Tag Archive for Bike the Vote

It’s Election Day, so Bike the Vote, already; Block calls for Fountain Ave bike lane trial; and Metro bus lane parking enforcement

November 5, 2024 / / No comments
Just 56 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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If you haven’t already, get out and vote today; Streetsblog offers a list of election resources to help out.

And regardless of what some random guy on the internet told you, if your ballot isn’t at least postmarked by today, it won’t count. At least here in California; in other states, your mileage may vary.

Then get out on your bike, or take a walk, or bury yourself in your work until the polls close to distract yourself and preserve your sanity today.

Don’t forget that LA Metro is free today, including half-hour Metro Bike rides (use code 110524), to help you get to and from the polls, along with most other local bus systems.

Uber and Lyft are also offering half-priced rides to polling places. But only directly to and from the polls.

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West Hollywood city council candidate Larry Block calls for a short-term trial of protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave, to see if removing parking to install permanent protected bike lanes will work.

Which sounds reasonable, but will inevitably fail.

It takes time for drivers to adjust to any road change, let alone a major redesign involving the removal of parking spaces and a traffic lane on each side.

A pilot program of at least six months to a year could offer proof that the change will not result in the traffic and residential chaos opponents fear.

But anything less would just invite drivers to make temporary adjustments until the pilot project gets removed. Or just ignore it and embrace the chaos to force the hand of city planners.

Besides, concerns over similar projects are often overblown.

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Metro has begun using automated bus cams to issue warnings to drivers blocking bus lanes, which should help free up space for people on bicycles, too.

https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/status/1853467376248820131

Chicago is starting bus lane enforcement this week, too.

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CicLAvia returns to the San Fernando Valley next month, with a route connecting Reseda and Canoga Park clearly designed for people afraid to make any turns on their bikes.

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It’s now 320 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

Streetsblog visits the roughly 200-foot-long revamped and reconfigured Farragut Ave walkway in Culver City, which is often used as a shortcut by bicyclist, as well as walkers.

 

State

Calbike says California’s Daylighting Law will save lives, as the bill’s author follows up on the law that went into effect at the first of the year.

Worrying news from San Diego, where a 46-year old man suffered life-threatening injuries when he fell off an e-scooter.

San Diego natives might spot themselves riding in this throwback news video circa 1977.

A landmark agreement will finally allow a new ADA-compliant bike and pedestrian trail connecting Goleta and Santa Barbara.

The New York Times examines the great feud over San Francisco’s Great Highway, as residents vote today on whether to permanently close the coastal roadway, and turn it into a linear bike and pedestrian park.

 

National

A writer for Cycling Weekly says yes, flat bar gravel bikes are silly, but he’s into it now.

Leading used-bike retailer The Pro’s Closet is back, after two longtime employees agreed to assume the helm.

More on Denver bicyclists expressing their furor over the cancelling of a promised protected bike lane, as city leaders choose the convenience of curbside parking over protecting human lives.

A former Florida lawmaker is recovering from neck surgery after crashing her bicycle during a triathlon.

 

International

Cyclist reviews the best shoes for roadies.

Momentum highlights “hidden gem” bicycling routes for your adventure travel needs, including the United State’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route; another two are US adjacent.

More proof life is cheap in the UK, as a cabbie walks without a single day behind bars for killing a 61-year old headteacher as he rode his bike to school, after the driver played the universal Get Out of Jail Free card by insisting the sun was in his eyes.

Vogue wants you to spend the fall at France’s bicycle-filled Île de Ré, offering over 60 miles of well-tended bike paths.

A New Zealand website says yes, you can travel without harming the environment, including on your bicycle. Just don’t leave your old tubes, CO2 cartridges or spent gel packs on the side of the road. 

Kiwi news site Stuff busts the top four myths about bicycling vacays.

ABC — no, the Australian TV network — says the bikelash is back, but this time it’s all about banning e-scooters.

 

Finally…

Apparently, Penny Farthings need parking, too. Now you, too, can build your own “dodgy” ebike made entirely of littered vape cartridges.

And not many people are aware that the ancient forebears of the modern bicycle lived in what is now Los Angeles during the Ice Age, as memorialized by these sculptures at the La Brea Tar Pits.

What.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Bike the Vote today, DUI death of Master’s champ Boyes worth one lousy year, and LA approves $13m Mobility Hub contract

March 5, 2024 / / Comments Off on Bike the Vote today, DUI death of Master’s champ Boyes worth one lousy year, and LA approves $13m Mobility Hub contract
Just 301 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we face walking and biking on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

As of this writing, we’re up to 1,006 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!

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It was a busy weekend in the bike world, so we’ve got a lot to catch up on.

But before we start, if you haven’t done it yet, find the ballot you got in the mail, fill it out, and drop it off at your nearest drop box. Or hop on your bike, and ride to the nearest vote center to cast your vote in person.

You can also get fare-free rides on Metro trains, buses and Metro Bike bikeshare today.

And if you live in the City of Angels, don’t forget to vote yes on Measure HLA, which will require the city to build out the Mobility Plan they already agreed to, before letting it gather dust on the shelf.

Lives literally depend on it.

If you need a little more guidance, you can find voter guides here from Streets For All, the Los Angeles Times and LAist’s Guide to the Voter Guides.

It’s okay, we’ll wait.

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While we’re waiting for everyone to get back, my brother Eric is headed east from San Dimas on Adventure Cycling’s Bicycle Route 66 today on his way to Las Vegas, and eventually on to Savannah, Georgia, after starting from Santa Monica on Sunday.

Let me give a shoutout to the folks at Trek Bicycle Beverly Hills, the former I. Martin on Beverly Blvd, for giving him an emergency valve repair Saturday to help get him on the road — and not charging a cent.

And no, they didn’t know who I am before doing it.

Then again, who does?

And if you’re hankering to follow my brother’s lead, National Geographic highlights five “stress-free and sustainable” US bike trails to ease you into bike camping.

Eric thanking Camden at Trek Bicycle Beverly Hills for fixing his tire

Loading the bigass touring bike his daughter had custom built for him

A very sad corgi watching her new favorite human disappear up the sidewalk

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An “incredulous” federal judge questioned a proposed plea deal in the death of US Masters Champ Ethan Boyes.

Prosecutors said they were nearing a deal on a one-year misdemeanor sentence for the drunken crash that killed Boyes in San Francisco’s Presidio Park, reducing the charges to one count of unlawfully killing a human being without malice and without gross negligence.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle,

“Isn’t being intoxicated gross negligence in itself?” the judge said, incredulous.

That question, (Assistant U.S. Attorney George) Hageman said, was “up for interpretation.”

The judge replied that interpreting the severity of the alleged crime was Hageman’s job as federal prosecutor…

Eighty-one-year old Arnold Kinman Low is currently facing one count of vehicular manslaughter and one count of driving under the influence of alcohol in the fatal crash.

Felony vehicular manslaughter and felony DUI causing death could result in a maximum sentence of 16 years behind bars, while dropping the DUI count could reduce it to just 12 months.

For killing someone while too drunk to drive in a straight line.

Allegedly.

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Los Angeles officials approved a five-year, $10 million contract with transit firm Tranzito to provide a series of integrated mobility hubs,

The firm will establish 13 of the centers throughout DTLA, Hollywood and Long Beach to provide “bike sharing, car sharing, secure bike parking and on-demand microtransit services” for first mile/last mile transportation from Metro  stations.

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This is who we share the road with.

This is who we share the road with, part two.

Missouri Governor Mike Parsons sent a clear message that driving drunk and severely injuring a little kid is just no big deal, celebrating the Kansas City Chief’s Super Bowl win by commuting the DUI sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs Assistant Coach Britt Reid, son of head coach Andy Reid.

So if you ever wonder why people keep dying on our streets, that’s Exhibit A.

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It’s now 76 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 33 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, Pasadena is already launching its own ebike rebate, offering residents up to $750 for an e-cargo bike, or $1,000 for income-qualified residents.

So why is it taking California so damn long?

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

Momentum argues that anti-cycling zealots in Toronto would like to run over bicyclists just to save a little commuting time.

No bias here. An anonymous London school kid bemoans the “plagues of two-wheeled vermin” making them late for music lessons, but suggests the bright side to global warming is the torrential rains that free the road up for drivers.

And no bias here, either.

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

When you’re riding your bike in Capitola, California with an outstanding warrant while carrying meth and fentanyl, put some damn lights on it — and don’t try to pass yourself off as your sister.

A Madison, Wisconsin man was arrested for riding a stolen bicycle while on his way to the courthouse to be sentenced for a series of other burglaries — after he had already been banned from riding a bike.

When you’re carrying coke and a crack pipe on your bike in Kentucky, put some damn lights on it, already — and don’t jump off a roof to escape the cops.

An English town dealt with “anti-social cyclists,” as police responded to complaints from the public for such horrendous activities as riding without lights. Which isn’t exactly what I would describe as antisocial, but still. 

A clinically blind bicyclist in the UK was fined the equivalent of $253 for riding on a highway while “extremely” drunk, less than a year after he crashed into a passing car while riding under the influence. And giving a whole new meaning to being blind drunk.

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Local 

A homeless man in DTLA learns the hard way it ain’t easy to steal a robocab.

Ride On! Bike Shop/Co-Op founder Adé Neff describes how he was repeatedly stopped for Riding While Black in Beverly Hills because he “fit” a description of someone who had committed a crime. Read it on AOL if Bicycling blocks you.

The rich get richer, as Santa Monica pledges to improve its Vision Zero and Bike Action plans.

South Pasadena residents learn the hard way what happens when only seven people out of 104 bother to return a resident survey — and all of those ask for bike lanes on Grand Ave. And the city is apparently all out of temporary street paint. Thanks to Wesley for the heads-up.

Hermosa Beach is considering a proposal to geofence ebike rentals to prevent speeding on The Strand, as well as a proposal to ban ebikes entirely from the popular oceanfront walkway.

Long Beach plans to unveil a $60 million overhaul of Studebaker Road in East Long Beach to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and, yes, drivers.

 

State

Caltrans is teaming with the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) to offer a new tool to address the inequitable distribution of transportation benefits and burdens, including mapping out crash rates.

Calbike promotes their upcoming Bicycle Summit Plenary in San Diego next month, saying it will promote the city’s bike cultures.

A California man rode 625 miles around Taiwan in twelve days, despite never riding for more than half an hour before his trip.

 

National

Road & Track offers the year’s best ebikes, as rated by Bicycling and reposted by AOL. Raising the question of why the hell does Bicycling even have a paywall?

Discover says ebikes may be expensive, but worth it for their health, equity and clean air benefits.

The case against a Salem, Oregon DEA agent for killing a woman on a bicycle after running a stop sign remains in legal limbo, pending an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court over a decision to transfer the case to federal court, which would likely result in dropping the case.

Actor Matthew Modine leads a “ragtag” bicycle krewe to the Grand Canyon in the new fact-based dramedy movie Hard Miles.

A Colorado woman switched gears after a serious mountain biking crash, leaving her marketing job to become a nomadic artist.

Hoboken NJ credits removing parking spaces as one key factor for the city’s remarkable lack of traffic deaths for the last seven years.

Now you, too, can have a new limited edition DC-only Cherry Blossom Brompton.

Meet Charlotte NC bike lane sweeper Sweepy McSweepface.

A Georgia man was charged with hit-and-run for driving away after driving onto a sidewalk and leaving a 78-year old man riding a bicycle with life-threatening injuries, apparently while driving distracted.

 

International

London’s Evening Standard rates the best road bikes below £2,000 — the equivalent of $2,500.

Over 800 bicyclists took to the streets of London to call for safer infrastructure and streets for women bike riders.

Completing our London trifecta, a London business site questions whether the UK’s bike riders are really any safer after bike-friendly changes to the country’s Highway Code.

A campaign by disabled bicyclists in the UK tackles Shedgate, arguing that disabled riders should be allowed to build a bike shed in their front garden if they don’t have a back one, after several people were fined or ordered to remove them.

Over 35 percent the residents of Dutch cities Groningen and Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, Denmark ride a bicycle on a daily basis, compared to just 5% of Rome residents. Yet most American cities would be overjoyed by even the latter rate. 

Mumbai bicyclists plan a mid-March silent protest to demand safer streets for bicyclists, runners and pedestrians, in response to the bicycling death of former Intel India chief Avtar Saini, who is credited with the development of the Pentium processor; meanwhile, an Indian columnist calls for making the bicycling safe, for everyone’s sake.

An Aussie bicyclist credits his Apple Watch’s fall detection feature for saving his life after crashing with a ‘roo.

 

Competitive Cycling

Paris-Nice is already upon us, with American Matteo Jorgenson in 4th place, behind Laurence Pithie, Mads Petersen and Olav Kooij after three stages; Dutch cyclist Arvid de Kleijn got his first WorldTour win Monday, as his Tudor Pro Cycling team “broke their duck for 2024.” Which has to be one of the strangest terms I’ve heard in pro cycling, or anywhere else.

Evidently, the cycling world forgot the 2022 Strade Bianche, because history repeated itself with winners Lotte Kopecky and Tadej Pogačar once again winning the event two years later.

Giro and Dutch Team Visma/Lease a Bike have teamed for what has to be the weirdest looking, bizarrely futuristic aero bike helmet, which looks more like an AI rendering error.

NBA legend Reggie Miller may, in fact, be better on a mountain bike than you are, winning his first two races of the year this past weekend.

 

Finally…

Just because you’re legally required to wear a bike helmet doesn’t mean it can’t look like a dorky hat. That feeling when your bicycle looks like a bigass custom motorcycle.

And that feeling when it’s just a tad windy out there.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

LA Times voter guides for CD4, CD6 and Healthy Streets LA; SGV bike ride Sunday; and Weiner talks speed governors

February 2, 2024 / / Comments Off on LA Times voter guides for CD4, CD6 and Healthy Streets LA; SGV bike ride Sunday; and Weiner talks speed governors
332 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to hear the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

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The Los Angeles Times offers a detailed voter guide to the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure, including a look at what it does and doesn’t do, as well as who supports and opposes it.

And there’s a lot more of the former than there is the latter.

The paper also provides election guides for the six-way race for the CD6 seat currently held by Imelda Padilla on an interim basis, as well as the two men challenging Nithya Raman in the reconfigured CD4.

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Update: This ride has been postponed until next Sunday due to risk of rain.

Safe Streets For SGV is hosting a moderately paced, nine-mile bike ride on Sunday to call for safer streets and promote better connections between Alhambra and South Pasadena.

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State Senator Scott Weiner describes his bill that would require speed governors in all new cars, which would “only” allow drivers to break the law by 10 mph.

Which sounds perfectly damn reasonable to me.

Thanks to MYVOTECD1 for the heads-up.

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The latest episode of Bike Talk is available online now.

A listener, Reese, speaks for connected, protected bike lanes in Utah. 2:00

News: With pedestrian and cyclist deaths in Los Angeles at an 8-year high, the departing Los Angeles Police Chief blames their reckless biking and walking habits. In California, SB 961 calls for all new cars to have speed governors. A Die-in against traffic violence at LA City Hall. 7:12

When a 14 year old on his bike was hit by an uninsured motorist in Chicago, personal injury lawyer Jonel Metaj took the case all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. Now, people in Illinois with uninsured motorist coverage will be protected when biking and walking, too. 18:57

Alison Cohen is the founder of Bicycle Transit Systems, which operates bikeshare in cities throughout the US. She explains how BTS came to be threatened with replacement by Lyft in Los Angeles. 33:00

A Bike Thought by Stacey. 52:23

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Not only was Farrah Fawcett one of us, but she could clearly do “Look Ma! No hands!” with the best of them.

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It’s now 43 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 31 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law, and counting.

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

This is why people keep dying on the streets. A couple of young Frenchmen walked without a single day behind bars for an eight-month series of attacks in which they leaned out of a moving car to push at least a dozen bike riders off their bikes and into ditches, and hit at least one man repeatedly with a small truncheon; they were both sentenced to two-year suspended sentences after telling the judge they were really, really sorry. No, really.

No surprise here. A pair of Australian teenagers were arrested for intentionally running down two Melbourne bicyclists in a stolen car last week, leaving the men with serious, potentially life-changing injuries, and posting video of the attack online. They joined a now worldwide social media-inspired trend of teens stealing cars and intentionally attacking people on bicycles — including recent attacks in Huntington Beach and Las Vegas — for no other reason than they can.

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Local 

Metro announced plans to improve streets, bus stops and bike lanes along the 710 Freeway corridor, after cancelling plans to widen the freeway in the face of public opposition.

Seven Culver City cops will join the Police Unity Tour, riding 300 miles to honor fallen officers.

 

State

San Diego and Imperial counties will share $12 million in state infrastructure funding, including for bike and pedestrian projects.

The atmospheric river that poured through California yesterday left a Santa Barbara bike lane closed due to flooding, with no projected opening date.

 

National

Bike Rumor picks the year’s best bike handlebar bags.

SRAM issued a recall for all aftermarket 12-speed eTap AXS Red, Force, Rival and Apex shift-brake levers produced before July 2023 that were not installed by a bicycle dealer, telling owners to stop using them immediately.

Forbes recommends fat biking as one of “three winter adventurers (sic) you can’t afford to miss in Anchorage.” Especially since they finally have snow this year.

A kindhearted Maine high school resource cop called on a local bike shop to donate a refurbished bike for a kid who was struggling with attendance, leading to a new program accepting donated bikes for students.

A Baltimore letter writer says traffic calming doesn’t work, and new bike lanes will never lure people out of their motor vehicles, because cars.

After losing his own vision, a New Orleans man created a tandem bicycling group to allow blind people to keep riding.

 

International

Momentum offers seven “examples of stunning and inspiring bicycle infrastructure around the world.” None of which are in Los Angeles. Or North America, for that matter. 

A longstanding worker-owned bike shop in London’s Brixton neighborhood is begging for donations to help it withstand the worst year in its two decade history.

Singer Harry Styles is one of us, spending the last day before he turned 30 riding through London in a quilted orange puffer jacket.

A new London study suggests male Sikh bike riders might not benefit from bike helmets, because the style and thickness of their turbans could already provide the best possible head protection.

British ebike brand Gocycle is introducing a futuristic take on the family e-cargo bike — as long as you have at least seven grand burning a hole in your bank account.

Unbelievable. A road raging Jersey teenage was acquitted of manslaughter for killing a bike rider with a single punch to the face, claiming he was frightened by the victim, despite repeatedly honking at him and getting out of his car to confront him after the man deservedly flipped him off.

This is who we share the road with. Italian saboteurs are cutting down speed cams, and ripping out speed humps to fight for their God-given right to speed.

The Jerusalem Post highlights the best selling bike phone mounts. One of which I already own. 

A pair of Aussie researchers say e-scooter injuries are rising, but there’s not enough data yet to say if they’re more dangerous than other micromobility methods, such as bicycles.

 

Competitive Cycling

The first win of the 2024 cycling season goes to Belgian Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Tim Merlier.

 

Finally…

Why you shouldn’t trust your bike to the cheapest lock you can find at CVS. What happens when you let a Magic 8-Ball write your bike lane headlines.

And when the mayor’s office says just kidding about scrapping the city’s annual bike ride.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

CC election could hinge on one vote, mayor-elect’s daughter hit-and-run victim, and SUV murder weapon in man’s death

December 2, 2022 / / Comments Off on CC election could hinge on one vote, mayor-elect’s daughter hit-and-run victim, and SUV murder weapon in man’s death

It’s the second Friday of the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! 

Just 22 days left to show your support, and help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

So why wait?

Just take a moment right now and donate via PayPal or Zelle, then go gently into the weekend knowing you did your part.

And thanks to Catherine DL and Matthew R for their generous donations yesterday!

So who wants to break the ice today?

Seriously, don’t make our fundraising spokesdog cry. Give now!

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Don’t ever let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t matter.

A measure in Culver City that would allow 16 and 17-year olds to vote in local elections hangs in the balance by just three votes.

Which means that if those votes are split, the vote of one single person will determine whether it passes or fails.

And whether local teens will get a jump on the ballot box.

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It shouldn’t be hard to convince LA’s new mayor that hit-and-run is a problem in the city, after her daughter was a victim Thursday morning.

The unnamed daughter of Mayor-elect Karen Bass escaped serious injury when she was struck by a group of men in a white SUV while driving in the West Adams neighborhood.

Four men fled from the car, abandoning it on the street as they ran away.

Just one more example of the city’s out of control hit-and-run epidemic. Which no one in City Hall seems to take seriously.

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Go ahead and call it murder.

LA County Sheriff’s investigators are.

A driver for Mt. San Antonio College was killed while walking on the campus of the Walnut community college Thursday morning, in a crash they say appears to have been intentional.

The driver was hospitalized in unknown condition.

Just one more example of someone allegedly using his vehicle as a weapon — one with no background check or waiting period.

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Stop by during Sunday’s CicLAvia, and tell CD9 Councilmember Curren Price, Jr. it’s time for safer streets in South LA.

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ActiveSGV isn’t just active in name only.

So take a few minutes, and help one of SoCal’s most active advocacy groups build a better Rush Street.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1598112141319360513

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

A Portland bike commuter was ticketed for violating the state’s mandatory sidepath law, which requires bicyclists to use a bike lane if there’s one available — even though Bike Portland calls it the city’s worst bike lane, full of parked cars, potholes and debris. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.

Nothing like a road raging British driver admitting to being drunk after suggesting a bike rider doesn’t belong in the road.

No bias here. A driver in the UK tells a safety meeting called to address speeding drivers that little kids on bikes need to take more responsibility for causing crashes. Because evidently, they’re the ones who have been tested, licensed and insured to operate deadly vehicles.

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

A road raging Salt Lake City bike rider could face charges for breaking a bus driver’s hip in an altercation that began when the rider apparently complained about the way he was passed by the bus. Which serves as yet another reminder that violence is never the answer, as tempting as it may be in the moment. And only serves to transform you from victim to perp. 

An English man was sentenced to the equivalent of community service after he was busted for “wobbling all over the place” while riding drunk on a freeway.

Police in the UK found a car full of drugs after chasing a suspect on a stolen bike.

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Local 

And they say bicyclists are entitled. San Monica suspended enforcement of a new ordinance banning parking on driveway aprons and parkways bordering roadways after entitled drivers got out the pitchforks and torches, complaining about the city taking away their God given right to park wherever the hell they want.

 

State 

Southern California News Group reporter Josh Cain looks at deadly Ortega Highway, the winding 90-year old roadway connecting Orange and Riverside Counties, where 214 people have been killed in less than eleven years — making it the deadliest non-freeway in Southern California.

A Menifee boy suffered a major head injury when he was struck by a driver after allegedly riding his ebike through a red light on the wrong side of the street; thankfully, however, he’s expected to recover. Although from the description, it sounds like the victim may have been riding in the crosswalk, where there is no right or wrong direction, marked or otherwise.

He gets it. San Francisco Streetsblog’s Roger Ruddick calls on the city’s transportation department to stop calling bike lanes separated by car-tickler plastic bendy posts “protected,” saying that “makes as much sense as gluing the posts to the front bumpers of cars as a way to protect cyclists.” Now someone explain that to LADOT.

‘Tis the season. Volunteers pitched in to help an East Bay nonprofit build 500 bikes to distribute to kids at youth agencies and foster homes for the holidays, with an assist from a storage company.

 

National

Sports Illustrated looks at the best bike helmets for kids and adults. Although they wouldn’t mind if you use the included links to buy them, so they can get a little kickback on it. 

CityLab sings the praises of DIY guerrilla crosswalks and the scofflaw vigilantes who paint them.

A Portland nonprofit bike co-op fixes up whatever donated bikes that can be repaired and salvages any usable parts, then recycles the rest — amounting to 50,000 pounds of bicycle scrap every year.

More on the Oregon study showing bike boxes improve safety at intersections for people on bicycles by placing bike riders in a position where they are more visible to drivers, better able to see other traffic, and able to move out of the way in an emergency.

Kindhearted community members pitched in to buy a new bike for an Arizona boy after his was stolen. And a local bike shop helped out by giving them a discount.

She gets it. A Tacoma, Washington letter writer argues that the local paper should stop blaming victims for not wearing a helmet, because bike helmets were never designed to protect against motor vehicles.

A Texas hiker discovered an old mountain bike under a rotted tree with skeletal remains nearby, five years after a Dallas firefighter disappeared while riding his bike in the area.

New York is improving safety on Queens bike lanes by “hardening” the green lanes with protective concrete barriers. Proving that a) existing bike lanes can be made better, and b) it’s possible to offer actual protection instead of the car-tickler plastic bendy posts favored by a certain SoCal megalopolis.

Streetsblog says the recent viral New York Times article about the rising rate of traffic deaths in the US is just the tip of the iceberg, and things are even worse than they said.

NPR discusses the play Straight Line Crazy, which explores the legacy of legendary New York planner Robert Moses, who was singlehandedly responsible for inflicting the city, and the country, most of the auto-centric road designs we’re struggling to undo today.

Lime is offering free ebike and e-scooter rides to the polls for next week’s Georgia runoff election.

 

International

A Toronto website suggests ten ways the city could improve safety for bicyclists if it gave a damn, saying riding in Toronto isn’t for the timid. All of which could apply to any other city that actually gives a damn, unlike a certain SoCal megalopolis. 

Cycling Weekly looks at the problem of exercise addiction, after a British man working in Germany died of a heart attack, just days after telling the magazine he felt addicted to bicycling, despite suffering chest pains.

Speaking of Cycling Weekly, the magazine also says it’s possible for smaller bicyclists to get a good bike fit, too.

A British bike shop burglar will spend the next 27 months behind bars after fleeing from police at speeds up to 115 mph; police found five bikes in his panel truck worth nearly $38,000, which suffered over $8,000 in damage as a result of his crimes.

Another British burglar got nine years for killing a bike rider in a collision while attempting to flee from police after breaking into a drug store.

Amazon is expanding their ebike delivery fleets in the UK, enabling the retail giant to improve deliveries to residential areas, while lowering operating costs and improving sustainability.

Add this one to your bike bucket list. A 500-year old Italian mountain pass outside Venice. No, not the one in Los Angeles. Or Florida, for that matter.

Hanoi is introducing a 94-station, 1,000-bike bikeshare system, with half hour rides available for as little as 20¢.

 

Competitive Cycling

Taking a break from their recent paywalls, VeloNew examines USA Cycling’s plans to nurture the next generation of gravel cyclists. Hint: Keep them out of Texas, and away from jealous girlfriends.

Seriously? Pez Cycling News recommends five of the world’s most popular bike races, yet somehow leaves the Tour de France off the list.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you have a 99% chance of getting away with bike theft because the cops are too busy to deal with it. Nothing like a “Boobs and Brains” themed fundraising ride.

And Lamborghini goes gravel.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Election bodes well for bikes, DUI hit-and-run driver on trial in Huntington Beach, and South LA CicLAvia route announced

November 10, 2022 / / One comment
Let’s start with a quick recap of Tuesday’s election.

The short version is, nobody won.

Yet.

The large number of mail-in ballots received on and dropped off on Election Day means it could be more than a week before we have final results.

However, as things currently stand, Rick Caruso and Karen Bass are in a virtual dead heat for mayor, with Caruso holding a slight lead.

Meanwhile, bike rider and corgi dad Kenneth Mejia holds a seemingly insurmountable lead over termed-out councilmember and career politician Paul Koretz to become city controller and the first person of Filipino ancestry to hold elective office in the City of Angeles.

Bike-friendly Katy Yaroslavsky, daughter-in-law of longtime LA office holder Zev Yaroslavsky, has an 11 point lead to replace Koretz in CD5, which should mark a sea change for active transportation on the Westside.

Tracy Park holds a nearly 11 point lead over bike-friendly Erin Darling to succeed retiring Councilmember Mike Bonin in CD11.

Hugo Soto-Martinez has a tighter five point lead over incumbent Mitch O’Farrell in CD13; if he can hold the lead, it could be a major win for active transportation in the district, where O’Farrell blocked nearly all bike projects, and only came around to support Sunset for All to gain support as he battled for re-election.

Tim McCosker has a seemingly insurmountable 30 point lead over progressive Daniel Sandoval to replace termed-out Joe Buscaino in CD15, following Sandoval’s wage theft scandal that effectively sank her prospects. I don’t have a feel for what McCosker’s expected victory will mean for bike and pedestrian projects in a district that stretches from San Pedro to Watts.

Career politician Bob Hertzberg holds a slim 1.5% lead over West Hollywood Councilmember Lindsey Horvath for LA County Supervisor; a Hertzberg victory would represent a significant conservative shift compared outgoing Supervisor Shiela Kuehl.

Retired Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna leads incumbent Alex Villanueva for LA County Sheriff, whose department has long used pretext stops to target bicyclists for riding while Black or brown. Especially brown.

State Measure 30, which would have taxed millionaires to fund e-cars and prevent wildfires, went down to defeat by a 2-1 margin.

The next update isn’t expected until tomorrow. We’ll catch up on some of the smaller cities in LA County as official results are announced.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels.

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You’ve got to be kidding.

A Huntington Beach man finally went on trial in the alleged drunken, hit-and-run death of 33-year old Raymond MacDonald as he rode his bike in the city in 2019.

The collision that killed MacDonald was just one of three crashes 28-year old Victor Manuel Romero stands accused of on that March night, after getting drunk and into a fight in a bar parking lot.

Despite assuring police he would call for a ride, he instead got behind the wheel of his BMW and tore out of the parking lot, hitting the bar owner’s Caddy on the way out.

He then slammed into MacDonald, driving so fast an Uber driver waiting at the intersection felt his car rock as Romero blew by; MacDonald was like dead by the time he hit the pavement.

He then hit another car after blowing through a red light, and was arrested back near the bar after fleeing on foot.

Unbelievably, his attorney tried to blame his actions, not on being drunk or merely an asshole, but by claiming he suffered a concussion from repeated blows to the head while on the losing end of the fight, which somehow affected his decision making.

Sure. Let’s go with that.

Granted, even the worst client has a right to a defense. And his attorney can’t be blamed for throwing whatever Hail Mary he can in the face of overwhelming evidence.

But maybe he could come up with something even slightly more credible.

………

In more enjoyable news, CicLAvia announced the route for the year’s last open streets event next month in South LA.

The South LA Expo Park to Watts CicLAvia will roll December 4th, on a route that will take it along Martin Luther King Blvd from Exposition Park to Historic South Central — the birthplace of West Coast Jazz — then along Central Ave to Florence-Firestone and ending on 103rd Street in Watts, the home turf of the East Side Riders.

The late date means the event will be subject to the whims of what passes for winter weather in Los Angeles. However, many people who have attended previous South LA CicLAvias have ranked them among the best events in the 12-year history of CicLAvia.

And it certainly offers some of the best food you’ll find anywhere in Los Angeles.

………

Nothing like getting right hooked on a protected bike lane.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1590388180783857666

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San Francisco voted overwhelmingly to keep JFK Drive permanently carfree through Golden Gate Park, while overwhelmingly defeating a measure to reopen JFK and the Great Highway to cars.

State Senator Scott Wiener credits his SB288 with exempting the projects from CEQA review, forcing opponents to take it to a vote of the people, where it was resoundingly rejected,

………

Don’t worry. If a Tesla driver runs you down, they may not be texting.

They might just be on a Zoom call.

Thanks to HowTheWestWS for the heads-up.

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That feeling when the Twitter bird flees Elon Musk, and takes up residence in your bike wheel.

Which I suppose beats the hell out of a monkey in your spokes.

………

Everesting — climbing the height of Mt. Everest on a bicycle — is hard enough. Imagine doing it when you can’t breathe.

An inspiring new video tells the story of South African cyclist Jason van’t Slot, who broke the record for the fastest successful Everesting attempt by someone with cystic fibrosis.

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

No bias here. A San Diego letter writer says “Same road, same rules” cuts both ways, insisting that stops signs and red lights apply to people on bikes, too. Apparently, he’s never watched drivers at red lights and stop signs, either.

No bias here, either. A British Conservative politician responds to a viral clip of an oncoming driver refusing to pause for a five-year old kid on a bike by saying the child shouldn’t be riding on the street in the first place. Because there are so much better places for families to ride where they’re going, evidently. 

This is why people keep dying on the roads. A British driver walked without a single day behind bars for using his car as a weapon to ram into a man on a bike in reverse, after the man slapped his car when the driver yelled for him and another bike rider to get out of the road. Adding insult to injury, he’ll get his damn drivers license back after a lousy six-month suspension, when it should have been revoked for life.

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

Police in Carlsbad are looking for a road-raging bike rider who attacked a car driven by a pair of teens by trying to open their door and punching a window, before smashing the windshield, then allegedly lying in wait for them down the road; the altercation reportedly began when traffic bogged down as the rider was crossing the intersection, which “got him all spun up and (one of the teens) retaliated at him and got upset at him.” I assume that last quote means something, but we may need a teen-to-English translation before it makes any sense. As we’ve said many times before, though, violence is never the right answer, no matter how justified it may seem at the time. 

NYPD officers are looking for an armed “menace” riding a bikeshare bike who repeatedly pointed a gun at pedestrians, for no apparent reason.

………

Local

An experimental program developed by a UCLA professor is paying people to bikepool between the Eastside and Downtown; Civic Bicycle Commuting, aka CiBiC, allows participants to earn credits worth up to $300 a month.

A fire at the El Segundo Chevron plant inevitably means Southern California gas prices will be going up. To which bike commuters seem oddly unconcerned.

 

State 

California set a record for greenhouse gas reductions in 2020, which was more than offset by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions last year, as miles driven rebounded to pre-pandemic levels; a full 40% of LA County’s greenhouse gas emissions come from motor vehicle tailpipes.

Santa Barbara county supervisors took the first step necessary to approve a proposed bike path along San Diego’s Modoc Road, helped in part by a large turnout by supporters.

Berkeley took the first step towards banning red turns on right at every intersection in the city.

The San Francisco Examiner explains California’s requirements for bike lights and reflectors. However, the law only applies if you’re riding after sunset or before sunrise, although police have been known to use daytime light checks as an illegal pretext stop.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a woman riding a bike was killed in a hit-and-run Wednesday afternoon.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a custom lowrider frame worth eight grand made by students at a Sacramento high school.

Finishing our Sacramento trifecta, city officials are asking people to pick which crappy plastic bendy bollard they want to offer a false sense of protection on bike lanes.

 

National

Transport for America says education, enforcement and technology — the cornerstones of American Vision Zero programs — don’t make streets safer; what does is better roadway designs.

A piece from the Congress for the New Urbanism calls ebikes essential technology for the 15 minute city.

Your next ebike could come with an automatic transmission; meanwhile, a new regenerative-braking ebike conversion kit promises to turn your existing bike into an ebike in just 30 seconds, you can buy it now on Kickstarter for half the planned $599 retail price.

Men’s Journal offers tips on winter fat tire bike riding, as well as their favorite bikes for the job, while Gear Patrol has advice on how to make your first bikepacking trip a success.

Triathlete offers a temperature-based guide to choosing bikewear.

Giro joins the LED-lighted bike helmet club.

She gets it. An op-ed in The Seattle Times says in order to improve safety for pedestrians, we need to prioritize the people who aren’t in cars. Which goes for protecting bike riders, too.

More bad news from Las Vegas, where a second bike rider has died following a drunken, serial hit-and-run that has now killed two people and injured seven others, while damaging ten vehicles.

Now that’s singletrack. A mountain bike trail stretches 567 continuous miles through the Colorado backcountry from Denver to Durango.

Accused killer Kaitlin Armstrong will go on trial next June for the May murder of gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Austin, Texas.

Authorities in Chicago have apparently concluded that parking in bike lanes isn’t such a big deal, chopping the fine in half, from $500 to $250. Which is still more than in Los Angeles.

Residents of Provincetown, Rhode Island are just the latest to get ebike rebates before California’s long-delayed program goes into effect, with qualified buyers eligible for up to $1,200.

We could use a lot more people like this. Nearly 30 years after financial problems forced a New Jersey man to drop out of Howard University, he’s raised over $100,000 through an annual bike ride to help other students live out their educational dreams at Historic Black Colleges and Universities, aka HBCUs.

 

International

British bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid marks the 100th anniversary of drivers running pedestrians — and bike riders — off the road, when an engineering journal article by roadbuilder Edward J. Mehren called for a radical redesign of roadways to make them the exclusive domain of motor vehicles.

Road.cc recalls bygone bike tech we’re well rid of. Although if we completely get rid of wing nuts, we’ll have to find another term for all those assorted whack jobs. Oh.

Tragic news from Tijuana, where a longtime bike advocate and scholar was crushed to death by the driver of a cargo truck while riding in the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood.

A Vancouver couple were able to recover their stolen bike, along with five of their neighbors bikes, thanks to an Apple AirTag.

New wildcat posters instruct Toronto drivers to keep parking in bike lanes, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Nurses at a London hospital are using ebikes to make patient rounds in the neighboring community.

A London TikTok user shares video of a midnight bicycle magical mystery tour through the lights of the city.

Now you, too, can own your very own Irish e-bikemaker, as the country’s High Court has forced Modmo Technologies into liquidation after a recall due to a dangerously defective battery mount crippled its finances.

Add this one to your bike bucket list. Try taking a bike tour along Italy’s 2,300-year old, 373-mile Roman Appian Way.

A new Spanish ebike foldie is made from plant resin, and promises to fold in just one second.

Life is cheap in New Zealand, where an Aukland prison guard walked with community service for killing a 70-year old man riding his bike on a rural road

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist goes on the road with Tour de France mechanics.

Pro cyclist Rebecca Fahringer is crossing over to gravel racing, after suffering a series of concussions racing ‘cross.

Four-time Tour de France champ Chris Froome says UCI’s points system needs an overhaul, calling the new relegation system a death sentence for many cycling teams.

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could be made with artificial meteorites. When you’re riding your bike with an outstanding felony warrant, maybe try riding with traffic, instead. Artistic cycling could be your next new thing.

And here’s a really nice bike themed song from Los Angeles artist Runner, not to be confused with the ’70s band.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Get out and Bike the Vote today, bike groups demand action at COP27, and more on LACBC rebranding as Bike LA

November 8, 2022 / / Comments Off on Get out and Bike the Vote today, bike groups demand action at COP27, and more on LACBC rebranding as Bike LA
If you haven’t cast your ballot yet, Streets For All offers their endorsements for many of the races in Los Angeles County.

Meanwhile, the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition posts the responses to their candidate surveys. Or at least the candidates who bothered to respond.

Which should give you a pretty good suggestion of who to vote for. And who not to.

And ActiveSGV provides their choices on many of the state and local ballot proposals; as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, they can take a stand on initiatives, but are prohibited from endorsing or opposing individual candidates.

Metro buses, trains and bikeshare are all free today, along with a number of other local transit systems, to help you get to the polls.

So get out and bike the vote, already.

I mean, you are going to vote.

Right?

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

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The Partnership for Active Travel and Health, aka PATH, wants organizations to sign on to their letter to the COP27 climate conference going on now in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Here’s just a sample.

With COP27 being hosted in Africa, it is worth noting that across the continent walking is already the primary mode of transport for the majority of people. Up to 78% walk every day – often because they have no other choice. And they put their lives at risk the moment they step out of their homes due to roads dominated by speeding cars, missing sidewalks, makeshift crossings and high-polluting vehicles. By 2050, low and middle income countries will own over two-thirds of the world’s cars. With that comes an increasing urgency for even greater investment in safe walking and cycling infrastructure.

For all of these reasons, the Partnership for Active Travel and Health, together with the undersigned organisations, strongly appeal to national and city governments to commit to prioritising and investing in walking and cycling, through Nationally Determined Contributions and integrated and coherent strategies, including plans, funding and concrete actions for:

  • Infrastructure – to make walking and cycling safe, accessible and easy to do.
  • Campaigns – to support a shift in people’s mobility habits.
  • Land use planning – to ensure proximity and quality of access to everyday services on foot and by bike.
  • Integration with public transport – to underpin sustainable mobility for longer trips.
  • Capacity building – to enable the successful delivery of effective walking and cycling strategies that have measurable impact.

Organizations including UCI, Rails-to-Trails and World Bicycle Relief have already signed on.

It’s also been endorsed by yours truly, even though this organization is just me and a corgi.

Thanks to Colin Bogart for the heads-up.

………

Streetsblog talks with Eli Akira Kaufman, Executive Director of the newly renamed Bike LA, formerly LACBC, about the bike coalition’s rebranding.

Our staff and board of directors felt that the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) really did not capture who we are and our mission to support more Angelenos to Bike LA. Basically, the thinking is that LACBC sounds too much like the government agencies we work with (LADOT, LAUSD, LADWP) when we’re actually a community-based nonprofit organization committed to advocating for the rights of cyclists. It had become clear that we needed a name change that made it easier for bike-minded people to find and support our advocacy work much like our sister bike nonprofits Bike East Bay, Bike New York, Bike Austin, Bike Cleveland, Bike Portland, Bike Houston to name a few.

Bike LA is both more accessible and a call to action. We thank everyone for supporting LACBC for the past quarter century and for remaining committed to Bike LA for a Better LA!

Kaufman goes on to address some of the other issues facing the organization — and the rest of us — including the lack of safe infrastructure, seven years after the city adopted the mobility plan that was supposed to transform the way we get around the city.

Although as we’ve learned the hard way, a mobility plan doesn’t do a damn bit of good unless someone actually builds it.

It’s worth investing a few minutes to read the whole thing, because this is one of the leading groups representing you in the fight for safer and more equitable streets in Los Angeles.

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Speaking of Bike LA, we featured this one when it first appeared online last year.

But it’s worth posting again, since filmmaker Yolanda Davis-Overstreet was one of the people honored by the group at Saturday’s Bike Fest.

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This is who we share the road with.

https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1589689500594077696

Thanks to HowTheWestWS for the tip.

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A reminder to mark your calendar for the annual World Day of Remembrance for the victims of traffic violence later this month.

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

No bias here. A writer for London’s Telegraph lists ten ways MAMILS — Middle Aged Men in Lycra — have just totally ruined bicycling vacations, like replacing lazy lunches of red wine and thick slabs of focaccia with energy gels and protein shakes. As if you can’t just enjoy your holiday and let other people enjoy theirs.

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

An Indian man stabbed his own brother to death in a bizarre dispute over bicycle parking, after the victim left his brother’s bike outside his house.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman took a deep dive into that racist and otherwise offensive recording of three Hispanic Los Angeles councilmembers, focusing on the “seething anti-Blackness” of CD14 Councilmember Kevin de León; while former Council President Nury Martinez has resigned, de León and CD1 Councilmember “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo still refuse to do the right thing.

South Pasadena’s bike bus was scheduled to return today with trips to two elementary schools, although today’s rain will likely throw a wrench in those plans.

 

State 

Sad news from Visalia, where a 25-year old man riding a bicycle was killed in a hit-and-run; police are looking for a 31-year old woman who fled on foot when they knocked on her door.

You can find a lot of things when you ride a bike. Like the body a bike rider discovered while riding past a Tulare County orchard; sheriff’s deputies called the death “suspicious.”

 

National

Bicycling shares a four minute short film about a blind bike mechanic; Bike Shop: Reza the Blind Bicycle Mechanic premiered at this year’s Bicycle Film Festival in New York City and Amsterdam. As usual, you can watch it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

A design magazine remembers the late designer and engineer Mike Burrows as the world’s greatest bicycle designer and the godfather of modern bicycle aerodynamics.

The oldest son of Little People, Big World stars Zach and Tori Roloff is now one of us, after his grandfather gave the diminutive five-year old a special bike small enough for him to ride.

A travel writer offers tips on how to ride a bike to Jenny Lake in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, which offers some of North America’s most spectacular scenery.

A Cleveland bike shop owner says he’s fed up with reckless drivers and dangerous streets after surviving a hit-and-run.

Now you, too, can win the mountain bike that stars in the new feature film 8600FT, which successfully climbed all 8,600 feet of Moab, Utah’s Whole Enchilada trail. Although the rider may have had something to do with it, too.

The New Yorker takes a deep dive into the murder of gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Austin, Texas, contending the killing has exposed a lot of dirt in the sport.

Nice piece from NPR telling the tale of a New Jersey man who lost his pharmaceutical marketing job during the pandemic, but saw it as an opportunity to open a bike shop that quickly became a community hub.

 

International

Trek is partnering with World Bicycle Relief to raise $2.5 million to provide much-needed bicycles for people in Africa over the holiday season.

Cyclist considers the environmental impact of metal bike frames, concluding that steel beats other materials for protecting the planet.

A new book reports Britain’s King Charles nearly didn’t live long enough to ascend to the throne after he was hit by a bus while riding his bike in the 1960s.

Tragic news from the UK, where a 53-year old man apparently took his own life in a national park, nearly a year after suffering a head injury in a solo bicycling crash that changed his personality.

A British man got tired of getting fired, so he started his own business doing odd jobs using a tandem bike.

French bikemakers are jumping into the ebike field, challenging the dominance of Asian manufacturers.

This is what you can do when streets are safe. Over 1,200 kids participate in Barcelona’s Bicibús — or bicycle bus — program, taking more than 90 routes to ride their bikes to over 70 schools.

A New Zealand couple with two preschool kids takes part in an ebike trial program, and finds living without a car is a game-changer. In a good way.

An Italian ultra-cyclist aims to be the first person to ride a bike coast to coast across Antarctica, using a fat bike to cover over 1,200 miles in 60 days.

An Indian columnist says bicycles are the future of mobility.

A scandal is growing over Victoria, Australia Premier Dan Andrews 2013 crash that left a 15-year old bike rider seriously injured as his wife was driving the car; they blame the kid for T-boning their car with his bike, though damage to the car suggests otherwise.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cyclist and 2017 Giro champ Tom Dumoulin is finally relaxing after his retirement, revealing he hated cycling during a challenging 2020 season, despite a seventh place finish in the Tour de France.

Slovenia’s Matej Mohorič walks readers through his victory in this year’s Milan-San Remo, which Cycling Tips suggests may have been the biggest win of the year.

 

Finally…

Riding thousands of miles across Europe to draw a giant GPS bicycle across the continent. Presenting the transportation circle of life; thanks to Steven Hallett for the heads-up.

And we may have to deal with getting chased by angry dogs, but at least we hardly ever have to outrun a wolf.

Cyclist surprised by wolf in the Netherlands
byu/harwyseys inDamnthatsinteresting

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

New Clifton Way sharrows in Beverly Hills, San Diego-area bike summit this week, and Bike the Vote tomorrow

June 6, 2022 / / One comment

So close.

Beverly Hills came tantalizingly close to installing the LA-area’s first advisory lanes, which narrow a roadway to a single two-way center lane and two bike lanes, requiring drivers to move into the bike lanes to get around an oncoming car.

Instead, they settled for sharrows that just sort of hint at a bike lane on both sides of Clifton Way between San Vicente and Robertson, requiring drivers to move to the center to get around bike riders.

Or more likely, impatiently following people on bicycles until they finally find a break in oncoming traffic, before angrily swerving around them.

Because, as we’ve noted before, sharrows only serve to thin the herd, with the arrows there to help drivers improve their aim.

Or as Peter Flax so aptly put it, sharrows are bullshit.

……….

The San Diego Bicycle Coalition is hosting its third bike summit this Thursday and Friday.

This is how SANDAG Associate Active Transportation Planner Josh Clark described it in an email.

In its third incarnation, the Regional Bike Summit has been a wonderful summary of practice and ideas that’s worth your attendance.  The full lineup of speakers, panels and fun at the San Diego Regional Bike Summit is hosted by the Bike Coalition. This year’s theme: Pedaling Past the Pandemic will highlight the recent “Boom” that has occurred during the pandemic and how we can maintain it. Highlights of the Summit include speakers and sessions on Mobility Justice, E-bikes, Housing and Active Transportation, MIcro-Mobility and Mobility Hubs, Connecting Communities and much more. We will also hear from our regional elected leaders on the state of mobility and bicycling improvements being made in our communities. Registration includes the opening reception, lunch on Friday and rides on Saturday.

You can learn more and register for the event here. 

Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

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Don’t forget to vote by mail, dropbox or at the polls by 7 pm tomorrow.

To make it easier, Metro is offering free bus and train rides on Tuesday, along with free half hour bikeshare rides with the promo code 060722.

Lime is also offering two free half hour rides Tuesday on any of their scooters or bikes to get you to and from the polls, use promo code LIMETOPOLLSCALI.

If you’re still not sure who to vote for, Streets For All released their final endorsements before tomorrow’s Election Day, including corgi dad Kenneth Mejia for City Controller, as well as endorsements for Congress in CA-32, CA-34 and CA-37, and Glendale City Council. You can find their previous endorsements for other races here.

And I agree with them about Mejia, after giving him my endorsement back in January.

………

Tragic news from Kansas, where a Colorado man entered in the 200-mile Unbound Gravel was killed in a collision the evening before the race.

Sixty-one-year old Gregory Bachman was killed by the driver of a massive Chevy Silverado pickup while crossing a rural intersection. Local authorities said he somehow crashed into the truck, but didn’t explain how or why.

The gravel intersection doesn’t appear to be controlled by any signs or signals, leaving it up to each person to negotiate a safe crossing. It’s likely the driver wasn’t expecting to find anyone on a bicycle on a gravel country road like that.

A crowdfunding page for Bachman has raised nearly $4,200 of the modest $5,000 goal.

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A reminder that Megan Lynch will be discussing accessibility at tonight’s meeting of the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1526308359820914688

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If you ever wonder why people drive so aggressively, you can start with despicable marketing like this.

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Turns out the late comic Flip Wilson was one of us, at least on his show.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1533290367692312576

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

Seriously? A New York NIMBY is trying to sic the cops on a man who runs a curbside bike repair, fixing bicycles for free and giving away refurbished bikes to people in need, while accepting donations from people who can afford to pay.

Bizarre attack in the UK, where the organizer and a ride marshal of the Coventry edition of the World Naked Bike Ride were attacked and kicked off their bikes by masked riders on fast ebikes or trail bikes; one of the victims suffered a broken elbow.

………

Local

The LA Times offers advice on how to get to the Hollywood Bowl without a car — including riding a bicycle, if you’re brave enough.

A man was hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot on a beachfront bike path in Long Beach Friday evening; no word on what led to the shooting, or whether the victim was walking, biking or just hanging out. Thanks to fartyshart for the link.

 

State 

No wonder the Golden State Warriors lost their first game in the NBA finals, after a nine-year old Warriors fan’s lucky lowrider bicycle was stolen.

No surprise here. Oakland police are blaming the victim in the death of longtime Chez Panisse wine director Jonathan Waters, concluding he was at fault for making a left turn in front of an 18-year old driver as he rode his bike home from work — although there’s no word on how fast the driver was going.

UC Davis police defend themselves over accusations that the cop on the scene after a bike rider was struck by the driver of a garbage truck did nothing to aid the victim before paramedics arrived. I’m also told a witness accused the cop of driving over the victim’s foot.

 

National

A Malaysian newspaper takes a look at the current state of bicycling in the US, finding 12.4% of Americans ride on a regular basis.

Forget all those new gas powered mail trucks. The US Postal Service is testing e-cargo bikes capable of carrying 400 pounds of mail.

A writer for Bloomberg says it’s time to start subsidizing the purchase of ebikes to jumpstart bike commuting.

Where to land your plane if you’re looking for a good bike ride.

Researchers at MIT have developed a self-driving bicycle, which they say could make docked bikeshare systems three and a half times more efficient, and dockless bikeshares eight times more efficient; the bike automatically turns into a tricycle to improve stability in riderless mode, then converts back when it’s being ridden.

Heartbreaking news from Indianapolis, where one of the last things a bike-riding hit-and-run victim did before she died was to give police the license number of the car that hit her, which led to the arrest of the 27-year old driver.

Around a hundred Boston bike riders turned out to honor late 19th Century Black bicyclist Kittie Knox, who defied racial and gender barriers and joined the League of American Wheelmen — forerunner to the League of American Bicyclists — just one year before they banned Black members in 1894; sadly, she was just 26 when she died just six years later.

Talk about ridiculous. NYPD officers conducted a crackdown on people riding ped-assist ebikes in Prospect park, where they are currently banned — effectively preventing people with limited mobility from accessing the park on a bike.

 

International

It will take a lot more than electric cars to stop pollution, because tire wear on today’s heavier vehicles causes 2,000 times the particulate pollution as what comes out of the tailpipe.

Montreal’s bicycle culture is seen as a model for the rest of Canada as gas prices continue to climb.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list — touring Iceland by ebike.

That feeling when your celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee is interrupted by a buck naked couple on a tandem prepping for an au naturale fundraising ride the length of Britain.

Irish bike riders could get a lift up a hill with a 14% grade in Cork.

After a Detroit columnist crashes his bike while riding in France, he ends up getting x-rays and stitches from the only doctor available — a veterinarian.

A new Belgium survey shows that only 12% of people in the country ride their bikes to work or school. Which compares somewhat favorably to 0.6% in the US.

Former Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo is one of us, setting out with his wife on a four day, 280 mile bike tour to a Spanish shrine, to fulfill a promise he made to do the trip if the Spanish soccer team he owns a controlling interest in ever got promoted to the leagues top tier. Which it did.

Slovenian bicyclists raced up the country’s highest peak, climbing over 2,400 feet on small wheeled, singlespeed foldies, to honor the bikes that were once made in the former Yugoslavia.

India marked World Bicycle Day by making pans to donate a whopping 15,000 bicycles to Madagascar to get more people on bikes.

A crowdfunding campaign to help Afghanistan’s women cyclists escape the country has raised over $24,000 of the $187,000 goal.

A Melbourne, Australia writer laments the city’s decision to stop building bike lanes, after getting complaints from out-of-town, pass-through drivers. Which should sound familiar to anyone who has been biking in LA for awhile. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch great Tom Doumalin calls it a career after the end of this season, saying “cycling required my blood, sweat and tears at times, but mostly it was beautiful.”

While we all wait with varying degrees of patience for next month’s Tour de France, racing goes on, with Dutch pro Wout van Aert winning the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné.

CLR Effect reports on the third and final day of racing in the 2022 Los Angeles Velodrome Racing Association Spring Omnium at Carson’s Velo Sports Center, complete with some exceptional photos by author Michael Wagner.

 

Finally…

Nothing like celebrating pride with a drag bike parade. Your next bike could be a 2-D Volkswagen Bug.

And an 1891 patent proves you could have been riding inside one wheel, rather than on top of two wheels. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the link.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Leading LA mayor candidates ignore street safety, bikes fight high gas prices, and fighting SUVs one tire prick at a time

March 10, 2022 / / 4 comments

Ever get the feeling your issues are taking a backseat in local politics?

In a year where all of the leading candidates for mayor of Los Angeles are focusing their campaigns on crime and dealing with the homeless — one way or another — providing safe alternatives to driving hasn’t even been an afterthought.

Literally.

Just take a look at the websites for Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, Kevin de León, Mike Feuer and Joe Buscaino, and see if you can find a single mention of traffic safety. Let alone biking, walking or transit.

No mention of Vision Zero. Not a single word about building out the mobility plan to fix traffic congestion and fight rising gas prices. And nothing about investing in clean transportation to fight climate change.

Not. One. Damn. Word.

But at least Buscaino directed me to a nearly four year old op-ed he penned about embracing smart mobility options, after I complained about that on Twitter.

And as Barry J. Neely reminds us, Bass is one of us.

So let’s hope they all get around to addressing safe streets and alternatives to driving, however belatedly, as the campaign goes on.

Otherwise, it could be a very long four years, regardless of who wins.

Correction: Someone representing Mike Feuer reached out to me directing me to the page on Sustainability on his website, which contains one whole sentence about improving transit and building protected bike lanes, but only in the context of reducing greenhouse gases. 

Which, sadly, makes him the leader at this point.

………

Today’s photo shows Los Angeles City Hall awaiting its next, hopefully bike friendly, occupant, with a little more commitment and follow-through than the current one. 

………

Today’s common theme is people turning to bicycles to fight high gas prices, even though Los Angeles had a decade to get ready for this moment. And didn’t.

Streetsblog offers tips for new bike riders in the City of Angels.

Record gas prices are boosting ebike sales in San Diego, which are seeing exponential growth credited to prices at the pump.

The New York Times explains why California gas prices are so high. Although the best way to reduce price pressure at the pump is just not to play, and find another way to get around.

An Iowa writer says the state’s high gas prices make her want to ride a bike everywhere — even though their gas is over a buck and a half cheaper than California.

Rising gas prices are a double-edged sword for bike shops in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, driving up demand while increasing costs.

………

Seems like a good time for a reminder that many, if most, Los Angeles car trips could easily be done by bicycle.

If they had a safe way to get there, that is.

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This might be taking things a tad too far.

An international group of climate activists are combating SUVs in an effort to drive the polluting, gas-guzzling and deadly vehicles off the road.

Thought to be an offshoot of Britain’s Extinction Rebellion, Tyre Extinguishers — the spelling points out their roots in the UK — punctures the tires on SUVs, with a goal to “make it impossible to own an SUV in the UK’s urban areas.”

And leave behind a politely worded note explaining their actions, while telling aggrieved drivers not to take it personally.

Which is kind of hard to do when someone leaves you feeling literally deflated, to put it mildly.

The group has targeted vehicles in London’s upscale Chelsea, Chiswick, Notting Hill and Belgravia neighborhoods, where they are colloquially known as Chelsea tractors.

And now the informal group has reportedly spread to Los Angeles, where someone allegedly inspired by their actions claims to have punctured SUV tires here .

I’d be the first to admit that I’d like to push every damn SUV into a pile and blow them all to hell. But I wouldn’t, even if I could.

Because vandalizing other people’s property is always wrong. Even if it is done for the right reasons.

………

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

Nothing unusual here, unfortunately. A bike rider was shot in the leg from someone in a passing car while riding on the UC Davis campus. And no, that’s not a prank, it’s a crime. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

Bicyclists accuse an English county of closing a mountain pass to bikes as an anti-cyclist move “dressed up cheaply as health and safety,” two weeks after landslides closed the road to cars.

No bias here. When asked what should be done to improve safety for bicyclists in Oxford, England in the wake of recent deaths, drivers called for bicycle license plates, hi-viz and bicycling proficiency tests, rather than doing anything to drive safer.

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

A Glendale driver reported a hit-and-run bicyclist who fled the scene after crashing into their car. Although something tells me there’s probably another side to that story.

After an 11-year old Springer Spaniel had his leg amputated when he was struck by a man “zooming” along a multi-use path on his bicycle, the dog’s angry owner called for steps to curb “arrogant” bike riders.

………

Local

The Bike League recognized 33 new or renewing Bicycle Friendly Universities, with LA’s Loyola Marymount University moving up to silver, and Pasadena’s California Institute of Technology holding stead at bronze, while Cal Poly Pomona has to settle for another honorable mention.

 

State 

Caltrans is looking for public input on its draft Active Transportation Plan for bicycle and pedestrian improvements on state highways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

San Diego’s mayor wants the city to marginally lower speed limits, using the same new state law Los Angeles is using to lower speeds 5 mph on 177 miles of streets.

 

National

NPR relates five ways to bounce back better from bicycle or other sports injuries.

The Today Show suggests their somewhat surprising picks for the best commuter, fitness and cruiser bikes.

A writer for Forbes says bicycle infrastructure saves lives by improving health and fitness, too.

Adventure Journal says yes, you can get a nice gravel bike for 900 bucks, albeit with a few caveats.

The Bike Portland podcast talks with local women behind the ebike revolution.

Phoenix AZ is responding to the death of a popular bicycle ambassador with plans to add more protected bike lanes in the downtown area.

Tragic news from Minneapolis, where a man died a year and a half after he was paralyzed by a driver with a revoked license while riding his bike on the sidewalk. The driver, who had two previous license suspensions, was sentenced to a lousy year in county jail in a plea bargain; if prosecutors had waited just six six weeks, the charge could have been vehicular homicide. Just one more example of allowing dangerous drivers to stay on the road until it’s too late.

A new documentary shows a man’s journey by bike from Chicago to New Jersey, riding alone to exorcise the demons of being abused by a priest as a child, and inspire other clergy abuse victims.

Bicycling profiles a proud Black Southern woman from Alabama, who encourages women to live authentically while advocating for representation in bicycling. As usual, read on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

It was Bike to Work Day in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, with the county’s leader leading the way.

 

International

Tern unveiled a new e-cargo foldie for anyone with an extra three grand lying around.

Horrible news from the Netherlands, where a 21-year old Massachusetts woman studying abroad was killed by a stalker, who placed a tracking device on her bicycle after they met on Tinder.

NatGeo wants to help you plan a bike tour through Belgium’s beer country.

German ebike subscription service Dance is expanding into more European cities, including Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and Paris. Which means the US, UK and Canada will have to wait.

Congratulations to Spanish bikemaker Orbea on being named Bike Brand of the year.

Angry New Zealand bike riders claim a teenage bicyclist didn’t have to die over the weekend, blaming local officials for turning a deaf ear to calls to make the area safer for people on two wheels.

 

Competitive Cycling

Great news, as NBC announced it will broadcast the first two years of the eight-stage Tour de France Femmes, aka the Women’s Tour de France, starting this July.

Bad news for the competition, as 39-year old Annemiek van Vleuten says she’s still improving after two decades as one of the top women’s cyclists.

Sad news from the UK, where 28-year old Scottish track sprinter John Paul has died; no cause of death was announced.

 

Finally…

Forget race results — what really matters is pro cyclists and their animal buddies. Your old bicycle chain could turn into spectacular nude human figures.

And who says a stationary bike has to stay that way?

https://twitter.com/AmericanFietser/status/1501228437457227776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1501228437457227776%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-9-march-2022-290929

………

Thanks to Margaret for her generous annual contribution to support this site, and keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

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

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

San Diego bike rider gravely injured, waking the two-wheeled giant of LA politics, and biking to school in the rain

December 15, 2021 / / Comments Off on San Diego bike rider gravely injured, waking the two-wheeled giant of LA politics, and biking to school in the rain

It’s the last ten days of the 7th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! 

Thanks to Michael W and Dan W — no relation — for their generous donations to help keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

I often ask you to support other people and causes throughout the year. But this is the only time all year I actively ask for your financial support for this site. 

So take a moment now to give now via PayPal, or with Zelle to ted @ bikinginla.com.

Any amount, no matter how large or small, is truly and deeply appreciated.

It’s okay, we’ll wait. 

………

Bad news from San Diego.

A 51-year old man suffered life-threatening injuries when a driver rear-ended his bicycle, after he allegedly left a bike lane and veered into traffic, although it’s possible he may have been trying to make a left turn.

The crash occurred around 5 pm Monday in the 5900 block of University Ave in the Redwood Village neighborhood.

Sadly, police said the victim is not expected to survive.

Let’s hope they’re wrong.

………

As Streetsblog’s Joe Linton makes clear, Southern California “rarely misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity when it comes to bike lanes.”

Including bike lanes already been approved by Metro, Los Angeles and/or Caltrans, but never installed.

Even when the cost is nothing more than a few cans of paint.

Recently, there has been a frustratingly continuous drumbeat of planned bikeways being left off of large-scale southern California construction projects.

There are a host of reasons for the omissions. Numerous agencies are involved, though it’s mostly Metro, Caltrans, and L.A. City Public Works Department bureaus. The effect is the same: missed opportunities for interconnected facilities that would move the southland closer to becoming a safe and convenient place to get around by bike.

He goes on to cite a long list of recent projects where previously approved bike lanes were either downgraded or omitted entirely.

From the infamous Northvale Gap in the E Line — nee Expo — bike path, to the upcoming Van Nuys Blvd light rail project, which was supposed to include nine-miles of bike lanes along the rail route, but will now preserve that road space for cars.

And that doesn’t include countless other bike lanes that government officials have already committed to, but which have been unceremoniously shelved, often with little or no fanfare.

Here’s Linton again.

What is exasperating is that agencies already have approved bike plans – often the result of a great deal of advocacy pressure from cyclists. L.A. City adopted its Mobility Plan in 2015. Metro approved its Complete Streets Policy in 2014 (and received national recognition for it.) That policy builds on Metro’s 2014 First/Last Mile Strategic Plan. Even Caltrans recently released its own Statewide Complete Streets Policy.

Bike riders press to get bikeway facilities included during project planning processes, often to be told that there just isn’t space or funding or staffing or something-or-other for bikeways. Then, even when agencies (often reluctantly) approve bikeways as part of larger plans, they are dropped in full or in part during construction – as if bicycling is just not a valid way to get around, and as if the safety of bicyclists just isn’t quite worth following through on.

The bottom line, though, is that crap like this only happens because we let them get away with it.

As I’ve stressed before, the bicycling community is the sleeping giant of Los Angeles politics.

Don’t believe me?

In the 2010 bike plan that was unanimously approved by the city council, the city estimated that 434,161 Angelenos ride their bikes at least once a month.

From the 2010 Los Angeles bike plan

That’s more than the entire 407,147 votes cast in the last mayoral election, which put Eric Garcetti back in office for his final term.

Never mind the estimated 786,918 people who ride every summer, or the 1,356,754 who ride sometimes. Let alone the overwhelming majority of people in Los Angeles who say they’d like to ride a bike more, if they only felt safer on the streets.

So let’s wake that sleeping Giant.

We have the perfect opportunity to be heard, and to make a real difference in this city with the upcoming 2022 elections — the first time since 2013 we will be electing someone other than the disappointing, and soon to be disappearing, Garcetti. Not to mention half of the city council, including a number of open and contested seats.

It’s up to us to make enough noise that we can’t be ignored.

And then hold their feet to the fire once they get elected.

………

As George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

Which applies perfectly to all those drivers who insist you can’t ride a bike in the rain. Let alone drop off your kids at school.

And to which Streets For All founder Michael Schneider responds with actions, not words.

Okay, so he explains with words, too.

………

There’s a bike path in there somewhere. Let’s see how long it takes the county to clear it this time.

Since they didn’t do so great before.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

………

Here’s your chance to ask for bike lanes in Larchmont.

………

Good to hear from our old friend Opus the Poet, even if the news he shared wasn’t.

There was a YouTube creator hit on an e-bike in a hit and run.
Suspect vehicle was a black SUV of unknown make, model, and year. Victim’s insulin pump was destroyed in the wreck, to give an idea of how violent the wreck was.

It starts around the one minute mark. Unfortunately, while Hartford lives in California, she doesn’t say where the crash happened.

………

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

San Francisco Streetsblog’s Roger Rudick discovers that some Sprouts security guards didn’t get the memo when it comes to letting shoppers into the store with a bicycle. Adding insult to injury, one even told him to get a car.

A British Columbia man got 21 months behind bars for deliberately running down a bike-riding neighbor he’d been quarreling with, leaving the other man with serious injuries.

A British petition to force bike riders to use bike lanes and wear numbered bibs has drawn 10,000 signatures, which will require a government response.

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

A man in Mad City, Wisconsin fled on his bicycle after attacking another man with a baseball bat following an argument in a convenience store. Although there’s no explanation for why he had a baseball bat with him on his bike in the first place.

………

Local

Spectrum News 1 offers five things you need to know about illegal street racing and takeovers, like the tidbit that street racing collisions have tripled in Los Angeles this year — including the death of a USC student killed by street racers this past weekend.

 

State

A San Clemente mountain biker was the victim of an off-road hit-and-run when he was knocked down on a trail by a man riding an electric motorcycle, who fled the scene.

The founder of Bike Index says OfferUp refuses to do anything to curb scammers, after a man ran off with a San Marcos man’s bike in response to an OfferUp ad, after handing him a bag supposedly full of cash to buy it.

 

National

A new report from the Coalition for a Prosperous America says the US must build back bike manufacturing in this country if we want the pandemic-induced bike boom to continue; over 97% of bikes sold in the US come from outside the country, with over 86% coming from China alone. Just like virtually every other American industry these days. Thanks again to Keith Johnson. 

A green business site calls ebikes the “uncelebrated heroes” of last-mile delivery.

Seattle attorneys are filing suit against the city and a local railroad over injuries to several bike riders resulting from a 1.4-mile gap in the Burke-Gilman Trail, as local business owners and trucking companies fight plans to close it. Maybe if we did that here, we might not have such a problem with all those disappearing bike lanes.

Seattle’s Rad Power Bikes announced plans to raise prices across the board on all their ebikes in response to the ongoing supply chain issues.

The woman who killed a prominent San Antonio surgeon in a drunken crash as he was riding his bike has been sentenced to a well-deserved 15 years behind bars.

A Massachusetts man who raised over $70,000 for cancer research, as well as raising funds for an Israeli charity for people with disabilities, now needs help with his own disability after September crash while riding his bike left him a paraplegic; a crowdfunding page has raised over $103,000 of the $250,000 goal.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 80-year old Florida man has ridden 3,500 miles on his bike this year.

 

International

Momentum reports cities around the world are sacrificing parking spaces to make room for people on the streets. Including people on two wheels. Unlike a certain SoCal megalopolis we could name.

A new combo bike cam promises a 80 lumen tail light, combined with a camera capable of recording 9.5 hours of 1080p video and audio; it’ll set you back $182 on Kickstarter right now.

No bias here. Politico says Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has lost the love of Parisians in her efforts to transform the city into a “green cyclist’s utopia.” Even though she was just re-elected last year after already setting much of the changes in motion.

A German court is set rule on whether an alleged bike-riding Russian hit man killed a former Chechen commander in a Berlin park on orders from Moscow.

Over 3,000 people have signed a petition calling on Lisbon, Portugal to keep a bike lane until another safe alternative can be found, while more than 1,000 turned out for a demonstration demanding it stay in place.

 

Competitive Cycling

VeloNews offers a series of photos from the 2021 Cyclocross National Championships in Chicago, as a where a first lap breakaway led to six riders spending the rest of the race chasing eventual winner Eric Brunner.

 

Finally…

Who knew Best Buy sells ebikes — or that we’re a day late and $500 short. That feeling when you’ve spent your career torturing bikes and the people who make them.

And maybe consider adding an air horn or two for extra safety and entertainment on your bike.

………

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

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

Calbike vetoes recall, urges support for Safety Stop; hidden history of LA bikes; and bikes & coffee go good together

August 19, 2021 / / 2 comments

Let’s start with a little news from Sacramento.

Starting with Calbike urging everyone to vote no on the election to recall Governor Gavin Newsom.

Personally, I’m no fan of Newsom. But the place to challenge him is in next year’s general election, not a needless and wasteful recall that’s nothing more than an attempt to claim a prize the GOP couldn’t otherwise win in deep blue California.

Speaking of Calbike, the statewide bike advocacy group urges you to contact your state senator no later than tomorrow to support AB 122, aka the Bicycle Safety Stop Bill.

The bill would introduce a partial Idaho Stop Law in California, allowing people on bicycles to treat stop signs as yields. However, it would not allow bike riders to treat red lights as stop signs, as the Idaho law does.

And finishing our Calbike trifecta, the organization is working with the California Air Resources Board to draft an ebike rebate program to go into effect next July. The $10 million program is already fully funded, so it’s just a matter of working out the details.

Meanwhile, Assembly Transportation Chair Laura Friedman says we’re getting close to breaking the death grip of the 85% rule on California streets.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

………

Great twitter thread on the forgotten history of bicycles in the City of Angels.

All of which makes you wonder why most of it never showed up on our streets.

Or have LA leaders always suffered from a lack of political will, and the courage to stand up to angry NIMBYs?

………

Registration has opened for next year’s 44th Annual LA Chinatown Firecracker festival, celebrating the Year of the Tiger.

The event will mark the Lunar New Year with a series of run, walk, bicycling and dog walk events held over the weekend of February 19-20, 2022, including rides of 20 and 40 miles.

Photo courtesy of Firecracker LA.

Meanwhile, the annual Long Beach Marathon will return this October, along with a 20-mile bike tour before the race.

………

Bloomberg makes what may be one of the most inadvertently accurate — and unfortunate — word choices ever.

In a story discussing the difficulty of building self-driving cars, Waymo staffers says they’ve solved 99% of the problem.

But it turns out that last 1% has been a killer. Small disturbances like construction crews, bicyclists, left turns, and pedestrians remain headaches for computer drivers. Each city poses new, unique challenges, and right now, no driverless car from any company can gracefully handle rain, sleet, or snow. Until these last few details are worked out, widespread commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles is all but impossible.

Killer, indeed.

Especially after one of Uber’s self-driving cars ran down and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she walked her bicycle across a Phoenix roadway two years ago.

So maybe the last 1% might be a tad more important than they think.

Correction: I originally wrote that Herzberg was killed by a Waymo car, but it was actually an Uber vehicle. Thanks to Andy Stow for catching the mistake.

………

Pull up another chair at the coffee shop.

In what may be the best news ages, it turns out bikes and coffee really do go together.

………

How to use your brakes to improve mountain biking speed.

………

Take an Andorran mountain bike ride with Peter Sagan.

………

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

A group of New Jersey bicyclists were threatened by a pickup driver and his passenger who buzzed them, then got out of the truck after blocking their path, and told them to get off “their” road or they would kill them.

No bias here. A British paper is up in arms over a spacious 11-foot wide bike lane next to 9.5-foot traffic lanes, failing to grasp the concept that narrow lanes improve safety by forcing drivers to slow down.

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

Probably not the best idea to tow a loaded shopping cart with one hand while riding your bike with the other.

………

Local

CicLAvia is looking for an event production assistant to help put on the country’s most successful open streets events.

Los Angeles considers improvements to Huntington Drive in Lincoln Heights, using funds originally earmarked for the cancelled 710 Freeway extension. Let’s hope they don’t try to sell us yet another incomplete street under the guise of Complete Streets.

Santa Monica is hosting a two-day open streets festival on Main Street this weekend.

Long Beach is moving forward with plans to actually reduce speed limits in Belmont Shores, one of the few times state-mandated speed studies have actually resulted in slower streets.

 

State

A bike-riding woman gets dangerously buzzed in a pair of punishment passes on San Francisco’s newly reopened Great Highway, which had been closed to cars during the pandemic. The video of the passes embedded in the story doesn’t work, but you can see it here. 

NorCal bike chain Mikes Bikes has been sold to the Dutch company behind Santa Cruz, Cervelo and Gazelle bikes.

The rich get richer. Bike friendly Davis is installing a new green bike lane and a two-way cycle track on the west side of the UC campus.

 

National

The Manual makes their picks for the best road bikes, most of which cost at least 11 grand — and go up from there.

Marin Bikes is recalling several mountain bike models to repair a defective bottom bracket that can break while riding.

At least some Las Vegas cops were disciplined for the death of a Black man, who was initially stopped for riding without a front light on his bike; like George Floyd, he repeatedly told police officers he couldn’t breath as one knelt on his back. Unfortunately, though, that could mean anything from a simple reprimand to dismissal from the force.

A Utah man will face the equivalent of a vehicular homicide charge for the alleged drunken and distracted crash that killed a man riding his bike last year.

A San Antonio, Texas CEO rode his ebike 9,500 miles through 30 states to visit all of his company’s offices and call attention to the need for senior care, while raising $100,000 to install grab bars in the homes of local seniors.

A Michigan town backs down on plans for bike lanes on a state roadway after local residents brought out the torches and pitchforks, opting to install parking on both sides of the street, instead.

Florida’s Sarasota Magazine explains what Everesting is and how to get started. Step 1, leave Florida for someplace a little less flat.

 

International

A Scottish bike shop lost over $42,000 worth of bicycles to a trio of late night burglars.

The Dutch city of Groningen is introducing a small fleet of hydrogen-powered ebikes available to various city departments, and fueled by “green hydrogen” produced by a nearby solar power plant.

How to buy and ride a bike in Denmark. Step 1, move to Denmark.

 

Competitive Cycling

Overhead video shows a massive crash at the Vuelta that took down half the peloton, resulting in a change in the leader’s jersey.

Three novice mountain bikers share the lessons they learned training for, and competing in, Colorado’s legendary Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

 

Finally…

Your next bike bag could be made from leftover Burleys. If you insist on skitching, try not to lose your grip.

And nothing like the ever-popular genre of loser bike rider advertising.

………

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

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