts.

They also report LA Mayor Eric Garcetti will announce a Vision Zero plan next month to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city within 10 years.

The question is whether the city is really willing to make the hard choices necessary to get there.

After all, they can’t even get bike lanes promised in the unanimously approved 2010 bike plan installed on Westwood, Lankershim and North Figueroa, thanks to roadblocks thrown up by a few councilmembers.

………

Chris Froome keeps the lead in the Tour de France, as his Team Sky finishes just one second behind BMC in the team time trial; the injury riddled Orica-GreenEdge team tanks it. Cycling Weekly offers five talking points following Sunday’s ninth stage.

Chris Froome continues to lead, but Teejay van Garderen is just 12 seconds behind.

The New York Times looks at the unexpected success of Eritrean riders at the Tour, while WaPo explains why it matters.

Mayuko Hagiwara becomes the first Japanese woman to win a stage at the Giro Rosa. Meanwhile, it looks like the Tour de France’s La Course stiffed some of the women competing in last years race out of their already ridiculously low prize money.

And US women sweep the bronze mountain biking medals in the Pan Am Games. Am I the only one who didn’t know the Pan Am Games were even going on right now?

………

Local

A teenage boy was shot and killed while riding his bike in the Florence neighborhood of South LA. Something that’s happening far too frequently these days.

Bike Metro posts a photo of what looks like secure bike parking at the Beverly Connection shopping center on La Cienega.

 

State

Another bike rider has been hit by a car in Newport Beach; fortunately, he’s in stable condition. Thanks to John McBrearty for the heads-up.

The Orange County Bicycle Coalition urges you to sign a petition to preserve plans for a Class 1 bike trail through Peters Canyon.

CSU Fullerton police recover three stolen bikes off campus.

A San Diego cyclist’s life was changed forever by the alleged stoned driver who plowed into a group of riders on Fiesta Island last year.

Oceanside’s Strand will be widened, including a shoulder for cyclists and pedestrians, only 35 years after it was damaged in a storm.

San Francisco’s Sunday Streets visits some of the city’s sketchier neighborhoods in the Tenderloin.

A Sacramento bike advocate says the city is lagging behind in planning for bicycles.

A distracted driver killed a Sacramento father and critically injured his eight-year old son as they rode their bikes; the 25-year old driver was reading a text message when he drove into the bike lane they were in. Tragically, the victims were refugees from war-torn Afghanistan, and had only been in the city for a few weeks.

No Trespassing signs go up on a Modesto bike and pedestrian trail, presumably by mistake.

 

National

Redbook suggests riding a bike together could make you fall in love all over again.

My hometown considers joining other Colorado city’s in embracing bikeshare; the city already enjoys a successful bike lending library.

Someone apparently deliberately rigged a truck to crash into an Oklahoma bike shop.

Tragic news from Minnesota, as a small town ambulance crew responds to a bicycling collision, and finds their own boss fatally injured.

Fifteen-hundred cyclists ride 160 miles across the state of Indiana.

Connecticut bike riders no longer have to ride as far to the right as practicable, only as far to the right as they deem safe. We so need that wording change here.

New York is working to improve safety by reducing left turns. Banning left turns on busy streets would improve safety in LA, while allowing the near-ubiquitous center turn lanes to be reconfigured to make space for bike lanes. And yes, it is possible to avoid a left turn and still get where you’re going by just driving around the block.

The NYPD has issued a BOLO Alert for the hit-and-run bike rider who critically injured pedestrian last month.

 

International

A Winnipeg paper calls for approval of the city’s proposed bike and walking plan, despite the overt objections of some city councilors.

Londoners react to the latest subway strike by doubling usage of the city’s bikeshare system.

A new Brit bike satnav system attaches to your handlebars and lights up to indicate where to turn.

Once again, UK police stop a “silly cyclist” from riding on a major highway.

A British soldier tracks down the thief selling his stolen bike on Ebay, and finds the trail leads to a fellow soldier in his own barracks. Oops.

No offense, but who would confront 25 angry teenagers to stop a bike-jacking? Props to this British man for trying, but seriously, when you’re outnumbered 25 to three, just let the damn bike go, already.

Copenhagen may be a bicycling paradise, but it’s also a popular spot for bike thieves; a bike shop owner was arrested after being caught with hundreds of hot bikes.

Israel will construct a nearly 100 mile bicycling network, including 10 cycling expressways.

A writer for the New York Times gets busted for borrowing a bike from Japan’s unofficial bikeshare.

Bangkok officials clean up the streets to prepare for a bike event in honor of the queen’s birthday.

 

Finally…

Talk about crappy customer service; a Utah bike shop employee decks a deer that wandered into the shop. You can get Audi’s new limited edition racing bike, as long as you’re willing to travel to Dubai. And not a deer, presumably.

And a Kiwi website offers advice on how to deal with the bike haters on social media.

 

Category: Bikes & the Law, Law Enforcement, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Weekend Links: Cyclists help save missing woman, bike cop injured in fall, and Sac cyclists injured in car assault

July 3, 2015 / / One comment

Once again, bike riders are heroes.

Even if they are mentioned only in passing.

A Simi Valley woman was rescued Wednesday after her car went off the road in Latigo Canyon on Monday. She’d been missing for two days after driving to the beach for a run.

Her rescue came when a pair of unnamed cyclists heard her screams for help; something that anyone driving by would be unlikely to notice.

Motorists frequently complain about cyclists in the Malibu canyons.

But one owes them her thanks. If not her life.

………

Even bike cops are at risk on our streets.

Especially if they don’t maintain their bikes properly.

KTLA-5 reports an LAPD officer suffered an apparent head injury while riding in a residential Sherman Oaks neighborhood Wednesday afternoon.

According to KNBC-4, the officer was leaving the scene of a three-hour police standoff when the brakes failed on both his and his partner’s bikes as they rode down a steep hill. He touched wheels with his partner’s bike and was thrown to the pavement.

While his injury is described as serious, the department tweeted that it does not appear to be life threatening.

And yes, he was wearing a helmet.

However, brake failures on one bike — let alone both — raises serious maintenance issues. Let’s hope the department isn’t risking the safety of its officers by ignoring basic inspections and service on their bicycles.

Let’s hope he makes a full and fast recovery; thanks to Rick Risemberg for the heads-up.

And evidently, it was a bad day for bike-riding cops, as a St. Paul MN cop was right hooked by a driver looking the wrong way.

………

It gets worse.

Wednesday we linked to a story about three Sacramento-area cyclists injured by a hit-and-run driver in a stolen car, who was later arrested with the help of a police dog.

Now it turns out he may have done it on purpose.

Thirty-eight-year old Alamar Houston faces multiple felony counts of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and DUI, as well as a host of other charges, for allegedly driving into the cyclists on purpose in two separate incidents, a quarter mile apart.

The Sacramento Bee reports he first swerved into a single rider, then plowed into two other cyclists from behind, leaving two teenage riders seriously injured, before fleeing the scene.

He pleaded not guilty to 17 separate charges on Thursday, while suggesting he needs mental health help.

No shit.

………

KCBS-2 managed to track down a hit-and-run driver who struck a 12-year old bike rider in a collision caught on stomach-churning security video.

Even though bystanders came to help, the woman never got out of her car or asked how the boy was doing before driving off.

According to the station, she said she assumed everything was okay after seeing the victim get up. Never mind that he could have had major injuries that might not have shown up until later. Or that every driver is required to stop, render aid and exchange information after any collision, no matter how slight.

Police have given her two weeks to respond to their investigation. Which is about 13 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes too long.

But regardless of whether charges are filed, anyone who’d drive off after hitting a kid doesn’t belong behind the wheel. Ever.

Period.

………

Sad news from the DC area, as a Brazilian police investigator was killed competing in a road race at the World Police and Fire Games. Reports indicate one rider blew a tire and crashed into two other cyclists; the other two victims are in critical condition.

No word on which rider had the blow-out.

………

Lots of racing news as we gear up for Saturday’s start of the Tour de France.

The Wall Street Journal says the world’s best riders are going downhill — literally — putting their lives on the line to gain a few seconds. GoPro is about to go where no camera has gone before, into the peloton where it will hang out with Big Data.

In the absence of Cadel Evans, the Aussie delegation is stepping up as key lieutenants in the Tour de France, while Teejay van Garderen leads the American delegation.

The Telegraph looks at how motor doping works, and the risk it poses to pro racing. A representative for one unnamed rider reportedly asked the maker of an e-assist bike if one could be surreptitiously incorporated into his client’s bike.

Dutch police wisely decide not to disrupt Le Tour after all.

And bicycling’s longest running soap opera continues, as Lance’s girlfriend is ordered to testify, and Floyd Landis must turn over records to the courts.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers good advice for new councilmember David Ryu.

Richard Risemberg says LA could learn from Long Beach, where bike boulevards and protected bikeways have resulted in increased sales for local business, rather than the disaster usually predicted by business owners in here in the City of Angels.

An LA bike commuter explores Copenhagen and Berlin, and finds Los Angeles does have a few advantages over its European cousins. But not many.

Police are looking for a bike thief who took a Trek Madone from Glendale Cycles out for a test ride and never came back, leaving behind someone else’s driver’s license and Visa card.

Sounds like fun. This month’s edition of the LACBC’s popular Sunday Funday Ride rolls Sunday morning for a tour of early LA history, led by board member Patrick Pascal.

The Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition will host a potluck on Monday.

 

State

LADOT Bike Blog talks with Caltrans about California’s new protected bike lane standards.

San Diego sheriff’s deputies bust three high-end bike thieves in an Encinitas hotel.

Mark your calendar for the second annual Big Bear Cycling Festival later this month.

Santa Barbara opens a new Bike Center to serve transit users.

A San Francisco cyclist was the victim of a double hit-and-run; she was hit by a driver fleeing from a collision with a bus.

 

National

Streetsblog explains the hows and whys that kept protected bike lanes and intersections from being implemented for 40 years after the first one hit the streets in Davis CA, laying the blame on organized groups of vehicular cyclists.

A writer for Mobility Lab says there’s no right or wrong way to be a cyclist. Seriously, ride how, where, and in and on whatever you like. Just do it safely and legally.

Bike Portland talks with outgoing Bike League president Andy Clarke.

Bicycling looks at devices that could save your life in a riding emergency.

Zagster raises funds to take their bikeshare program nationwide.

Former Arizona congresswoman and shooting victim Gabby Giffords is one of us.

A 79-year old Las Vegas man continues to ride 12 to 15 miles every day; he’s been riding the same route since he retired 28 years ago.

A Colorado bike rider was shot in the leg with a pellet gun from a passing car.

South Dakota cyclists get a shiny new three-foot passing law, which smartly increases to six feet at speeds over 35 mph.

Indianapolis cyclists fear the city’s support for bicycling will leave office along with their outgoing bike-friendly mayor.

Local officials in Massachusetts are offended by bike lanes mandated by the state on a highway leading to a casino.

Police have made a second arrest in the road rage attack on a Pennsylvania cyclist and his girlfriend by a pair of machete-wielding teens, who also broke all of the ground floor windows in the couple’s home and were trying to crawl in when police arrived.

Philadelphia bike commuters are about to get covered bike parking at regional train stations.

A writer for the Wall Street Journal remembers a dedicated cyclist who lost his life in an collision with another bike rider while running in New York’s Central Park. His bike-riding widow calls on cyclists to accept our responsibilities and protect the rights of other people.

Not everyone likes the idea of a 76-mile bikeway through the Everglades.

 

International

An Ontario letter writer says not only should bicyclists be licensed, but it should apply to children, as well.

With the help of friends, including stunt master Danny MacAskill, off-road legend Martyn Ashton gets back on a bike for the first time since he was paralyzed from the waist down in 2013. It’s worth watching the video, if only to see the huge smile on his face.

British bike scribe Carlton Reid says northern UK cities are falling behind by catering to motorists alone.

In an important and chilling read, London’s Guardian looks at the toxic bias against bicyclists in the media, and how it’s led to potentially deadly sabotage of cyclists.

A Scottish woman gets five years for killing a cyclist while chatting on her cell phone; she allegedly deleted the record of the call in an attempted cover-up.

A new documentary looks at bi-polar former world pursuit champ Graeme Obree and his effort to break the bicycle speed record on an odd bike he designed and built himself.

It’s five years in prison for the taxi driver who killed South African Olympic mountain biker Burry Stander. Which is four years more than his blade running fellow countryman served for shooting his girlfriend.

 

Finally…

Bad karma. The same day an Ohio prosecutor crashed the bike he got from a bike riding judge, the judge wiped out on his new one; both injured their ribs and a shoulder. VH1 is looking for 150 sets of bicycling twins to set a tandem riding record this month.

And your next bike could be a three-wheeled T-Rex.

………

Enjoy your holiday weekend; the forecast promises near-perfect riding weather.

Just be careful out there and ride defensively. Drivers are likely to be focused on finding a parking space for the fireworks or near the beach rather than looking out for you.

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Bikes & the Law, Hit-and-Run, Law Enforcement, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: San Bernardino police unfairly blame victim; bike commuter dares Sepulveda Pass sans spandex

June 2, 2015 / / 5 comments

This is the sort of crap bike riders have to deal with far too often.

After an 81-year old bike rider was killed in San Bernardino recently, police investigators determined that the victim was at fault.

Even though he had legally taken the lane, which was too narrow to share because of drifted sand, and was riding abreast, which is not not forbidden under California law.

And even though his bike was well lighted, and should have been clearly visible to the driver who hit him from behind, and who could have easily changed lanes to avoid him.

So evidently, it’s legal to kill bike riders in the Inland Empire, even when they’re riding within their rights.

The victim’s family asked the Executive Director of the Inland Empire Biking Alliance to talk to the detective in charge of the case.

What follows is a recount of the conversation from their Facebook page, reprinted with permission, which reads more like an Abbot and Costello routine.

Note: The name of the detective has been withheld to spare him well-deserved embarrassment.

Time to bring your blood to a boil. Our ED was asked by the family of William Easley (killed when hit from behind in SB) to represent their grievance with the police report putting William at fault. The traffic commission determined that the primary cause of the collision was Easley’s violation of CVC 21202. They contest that because he was riding two abreast, that is why he was hit.

Here is the abbreviated exchange between Mark and SBPD.

Mark: It is not illegal to ride two abreast and I have a letter from CalTrans stating such.

SBPD: It is not stated to be legal either

Mark: But it’s a substandard lane due to the sand (see picture below) and riding two wide allows for the rider to control the lane which is his right to do so

SBPD: Doesn’t matter. If he had been riding in front or behind other rider he would not have been hit

Mark: What if it were a car that been hit behind?

SBPD: He is not a car and must adhere to bike laws.

Mark: He’s still a vehicle and has a right to the lane. Why couldn’t the driver have simply change lane?

SBPD: He didn’t see him.

Mark: Why didn’t he see him? Didn’t the cyclist meet and exceed the required lighting for a bike?

SBPD: I don’t know and yes he had lights that were visible

Mark: So he didn’t even know if it was a car because he “didn’t see it”? But the fact that he was NOT paying attention is in your opinion NOT the primary cause?

SBPD: Correct

Mark: So where in the law is it ok to not see things while driving?

SBPD: It happens that’s why it’s an accident.

Mark: So your telling me that if a cyclist is not to the right as far as practicable, it is ok to hit and kill them as long as you say I didn’t see them?

SBPD: If Easley had not been riding 2 wide he would not be at fault.

Mark: I don’t care just about the fault. What scares me is you are setting a precedent that it’s ok to run over bikes and peds from behind if they are just a few feet out of what YOU DETERMINE as practicable.

Mark: What about CVC 21750 the 3′ Law? This is a clear violation of it.

SBPD: True but it’s not the primary cause therefore not applicable.

Mark: Then why aren’t we allowed the lane, since we are acting as a vehicle?

SBPD: Because your not. You have bike laws.

Mark: But we are also required and have the same rights as a car.

SBPD: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t pick and choose which laws you wish to follow. Either your under bike laws or motor vehicle laws.

AT THIS POINT MY MIND IS BLOWN

The scene of the fatal collision; note how the sand reduced the ridable portion of the roadway.

Mourners gather at the scene of the fatal collision; note how the sand reduced the ridable portion of the roadway.

HE stopped the meeting after this exchange:

Mark: How far in the lane was Easley?

SBPD: 7.5′

Mark: Wait a second. How wide is the lane?

SBPD: 20′ (actually 19′)

Mark: That gives a lot of room

SBPD: How wide is a Honda?

Mark: 6′ at best. He still has 12′ to clear him.

SBPD: I’m not going to go back and forth all day with this. We determined the primary cause

We all know the flawed logic in all this and we could hash this for hours with arguments. There was back and forth with CVC and hypotheticals earlier, that got nowhere.

I cannot express the level of frustration here. The shear power of this decision to undermine our right to the road and the danger it poses to all vulnerable users as now we are “just an accident” if you didn’t see us.

The family asked us to offer a rebuttal to the final police report, which I agreed to do. After that, it’s up to the family to decide whether they wish to pursue suing the insurance company. In a weird turn, the unlicensed driver was driving a car with insurance on it from his wife.

All of which raises the question of how can we ever be save of the roads if the police don’t understand the laws regulating bicycling.

And refuse to enforce them even if they do.

……..

Local

A magazine editor attempts an apparently death-defying commute from the Valley to UCLA over the Sepulveda Pass. Without the aid of spandex.

A Santa Monica woman was thrown off her bike by a homeless man who had been running in and out of traffic.

More bike lanes at Cal Poly Pomona may come down to the same old argument over removing parking. Never mind that improving bike access and safety could reduce the need for it.

BikeSGV will offer free bike safety classes in El Monte the next four Saturdays; click the link for classes in other cities around the county in coming weeks, as well.

 

State

Maybe it really is a new Caltrans, as the agency asks planners, engineers and cyclists for input on guidelines for protected bike lanes.

San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood prefers to remain auto-centric, rejecting plans for protected bike lanes and suggesting sharrows instead.

A Jurupa Valley bridge is being rebuilt with bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides. Unlike plans for a certain LA bridge we could name.

A three-month Sacramento road closure could force bicyclists to take a 16-mile detour.

A sidewalk riding Modesto cyclist somehow avoided serious injuries when he was hit by a big rig truck.

 

National

The broken leg John Kerry’s suffered in a solo bike fall won’t stop the Iran nuke talks after all.

Not even ghost bikes are safe from hit-and-run drivers, as a Portland memorial was struck — perhaps intentionally — just six days after a rider was killed at the same spot. But in rare case of a city actually giving a damn, Portland officials want to lower the speed limit on the city’s crash corridors.

For some reason, Kansas farmers were okay having a railroad in their backyard, but not the bikeway that replaced it.

A North Dakota driver faces a negligent homicide charge for killing a bike-riding triathlete last August while he was taking selfies as he drove; he deleted the photos in an attempt to hide the evidence.

A lawsuit says a Chicago area cop ran down a bike rider with his patrol car, Tased him, then shot him in the foot — all in a case of mistaken identity. To make matters worse, the rider is still sitting in a jail cell facing a battery charge resulting from the altercation two years later.

In a failure of the medical system, a 16-year old bike rider died two weeks after he was treated and released by the hospital following a rear-end collision.

 

International

Wired ranks the 20 most bike friendly cities on the planet; Minneapolis is the only US city to make a list, while Copenhagen replaces Amsterdam at the top spot.

A Vancouver librarian says stop demonizing fat people if you want get more people on bikes.

All bike thieves suck. But it takes a real jerk to steal a customized bike from a Winnipeg man who had his leg amputated.

Ontario cyclists now face fines up to $500 for riding without a light; the good news is, drivers now have to give bike riders a one meter — 3.3 feet — passing distance, and face a $1,000 fine for dooring.

A noted Toronto architect has died a month after he was hit by an SUV while riding his bike.

A new British helmet prototype gives riders a heads-up display of the safest bike routes.

That road raging UK driver who threatened to break a bike rider’s neck and eat him for breakfast just happens to own a chain of upscale coffee shops that offer cycling workshops. But no need to boycott because he says he’s very sorry. No, really.

Once again, someone has sabotaged a popular British riding route with drawing pins.

Brit bike scribe Carlton Reid describes his recent US book tour to promote his new book, Roads Were Not Built For Cars.

Beijing works with Dutch experts to revive bicycling in the Chinese capital.

Bangkok is starting to take safety seriously, reducing speed limits for streets with bike lanes to just 18 mph. Good luck with that here.

A Japanese Nintendo hero is teaming with Tokyo police to stop bike theft.

 

Finally…

It’s bad enough when police figuratively crap on bike lanes; worse when their horses literally do it. When you’re riding your bike with 18 bags of marijuana, put a damn bell on it, already.

And a Fargo man is convicted of drunk driving for operating a Zamboni with a BAC nearly four times the legal limit.

But at least he rode a bike to the arena instead of driving.

 

Category: Bikes & the Law, Law Enforcement, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: KPCC calls LaBonge a bike advocate, CicLAvia rolls, Kerry breaks a leg and Hövding sort of works

June 2, 2015 / / 7 comments

KPCC offered an hour long show to celebrate bicycling in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Okay, 45 minutes without station breaks.

It’s worth a listen; Cyclelicious breaks down the program, and archives the full hour if you’d rather hear the whole thing.

But in a major WTF moment, they interviewed outgoing Councilmember Tom LaBonge, discussing his support for bicycling, while acknowledging in passing that some bike advocates would disagree with that assessment.

Or how about, virtually all bike advocates would disagree.

While LaBonge has been a supporter of recreational riding, including completion of the LA River path, he seems unable to comprehend that some people have an actual need to get from here to there on the streets of LA, on two wheels and in one piece.

Like Paul Koretz and Gil Cedillo before him, LaBonge has personally halted plans for vital bikeways contained in the 2010 bike plan that was unanimously approved by the city council.

Which means he was for it before he was against it.

For instance, Lankershim Blvd was supposed to have a bike lane by now.

But LaBonge agreed with at least one neighborhood group that bikes belong on nearby Vineland instead, a quieter street that parallels Lankershim. Although the real issue isn’t giving cyclists a more serene street to ride, but rather, preserving traffic lanes and street parking along the dangerous boulevard.

Never mind bike riders need to go to the same places drivers do, and that shunting them aside merely forces them to ride further and bypass places where they might otherwise do business.

Or that bike lanes have been shown to help calm traffic and improve safety for everyone. And that businesses usually benefit by having a calmer, more walkable and rideable street passing by their storefronts, encouraging people to stop in rather than speed by.

LaBonge is also responsible for the death of the long-planned bike boulevard — excuse me, bike friendly street neighborhood greenway — on 4th Street.

Local residents objected, not to plans for a bike boulevard, but the idea of traffic lights at Highland and Rossmore that would allow riders to cross the busy streets safely, fearing that drivers would use the quiet side street to bypass busier streets on either side.

Instead of explaining that the planned traffic lights would be a demand lights that would only work if someone pushed a button on the side of the road, or that traffic diverters would keep motorists from driving more than a few blocks on 4th — or any of the other options that would have improved safety and livability for everyone along the corridor — LaBonge simply killed the whole thing.

Leaving both bike riders and local residents worse off.

As the program touched on, he’s also one of the prime movers trying to force a pedestrian-unfriendly Glendale-Hyperion bridge through the city council before he leaves office.

And before the less auto-centric David Ryu can replace him.

That’s not to say LaBonge isn’t a likable person, or that he’s not the closest thing to a cheerleader the City of Angels has had in years. In fact, he’d be the perfect choice to replace the late Johnny Grant as the honorary mayor of Hollywood.

But he’s been a mediocre and unpopular councilmember at best, which is one of the primary reasons his protégé Carolyn Ramsay lost to Ryu in the recent council race to replace him.

And he has been the enemy of anyone forced to ride the unwelcoming streets in his district. Something KPCC should have considered before allowing LaBonge to celebrate himself on the air.

Let’s hope Ryu will revive some of those projects LaBonge sent to an early death.

And that KPCC will do something like this again. But talk to a few more real bike advocates first.

……..

Pasadena police estimate attendance at Sunday’s CicLAvia at just 40,000, which would make it the lowest attended of any CicLAvia.

However, as Henry Fung points out, that’s most likely an estimate of the crowd at any given time, rather than the attendance for the full day, as people came and went throughout the day. The actual attendance was probably two or three times that.

The Source offers some truly great photos of the day, as does the Times, although the responses to the Time’s piece are sadly predictable. And while Boyonabike proclaimed the day potentially subversive, his son termed it awesome-tacular.

The next official CicLAvia will take place August 9th with a route along Venice and Washington Boulevards from Culver City to the coast. Hopefully, the redesigned and shortened route will avoid the problems with 2013’s CicLAvia to the Sea, which resulted in bike traffic jams that rivaled the 405 at rush hour.

But if you can’t wait that long, you’re in luck. Because Long Beach is hosting its first ciclovía on Atlantic Avenue this Saturday.

……..

Calbike calls on everyone to call your state legislators to urge support for more active transportation funding.

……..

Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg while riding in France. Kerry is said to be an exceptional cyclist, even if some people who clearly don’t have a clue say he’s too old to ride a bike; I know some people who might disagree.

The question is what effect his injury will have on current international negotiations, including efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.

On the other hand, who goes out for a bike ride with a motorcade, including physician, in tow?

Thanks to George Wolfberg for the second link.

……..

Bike Radar tries out that Hövding inflatable bike non-helmet, which surprisingly enough, seems to actually work.

Although if you watch carefully, the side of her head impacts the mattress before the helmet moves around to protect it. Which could result in serious injury if you don’t happen to fall on bedding.

……..

No surprise from the Giro d’Italia as Contador cruises to an easy victory, setting up a chance to try for rare back-to-back victories in the Giro and Tour de France. The breakout star of the tour has been Astana’s Fabio Aru, who may get a shot at the TdF as a result.

And VeloNews looks at how the young American contingent faired.

……..

Local

The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee meets tonight at the Hollywood Neighborhood City Hall, 6501 Fountain Ave; you can find tonight’s agenda here. The BAC is the only official voice in the city government for bike riders, even if most LA cyclists don’t even know it exists. Correction: earlier I misidentified the location of the meeting; the address above is the correct location.

Streetsblog is the latest to complain about scofflaw cops parking in the bike lane near the old Parker Center police headquarters.

Architect Michael Maltzan’s squiggle is turning into a new 6th Street Viaduct, complete with circular bike ramps to lift riders up to the crossing while providing views of LA.

Caught on video: The first green-backed sharrows come to Venice.

David Beckham teaches his three-year old daughter how to ride a bike. And without training wheels, no less.

 

State

Orange County rescue teams had a busy day on Sunday, as they came to the aid of three mountain bike riders injured in separate incidents.

A 68-year old Los Angeles woman suffered a serious head injury when she was hit by a cyclist while crossing a street in Del Mar. Let’s hope she makes a full and fast recovery. And always give pedestrians the right-of-way; they’re the only ones on the street more vulnerable than we are.

An Oceanside road diet and roundabout designed to improve safety for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians has received a third engineering design award. Awards are nice, but the real test is whether it reduces conflicts and collisions.

Competitive mountain biking is spreading throughout California high schools; the Union-Tribune offers a nice look at a budding team from an Escondido high school.

Goldenvoice, the company behind the Coachella music festival, has offered to pay the maintenance costs for the Coachella Valley’s planned 50-mile bike and pedestrian path.

San Luis Obispo police bust a bike burglar in a stolen van after a brief chase; inside they found six high-end bicycles valued at over $40,000 stolen in a break-in at a local bike shop.

San Francisco officials hope to get a change in state law to allow speed cameras to automatically ticket speeding drivers. LA should get behind the bill, as well; we’ll never meet Vision Zero goals if LA drivers continue to be allowed, if not expected, to speed with impunity.

 

National

Okay, so don’t try to fix potholes yourself.

Next City asks when the US will embrace truck side guards to keep bicyclists and pedestrians safer.

Bicycling’s Elly Blue discusses the potentially burning question of how to drink coffee while you ride.

Vox discusses how to get more people biking and walking to work.

Portland cyclists ride to demand no more ghost bikes, while a local website asks if biking in the bike friendly city is getting more dangerous.

Yes, it’s upsetting to get into an argument after crashing into jaywalking pedestrian. But don’t pull out a knife and stab the other man multiple times; a Seattle man faces assault charges for doing exactly that.

A Colorado woman is riding from Denver to Anchorage to raise funds for Nepal earthquake victims.

Wyoming police are on the lookout for a suspected hit-and-run driver who injured a bike rider, but that doesn’t stop him from venting on Facebook. Seriously, anything you say on social media can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Houston cyclists were involved in at least 950 vehicle collisions in a 12-month period since the city approved a three-foot passing law; at least 213 of those were hit-and-run. Clearly, hit-and-run is not just an LA problem.

A Minnesota driver warns about the dangers of distracted driving, after serving a whole six months for the death of a bike riding mother pulling her two daughters in a bicycle trailer; he’ll serve another three months in each of the next two years.

This is why so-called pranks aren’t funny. A 72-year old Ohio bicyclist was blinded in one eye when he was shot with a paintball gun by a passenger in a passing car; a 20-year old man faces a felony assault charge in the case. This is also one more example why you should always wear eye protection when you ride.

In a bizarre twist of fate, a North Carolina cyclist considers giving up bicycling after he’s the victim of a hit-and-run, five years to the day after he was severely injured in another hit-and-run while riding.

 

International

Sad news from up north, as an impaired British Columbia driver plowed into a group of three cyclists, killing two, as well as a passenger in his own vehicle.

Vancouver’s move to better bike infrastructure has resulted in a doubling in ridership since 2008.

An Edmonton man gets his knickers in a twist after he’s denied entry to a bike co-op on a women and transgender night.

Prepare to get pissed off. An Ottawa judge rules a driver not guilty of hit-and-run because he was… wait for it… too drunk to know he’d hit a bike rider. He also got off on a separate drunk driving charge because police allegedly violated his rights when he was arrested.

English police warn about yet another attempt to injure cyclists by stringing wires at neck level across a bikeway.

A British group is raising funds to put women’s bike racing on TV on a weekly basis.

Caught on video: A road raging Brit driver has a foul mouthed meltdown, threatening to eat a bike rider for breakfast for failing to use a nearly unrideable bikeway. Somehow, I feel like I’ve seen this movie before. Or maybe lived it.

Apparently not caught on video was the road raging British Brompton rider who grabbed another bicyclist by the throat and pushed him into the bushes.

Maybe it’s time to take a bike tour through the heel of Italy’s boot. Or perhaps you’d prefer to ride along the Danube. Or just retire to ride around the world.

On the other hand, this is the risk we face in today’s world, as a Chinese bike tourist is being held hostage by a Taliban group in Pakistan.

Who knew Dubai was becoming bike friendly? The emirate has constructed 110 miles of cycle tracks spanning the country.

An Aussie woman writes about what it’s like to live with a cyclist and worry about her partner’s safe return. Which is why my wife doesn’t want to know what happens on my rides anymore.

A Japanese prefecture now requires bike riders to carry liability insurance.

Hong Kong cyclists push to make the city bike friendly, while the city seems to move in the opposite direction.

 

Finally…

When a Toronto man left his $2,500 Dutch cargo bike at the airport, a maintenance crew tossed it in the trash; fortunately, a worker rescued it and returned it to its owner. Does a wrist-held smartwatch come under the ban for using hand-held devices while driving?

And yes, riding a bike can be very exciting, as a participant in a UK edition of the World Naked Bike Ride was removed by police for becoming a little too aroused during the event.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Bike Events, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Weekend Links: Two new Kickstarters, surprisingly bike friendly SoCal cities, and the Amgen ToC comes to LA

May 16, 2015 / / One comment
The squirrel is optional.

The squirrel is optional.

I’m a firm believer in supporting local bike businesses.

That’s why I was pleased to learn about NoHo-based Stashers, designed to safely secure your belongings, on or off your bike.

The company, founded by Julie Pusateri, currently has a Kickstarter campaign for a stackable, waterproof bike tube cooler and storage system capable of keeping up to four cans hot or cold, as well as stashing other items while you ride.

Unfortunately, the project still has a way to go, currently over $4,000 short of the $5,000 goal with just under a week left.

Then again, that’s not too much to make up in a short period of time.

……..

Another Kickstarter campaign promises to replace ankle straps to keep your pants legs and shoe laces from getting caught in your chain, while increasing visibility at night.

The waterproof Commuter Gaiter offers 77” of durable, dual-sided reflective material that wraps around your ankle when you ride.

That project has a little more time left, but still needs over $3,000 of the $4,000 goal.

……..

The latest ranking of the nation’s most bikeable cities places Long Beach number three among cities with over 300,000 population.

Surprisingly, though, the Bike Score ranking from Redfin, the online real estate company behind the popular Walk Score, places Santa Monica sixth among cities of any size — a full 30 spots ahead of Long Beach.

Even Pasadena — yes, Pasadena — checks in at number 20.

Meanwhile, San Diego, which USA Today listed as one of the nation’s 10 most bike friendly cities, comes in at an embarrassingly low 115. Far below moderately bike friendly LA, which ranked 72nd.

……..

In the Amgen Tour of California, Cavendish took his third win in five stages on Thursday, riding from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita in the rain.

Late season snow in Big Bear forced the race to relocate the time trial to Magic Mountain; the short course helps Sagan take the overall lead. Saturday’s stage runs from Ontario to Mt. Baldy, while Sunday’s finale starts at LA Live and ends in Pasadena.

The first African team competing in the race is in it to get more bikes for people who need them. And the Inland Empire Biking Alliance will multi-modal it from points east to see Sunday’s race.

Update: The great Evelyn Stevens won the women’s time trial.

Over in Italy, the Guardian offers a great look at the Giro d’Italia in pictures over the years, while Contador slipped back into the pink on Wednesday. He may be tougher than we thought, keeping the leader’s jersey a day after dislocating his shoulder; the question is whether he can survive the mountain stages.

And he swears he doesn’t have any little motors hidden on his bike.

……..

Local

The LA Public Works Commission votes for cars over people, refusing to even consider anything but Option 1 for rebuilding the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge. While the plan includes bike lanes, placing a sidewalk on just one side just guarantees that pedestrians will walk in the bike lane on the other.

In a Q&A with the Times, USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx says LA needs to be creative about bike and pedestrian facilities in light of the city’s constrained road network. Evidently, the Public Works Commission failed to read the interview before voting.

A coalition of over 30 organizations calls for 10% of any funds raised through the proposed R2 transportation sales tax extension be set aside for biking and walking.

Good piece from Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman, who says we shouldn’t forget those who bike out of necessity in our Bike Week celebrations.

Just in time for Bike Week, the first .1 mile of bike lanes for the Expo Line bikeway appears. Meanwhile, El Monte gets its first bike lane, period.

DT News reports on Tuesday’s Blessing of the Bicycles. And hey, thanks for the shout out.

The Westwood Neighborhood Council decides to put bike lanes on side streets to avoid conflicts with buses. But fails to address which of those streets, if any, are wide enough, with signalized crossing points, to support them.

Santa Monica Next revisits the history of bicycling in the city; evidently, it’s been illegal to ride on the sidewalk there for 123 years.

CiclaValley rides the Whittier Greenway Trail.

Flying Pigeon and the Living Museum host a bike ride Sunday afternoon to raise funds to restore a prized Eastside mural.

Long Beach’s annual Bike Fest returns on the 30th; meanwhile, the city is looking for volunteers for next month’s ciclovía.

 

State

Santa Ana offers OC’s first secure, covered bike parking — for a fee.

San Diego’s Bike to Work Day was rescheduled for the 29th due to Friday’s rain.

Santa Barbara becomes the latest California city to adopt Vision Zero. The question is whether any of the cities have the courage to make the hard choices necessary to improve safety. Especially Los Angeles (see Glendale-Hyperion Bridge above).

A San Francisco public health consultant calls for cyclists to be licensed and registered. Evidently, he doesn’t have a clue how discouraging bicycling would affect public health.

Sausalito continues to look for ways to reign in bike riding in the town. Evidently, 1,000 rental bikes visiting the city each day is a problem, but an unlimited number of cars is just fine.

 

National

CNN reports on cyclists using cameras to document reckless and threatening drivers; bike cam video leads to charges for a Georgia driver. Thanks to sponsor Michael Rubinstein for the links.

Red Kite Prayer looks at pro downhill racer and Pinkbike contributor Amanda Batty’s announcement that she would no longer be writing for the site. Seriously, we should be long past the days when a woman gets chased off a website for speaking her mind.

A Presbyterian pastor lists five spiritual lessons gained from breaking his collarbone and nine ribs after colliding with other riders during a century ride. Although it must have been divine intervention that prevented a concussion, because bike helmets don’t protect against that.

City Lab is the latest to debunk the myth that drivers pay for the roads.

Bike riders can get roadside assistance from AAA in more places. And no, California is not one of them.

A Portland bike rider plans to get back on his bike by August after losing his leg in a collision on Sunday.

A writer lists the six scariest things about riding in Las Vegas. Which, coincidentally, are pretty much the same as anywhere else.

A writer with the Boston Globe explains what it’s like to get hit by a car and walk away with minor injuries. Meanwhile, a Massachusetts minister says most collisions — not accidents, please — could be avoided if we’d just be civil to one another.

A New Jersey website takes a detailed look at what — or who — stands in the way of improving safety for the state’s bike riders.

 

International

In what reads like cleverly disguised unbridled sarcasm, a 50-year veteran of Toronto’s streets recommends breaking all the rules.

according to the Globe and Mail, London’s cycling cafes are a sign the city has reached peak hipster; Sir Wiggo tells riders in the city to wear their helmets, which may be safer but certainly isn’t hip.

A rider moves back to The Netherlands after getting hit by a car in London.

A US lawyer rides the length of Africa to support gay and lesbian rights, on a continent where homosexuality can result in the death penalty.

A New Zealand cop teams with construction workers to rescue a cyclist who fell into floodwaters, riding in the bucket of a digging machine to pull the rider and his bike to safety.

Kiwi riders say build roads for bikes, not just cars.

Roadways in Thailand are being littered with tacks in the latest attack on bike riders.

 

Finally…

A Chinese cyclist plans to ride the Olympic rings around the country. After a several cyclists have been killed by drunk and hit-and-run drivers on Thai roads in weeks, the country naturally responds with a proposal to license… bike riders

And an Aussie Facebook page attacking the “Cockhead Cyclists of Perth” gains 3,000 likes in two week. No, seriously, what do they really think of us?

 

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