LA had a chance to do the right thing for once.
The city had the perfect opportunity to respond to community demands and build a pedestrian plaza around the All Black Lives Matter mural at Hollywood & Highland.
Instead, the city decided to shrink the mural painted on Hollywood Blvd for the massive June March down to a single lane in the center of the roadway, so as not to take a single inch of the roadway from drivers.
So yes, all Black lives will still matter on the streets of Hollywood.
They just seem to matter more if they’re in a car.
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This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work.
Boston suburb Cambridge, Massachusetts is installing a quick-build separated bike lane, just weeks after a man was killed in a collision with a semi driver while riding his bike.
Needless to say, this is the exact opposite of what usually happens in Los Angeles.
In fact, I can only recall one time a bike lane was installed after a bicyclist was killed. And even then, it took over two years.
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Former UFC champ Connor McGregor is one of us, riding shirtless in the Monaco rain.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
As we mentioned yesterday, Baltimore police are looking for a pickup driver who dangerously harassed people participating in a community bike ride, before intentionally slamming into a group of riders, seriously injuring one man.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Once again, a British bike rider has been charged with killing an elderly pedestrian; the 22-year old bicyclist faces a manslaughter count for knocking down a 72-year old man as he was walking home from his job with the National Health Service.
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Local
Metro wants your input on proposed first mile/last mile improvements around the Sepulveda station on the erstwhile Orange Line, to make it easier and safer to walk to and from the station.
Streets For All will host a virtual happy hour with LADOT head Seleta Reynolds on September 9th.
State
California state legislators amended Assembly Bill 1286, removing a poison pill provision banning liability waivers that could have forced bikeshare and e-scooter providers out of business.
No surprise here, as bike thefts are up in San Mateo.
National
Outside tells you what you need to know about bike lights. I can attest to the benefits of daytime lights, which dramatically reduced the rate of close calls once I started using them.
Bicycling offers everything you need to know about wearing bike shorts, but were afraid to ask. As usual, you can read it on Yahoo if the Bicycling site blocks you out. But seriously, just skip the underwear.
I’m not sure what it means when Bicycling drops its paywall to tell you “how to handle spit and snot safely” during the coronavirus pandemic. Hint: Just don’t.
CNN says cargo bikes are the Swiss Army knives of bicycles, and could be the SUV of the future. Which is a hell of a lot better than saying they’re the new toilet paper.
A new Portland study shows that if just 15% of drivers switched to ebikes, it could result in a 12% reduction in carbon emissions.
This is how it’s supposed to be done, too. Portland is replacing car parking with separated bike lanes after a street gets repaved. Unfortunately, while Los Angeles has sped up repaving projects, they haven’t been installing bike lanes, even on streets that call for it in the city’s Mobility Plan.
A new Green Bay, Wisconsin coffee shop and cafe will deliver your meal by ebike.
An upstate New York man rode his bike continuously for 24 hours straight to raise funds for his grandson, who is suffering from leukemia; so far he’s raised over twice the $5,000 goal.
New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering a free bike valet service for the next month, starting with Saturday’s official reopening.
Over 100 New Yorkers are riding south to Washington DC to raise awareness about the dangers of Biking while Black, while advocating for “safer cycling opportunities for all people of color;” the group plans to arrive in time for Friday’s March on Washington.
A DC high school teacher is asking for bicycles and helmets to help make kids currently cooped up inside by the pandemic more active and keep them off the streets. By getting them on the streets, evidently.
When a first-year student at North Carolina’s Appalachian State University shipped a new, unassembled bicycle to herself at the school, she didn’t expect kindhearted staffers at the university post office to put it together for her.
It’s a sad commentary when the life of a Florida bike rider is only worth four damn sentences in the local newspaper. And one of those is about his lack of a helmet.
International
Cycling Weekly thinks you need to up your sock game. And your bike-riding kids could dress better, too.
A travel site recommends the five best bike paths in Columbia for your next trip to South America.
How Rad went from box office bomb to BMX cult favorite, even if it was shot in Canada.
Life is cheap in the UK, where a driver walked with just a warning for the wrong-way crash that left a bike rider with a broken back.
No bias here. Sixty-four percent of Brits think people on bicycles should be forced to carry liability insurance; surprisingly, even bike riders were split on the issue.
Dubai is rapidly becoming a bike-friendly city, with plans to build over 400 miles of cycle tracks within the next five years.
Competitive Cycling
McLaren is taking its ball and going home, after just one year co-sponsoring the Team Bahrain McLaren cycling team.
Staffers for Britain’s Cyclist magazine offer their picks for the Tour de France, going well beyond the yellow jersey to categories like most stage wins and biggest surprise. Although I’d have to agree with the guy who doesn’t think the race will actually happen. Or finish, anyway.
A Kenyon sports site says the word impossible doesn’t exist in four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome’s cycling road of success. Maybe it should, because it’s literally impossible for him to win a fifth Tour this year, because his team didn’t even enter him in the race.
Finally…
Seriously, if you’re carrying meth and a pipe on your bike, stop for the damn stop sign, already. If you’re going to tell the cops you borrowed a bike from a friend after stealing it at knifepoint, make sure the victim isn’t still carrying the receipt.
And this is what bike thieves look like. Or would be, if they knew how to use their own power tools.
https://twitter.com/blogTO/status/1298616358754816001
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already.
